Keeping up with The Jones

Monday, March 05, 2007

Coffee makers

I don’t really know how to make coffee. I understand the basics, of course. I just don’t have any reason to acquire the necessary field experience to work out the details.

This became an issue for the first time ever today when Captain Steve called me at the corps and told me to make some coffee. There was a three alarm fire on the south part of the island, and we needed to load up our emergency canteen to go provide for the firefighters.

As I stood lamely looking at the coffee maker, two of our younger teen boys eagerly offered their assistance. They assured me that they knew what they were doing. I figured they couldn’t mess things up any worse than I would, so I put them to work while I started boiling water for hot chocolate.

The boys were absolutely delighted. They gleefully got to work and kept saying things like, “This is fun! I like making coffee!”

As I watched them fill the cambro one pot at a time, I couldn’t help but wonder what the coffee would taste like (wondering was all I could do; I don’t drink coffee so a taste test would be useless). I figured I just had to trust them; I needed to have as much as I could ready by the time Capt arrived so our response time would be as swift as possible.

At one point while I was readying some things in the next room, I overheard the following exchange between the two:

“Come on. We’ve got a job to do.”

“This isn’t really a job. I mean, we don’t get paid or anything.”

“Who cares if we don’t get paid? We get to know that we’re helping people.”

So who cares if the fire was taken care of by the time we arrived, leaving us nothing to do but turn around and come back. That was still the best coffee I’ve never tasted.

11 Comments:

At 3/05/2007 7:49 PM, Blogger AaronG said...

How do you not drink coffee? Coffee is fantastic. And not the Starbucks stuff either (being that it costs my firstborn son for a cup). Good homebrewed, grinded coffee.

And, btw, I hate North Carolina. Hasbro, or whatever his name is, is a punk. Serves him right. But it wasn't deliberate. It's the one time I've ever agreed with Billy Packer.

 
At 3/05/2007 7:50 PM, Blogger AaronG said...

I miss cambros.

 
At 3/05/2007 8:39 PM, Blogger Steve said...

I cannot imagine how you could agree with the clinically insane Billy Packer on this issue. I'm a high school basketball official, who doesn't care about Duke or North Carolina, and I can tell you that was an obvious intentional flagrant foul. I would have liked to see the guy suspended for three games.

 
At 3/05/2007 9:17 PM, Blogger AaronG said...

Yes. But remember you also blow the whistle if a player enters the key before the ball hits the rim on a foul shot.

henderson was already in the air when the ball was blocked and pulled his arm back as much as he could -- trying to adjust to the fact that there was no longer a ball there. It was a foul. It was a flagrant foul. But it didn't merit ejection or suspension. That's about as insane as Packer himself.

 
At 3/05/2007 9:48 PM, Blogger Steve said...

Well, no, you don't blow the whistle if a player on the other team enters the paint before the ball hits the rim on a foul shot. You raise your right arm to indicate a reserved violation, which you call only if the foul shot misses.

But I didn't see that part of the play, so I don't know if that's relevant.

You don't know the rules - a flagrant foul (and I'm reading here from the official NCAA rulebook) is an AUTOMATIC ejection (Rule 10-2-1f). And it's defined as "severe, excessive contact with an opponent or contact that is extreme in nature," while the ball is live (Rule 4-26-4).

I watch that tape and can't imagine anyone thinking Henderson didn't have intent to injure Hansborough when he drove his arm directly into his face. But then again, I forgot Hansborough is a 'punk,' and so it 'serves him right.'

 
At 3/06/2007 10:37 AM, Blogger jdjones said...

Gentlemen, gentlemen.

The issue seems clear to me. I'm not saying he had intention of hurting Psycho T. But he did have a reckless disregard for whether anyone would be hurt. Anyway, intent to injure is not a prerequisite for calling a flagrant, which this foul certainly was (we all agree on that). A flagrant comes with an automatic ejection which comes with an automatic one game suspension, so those points are moot.

And lest anyone forget, in one of last year's games between the two, immediately after Carolina made the play to effectively secure the game, one of the Dukies shoved Hansborough in the face and to the floor (in a dead ball situation), and nothing was called. If anyone is served right, it is when the true punks are punished.

 
At 3/06/2007 11:28 AM, Blogger Steve Carroll said...

you guys have the wrong blog this is the coffee blog the silly college "basketblog" is down stairs one level

 
At 3/06/2007 2:22 PM, Blogger AaronG said...

I stand corrected on the NCAA rules. I'm more familiar with NBA rules and a flagrant foul doesn't necessarily warrant and ejection. Then again, the NBA is a pushover league anyway so I could be wrong.

As for the foul shot, I was making fun of high school basketball rules. it's the dumbest rule. josh taught me that.

Also, his "entire hand" didn't go to his face. As the arm was sweeping through and pulling back because he noticed the ball was already swiped away, only his elbow hit him. That's injurious enough, sure. But his elbow hit him because he was bending his arm to keep from swatting a ball that was no longer there. I'm guessing he was jacked up on the play cause he was going to reject the ball. But malicious intent to injure? C'mon. You're telling me then that he had every intention of smacking him in the face. I say he had every intention of smacking the ball away. Hardcore rejection style. It just so happened that the ball got stripped a split second before. No way he could think to himself: oh, the ball's not there, maybe I'll smack him in the nose. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.

And how come no one brings up the fact that Hasbro Toys was still in the came up double digits with 16 seconds left in the game? In the spirit of Larry Legend, that's fine with me. But you also got to realize the players are gonna take hard shots at him. And this was an attempt at a hard shot at hasbro toys that went slightly askew because it's basketball, and things happen fast.

 
At 3/06/2007 2:23 PM, Blogger AaronG said...

And don't you love it when people post on issues not at all related to the actual post. It's my favorite part of blogging. People do it to me all the time.

And seriously, how do you not drink coffee?

 
At 3/06/2007 8:04 PM, Blogger Steve said...

Hansbrough had a sub at the scorer's table and the guy missed the FT, so he couldn't come out. And Coach K had called a timeout just a little before, so he clearly didn't think the game was over.

Intent and conscious desire are different. I don't think he thought it through as you described, but I think he was trying to hit him in the face, on purpose.

 
At 3/13/2007 3:03 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thankfuly Josh leaves the coffee drinking to the experts. Now you all have to move on to the the next batch of round ball. The big dance will provide more controversy I'm sure.

 

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