Sleep tight, you know the rest

May 26, 2020, on Tuesday morning at about 5:30 a.m. or so

Got er did fer today at least, what follers is what er did,

I noticed that ESPN followed up their Michael Jordan documentary "The Last Dance" with one about Lance Armstrong annoyingly titled "Lance" or something like that. Aside from the maybe obvious issues with the choice of subject following one about Michael Jordan, I  have one silly stupid question concerning the choice of topic. That question to put it delicately is "Does anyone in their right mind give a flying fart about Lance Armstrong?"  I know I couldn't care any less about that guy and even though we share the same name and I do like him the only reason I watched most of the Jordan episodes is that I found the subject matter interesting and compelling. I don't really care what the uber millionaire ex-teammates had to say about him and only later, in the show was it interesting in any context. I don't care what Mrs. Pippen thinks and I could care less what Isiah Thomas had to say about Jordan or the Bulls mostly because he was a big phony at the time and is a braggart and a sore loser with an insufferable mouth and a huge ego now. The one person who I sort of understood in his reaction was Bill Laimbeer, the bad boy of Pistons fame and he didn't say all that much. Pretty much he said, "I lived it, and crap, It's TV man.". That I understand.

Being in a self-imposed quarantine and then watching the news and other reports about people packing the beaches and other resorts without regard to the deadliness of this virus are sort of surreal. It's like no we are not in the middle of a pandemic, No we are not in the realm of 100,000 dead and more dying every day. No over ten thousand health care workers have not died from this thing, No blacks, and poor folks and old folks are not dying at a rate higher than anyone else. Forget all of that, the water is warm, the waves are kicking, the sand is inviting, come on in baby!!

To listen to all the folks on Facebook and other social media talk there is no virus, people wearing masks are idiots, the CDC and every other doctor has no idea what they are talking about because they are obviously stupid and a bunch of liberals, this is all a hoax to make us get chipped so "they" can control us and can reduce the population. It doesn't matter that there isn't a "chip" that can carry its own power source to constantly report your location for any significant length of time and that what they are describing is actually the damn cell phone in their own pocket, that that technology is not available to track 350 million people via this mysterious "chip".

It doesn't matter that there is no actual vaccine or cure for this available and it just does not seem to matter that facts do not matter. Memes matter, pictures matter even if they are photoshopped and you can prove it, being outraged about proven science doesn't matter and the more outrageous the better or so it seems. I am confused and think any day now they are going to announce that Gatorade is going to be used for plant irrigation. Damn the torpedos and full steam ahead**!!

I'm hooked on those shows that are about the Zoos. Between them and the Veterinarian shows I have learned a bunch about animals and their conservancy that I never knew before I started watching. I especially like the ones that come from the Bronx zoo where Dr. Jim Breheny is the director. He just has a way about him that explains the subject matter in a simple way even if the matter being discussed is complex and pretty serious. It gives you a whole new level of respect for individuals that choose to be workers and zookeepers in the individual parks.

My daughter and one of her oldest friends went last weekend in the Zoo in Jacksonville Fl. They have been around each other since the virus started because her friend just moved from another state and she has been helping her pack and unpack and so forth. At the end of the move in experience, they went to the Zoo. She was telling me about hand-feeding the Giraffes. It didn't really become real until she showed me a picture one of them took in the tower they use to interact with the giraffes. It looks sort of like a treehouse and is probably 20-25 feet up in the air. Looking at her in the picture, knowing what her size is and then mentally comparing it to the Giraffe that was standing flat-footed sticking its head in the treehouse really brings the size and scale of this animal into focus. Man, this thing had to be 20 feet tall. It was amazing. She had a great time and now I hate that skittle commercial where the guy is milking a giraffe even more than I did before.

Yesterday I had to admit out loud that I really didn't know what the definition of the Millenial generation was because once my wife told me what it was, It was apparent that none of my kids are anywhere near it. I feel sorry for parents that didn't know they were raising their children to be like that. The fact that they did it with the participation trophies and the instant gratification and all that? Yeah, that's all on them, I didn't do it. My kids paid for their own cell phones by being on a pay as you go plan until they understood it. They had to put a large portion of their paychecks into savings every payday to make sure they understood the value of money. They had to pay for their own things unless it was something special because I didn't want a bunch of entitled brats following me around asking for money until they were 40. They had to balance their bank accounts each month until they were 18 to prove they could handle their own money. Yeah, sounds like I'm clueless and mean huh?

I don't care, they can all take care of themselves now because the objective the whole time was not to raise kids. It was to raise adults. Actually, we all laugh at Millenials as they are shown on TV now.

I'll take English Literature of the 1500s for $800 Alex (barf)

1. Did you know that Rachel Welch and Jayne Mansfield both were discussed for the role of Ginger on Gilligans Island? Apparently, Jayne's husband didn't want her to take the role because he thought it was beneath her and Ms. Welch wasn't "The Girl next door" type enough for the producers. Man they are nuts.
   
   
2. Three big industries are going to undergo major revisions and changes in how they do business once we are in better shape from the quarantine due to the pandemic. The changes will probably be radical and immediate.
   
   First to change will be the airline industry where meals and amenities will drastically change. On some flights where the accommodations can't be made fast enough, meals will probably be eliminated. You won't be able to get a pillow or a blanket on a lot of flights either. Also according to experts, you will see unprofitable planes, associations, routes and some smaller airlines will just not recover, They will just fade out and die.
   
   Next look at the Rental Car industry. Cars will change, pick up and drop off will change and also experts say that more locations that are independent of airports will emerge as a way to hedge their bet against this kind of stoppage again. Also, changes will probably be made to the type of cars offered as the luxury car was hit hardest in this segment and more average vehicles will be offered instead.
   
   Lastly and by no means is this a complete list as hundreds of industries will change, but restaurants are already undergoing a radical shift and a contraction not seen since the last recession. Locations are closing, some highly leveraged cash-poor locations have already closed and you will see hundreds of restaurants massively change in the way they do business. There will be more reliance on moving car traffic and less on the dine-in patron. Less glossy menus and more single-use disposable items will be seen as well. A lot of fan-favorite but expensive SKU's are being eliminated industry-wide, and I say that was a long time coming.
   
   
3. Tesla is deploying a new cheaper battery strategy in China this year. They have filed the necessary paperwork with the Chinese government to allow them to make and sell cars with Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries instead of the usual Lithium-Ion batteries of the past. An advantage of using this battery style is that it is a cheaper alternative and it doesn't use cobalt its construction. Cobalt is a rare earth metal and is very expensive. The one disadvantage is that the newer style of battery is less energy-dense, however, Tesla has said they are as productive as their current battery and are relatively safer to use because they do not ignite as easily nor burn as fast as Lithium-Ion batteries do.
   
   
4. The UFC is experimenting with a change in its cage size, decreasing the cage from 30' to 25'. Some analysts say this will lead to fights that push fighters together faster meaning they will have a higher percentage chance of a finish to the fight rather than to a decision. Stay tunes.
   
   
5. One industry I am in favor of seeing big changes in the way it is structured is AirBnB. That has been a business segment that is rife with tales of corruption and scammed travelers and people losing money all over the world. The idea was pretty fanciful, but the way it was implemented was an invitation to over-regulation and corruption.
   
   In my view it is just too big of a risk, is too dangerous, too many people have been scammed or ripped off altogether, there is too much ability to run bait and switch operations and there are just too many problems presented in doing business on the fly while trusting people to police themselves in a so-called self-regulated market. The biggest issue is there aren't any industry-wide standards like there are in the hotel industry, which invites public discussion and overreaction and regulation. What standards there are, get so loosely enforced that it is laughable. In some countries and even in some areas in the US, the authorities that regulate such things don't even know they exist.
   
   I'm not actually in favor of government regulation but somebody should be looking for bedbugs occasionally.
   
   Sleep tight, You know the rest,
   BigMike