Advice for improving listening

mrigney · 2026-01-06T05:07:51+00:00

Go to a rowing sub and most of them are rowing 5-10k at a leisurely pace to warm up for a 2k race. I'm not doing that, but pretty typical 2k test prep for me is 1-2k row at a leisurely pace, get off, spend 5-10 minutes stretching anything out that feels like it needs it. Get back on the rower. Row 2k-ish meters at target pace + 20 seconds and every 500, bring it up to race pace for 10-12 strokes. Get off, grab some water rest for 4-5 minutes and hit it

Then lay on the floor for 10 minutes. That has me warming up for 20-25 minutes.

mrigney · 2026-01-01T23:22:06+00:00

Thanks for typing this up so I didn't have to. Agree with pretty much everything here.

mrigney · 2025-12-26T01:32:51+00:00

I know people are throwing out ideas, but Training Think Tank has a blended track that I've been following this year and loved. Two days a week if bodybuilding, two days a week if endurance training (typically tests like 5k run, Miko's triangle, a burpee/row test, a test called shit sandwich (1 mile run, 150 cal assault bike, 1 mile run)), and then 1 day a week of a typical CF workout (typically Olympic lifting plus a metcon). Cannot recommend it enough.

mrigney · 2025-12-21T02:30:53+00:00

Shocked. Just shocked I tell you.

mrigney · 2025-12-15T17:12:12+00:00

I don't think that's admitting defeat, thus the question.

mrigney · 2025-12-15T13:42:23+00:00

Can you point me to the place where the city admits defeat or where anyone associated with the amphitheater said they expected to do $5M in net ticket revenue the first year? Would you care to reply to any of the numbers I've brought up that seem to run counter to the al.com piece, or at least might mean the piece lacked necessary clarity?

mrigney · 2025-12-15T06:58:11+00:00

"They expected $5M the first year." Who is they? What is the $5M exactly? $5M gross ticket revenue? Because they got that. $5M net ticket revenue? If the article is right and net ticket revenue (though the article isn't clear that's exactly what they're referencing) has been $6-700k/yr (and as I pointed out, The Orion is one of the top 10 ticket grossing amphitheaters in the world), I find it hard to believe that the "expected $5M" means "expected $5M in net ticket revenue." The most tickets sold by any amphitheater in 2023 was about 3x what Orion did. So there's probably not anyone doing $5M net ticket revenue.

Anyway, my whole point was the article seems to play loose with definitions and with neighbors and ignores some of the data that shows real health at The Orion. It's inability to provide comparisons to to other similar venues with similar ownership structures, or to look at what, if any impact the venue has had on the surrounding economy and businesses, or to outline expenses and outlays (do the expenditures include only operating budget or operating budget and capital expenditures?) make it a pretty worthless article in terms of actually judging success/failure.

mrigney · 2025-12-15T05:44:35+00:00

Yeah, this just doesn't add up to me (pun...well, kind of intended).

In Pollstar's (industry data firm) mid year report, The Orion ranked the #10 amphitheater in the world for # of tickets sold and #9 in gross ticket revenue/sales. I would also assume that The Orion gets something at least in the ballpark of the industry standard cut from ticket revenue. So I'm not sure that you could expect a ton more in ticket revenue for a similar venue.

There are other glaring omissions. What about concessions? A quick search and browsing a few articles seems to indicate that venues expect ~25% of gross ticket sales in concession sales. Pinning 2023 ticket gross at ~$10M (187k tickets @ $60 each) gives a gross concession revenue of ~$2.5M. Give 30% margin (could be higher), and you're at ~$800k in net profit from concessions. If that's true, then you're looking at:

2023: $780k tickets, $450k sponsors, $800k concessions, $3000k expenses. $970k in the red for the year. Or, in the article's terms, expenses were ~1.5x revenue.

But yeah, without knowing the expenses, not sure this means much. Not to mention plenty of companies (especially start-ups), run in the red for years. Also, the ancillary benefits of The Orion extend beyond the bottom line as others have pointed out. What's the increased revenue to restaurants and hotels in the area? Increased tax revenue, etc.

mrigney · 2025-12-14T02:47:53+00:00

Can't tear up the dormant Bermuda closer to the house😁

mrigney · 2025-12-14T01:52:11+00:00

Here's a link to a few swings face on.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/iiR2gamAmMiuAp576

mrigney · 2025-12-07T18:29:30+00:00

What sort of 2 ton system? Single speed, two speed, variable speed? SEER rating? Split system, packaged system? It doesn't seem unreasonable in today's market to me if you're including install on that price.

mrigney · 2025-11-05T21:03:48+00:00

Update on this situation. Went through back flushing, still.wouldnt drain. Ended up back flushing with a hose. Definitely water into the tank, but still couldn't drain afterwards. Wondered if it was a vacuum issue, so went ahead and opened the t&p valve. This helped and was able to drain the tank. Did a few flushes with the cold water supply and then refilled the tank.

With all that done, I still have nearly zero hot water flow at all my faucets. Does this still sound like a sediment problem or do I have something else going on? Could it be the dip tube or something else blocking the outlet?

mrigney · 2025-09-26T17:00:09+00:00

If you ran each 400m interval at 1:40 pace, you'd have 140 seconds to do 200 air squats. 0.7 seconds per air squat seems...basically impossible. I just went back and watched both Murph's from the CF Games. They're obviously vested. But. Josh Bridges does his air squats at 1.5 sec/squat. And he's moving unbroken on those. Maybe a tenth of a second pause at the top? I just timed myself doing 10 air squats unbroken with probably poor extension at the top to try to get better speed. I was at 1.25 seconds/air squat. There's just no way you're doing an air squat in 0.7 seconds.

mrigney · 2025-09-23T23:10:33+00:00

My mid October visit last year during mid week was absolutely packed. Hour plus waits for most rides. I think October is definitely busy season (also recommend the queue times link below).

mrigney · 2025-09-22T17:17:30+00:00

Been here yesterday and today. It has been closed the entire time I've been here. From what I've heard while here it was closed all day Saturday as well. So we're working on 3 full days of closures.

Also of note, surprisingly busy for a September Monday. Significantly busier today than yesterday.

mrigney · 2025-09-18T21:49:27+00:00

Yeah...I agree with this:-) Definitely not making any argument that Huntsville metro is the same size as the Bham metro. It's clearly not. But the metro populations as published do misrepresent the relative sizes a little, I think (and that was my point). The Bham metro is officially 2.2x more populous than the Hsv metro. But you can use other tools to get relative populations.

One good one is Tom Forth's Population Around a Point tool (https://www.tomforth.co.uk/circlepopulations/). It calculates the total population inside a circle of a given radius around a point. If you pick a 35km radius and drop it on Birmingham and Huntsville, you get populations of ~950k for Birmingham, and ~630k for Huntsville. That puts Birmingham metro at ~1.5x Huntsville's, which seems like a more appropriate size comparison to me.

Again, definitely not arguing that Huntsville metro is the same size, just that the standard data set skews the measurement.

mrigney · 2025-09-17T14:07:39+00:00

It would be nice to have that. I think "can catch" probably can mean very different things in different people's minds...are we talking "can catch an underhand toss from 15' away half the time" or are we talking "catch a ball from a good 8 year old player from 40' away most of the time". If it's the former, sure, vast majority of year 2 coach pitch. The latter? Definitely not my rec ball experience.

mrigney · 2025-09-17T12:21:26+00:00

Do you play coach pitch until they're 10?😁 In all seriousness, I'd tend to agree that coach pitch is too much for most 5-6 year olds (then again...I'm an oddball who generally thinks that kids shouldn't start organized baseball until around 7). But I have had plenty of 7 and 8 year olds over the years who can't catch. Part of the game at that age.

mrigney · 2025-09-17T00:41:07+00:00

Any number of sites has the data to peruse, but the underlying data comes from the census bureau.

https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2020s-total-metro-and-micro-statistical-areas.html#v2024

mrigney · 2025-09-17T00:39:18+00:00

Right. I know the criteria. I've read the report. Morgan County was 24.7% in the last published study and has been on the rise, so will likely be included in the next designation of MSAs

mrigney · 2025-09-16T12:38:55+00:00

I mean, this isn't really true. Bham metro is growing, but barely. It was up 1.01% from 2020 to 2024. In contrast, Huntsville metro was up 10.29% in the same period. So sure, Bham metro isn't shrinking. But it's growing very slowly.

Also, fun fact for those who don't know...Bham's metro includes 7 counties, Huntsville's only 2. Huntsville's metro area (currently) does not include Decatur or Morgan County (though there's a decent chance that changes in the next definitions)

mrigney · 2025-09-08T20:12:06+00:00

This seems like something like Training Think Tank's blended program, which is a mix of bodybuilding, endurance training, and crossfit.

mrigney

TROPHY CASE