Lambeau Field: The NFL stadium that is literally in its own time zone

In just a few hours, the Green Bay Packers will host the Minnesota Vikings in the final regular-season game of the 2015 NFL season. The winner of the game will win the NFC North division title and host a playoff game in the Wild Card round of the NFL playoffs next week. The loser of the game will take a wild card spot in the playoffs and play a road game in the Wild Card round of the playoffs.

The Green Bay Packers play their home games at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin. One interesting thing about Lambeau Field is that it’s literally in its own time zone.

While the Packers website lists game start times in Central Time, which every part of Wisconsin that has a permanent population officially observes, Lambeau Field itself, which has no permanent population but seats 81,435 people during Packers games, is actually on Lombardi Time, set 15 minutes ahead of Central Time. This is because an outdoor clock on the north outer wall of the stadium is deliberately set 15 minutes fast, compared to Central Time. As a result, Lambeau Field is in what I like to call the Lombardi Time Zone, which has an offset of UTC-5:45 during standard time and UTC-4:45 during daylight savings time (the Universal Time Code offsets for Central Time are UTC-6 for standard time and UTC-5 for daylight savings time). No other part of the world is located in this time zone. The Lombardi Time Zone is an unofficial time zone, in that, to my knowledge, neither international law, the U.S. federal government, nor the State of Wisconsin officially recognize Lombardi Time as an official time zone.

Lombardi Time gets its name from Vince Lombardi, the legendary Packers head coach who led the Packers to wins in the iconic “Ice Bowl” game on New Year’s Eve in 1967 and the first two Super Bowls ever held. When Lombardi coached the Packers from 1959-1967, he was known for expecting Packers players and staff to be 15 minutes early to practices and team meetings.

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Aaron Schock caught using taxpayer money on airplane trip to NFL game

Disgraced U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock (R-IL) has been implicated in one scandal after another in recent months, most notably the Decorgate scandal, in which Schock had his Washington, D.C. office decorated in a lavish, Downton Abbey-inspired style.

Now, Schock has been implicated in yet another scandal. This time, it involves taxpayer money, a private airplane, and a NFL game between the Chicago Bears and the Minnesota Vikings (the Bears defeated the Vikings 21-13 in that game):

Schock chartered an aircraft to take him from Manassas Regional Airport in Virginia, about 30 miles from the Capitol, to Peoria on Friday, Nov. 14. The return trip to Reagan National Airport was set for the next Monday. The side trip to Chicago was tucked in between, on Sunday, according to the pilot who flew the plane.

The newest official House disbursement records show a November payment of $10,802 to pilot Keith Siilats for “commercial transportation.”

Siilats told me in an interview on Sunday, “That whole weekend was paid by the government.” The only invoice Siilats said he submitted was for government payment.

Siilats also told me he attended the Bears game with Schock.

There are no records showing any reimbursement from Schock for the Chicago flights.

That’s right…Aaron Schock is using your taxpayer money to fly to professional football games. I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that federal tax dollars, which could be better spent on things like rebuilding crumbling infrastructure, helping the poor, and so on, are being used for a Member of Congress’s trip to a NFL game.

Aaron Schock should resign from Congress immediately…in fact, he should have resigned a long time ago. In the meantime, I’ll start referring to this latest Schock scandal as the “Bearsgate” scandal.