Brilliant - SSJoe being SSJoe, he’s at his best squeezing entertaining analysis from whatever room or group in which he finds himself (solid grammar, right?). I did NOT understand those distances, 12 k between the abstract most distant cities and you found 10+!
Thanks for another great missive, I look forward to the origin stories countdown from five to one (sorry six!).
I cheated and put Florianópolis to stand a chance. I left Florianópolis 8 years ago and moved (check your notes) 6,911 miles north-northwest to Seattle.
I got to Seattle in September, right on time to follow my first Seahawks season (I didn't understand football at all, except very few things I picked up watching the Marino Dolphins when I was a kid in Brazil).
So I started following the Seahawks in 2015, so I never watched the team live on a Super Bowl. The first moment I remember was the beating the Panthers gave us that season.
The opposite point of the planet from Lumen Field is 47° 35' 43.2" S, 57° 40' 6.1" E. Closest land point, Alfred Faure, a French science station. Just in case any French readers fancy a challenge :p The Herd & McDonald Islands are also not far off for any Ronalds that want a trip.
Cape Town, about as far as possible, whilst still remaining in a normal inahbited area. So damn, that's a well deserved win!
Ha, that is amazing, almost as wild as seeing that off-brand Seahawks merch with the logo hovering over a large metallic silver star...which strongly implies a completely different NFL franchise.
Bobo did say he had a bad showing in the 40, and he knows he's not fast. But, those ideas could have stopped him from questioning a time error. He timed better at a 2nd workout, around 4.67, if I recall. No matter; as they say in fantasy football, I'll buy the dip. Translation: we'll happily get a steal because everyone else thinks he's too slow.
I enjoyed your story. I think it's cool to picture life journies through an action green colored lens.
BTW, I used to get blacked out, too, but I cut down on my gameday drinking.
Awesome!! What a fun Seaside Joe this was! As always, you put in the work and the research and published the data in such an engaging fashion. Classic Kenneth Arthur for those of us who have been fans well before Seaside Joe existed -- these gems you pull out of nowhere and gift us. Thanks for this, brightened my day and made me even prouder to be a 12!!
I do come from outside the country. By milage alone you would never know it. I am from Victoria BC Canada, which is only 70 miles from Seattle as the Sea Hawk flies.
I am a day one supporter and have thoroughly enjoyed it all but for one set back. Early on in Seahawks history and through some dark years, I used to get blacked out if the stadium didn't sell out 72 hours before the game. The NFL has a 125 mile rule which was harsh for me as no matter which way I go to Seattle it envolves a ferry trip, and at the least 3 to 3.5 hours of travel. I'm glad to say it has been a long time since the last TV blackout. Of course I always got all the road games, and if it wasn't a sellout they showed mostly Raider games. As we were in the same division and played them twice a year I watched a lot of AL Davis and the Oakland, Los Angeles, and now Vegas Raiders.
I looked at all the cities where people are from. I would like to add I first started to read Seaside Joe when I was living in Thailand. There was a 6 year stretch that I lived there with my wife, four months a year. I subscribed to the NFL international Game Day package and got every game, it was great. When Covid hit that put a stop to our annual trip. Thailand is somewhere in the 6000 mile range. Scanning through the other countries I was happy to see I had played rugby in many of them.
I have never been to South Africa, but I would like to go see the big seven animals and mostly lions in their natural domain.
Great to hear Jamal is coming off the PUP list. He is such a difference maker and if he could play 13 to 14 games he would help us win many of them.
Let's cross our fingers our rookie class heals quickly, I think Charbonnet and Hall are the only 2 not nursing an injury. I believe Jake BoBo will make the team as a UDFA. Does anybody believe his speed is actually 4.99 over 40 yards. I think there was a typo and they inverted the 4.66 which is probably close to his real time. I am not sure how many people know how slow 4.99 is. I would hazard a guess half of the NFL offensive linemen run faster than that. I do admit 4.99 makes for a far better story.
I remember those bad old blackout days in the NFL. When I lived in Morgantown, WV I rooted for the Pittsburgh Steelers who were about 60 miles away. All of our TV stations were from Pittsburg, the team was historically bad so rarely was a home game televised. And then Franco Harris, Joe Greene, Bradshaw et. al. arrived to change that. Then I moved back to Seattle a little before the Hawks arrived and suffered the same fate with a new team. What a stupid rule, thank god for new technology that lets fans from anywhere in the world follow any team in any league or sport that they want.
Nice build up with the presentation of the data! It was exciting! I must say that at one point I was like, "come on... no way that Saudi Arabia is closer than Nepal or Singapore!" Like many, I tend to picture the Pacific Ocean as much smaller than it actually is. It is 12,300 miles across, and covers 30% of the entire Earth's surface. This was a fun read for me. Thanks for bringing my anticipatory football anxiousness down to a more relatively healthy level. I look forward to a game of Uberlandia with y'all in the near future! Of course we'll have to play online.
I cycled through Tarragona about 40 years ago, headed north up the coast. My most lasting impression was of the monument to the 200th anniversary of the city's founding.
So happy that you have that nice memory of my city. Pretty much of Tarragona is about 2000 years old, yeah. Tarraco was so nice even Emperor Augustus lived here. If some of y'all have the opportunity, check us out, just an hour south from Barcelona.
Sounds good. In 2 weeks we go on a road trip and want to visit France, Spain and Portugal. Any other tips there? We have a camper and no plans other than a village near Bordeaux.
Drive down to Basque Country, in northern Spain, cities of Bilbao, Vitoria and San Sebastian. Beautiful, chilly and good cuisine. Toulouse is a couple hours drive away and is worth a visit too.
If you're just driving around those countries, check Pamplona as well, in Spain, beautiful city close to Vitoria. Down here in Tarragona we have several dozens of kilometers of coast with many camping sites to park the camper and rest; drive down to Delta de l'Ebre region, nice nature site and a crazy OG paella. If you like the mountains, check the catalan Pyrenees, all towns surrounding Sort and La Seu d'Urgell have nice places and a big offer on adventure activities. All northern Spain is cool (eat local, very good), with Galicia, Asturias and Cantabria regions. Avoid big cities like Madrid, Barcelona, Zaragoza or Valencia, not going to be comfortable with the camper. If you're planning on driving all the way to the south, do NOT miss Sevilla and Córdoba.
Ouch! My brain. So cool that Enric, lives there and you visited. I bet it is amazing! In America, we tend to not have much perspective on what is truly "old". I am SO excited to be visiting Italy, Greece, and Turkey in October. Gonna go get my mind expanded (exploded).
If that blows your mind, think about the privilege I had when I used to be an archaeologist in Australia. I was regularly handling artefacts that were 30,000+ years old! It’s an amazing feeling when you dig up something that a person created, but no one has touched for 30,000 years.
I've always enjoyed feeling small compared to the expanse of time and space. Just looking up at the stars or going to a museum has always been a moving experience for me. That sounds like an amazing job you had!
I would still be doing it if I could just do the interesting stuff. Unfortunately it doesn’t pay unless you’re consulting, which I was doing for a while. But that becomes way too political and you get caught up in writing reports and not doing archaeology or actually learning from the archaeology you do do. It becomes just an exercise in collecting artefacts before the area is destroyed by development and they won’t/don’t pay you to research what you’ve discovered. It’s a shame really.
Brilliant - SSJoe being SSJoe, he’s at his best squeezing entertaining analysis from whatever room or group in which he finds himself (solid grammar, right?). I did NOT understand those distances, 12 k between the abstract most distant cities and you found 10+!
Thanks for another great missive, I look forward to the origin stories countdown from five to one (sorry six!).
I cheated and put Florianópolis to stand a chance. I left Florianópolis 8 years ago and moved (check your notes) 6,911 miles north-northwest to Seattle.
I got to Seattle in September, right on time to follow my first Seahawks season (I didn't understand football at all, except very few things I picked up watching the Marino Dolphins when I was a kid in Brazil).
So I started following the Seahawks in 2015, so I never watched the team live on a Super Bowl. The first moment I remember was the beating the Panthers gave us that season.
So Melbourne was second? That feels pretty special. Can I request we get the chains out just to be sure?
The opposite point of the planet from Lumen Field is 47° 35' 43.2" S, 57° 40' 6.1" E. Closest land point, Alfred Faure, a French science station. Just in case any French readers fancy a challenge :p The Herd & McDonald Islands are also not far off for any Ronalds that want a trip.
Cape Town, about as far as possible, whilst still remaining in a normal inahbited area. So damn, that's a well deserved win!
I’m just going to put it out there that I’m not the only ‘Hawks fan in Nepal: https://imgur.com/a/U58jdTk
Great idea, Kenneth, and thanks for showing us just how far-flung this fandom of ours actually is!
Ha, that is amazing, almost as wild as seeing that off-brand Seahawks merch with the logo hovering over a large metallic silver star...which strongly implies a completely different NFL franchise.
tbf who of us haven’t written over a wrong answer with a better one after we thought about it a bit..
Bobo did say he had a bad showing in the 40, and he knows he's not fast. But, those ideas could have stopped him from questioning a time error. He timed better at a 2nd workout, around 4.67, if I recall. No matter; as they say in fantasy football, I'll buy the dip. Translation: we'll happily get a steal because everyone else thinks he's too slow.
I enjoyed your story. I think it's cool to picture life journies through an action green colored lens.
BTW, I used to get blacked out, too, but I cut down on my gameday drinking.
Supposed to be reply to Chris Snape's 11:01 post. SMH @ Substack's layout/format
Awesome!! What a fun Seaside Joe this was! As always, you put in the work and the research and published the data in such an engaging fashion. Classic Kenneth Arthur for those of us who have been fans well before Seaside Joe existed -- these gems you pull out of nowhere and gift us. Thanks for this, brightened my day and made me even prouder to be a 12!!
I do come from outside the country. By milage alone you would never know it. I am from Victoria BC Canada, which is only 70 miles from Seattle as the Sea Hawk flies.
I am a day one supporter and have thoroughly enjoyed it all but for one set back. Early on in Seahawks history and through some dark years, I used to get blacked out if the stadium didn't sell out 72 hours before the game. The NFL has a 125 mile rule which was harsh for me as no matter which way I go to Seattle it envolves a ferry trip, and at the least 3 to 3.5 hours of travel. I'm glad to say it has been a long time since the last TV blackout. Of course I always got all the road games, and if it wasn't a sellout they showed mostly Raider games. As we were in the same division and played them twice a year I watched a lot of AL Davis and the Oakland, Los Angeles, and now Vegas Raiders.
I looked at all the cities where people are from. I would like to add I first started to read Seaside Joe when I was living in Thailand. There was a 6 year stretch that I lived there with my wife, four months a year. I subscribed to the NFL international Game Day package and got every game, it was great. When Covid hit that put a stop to our annual trip. Thailand is somewhere in the 6000 mile range. Scanning through the other countries I was happy to see I had played rugby in many of them.
I have never been to South Africa, but I would like to go see the big seven animals and mostly lions in their natural domain.
Great to hear Jamal is coming off the PUP list. He is such a difference maker and if he could play 13 to 14 games he would help us win many of them.
Let's cross our fingers our rookie class heals quickly, I think Charbonnet and Hall are the only 2 not nursing an injury. I believe Jake BoBo will make the team as a UDFA. Does anybody believe his speed is actually 4.99 over 40 yards. I think there was a typo and they inverted the 4.66 which is probably close to his real time. I am not sure how many people know how slow 4.99 is. I would hazard a guess half of the NFL offensive linemen run faster than that. I do admit 4.99 makes for a far better story.
I remember those bad old blackout days in the NFL. When I lived in Morgantown, WV I rooted for the Pittsburgh Steelers who were about 60 miles away. All of our TV stations were from Pittsburg, the team was historically bad so rarely was a home game televised. And then Franco Harris, Joe Greene, Bradshaw et. al. arrived to change that. Then I moved back to Seattle a little before the Hawks arrived and suffered the same fate with a new team. What a stupid rule, thank god for new technology that lets fans from anywhere in the world follow any team in any league or sport that they want.
Nice build up with the presentation of the data! It was exciting! I must say that at one point I was like, "come on... no way that Saudi Arabia is closer than Nepal or Singapore!" Like many, I tend to picture the Pacific Ocean as much smaller than it actually is. It is 12,300 miles across, and covers 30% of the entire Earth's surface. This was a fun read for me. Thanks for bringing my anticipatory football anxiousness down to a more relatively healthy level. I look forward to a game of Uberlandia with y'all in the near future! Of course we'll have to play online.
I thought the same when researching the distance to Australia and wondered why it was showing the path beyond the Atlantic Ocean.
Forgot to answer the survey, but heads up from Tarragona, Catalonia! Go hawks
I cycled through Tarragona about 40 years ago, headed north up the coast. My most lasting impression was of the monument to the 200th anniversary of the city's founding.
The monument was 2000 years old.
So happy that you have that nice memory of my city. Pretty much of Tarragona is about 2000 years old, yeah. Tarraco was so nice even Emperor Augustus lived here. If some of y'all have the opportunity, check us out, just an hour south from Barcelona.
Sounds good. In 2 weeks we go on a road trip and want to visit France, Spain and Portugal. Any other tips there? We have a camper and no plans other than a village near Bordeaux.
Drive down to Basque Country, in northern Spain, cities of Bilbao, Vitoria and San Sebastian. Beautiful, chilly and good cuisine. Toulouse is a couple hours drive away and is worth a visit too.
Thank you.
If you're just driving around those countries, check Pamplona as well, in Spain, beautiful city close to Vitoria. Down here in Tarragona we have several dozens of kilometers of coast with many camping sites to park the camper and rest; drive down to Delta de l'Ebre region, nice nature site and a crazy OG paella. If you like the mountains, check the catalan Pyrenees, all towns surrounding Sort and La Seu d'Urgell have nice places and a big offer on adventure activities. All northern Spain is cool (eat local, very good), with Galicia, Asturias and Cantabria regions. Avoid big cities like Madrid, Barcelona, Zaragoza or Valencia, not going to be comfortable with the camper. If you're planning on driving all the way to the south, do NOT miss Sevilla and Córdoba.
Ouch! My brain. So cool that Enric, lives there and you visited. I bet it is amazing! In America, we tend to not have much perspective on what is truly "old". I am SO excited to be visiting Italy, Greece, and Turkey in October. Gonna go get my mind expanded (exploded).
If that blows your mind, think about the privilege I had when I used to be an archaeologist in Australia. I was regularly handling artefacts that were 30,000+ years old! It’s an amazing feeling when you dig up something that a person created, but no one has touched for 30,000 years.
I've always enjoyed feeling small compared to the expanse of time and space. Just looking up at the stars or going to a museum has always been a moving experience for me. That sounds like an amazing job you had!
Yes I agree, that stuff blows my mind too.
I would still be doing it if I could just do the interesting stuff. Unfortunately it doesn’t pay unless you’re consulting, which I was doing for a while. But that becomes way too political and you get caught up in writing reports and not doing archaeology or actually learning from the archaeology you do do. It becomes just an exercise in collecting artefacts before the area is destroyed by development and they won’t/don’t pay you to research what you’ve discovered. It’s a shame really.
What a great idea Joe! Cool to see how international the Hawks are