hawing

Different post for a different random thought. Later this morning, I'm conducting my first student interview for someone born in 2000. I knew it was coming because that's my oldest nephew's birth year and he is just starting college, but I'm enjoying telling other people and watching them react.

It's the 21st century. He probably does it digitally.

It's not bugging me, but we also have a 2007 Prius. It's far (FAAAAARRR) from the only Prius in Madison, or even in our neighborhood, but I believe it's the only one in Madison with ball-glove license plates, so it's pretty easy for us to spot ours in a parking lot. And I won't judge your vehicle choice if you don't judge ours. (For those wondering, the ball-glove plates are not personalized, because they stand out enough in Madison as it is.)

For those interested, the city of Madison's website has a lot of flooding information in one handy spot: http://www.cityofmadison.com/live-work/extreme-weather/flooding Particularly impressive (not necessarily in a good way) is this map showing where in downtown water is most likely to be a problem: http://www.cityofmadison.com/frontpage/documents/PotentialFloodImpactsThrough-2018-08-25.pdf Basically, good luck getting anywhere if your trip includes the Isthmus. We're headed to all three games this weekend (from the near west side) and I imagine we'll just take the Beltline. And guess what else?! There's a Badger football game in our neighborhood one week from tonight! A vice chancellor at UW actually sent an email to all UW employees a couple of weeks ago warning them what a cluster downtown/campus will be...and that was before the rain. Hahahahahahaaaa.

Well, if they're in that part of town and their street is clear (or not blocked), they might see more traffic.

Now rocking 15001... Thanks for asking. Hawing HQ is in near west Madison, near enough to Camp Randall so it's an easy walk but not so close that football fans pee in our yard. It rained heavily for the bulk of 6 hours, but we didn't experience anything like NMF or parts to the west. Southwest Madison, Middleton, Cross Plains, Black Earth and Mazomanie are the worst hit. One of my colleagues lives in Black Earth and her yard became a lake and her basement a pool. A guy we know who lives in Mazo was evacuated in the middle of Monday night into Tuesday. Worst of all, the person who drowned in the floodwaters in southwest Madison was a retired colleague from my workplace. NMF summed up the west Madison/west "suburbs" problems accurately. People in Black Earth/Mazomanie have to be creative to get anywhere because the main east-west road (Hwy 14) has a washed out bridge. The next part of the "ripple effect" (pun intended, I guess) is that the extra rainwater has raised Lake Mendota levels, which is putting stress on the Tenney Park dam, Yahara River, Lake Monona and the central city's storm sewers. The blocks of E. Johnson St closest to Tenney Park and the river are closed, and E. Washington Ave may have to be at least partially closed near the river. That leaves very few ways to get through the central city/isthmus. And it's supposed to rain more in the next day or two. Fingers crossed for the area.

And this person has been here just about five weeks, so she arrived at possibly the height of the new-fiscal-year upheaval. The red flags her responses raised with me on Friday are still concerning, but I'll readily admit I wouldn't want to trade jobs with her.

The human resources office in my state agency has turned over 100% since the last time I needed HR assistance. On Friday I met one of the new employees and felt like several red flags were raised in the process. So let me bounce this off you guys: On Friday I was wearing a 414 design shirt from one of the Milwaukee t-shirt sites. (It was a Friday, late summer, I work on a college campus.) The HR person asked if I was from Milwaukee or Waukesha counties. I said I wasn't, but we visit Milwaukee frequently for Brewers games. She made a sour face and quickly looked down at the form she had in front of her. After a peculiar pause, she looked up and quickly said "Cubs." I let that slide, because I'm used to being in the minority at work for my sports preferences. But why would a HR person act that way toward a colleague she just met? I called that red flag #1. Red flag #2: I made a general reference to the amount of upheaval HR has experienced over the last year. Her response, after kind of a knowing look, was "Try googling my new boss sometime. But not here. Everything gets tracked here." What the heck? The most benign thing I can think of to say about that is there are certainly multiple things to unpack in that remark. Red flag #3: I stopped back later for a separate HR task, which it turns out is the turf of one of this person's coworkers. Her description: (Colleague) can help you with that, and she's having a heated argument in the next office right now (gesturing toward the office next door)." I could hear a conversation, and while I wouldn't have immediately described it as heated (maybe because I don't make a point of eavesdropping on people I don't know?), if the person were my colleague and I were in an HR office providing HR services to someone I barely know, I certainly wouldn't characterize it that way. Would any/all of these have left you shaking your head too? My reference to upheaval over the last year is legit - the outgoing supervisor is in her last (I guess lame duck) month of working there; everyone in that office has been yanked around by the state Department of Administration this summer; and even if I ever wanted to work in Human Resources, I wouldn't want to be in that office now - but this particular employee didn't seem well suited for at least the human interaction part of human resources. I can't avoid her since she coordinates the hiring of student employees (which I'm about to do as the school year begins). I do intend to minimize my in-person interactions with her as best I can; and after the next month I should be relatively free of HR needs for a while. Just struck me as weird, and still bugs me.

It has nothing to do with which fans are at the ballpark on Sundays. The hawing household's current 2018 record is 17-11, so they have won plenty of games we've attended. (Just very few Sundays.) Some Brewers seasons have been very very good to Sunday fans. 2018 is not one of them. I'd been wondering if there's a "series finale" factor in play, and Bruised Crew's observation supports that theory. I'm not convinced that the "Sunday lineups" lead to more losses, because that's been a practice for a while now.

I can't help myself. Ever since Cole Hamels and his wife appeared in ads for a luxury condo community in Philadelphia, these are my images of him: https://deadspin.com/5354854/cole-hamels-continues-his-slow-transformation-into-a-doily

For the first appearance, I could accept that maybe he was the freshest arm available that day, or someone detected a matchup advantage or something. (I don't know how you would do that for a reliever, but maybe there was some perceived strategic plus.) Why he stayed beyond the first appearance was the mystery to me.

I've been thinking all along that I don't have enough context to either write Josh off entirely or be ready to immediately move on. I don't even know what that context would look/sound like. If dumb shallow teenage stuff was ultimately behind the ugly tweets, what are the odds Josh is going to remember exactly what was going on the day/night he tweeted "white power lol." (And at the risk of parsing too finely, isn't LOL what kids add when they are joking about something? Not that white power is a smart thing to joke about; I'm just a language nerd, so I notice that stuff.) There isn't much I can add that's new in this thread, but I'll share some of what's been on my mind anyway: - I don't know who would be able to give a perfectly poised answer - about something that has probably not crossed his mind in a while - out of the blue immediately after a high-profile (and arguably crummy) performance. I'm pretty sure I couldn't. - Whoever started the sharing of the ugly tweets must have some kind of axe to grind. Yes, the tweets are ugly. Choosing that evening to share them is its own kind of ugly. (Allegedly photoshopping tweets into the mix is a whole 'nother kind of ugly, and I don't even want to think about the slippery slope that represents.) - Assuming for the moment that Josh is not full of racial/orientation/gender hatred...I feel genuinely bad for him. Talk about a top-to-bottom day. Of the players we have met as season seat holders (all very brief meetings), Josh seemed among the most enthusiastic to interact with fans. Most players are polite, but you can tell they're just doing what they're assigned. Maybe Josh is just a better actor in that way, but he left a better personal impression on me than most players do. That got me interested in rooting for him even before his early 2018 video game-style performance. - I feel worse for the Brewers organization. It is full of people I care about (including some who are personal friends) and fairly or not, it sustained a black eye at a high-profile time. They got through the Braun experience reasonably well, and I'm confident they will find a way to move through this, but I am sad for them that it's necessary. - I hope it does not become an insurmountable clubhouse problem. The players (Josh especially) will have enough to contend with from opponents and their fanbases, as well as possibly parts of their own fanbase. This doesn't mean I think winning games is more important than being good people off the field. This should certainly be a learning experience for both Josh and the Brewers. I hope it also leads to a more measured reaction from us as Brewers fans, the next time unsavory news comes to light about a Cardinal or Cub or any other rival. Finally...kudos to everyone who has kept this thread in pretty decent shape, especially given the hot button topics + emotions they naturally inspire.

Unfortunately, it's only available over the air. Trying to listen online, outside of airwaves range, we get just podcasts about Summerfest or the like. We caught the top of the first in the car but can't get it in in our Madison home (and I'm not going back to the car for another few hours).

Really, really happy for you and JJ, agent39. I hope the Brewers can make some JJ all-star shirseys available to buy, given the extra short time frame. I'll be proud to rep that shirsey.

This has been an issue at my library checkout desk for quite a while, because (1) unfiltered internet is necessary for our work and so literally at our fingertips, and (2) my employees are all college students for whom online multitasking is second nature. I decided years ago to not try to ban the use of "personal" internet at the desk. I can't enforce it (if I had time to, I'd be staffing the circulation desk myself) and I won't pretend I never peek at Gmail or Twitter or BF.net or listen (with earbuds) to a day game. Instead, I tell them that judicious personal use is okay, if they limit it to the approximate amount of time they'd otherwise use on a break. I ask them to avoid image-rich sites (**story below) and to not use their own devices. Audio is out at the front desk because it's a library. If it's a football Saturday, they can keep a window open with the score of the big game. Stuff like that. Honestly, since some of the projects I make my students work on are pretty tedious, once their eyes start to glaze over I'd rather they stopped for a few minutes to check their email or whatever. It seems to work okay. I used to ask that they keep phones off while on desk duty, but since text alerts are how the university delivers emergency messages (like a threat outside), I altered that rule to phones on silent while on desk duty. **Story: One of my students in the early 2000s decided to spend an evening perusing the Lands End website for new swim trunks. Lands End is not a racy website by any stretch of the imagination, but it took just one person walking by who happened to notice topless men on a screen, and confusion ensued. Thankfully it was easily cleared up.

turborickey, I have a feeling that if anyone in the BF.net audience were willing to give up their SSH bobble, you'd have been contacted by now. They are just one per account (for example, the SO and I have two ticket packages on our account but got just one bobble).

In my mind, Shane Victorino will always be Shane F. Victorino. I have no idea what his middle name is, but I think you get the picture.

Can confirm. I've had good fortune (pausing to knock on wood) with New Balance and Keen shoes. If a New Balance store is in your area (i.e. not just a department store that sells New Balance shoes), the staff can assess your feet and suggest a shoe and/or insole type that would particularly aid you. Not at a discount, but the price still compares favorably to a knee replacement or other medical treatment.

That game was like a beautiful dream (sorry, Dead Simmons). We had my 12 year old nephew and 14 year old niece along too, and the nephew was pretty pretty excited by everything. *happy sigh*

Or...if you mean the instrumental track that plays while Robb Edwards is introducing the starting lineup, that's Golden Swagger from Big Heavy Horn Riffs. Get Loud For Me is played while the starters warm up before the top of the first. Legend is played before the Brewers' bottom of the first.

I'm really sorry for your loss, trwi7. It's as tough as losing any other family member.

The story I linked above should eventually appear in the print edition of the Journal Sentinel. I get it on Sundays, but if it runs on a different day, could someone closer to Milwaukee either save me a copy (if any of you still read dead tree newspapers) or let me know when it appears in print so I can hunt down an issue in Madison? Thanks, if you can.

Longtime or recent users of the Molitor (formerly Giants) parking lot might remember Lee Roy Wagner as one of the payment takers at the entrance. He had a stroke on May 21, at the ballpark, and died last Sunday,May 27. The Journal Sentinel has a very nice story on him: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/milwaukee/2018/05/30/miller-park-parking-lot-cashier-known-his-kindness/653338002/ The story in this link also includes a link to a similar 2015 article from when he participated in a Stars and Stripes Honor Flight. Lee Roy was one of our favorite people to see at ballgames. He asked us one day how we liked our Prius (when it was still pretty new - it's now almost 11), and recognized us from that day on. We always hoped to be assigned to his line when entering the lot. A few years ago, he gave us his address and asked for ours so we could exchange Christmas cards, so for the last ~4 years we'd done just that. He was just a sweet, nice guy. For 2018 he switched to driving the cart that shuttles fans from the lots to the gates. He saw us before one April game and had room in his cart, so he gave us a ride. That's the last time we saw him, and now I'm extra glad for that chance encounter. His obituary (https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/name/lee-wagner-obituary?pid=189143115) suggests memorials to the Stars and Stripes Honor Flight, if you remember him and are inclined/able: http://www.starsandstripeshonorflight.org/donate/ Rest in peace, Lee Roy. You were one of the best.

We've had plants ready to plant since mid-May, but it's either been too wet or too hot, or the nice days are on days we have to do something else, like go to work, or Miller Park.

The Gameday programs are so regularly error-ridden that we've taken to searching for them. It doesn't usually take long. I'll pay extra attention to the roster page in tonight's issue. Edited to pile on: Last year, when the Angels visited, they listed "Ron Rennicke" among the LAA coaches. I still wonder if that was intentional. I realize we get what we pay for, but have some semblance of pride. I've semi-seriously tweeted at the Brewers offering to copy edit for free. They've never responded.