current status
current status
(The USMNT have scored some goals tonight but only when Trinidad got tired. They remain a very limited side.)
We need to be clear-minded about this: the USMNT is, at best, slightly better than Trinidad and Tobago. How did American soccer decline to this abysmal point? And what could be done to reverse the decline? ⚽️
Let’s look at the USMNT:
There are some once-decent players (e.g. Bradley a decade ago) and one or two promising young players (Pulisic, McKennie) but no — literally no — players that you can count on to be productive.
So what happened? Why has the talent base of the USMNT manifestly declined in recent years?
⚽️
Also, the USMNT will probably win today, but I wish we could have a serious inquiry into the utter poverty of soccer talent in this country. ⚽️
I know that referee-bashing is an international sport these days, and I regret that, but nevertheless I just want to go on record saying that the Matildas had the match stolen from them today. ⚽️
One thing the Apple Watch does poorly: measure activity. Yesterday I took an hour-long walk, then came back and worked hard in the garden for another hour, and the Watch said I had exercised for 23 minutes.
I don’t know what’s typical or normal, but for the record: My wife and I have “never for one millisecond” (her phrase) felt “ambivalent” or “conflicted” about having a child, or felt our identities under threat, or wanted to flee from him. And thank God for that.
A year or so ago I decided that the Apple Watch hardware and software had probably reached a level of maturity that made it worth a try. I bought one; I hated it; I returned it. Yet another device I have to charge every night? I went back to using a Garmin smartwatch and carrying my phone around all the time.
But I don’t like carrying a phone around all the time. I am particularly resentful when I find myself deciding what trousers to wear based on how comfortable a pocket they provide for the phone. And then it occurred to me: What if I got an Apple Watch with cellular connectivity? I decided to give that a try.
Report: I love my new Apple Watch. My iPhone almost never leaves my bedside table now. On the Watch I am able to get phone calls and texts from my family and friends, but I don’t have a ton of other things to distract me or tempt me. I don’t have to wear another device to track my activity. When I’m out for walks I can listen to podcasts. I drop the Watch on its charger at night and all the necessary syncing happens.
The only problem is from Apple’s point of view, not mine: I have an iPhone 7 and probably won’t buy a newer model until it is no longer compatible with new versions of WatchOS.
Commercial websites are, by and large, so aggressively hostile to reading that I work very hard to avoid seeing their pages. I’m a heavy RSS user, and from my RSS reader I save posts I want to read directly to Instapaper. When I’m forced to go to a site in Safari I immediately choose the “Use Reader Automatically” option for that site. I don’t do all this because the sites have ads. I do all this because the design of the ads makes it impossible for me to read the site’s posts.
This from Austin Kleon is spot on. In my experience — and I say this both as a writer and as a Christian — the scariest thing that can happen is also the best thing: genuinely getting to Empty. Genuinely having nothing to give. Because it’s only at that point that you can truly realize that “It’s not inside you trying to get out, it’s outside you trying to get in.”
Cliff swallows going to and from their nests.
After reading this I’m thinking that @robinsloan needs to write an Editorial Rejection-Letter Bot. “We are sorry, but your novel, though well-written, does not have enough shadowy keeps and road-weary rangers. The absence of pumpkins is also regrettable.”
And the flowers strewn across my path.
It was all worth it for the views.
And of course I did it, I’m a manly man
They said the trail is “a little technical in places,” but I didn’t know that meant I’d have to use ropes to get myself down to the canyon floor.
Pretty far outside Chicago, mind you.
