I've been a busy referee bee this week, had a JV game on both Wednesday and Thursday nights and then a varsity high school game last night. I can feel it in my knees this morning. Tonight I'm supposed to do 3 youth games and I hope I can hold up. I didn't think I'd make it through last night at one point. I was watching a play develop in front of me and to my right and as I started to turn I caught a blocker coming at me from my left out of the corner of my eye. He slams into a linebacker to my left and both of them end up into me. I really thought I was about to get flattened and to make matters worse, the running back turned upfield and gets hit right in front of me. I barely kept to my feet and that was a good thing as the whole pile of tacklers and running back end up at my feet. That was a close one.
I've been run into, blocked into, and a few times I've been knocked off my feet in games. Fortunately I've never found myself in the pile of people where the ball carrier gets tackled. That's where a lot of bad things happen. I even managed to tackle a kid earlier this year. It was one of the youth games a few weeks back. Down near the goal line a kid comes tearing through a hole and heads right at me. Now in those situations, I have nowhere to go and if I try I'll probably make things worse. I can't see where the tacklers are behind and to my side so if I step one way or the other, I may be stepping into more problems than I have in front of me. So my best bet is to stand there and let the kid decide whether to cut left or right then step the other way. I wait and this kid doesn't cut. He comes right at me and hits me in the thigh then falls to the ground. And then he's pissed I didn't get out of the way. Guess the kid never got the message. Maybe next time he will. Good thing he wasn't any bigger or I might have ended up in one of those piles. Anyway last night was the closest I've come to being in my own disaster.
Work has been the usual disaster lately. Seems like almost everything I touch turns into a huge mess that takes me hours to repair. It keeps me busy and gives me job security at least. I've been getting a bit of a reputation in my department for being a go to person for certain issues such as issues involving AT&T (figuring cost information for this company is a complete disaster if it goes back any time at all) and complex problems involving corporate actions. So one of the guys asks me about looking up an old price on GM.
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One of the stocks I will never buy as well as one of the vehicles I will never again own is General Motors. Besides being disgusted by how the whole GM bankruptcy was handled and the money the taxpayers forked over for that, I am really a bit peeved over how the current General Motors almost ignores the company history prior to 2009. Everything that happened prior to then was another company and they have gone out of their way in my opinion to disassociate themselves from their previous selves. And the way they tried to reorganize after the bankruptcy - with our governments assistance and insistance - and cut out the people who had a legal claim to GMs assets in favor of the unions who had no legal claim just made it worse. It got so bad the bond holders rebelled and threatened to back out of the deal. That would have forced the GM to dissolve and pay off the creditors rather than reorganize. Eventually bond holders were given a better deal in the new GM and they relented and the reorganization went through. Once the IPO for the new GM came to pass, old GM bondholders were given shares in the new GM as well as warrants allowing them to purchase more shares at set prices. There were a lot of bond holders so we had to process a lot of corporate actions to convert the bond holders shares to new common stock and warrant shares. I did much of that work as well as determining what the proper quantities and cost basis percentages would be. A bit later on I was trying to look up info on old GM and went to the corporate website where I found they basically ignored all of their history prior to 2009. Which I thought was pretty crappy of them but not unexpected. Some companies embrace their history, others ignore it and then repeat it.
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Because I was pretty involved in the corporate actions surrounding the reorganization, I've got a fair amount of GM info trapped in my noggin. So one of the reps had a question on getting prices for old GM shares and I gave him what the old GM stock symbol was as well as what I thought the old cusip. A cusip is a 9 digit number used to identify a stock in the US and every stock, mutual fund, and bond has a different one. When a company goes through a corporate action like a reverse stock split, a merger, or a name change they usually get a different cusip and to look up info on the old security, you need to know the old cusip. There are 3 stocks I have dealt with on a regular basis that require a lot of work to untangle sometimes, AT&T, Verizon, and GM. I know the cusip of the original AT&T stock by heart as well as Verizon's and I knew most of GM's cusip and guessed the rest. Which impressed a few of the people around me, though I don't know why. It's a 9 digit number, almost like knowing a phone number. So I know 3 phone numbers by heart. Or maybe I'm a bit anally retentive on numbers. I still remember my family phone number from when I grew up and we haven't lived there in 30 years. Anyway, because of this and a couple of other things, I've been getting a lot of requests for assistance on some complex issues. It eats into my time a little but I'm glad to share a little knowledge and help out my fellow man (and woman) on occasion.
No poker for me this weekend. The not so little girl is home from school for the weekend while we fix her car up. Her engine fan and a relay appear to be bad and the car runs hot when it sits in traffic too long. I'm so busy reffing this weekend besides coughing up a lung that I have no desire to play. I guess I'll get my gambling jones out by placing some short term investments today. Here's what I like today.
Give me Nebraska -10.5 vs Ohio State. Ohio State is in disarray and you know Bo Pellini is going to run the boys ragged after the pounding Nebraska took from Wisconsin last week. This is their Big 10 home opener and I figure they want to open up right in front of the home town fans.
I'll take Ga Tech -14.5 over Maryland. Since their season opening win vs Miami, Maryland has been in disarray winning only once over might Towson St and losing to West Virginia as well as getting pounded by Temple. GT has been a juggernaut offensive though their defense is not so great. You almost can't get a high enough line to not hit the over in their games. I'm tempted to play the over at 63.5 but I don't trust Maryland enough.
I'm looking at Texas +10 vs Oklahoma today. It's Texas/OU weekend today which means the State Fair of Texas is wrapping up again. I do miss Texas. Anyway though I like the spread a bit, I like the over/under a lot more. Both teams put up bunches of points. For Texas this is another revenge game as they have pounded both UCLA and Iowa St after losing to them last year. I doubt they pound OU but I do anticipate a shootout and I'll take over 56 here.
I also like the under in the Tennessee/Georgia game today. UGA is playing good defense and the only good defense that Tennessee played was against Florida where they were shut down completely. I look for UGA to do the same and score enough to carry the day. I'll take under 55.5
I'm looking at Arkansas -10 vs Auburn today. I'm not sure if I want to play it here but I like Arkansas and don't care for Auburn. Still Arkansas had an emotional come from behind win last week and maybe has a hangover this week. But they are a good young team playing at home.
That's my weekend in a nutshell it seems. I'm gonna take it easy until it's time to referee and make it through the day I hope. I may put in a couple of picks for the pros tomorrow as I'm looking at a couple of games. If I survive tonight. I hope you all stay lucky. Hope I do too.
4 comments:
Don't get yourself killed -- it's a jungle out there.
I like Nebraska for the reasons yo said.
I also gambled, er, bought some more GG. It dropped to just above 45 which looks like a bottom, so I bought another 100 shares.
Have a good weekend.
Be careful refing!
I'm always careful reffing but it's like driving, you can do everything right and still get hit because you can't control the other guy. If I knew it was so dangerous when I started doing it....I'd have probably still done it. I do enjoy it a lot.
Good pick up Mojo, I was looking at doing the same thing with RIG as well but first I have to raise some more cash. There are also a few junior miners who got crushed pretty badly that I'm looking at like BRD, GPL, and PPP.
A weekend without poker! How could you?
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