Matt Holthe's Fleeting Thoughts

Now that the Nationals have won the World Series, the 2010's decade of sports champions is complete. Every one of the 4 major sports had a single team win 3 championships in the 2010's. In basketball, it was the Golden State Warriors. In football, it was the New England Patriots. In baseball, it was the San Francisco Giants. And in hockey, it was the Chicago Blackhawks. Here's the champions from each year: Year Football Hockey Basketball Baseball 2010 New Orleans Saints Chicago Blackhawks Los Angeles Lakers San Francisco Giants 2011 Green Bay Packers Boston Bruins Dallas Mavericks St Louis Cardinals 2012 New York Giants Los Angeles Kings Miami Heat San Francisco Giants 2013 Baltimore Ravens Chicago Blackhawks Miami Heat Boston Red Sox 2014 Seattle Seahawks Los Angeles Kings San Antonio Spurs San Francisco Giants 2015 New England Patriots Chicago Blackhawks Golden State Warriors Kansas City Royals 2016 Denver Broncos Pittsburgh Penguins Cleveland Cavaliers Chicago...

The Washington Nationals beat the Houston Astros last night to win the World Series. The road team won every game of the series. That's the first time that's happened in any major sport (NBA, NHL, MLB). It was also the first time all year that Houston lost 4 straight at home. Washington was 6-0 in the Central Time Zone during the playoffs (they beat St Louis twice on the road, and all their other games were either in DC or Los Angeles). The Astros were pretty big favorites to win when the series began, but I haven't heard how the money was flowing to know if Vegas took a hit with the underdog winning. The last time a baseball team from Washington DC won a World Series was 1924. This team started out as the Montreal Expos in 1969. Ironically, that Senators team in 1924 is also only one of 5 teams in baseball history to overcome a multi-run deficit in the 7th inning or later of game 7. The Nationals were down 2-0 going into the 7th and won 6-2.

I'm going to be spending a lot of time at church over the next month. Here's my schedule: Saturday October 26 - running a camera Saturday November 2 - switcher Sunday November 3 - switcher Wednesday November 6 - running lyrics during "Night of Worship" Saturday November 9 - producer Sunday November 10 - producer Friday November 22 - switcher Saturday November 23 - switcher I also initially planned on being switcher the weekend of November 30/December 1 (haven't built that schedule yet) because I'm not going to be available the first 2 full weekends in December. But I might have to rethink that plan at this point - I'll just wait and see.

My car (Honda CR-V) has an indicator that lists real time miles per gallon. Normally it gets in the low 24's (24.2 to 24.4 or so). For the last tank, I decided that I wanted to maximize the MPG. I was able to get 26.0, but I found I had to change my driving. The most significant change was getting up to speed after at a stop light/stop sign. I had to take things really slowly getting up to the speed limit in order to not hurt my MPG. I did some calculations on this tank of gas. I drove 301.7 miles on this tank of gas. At 26 MPG, that meant I used 11.604 gallons of gas. If I had driven my normal way and gotten 24.2 MPG, then I would have used 12.467 gallons of gas. I saved 0.863 gallons of gas. At $2.519 per gallon (I love the 9/10 of a cent to cheat you out of money), I saved $2.17 on this fill up. Was the way I had to drive to get this better mileage worth $2.17? Not really. It was a very significant change in driving, and I'm sure there were times when I reached my destin...

We ended up using the camper on 4 different trips this year. 3 trips with the family for weekends, and then a trip with the guys for one night. The one night trip wouldn't normally be worth it, but it gave me a chance to do the winterizing of the water system at the campground instead of making a separate trip just to do that. I think overall the family likes having the camper. The maintenance all falls to me, which is a decent amount of work. It would be great if that could be minimized or shared or something, but it is what it is right now. I would really like to take a longer vacation to really get some use out of the camper, but our car wouldn't be able to take a trip through any kind of mountains. Maybe in another year or two we'll trade in my smaller SUV (that can't tow) and get a truck. The next trip I'm looking forward to is a guys weekend in Mississippi in another couple of months.