WhoTom

A good board member has at least three of these qualities: Insightful Open-minded Respectful Reasonably articulate A sense of humor

Ha! I'm happily married, no "extra curricular activities," so to speak. As Paul Newman once said, "When you have steak at home, you don't go out for hamburger."

Today, one of my students said that he traveled south, but just outside the totality range. He said, "It was cool to see 99%." I was polite and said, "In 2024, go all the way. Trust me on this." But I was thinking, why travel for ALMOST totality? That's like pulling out five seconds before climax and saying, "That's enough for me."

Before they were big, I saw them at the Great Blue Heron Music Festival in 2006, 2007, and 2008. Those guys are amazing - great live performers!

Hot Tuna played electric, but I prefer their acoustic stuff. They were good, though. TTB invited them on stage during their set too, and that was pretty cool. (TTB also had the Wood Bros join them for another song.)

Metallic blue is my favorite color, so I'm good with that helmet.

Good post, Flip. It's easy to say, "Go get a franchise QB!" but it's not so simple in reality. Meanwhile, you've got to play the hand you were dealt and draw/discard as best you can. You're right - at best, the Bills are a wildcard contender right now. That's the reality.

Playoffs.

RIP, Mr. Kelly. Condolences to the Kelly family.

Dead & Company (Mr. Blotto did the "preshow" outside Wrigey Field) Tedeschi Trucks Band, with Hot Tuna and the Wood Brothers opening.

Thanks. I wrote it shortly after we got home, while the experience was still fresh in my mind. I almost forgot the encore. While we were hoping to make it home before nightfall, the traffic was less than cooperative. That's okay, because Mother Nature treated us to an absolutely gorgeous sunset to our left and a nighttime thunderstorm light show (in the distance) directly in front of us. We got a little rain for the last 15 minutes, but the storms passed before we got home.

We went to Southern Illinois to see the total solar eclipse. This has been mentally planned for 28 years, since I saw my first partial eclipse and found out that a total eclipse would happen in 2017. I said to my wife, back then, "If we're still in this area on August 21, 2017, We're gonna see this." Motel reservations made in January. Five hour drive to get there Sunday. Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" is on the road-trip soundtrack, as are assorted sun/sky-related songs that I put on a Summer Solstice Party disc several years ago. I'm not just a science geek, I'm a science-music geek. (After "Dark Side" finished, my son asked if we could listen to it again. Parenting win.) 9:00 PM yesterday: Check into motel. Watch weather forecast. Scattered clouds and possible thunderstorms. :-( 9:00 AM: Weather forecast looking a bit more positive, but still "iffy." While having breakfast, we meet a family of amateur astronomers. They have a telescope (with a filter, of course) and are planning to set up outside the motel. They're inviting everyone to join them. 10:00 AM: Aforementioned family sets up and a small crowd gathers. 11:00 AM: We join the motel parking lot party. Clouds in the distance. Temperature approaching 95 degrees. Amateur astronomers (I'm one also) are happy to share knowledge with the general public, so the family encourages everyone to look through their scope and we all answer eclipse questions for the folks around us. One couple is sharing a pair of protective glasses. I brought a couple extras, because I'm my mother's son. (My family will understand that.) I give them a pair. Through the telescope we can see six distinct sunspots. Very cool! 12:00 PM (T minus one hour and seventeen minutes): Clouds holding off. Partial eclipse begins. One group of tailgaters starts playing Dark Side of the Moon. (Three times in two days. I'm cool with that.) 1:00 PM: (T minus seventeen minutes): It's noticeably dark - like a storm is rolling in. But the threatening clouds are too far away; the ensuing darkness is due to the sun being 90% blocked by the moon. This thing is gonna happen! 1:17 PM: Protective glasses off. It's TOTALITY, baby! 1:18 PM: Four planets visible: Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, and Mars. I only notice Venus because I'm too focused on the sun's corona. 1:19 PM: Totality ends. (That was a fast two minutes.) Venus still visible for a minute or so, while the other planets disappear. Almost eight hours to drive back. Yeah, there was a little traffic. TOTALLY worth it. Checked an item off the bucket list.

I just want to point out the way that some reporters incorrectly attribute cause-and-effect relationships based on correlation. The author concludes that "breastaurants" aren't doing well because Millennials aren't interested in breasts, and she bases that assumption on the fact that they don't search for breasts on porn sites. But she also acknowledges that other casual restaurants are experiencing a similar slump: "Part of Hooters' struggles are tied to the sales slump that hitting most sit-down causal dining chains. However, a lack of interest in waitresses' cleavage — especially when there are breastaurants like Twin Peaks promising more scandalous experiences elsewhere — likely isn't helping." That's quite a meandering path to connect one piece of data with a conclusion about businesses. And to imply that in the title of the article - well, that's nothing but a click-bait tactic.

His sinker is dangerous.

Then you'll be really bummed to know that I just tweeted it to my 10 million followers. ;-)

I like boobs as much as the next guy, but I'd never eat at a restaurant just because the waitresses were "showing the goods," so to speak.

Thank you! My cell # is on the list. Claim submitted.

I wasn't either. I had a feeling that after all these years, Mr. Wilson had a long-term plan to keep the Bills in Buffalo.

Just did the online chat with DirecTV. First agent offered me $10/month off for a year. I asked him for more and he said that's the best he could do, so I asked to chat with the Retention department. That person offered me $40/month off of DirecTV, but no discount on ST. I asked for a free upgrade to ST-Max; he said he'd need to elevate me to the next level. Third person offered me $40/mo discount and ST-Max (including ST itself) for $99.96. I took the deal. All told, I saved about $630.

Remember when people were worried that the Bills would move to LA? I guess it's happening ... in a way.

The key phrase being "healthy Sammy." Maybe they weren't convinced that his foot is 100%.

He said that they'd received offers for months, so I would imagine that McD knew about that at least. The play selection suggests that they were either showcasing him or evaluating him - probably some of both.

The draft is a crapshoot - I agree. But Sammy has missed or been limited in about 1/3rd of his games due to injury, so in that respect, he's a gamble too. And what he said about wanting to play his entire career in Buffalo - most players talk like that until free agency rolls around. So there's two gambles: one that he stays healthy and another that he gives the Bills a hometown discount. What are the chances that both of those would have happened?

I agree, but I would add a qualifier: We didn't value him enough to spend that much of our salary cap on him. You're right that they could have restructured other guys, etc., but the bottom line is that they felt he wasn't worth that much of a cap hit. If the cap didn't exist, they may have kept him. We don't know for sure, but it's not a fallacy to say that the cap had an impact on this decision.