Old Man Mike

[Irish#1]

Welcome back OMM. Good to hear you’re still nimble on your feet.

 

[NDdomer2]

Glad to hear you are well and welcome back to the new IE.

 

[NorthDakota]

At least we know it's the real OMM since he had to throw a dig in at his intellectual superior.

 

[Me2SouthBend]

Hello, to all of you fine fellows. (again) My life, surprisingly, hasn't eased up as to finding time to do my research and writing, so IE posts will be (to everyone's approval) modest in numbers. Interesting to see NDAK is still somewhat of a jerk and can't discriminate between an environmental studies professor and a communist (always a flattering denominator), but some levels of change cannot be expected.

As to the old blog --- I couldn't keep up the pace, so had to let it go. Still gets over 100 hits per day, and apparently some folks (ironically in places like Russia) seem to occasionally try to download the whole thing. Still pumping out the UFO research to the community there though.

As to football: when I couldn't get on IE for so long, I quit logging the individual play-by-play OLine play so can't give any point-of-view-from-the-trenches there, other than to say that almost the only way to win regularly is to have the better and smarter maulers on both sides of the line, and ND DID have that for most of the season. As to Alt and Fisher --- woo baby! Barring injuries we are in GREAT shape there, and they both could play LT or RT and we'd have the start (with Kristovic) of a VERY top pass-blocking line. Last year the staff had a rough time early on and it was hard I believe to "see" Alt that quickly. Plus "logic" said to put Lugg at RT when he should probably have been Tommy Kraemer at RG (Big Tommy as we saw started a few games for the Lions and blocked the waddin' out of opponents on almost every run play and was OK on pass plays --- which should vindicate him and the staff against a few persons who would bad-mouth him here on IE.) Back here at home: we look to be potentially really good on the OLine, maybe great. I'm not sure if center is Kristovic's best position, but (and I've not followed graduations, declarations, transfers well) the Patterson gap is obviously major. There, I've fulfilled my preliminary duty on OLine commentary. Alt, I believe, will be a great tackle --- better than Eichenburg and as good as McGlinchey and sooner. ... no injuries please.

Yup. It’s OMM. Confirmed.

 

[spoonidentity]

Is everyone going to just casually gloss over this UFO research aspect? Where can I find this?

I know there was a UFO off topic post but I never ventured in there. What's the blog?

 

[Old Man Mike]

I'll reply to this, but it is not why I visit IE, so I'll not try to teach a course on a VERY complicated subject which has occupied me for 45 years. So forgive me for that.

1. The Blog referred to is my once-personal blog called The Big Study. It got to be very popular worldwide once it got going, and my idea was to look into all of the controversial but fun things like UFOs (my expertise), cryptozoology, Paranormal mysteries , etc, and see if there was any indication that there was something to whatever the topic of the day was. Though some subjects were strike-outs, most were not --- that is they maintained a genuinely mysterious aspect. I did it because it was great fun to explore such things, and frankly, I'd read about almost everything in "regular" science and wasn't much stimulated there anymore (I taught all that stuff for 30 years afterall.) The Blog, because I became such a known UFO researcher, tended to be about half UFO material and half else. The very beginning of the blog was "else" as was most of the end. In the mass of the middle, UFO posts dominated. The blog style is NO Bullsh!t, just referenced facts, coalitions of relatable facts, and referencing. When I speculated (not a lot), I declared what I was doing. It was/is clean, open-minded, information-filled fun.

2. Here on IE, someone started a "pseudoscience" thread (note the bias right off.) Of course that rubbed me the wrong way, and when UFOs came up in the thread, I felt a requirement to unload some of my years of knowledge. Most folks who have interest in such matters seem to like it. A few even asked me about the blog and went there to read some of it. One member even told me that he gave ufo field research a go. All that sounds like good clean fun to me.

3. There is no quick way to get a solid foundation to understand this field. I and my best UFO buddy wrote a 600+ page book (no kidding) based entirely from the military intelligence communities own documents titled UFOs And Government. It's in 200 academic libraries around the world. It explains why and how the government made the decisions that they did (WWII through 1969) but that is only a piece of this deep subject. I've written a more readable fun book on the UFO phenomenology titled Grass-Roots UFOs, which isn't a terrible place to begin, but which will not convince most folks. I and five other UFO researchers have written another big book called The UFO Phenomenon, which is loaded with powerful incidents. It's not published yet. ... as Alexander the Great was told by Aristotle (when he complained about learning math) "There is no Royal (i.e.easy) Road to Geometry."

... now this Old Man has got to get to bed. I have Church decorations to set up for Catholic Mass here tomorrow (something else I believe without proof on a lab bench.)

 

[Veritate Duce Progredi]

Thanks for coming back Mike, it's great to have your input on a number of topics.

 

[NorthDakota]

UFOs? Hell yea

 

[anarin]

Good to see you back omm

 

[Cackalacky2.0]

Is everyone going to just casually gloss over this UFO research aspect? Where can I find this?

I know there was a UFO off topic post but I never ventured in there. What's the blog?

Thread 'UFOs, Paranormal, Pseudoscience Thread'
UFOs, Paranormal, Pseudoscience Thread

 

[BabyIrish]

Another thing I’m looking forward to is OMM’s commentary on the women's basketball team. I for one have definitely missed it.

 

[Old Man Mike]

Hello, BabyIrish. Basketball is what I actually occasionally coached so I feel natural analyzing play. The OLine stuff comes from the fact that my brothers were OLinemen and two of them coaches, so I got inside stuff from them. That plus simply watching the trenches play, play-after-play and logging it, gives some insight as to where the breakdowns really occur. (It's only the staff who can really tell this though, as most of us cannot really guess if one player made a true bust and screwed up his teammate hanging him out to dry on a given play.

As to WBB: This team is frustrating to watch. Niele Ivey will I think be a good coach, but she's not Muffet (and it is unfair to expect that --- we might have had THE best WBB coach in the country (Auriemma notwithstanding) during her reign. This team, however, is too soft and does not typically make Muffet-level halftime adjustments either. We really lost something when Abby Prohaska isn't available. She is one of those tough people whose example demands better out of the others. I don't mean the icy competence of Miles; I mean the fire which you need to create a Rage to Win. Our transfer center has some of that playing hard and mind-in-the-game at each play. Peoples has it in her but her lack of training up her shooting is hurtful. Citron is going to be great as soon as she sets her little girl frosh-ness completely behind her. Miles will grow up more too. Dara is Dara. The mystery to me is why Westbeld is as passive this year as she often is. We need for someone to swat her in the head early in every game and get her mad. We need boards all the time, and fight. Brunelle ...? Soft soft soft ... occasionally mentally absent from reality. Will she ever grow into a woman and get in literal contact with the game?

 

[BabyIrish]

Hello, BabyIrish. Basketball is what I actually occasionally coached so I feel natural analyzing play. The OLine stuff comes from the fact that my brothers were OLinemen and two of them coaches, so I got inside stuff from them. That plus simply watching the trenches play, play-after-play and logging it, gives some insight as to where the breakdowns really occur. (It's only the staff who can really tell this though, as most of us cannot really guess if one player made a true bust and screwed up his teammate hanging him out to dry on a given play.

As to WBB: This team is frustrating to watch. Niele Ivey will I think be a good coach, but she's not Muffet (and it is unfair to expect that --- we might have had THE best WBB coach in the country (Auriemma notwithstanding) during her reign. This team, however, is too soft and does not typically make Muffet-level halftime adjustments either. We really lost something when Abby Prohaska isn't available. She is one of those tough people whose example demands better out of the others. I don't mean the icy competence of Miles; I mean the fire which you need to create a Rage to Win. Our transfer center has some of that playing hard and mind-in-the-game at each play. Peoples has it in her but her lack of training up her shooting is hurtful. Citron is going to be great as soon as she sets her little girl frosh-ness completely behind her. Miles will grow up more too. Dara is Dara. The mystery to me is why Westbeld is as passive this year as she often is. We need for someone to swat her in the head early in every game and get her mad. We need boards all the time, and fight. Brunelle ...? Soft soft soft ... occasionally mentally absent from reality. Will she ever grow into a woman and get in literal contact with the game?

Well said! It’s definitely not a gritty team and much more finesse. I definitely have been surprised at the lack of minutes by Prohaska even before the eye injury. Citron will probably be my favorite player pretty soon. She seems to do everything exceptionally well. Dodson was inconsistent early, but she’s comfortable now and playing at a great level. I too have been perplexed at the fall off of Westbeld. My guess is that she likes to play in the post and her taking a backseat to Dodson has hurt her. She’s played more of the high post role and it has not gelled yet although she showed some glimpses against Miami. I think a year or two this team could be a force.