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mad dog

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Everything posted by mad dog

  1. One of the neatest things in sports to me is how far above joe six-pack the average athlete is. Seeing them play against mere mortals gives you a whole new appreciation for the game. The Ticket has a fine tradition of using pro and recently pro athletes as ringers in their charity sports events. I just love watching guys like Herschel Walker, 10 years after retiring, get the ball in his hands and break guys ankles with his cuts. Jason Witten, a guy not known for his speed, was beating a regular guy deep in a half-dozen steps WITH a 10 yard cushion. Forget guys like Rocket Ismail, who beat a 30 yard cushion from some dude in coverage at the end of the half. Even a guy like Andy Blount makes ordinary folk look like they're running in sand. These guys are just so much better than the average guy it is silly. I'll never forget watching hitter after hitter flail around uselessly at Mike Bascik's fastball, and he was, by pro standards, a middle/lower middle of the road guy. Just amazing how talented these dudes are.
  2. Agreed. Great haul so far. Throw in some more o-line beef and maybe another juco tackle and I think you've addressed pretty much every concern.
  3. I really really hope every fan who is interested gets a chance to meet the guy. I spent two minutes with Harry talking to him at the banquet, and you get a sense for the gravity of the man. And the crazy thing is, the whole staff exudes that. Gaines might be near the top, but I imagine any of them could probably sell ice to an eskimo. If Dodge's staff was largely aloof, guys like Gaines personify the feeling of willing to sit down with any person, any time of any day, and just shoot the bull. Even if they really don't have time to do that, that's the feeling that they give you, and I imagine that has something to do with our recruiting success so far. TLDR: Agreed, he's a great get for UNT.
  4. There was a great article posted by UNT's own Dr. Bob Bland, an acknowledged and leading expert on government revenue policy. I won't cut and paste the whole article, but here are two paragraphs that I forward to people on the "government people get paid too much" bandwagon. Not to say that there aren't some people in government being paid more than they are worth - there are. There will, by logic and statistics, always be some people paid too much and some paid too little for the work they produce, no matter what sector you are talking about. For what I do right now, I would command a salary three times what I'm making right now, in the private sector. Yes, I have good benefits, but the total value of the package is still about half of whatever I'd be making in a typical corporate climate. The tradeoff there is that, when the economy sucks, I'll still have my government job. When the getting is good, there is no way even lavishly paid public managers can hold a candle to what executives of companies with similar financial profiles make. A heavily tenured Texas manager will make 200-300k in a large, well established city. A heavily tenured CEO of a similarly profiled private company commands a salary in the millions, excluding perks and benefits. So what we see is that, just as Dr. Bland said, the market has indeed settled out the relative cost-benefit of security in proportionally analogous organizations. If you remove the security aspect of government, you will either need to raise salaries to match the private sector or be comfortable with attracting a lower quality (and quantity) of employee. At higher levels of staffing, ANY organization is prone to bloat, excess, and complacency. This is as true for the public and private sectors. Since there are no businesses with a $2.38 trillion revenue profile, you can't really compare any private sector company to the federal government. Even the state of Texas operates on a scale that dwarfs all but the most massive companies (Texas Revenue $73 billion, Microsoft $62.4). In summary, government jobs exist outside of the market, but are still affected by market pressures through hiring and retention to drive salaries to a competitive cost point. All we're seeing right now is the benefit of stability; when times get good, they are far more lucrative over on the other side.
  5. I have a feeling most of the negativity is because this was mistakenly posted on the football forum. If there was even a chance that Coach Mac could pull in a 5 star OT, it'd be front page news. So you roll the dice on his being eligible - just to be in a position to gamble on a player of that caliber is really really exciting. At least to me.
  6. Ok. I think NOW is the appropriate time to issue the line. Good things are happening at North Texas!!!
  7. That's a positive note to end on, methinks.
  8. “It’s not meant as a threat,” he said. “It’s just meant to tell you that you could run us off, you really can. But someone else could come in and never have a town hall meeting and never rezone it and this is what they could build.” HELLO??? DENIA??? They can build this with or without your permission. You can bet that the next guys won't even ask for your input. Negotiation is simply an abstract form of trade. And you should realize when you have no bargaining position. Really, though, should any of us be surprised at this?
  9. I wish I could even wish for Jerry Jone money. I'm barely scraping by on iPhone money, atm.
  10. I always felt like that was a give-up rhyme.
  11. Satellite development, which is what you're referencing, is almost never worth the cost it takes to attract it. Tax Abatements seldom work as intended for this very reason - it is usually a losing propostion unless you can get office tower-level density. Let's take your 35,000 and round it up to 40,000 for argument's sake. Let's assume that all the students are employed and are making the Denton average per capita income ($19,365), rounded up to $20,000 for simplicity. Let's assume that they are somehow able to convert 25% of that to discretionary income (after tax, rent or mortgage, insurance, medical, property maintenance, child support, inflation, raw foods, and sundries). Finally, let's assume that they spend every penny of that discretionary income within the city limits of Denton on taxable items. This gives us a pool of $200 million in taxable spending. The City's take of that is 2%, which means a total revenue impact of $4 million. Operationally, let's just look at public safety. This would mean that no student, professor, or employee uses any service other than the bare essentials (police/court and fire). Denton's per capita public safety spending is approximately $360 ($43 million/119,454). So the net public safety cost of serving a population of 40,000 is $14 million. Revenues - $4 million. Expenditures (just the very very basics) - $14 million. Realize the realities are much, much different. There's no way you're even close to that kind of revenue number, and no way the cost of service is as low as $14 million. The 40,000 you mention comprose fully one third of Denton's total population. To have the infrastructure and organization contribute nothing in the way of taxes is ALWAYS a losing proposition. The benefit to the Denton community is the prestige of being home to one of the best universities in the Country, not anything financial.
  12. Not saying your plan wouldn't be effective. It sounds great. The problem is money - who is going to fund it? To give you an idea of what you're looking at, a similar project at my City was bid out and awarded at 4.3 million. And this project involves adding two lanes, not building a new road entirely. This says nothing about the cost of staff time, which is sure to be a nightmare considering TxDOT would be involved with on-ramp change. There's no way Denton could absorb that kind of a hit to their operating funds, so you're looking at an issuance of debt or drawing down of fund balance. And those steps are usually performed within the context of a broader bond election or community emergencies, respectively. It's pretty easy to put the blame on the City, because they have the capability and the organizational imperative to improve the land it governs. However, you're looking at one project, and there are literally hundreds, each of them with stakeholders who will fall on their sword to see it through. Add to that the effect of the economy (despite $3 million+ reduction of cost in the General Fund alone) and you get an even smaller pool to draw from. Denton is entering a major wave of needed maintenance projects, and repairing what you have will almost always take priority over buying something new. And the dirty truth that no one at Denton would ever publicly admit, but is certainly there: universities are already municipal freeloaders. A city will never recoup the cost of UNT's tax-exempt status, and yet bears the cost of providing services both directly to the university and indirectly to the student population. So it may not be the most accurate thing to say Denton is doing nothing for the university - they may not be comfortable parting with additional monies to an entity which isn't paying for what it has already received.
  13. I think this thing will all sort itself out with new ownership, whenever the creditors get their heads out of their asses and realize that they're devaluing their own investment by letting it sit. To me, this team is two top blueliners away from being a legitimate cup contender. When every defenseman is playing their best game, your top pair is probably Grossman (lately) and Robidas. Those are two solid players, but no one will ever confuse them with a shutdown group. Asking them to be anything more than a second line role is frankly optimistic to unrealistic. Grossman and Fistric (24 and 25, respectively) still have room to grow into 1st liners, but they aren't there yet. Robi is a hell of a player, but he's never been the guy who could go toe-to-toe with the other team's top line. We have an embarassing amount of cap space, enough to go and grab a marquee guy and then probably one more. Then, you go Grossman/Fistric and Robidas for 2nd and then Grossman/Fistric and Daley for your third. Trade Nisky and have Woywitka and Skrastins be your plug-in scratches. Having a responsible, technically and positionally sound top blue line group allows your forwards to release earlier, relaxes your goalie, and offsets your opponent's best line. It may not be the panacea, but that's the direction you need to go.
  14. Would be a great hire. I have a feeling most on this board have no idea how much Kenny Evans loves this program. Put it like this: there were at least two starters on the team last year who aren't at North Texas but for a gentle nudge from Evans years after the UNT paychecks stopped coming. He might not be seen running down the sidelines like Chico, or be a fan of the boisterous bearhugs like Mac, but the enthusiasm is there. With as much as Mac values loyalty, I'd think you would at least give him a look. He is a great recruiter, and a hard worker with the ability to build relationships. Just take a look, coach. All I'm asking.
  15. DMac + Chico = Season Tickets for me. Now... how to pitch this to the wife...
  16. I agree C-USA would be best. However, if they're on the phone right now, it'd take about three tenths of a second to say yes.
  17. I don't think there's any question that Mark Stoops has the technical skill for the job. He knows football and he probably has a good idea about how big time programs operate. It may just be me, but I place a pretty high premium on guys who have had success coaching at the mid-major level. At the AQ level, schools have access to resources and amenities which we, at North Texas, can't touch right now. If a coach cannot prove he knows how to do more with less, then I wonder how well they'd do here. Just my 2 cents.
  18. I was going to post, but this is exactly what I was going to say. Well deserved +1 Silver.
  19. Just had to delete two more different verbatim reposts. DO NOT REPOST information verbatim. A link and caption are fine, but nothing more. We have attracted legal attention for this in the past; it is a pretty serious deal. Please help keep gomeangreen.com 100% lawsuit free. Thanks,
  20. Space? Iono man... I just think space is SUPER grey.
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