The drive to Greeley, Colorado was uneventful this morning. Driving before the sun comes up is always a great time to think about life, the universe, and well everything. A large number of people seem to have the day off. Those folks will probably get to enjoy the New Year’s Day football games. Today is the start of the official 4 team college football playoff system. It might be a good statistical exercise to grab the last ten years of bowl game scores and evaluate how well the rankings predicted the bowl game outcomes. Most of the ranking systems are preference based. Even the playoff committee used preference to decide the final four teams that get to participate in the playoff. The last few teams out of the playoff considered that exercise in preference to be arbitrary and capricious. Some of the coaches even fundamentally objected to the suspected punishment of the Big 12 for not having a championship game this year.
The Starbucks Christmas Blend 2014 K-Cups were on sale for 50% of this morning. Of all the available options at Starbucks, the Christmas Blend is my favorite. That could change at any time. Espresso is my favorite coffee related drink. Buying a home espresso machine presents a challenge. Some of the pod based espresso machines have recently received a lot of attention. I have had my eye on the ROK Presso Manual Espresso Maker for months now. Some expresso makers cost thousands of dollars. The ROK version is more reasonable, but it still costs $200. It is in my public Amazon wish list.
My big plan for tonight involves grading a bunch of papers for my introduction to business class. It looks like the college I teach online with was sold last year to a newly formed division of a company. That is pretty exciting news. I’m curious to see how that turns out. This term had an 11 week break during the middle of the class. It looks like people turned in about 60 papers to grade. That should make for an interesting evening. I’m hoping the college football games are competitive. Grading papers during blowout games is never any fun.
