I’m not comfortable with The TICKET breaking up Bob and Dan, but I like the idea both are staying at the station, so that’s me looking at the bright side of things. Bob and Dan developed great chemistry, a whole opposites attract sort of thing and it was fun watching the whole chemical reaction thing work out –  a bit weird and heated at first and then stable, even with producers coming and going. I really didn’t think the change in hosts was going to surprise me, but it did. I don’t think it’s a bad thing (no pun intended), just surprising. As Craig said, Jake is already a familiar voice in that time slot. Speaking of growing in adulthood with him, it’s been fun hearing Jake over the years. As someone who’s a bit older, it’s neat hearing him go through different life stages and remembering what that was like and then being able to predict how he’s gonna be changed. Best of luck to him and Dan. Of all The TICKET folk, Dan is my leader, by far.

I’ve been seeing a lot of electronic billboards advertising Sarah Huckabee Sanders being interviewed during Sunday worship services at First Baptist Dallas on the first of March.  On the church’s webpage, her biography mentions her work with Bono and the ONE campaign. I’m surprised they included that little nugget, I get the impression that Bono and the ONE campaign isn’t held in high regard in the Baptist community, that he’s too much of a universalist and his Irish and rock star ways are hypocritical of the Christian faith.

I was a bit surprised to learn in Peter King’s latest article that the NFL has been using footballs with embedded computer chips (RFID) in them since 2017. A cursory search shows they are only being used for statistical gathering, nothing relating to officiating, though I expect that to change within the next five years (actually, even sooner). A company called Zebra Technologies is behind it. My initial impression was that this was probably some sort of small startup and maybe I should look into investing in it, but it turns out the company is trading around $247 a share. According to Wikipedia, in 2018, the company had sales of $4.218 billion and had a market capitalization of $12.55 billion

Not only are the footballs embedded with chips, but so are the players’ pads.

Every stadium venue is outfitted with the receivers and antennas, and those are all aimed appropriately to have every inch of the field covered. The players wear RFID tags embedded into their shoulder pads, located just underneath the epaulets — every player has them.

The software is unique in the sense that every tag that’s located on a player is assigned to that player. Each player wears two tags: a left and a right. The down linemen wear a third tag just because they go down into a stance.

If you’re curious if the weight of the ball is affected by this chip about the size of a nickel –

We worked with Wilson in Ada, Ohio to implant a tracking device inside the football.  Even with our chips, the football still weighs the same as it did ten years ago, Wilson did a great job of being able to reduce a minor bit of the bladder and incorporate our tag. We can collect statistics to compare a Tom Brady throw to an Aaron Rodgers throw, you can see the difference in spin, number of evolutions, and even the force on a similar type of pass.

Big Ten football ref Dan Capron is retiring and had some interesting things to say about some famous coaches in a recent interview.

• On Bo Polini: “The worst coach I’ve ever worked for, ever, not even close, no one within 10 miles, is Bo Pelini.”
• On Urban Meyer: “He is unlike any other Big Ten coach. He is distant, uncommunicative. He had a staff member whose job it was to communicate with the officials. Any time I would approach his sideline, he would turn and go the other direction.:
• The time Joe Paterno almost ran him over:
  • We’re in Columbus and it’s late in the first half, our final TV timeout. Penn State is pinned back and punting. I raise my hand to signal ready for play. All of a sudden I see Coach Paterno running onto the field and right at me. He has his head down and he is running at me. The stadium almost went silent. What’s going to happen next? He’s coming and coming and gets within five yards and runs right past me. A less experienced referee might have thrown a flag, but I’m like: Let’s not make trouble out of nothing. I blow the ball ready for play, they punt the ball and the half ends uneventfully. (Penn State defensive coordinator) Tom Bradley is now running off the field for halftime. I say, “Coach, what was that about?” He says: “Joe’s got a touch of the flu; he had a little diarrhea. He had to go.”

As for his most embarrassing moment:

Referee Dan Capron once announced, “Timeout, Wisconsin.” The crowd erupted in laughter. Why? The teams on the field were Nebraska and Miami.

I’m just about finished with preparing my taxes and was surprised that one could be taxed on virtual currency such as Bitcoin. As far as I know, Schrute Bucks are still untaxable.

Baylor Scott & White has fewer people in its hospitals — and much higher profits

“You wouldn’t think you’d go to jail over medical bills”: County in rural Kansas is jailing people over unpaid medical debt

• Tres and Heather Biggs’ son Lane was diagnosed with leukemia when he was 5 years old. At the same time, Heather suffered seizures from Lyme disease. “We had so many — multiple health issues in our family at the same time, it put us in a bracket that made insurance unattainable,” Heather Biggs said. “It would have made no sense. We would have had to have not eaten, not had a home.”
• Tres Biggs went to jail for failing to appear in court for unpaid medical bills. He described it as “scary.” “I was scared to death,” Tres Biggs said. “I’m a country kid — I had to strip down, get hosed and put a jumpsuit on.”
• The attorney uses that law by asking the court to direct people with unpaid medical bills to appear in court every three months and state they are too poor to pay in what is called a “debtors exam. “If two hearings are missed, the judge issues an arrest warrant for contempt of court. Bail is set at $500.

What does a 9 inch ice core sound like when dropped down a 450 foot hole? Like this! Credit to @peter_neff for the idea and @Scripps_Polar, @sciencejenna, @GeosciencesPU, @US_IceDrilling, and @paleosurface for the execution! pic.twitter.com/pW7LxKdbUB

— John Andrew Higgins (@blueicehiggins) February 7, 2020

https://twitter.com/pj_hawx/status/1226659937599868928