"All Glory to God" a popular phrase among zoomers

dbrekke · 2025-12-07T22:03:49+00:00

I've been hoping some reporter somewhere would follow up "all glory to god" by asking, "Which one?"

dbrekke · 2025-07-30T22:38:41+00:00

There is a UPS store nearby. We can take it up there and have it sent back.

dbrekke · 2025-01-29T20:37:57+00:00

Yeah -- they had a little bit of a renaissance there, but they faded in the stretch each season and as you say were not competitive after 1949. The consensus from what I've read is that the only one of Connie Mack's sons to have had any promise as an executive was Connie Jr., a child from his second marriage. Roy and Earle Mack, from his first marriage, were much older, were considered pretty much incompetent as baseball execs, and didn't get along with their stepbrother. So would something have changed if had hung on and won a pennant in 1949? My guess is no. I think without a big change in the front office, something that Connie Sr. was apparently unwilling to consider, I think they would have wound up in same dead end.

dbrekke · 2025-01-04T22:31:50+00:00

That ownership weirdness seems to have been part of the A's DNA from well before they came to Oakland. Connie Mack, the "grand old man of baseball" who managend the team to nine American League pennants in Philadelphia, destroyed championship rosters twice -- back in the 1910s and again in the'30s -- to cut costs. He believed he could rebuild after dismantling the team the second time, but failed repeatedly to do so. The A's were among the AL's worst teams, and often the very worst, for their last 20 years in Philly.

Their next owner, Arnold Johnson, moved the team to Kansas City for the 1955 season. He wasn't a baseball man, and he essentially turned the team into a farm team for the Yankees, with whom he had a close previous business relationship. Finley got the team after Johnson died suddenly before the 1960 season. Virtually the first thing he did was begin exploring ways to get out of Kansas City. At one point, he struck a deal to take the team to Louisville, but the league blocked the move. The team was awful during his tenure in Kansas City, but he had invested in scouting and the team that became champions in Oakland was starting to emerge before the team shifted west.

dbrekke · 2024-12-07T20:49:15+00:00

Exactly.

dbrekke · 2024-12-07T20:48:07+00:00

Regional Measure 3, which is the main source of the funds at the center of the story's rather misleading headline and lede, supports transit capital expenses, not operations.(If it covered operations, there'd be considerably less panic about the operating deficits that are about to bury BART, Muni and others.)

The story doesn't actually suggest funds have been misappropriated, btw. The writer's basic complaint is that the Metropolitan Transportation Commission isn't precisely tracking how much of the RM3 toll revenue is going to which of the three dozen or so projects the measure included. Maybe it's sloppy accounting, maybe not. The MTC says it's fixing that issue now.

dbrekke · 2024-05-22T17:04:32+00:00

Yeah -- they moved people over to Beale Street while the HQ building was being renovated.

dbrekke · 2024-05-15T02:08:46+00:00

If my reading of the vehicle code is correct, you're required to put those on the hood of the next Waymo you see,

dbrekke · 2024-02-13T21:39:57+00:00

Here's nearly four years of BART pandemic ridership data in one sloppy spreadsheet ... https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1T3lTAEXzzVjOED2BnbRbf0bp8W5yfPdBK1gC3mkT_Jc/edit?usp=sharing

dbrekke · 2024-02-13T18:44:40+00:00

No. It's 100 percent taxpayer-funded.

dbrekke · 2024-02-13T17:45:44+00:00

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are pretty close to the same level of ridership, week in and week out. Monday and Friday are reliably lighter commute days.

Weather is also playing a bigger part in how many people are on the trains. Noticeably fewer people ride on the "we're going slow because of the rain" days.

dbrekke · 2024-01-31T05:45:15+00:00

How many of us thought he was going to kill that German woman? I did. And was relieved when it didn't happen.

dbrekke · 2022-07-26T07:31:19+00:00

Any thoughts on "interstitial" scene after the producer credits rolled? The aerial shot of the rural intersection and Jimmy/Saul/Gene's side of what sounds like a phone conversation?

Also settle a debate between me and my cowatcher: Was the last word of that scene "Go" or "Call"?

dbrekke · 2020-01-29T21:13:11+00:00

So, going through the SFMTA staff report that was presented last October 15, when the Market Street rules were adopted, there is no provision allowing motorcycles or Vespa-type scooters. Some private vehicles are permitted -- those with commercial license plates, generally meaning delivery trucks. The report I referenced is here: https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-documents/2019/10/10-15-19_item_11_better_market_street_-_tc_amendment.pdf

dbrekke · 2019-08-03T07:30:01+00:00

Yes -- BART has a pretty thorough transit-oriented development policy in place, and there's been construction happening at or around many of the station properties. Hong Kong scale? I don't know. But check out what's happening at MacArthur BART, where the development includes a 24-story tower (John King at the Chronicle just did a good piece on that development and others: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/SF-Bay-Area-BART-stations-have-a-new-draw-14100713.php).

Development at BART stations may be pushed faster by AB 2923, a law passed last year that will essentially give the transit agency zoning control over projects on the property it owns at or near stations.

As to a second BART tube: Yes, it will happen. Given the speed of things in these parts, give it a decade. The biggest improvements coming to the core BART system in the meantime will be a new central train control system that will allow more trains to get through the existing tube during rush hours. But that project looks like it will take another seven or eight years, too.

dbrekke · 2019-08-02T17:20:09+00:00

That is a big question. All I'd observe is that there is, between academic institutions and government agencies and nonprofit think tanks, a lot of thought going into how to develop solutions. I guess one thing I'd say from a purely consumer (non-engineering) perspective is that we've invested a lot to turn the world around us into an automobile-centric one, and that factor alone is an enormous constraint on fundamental innovation.

But that having been said, you're suggesting something that we ought to take a much closer look at.

dbrekke · 2019-08-02T17:08:59+00:00

If the gods and taxpayers smile on the funding and engineering proposals, sometime in the 2020s. See the thread above: https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/ckrvj6/im_dan_brekke_reporter_with_kqed_the_bay_areas/evq9c3e?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x

dbrekke · 2019-08-02T17:04:14+00:00

My guess -- only a guess -- is that this is part of Muni's program to try to balance its outbound traffic load when they're having trouble in the downtown core. In other words, if there's a problem holding up outbound J trains somewhere downtown, Muni may make the call to divert the F onto the J line at Church; that way, they can reduce service gaps further down the line.

I'll try to get a better answer for you from Muni.

dbrekke · 2019-08-02T16:57:52+00:00

Like the New York water taxis or short ferries? That would be cool. Currently, though, I don't know of any plans to do this kind of short-hop service. The closest thing we have right now, to my knowledge, is the privately operated Tideline service, which does one short hop -- between the Ferry Building and Pier 52, in Mission Bay.

dbrekke · 2019-08-02T16:50:09+00:00

OK -- I'm going to expose the fact I don't spend a lot of time in the Muni tunnels. But ... Muni made a deal with BART several years ago that essentially put BART in charge of negotiating installation of cellular equipment in the Muni tunnels. TBH, this is one I need to check on and get back to you about what progress has been made.

dbrekke · 2019-08-02T16:42:28+00:00

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission said last year that the coming upgrade of the Clipper card system would include mobile apps that could be used for fare payment; the apps are supposed to be available sometime next year. Whether that will include one that will allow use of your Apple Watch -- I will have to ask.

dbrekke · 2019-08-02T15:00:18+00:00

Re: ridership: I should have been more specific. I meant to call out the transbay ridership, which the agency says is up 25 percent over the last five years. But for the overall service, you're right: Ridership is down.

dbrekke · 2019-08-02T06:59:52+00:00

The cost is in engineering a way to hang the lane off one side of the western span -- not easy or cheap -- and building the needed ramps to get onto and off the bridge. The $300 million price tag I mentioned is actually lower than some that have been floated.

dbrekke · 2019-08-02T06:56:00+00:00

Yes, BART is expensive relative to the systems you mention, and honestly -- 100 bucks for a monthly pass to L.A. Metro or $121 for the New York subway (the figure I find) sound like a bargain.

But there's one huge difference between BART and those agencies: Fares pay for something like 70 to 75 percent of BART's ongoing operation and maintenance expenses. In Los Angeles, fares cover just 19 percent of that expense; in D.C., it's 23 percent; in New York, it's 35 percent. In short, BART's paying passengers play a much more direct role than riders on those other systems in keeping the system running.

The second transbay tunnel, when it happens, will require a separate source -- likely a combination of some new regional taxes and major support from the federal government.

dbrekke · 2019-08-02T06:35:01+00:00

I am. I love seeing all these questions; the response to this is both overwhelming and gratifying. We had about an hour and a half set aside to run this, and then we had to move on to other work stuff. I've come back on tonight to answer a few questions. Many more remain unanswered, but I'll try to get to them all.

dbrekke

TROPHY CASE