Lindsey Vonn Gets Sweaty In The Gym With A Grueling Ab Workout That Would Break You, MY Reds Are Close & MEAT!
Plus: Are corn dogs the best fair food?
I actually have some news to share this morning besides that I'll be stepping out an hour early to go cover the National Tractor Pull
The email I've been waiting on for a couple of years finally arrived — my press credential to the world-famous Equip Expo, the Super Bowl of Commercial Landscaping, was approved and one way or another, I'll be heading to Louisville from Oct. 21-24 to do business.
Besides spreading the Thursday Night Mowing League gospel and investigating what's new in landscaping equipment, I also plan on meeting with Screencaps readers who will be working and attending the show.
Guy G. in western New York told me he'll be there. I also heard from Screencaps reader ‘Downriver’ who'll be working a booth.
Let's get a list going on who'll be there, what booth you'll be at, etc. I hear it's a big place. I'll ask ChatGPT to create a spreadsheet for my trip.
Canoe Kirk will be there with his wife, Holly, who is a landscaping executive in Michigan. I'm sure they'll want to meet a few of you as well.
And if there's an industry party I should be attending, just say the word. I'm going into this as a free agent.
Speaking of the tractor pull, help settle a debate that's brewing
I'm partial to funnel cakes based on perceived value. Canoe Kirk, on the other hand, loves inhaling corn dogs because he claims to hate sweets. Instead, he'll hammer multiple corn dogs and Busch Lights.
The corn dogs are great, don't get me wrong, but it feels like they're gone too quick. The funnel cakes take some work to get through.
There's something about walking through those gates of the Wood County Fairgrounds tonight. The energy is just different as these machines put the hammer down across a patch of dirt. The people watching reminds me of going to Trader's World just north of Cincinnati as a kid.
There are characters everywhere.
A fight can break out at any moment between good old boys who've been into the whiskey. It's county fair, the mall, a football game, NASCAR, a country concert, camping, and cornfield bonfire all rolled into one.
It's one of the last remaining pure American sports.
Boomer Screencaps reader wonders what it will take to have statues returned to their perches
— Jeff from Texas asks:
To help with your survey, I am a baby boomer that enjoys most of the topics you cover. And if I don't want to read it I scroll past it like anyone should.
I'm sitting here tonight after the last game of tonight's LLWS and end up switching to Hannity only because the Astros are off and Clay is on with Hannity. They were making some great points, and now so is Gutfeld and guests, about getting back to normalcy somewhat after all the woke bullshit we have put up with in the last 4 years. I don't know anyone with any pull but I'm pretty sure you can reach out to someone who does to get all the statues that were taken down during the BLM BS to maybe have them put back up. The dems are trying to erase history.
I need to say one more thing. I live just outside of Kerrville where the flooding was the worst. I was not affected personally by the flood but know folks that were. The outreach of people from all over the country and the world has been nothing short of amazing to help all the people that were devastated. There's more good people out there than the liberal media wants you to believe.
Keep up the good work.
Kinsey:
Did the woks have the statues melted down? I have no idea whether statues were put into storage or if they were thrown into dumps. Anyone know? We have people who work in so many different fields that I wouldn't be shocked to hear from one of you who was ordered to remove an Abraham Lincoln statue in some East Coast town.
Like I said, we have readers who have done all sorts of jobs like fly F-16s
— John in Destin reports:
[Thursday's] column made me decide to give you more demographic data. I am 65 and have been reading SC I think as long as it has been around. I grew up in the Midwest (Northwest Illinois) so I can relate to a lot of your topics. I spent 20 years in the military initially as a backseater in F-4s, than as and F-16 pilot my last 16 years. After I retired, I still worked for the AF as a missile tester for any new stuff coming down the pike. It kept me interested and busy until I retired again a couple of years ago.
I initially found Clay Travis while I was looking for some non-woke sports stuff. Once I found the website, I found SC and I was hooked.
Unfortunately, I am not eligible for the TNML because since my kids have been off on their own the wife and I have moved to a condo in Florida so I don’t have the need. I enjoy reading about the travails of young parents and especially the kids baseball stuff. Way different than when I played or coached my son.
Don’t get me wrong, we still had a**hole parents but it seems like it has gotten worse. I also enjoy the different arguments discussions on everything from grilling, to firewood stacking to Heidi’s bellybutton (that’s not where my eyes go). I don’t miss a day, even when on the road visiting grandkids. Keep up the good work and give a shout out to the Night Caps crew too. I don’t miss their inputs either. Have a great day.
Kinsey:
Missile tester? I'm going to need to know what that entails. I'm not looking for national secrets. Just how that works. Is that an eight-hour shift? Do you go get Chipotle on lunch break after shooting missiles?
F-16 file photo. That's NOT John in Destin. / AFP PHOTO / JUNG Yeon-Je
Inside the world of satellites from Brandon, who famously wrote about the Russian defense contractor conference
— Brandon C. is on the move & this time he was at a satellite conference. I'll let him explain:
Report from the front lines of satellite industry mayhem:
Attended the Small Satellite conference in Salt Lake City, UT this week. Small satellites are any satellite smaller than 1000 kg (think refrigerator and smaller). Some of these are even as small as Kleenex boxes. Today, small satellites form the basis of the new space economy, such as Elon Musk's Starlink internet sats that enable your smartphone gambling apps, the imagery satellites that power Google Maps, and a bunch of national security missions.
Now when this conference started it was in a single lecture hall in a small college town in Logan UT and attendees were mostly academics, military researchers who were just crazy enough to try things, and entrepreneurs who more resembled the as seen on TV guys than respected businessmen.
Over the years, the conference has grown to the point where they finally left the college town after taking up every hotel room and Airbnb rental literally in a 40-mile radius, and moved the conference to downtown Salt Lake City. 4700 people, over 400 exhibitors representing literally over $300B in market capitalization. It's a big deal.
This is the year that it seems like small satellites have gone corporate. Out of the 400 exhibitors, probably 250 were hardware manufacturers or software companies selling products commercially. Huge amounts of money are being poured into the market by US defense contracts, global commercial services providers, venture capital firms and the like.
The booths here are displays of space hardware and software demos. Solar arrays, full sized satellite models, rocket components, simulations showing satellites orbiting the earth, and slick videos showing satellites with robotic arms grabbing onto and repairing other satellites (all with humans out of the loop by the way). Big themes this year were "we make hardware not in China", "our widget isn't made in China", and "our thing is compatible with whatever Elon Musk says".
The booths swag is dominated by nerd gear. Octopus charging cords, micro screwdriver sets, alien-themed plush dolls or sunglasses, astronaut ice cream. The raffle giveaways are similarly space geek heaven-- multi-hundred dollar Lego sets on space themes, Nintendo switch units, raspberry pi computer kits, and the like. The golden ticket prizes are free registrations to other space conferences in exotic locales coming up- Australia, Sardinia, Maui... And Big Sky, Montana??
Booth attendees are a mix of fresh-out-of-college, MIT/Stanford/USC types looking to "break paradigms" with their "innovative" tech, retired military senior officers looking to cash in one more big payday before they retire a second time, and foreign engineers wondering why the US military won't buy a satellite from a start up company in Slovenia. The conference is overwhelmingly male-- females are sparse, and usually former Air Force or (if recently serving) Space Force.
Brilliant ladies, and not the "booth babes" you see at other trade shows. The big fish are the limited number of government program managers who have approved budget numbers, the Space Force seniors who might be able to solve your security clearance problems.... Or someone from Elon Musk/Jeff Bezos/Venture Capital fairy money land.
The real fun is in the evenings at the corporate parties. So many in this industry worked with/for/over each other, the vibe is more college reunion than Wolf of wall Street. With the input of VC money now into space, it has gotten more glitzy and more profit focused, but the dynamics are the same-- govt employees fighting to get invited to industry parties for free food and alcohol so that they can pocket the per diem money, and "new money" CEOs who are fighting twin urges to try and talk business all the time or sing karaoke "Mr. Brightside" with the hired band.
Even in stodgy Utah, the booze flowed like water and the lines were 30 min long for free street tacos.
Overall, the vibe here is much more relaxed than the overly corporate environment of the big Colorado Springs space conference every year, but even here, the creep of big money influence is encroaching. Used to be the highlight of this conference was assembling on the rooftop college dive bar (The White Owl in Logan) with excellent burgers and cheap pitchers of low ABV Utah beer while hanging out with your former active-duty mates / black program bros / fellow failed space capitalists / and college alums. Now it's matching corporate polo shirts and expense reports and hunting for the next deal. I guess even conferences grow up.
Don't sleep on this world-class sporting event in SW Ohio
— Mike from Centerville (I think we're up to at least two, maybe three Mike from Centerville emailers; guys, you might need to add something to your bio to distinguish which one you are) writes:
Me and my little misses have been together since the spring of 2008 and one of the things she did in those early months, sure to impress me, was get front row tickets to the Cincinnati (Mason) Open. She's a tennis player and bought the tix off the local club.
It was a semifinal match between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. The stadium was packed. Pure Awesomeness!
It was a great match, but what impressed me more was the event around it. Lots of different food, drinks, live band....and, quite frankly, other hot women. In my life, and I have been to many other different sporting events, I had never ever experienced anything like that. Maybe PGA golf.
I really wasn't into tennis (I played baseball and basketball), but the misses got be hooked on tennis.
We've been going every year since and have seen great tennis and world-class athletes. In fact, we've been to Indian Wells (Palm Springs, CA) and the original Miami open (Key Biscayne) which are part of the 9 world Masters 1000 Series for tennis. In our humble opinion, even before the major capital expenditures into Mason, the Linder facility was better.
So, for tennis, there are the 4 majors (like golf), but they're all in the same permanent locations. And for tennis there's another 9 major events called the 1000 Series. 4 are in Europe 1 in China and 4 in North America (Indian Wells, Miami, Toronto/Montreal, Cincy).
We're blessed to have this world-class event in the Midwest and really blessed to have it in southwest Ohio.
Here's a pic I took today who I believe is Prince Harry (do your own confirmation), he was sitting in the "Coaches, Players & Guests" seating. Front row. Talking to and rooting for the top ranked British Men's double team.
Kinsey:
That's Prince Harry? Are you sure?
Would Indiana Screencaps readers like to have a summit in Indianapolis?
— Indy Daryl writes:
Evening! Standing in the kitchen getting dinner prepped for the family and I realized that I hadn’t heard or seen anything about a possible Indy SC crew getting together. Please feel free to pass along my email to anyone who you think may be interested. Happy to join or help coordinate as needed. Would be really fun!
Kinsey:
If you guys figure out a plan, I will come down as long as it doesn't interfere with my kids' fall sports events. And I might be able to get Dan Dakich to stop by.
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That is it for this Friday morning. The email inbox is LOADED. You guys better be reading Saturday Screencaps because I'm going to empty it out. Anything sent this week that's remaining is going in.
The sun is out. It's August. Let's have a great weekend.
Email: joe.kinsey@outkick.com or use my personal Gmail