Oct 29

The impossible dream

Posted on Monday, October 29, 2012, at 11:51 AM by Jeff

They are the yin and yang of college football. One is in the top 10 of BCS teams for all-time wins, the other in the bottom 10 for all-time losses. From before the Great Depression until the mid-1990s, they played every year, and now they are again.

Iowa State has beaten Oklahoma five times out of 76 attempts — the most lopsided 50-game-plus series in Division I-A. The Cyclones’ record in the past half-century is 1-40-1.

Oklahoma’s historical record means its fanbase sincerely asks questions like “Would you consider 11-2 to be a failure this season?” and says “The season is lost” after losing to two teams in the BCS top five.

Iowa State’s history of futility is too big for a blog post, so I wrote a much longer piece here, picking out a handful of games that were notable points in the series.

Paul Rhoads has done many things as Iowa State’s coach, but beating Oklahoma is not one of them — yet.

Bring on the windmill.

UPDATE: It already wasn’t likely to happen, but Jake Knott being out for the season doesn’t help matters any.

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Oct 26

How many needed for SEC membership?

Posted on Friday, October 26, 2012, at 2:03 PM by Jeff

Iowa’s third standalone Chick-Fil-A opened Thursday and a fourth will open next week.

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Oct 26

At least we agree on what ISU’s offense is like

Posted on Friday, October 26, 2012, at 10:40 AM by Jeff

On Tuesday*, I decided Saturday’s game was best described as the Stoppable Force (ISU’s offense) vs. the Movable Object (Baylor’s defense). A Baylor blogger thought along the same lines for a game preview, but called Baylor’s D “Immobile” instead of “Movable”.

*I didn’t write it down. Obviously a mistake on my part!

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Oct 25

A marker, of sorts, in the 2012 campaign

Posted on Thursday, October 25, 2012, at 10:49 PM by Jeff

Tonight I saw the first political TV ads related to a state-level race. Both were for the state Senate district that includes Marshall and Tama counties. Both were negative.

The move is an interesting one. Depending on how you look at it, the district is both divided by and overlapping of TV markets. Eastern and central Iowa TV stations both cover events in Marshalltown, but Marshalltown plays in the CIML for sports with Des Moines teams (and now is in the western half of 4A football). For Nielsen purposes, Marshall County is in the central Iowa market while Tama County is in eastern Iowa.

(Updated to include further thoughts.)

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Oct 25

Coverage of NT’s playoff victory

Posted on Thursday, October 25, 2012, at 9:37 PM by Jeff

From KWWL and the Times-Republican. North Tama is now 3-0 all-time against Turkey Valley, the other two wins coming in the late ’90s.

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Oct 25

For your 3 AM Old Navy needs

Posted on Thursday, October 25, 2012, at 8:13 PM by Jeff

Tanger Outlet at the Williamsburg exit will be open from 10 PM Thanksgiving to 9 PM Friday. That’s 23 solid hours of shopping potential.

The Iowa-Nebraska game starts at 11 AM that Friday, so maybe the late (early?) hours will pull in the hordes of Husker fans coming across the state.

(I mean seriously, opening Thanksgiving night and then continuing straight through? Madness.)

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Oct 25

Google Street View goes to the Grand Canyon

Posted on Thursday, October 25, 2012, at 12:52 PM by Jeff

So Google can go through a national park on foot but has yet to cover anything in Tama County beyond signed highways. (And there are state highways in southeast Missouri that haven’t been covered yet either!)

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Oct 24

Sioux City historical map series changes

Posted on Wednesday, October 24, 2012, at 11:52 AM by Jeff

While looking through old aerial photos of Sioux City I noticed two very little changes to its alignment that I hadn’t included in my map series. (In fact, if I didn’t make this post I doubt they’d be seen at all.)

First, US 75 and the railroad tracks on the south side were in a ramrod-straight diagonal until they were bent around the new I-29/I-129 interchange.

Second, there used to be a slightly different route through Floyd Park south of Transit Avenue, which wasn’t changed until 1981 or 1982. Much of the old road was taken out for the Floyd Park golf course, but there is a short stretch of Williams Avenue and this odd stub of a driveway (Google Satellite View).

I’ve made those changes, and also waffled slightly on how much of US 75 in the city could qualify as a thicker expressway-type line. I may drop that entirely later.

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Oct 23

A correction (of sorts) on Iowa football milestones

Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2012, at 1:53 PM by Jeff

In finding out the NCAA has drastically abbreviated some statistics for its newest record book (see post 10/20), I came across another case where the NCAA and a university disagree on history.

The NCAA says Iowa has 593 all-time wins coming into the season, while the Iowa media guide says 594. Fortunately, this was an easy answer to find: The outcome of a game against Kansas in 1891 is disputed.

I mention this because it’s possible Iowa will get its 600th all-time win the same season, and possibly the same weekend, Iowa State has its 600th all-time loss. Iowa needs to win two more games and Iowa State lose two for those milestones.

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Oct 23

The map of “Revolution”

Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2012, at 12:50 PM by Jeff

I just caught up to episode 5 of the NBC show “Revolution,” about a postapocalyptic world without electricity. The show finally got around to acknowledging the existence of steam power, which based on character reactions somehow managed to avoid being rediscovered in the rail hub of the United States (Chicago) in the intervening 15 years.

But another development in the episode was showing the audience the way the United States had broken apart into various factions. Entertainment Weekly got a hold of a mostly-readable map. (Note the lagging existence of certain state borders, and also a “CH” over Lake Michigan that was part of the word “Michigan.” And the Missouri River disappears after Kansas City. But I digress.)

Iowa is part of the Plains Nation, which consists of the country west of the Mississippi River and north of the Arkansas River to indiscriminate points in the Rockies and through Butte MT.

Three Iowa locations are marked on the map: Davenport, Centerville, and Correctionville. (They’re just barely legible but that town in the west has a really long name.) Also there is Preston MN, just north of the state line. We don’t know if there’s a meaningful difference between red and black dots.

This could mean nothing, maybe just locations dear to the production crew. Now that the plot of the show has incorporated a Quest for the Missing Objects, though, the cities may turn up later.

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