Day: March 3, 2019

This is basically a boss of an overturned truck crash

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It didn’t happen in Georgia, but this is still a nightmare scenario of an overturned truck crash that I feel is worth mentioning, just based on the sheer severity of just how badly it owned everyone involved.  But in North Carolina, a little north of Charlotte, a Harris Teeter truck overturned, and blocked both lanes of I-85 northbound, for numerous hours.  The wreck was so bad, and the cleanup so long, emergency crews had to deliver a portable toilet to the scene of the accident, so that drivers stranded for over five hours could relieve themselves.

Let’s be real here: it’s the part where a port-o-john had to be delivered to the area that really caps this whole thing, and I think this is a good example of a true video game boss of a truck accident, if there ever could be one.  If there’s one thing Atlanta has going on for them, is that their highways always tend to have like 4-6 lanes each way, so even if a truck falls flat, at the most can only really cover up three of them, and drivers can always find ways around.

I’ve driven across this stretch of I-85 numerous times too, so I’m quite familiar with the area.  Frankly, I’m surprised at how anyone can overturn on roads so straight, but further details show that the truck swerved to dodge a disabled vehicle, and considering this stretch of I-85 has been “under construction” as long as it’s taken Northern Virginia to complete the Capital Beltway, there haven’t been shoulders on this expanse in a decade, so if a car is incapacitated, it’s happening pretty much in the middle of traffic.

Honestly though, this is kind of one of my worst driving nightmares, topped only by if I were the one in the wreck.  Being stuck in a wreck so bad, that traffic is completely incapacitated, and not knowing definitively if it’s going to take ten minutes or ten hours to clear, so you’re in a situation where you’re leaving the engine running, burning up finite fuel, and if the urge to have to go to the bathroom starts to emerge, having literally no way to alleviate the situation.

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The fallacy of judging player contracts before they’re finished

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

With the news of Bryce Harper signing the most historic mega-deal in baseball history comes a whole lot of interesting things:

  • All the bitching and moaning coming from MLB (union) players like Justin Verlander, Evan Longoria, Kris Bryant, and Adam Wainwright among others, about how free agency is busted, owners are crooked, and the system being broken have just had all of the wind taken out of their sails; the last week alone has seen Harper sign his historic 13-year/$330 million dollar contract, Manny Machado signing a 10-year/$300 million contract, as well as Nolan Arenado signing an 8-year/$260 million dollar extension. Free agency is not busted, it’s just the financial game within the game has changed, and it’s just taking longer.
  • A whole lot of discussion about Harper’s intentions, considering the fact that despite taking the aforementioned deal from the Phillies, in the process he turned down a ridiculous shorter-term contract from the Dodgers which would have had him making around $45 million a year for four years as well as a 10-year/$300 million offer from his former team, the Nationals, where they would have deferred the last $100 million of the deal, where he would have been getting paid, with interest, until like 2053, which probably would have equated to over $330 million, frankly.
  • Every Nationals fan who had been a Bryce Harper fan over the last seven years has now become massive Bryce Harper haters
  • Every Phillies fan who had hated on Bryce Harper because he played for the division rival Nationals is now the greatest Bryce Harper fans that have ever lived

Amidst all of these things, are and will be many more, articles that will be examining the finer details and the minutiae of Bryce Harper’s deal with the Phillies.  And in a previous time in my life, I probably would be one of them, and be ready to declare it “a bad deal” because of the hypothetical likelihood that by the time Harper is 38 years old and hobbling into the final year of his deal in 2032, he most certainly won’t be playing like a guy that will be getting paid like $28 million dollars, and how long-term free agent deals pretty much always fail, because players rarely contribute the statistics necessary to justify their salaries.

Such could very well become the case by the time 2032 rolls around but the bigger question really boils down to “but did the Phillies win a championship(s) in those 13 years?”

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