Rachel Stuhlmann Adds Pickleball To Her Influencing Resume, Sad Commanders Fans & Bama Signs Kevin McCarthy As Analyst
I'm back from Roanoke, VA
I know the Thursday Night Mowing League is waiting on me to pick a national champion. I know you guys are wondering why Screencaps has been slapped together this week. Now that I'm home from a last-second work trip to Roanoke -- "Virginia Swimmers Unite, Speak Out After Biological Male Pulls Lia Thomas, Tries To Join Team" -- I can get back to normal programming.
Wait, why were you in Virginia?
As many of you who have been reading since 2021, at least, I have a history with biological males joining women's swim teams. In December 2021, I was the first to talk with Lia Thomas' teammates for a story that went absolutely crazy and shot the Lia Thomas story into a national discussion.
So it only makes sense that I was in Virginia on Wednesday and Thursday for the very first team, Roanoke College, (I guess there were like two or three teammates who wouldn't step forward) to speak out against a biological male trying to join their team.
You can read the report or ignore the report. Your call.
So that's what I was up to.
General trip observations from an area I'd never visited:
• That LaGuardia American Airlines terminal is nice. My previous employer forced me to fly Spirit into LGA and I became accustomed to the filth and despair of that airport. I rolled into that American terminal and felt like I was living an out-of-body experience. It actually felt too nice & sophisticated for LGA.
• Late last night on the flight from ATL-DTW, I experienced my very first "If there's a doctor or nurse on this flight we need your help with a passenger" message. I'm not sure what the problem was at the front of the plane, but people eventually went back to their seats.
• That poor yelping dog in approximately row 22 didn't have a great flight. I feel bad for the people sitting next to the yelping dog.
• I spent Wednesday night in Salem, VA at a boutique hotel that was an old automobile manufacturing facility in like 1910. Developers took the building and converted it into like 24 units with a breakfast/lunch spot on the front of the building and a taqueria on the back side of the building.
$143 for a one-bedroom hotel room with a full kitchen, including a dishwasher and washer and dryer, was a steal.
• Note to the Salem, VA boutique hotel: You can't leave a bathroom with 1/8 of a roll of toilet paper and not leave a backup roll under the sink. Not cool!
• I was impressed with Hotel Roanoke where the press conference I was attending was held. That's about all I saw of Roanoke. I was either in a hotel room, a conference room, the taco joint, or inside an Uber. My total time on the ground was like 29 hours.
• I had no idea Roanoke was a big train city. There were like 10 tracks running straight through the heart of downtown.
• My first Roanoke Uber driver said he moved to the region from Naples, Florida as a climate refuge. I have to assume that is code for running from the authorities or the mob. The guy said he's 59 and couldn't take the heat, so he had to move. Definitely felt like he was on the run. That had to be code.
• The second Uber driver took me straight through the hood. All I kept thinking was how I'd jump out if he turned off the state routes heading from Salem to downtown Roanoke.
• Working on the road reminded me just how nice it is to work at home on two 27-inch monitors instead of a 13" monitor and switching between tabs and QuickTime videos to transcribe quotes.
Conclusion: All in all, it was a productive work trip for a storyline that OutKick has been focused on for years and seems poised to own for the years to come. Now, what random U.S. city should I drop into next?
Watching sports around the world in odd locations
• LSU fan Joe M. writes:
I’ve watched LSU and the Saints play from Seoul, Leeds, Tokyo, Brussels, Wroclaw, and Abu Dhabi, to name a few. The Japanese are baseball crazy, and had the College World Series on the Marriott TVs in the lounge during breakfast once.
I’ve watched games at very odd times; 11PM, 3AM, etc. Abu Dhabi was a challenge, because there are no “to go” alcohol sales, you can only buy booze at hotel bars. I explained to the bartender that I was going to wake up at 3AM to watch my team play.
He explained that while it was some royal holiday, and there would be no room service alcohol available, he would happily stock a cooler for me to take back to my room for later consumption. God bless Croatian bartenders.
• Paul B. writes:
While it wasn't a remote location by any means, last year I watched the Miami Dolphins play the Bengals on Thursday night on my iPad on the Amazon app. The fact I watched on my Ipad and used that app is a feat in and of itself. The day before on September 28th (I believe) Hurricane Ian came rip roaring through SWFLA. I spent the morning trying to get to my house to check on it driving past abandoned cars, downed power lines, and through swaths of storm surge flooding. Then Tua got concussed (again) and I ended up turning it off once I knew he wasn't dead.
• Steve in Georgia writes:
Tennessee fan here.
Oddest, strangest place to have watched a game was at the Blue Beetroot Hotel in Laziska, Poland in 2009. For those not in the know, that is the place to stay when shopping for Polish pottery for all of those stationed in Germany. My buddy had set me up with SlingTV that year so that I could catch the games. Anyway, stayed up watching the TN/Bama game that was the 3:30 CBS game of the week. That’s a 9:30 PM kick in Central European Time. Sat in the hotel room streaming the game as the wife crashed out after spending who knows how much on pottery during the day. It was the infamous Mount Cody block that sealed the win for Bama as time expired. Devasting to watch and to have stayed up till God-knows-when only to have your heart ripped out.
As a fellow Tennessee fan I feel I can also weigh in on the retire/quit a team. It has been years of wandering in desert and they will drive a hob-nail boot in your heart at times (thanks UGA). My enthusiasm may have waned a bit, but I still bleed Orange. I still recall my first game back at Neyland in 2018 after being out of country for years. Watching the T form and seeing the team run out brought tears to my eyes. All was right with the world and I wouldn’t have given up anything to have been there and to be a fan. Regardless of the performance on the field that fire still burns. If it doesn’t for you than so long, and I don’t want to see or hear from you again as it relates to the Vols.
Lastly, let’s circle back to the Rescue traps. I read with interest how you were battling the yellow jackets, but a comment about how they did fly traps intrigued me. An Amazon check found specific traps for flies. Enjoying the pool in the summer was difficult and we often sat out with the fly swatter and a killing field at our feet. Both neighbors have outside dogs and a couple also have chickens. Needless to say we had loads of flies. All the reviews are true – it is nasty and smelly, but it destroys the fly population. Thanks to the community for that as we have enjoyed weeks of limited flies since then.
Exotic Wood Mike gives an update on his wood travels for Jacob B.
• Mike in Pasadena writes:
I'm still here, checking in every day. Yes, I sent Sean-Jo an update along with some pics. I guess you're allowed not to check in while on vacay.
Some housekeeping first;
Few weeks ago Screencaps wasn't in its usual spot - glad to see that got fixed.
Screencaps archives need to be easily found - and turned into a searchable database. Luckily I was able to go back through a few columns and find a recommendation for a Meguiars Car drying towel, a SC community guy recommended. I bought it - saves me at least 45 minutes drying the car every weekend. Great suggestion.
I grew up in the suburbs outside of Chicago, the Bears, Bulls, Blackhawks and the White Sox are in my DNA (can't stand the obnoxious Northsiders) . I stick with these teams through thick and thin, and believe me it hasn't been easy. YOU DON'T QUIT ON YOUR TEAM.
As for my travels, I was in Bolivia earlier this year looking at some live edge Yellow Canary slabs, and some Black Curupay. This sawmill was literally in the middle of the jungle.
I was in Germany in early September, and picked up these 3 logs of Spalted European Beech. Each one of these slabs is big enough to make a dining room table that seats up to 10 people.
The "spalting" is actually a fungus that attacks the tree while laying on the ground, it creates some very interesting colors and characteristics in the wood.
Finally, I was in Canada last week looking at domestic Black Walnut logs cut for export to Europe.
The travel isn't done (my wife's not too thrilled) Italy in a few weeks, and Fiji is in the cards for a species called Monkey Pod. I'll update after those happen.
Another virtual golf sim question
• Mike in Pasadena, the exotic wood guy, writes:
Is it the Golf+ on Oculus Quest 2 that you're playing? I want to get it.
Kinsey:
That's it.
It feels like this is going to be the Christmas gift of the year for Screencaps readers.
Halloween is a bigger deal in the south than the north and it's time to stop using the bells on third down
• Brad in Charlotte always has strong, well-thought-out takes. Here's his latest:
Dear Joe: I made a concerted effort to Respect Summer by spending as much time as possible outside or at least in the garage and ‘paid it forward’ by scowling and grumbling at any display of pumpkins, corn stalks, scarecrows, etc. that appeared before September 23 or even October 1. Having lived in both the North & South of the (Eastern) US I can confirm that Halloween is a big(ger) deal in the South. Decorations on many homes and businesses are as elaborate or more elaborate than they are for Christmas. People everywhere certainly aren’t afraid of tacky Christmas decorations but some people attempt to be tasteful in their December displays indoors and out. Halloween is free of restraint and is usually 100% tacky.
The early marketing onslaught of Halloween is nothing compared to the early marketing onslaught of Christmas which sees life-size animated Santas waving at customers entering Home Depot in October or even September.
I wouldn’t presume to act as your unpaid, unwanted assignment editor but Respect Summer should probably be followed by Respect Thanksgiving. Talk to any rational adult and they’ll probably confess that they prefer Thanksgiving to Christmas. It always falls on a Thursday and means a 4-day weekend for many. The weather’s a bit better. The football is definitely better and there’s more of it – it’s the heart of the NFL season and colleges are playing their rivalry games. Christmas used to be a football or even an all-sport desert before the NBA hijacked it. Some may recall the desperation that compelled us to watch the Kelly Tire Blue-Gray Game - the only game in any town or on any TV on December 25. And, of course, Thanksgiving food is miles better. And unique. There is no pressure to buy or exchange gifts. Get together, eat a ton, watch some games, doze off and still have 3 days to do whatever you like. And there’s pumpkin pie. No contest really.
In Pat Conroy’s brilliant novel, The Lords Of Discipline (set at a thinly disguised fictional version of The Citadel), a cadet from Charleston named Tradd declares ‘It’s impossible to explain to a Yankee what ‘tacky’ is. They simply have no word for it up north, but my God, do they ever need one.’ To be fair, I think even Yankees understand tacky. Which brings us to the confluence of tacky and football: the bell tolling on third down at football games everywhere. Specifically, it is the Hell’s Bell, sampled from the AC/DC track. Prompted by your colleague Matt Riegle’s justified screed against Sweet Caroline, I hereby condemn the tolling of the bell.
Someone, somewhere inexplicably decided that the bell would strike fear in the hearts of the visiting team. That they would despair at the enormity and hopelessness of the task of reaching a first-down marker. That it would remind them of death, graveyards and haunted houses. That they should probably forfeit and get on the bus still wearing their uniforms. That nobody in the stands or on either sideline would realize it was, in fact, third down, without some ‘gameday experience’ dork in the pressbox triggering the sample. Again. That nobody would remember that after 3rd down comes 4th down – punting is not automatic and that the offense can run another play if it chooses, rendering the bell premature and irrelevant.
As with anything that might have seemed clever or original at one stadium or one game, the bell has become a plague through overuse and imitation. It isn’t scary. It’s boring. It’s repetitive. It’s lame. It’s annoying. Just like Sweet Caroline. Get rid of both.
Kinsey:
Are you a former football player who heard the bells tolling on 3rd down? Did it get you jacked up to make a big stop? Let's see if Hell's Bells actually has on-field value or if it's just a motivation to get fans up and screaming.
And while we're at it, let's also remember Penn State is 10-8 in White Out games with all of their pregame antics where Kirk Herbstreit is covered in goosebumps over the tradition and bells tolling.
That's it this morning. I didn't get home from the airport until 1:10 this morning.
Up next: I'm doing two segments with Dan Dakick, one at 10 and then 10:30. Check the front page of OutKick for those appearances.
Have an incredible weekend. I'm going to get a little time off after a busy week. I'm here tomorrow and then off Monday.
Email: joekinsey@gmail.com