iamshack

QUOTE (BigHurt3515 @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 10:21 AM) I buckled under the pressure lol.. How many holes would you say you had putts for par on?

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 09:07 AM) Its pretty popular out here. However, those lease deals usually aren't as good as buying your own equipment. That said, obviously up-front money vs. the alternative. Solar city is a big one out here that is doing it. The new homes being built now usually come with a few and then you can upgrade (for a pretty minimal cost, especially when you consider it can be financed as part of the house with the interest being tax deductible) for a pretty minimal cost (and then you can be fully self dependent and even make a few bucks selling back to Edison or whomever your power company is). Very interesting point you make though about the infrastructure investments of the power companies. Personally I think the idea is great as the more energy self sufficient we can become, the better. I also think there have already been significant improvements (from what I've read) in the capabilities of these panels and I'm curious to see that with the increase in demand, how much better the capabilities get as more money gets invested in the space which drives more R&D. Yeah, I think Nevada and California are being hit with the same wave right now. The prices have come down to the point where it makes sense for the companies to install the equipment if you exceed a certain threshold of power use. It certainly is a bad deal for the consumer, but like you said, it does make it available to more folks, but then they are just paying Solar City instead of the utility company. The advertising is ridiculous right now. I'll be driving in to work (at the power company) and they will be criticizing us for retiring coal and developing solar ourselves, and then in the next sentence selling their rooftop solar. Pretty humorous.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 08:48 AM) Taking down the signage is more to keep low-level stuff away, pretty much just protesters, e.g. Y-12 incident. So what are your thoughts on residential solar? You guys probably are not getting this yet because of your location, but we've had massive advertising this past year for residential solar. Basically, the company installs a rooftop system free of charge but makes you sign a power purchase agreement for 20-30 years. The utilities are not pleased with this because we're the ones who've paid (and continue to maintain) for the infrastructure (the distribution system) to make this possible.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 08:36 AM) You'd be surprised how many of the nuke plants have zero signing and are a huge pain in the ass to find. Especially now, with some of the threats that power plants have come under recently.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 08:15 AM) This is the place that is like an hour outside of Vegas right (West of Vegas, kind of on the way to California, right)? Yeah, it's near Primm. About an hour southwest of Vegas. We're trying to get approval from our utilities commission to build a 200 MW solar facility on the Moapa Native American tribe's land. I'll be interested to see whether the technology is similar to Ivanpah or not.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 06:16 AM) Birds Bursting Into Flames over State of the Art Solar Plant I've driven by this place a few times...it is pretty incredible how bright it is.

QUOTE (BigHurt3515 @ Aug 18, 2014 -> 09:15 PM) Played twice in the last 5 days.. It seems when I try not to kill the ball on the drive I don't have as much of a slice but it is still there. When I use my irons I have no slice.. Like a guy said before, it looks like I am aiming at streets, houses, and the other holes lol. I shot a 108 on a par 70 though. Not that bad.. I missed a lot of putts for par You must be an awfully bad putter then...

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 18, 2014 -> 03:43 PM) It had nothing to do with facial expressions. I didn't even see any of those from my mlb.com. I despised him as a player. But since he's left I've said nothing bad about him. The Dunn talk disturbs me. Don't you think if anybody wanted him he'd be gone by now? Hahn is not a dummy. He also works for an owner who doesn't like paying guys to play for other teams apparently. No other team wants Dunn on the payroll, thus good luck to him finding work next year. You just ripped on him a few weeks ago. I almost replied, but then I thought, "why bother expending the 1.7 calories it will burn while typing my response," so I decided against it.

Steve, I'll tell you this much...with the availability of pricing on the internet customers have really been able tipi shave the margins off vehicles in the last several years. The way a lot of dealerships make money these days is from financing and service/maintenance. The last few vehicles I've purchased, the dealer made a huge deal out of trying to keep me as a customer and servicing my vehicle at their dealership. I'd make it very clear to them that you have a vehicle in for service right now, and that you've been taking your vehicles there for the last 5 years.

78 today...37 on the front and another back 9 choke...double/bogey coming in on 17/18...the front 9 is the best I've ever struck the ball with my irons...hit 8 of 9 greens...37 with 18 freaking putts! Had a number of 10-15 footers for birdie and just couldn't get one to drop... Back 9, my iron game deserted me and I was just trying to hold on for dear life...2 putted from 65 feet to save pars and did make one birdie on a par 3...otherwise it was pretty dreadful. Oh well...improvement...I should be pleased with that.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Aug 17, 2014 -> 07:40 AM) As opposed to using a 1-6 timeslot every day to express a personal agenda? Interesting how it works when you can't control the message like you can with callers. You should tweet that to him. How incredibly hypocritical for him to say that.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Aug 17, 2014 -> 07:23 AM) It didn't feel dirty at all. If I believe losing was the best thing for the franchise, why should I feel dirty about that? Especially since your cheering has no outcome on the games.

QUOTE (farmteam @ Aug 16, 2014 -> 05:31 PM) A friend and I are strongly considering taking a road trip to Colorado last week of September/first week of October (probably like leave on a Sunday, be back in Minnesota the following Sunday). I've never planned a road trip like this before. It's about 13-13.5 hours from Minneapolis to Denver, so I figure we'll split up the drive into two days each way. Neither of us have ever been to Colorado before. Not sure if we want to just stick in Denver for five days and do day trips from there, or travel somewhere else. Open to ideas. So, to sum up: 1. Any general road trip planning advice? 2. Any tips for things to do in Colorado? I think we'd do the general vacation experience. Ie, maybe go to some breweries or something one day, do a day trip for some hiking (not crazy strenuous or anything, the kinda thing where we could drive out from Denver in the morning and come back at night). C'mon...you can do it in one day...wimps

Hawk read an article by Jonah Keri!

QUOTE (dasox24 @ Aug 16, 2014 -> 04:54 PM) Shot a 90 today. Lowest round of 18 in my life so I was pretty happy. But I choked and missed a 4 foot birdie putt on 18, which would have given me an 89. I badly want to break 90. Sorry to hear about the putt, but great round!

Had a trackman session yesterday afternoon. Learned a few things: 1) my swing speed w/ a driver is 105-106...this is above average but slower in relation to the speed at which I swing my irons 2) swing speed with a 7-iron is 89. This is pretty solid, fairly close to a tour speed swing with an iron. 3) swing path and face angle were generally close to one another, which create a relative straight ball flight. I have a tendency to have a negative face angle (face is closed) which starts the ball off slightly left of target and a swing path that is on line relative to that face angle (which produces the straight ball flight). I do sometimes get a swing path which is too far right, (in relation the face angle), which will result in a hook. My attack angle is good with my irons, but much too steep with a driver. I have a negative attack angle number -4 or 5 degrees), which causes suboptimal launch angle and spin rates. This is limiting my distance. I hit 1 drive and he says "what would you say if I told you that you could add 30 yards to your drives without changing much?" If I can shallow out my attack angle to reach a positive 4 or 5 degree number, ill get higher launch and less spin, which will result in optimal trajectory and distance. The keys to doing this are mostly in the setup. Here is a great article on how to accomplish this, by Bruce Patterson of Butler National GC.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 12:09 PM) The problem is that Hawk is held to a much higher standard than you or I, and has a microphone in his hand to reach at this point, millions of people. You have to be a lot more careful in those situations. Ahh yes, I knew this one was coming...so it isn't a matter of being genuine, only pc. This is why I really discount the pc thing.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 12:08 PM) And? All the dickfaces are insulted.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 11:51 AM) This point is just so hard for people to understand. You don't have to be outraged. But you can certainly disagree with what he said, and realize that he shouldn't be saying things like that when he's an announcer for a major league team, and a large part of the fan base is female. Simply saying "well it's always been this way and that's why it's OK" doesn't make it OK. Now you've got people comparing it to calling someone a "f**" etc. So if Hawk did that tonight, would that be OK too because that's how certain people talk? There are ways to disagree with a call and describe your feelings on air without saying what he said. That's all he has to learn how to do in that situation. You just equated Urban Meyer to a "dickface" in the college football thread

QUOTE (Feeky Magee @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 09:22 AM) Yeah, people should have the right to go around calling people f*gs because sometimes gay people use that term. It's the same with rappers and the n-word. God damn PC police trying to ensure we can't belittle people different to us. We get it, there really is no excuse to use offensive words/names, etc. Yet while we expend all this energy being outraged about "casual sexism," we're simultaneously committing far worse harms. The same guy in here reprimanding us all for thinking the use of the word "skirt" in this context is not a big deal is out there flexing his intellectual muscles in other threads in some dick-measuring contest and relishing the fact that he can make others feel inferior to his vastly superior intelligence.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Aug 14, 2014 -> 09:02 PM) Quite trying to mix up my words. I didn't say Hawk knows nothing about baseball. He just says the same thing over and over and over again, and a lot of times it's either incorrect, or he has to stretch something to make it a weird, larger point. "Tell you what Stoney, no one knows this game." What in the f*** are you talking about? "First rule of baseball is catch the baseball." Is it? Says who? That's his defense for anyone that can't hit for s***, aka Gordon Beckham. He simply is stuck in his ways, and some of them are absolutely ignorant, like his unwillingness to try to understand new stats or his bulls*** TWTW. This isn't an example of "hey, your parents were right about something," it's an old man being crazy at this point in time. Just because you played the game doesn't mean you know everything about the game, and it sure as hell doesn't make you a good broadcaster. I don't really learn anything NEW about the game from Hawk. Not anymore. It's catch phrases and old stories. I genuinely learn things from Stone while listening to the game. Sometimes even Farmer or DJ. Hawk is just full of absolute nonsense at this point. Oh, and please don't ever use his GM days as proof he knows something. He obviously knows something about baseball, but at this point he's just too far gone. Says Hawk, obviously. It's his opinion. I don't think Stone disagrees with him either. As for the new metrics and analytics, our goddamned manager doesn't understand them. What's more important, that the field manager understands them, or the play-by-play man?

QUOTE (OsweGo-Go Sox @ Aug 14, 2014 -> 05:39 PM) Anyone who doesn't understand why this was at the very least a stupid thing to say is painfully out of touch, clinging to a time when certain groups weren't empowered enough to call people on their bulls***. Your old road is rapidly aging. Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand... That road was paved by those you are criticizing. This is exactly the sort of entitlement and arrogance that drives previous generations crazy. Show a little respect, first of all, and secondly, if this is the worst thing we've got to be outraged about, than I think those previous generations should be applauded for the shape they've left things in.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 14, 2014 -> 02:10 PM) If the conventional wisdom is that all of these guys suck and need to be dumped, why is it assumed that somehow someone else wants them? It's because they don't serve any purpose for us, since our window is a year or more into the future. They could certainly serve a purpose for a team this year.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Aug 14, 2014 -> 02:36 PM) I agree in theory but baseball is just slow no matter what you do to speed it up. But that is part of the beauty of it...there are 162 of these freaking things! The games are on EVERY FREAKING NIGHT practically. I've always thought the beauty of it was you can do other things and still follow the game. You don't have to be focused intently like with football. You turn the game on and enjoy dinner, or read a book, or surf the internet (post on Soxtalk!). If you're at the game, you can enjoy something to eat and drink, have conversations with your friends, enjoy being outdoors on a summer evening. Baseball is a relaxed thing to take in. I don't understand what is wrong with that.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Aug 14, 2014 -> 02:22 PM) One of the many reasons I think the biggest priority for the next commissioner, outside of the labor agreement, is speeding up the pace of baseball. Drop replay, put in some serious regulations to increase the action / speed. IIRC, the length of a baseball game today vs. 40 years ago is significantly longer. I'm sure part of that is commercial breaks (although those existed back in the day too). However, since 1970, the average baseball game has increased by approximately 30 minutes (from roughly 2.5 hr's to almost 3hr's). There are also more pitching changes now, I'm going to presume, then 30 or 40 years ago, however, I'd go to more extreme's to limit the amount of pitches and the total amount of time you can take during pitching changes and also potentially alter rules for mound visits in an inning. Maybe truly cap it at 1 per inning vs. current rules which can allow multiple in an inning (presuming the 2nd time you visit each pitcher you are pulling them). Well, the games are longer for several reasons, first of which is that the analytics have changed the strategy to the point where hitters are seeing more pitches, we're seeing more pitching changes, and of course, probably longer breaks between innings because of television. I have no problem with speeding up the pace of the game a bit, but that should probably come from more efficiently operating and managing the game rather than changing rules.