Facebook cometh. The Kansas City Business Journal has reported that the social media behemoth is set to construct a facility in the Golden Plains Technology Park that is at the northwest corner of Interstate 435 and Highway 169, straddling Clay, and Platte County.
In the words of Donald Trump, this industrial park is going to be “HUGE.” The original plans for the park are to have 5.5 million square feet of data center with sixteen buildings. The developers have amassed some 700 acres in this area. I’m no longer a farmer, but that is a bunch of land. Anyway, Facebook is now Meta and Meta won’t comment on such matters, but reputable people are saying that they will be building their 20th known data center at the location. Think this through a little, though. Facebook has so much data on you that they need 20 of these mega data centers spread across the globe to properly stalk your life and make sure you can get your thoughts out to the world. I’m not sure how data centers work, but I’m doubting that you can stop by the new mega center to see how much stuff they are saving on you, but it might be worth a try once they get the shovels in the ground. Kind of like going to the bank to see your money.
I am a Missouri basketball fan. There are like three of us in the state. It’s a terrible fandom to live. Five years ago, I thought everything was going to be ok. They hired Cuonzo Martin and he had a young man name Michael Porter in his pocket. My son and I split some season tickets and we were counting our wins before the season started. Mizzou played Kansas in an exhibition game at Sprint Center, and we were there and super excited. October 22, 2017. They lost 93-87, but we were not deterred. Mizzou had stood up to the big, bad Kansas basketball program, exhibition or not.
The season opener was everything we expected. Mizzou Arena was rocking. Porter got two early points that day against Iowa State and then left the game with a back injury. He missed the rest of the regular season and Mizzou basketball began a free fall that was only partially delayed by the presence of Michael’s brother Jontay.
It’s been miserable this year. They have been bad, and it has been some of the ugliest basketball I’ve ever seen played, even on good nights. Cuonzo Martin was fired. Cuonzo is by all accounts one of the best people you could ever be around. Unfortunately, college basketball does not reward character, it rewards coaches that can get players by any means necessary.
So here we are, and most of the fan base is clamoring for a coach that has less character. A coach that knows how to cheat to get players, sadly, I’m probably one of those. Prayers for the program are appreciated.
Surely, God ignores prayers about sports and such, right? I’m no time management expert, but with all the real prayer needs, I’d think He would get an underling to oversee the sports prayer department. Some poor angel they stuck in a basement office.
For the Kansas fans that snickered at my Mizzou column stanza, I will remind you that the spring football games are coming up shortly. That’s the sport they play in the fall and your history in that sport is cringeworthy as well.
Patrick Mahomes is a married man and the warehouse guys that wanted Patrick to distance himself from his brother and fiancé are not going to be happy. His brother was his best man at the wedding last weekend and his fiancé, oddly enough, became his wife. It appears that we are going to have to adjust our Chiefs fandom to welcome Jackson Mahomes TikTok dances and his wife’s sometimes boorish game day antics.
I’d like to remind everyone that our last major sports hero to grow up in front of us was George Brett who ran the town pretty hard in the early days and may have had a few running buddies that we had to get used to (including Jamie Quirk). They’re young. They’ll grow up and maybe we can all be one big happy Chiefs family eventually.
(Guy Speckman can be reached at gspeckman@me.com or hoping Rick Pitino has a few cheating years left in him)