I write to you all this evening after a long battle with physics with only the foo fighters to comfort me in the wee hours of the morning. Let me go ahead and tell you the new cd is sounding really good and my man crush on Dave Grohl continues to know no ends... sorry if that's creepy, don't worry the lady ok'd it because she loves Zac Brown Band and apparently the Foo Fighters and Zac Brown Band are best friends?
handsome, one of the last hopes of rock, and roll AND HE HATES NICKELBACK!
Regardless this article isnt here simply to love on the foo fighters, no its here to update you all before you get on the road for the drive down to our favorite place to do the one thing that allows us to shut everything else out and get rowdy for a weekend with our friends. Even if our team isnt having a season were used to seeing as far as fans go, we have to remember even in the darkest hours that this is the Virginia Tech hokies, and theyre still our team and its just a game. I for one will scream my head off until the very end, but I still have a great time tailgating with friends, and watching some incredible athletes play a sport we all love. Without them we wouldnt be able to analyze this game as much as we do, and watch it with such vigor. I havent missed a game in 7 years for this very reason, and I dont plan on starting soon (please god give me a decent grad school near da burg).
Enough ranting about football and the hokies and lets talk about the one factor no one else really discusses much on here! Earlier this week I mentioned it might snow this weekendyeah I wasnt kidding
sorry ladies, but you're gonna need a lot of alcohol to make short skirts work on this Halloween
with the low pressure system on top of Michigan blowing southeast and riding the cold front down expect temperatures to drop drastically here. As I mentioned numerous times before, cold air fronts create a source of lift which of course means rain. However since theres less warm air around (among other factors) you get less violent lift and potential energy in the air to create thunderstorms (thats one of the many reasons you dont hear thunder to much over the winter). This is a double edged sword however, as this means that we could more ice crystals in the clouds that can attach to water droplets, and this of course is how snow forms. As the water droplets are constantly pushed back up into the cloud they gather more and more ice crystals until they become snowflakes.
god I love snowflakes
now thanks to that Canadian air again blowing on down....damn Canadians... They're alllllllmost as bad as UVA
Blame Canada! They're not even a real country anyway
That air coupled with this cold front coming down expect this to happen to us. Starting with rain out in front of the cold front (its not quite cold enough yet because the polar Jetstream hasnt dropped far enough south) however as the cold air front passes over us and continues to drop temperatures expect the rain to gradually turn into snow and a disgusting mix. LUCKILY for those of you trying to drive home Saturday, temperatures on the ground should be a little too high. Temperature in the ground changes reallllly slow on certain surfaces, im sure theres a few engineers who can vouch for me here on this. Regardless, this should create what I like to call pretty snow. Pretty snow isnt much harm on drivers and the roads, but still falls on the grass and trees, and its not heavy enough to really create to much damage. Just enough to glaze everything over with that pretty snow look. This all should start hitting us starting Friday night with rainfall around 7 or 8 Friday night with a light drizzle progressively picking up until it peaks Saturday morning/early afternoon. The Euro is counting .37 (give or take a little) with .3 of precipitation hitting at 12z Saturday, aka 7 AM. After that it slows down but should be coming down at a steady drizzle around until it turns into basically a mist Saturday night. That isnt the only downside with temperatures dropping to a chilly 30 degrees Saturday night. The high on Saturday is going to be a cold 44 degrees, which will make for a pretty rough kickoff, think Marshall game last year with less rain and more coldbut still with rain. Also I just realized a lot of the models are pointing at some rough sustained winds around 8 to 14 knots 2 hours before and 2 hours after the game. This equates to roughly 9.2 to 16.1 MPH typically blowing in from the northwest. This could create some interesting kicking situations with a cold ball, wet ground and wet ball, and wind blowing. Im gonna go ahead and say any advantage either team holds in the air and in the special teams are going to be completely negatedthis is going to be an ugly bruising black and blue football game.
How this plays out on the field
Im going to straight up say it. I dont like the way we match up with Boston College. They play a physical bruising style of offense that our defense has struggled with as of late. The rain is going to make the game depend on our struggling offensive line whichisnt exactly music to my ears. That coupled with the fact that weve been working on our vertical passing game for a week where mother nature just does not seem to want to cooperate with us once again and Im a little scared. Its going to be very difficult to catch the ball let alone get in and out of cuts. We need to see something from our offense this week though. Some kind of pulse, anything and maybe BC will come out flat after travelling south in cold and terrible weather, for an early kickoff. If thats the case we certainly have the talent to compete in this game.
I dont have to much to get into with regards to science this week and I apologize for that, Im currently typing this at 1:45 AM and want to get to bed here soon, and also wanted to get this out before some of you made your travels. I would HIGHLY recommend bringing gloves, hats, scarves, coats, jackets, wool socks, boots.the worksthis could very easily be coldest game of the season and the wind and precipitation arent going to make it anymore pleasant. Our team needs us though so even if Im the only fan in the entire stadium ill be there the whole game. This team needs to turn it around, and it needs the support of that awesome fan base we need to brag about. So get behind your team and go out there and GET LOUD HOKIES!!!!!!!
We need this kind of crowd
Final predictions (yeesh that whole no score predictions thing is not working out to hot for me)
Hokies 20
BC 21 (sorry folks)
High 44
Low 30
100% chance of precip (specifically somewhere between .5 to 1)
very little snow accumulation (none on roads, theyll have that stuff salted down)
lots of cloud cover
good amount of wind
Sorry about the cold Halloween weather ladies... dress warm!
LETS GO SUPPORT OUR TEAM GUYS THROUGH THICK AND THIN! GO HOKIES!!!!
GO HOKIES TURN THE TIDE!
Comments
Nothing that a little fireball cant fix...
Mmm...Antifreeze!
I heard this on the radio the other morning and if I hadn't been driving on the Beltway, I would have called in and educated these people. Ethylene glycol is the (moderately) toxic component commonly found in antifreeze because it metabolizes into oxalic acid. Yes, you can poison yourself by drinking it, and it's really bad for your pets. Propylene glycol is significantly less toxic (seriously harmful at a few g/L, which implies MASSIVE consumption of the pure stuff and/or IV use), and is used specifically because it is environmentally friendly and is actually metabolized by the body into normal compounds like pyruvic acid and lactic acid, i.e. the same exact metabolites that your body produces when you eat the leftover Halloween candy. Leave it to the media to blow something out of proportion.
Net effect: drinking Fireball is totally OK. There are "chemicals" in everything you eat or drink.
Yeah I read an article on it yesterday. I personally love Fireball. And also, according
to the article I read it only uses one-eighth of the FDA-approved amount of propylene
glycol in its North American formula.
Precisely. I was so incensed when I was hearing this stuff. It's well below the safe dose, which itself is way below what would ever make you sick. BUT OH MY GOD CHEMICALS WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN.
Wait, one-eighth per shot or one-eighth per bottle? This could be a huge factor because 8 shots is not an unreasonable amount during a tailgate.
The total concentration in the bottle. You won't get 8 times the amount by taking 8 shots.
UPDATE: Because (as you all know) I am a huge dork and I was bored, I did some math.
Propylene glycol (PG) is toxic at about 4 g/L of in the blood. The average adult human has about 5 L of blood, so that means you would have to ingest 20 g of PG to get really sick. According to the makers of Fireball, the North American formula has 6 g of PG per kg of whiskey. So one would need to consume 3.33 kg of whiskey to get 20 g of PG. That's a lot of whiskey. How much? I'm glad you asked!
If we assume the density of Fireball is roughly the same as water (it won't be, it will be somewhat lower due to the fact that 66 proof Fireball is about one-third ethanol, which is less dense than water, plus whatever sugars and other stuff there is, but go with me because the math is easier) that means you'd have to drink a lot of this stuff. The density of water is just shy of 1 kg/L so you'd actually have to consume 3.33 L of Fireball. I'm pretty sure your liver would go into failure long before this point.
If you consume 8 shots, with each one being 44 mL, that's 352 mL or 0.352 L, so that's 2.112 g of PG, 10x lower than the toxic amount. Now, you may be saying that's getting kind of close for comfort. But all of this assumes that everything that enters your stomach goes straight to the blood stream unmetabolized. Pharmacokinetics says that is absolutely ludicrous. About 45% of PG is eliminated by urination, so that nixes most of it, unless you don't pee. After 3.33 L of Fireball, you're going to be in serious distress if you don't.
The argument also assumes that the PG passes into the blood or interstitial fluid without changing the volume of those fluids. Toxicity is predicated upon the concentration in the body, not the total amount, so this is also a ridiculous assumption.
Though I don't have data for absorption of PG across the stomach or intestinal wall, I'm going to safely assume it is absolutely asinine to even think that consumption of Fireball is in any way dangerous due to PG. You'd be dead from alcohol poisoning long before anything else.
Is it time for football yet?
Thank you for this post. My wife was talking about the "antifreeze" in fireball last night and I knew it was bs, but the only rebuttal I could muster was "Well I drank a daquiri in New Orleans called antifreeze and I'm fine."
But seriously, it was called antifreeze and my face went numb.
Your real name is Walt isn't it
Excuse me for just one moment...
I don't understand most of those chemical words but you have convinced me and will be indulging in many fireball shots tonight.
I have that same fight now because it is used in brewing equipment as a sealed coolant for fermenters and coolers. It is used specifically because it has such a low toxicity and almost no environmental impact.
But, there are groups out there outraged because it sounds like a bad chemical.
Lack of education.
Thousands die each year from overexposure to dihydrogen monoxide, and yet the government does nothing!!! It's incredibly prevalent at popular vacation areas and no effort is made to remove it. Dangerous chemicals need to be controlled
Dihydrogen monoxide is now a major concern.
The military is working with it with the Navy using it extensively.
Left unchecked, it does millions of dollars worth of damage every year.
The government refuses to do anything about it.
You can see the trail it produces when planes fly at high altitudes and it is now in very measurable quantities in the air.
It is a major component as a greenhouse gas and a serious concern.
Lab tests show it is absorbed by humans and is a major cause of swelling yet the drug companies use it in manufacturing drugs.
It covers the vast majority of Earth's surface. It's like no one even cares.
And fish fornicate in it.
That is so crazy! I ingested alot of this foolishly once.. Scary thought knowing just how slippery of a slope I would've headed down. Needless to say, I will wet my whistle more carefully next time. I need to wash what I have laying around in the kitchen. Problem is it is everywhere and in almost everything, but no one seems to care because they don't want to change their set-in-stone ways.
Snow is much better than rain at 32 degrees.
Oh its gonna rain too...its a mix of rain and snow
It's Blacksburg, dude. You go from snow to wind to nothing...and that's just walking to class.
Yeah I know, but in spite of that it just seems a tad early for our first accumulation, buuuuuut I'm no climatologist so I can't say for sure. Blue ridge mountains and the Appalachians do some nasty things to weather patterns
I peed my pants during OT of the Marshall game last year... It felt so good.
HA! Y'all are freaking out about snow in October? It snowed in early September out here and has snowed about 4 times since then.
Montana? North Dakota? Wisconsin... or are you a.... Canadian???
HOW DARE YOU SUSPECT ME OF BEING A CANADIAN! That's the most offensive thing every written on TKP.
But close on the first 2 guesses, Wyoming.
Well thank god you're not Canadian... but regardless should've thought of Wyoming I'm kinda sorry I missed that :\