Were you here?

[susandennis]

Before 6 a.m. this morning the parking lot in front of the football stadium was nearly filled. The gates opened at 7. They only let people into the plaza so everyone stood until the players got there off the bus about 8:45. They were done at 9. There are still some people out there now at 9:15 but mainly it is over. Whew.

I turned on the TV and learned that the reporter could not hear the anchor 'due to a large amount of noisealation'. And he was not being cute. I don't know why I keep expecting local TV news to not be horrible. I also don't know why I keep watching.

Oh and they said that there were about 25,000 people there.

When I was a newspaper reporter I often had to provide a crowd count. It is not an exact science. A cop showed me how once. (Take a confined area - like a corner or a square of sidewalk and count the people in it. Then figure how many of those there are with people in it and multiply. Since no one ever does an actual count it is nearly always exactly WhoTheFuckKnows.)

Having said that, if there were 25,000 people out there this morning, I'd have to say that more than 20,000 of them were totally invisible. I'm thinking Mr. Noisealation probably didn't major in English OR math.

I'm enjoying all the coverage of Pittsburgh. I went to college an hour west of there. We'd pile into whatever car we could find like circus clowns and head for the Big City. It was in the days when Stohs was a local beer and the Duquesne Incline was free and steel was still THE industry and Three Rivers Stadium was Brand Spanking New. It was such a change from North Carolina. The food was amazing. The people sounded so different and were so much fun. One of my best first friends was Francie who was from Washington (called 'Little Washington' so you wouldn't get confused - oh and pronounced Warsh-ington). I heard on the news last night that Washington was working to change it's name to Steeler, PA. Fun. Wonder what ever happened to Francie.

Comments

[geordie.livejournal.com]

Some of my friends were with the Parachute Regiment in the UK and this actually came up in conversation once. They do the crowd thing by a different technique. You can be taught to guess accurately just by looking at a whole load of anything a lot of times. So they show them crowds, coins, buttons, dots, anything and the trainees guess. They use many different pictures and, eventually, most people get pretty good at guessing. One of my friends taught her kids the same skill, for smaller numbers, with cards that they sell for that purpose. 100 cards with random patterns of dots.

[susandennis]

Cool! I always sucked at guesstimating - especially crowds - but I am still confident that the num this morning was way way way way less than 25,000.

[(Anonymous)]

My father worked in chemical engineering for most of his career and one task often was to estimate how much water --- or whatever --- was flowing out of a pipe. And he was usually right on, which impressed a lot of people. It sure impressed me. Finally, I asked him how he did it and his reply was that he visualized it filling 55 gallon drums and extrapolated from that. Oh, good idea. Never worked for me....

[pheon.livejournal.com]

Sorry. That previous anonymous was me. Didn't realized I wasn't logged in.

[susandennis]

This cookies 'fix' that LJ put in is really getting to be annoying! But, the bit about the 55 gallon drum is interesting. I would not have a clue. I have always judge heights by my father who was 6 feet... hmmm is that two daddys tall? or just a half a daddy? Never worked very well.

[johncomic.livejournal.com]

When I was a newspaper reporter I often had to provide a crowd count. It is not an exact science. A cop showed me how once.

Every so often you come out with some fascinating fact about yourself that just blindsides me like a wet fish. Forrest Gump would say your LJ is like a box o' choklits... ;P

[susandennis]

Ha! A wet fish. Whap! OH my. I have been very lucky to have had such a rich life. Choklits for sure. (And my ample ass is testimony to the fact that I've enjoyed more than my share!)

[pookfreak.livejournal.com]

you've got Noisalation and I caught "Conversated" (http://pookfreak.livejournal.com/540889.html)"...what is this world coming to I ask!?

[pookfreak.livejournal.com]

and yes I'm replying to my own entry...is ?! a legal use of punctuation?

Just curious.

[pookfreak.livejournal.com]

Speaking of punctuation...I'm gonna miss West Wing next year...(Season 1 - Mr. Willis from Ohio...."There is one fruit whose seeds are on the outside....There are 14 punctuation marks in standard english grammar..."