When was the parking system not screwed up?  I graduated in '04 and it was crap back then.  

System was privatized.  Company running it does (somehow) a significantly worse job -- and costs both users and the university more.  

We went in October and it felt abandoned compared to most any other national park I've ever been too.  To get the matching scenery at Sequoia you have to go off the main trails (which aside from the trees are the least interesting).  I would hold that Amanda Lake hike up to anything at Yosemite or Zion (EXCEPT the Narrows top down).  

We didn't have much of an issue with smog, but we were at high elevation pretty much throughout.  

Yosemite is a total loss for me because of the crowds.  The hikes are NICE, but they're not nice enough to overcome that.  My wife and I have nicknamed it the Disneyworld of National parks.  

Zion at least has a couple of big hitters in the Narrows and Angels Landing ... but again with the crowds (unless you do a top down on the Narrows -- which we did and enjoyed).  

Aside from the area right around the Sherman, Sequoia is like having your own private park... and IMO the hikes are just as good as anything the others have to offer EXCEPT the Narrows.  

Second post to show off the beauty that is the Amanda Lake hike in Sequoia.  That cliff she's looking off is easily 3-400 feet up, and you have like a 2-3 foot walk way.  

People have already given great suggestions so I'm just gonna give you two quick additions: 

-Sequoia NP is IMO better than Yosemite and Zion.  Less busy, still very beautiful.  Did the Amanda Lake hike a few years back and only ran into 2 other hikers... and it was like going in to Narnia.  

-Wife and I got engaged in front of Havasu falls in the Grand Canyon.  The hike down there (I think it took us 10 hours) isn't anything to write home about once you're down in the canyon.  The scenery when you're down there though?  I have never seen anything more beautiful.  Asked her to marry me in front of the waterfall.  It's a PAIN in the ass to get a reservation down there (It's an Indian Reservation and they usually book for the entire year in about a day and a half) -- but it's worth the trouble.  (That waterfall is like 100+ feet tall)

That is a tragic last name.  Snodgrass.  

You're right, he won't at all.  

Which is why the second one gets in his way he'll toss it under the bus.  

Amen.  

This guy was trouble from day one.  Didn't care at all about any of the tradition at the school.  

Academics are important obviously; but you have to juggle a lot more than that at Ohio State and he just didn't give two shits about doing it.  

Oh he also screwed up the parking system.  

I say we all just assume there won't be a season -- that way if/when there is we are pleasantly surprised, and if/when there isn't we're prepared.  

I live my entire life like this.  I currently am assuming my wife is banging the neighbor while I'm driving home.  But when I get home and she's instead angry at me because I forgot to start the dishwasher last night -- happiness.  

I would bet we HAVE college football this fall.  I also would bet that it starts on time.  

BUT I would also guess that pretty much every team has a different schedule than the one listed now, and many teams won't play at all or will take precautions like the article suggests.  

The bigger question for me is, do we actually finish the season?  If we start things out, and 2-3 weeks in we start seeing entire teams infected or a death here or there, or someone having to sit out, or etc, etc, etc .... Do they keep chugging on or do programs just start calling it quits for the year?  

My guess is no one knows where the line is.  No one wants to say 10%, and then everything is going fine but something tragic happens... maybe a player dies or their immediate family is infected or a star has to sit for a month because they're sick...etc, etc, etc... And then there's a public backlash.  

I think we'll have a better idea where the acceptance line is once the pro leagues get their shortened seasons going.  

I don't disagree, but I pose another question.  What will magically change in the spring?

In theory we could have a vaccine this fall, which would have reached enough people to be having a major effect on the virus and it's transmission by the Spring.  Also in theory, the nation could get a better grip on the virus by then, driving down case numbers (which would probably require a shut down again at this point), driving up contact tracing/testing/etc... and we could be in a scenario like Europe.  Fans would be excluded from the stands in that case, but you could try to have sports again and have a more realistic chance of not getting shut down.  

In practice?  Unless the vaccine finishes this fall (which is very possible but definitely not a guarantee), there will be little to no difference between Fall or Spring football.  

He's got some connections, I could buy that all.  

Honestly, while I fully understand why we don't know whats going to happen yet (as the article itself says, waiting until the last possible moment so they can make their decision with the best possible info)... I wish we just knew one way or the other what the plan was.  Cancelling the season, shortening it, changing to regional games, playing it as per normal, etc.... I don't care, it's the waiting game that's killing me.  

so it follows that we'll see a horrific spate of deaths in a couple weeks. 

Yah the big problem is now the hospitals in the hard-hit areas are full.  The fatality rate goes up as much as 50% when the healthcare system is overwhelmed.  We've learned a lot about dealing with this virus since it first hit... and that will undoubtedly help... but when you're overwhelmed you're overwhelmed.  Folks in those areas need to take it serious immediately  if they don't wanna see a bunch of folks start dying.  

I don't wanna dive into my thoughts on the protests, because that's not at conversation here... BUT, I would note that most of the media I saw expressed throughout their coverage the grave concerns of what this would do with the pandemic (though admittedly it wasn't their primary focus).  

I will be interested to see studies or research on the effect the protests had; on the one hand most attendees were wearing masks and it was outdoors (which we believe helps limit spread).  On the other hand most people were running around breathing heavy, and there was almost no social distancing.  We are right in the range where we would be seeing the drag out effects of those protests, so I -- and I say this as a card carrying liberal democrat who ran for office last year -- have few doubts the protests contributed to the spike we're seeing now.  To me it's more a question of how badly did they contribute.  I think it's a fools errand to blame the current spike on one behavior -- we as a nation are full of stupid behaviors in response to this.  

There's a lot I could dive into on this that you are missing, but I'll go straight to the two most important parts.  

1)  Just because 20 and 30 year olds are unlikely to die, doesn't mean this disease won't wreck them.  Many people in that age group who become infected are ending up hospitalized for a week or two, and sick for longer.  The only 20-something I know who became infected was out of commission for almost a month and described it as the sickest she has ever been in her life.  With regards to football -- imagine if Justin Fields catches it, misses a month because of it, and comes back 20 lbs lighter because of the toll it took on his body.  

2) Those 20-30 year olds do not live in a bubble.  They are around people in more at-risk age groups -- and that doesn't mean nursing home residents.  I know of 11 dead (2 I knew personally, 9 who were direct relations of a friend/coworker/relative)... half of them were in their 50's and only one had a serious pre-existing condition. 

This shit takes time.  Spanish Flu drastically changed the way people lived FOR ALMOST THREE YEARS a century ago.  We are fortunate enough to live in a time where modern science may give us an effective vaccine in around a year, maybe less with luck.  Most generations of humanity are faced with some kind of global incident at least once ..... lets now screw ours up because we're bored of it.  My grandfather was able to hide under the corpses of dead friends to avoid capture and execution by the Japanese, we can deal with this crap for a few more months.  

I live in the Philly suburbs.  Around my neighborhood people aren't typically wearing masks, and while I suspect some are socially distancing to a degree, kids are basically caution to the wind, and several neighbors have clearly had cook outs with 1-2 dozen guests.  My wife and I have maintained pretty hardcore social distancing (we're fortunate enough that our work and financial situation has allowed a lot of it).  We've only been going to the grocery store every 2 months and loading up then.  BUT, when I've been out to stores I would say somewhere between 85-95% of people are wearing masks.  Probably 75% of them wearing them properly.  

I see were still in the denial phase. When do we advance to acceptance?

About 1/3 of the population can't read the steps, let alone understand where they are on the chart.  I have never been more incredibly disappointed in my fellow Americans and their basic understanding of science and the world than I have been with this crisis.  People a century ago literally had a better understanding of how this works... and half of them were still going to the bathroom in a shed out back.  

There is SO incredibly much wrong with this.  For starters there are literally hundreds of scientific studies that prove the effectiveness of masks, and dozens related specifically to COVID-19.  

You also seem to have an incredibly warped view of who this virus effects and how it is being handled.  I know of 11 people who have died of COVID-19 (2 I knew personally, the other 9 are direct relations to a friend or coworker of mine).  Half of them were in their 50's.  The one 20-something-year old I know of who caught it described it as the sickest she had ever been in her life, and it put her out of action for almost a month.  

Also worth noting that our best estimates (as in most-beneficial for humans, not best studies) are that this is literally 10x more deadly than the flu, and anywhere from 2-3x more contagious.  For reference, the WORST recent flu killed as many as 60,000 in the US over the course of an entire year.... despite all the precautions we took as a nation, in roughly 4 months this has killed more than twice that.  

Whoever you are getting your news from is straight lying to you, and I say that as a person working in an industry that is spending literally trillions of dollars to respond to this virus.  

Signed - Pharmaceutical Research Scientist with 10 years experience in the industry.  

Let me guess... 9/11 was an inside job too? 

It was the squirrels that live in his attic.  They've been running the world from up there for years....

Brutus - To further your point, a Doctor from Houston came out and said their ICU beds are at 97% capacity but last year at this same time they were at 95% capacity. It is not unusual for ICU beds to be near max capacity.

I dunno what the situation was in that specific hospital last year, but I am chiming in to say that a typical occupancy rate in the US for ICU wards is about 60%.  I'm sure there are probably random incidences of a single hospital hitting up near 100%, especially in more rural areas where they hardly have any ICU beds.... but having entire regions of the nation nearing or surpassing their ICU capacity is INCREDIBLY bad and short of natural disasters unprecedented.  

https://www.aha.org/statistics/fast-facts-us-hospitals

That’s an opinion

I'm too lazy to link a facepalm gif.... so just imagine I used one in response to this.  

There are some positive caveats with the new upticks... but sadly the hospitalizations being down is no longer one of them.  All of those areas with spikes are quickly running out of room, or are already out.  

Sports breeds comradery and joy.  It gives us all excitement and something to look forward too in our otherwise monotonous lives.  

I always prioritize the more important things, and I've never let a Buckeye loss ruin more than a day.  

Can you imagine a season where the entire SEC has to cancel their second to last game of the season because D2 schools aren't playing this year?  What is the world coming too?