Tag: Misc (Page 1 of 11)

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m dialing back the blogging a bit to close the year. I’ve been working on my Favorite Songs list. I’m hoping to squeeze out one more RFTS post before the year is over. And general end-of-the-year busyness is keeping me from sitting down at the keyboard too much.

That said, I had an encounter today I thought was interesting and worthy of a quick post.

I have all kinds of stories from the gym. There are a lot of older people at the one I frequent, so there is some interesting behavior from them, especially the old dudes. There’s a story I will not share that is one of the more disgusting things I’ve ever encountered in public. Trust me, you don’t want to know.

In the men’s locker room there is a little lounge area with a couple couches and a TV. I hear and see all kinds of interesting shit here on the days I wear layers and have to use a locker to store them while working out.

Today a couple old guys – well into their 70s I guess – were talking about investments. One guy, loud and a little obnoxious, was telling his buddy about the guy he uses to manage his money.

“He learned from Michael Milken, if you know who that is.”
“Yeah, that name sounds familiar but I can’t remember why I know it.”
“He basically invented high-risk/high-yield investing,” Loud Guy said before pausing for a long moment. “He did get a little carried away, though. In fact he went to prison for a little while because of it.”

OH SURE, I’m going to give ALL my money to a guy who apparently learned at the foot of a man who went to prison for securities fraud and insider trading.

I’ve been doing some blog maintenance lately, going back and adding tags to all of my nearly 3500 posts. After two weeks of work, I’m about two-thirds of the way complete. I’m not really sure why I decided to do this. Tags are hard. I tried to use them years ago and gave up because I was never sure how to granular to get when categorizing posts. Even now, I don’t really understand their utility. Am I going to start searching old posts by tag? Probably not. But I got a bug that made me want to do it, so here I am.

Related, there is now a tag cloud in the right sidebar if you want to dive into any specific topics.

In addition to working backwards adding tags, I also continue my monthly review of what I posted exactly 20 years ago. This month’s entries included month two of fatherhood, and leaving my corporate job. While working through the archives, I realized I got away from the entries fill with small, random thoughts. Thus, today’s post!

L started getting letters from college basketball programs a year ago. I don’t know if it was her AAU program or CHS that shared her contact info, but she received about a letter a week from various small schools. They were always for camps and showcases, not actual recruiting letters.

Last month this was in the mailbox, and I got momentarily excited.

Then I realized it wasn’t THE UM, but rather a satellite campus. They are also the Wolverines, but play at the NAIA level. I guess all the IU campuses use the same logo as the main campus in Bloomington, so this isn’t unusual. It was kind of disappointing, at least to me. She didn’t seem to care.

L has pre-season practice on Tuesday and Thursday mornings starting at 6:00. We leave the house at 5:30, which means my alarm is set for 5:20. There is zero traffic so I’m usually back home right at 6:00. For some reason I can never fall back to sleep when I return home, and my attempt to catch about an hour of shuteye before I start the process of getting C out of bed is a failure. And then I’m a wreck the rest of the day, no matter how much caffeine I drink or if I can squeeze a nap in later.

I thought as you age getting up earlier in the morning was supposed to be easier. My mom’s dad would get up at like 4:30 and sit there smoking his pipe and drinking coffee until the TV stations in central Kansas came back on air at 6:00. Maybe I need a pipe…

I’m also hungry all day on Tuesdays/Thursdays. I’m only getting up 90 minutes earlier than normal. It shouldn’t be this destructive to my body.

S and I take walks once or twice a week as her schedule allows. We usually walk through the neighborhoods around us, but occasionally take the Monon Trail that runs near our home. When we do that, I like to be a grumpy old man and keep track of how many people riding bikes either ring a bell or announce themselves as they pass you. On our most recent trip down the Monon, just three of 14 bikers did the courteous thing. Also, a group of four bikers coming the opposite way rode four-across, forcing us to get out of their way even though two of them were well across the middle line.

WE ARE LIVING IN A SOCIETY, PEOPLE!

Another weird fact about me: I actually enjoy cleaning up after a gathering. As long as it can be the next day. Last Sunday morning, following the get-together we hosted the night before, I had no problem getting motivated to collect all the trash and recycling, clean the kitchen, put outdoor furniture away, etc. Same on holidays. As much as I enjoy Thanksgiving day, there’s something super satisfying about getting up the next morning, with the kids still in bed and S at work, and spending an hour or so working through the remaining dishes, getting things put back into their proper cabinets, and so on. Maybe it’s because there’s way less stress than when you are prepping and it serves as a mental bookend to the event.

A true sign that fall is arriving. I’ve had to wear a jacket to the gym a couple mornings. No need for pants over shorts yet. I can usually make my two minute walk there without too many layers until it truly gets cold. It’s the walk back, though, with sweaty clothes, when the added clothing is a must.

Those days were momentary exceptions, though. It looks like we are going to be in the mid–80s for at least the next two weeks. Summer lingers.

Another sign that fall is creeping up on us: I listened to my working list for favorite songs of the year for the first time yesterday. Just one pass through, enough to jot notes about a couple songs, but I won’t truly dive in for another 5–6 weeks. Still plenty of time for new songs to work their way in before I start whittling it down to its final order.

A very busy week around here, so not sure if I’ll get any more proper posts up until after the holiday weekend.

I did run across this article this morning and it’s how I’ve been spending the last 30 minutes or so. If you’re sick of your mailbox being filled up with credit card offers, insurance spiels, and other unsolicited mailings, following these suggestions can eliminate many of them.

I wish there was a way to also stop the local mailings. I hate those creepy solicitations that have a big picture of your house on the envelope. Although for us it is fun since so many use either pictures from when our home was being built, or the house that was on this property before it was built. That’s a great way to get my business, people!

I Get No Mail and It’s Glorious

It’s been a busy week. Our spring break begins on Friday and there is much to be done to prepare. Lots of errands, laundry, organizing, taking kids to appointments, prepping the house, etc.

Much of my free time has also been taken up by trying to finish a show I’ve been watching that will disappear from Hulu next week. It may well pop up somewhere else – Netflix, Prime, etc – on April 1, but I didn’t want to risk not finishing it. Especially since there is a new movie based on the show I’d like to throw on the iPad for our travels.

I also, accidentally, checked out a book for my Kindle that I wanted to read on our trip too early and I’m trying to rip through it before I have to return it to clear space for something else.

And I’ve been getting up early every day to prepare for Friday morning, when we will have alarms set for around 3:00 AM.

I was hoping to get a Reaching for the Stars entry either posted or queued up for next week. I just haven’t been able to devote the time to the two songs that were possibilities, so I doubt that will happen.

I considered doing a KU post-mortem/look ahead piece, but I wasn’t sure if anyone would want to read 3000 words about that right now. Three KU players are in the portal as of this moment. There will be more. By the time I get back from vacation we should have a better idea of KU’s roster for next year.

I will share a weekly playlist. Not sure if I’ll do it Thursday to ensure it gets posted or schedule something to appear on Friday. Either way, be looking for it.

It’s been awhile since I’ve had a run-in with a local freak, for lack of a better term. You know them: the random, semi-crazy appearing/acting people who engage you in conversation without an invitation.

My favorite such encounter was sometime in the mid–90s at a Dillons in Lawrence, KS with one of that city’s most notable weirdos. I was attempting to buy some anti-perspirant and this man sidled up to me, grabbed a container of Speed Stick or whatever, and started mumbling some nonsense that had to do with being a pawn in the desires of big business, or something along those lines. I kind of enjoyed it, as this dude just seemed out there rather than dangerous in any way. I tried to keep the conversation going but he was more interested in spouting his views rather than having a true dialogue. Somewhere I have a journal with the entire conversation written down. I probably should have looked for that before I started this post…

Anyway, Monday I popped into the local library to grab a book I had reserved. To get to the Holds section you must walk past two tables of public-use computers. As I passed one of the tables I heard someone say, “Are you doing ok, sir?”

I realized I was the only sir walking by, so this question must have been aimed at me. I looked around and saw an odd looking fellow sitting at one of the computers looking at me. Before I could say anything he continued, “It’s ok, sir. It’s just a library,” with a hint of both concern and ridicule in his voice.

I kind of half-chuckled, rolled my eyes, and continued.

I guess this triggered him. He threw his hands up in the air and shook his head in total disgust. I quickened my pace to get around the corner and beyond the safety of the stacks.

I grabbed my book and headed back to the check out area, which would take me by the computer table again. I decided to look casual and devote my total attention to picking through my keys for my mini library card

I should share at this moment another key detail: this guy had wild hair and a face tattoo. Not to stereotype, but I’m guessing someone who seems a little unhinged and has a face tattoo is not one you want to push.

I kept my peripheral vision alert just in case dude tried to rush me. I kept an ear open just in case there were any more comments, too.

Fortunately for me, but probably unfortunately for this story, I had no more interaction with this gentleman. Once I was safely in my locked car, I let out a breath and started laughing. You can get all kinds at public libraries, but between Covid and mask requirements they have seemed less interesting for the past two years. Glad to see things are getting back to normal.

Moving a little slow this Monday morning. We had several of S’s high school friends and their families over yesterday and the gathering ran rather late for a Sunday. Then I woke up at about 1:15 with one of those terrible, mid-summer “The AC is running but I’m still too hot to sleep” things that kept me restless for the better part of two hours. Hate those. I blame the beer and barbecue that was in my stomach.

I’ll get the final, extra-stuffed, Olympic Notebook of the year out likely tomorrow.

I’m behind on sharing links, too. We’ll see if I can get to those shortly or just save them for a long list this Friday.

Strange to wakeup, think ahead, and realize in two days I’ll have to add early alarms back to my phone and be getting two of the girls up for school. L gets to go drop her school supplies off and meet her homeroom teacher, who is new to St. P’s, later today, then she begins classes Wednesday. C has freshman schedule walkthrough Wednesday morning, starts classes Thursday, then has no class Friday but instead a seven-hour orientation session that lasts from mid-afternoon into the evening. M starts classes Friday. Weird, I know. CHS started staggering how grades start last year – freshmen and seniors one day, sophomores and juniors the next – and decided to stick with it this year. Thus we ease into the new school year before everyone is locked in a week from today.

RIP to Markie Post. A lot of guys who grew up in the 80s were sad when they heard the news.

Remember the 2002 film Catch Me If You Can? Leonardo DiCaprio starred as Frank W. Abagnale Jr., a man who fooled people into thinking he was an airline pilot, among other things, to live a jet-setting, check-forging, stewardess-banging life.

The movie was wonderful, as I recall. It had just the right breezy tone to fit the times it was set in and dispensed with looking too deeply into the truth of Abagnale’s story in favor of a couple hours of enjoyable entertainment.

Turns out Abagnale’s story was, most likely, not true at all. And people were blowing it apart back in the late 1970s.

This revelation, the subject of a new book, demonstrates both how the world has both changed dramatically and stayed the same in the past 40 years. The reporters who dug into Abagnale’s past in the ‘70s couldn’t get in front of his story because they worked for small, local papers. Well before the Internet, their investigations could not find traction nationally.

And yet, as we see every single day, even with the Internet, it is getting harder and harder to pin down what the truth of any story is.

A prime example of that is what has been occurring in the halls of Congress the past few months, as Republicans continue to reframe the events of January 6 to deny and bury the truth of that day.

Repeat a story often enough, into the official record of the US Congress no less, and you can rewrite history before its first draft is even dry.

The Greatest Hoax on Earth