Counting Flowers on the Wall

Covid-19 certainly has made keeping busy a challenge without sports.
While I've been working regular hours (and extra this week), I've been trying to follow the edict to stay inside and away from the vulnerable folks.
Decisions to follow or not has to be a choice made by each individual and I respect that, if not agree.

However, I'm not going to live with ending someone's life because I  think Covid-19 cannot reach me, so I've visited no one and seen few other than Ryan, going to work and whomever I would see while gathering supplies.
When I type that, I sound like I'm Radar O'Reilly getting ready to hit Kempo to trade a case of beets for some penicillin to keep the 4077th afloat!

To a certain degree and without live sports and the roster freeze that baseball has enacted due to the virus, it seems like all I've been writing about of late has been tributes.
And while I think of the tributes posts as just that, I can't lie and say too many in a short period isn't pretty depressing.
Many times I feel like I'm just killing time with sorting 2020 Topps Heritage ( If anyone reading this has any of the short prints, let me know as I'm trying to make those as part of my set), binging television shows, playing games, and what seems often to be counting Flowers on the wall.
Hence, the above picture of the Statler Brothers and contrary to popular belief, that photo is not a 1971 Heimberger family outing!
BTW- The Statlers made some great music, but once Lew DeWitt got sick and the little short guy with the shrill voice came in, the Statlers became more of a comedy team that sang rather than a great singing group.


So, what have I been watching and doing specifically?
I've watched the entire run of the CBS program "Under The Dome" which I thought was pretty good for the first two seasons and its final season was pretty weak and I barely finished the season.
I've also finished a long-time favorite in "Cold Case" and Cherie and I have begun "Without A Trace", another past favorite that Cherie and I haven't seen in quite a while.
I've been watching "Star Trek" on DVD at work, finishing the original series and moving on to the 1973 animated version before I'll start "Deep Space Nine".
I always like to bring the shows that lasted a while to the road office because it enables me to skip watching for a bit if I need a change occasionally.
Work has also added "Criminal Minds" as it's on every night as I work and it's pretty good from what I've seen, although some seasons are better than others.
Unlike Cold Case and Without a Trace, Criminal Minds was hit off and on with cast changes and some characters I like better than others, so when they aren't around, those episodes aren't quite as good.

I've also been watching YouTube videos with people who treasure hunt with metal detectors and underwater diving.
I've mentioned that Cherie and Rachel purchased me a detector for Christmas and I'm trying to learn more about how to use it before I take it out seriously.
I might be using it more often this year than I expected with the minor league baseball season heavily shortened at best and eliminated at worst, so I'm enjoying getting to know how detectors work and what to expect.

You might have noticed a lack of sports at this point.
To my surprise, I haven't missed things as much as I expected.
That doesn't mean that I don't miss sports, but that I have been able to fill that hole thus far with other programming.
Let's see if that continues as the quarantine drags on.

And with all this time, I've been playing various seasons of Action PC sports.
I just finished a replay of the 1967 NFL season that ended with the Los Angeles Rams of George Allen defeating Tom Landry's Dallas Cowboys in the NFL championship game 20-14 in double overtime to win the title when Rams linebacker Maxie Baughan intercepted a Don Meredith pass and ran twenty-five yards for the championship-winning score.
I was in the middle of that project when the quarantine hit, so that wasn't a new season.
I'll likely be beginning the 1968 AFL season next as I played the 1967 AFL season last year with Joe Namath and the New York Jets winning that title over the Oakland Raiders.

I haven't started a baseball project as I am trying to decide just what season I'd like to play.
When you play a 154 or 162 game season, you see these teams for quite a while, so I want to make sure that I want to play a certain team for a while.
Contenders are the 1951 Giants, 1971 Indians, 1977 Rangers, 1979 Indians, and 1990 Pirates along with a possible "Ball Four" replay in which I replay the 1969 Seattle Pilots until Jim Bouton is traded to Houston and when I would then jump to the Astros.

I've started a hockey season months ago and I've played in starts and stops with the expansion 1974-75 Kansas City Scouts.
The Scouts were terrible and finished ahead of only fellow expansion mate Washington in the standings with a record of 15-54-11.
My version of the Scouts has played about as bad as one would expect with five wins, seventeen losses, and a tie.
The funny part of these Scouts so far- four of their five wins were over Atlanta and Vancouver, both of whom are in first place in their division.
I don't score a lot with the expansion Scouts and as I attempt to compete, I play a much more defensive game to keep the games close.
Kansas City's first-round pick Wilf Paiement, who is one of two players on the team to have a nice career, is tied for the team lead with Ed Gilbert with only seven goals.
Paiement scored 26 goals on the season to tie Simon Nolet for the team lead in the actual season.

I started a basketball season yesterday and decided to move oppositely from the Scouts as I'm playing the same 1974-75 season with the ABA champion Kentucky Colonels.
The Colonels lost their first game 118-113 at home to the Denver Nuggets.
The Nuggets finished the regular season with the league's best record, so that's not an awful defeat.
Kentucky rebounded to even their record at 1-1 with a 126-117 home win over the Indiana Pacers.
Artis Gilmore scored 28 points in the win with Louie Dampier adding 27 for the victorious Colonels.

There you have it- how I've been running the Four Corners offense to wind down the clock.
Next time, I'll have some recent links of note, and if any of these interests you, let me know.
I might be able to work another post out of this.