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Since no one else is posting I guess I better. ;o)
I went out and started cutting some of the winter damaged canes from the Cape honeysuckle bushes out front. It's a little difficult to tell what's dead now. Some stems are fine, bright green leaves among the many more dead ones. If the cane is split open, that part of it is definitely not coming back. Some stems that have dead ends have leaves just budding from well below the tips. Off course I'd like to remove the dead canes entirely, but I don't think I can do that till the bushes are mostly recovered. In the meantime I still need to prune to make the whole thing look less dead and ugly.
It's interesting how blind reporters are to the finances of college football. It has been reported that both Auburn and Oregon lost money on the national championship game, due to having to eat the remainder of unsold ticket allotments. Supposedly the bowl game gives the tickets to local charities, but you know that in these difficult days the charities simply have to turn around and sell the tickets to ticket brokers. Auburn probably made enough during the year to offset their loss. But it's doubtful that Oregon did. And that loss was nothing compared to what U Conn suffered from failing to sell all its BCS tickets, close to two million dollars. The year before last only 14 teams out of 120 FBS schools made a profit. It's only a matter of time before state legislators see football as something that can be cut back on.
Reporters see this as another sign that the BCS is dead and that a playoff is just around the corner. The fact is the situation would be just that much worse in a playoff. Figure an eight team playoff. The schools might be able to arrange to have the first round on campuses (with the resulting uproar over who gets to play at home and the inevitable bad weather), but it's doubtful that the semifinals could be played anywhere except neutral sites. Either the team ticket allotments would have to be dramatically reduced or you'd have the problem of advancing teams trying to sell huge blocks of tickets in days. The reporters don't care if any of the fans can go. Many fans aren't bright enough to see that two weekends of transportation and sky-high hotel rates are going to be too much for them to attend. The FCS playoffs are played on campus and they lose big money even in good times. It's so different from the smaller direct costs to the schools and smaller crowds of the basketball tournament. At least till the economic mess is over I don't see anything good in a top-level college football playoff.
Sirius had a friend visit the yard the other evening. It marked one of the bushes in the usual cat way, really stinking up the backyard. I just hope Sirius won't get the yen to mark his territory inside, in reply.
I went out and started cutting some of the winter damaged canes from the Cape honeysuckle bushes out front. It's a little difficult to tell what's dead now. Some stems are fine, bright green leaves among the many more dead ones. If the cane is split open, that part of it is definitely not coming back. Some stems that have dead ends have leaves just budding from well below the tips. Off course I'd like to remove the dead canes entirely, but I don't think I can do that till the bushes are mostly recovered. In the meantime I still need to prune to make the whole thing look less dead and ugly.
It's interesting how blind reporters are to the finances of college football. It has been reported that both Auburn and Oregon lost money on the national championship game, due to having to eat the remainder of unsold ticket allotments. Supposedly the bowl game gives the tickets to local charities, but you know that in these difficult days the charities simply have to turn around and sell the tickets to ticket brokers. Auburn probably made enough during the year to offset their loss. But it's doubtful that Oregon did. And that loss was nothing compared to what U Conn suffered from failing to sell all its BCS tickets, close to two million dollars. The year before last only 14 teams out of 120 FBS schools made a profit. It's only a matter of time before state legislators see football as something that can be cut back on.
Reporters see this as another sign that the BCS is dead and that a playoff is just around the corner. The fact is the situation would be just that much worse in a playoff. Figure an eight team playoff. The schools might be able to arrange to have the first round on campuses (with the resulting uproar over who gets to play at home and the inevitable bad weather), but it's doubtful that the semifinals could be played anywhere except neutral sites. Either the team ticket allotments would have to be dramatically reduced or you'd have the problem of advancing teams trying to sell huge blocks of tickets in days. The reporters don't care if any of the fans can go. Many fans aren't bright enough to see that two weekends of transportation and sky-high hotel rates are going to be too much for them to attend. The FCS playoffs are played on campus and they lose big money even in good times. It's so different from the smaller direct costs to the schools and smaller crowds of the basketball tournament. At least till the economic mess is over I don't see anything good in a top-level college football playoff.
Sirius had a friend visit the yard the other evening. It marked one of the bushes in the usual cat way, really stinking up the backyard. I just hope Sirius won't get the yen to mark his territory inside, in reply.
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