Tag: football

September 20, 2023 – Better… For Who?

September 20, 2023 /

This year, my wife has been pushing for attending more sporting events. She has often said that ‘if I had girls, they would be in travelling sports.’ Fortunately for me, we have boys, which ironically are not really into sports at all. I say that because my wife and I are both fans, I just like it to be on in the background rather than spending my time at the events.

As we are nearing the end of September, eventually the good weather is going to run out. That wasn’t so last weekend as we went to the OSU Beaver’s football game with a sunny high of 82 degrees. I haven’t been to a lot of games, but there has been at least two with torrential downpours. I have to say that even winning both of those games, it was pretty miserable. That being said, we already have tickets to the Friday night game against Utah.

We are novices at this. I have been around long enough to know that season tickets are a commitment. Not only are you paying face value for the tickets but also the university wants a $5000 donation. That is pretty much a no go for us. Not only are we taxpayers but it isn’t even our alma mater. So, we are buying tickets on the open market. The university has affiliated with a company called SeatGeek. This is where I become a boomer.

Remember when you had cash and you bought a ticket? The price didn’t really change and you got what was available. I will say that the best part of today’s world is that you can filter by the number of seats that you want, see what options are available and pay anytime of the day. But, that is where the good parts end.

Despite the last game having the cheapest possible ticket prices at $15/each, the best possible weather for football in Oregon, a team worth watching and a projected lopsided victory, the stadium was still about half full by my estimation. It is true that school is not in session until the next home game, but the student section was nearly full. It wasn’t the lack of students that didn’t fill the stadium, I have to believe that it is the complications on how to do it playing a factor.

To be fully transparent, our tickets were not $15 but $30. The next game against Utah in the very same seats are now $70. They say that they are $70 but that is actually before the 50% handling fee which you find out about at check-out. I know that it is peeing into the wind, but SeatGeek is just another account that you have to create login credentials and manage. Such is life.

Once you pay for the tickets, they have to be moved to Google Wallet to be presented at the stadium. In my case as a Apple user, I have to download another app. That is to say that fortunately, I already have a Gmail account. But, searching through the Apple app store, there is no such thing as Google Wallet. It turns out that it is actually named Google Pay.

Before I could send them to my Google account, I had to login on my own computer. It seems like everyone else at this house has done this type of thing before but me. That was fine, but each ticket that you wanted to send to a wallet defaulted to the first user so I sent one ticket to my son in Taiwan first. Fortunately, I was also able to revoke it from the screen and select myself as a user. To verify, even finding them in Google Pay is buried under the menu structure. It is no wonder that people don’t want to mess with this stuff.

End Your Programming Routine: In the old days of general admissions, you might end up with the only seats behind the structural pole (ask me how I know). But it was cash, ticket, entry. This system markets to us that it is better because we can choose our seats any time of day. This also gives them the ability to price games by the market demand and because a third party is involved, the prices become higher because of handling and their margins. Then, you have to deal with the technological hassle. I will struggle through it, but you can’t convince me it is better.

September 19, 2023 – A Banner Year For Apples

September 19, 2023 /

Everywhere I go, I see apple trees and apples. A lot of them I have seen for the first time. It is amazing how many are along the road, presumably because someone through a core out the window. Unfortunately for me, my tree has a cluster of five apples on it. I had a good year last year, by all accounts, I don’t know what my problem is.

Fortunately for me, I have sources to other apples. My dad gave me a crate of them. I decided that this year, I needed to make some apple sauce since last year I turned it all into cider. So, that is what I set out to do.

Ideally, I would do this work in an evening. That way I have my weekends for things that require larger blocks of time. To me, even a late night canning is better than a whole afternoon or morning on Saturday. But, I couldn’t quite work out the timing of getting dinner completed and having enough time to can. I remind you that I start work early so I go to bed early. I would have stayed up late to complete, but starting late is really a no go.

The most important thing is getting everything gathered up unless you want to spend all day doing it. The first thing I do when I start is getting the canner going because it takes a lot of time to get the water to boil. So, I start the canner then I start doing everything else.

These are pretty natural apples, so I spend prep time cutting around worms, rot and scab. The apple parts are scalded for several minutes and then I put them through the juicer (as it is called). The juicer separates the flesh of the apple from the skin of the apple. Had I not spent a bunch of time trimming out the bad parts, it would also remove the seeds and other undesirable parts.

I add a little sugar and sometimes water depending on the consistency of the sauce. Then I start filling the jars. Once I have enough jars to fill the canner and the water is boiling, I just boil the jars for 20 minutes and done. If everything is in sync, then you should have the next batch to add to the canner when the first one is done.

My yield was 12 quarts. One jar broke, so I actually got 11 quarts. A bit on that, I am not very careful with my jars. The training says to temper your jars by first putting them in the dishwasher. What this does is heat up the glass so that when it cools, the crystal structure is in alignment, and therefore stronger. If I do that, then I am adding more time to the process plus it is really hard to find an empty dishwasher. So, this would mean washing what is in there, then my canning jars before I use them. I just chance the breakage instead. The good news is that my break was just a split in the jar, so we will just eat that one.

End Your Programming Routine: My canning waxes and wanes. I think 12 quarts is plenty for this year. The primary consumer of applesauce is my son in Taiwan this year. I think that when he moves on, I would probably can pints, not quarts in the future. But, you do you. If I happen to any more apples, it will go into cider.