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DaveO

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leviathan

leviathan (121/123)

  1. I generally don't follow college football. This season I saw a smattering of the best programs at season end: OSU, ALABAMA, LSU, CLEMSON. What was amazing was the overall quality of virtually all starters. They "all" looked like prospective high NFL draft choices. They all played with football strength and speed. In fact a glance at the perspective draft includes many players from those 4 teams. Quite a luxury of college football talent
  2. Yes the sports Gods are playing havoc with history. I haven't learned how to link to pages off the phone but I discovered the college basketball resource for Clemson with all time head to head matchups. Clemson has an overall winning record but it appears they have been on the opposite side for ACC matchups the worst over time being against UNC. Well they reversed their basketball mojo this week but lost in college football. I would rank them as Super Duper plus a level currently in ACC football. They have many college super stars. The Clemson fans were on the basketball floor. Enormous celebration. Reminded me of MD home victories against Duke. They must have to love beating Duke It's all in the mojo.
  3. As with TedE thought that was a weird record of remarkable misery. Clemson may well have the worst record within the conference and yet their overall record is a winning one. Still losing 60 games in a row as an away team is stunning. They might be the cream of the crop in football these days and playing at a level that destroys ACC competitors but they are at the opposite end in basketball. Completely weird
  4. The article about the past decade was interesting. I wouldn't have had the faintest idea. Long term excellence combined with competing for the championship every year. Only one Stanley Cup but lots of division championships. Sustained excellence. It seems to me Leonsis is very hands off on the sports management side of the teams and leaves the decisions on players up to the pros. It has really worked this past 10 years for the Caps. Remarkably so. I think he tried to emulate this on the Wizards and its been a complete failure. Twice his teams had playoff eligible teams and both collapsed. The current team had 3 loaded high draft choices who ultimately had salaries that blew out the team....and they ultimately weren't that good relative to the competition. On top of that the third player didn't merit his salary, and the first player with the largest salary blew out his leg---UGH. What works one time might not be a perfect measure for success for the future. Anyways a decade of Caps marvelness. That is quite an achievement.
  5. Uh.... yeah😀 But seriously that was an excellent game last evening. Two teams with many pro caliber big strong violent super fast skilled players. Their practices could be more competitive than many games. Seriously. Plays were decided by inches. Really great competition. To the victors go the spoils. Congrats Clemson.
  6. On my second Gibson. Unlikely to post again tonight! I had 2 martini's the other evening. I was out, not at home. Totally ripped. Can't do that anymore. In fact haven't done that in over a decade. One would think I would have learned. For the life of me I can't recall the gins.
  7. I've watched Harden off and on this season including some of his big scoring games. Got to admit I don't "like" his game or his style. Too repetitive, too "predictable", too unexplosive. Meanwhile he is a singularly remarkable scorer, unmatched in current times and virtually unmatched in NBA history. What can you say? So long as he scores as he does Houston is always a candidate to win it all. I must admit though, as I don't like his style I'm sort of pleased they haven't won it all yet...and I hope they don't going forward.
  8. Just a little end of year review: For November and Dec, it appears we have direct staffed via request during this period about 300 grads for events (some grads worked multiple events through our staffing). What that doesn't include is the enormous number of grads who are already working for caterers, hotels, restaurants and/or staffing companies. They could work as many as 4 or 5 events per week or as little as one event per season. We might easily have well over 1,000 grads (or a lot more) doing this, during this and every holiday season for the last X years. Yesterday we received a nice thank you note from a harried, worried host, who learned his event's bartender bailed out the day before the event: The description from our Facebook Page:
  9. I suppose adding content about Boras is akin to beating a dead horse. In actuality I knew relatively little about him til recently. I knew he was a baseball agent and had negotiated large contracts over the last number of years. That was about it. Boras has a significant description in Wikipedia. Most of that describes career achievements as a Baseball Agent. It also includes that he was a pretty successful college ball player and reasonably good minor leaguer for 4 years before injuries ended his stint in baseball. He then studied and became an attorney and practiced corporate law before becoming an agent for former teammates, after that starting his firm. His company, the Boras Corporation, has a website, with only one page, no links other than a connection to emailing the firm. That website alone is extremely unique in its brevity, and is both an F-U statement to others but also a statement that he knows precisely who is important to his business--they know him, and he doesn't need or care about flourishes for the rest of the world. My guess is he is quite secure in his position and status. Starting from the mid 80's to the current period Boras has become the foremost agent for baseball players, currently, according to Wikipedia, having about 175 current clients. Forbes has ranked his firm as #1 in baseball in the world and his total value of contracts is either first or second among all sports agents. The firm now has 75 employees and their is a description of its unique plush headquarters in Southern California. Wikipedia also included a list of former clients including Robinson Cano. Cano surprisingly left Boras and signed with a different agent before signing an enormous 10 year $240 million contract. In any case the aggregate value of contracts has soared in the past 20 years as contract values have exploded in $/year and in number of years per contract. Of interest one of the functions of his many employees is to scout and evaluate minor leaguers and draft prospects. Boras has a healthy number of young players and potential future stars among his clients. For instance Juan Soto is a Boras client, as are former Nat stars Bryce Harper and Anthony Rendon. Boras scouts and evaluates them and gets some of them young. Having started representing ball players in the mid 1980's Boras became an agent during the earlier years of free agency and has obviously grown exponentially. Anyway, having read up , and viewed a history of many of his transactions plus seen the explosion of values it somewhat alters my perspective a bit. That all falls under the rubric of having functioned somewhat like Boras, primarily as a tenant's representative, where the essence of the function is to do virtually precisely what Boras has done--create leverage via multiple landlords (the rough equivalent of baseball team owners) to get a "Best Deal". My gut is that over the course of 30+ years within an environment of changing conditions and people, I suspect there have been times when Boras argued for a client to choose the highest valued contract more vociferously than at other times. OTOH, as seemingly was the case with Strasburg, his client's very strong focus on staying put got him to sign a contract that might well have had a home team financial benefit. Regardless, I give Boras credit for helping the players gain the salaries they are currently earning.
  10. He got fooked by the nfl. I wonder if he would be playing if tWump wasn't president. He is probably better than any SnyderSkin QB this year.
  11. I'll forward some tips I have learned, but ageism is a real issue and attractiveness clearly rules. One common thought is that uber, Lyft and similar types of work have sucked about 50,000 or more into their employ consequently reducing the number that might go into F&B foh. We see it every day. The 50,000 number is huge but I've seen data that suggests it is at that number or larger.
  12. Simply on the basis of its attractiveness that would be a loss, although it is so attractive I'm sure another group would replace it. Also it will also always resonate with me as Portners where the location had its greatest popularity and success and it morphed into the basic look that generally still prevails. I don't measure staffing but through the bar school we get a sizable number of requests for bartenders from the entire DMV. It is every type of place imaginable. Some you wouldn't send your worst enemy to and others are the recipients of rave reviews on this forum. What we have seen is a rising demand for FOH staff. Also BOH staff, food runners, every kind of staffer you can imagine. We've also seen poorly prepared people become managers. While I don't monitor it closely there are tons of ads on the web for F and B staff. You could have been there on a day when they had an extreme labor crisis or it could be what you imagined above. There is a significant shortage of people working in the industry.
  13. Yesterday I stopped by Open Road Roslyn which OPENED Tuesday, 12/17. It is located at Ground Zero in Rosslyn, across from the Metro in the building at 1201 Wilson, on the Plaza, where there is a Farmer's Market one day a week in the summer. It includes a "Speak Easy, Salt on a lower level and opening onto N. Lynn Street. Between bar and Salt, it is certainly alcohol oriented. At around 2:30-3ish it was post Lunch Pre Happy Hour, but its bar was not exactly empty. Open Road is part of the Metropolitan Hospitality Group of restaurants which includes Circa, Trio, and something else. I'm favorably disposed to Circa. Yes it is a LOCAL chain. I think they do a good job with a wide variety of dishes, and service is generally quite good. I am aware they put a lot of effort into training FOH staff. From what I understand Open Road has been pretty successful and popular in Merrifield. It is a popular bar there. Yesterday I sampled wings and a cocktail. That is too small a variety to make judgements in general. The staff was friendly and knowledgeable, the cocktail was quite good, and the wings were pretty large, although the sauce wasn't too evident. I'll be back.
  14. I eat a lot of hummus. I haven't made any in about 4 months. So recently its all been store purchased. I wonder how many consumers have tried all 11 of the versions tested in the WashPo article? I've actually had about 4 or 5 versions. My go to remains Perfect Pita, and my second choice is the ubiquitous Sabra (available everywhere). Perfect Pita has a terrific taste which must be a function of its Mexican spices. Sabra is okay--but eminently available and currently has what must be about 6-8 different flavors. Sabra, btw, is currently a target by the BDS movement. Yet it is 50% owned by American company, Pepsi, and has exploded in growth in the US since Pepsi became a partner. They have a large processing plant in Southern VA, have several hundred employees there and added an expansion that was finished in early 2019.
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