MattPie

If only they could have put the stadium somewhere that was more convenient to people coming over the border. Heck, find the right place and you could have run a ferry so people didn't have to drive. If only that place existed. Sigh.

I kinda agree. At a cap-hit of like $4.5M, that's something that I bet a lot of teams are carrying around with a bad contract or two. You could even trade him and retain some and I bet there'd be takers.

I can't believe the state of this franchise; they can't even get PTO players to sign here! (Did I do that right?)

Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time series is a really good read; sci-fi distant future stuff A Half-built Garden by Ruthanna Emyrs is a good near-future sci-fi book where people work together rather than have corporations dictate tastes NK Jemisin The City We Became and The World We Make is a fun comic-book-ish horror series centered around NYC Currently reading The Ray Nayler The Mountain in the Sea, more near-future but dystopian sci-fi that I'm really digging

Most people recommend to carry a tube just in case you get something that you can't plug. We had this happen on a recent gravel ride; oddly enough, it was a guy on MTB. Unfortunately, he ended up walking for awhile until one of us got back and picked him up with the car. If you get a really bad hole, you can also use a wrapper or dollar inside the tire to cover the hole and it'll hold until you get home. FWIW, my gravel bike didn't like getting set up tubeless, so I'm still running tubes there. Speaking of bikes, I might be in Ft Worth in October; my tradition for work trips is to bring my bike and ride a couple days after the trip is done. Are there some good places to ride out there?

I mean, easy in hindsight but there *were* some big question marks at the time.

Oh jeez, we were staying right where you worked. AC Hotel on Nash and Maple a block or two south of LAX. I didn't ride Ballona Creek path (although that was on my radar), I was going to ride along Playa Del Beach, but instead went to Venice beach and then rode from there up to the end of the path past Santa Monica pier and back. I rode a bit of that section of Imperial Highway and I found it uninspiring, other than airplane-fan me looking over at LAX.

Some more LA photos. Turns out, you can ride a bike up to the top of Mt Lee behind the Hollywood sign. Also some Santa Monica beach pics in there. https://photos.app.goo.gl/moQwMPBHnAyPgLuG9

That's such a sweet ride, congrats. I don't have a carbon bike, but I love all the other things you mentioned; brifters, disc, and clipless. And gravel bikes rock, almost as fast as a road bike, but go anywhere. I do a Thursday night ride that ends up on gravel roads, state forest roads, and some state forest trails. I'm doing a minivacation in LA right now, and managed to do a decent climb in the Santa Monica mountains last night. 2000ft up over a little under 8 miles. Never thought I'd enjoy riding bikes up hills this much. https://photos.app.goo.gl/BfGWHw4JdywMQB8B7 Latigo Canyon Road, near Malibu. It's cloudy, but the ocean is in the distance there. Life goals.

Userfriendly was a hit when it stopped creating new content too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Friendly

How could you have possibly figured that out?!!?

FWIW, I work for a large company. There are at least 50 employees with "Colton" as a first name. Based on scanning the profile pictures, they're not all NHL-player aged. Does seem like a lot of them work in southern states, so it might not be as common in the Northern states.

I suspect teams in the finals *could* make a trade, but the incoming player wouldn't be eligible to play so there's zero benefit. Interesting question though: if you play a game in the finals or enough during the season, but get traded before the end of the series, do you still get your name on the cup?

Rando New Pink info in the comments:

Think so, early on. I remember there being a "New Pink" to, but have no idea where that was.

I don't think I was ever in there. I didn't drink much when I lived in Buffalo, that start after I moved away. MsPie used to sneak in the kitchen door when she was in high school, lol.

Weird that you get to decide which priorities are "wrong".

Interesting, I didn't know about Rochester Method! I knew there were different ways to sign but regional differences are fascinating. EDIT: Oh, interesting: Rochester method is finger-spelling the English in full, as opposed to words having unique signs.

I wonder what the ASL signs though. It can't be the names (other than maybe goals) because of how long they take to spell out, so are they just describing the action that you can already see? Or telling stories about the players? 🙂

Duh, thanks. I was brain farting on that one. I'm now thinking that Craig Patrick is the root of the Pens-affinity in the Sabres' hiring. I vaguely remember talk of "pulling people from the Pens because they're successful" early in Pegula's ownership. You're right, it might all be connections in other orgs. Leone and Appert are both former USNTDP coaches, so "guys we've worked with".

Ruff literally worked for Pegula as NHL head coach before, he's the ultimate "we know this guy already". 🙂 Nolan was also a Sabres guy, although that's a bit more tenuous. Karmanos, Sexton, Ventura, and Bylsma: Pegula, IIRC, has some Pens connections (his empire is largely based in Western PA). Can I amend the pattern to include people that worked for the Pens? There's a strong current of raiding the Pens' org for people, which like the USNTLP is "someone we know". (I didn't check on Patrick because I don't know who that is, lol. unless we're talking James Patrick)

"Outside the org" would imply a fresh voice, but this seems like "I worked with this guy before in the USNTLPNCBWBBBQ". It may be a great hiring, but *everything* the Sabres do seems to be "we know this person" or "this person already works for us". That's fine if you're running a successful organization. The Sabres aren't so "more of the same" is met with reasonable concern.

Between the four teams starting the third round, this is the finals the NHL can't have wanted, lol.

Really, comes down to: did the scroll at the beginning say "Episode IV: A New Hope" in the original run?