10/31/18

Maine @ UConn recap

After a bout of rain overnight Friday into Saturday, I headed off to Hartford, Connecticut that morning/afternoon to catch Maine @ UConn in a "matinée" college hockey matchup, and, in doing so, I found out just as much about the history of hockey in that city as I did about the "new generation" there!
The first period saw a scoreless, and rather uneventful, series of events, although UConn managed to kill off a 5-against-3 manpower disadvantage against it about halfway through, much to the delight of the crowd watching the game, but still missing on both of those opportunities of its own, one of which lasted about 15 seconds into the middle frame, again, making the first 20 minutes of the game entirely scoreless...

What that period lacked, though, the rest of the game more than made up for, as an ugly boarding incident injuring one of the UConn skaters along one of the ends of the rink led to a major penalty against Maine, along with the player making that hit getting ejected from the rest of the game; another pair of penalties each way suddenly led to a 4-against-3 advantage for UConn, during which time the opening goal of the game arrived, as UConn slowly, but surely, worked the puck closer and closer to the net to the point where a "point-blank" shot through a bit of traffic in front of the net was all that was necessary to convert and open up the scoring; UConn took advantage of another Maine penalty with just over 20 seconds remaining, passing the puck in a sort of "umbrella" formation between everybody, indeed, eventually, getting one of the five skaters wide open enough to be able fire home another goal to give UConn a 2-0 lead headed into the final 20 minutes!

The last period, however, was when things suddenly got even uglier between the teams, as it seemed like every stoppage early in the period featured some pushing and shoving between players, including a crazy sequence early on: two roughing penalties, one against each team; a high stick by one of UConn's players; a Maine player elbowing somebody on UConn; finally, four penalties all at once: a cross-check call against UConn, and roughing/slashing/tripping penalties against two separate Maine players, all of which resulted in another power play for UConn, which, ironically, seemed to give Maine more momentum to get on the scoreboard, and, indeed, that ended up happening just after the expirations of all but the major penalty against UConn, making it a 2-1 game, which stood until there was barely a minute remaining in the game, by which point Maine had pulled its goaltender for the extra skater; after everything that had happened within those 20 minutes, Maine had clawed its way back from being down 2-0, to being tied, 2-2, and headed to the overtime period with a chance to win, but despite the insanity of the third period, it seemed as if Maine was content to escape with the tie, while UConn was too "ticked" deep down inside at blowing said lead to be able to generate many chances within the extra five minutes of action to make the final score a 2-2 tie!


 As for the game presentation, I'm not sure about the past few years, but UConn's intros to the games this weekend seemed to set up a "theme" of sorts for the rest of the season, as they involved a short performance by the UConn band, followed by highlights, then the visiting team starting lineup intros, then more highlights, followed, lastly, by UConn's starters being introduced; unfortunately, at least to my ears, the whole thing seemed quite loud, and that never seemed to change once the game started, but, thankfully, despite the loud music volume during the game from both the band and the "pre-recorded" sound system itself, this tune remains in the same position with UConn hockey as it did when the NHL's Hartford Whalers still existed:


 ...in fact, from the very beginning of UConn's days inside the former Hartford Civic Center/current XL Center, as of the 2014-15 
season:

 ...but DYK there's even more history to the tune than just the Whalers?

 Meanwhile, the PA announcer definitely must "moonlight" as a comedian and/or movie trailer announcer when he's not announcing UConn hockey home games, as he definitely has the "deep" type of voice you might typically hear in movie trailers, and he cracked jokes during the game about ("A") fans in Halloween costumes, ("B") various moments in UConn sports history, ("C") the fans' knowledge of a few events that all occurred within a certain year, one of which involved one of UConn's on-campus venues, and ("D", immediately following "C") the Mensa society...

On a (pair of) more personal note(s), our old (basement) freezer started "de-frosting" on us earlier this month, forcing that thing to the "scrap heap" after about a decade, although that had replaced another unit that had run for at least 20 years before then, and requiring the installation of a new one in its place; lo and behold, we ended up getting a Whirlpool freezer from one of the Lowe's locations around here; also, my "stools" went from normal for the vast majority of this year, to spending this month showing up as being very dark, to suddenly being tiny, and then bloody once again later this past week, just like about a year and a half ago; in all honesty, I've never treated my body the best, with things such as occasional migraines and various pains lasting basically my whole life so far, so, maybe, just maybe, that's a sign that I should, probably, start making possibly "wholesale" lifestyle changes sooner rather than later, before those problems end up getting more frequent and/or severe later on in my life!

Well, that's it from me for now; again, "stay tuned", as always, for the next one of these recaps, most likely following Cornell v. Harvard @ MSG the weekend after Thanksgiving, along with a possible visit to the "new" FAO Schwarz toy store; before then, though, if you do nothing else in the immediate future, make sure to go out and vote wherever you happen to be registered to do so, since who knows whether or not something(s) might end up happening in the foreseeable future stopping us from doing so...?
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10/16/18

In *more* "mixed" retail news this week... (also, some sports updates)

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/topstocks/sears-is-now-a-penny-stock/ar-BBNFJJe?li=BBnbfcL

Sears Holdings, Incorporated (SHLD) recently dropped below $1 for the first time ever in the retail company's storied history (officially since 2005, when Kmart and Sears merged but unofficially since 1906, when the original 1886 company was publicly listed for stock trading); the news following headlines revealing CEO Eddie Lampert's declarations that (A) he was willing to "buy back" the Kenmore appliance line, reportedly valued, by itself, at $400M+, while the entire company has reportedly dropped to only about $100M, and (B) the company just missed one debt deadline, and faces another debt deadlines very soon, one of which requires the company's "reserves" to be above a certain amount, and another demonstrating that it would have been able to pay $134M in debt by mid-October, neither of which seems to portray the company as one capable of surviving beyond, say, sometime next year, and has certainly accelerated the company's continued decline from about 3,500+ locations at the time of the 2005 merger between Kmart and Sears to only about 800 now (a decline of 77+%) - surely, one would think that a pair of retailers that have been in and out of bankruptcy/rumors thereof ever since the end of Bradlees/Caldor/Jamesway/Montgomery Ward/Woolworth/etc. would just "pull the plug" already, and shut everything down once and for all, allowing its remaining employees to move on, its investors to "cut their losses" as much as possible, and its retirees to collect whatever they might be entitled to, while allowing the rest of us to figure out what the executives were up to!

Also, in a follow-up to that news from a few days ago, it looks like even more locations will get closed very soon, and some articles of clothing sold there caught fire:




Specifically, Toys "R" Us appears to be returning suddenly, just a few months after shutting down all of its locations in the U.S. after 70 years; the initial plan appears to be launching a supplier of toys to retailers such as Kohl's/Target/Walmart/etc. under the name "Geoffrey's Toy Box" in time for this year's "holiday season", before slowly bringing back the Babies "R" Us and Toys "R" Us names in the foreseeable future - incidentally, a few employees/executives seemed to have still reported to the company's final HQ in Wayne, N.J. these past few months, giving the appearance of "continuity" there the whole time, while the rest of us thought the company had folded after shutting down the last of its 700+ locations; a few of them reportedly traveled to the North Dallas Toy Show just a few days ago to make their "pitch" to the retail/toy industries...

Unfortunately, the CEO of MGA Entertainment, Isaac Larian, who tried to buy the (original) company out of its liquidation process back in the spring, says this revival effort is "dead to (him)"; therefore, he appears to be planning on basically "boycotting" supplying his company's products to the revived chain, regardless of how the asset management firms currently running (the remnants of) the chain, Angelo Gordon & Co., along with Solus Asset Capital Management, come to him with offers - cash; credit; etc.; it apparently no longer matters to Larian how, or even whether, they approach his company, but I think the rest of us reserve the right to call him a "party pooper" for reacting to the news so harshly, especially since I'm sure his company will still end up supplying the new FAO Schwarz location in Manhattan that is scheduled to re-open soon:


(in other news, even in Hong Kong, the N.Y.C. subways can't remain open!)

 As of this week, chapter 11 bankruptcy/restructuring, and possible chapter 7 liquidation/complete shutdown happened for Sears Holdings, the parent company of the Kmart (discount) and Sears department store chains - specifically, as early as this past Monday, when the company most likely missed a scheduled $134 million debt payment, and possibly also start shutting down 150+ more locations; unfortunately, the company no longer seems able to shift enough assets/cash between CEO Eddie Lampert's personal investment firm and its corporate structure, allowing Kmart and Sears to obtain slightly higher amounts of cash, as both the company and Lampert's firm seemed capable of doing in the past... I feel it should be remembered, though, that Kmart alone went through restructuring twice even before it merged with Sears (1995 and 2002), so, had it been up to me, that chain might very well have already become "history" by now, and, personally, I would've just left Sears alone and let outside investors figure out what they thought might have ended up best for the 3,500-4,000+ Sears locations that existed back in 2005!


Now, if you'll allow me to "reminisce" again, as I did with Toys "R" Us earlier this year, I've visited pretty much all of the Sears locations around here in my life so far, along with a few in other states, as well as some of the now-shuttered Canadian locations (especially the one along the back end of Toronto Eaton Centre mall); that being said, even when I was barely starting my K-12 years, nobody I ever headed to any Sears locations with seemed to use them as much more than "pass-through" places to get to malls such as Rockaway and Willowbrook (northern N.J.), although my father, being a mechanic/trucker practically his entire (working) life, always trusted Craftsman tools, but, aside from the occasional Levi's purchase there, again, we mostly just "passed through" those buildings to get into one local mall or another in order to be able to be "mall rats" elsewhere nearby!

Anyway, in other retail news these past few days:


Now, normally, in the past, I'd just up and head over there, but, with NJT completely ******** the bed these past few weeks in order to catch up on very overdue maintenance work, I'm debating whether or not to even bother with that whole "grand re-opening" (Fri. 11/16), since the risk of getting stuck aboard a disabled train seems infinitely higher right now; unfortunately, I won't have as much of a choice in the matter come the following weekend, though (Sat. 11/24), since I'll be headed off to MSG once again that night for Cornell v. Harvard, although, perhaps, I could fit both of those "return trips" in one right after the other - visiting the new FAO in the afternoon, followed by heading down from there (30 Rock, in the former "NBC Experience" location) to MSG that evening after checking that place out, although that day would no longer be the "grand re-opening" day/weekend for FAO!

Speaking of sports, I'm still debating which Maine @ UConn game I'll most likely be checking out in a couple of weekends' time; the problem with attending the Friday night game (7 P.M. 10/26), or any night games in Hartford, for that matter, will be me not returning home until at least 3 A.M., and, having already done so after the BU @ Northeastern game I attended back in November 2016, I do not want to have to randomly wander around the streets of Manhattan again, waiting for the trains to restart, so I'm still leaning toward that Saturday afternoon game (3 P.M. 10/27)!

On a more personal note, though, I was just barely able to even make this post, since we had just been without any Optimum cable/Internet/phone services for the past five days now, as of today (Tuesday), but, thankfully, Verizon FiOS services our area, so, if events similar to this outage episode keep happening, we might end up on the phone twice in the foreseeable future, once to leave Optimum after, personally, my entire life so far, and then again later in order to join Verizon FiOS!

To fill you in now on Cornell-Harvard @ MSG in late November, specifically the weekend after Thanksgiving, I'll be sitting in section 211 - don't know exactly where just yet, but at least I'll definitely be in a "center-ice" section for that game!


...also, it looks like the Colgate v. Quinnipiac game out on Long Island 12/29 will start at a bit earlier time than most other "neutral-site" college hockey games tend to start:


...even so, I might still end up there to close out this (calendar) year!

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9/16/18

recapping our recent European trip

Well, this is it now for this European trip, between Madrid, Paris, Rome, and Barcelona; honestly, Madrid reminds me of all those old images online of 1970s/80s N.Y.C., when the "Big Apple" was definitely "grittier" than now - even the main street in town, the "Gran Via", has a few vacant/vandalized storefronts, so if that place is (somewhat) run-down, then you should expect the rest of the city to still be (sort of) "gritty"! Despite the "grime" seemingly everywhere, though, and the people (mostly the locals, at least from what I noticed) not having any care for the concept of "personal space", it still seemed rather safe overall, especially when you basically heard just about every "major" language, including the main ones we ended up hearing within the following week and change (Catalan in Barcelona/possibly elsewhere in Catalonia, French in the Paris region, Italian in Rome/etc., and, obviously, Spanish, along with surprisingly large amounts of English, particularly down inside the train tunnels, considering the "tourism wind-down" season), only over the course of about 72 hours, those places had better be "safe"!

Upon connecting from the Brussels airport over the weekend, and hearing announcements in four different languages in the process, we started by checking into a hostel the likes of which was basically only reviewed positively for its "central" location, although, despite its age, I personally found it just fine for a couple of nights consisting mostly of just returning there after spending the day "out and about", then simply wandering around the city's downtown, both by taxi, and also on foot, although the taxi fares started piling on earlier rather than later - by then, though, we had gotten quite used to refilling various water bottles at various water fountains in several locations throughout the city, so, despite the (almost) 100 degree weather, we soon ditched the taxis and their rather high fares for what basically amounted to "survival mode" walking through the heat!

After getting accustomed to the boiling heat, we headed off to the old medieval town of Toledo via one of the Spanish "bullet trains", which made what might have otherwise been at least an hour's trip into only about 30-45 minutes' worth of one, and, from there, basically did a "loop" from the train station up a slight hill to the historic district in town; from there, it was off to the cathedral and an old metal-working room, which just so happened to have a shop right nearby, in which we bought some souvenirs, before heading back to Madrid, specifically the Royal Palace/museum!

The second full day, meanwhile, after originally planning on visiting Sevilla, then backing out of that whole plan due to it costing €300+, was spent in Segovia, which reminded me of a few small towns in both Mexico and Peru, complete with an impromptu group of musicians, brief downpours of rain, and a roasted pig dinner at an old restaurant in town, before trudging up the steps of this old castle on the outskirts of downtown; last but not least, we returned once more to Madrid to get everything "squared away" for Paris!

Personally, though, Paris was a rather large letdown, taking the "grime" of Madrid, and basically turning that up more than enough notches to truly remind one of the 1970s/'80s, especially in N.Y.C., which might very well have been the "crime capital" of the U.S. back then, at least among the largest cities in the country, if not world; in the more "touristy" areas, though, the city seems fine enough to wander around in, even rather late, although, honestly, that advice should probably be applied at every time, everywhere, since, even in some "smaller" places worldwide, there tend to be some rather "sketchy" neighborhoods...

To make matters worse with hearing/seeing more than a few reports of generally "sketchy" neighborhoods, though, was that we ended up in an incredibly old hotel in one such neighborhood, where reports of crime were generally higher than even some similar neighborhoods, although, for the most part, we ended up fairly isolated from all the alleged "commotion" outside, or at least as "isolated" as anybody could possibly be in such areas, and that the building itself was more than warm enough to combat the rather cold (by September standards, at least...) nights!

Shortly after arriving, and finding out that we unfortunately ended up finding lodging in a ****** neighborhood (in which we crossed paths with a cowardly taxi driver), we headed to the Eiffel Tower, and just made it partly up, to the second floor, since the tower was just a few minutes short of closing for the night; after that, we hung out fairly close to the tower, in a filthy, yet generally safe, food truck-filled area right below the tower!

The following day, we initially caught up with a relative who had recently moved somewhere between Paris and Versailles, before heading to the Louvre museum and wandering around there for part of the afternoon; once we took care of that massive museum, we headed up a few dozen steps to the top of the Arc de Triomphe, naturally capturing a few more images there, mostly of the city's skyline, and then just generally using the Paris Metro to find some other "touristy" neighborhoods to avoid spending so much time near the hotel; even so, we only ended up returning there after midnight, meaning that there was some drunkenness added on to the "seedy" nature of the neighborhood!

Day 2 started off in Versailles via one of the many French commuter trains; naturally, we braved the crowds there to visit the palace on said grounds, then headed back to the Notre-Dame cathedral before hopping aboard a so-called "Big Bus" tour vehicle to explore various neighborhoods by bus; upon reaching the "red light district" in town, though, we got off, walked up even more stairs to the Sacred Heart basilica, and only then explored the various "erotic" shops there before having dinner at a French "American-style" restaurant, called the "Buffalo Grill", right across from the historic/world-famous Moulin Rouge club!

Overall, though, again, it seems as if all of Paris seems somewhat "seedy" now, but, as mentioned, N.Y.C. (particularly Manhattan) was like that some 30-40 years ago, and it seems like not even catastrophes like 9/11 have stopped the city's "renaissance" from the 1990s through the present, so, even though it's on a different continent, hopefully Paris ends up experiencing a similar recovery sometime in the future, or else it'll basically end up being "segregated" between government officials and the worst-off local residents, economically!

(P.S.: as "seedy" as Paris seems now, there's another Disneyland theme park to the east of all the other main tourist attractions in the city; after seeing a commercial for the one in Paris, and having spent a summer right near the one in Tokyo a few years ago, I've become weirdly tempted to visit the "original" Disneyland out west suddenly, which I've yet to do, despite having visited Orlando twice in the past!)

Turns out, in the end, that our stay in Rome ended up being the shortest of all our stays in the various cities we stayed in during the month - only one full day, but, in the one day we spent in the so-called "Eternal City", I'd like to think I discovered (almost) exactly how places as modern as Tokyo came to be - it all started in (ancient) Athens, Greece/Rome, which was its own empire originally, and worked its way forward from ancient times to the present day!

To make as much out of the day as possible, we started over near the Forum dedicated to Julius Caesar (thankfully, not via Rome Metro line "B", which you can look up for yourself, since the images of those trains are too disgusting for me to even think about), along with the true "world's most famous arena", with all due respect to Madison Square Garden in Manhattan, the Colosseum, which was larger originally, if you can believe it (approximately 50,000+ seats, if I recall), than the current StubHub Center, where the NFL's L.A. Chargers will play their home games until 2020 (approximately 30,000 seats, by far the smallest NFL capacity)! From there, we headed over to the Trevi fountain, which is surrounded by gelato places; after that, we headed to St. Peter's Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, and the Vatican, which are technically all part of their own "city-state" surrounded by Rome; upon finishing our visits to all of those ancient venues, we made sure to try all of the "big three" "gastronomic" items in the country: gelato, pasta, and pizza, and, in doing so, I'd like to think I discovered why those things became so popular internationally!

Barcelona reminded me tons, personally, of Montreal, the second-largest French city worldwide after Paris, except with the Catalan/Spanish languages, instead of English/French, and the more residential neighborhoods adjoining more business/entertainment-oriented districts, including some "high-end" lodging/shopping establishments, which every city seems to have, but Barcelona takes that to a whole new level, with all the Catalan-v.-Spanish language debates, along with being the "other" city in Spain, after the (non-Catalan) Spanish capital city, Madrid!

This time, instead of staying either in an ancient hotel (Paris), or along ancient streets (Rome), our hotel this time ended up being more of a "guest house", albeit a higher-end and more private one, with an almost "villa" look to the place, overlooking a corner of one of the city's main (and longest) streets; when we initially arrived late Tuesday night (local time, only after rather pointlessly connecting from Rome via Madrid), in fact, the street seemed almost so quiet that I thought we might get "jumped" at some point - almost like one of those "silent" scenes in movies/TV shows before something especially dramatic happens, but, in the end, we merely got a short tour of the street, along with an explanation of how to navigate the city, and that was officially our "welcome"!

Once night turned to day, however, and we got a look at the people starting their daily activities, we walked every which way through the streets of the city, eventually hitting the Sagrada Familia cathedral, the Parc Guell, Las Ramblas (the main shopping district), and a local seafood market, before meeting with another relative to find the Camp Nou stadium, where FC Barcelona plays its home games, and have a rather late dinner at her "side hustle" most days, a Peruvian restaurant in a relatively isolated neighborhood...

The second full day, meanwhile, started there, this time along with her husband and a few other "regulars" in the restaurant who showed up a few minutes later, before heading off to the beaches overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, heading to the site of the 1992 Summer Olympic games, specifically the 55,000+ seat soccer/track and field stadium (which also ended up getting used briefly by the "other" club in town, RCD Espanyol, which eventually moved to a smaller stadium in a different part of the city in 2010), then heading back to the sea front district to a mall, the port right behind it, and, lastly, a restaurant attached to the W Hotel, which we honestly probably wouldn't have gotten into anywhere else but a beachfront location, but, despite having waited until that afternoon, and doing so again in the evening, we still managed to squeeze a bit more "cuisine" into our bodies then!

Our last (full) day started with printing our boarding passes for Barcelona -> Madrid, and from there back home, before heading to a different beach in a more industrial area, which was definitely dirtier than the other one located near the W Hotel; after that, we headed back to Las Ramblas to find a bullfighting-themed restaurant in which my grandfather probably would've been very much "at home", even in Barcelona, and then to rest up for a very early flight back to the Madrid airport for the fourth time within the two weeks of our European vacation (from Brussels, going to Paris, connecting between Rome and Barcelona, and returning back home from Barcelona)!

Last but not least, I'd like to give you some more thoughts (albeit shorter) on each of the places we visited:

Madrid: seems to be, now, where N.Y.C. was back in the '90s: transitioning from very "rough" place to visit, and even tougher to live in; confusing public transportation system;

Paris: might very well have been considered "beautiful" way back when, but, unfortunately, is currently full of people trying to "pickpocket" others, and very run-down buildings - definitely stick to the "touristy" areas at all costs;

Rome: among the first cities on the planet, and it shows, with lots of ancient buildings, bumpy streets, and a pair of different train lines - one relatively clean, and the other just plain totally vandalized;

Barcelona: reminds me tons of Montreal, with two main languages historically; always a political "flashpoint" - lots of "colonial"-era architecture throughout...

Well, that's it for all these recaps; IDK what will happen soon (well, after this weekend, since I'm planning on using it to recover from these past couple of weeks in various places), but, regardless, you'll still hear from me, especially after sporting events I'll have attended!

A few more things now:

First off, the restaurant we ate at one evening in Paris:

https://www.buffalo-grill.fr

That chain reportedly has 361 total locations right now, of which 329 are in France, 6 in Spain, 2 in Luxembourg, and 1 in Switzerland, so, by and large, it's a French company, yet having a few establishments just outside of France...

...lastly, across from there, at the famous Moulin Rouge nightclub, circa 1940:

That image shows the beginning of what would end up being the interminable Nazi German occupation of Paris (and most of the rest of France, but especially Paris) from 1940 until 1944, and, above all else, what the image showed, at least to me, was Parisians' attempting to keep their lives as "normal" as possible, even as the dreaded black/red/white Nazi swastika flag suddenly replaced the famous French tricolor on basically every building:


Many more images where those came from, though, to remind us where people making the wrong choices for themselves can lead - to them being shut out from the rest of the world, and systematically murdered if they dare oppose the events unfolding around them:







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8/9/18

Real Madrid v. AS Roma recap; looking ahead to the future of the MTA

Last night, as mentioned, I returned to MetLife Stadium in the Meadowlands, this time to catch Real Madrid v. AS Roma in both teams' final games this year over here in the U.S. before returning to Europe for the start of La Liga and Serie "A", respectively!

About an hour or so before the game was set to start, though, severe weather started rolling through the area, chasing everybody onto all of the many concourses inside MetLife Stadium, and stopping the "shuttle" trains running from Secaucus Junction; that was just about when I arrived, so after doing as much of a "lap" around the exterior/parking lots as I could before everybody practically got ordered to take cover from the storm, I then went inside and just wandered around the concourse along one of the 300-level sidelines - initially, it seemed like people were almost enthralled by the severity of the storm, but, after a few minutes of that not slowing down at all, everybody just seemed to start entertaining themselves in just about every other way possible... Shortly before 8 P.M., though, the weather cleared almost to the point where the sunset seemed to just barely be visible, and, indeed, that ended up being when security allowed everybody into the seating areas, although not without a little "TLC" being taken when it came to keeping the seats as dry as possible by then to be able to actually sit in!

Surely, though, things seemed a bit hurried immediately afterward, as the players only got in approximately five minutes' worth of "warmups", although I'm sure they managed to keep themselves loose in their respective locker rooms, and there were no "starting lineup" announcements at all, which seemed bizarre to me, given that, again, things seemed to get re-started shortly after 8 P.M., which was the originally scheduled start time for the game, so I'm sure all the usual "protocols" could've been followed, and things still wouldn't have been delayed very far beyond when they would've happened without the preceding severe weather delay!

One thing was apparent almost immediately, though, and that was how many more Real Madrid fans made the trip to the Meadowlands, just as there were many more Tottenham fans inside Red Bull Arena in Harrison this time last year, since, honestly, at least among all the various (western) European-based leagues, it seems as if the Italian league is the least popular of all of them over here, with the French "Ligue 1" possibly running a close second (second-to-last?) in terms of a "lack of awareness/popularity" outside their countries, with German Bundesliga/English Premier League teams and Barcelona/Real Madrid almost always either running even with each other, or outdrawing their French/Italian counterparts, over here in the U.S.!

Madrid definitely seemed to have taken more of an "advantage" of the delay, though, since, although Roma seemed to try to play "keep away" in the very first minute or so, it only took about another minute or so later for Madrid to open the scoring, and then, from there, Madrid effectively "flipped the script" on Roma, turning many "long ball" passes into quite dangerous scoring opportunities, while dis-allowing the same the other way, getting another goal only a few minutes later, although Roma definitely at least tried to "awaken" after that, not exactly copying Madrid's "long ball" strategy, but, rather, doing the opposite, keeping Madrid's defenders to the outside initially before sending a crossing pass approximately from one corner or the other into the 18-yard box, which, unfortunately for them, usually got cleared almost immediately by a waiting defender or two for Madrid, and, indeed, the first half ended with Madrid's incredibly early pair of goals still holding up, and with the team taking said 2-0 lead back to the locker rooms for the halftime break!

The second half started very similarly to how the first half ended, but, by the time both teams ended up making their "mass substitutions" that the International Champions Cup tournament uniquely allows, since, after all, it is merely the "pre-season" for those teams, everybody definitely became "wise" enough to the task at hand that the substitutes for both teams basically started just making all sorts of "dangle" and "deke" moves between opposing defenders, although Roma definitely seemed more "up to the task" then, as its defenders increasingly started cutting off Madrid's "lob" passes to the point where they could finally start creating more of the "corner" opportunities they kept trying to connect on in the first half, only to actually, you know, succeed by then up until Roma finally got on the scoreboard itself with only about ten minutes or so remaining in the game, although, after that, Madrid basically played "keep away" itself, preventing Roma from getting much more than a few corner opportunities, the last of which immediately got cleared away, signaling the end of the 2-1 win for Real Madrid, as well as both teams' time over here in the U.S. before starting their regular seasons over in Europe!

highlights (en Español)



In other news recently, the MTA, last month, announced its plans to finally get rid of the MetroCard "swipe" system that has graced the N.Y.C. subway system with its presence from 1992 through the present day, co-existing alongside tokens until mid-2003 to be continued through early next decade; ironically, the process truly "started" back in mid-2006, only to get rather abruptly stopped only a few months later:



It took the agency over a decade after that little "trial" to explore ditching the MetroCard and installing a more permanent "smart card" system for the buses/subways, which might not make the most sense initially, until you recognize that the MTA did pretty much the same thing with its first so-called "new technology trains", the "R110 A/B" sets of trains starting in 1992:


There's even a video mostly showing a "cabin" view of one of those trains:


Last October, the MTA signed a contract with Cubic Transportation Systems, makers of many similar "smart card" systems worldwide, like the SmarTrip card in Washington, D.C., the Oyster card on all Transport for London systems, the Opal card in Sydney, Australia, and many others, including, coincidentally, the PATH SmartLink, also in the N.Y.C. area, and the Freedom Card, used by the Delaware River Port Authority's PATCO system between Philadelphia and some of its closest suburbs just to the east of there in southern New Jersey; anyway, the MTA will "phase out" the MetroCard between 2019 (next year) and 2023, by which time the MetroCard will be fully de-activated system-wide, making way to whatever the MTA calls its "smart cards", starting its "smart card" trial between Grand Central, the famed "hub" building in mid-Manhattan, and the Barclays Center, the main entertainment arena in downtown Brooklyn mid-next year (2019), rolling out the new payment system to more, selected, stations the following year (2020), finally starting to de-activate MetroCard "swipe readers" the year after that (2022), before fully activating "smart card readers" and permanently discontinuing the MetroCard system-wide even later on in the "foreseeable" future, only keeping the new "smart card" system (2023)!








Now, though, I'd like to return to the early '90s once again (8/19/93, to be exact), to showcase the following "R110A" train run between E 180th and E 149th streets in the Bronx:


...also, the very first "revenue" (that is to say, with passengers) run of either of those train models, approximately two months prior (6/15/93); you'll notice upon viewing those videos that, even in such a short amount of time, there seemed to be many changes to those train models, quite possibly to "future-proof" them (at least from the MTA's point of view):


Anyway, you'll be seeing different sets of those things, along with the cities in which they exist, in a few weeks' time, in our little Madrid -> Paris -> Rome -> Barcelona trip next month, so, again, stay tuned for that once the time comes throughout the first half of next month!
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7/16/18

2018 FIFA World Cup final/tournament mini-recap; more college hockey schedules; looking ahead personally

Well, after a month full of excitement and "upset" results over in Russia, including the host nation unexpectedly reaching the quarterfinals, the World Cup has now reached its end, after becoming an all-European tournament from the semifinals forward, and Croatia unexpectedly upsetting world powers such as Argentina and England along the way to the final, while France upheld the expectations facing its side just as much abroad, among international "pundits", as at home, among the French people, to end up defeating Croatia in that game!

(P.S.: speaking of which, now that we'll be off to France (mostly) through the first half or so of September - more on that down near the bottom of this post, I honestly ended up on the French "bandwagon" by the time of the final, even though the French no longer ended up having to defeat the English team, since there was an increasingly large "coming home" campaign among way too many English fans on social media, with this whole "superiority complex" about having invented and "perfected" the sport, especially, I feel, with regards to "American" leagues, like those down in Latin America, along with, obviously, MLS here!)

...now, some more 2018-19 college hockey season schedules:











Also,​ as I believe I mentioned a few times within these past few months, I've unfortunately still got to take care of operations management, although, at least from this week's class sessions, it seems like it'll be more about the "management" and less about the "math" this time around, which I'm sure you know by now that I'm very thankful for, given that I (almost) always did better with more "creative" things than more "number-crunching" tasks; now, I'm just hoping that (A) things remain like that, more or less, and (B) that no (major) conflicts arise within these next few weeks, since I'm sure I would stand no chance of surviving the course, grade-wise, if anything along those lines ever occurred, regardless of where my grades would have ended up by then!

After that, after, obviously, me hopefully having taken care of that, it's off to Europe, specifically Madrid (via Brussels, for whatever reason...), then Paris, on to Rome, followed by Barçelona, back to Madrid, so that should, most likely, be an exciting (almost) two weeks through the first half of September, again, hopefully preceded by me having "clinched" the end of my undergraduate studies after many changes within these past few years!

(...also, I found out after Harvard's schedule got released that the Chinese national team will also travel to New Haven, CT, to face Yale within the same week in which it'll be facing Harvard, so if I make no other trips to Yale this season, I might end up making that trip!)

As for my own plans, though, I'm eyeing one of the local International Champions Cup soccer pre-season exhibition games between various European clubs around here within these next few days/weeks, although it seems the Benfica-Juventus game (1 P.M. Sat. 7/28 @ Red Bull Arena in Harrison, N.J.) is increasingly out, price-wise, compared to most of the other ICC exhibition games nationwide this summer, given fans' interest in seeing "CR7" (Cristiano Ronaldo) with his new team, Juventus, instead of seeing his old team (Real Madrid) without him in the lineup, leaving either Liverpool v. Manchester City (8 P.M. Wed. 7/25 @ MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.) or Real Madrid v. Roma (8 P.M. Tu. 8/7 @ the same venue), along with the Giants' 2018 pre-season opener against the Cleveland Browns (7 P.M. Th. 8/9 @ MetLife)!

Looking ahead to the first half of September Euro trip again, though, here, now, is our new plan:

EWR🛫 🛬Brussels-National (BRU) 9/2

BRU🛫 🛬Madrid-Barajas (MAD) 9/3

Madrid: 9/3 -> 9/6

MAD🛫 🛬Charles-de-Gaulle (CDG) 9/6

Paris: 9/6-9/9

CDG🛫 🛬Rome-Fiumicino (FCO) 9/9

Rome: 9/9-11

FCO🛫 🛬Barcelona-El Prat (BCN) 9/11 (totally not spooky at all, I swear...)

Barcelona: 9/11-14

somewhere near Madrid-Barajas: 9/14-15

MAD🛫 🛬EWR 9/15
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