Author: admin

Yesterday my youngest had his first college interview. He’s a 15 year old sophomore and was interviewed by a coach from the University of Utah (Utes). The talk went well, but what followed pointed to deeper issues in his life and future. That evening he played 7s and played very poorly (by his own estimation). There was a particularly bad play that resulted in a lot of trash talk by his more negative teammates. These are the ones he’s been with since he was a 12 year old kid playing 14U–The ones who hated him starting over them then and hate him being out there now as they prepare to move into senior year and he into Junior. That hate–that disregard and disrespect is a common element not only in sports, but in life. Haters gonna hate. You have to be able to rise above that noise and do what you’re meant to do and live your life without letting them bring you down. Unfortunately, he cannot. Not yet.

I have two kids capable of being professional athletes from a physical standpoint. Right now only one has the mental makeup to reach that goal. The youngest isn’t built like that. He has never been in a position where he’s had to earn respect. He’s always been the kid who coaches said was ‘the guy’. Part of that is absolutely on me. He is more confident when I am on the sideline. He’s been that way since he was little. I say go get me a touchdown or a pick and it happens. That father son stuff is detrimental to him now, because without me he doesn’t have the confidence–which is to say plainly: he doesn’t believe in himself.

He lets the other voices in and he lets the other voices win the minute he does something wrong. It is a downward spiral from there. Still, he’s a 15 year old kid playing varsity football with 18-19 year old men. He has time to grow into something amazing. He just needs to find a way to fortify his mind. I mean to help with that, but the work–the very hard personal growth–has to come from within. Without it, he won’t even make it to college and as of now, he doesn’t even have a plan B.

I have no idea how to structure a day.

The clock reads 12:34 and I’ve done almost nothing useful. I did, in fact, begin to change my shower curtain as I was engaged in a lengthy conversation with my brother about life, weather conditions, and upcoming nuptials. I did not write. I did not grade. I barely sorted through my emails. Yet my work day is basically over. Out in the kitchen the Lady Talis is preparing lunchtime salads. We will sit and eat and play games. By the time it is all over the clock will probably read three or later. Then what? I need to get some form of exercise, which at that hour likely means a walk. That’s done by four or later. Then we are deciding how we want to spend our evening.

I don’t like disrupting what life we’ve carved out for ourselves here on these days where we are not in the office. I don’t like that on these days if I slip up just a little and don’t get on the computer to write early, I don’t write at all. That means that for this project that is due in 8 days and has roughly a thousand words I need to write a day including today in order to successfully finish, I need to discover a way to produce meaningful time for each remaining day. I have never learned how to be consistent like that. If I did–when I do–I will be prolific. After all, 1000 a day translates into 365,000 words a year. That’s a solid 3 novels for me. In order to make a living off this I probably need 4.

Some Thoughts:

1. I will find a way to get in my 1K today. I will find a way to hit that number every day moving forward. I really want this. I have the ability and the need to get this done. The need was lacking up until now, but I am trying to transition out of full time teaching and this is all I do otherwise. Nobody is paying me to be a washed up FB coach. Nobody is signing up for me to be their 7 on & franchise lead. This is the job. I have the stories. This is the way.
2. By the way, I am struggling to find new stuff to read via audible. I settled on an hour long Joe Hill short for the moment, but that is only going to get me through a day or two.
3. Organization is the underlying theme through this post. I need to get organized and get my priorities in order. Obviously, the love life comes first. The writing has to be next on the list.
4. Part of that has been the large reduction in gaming time. I just don’t anymore. It feels like a realization that there is not any time in my life for falling into game narrative. I gotta use that time to clean my bathroom or grade papers or any number of tasks I don’t want to do.

I started playing this phone game called Retro Bowl. Its one of the games that can be played without the internet so it was a fun-filled experience to kill time on the myriad of flights I endured over the past few weeks. Anyhow, the game was fun. What caught me by surprise was the impact of coaches. You can hire coaches for your staff like with most FB games these days, but the star rating of the coaches really impacts the star rating of your O/D and impacts the performance of the players wildly. I am thinking about this as I am watching my son’s DB coach walk away towards ACU. They are getting a real one. Meanwhile, my kid’s reason for going to UNC just evaporated. That means yet another season with an entirely new staff which is further modified by it not being the staff we intended. He hasn’t had the same coaching staff for more than a season since he was twelve and started playing high school football. Yeah, the 12 thing catches me off guard sometimes too.

Meanwhile, back at the farm 7s season is springing to life and the hype train has already rolled into the station. My youngest is struggling with the concept of not playing for one of these marquee teams. He plays for two teams presently–one of them is faux marquee. He plays for a squad called the Tukee Tropics, which is the school team. He also suits up for TrueBuzz Athletics, which is apparently a pathway to receive underclassman offers. However, he knows as I do that underclassman offers are meaningless. You cannot sign those. It is what happens Jr year on visits that sets you up to sign a contract Senior season. It is only that signing of paperwork (which is going to replace the traditional offer moving forward) that makes an offer worthwhile. Offers, as we’ve learned through practice, are fleeting and temporary things driven by team need and player rankings at the time. Underclassman offers are great for your own hype and do get some other teams to notice you, but they mean little. Still, it doesn’t lessen the sting of seeing many of his youth teammates get offers while he hasn’t even had the chance to speak to a coach. He will have a chance to attend camps this spring and summer. Maybe that will help him as he transitions from sophomore starter to Jr. He needs to find the confidence in himself, IMHO. Camps will only make you feel small otherwise.

Usually Tuesday is a time to look back, but I am not feeling it tonight. I didn’t really know what to look back towards. So, I thought I would wander through…

Some Thoughts:

1. Jelles Marble league keeps coming up with fun ways to race marbles and make the competition fun and exciting. Now they’ve just dropped Marble League All Stars–16 teams who’ve been champs or are carrying heavy hype in some way. The Raspberry Racers, who won it all in 19′ are featured as the #3 seed. Episode one (Bobsled) dropped. World, I give you Marbles.
2. Sports are really spiraling now. I need to do a ten minute feature on the recruiting stuff. For now I will just say that it makes more sense for a talented player to collect millions in 4 years of college then it does to try to have a ten year career and continue over that time frame to risk injury.
3. School is going a lot better than expected given the level of preparation. I didn’t get myself right this semester, but as I am preparing over this and last week, I have managed to come up with some solid elements for the class. I need to take another week to get it all locked into place.
4. Getting things locked in and getting a rhythm going has been difficult. It also has failed to be a priority in my daily existence. There are two schedules–each reflective of whether or not I have the kid with me. It changes when he is here, because of the transit times. I need to be mindful of how to use and manage that time as well as how to account for the ‘extra’ hours when I am not focused on getting him where he needs to be and getting him right.
5. Trump is in Charge. He’s already dipping his toe into assholery.

Well, it is here. Finally.

Let me start by saying I am not a Trump supporter. Given the way things are going, this proclamation will likely draw the attention of internet audits and have me watched and otherwise monitored for the rest of this type of administration. The dividing lines in America have been clearly drawn. MAGA or no. It isn’t even about Republican or Democrat. It is about who remains loyal to the All-father and who is gonna get got. I am no loyalist. I was even able to remain sensible about the Obama Administration which this Administration seeks to be in terms of popularity. However, this Administration is through a lens darkly and clouded by lies. So this is how it is now. On Day 1 we lost Mt. Denali and the Gulf Of Mexico. I am waiting to see how much of the Project 2025 resolutions are dropped in by end of day.

Four years is a long time. It is, in fact, most of the remainder of my career as an Arizona College Professor. I can do 4 years. I may even need to do 5. I won’t do 8 or 12 or whatever this Admin hopes to push forward. Even if it isn’t Trump at the fore, there are enough people and enough of a movement here to be long lasting and greatly damaging to the American reputation moving forward. So, I have these next years to decide what to do and prepare to do it. Leaving is an option. Where to go is a question. I will get retirement, but I will still need to work. So, I need to develop a plan to get the MFA needed in order to continue to do so at another (likely international) locale.

Some Thoughts:

1. Lots to say about football this Wednesday. Prepare for a mighty Waiver.
2. That is enough of the words for now…

I am about to turn 50. It sucks. It really really sucks. I know for some that may sound strange, but the way I see it, I have less usable years ahead of me than I have behind me. In other term, the clock is running out on my life. Sure, I am in a better position than I was when I was, say, 10 and life was consumed by school, sports, and the inability to go anywhere freely because of the lack of personal freedom caused by responsibilities and being a child. However, I still have work, kids, and soon enough, parents to take care of. To add, I don’t have the physical health I did when I was ten and wild and wishing to be free. Facts being what they are, I won’t be tip top when I am 70 or 80 without some incredible advances in agie-mitigating tech and some personal responsibility to fix my body.

When I was a rehab counselor I implored my clients to accept the things they could not change and have the courage to change the things they could. So, let us start with what I can change. Well, I can be healthier. I can eat less junk and fuel my body properly. I can exercise with some regularity. It occurred to me the other day just how much I blame my space for the inability to work out. It is not the fault of the space but merely an excuse that I allow the space to be that barrier. I can get right anywhere if I put my heart and mind to it. That is where my head has been lately–trying to get back to a mental state of self belief and self-empowerment. I am stronger than I have shown myself to be in all aspects.

I am sick and tired of giving in to terrible people and the forces of the world that seek only to oppress and overlook. I have things to say and do, and it is time I recognized that I am running out of time to do them. It is no wonder that the people who I’ve admired the most in their old age seem fearless. They figured out they had to be in order to get what they wanted in the time they had left to do so. There are no makeups or do overs. You get what you want if you go take it. I’m ready to be that taker.

7s season is officially underway. As I pulled through the parking lot 30 miles away from my home I looked around at all of the different forms of flash and how little actual substance was present. There were chartered busses, people pulling up to a dirt lot in high end cars, etc. All of this in service of a 7 on 7 football tourney for high school age kids and below. I realized in that moment that I am done with the coaching life. There is little to no substance there. In fact it is so far from being beneficial to the kids and so deep into the furtherance of hype that I feel it is actually counter productive at times. I am not a fan of the mode and I am less of a fan of the money grab that is created here. My Kid’s team is 22 of 51 heading into the tourney rounds tomorrow. I’ll drop him off, but I have no desire to go to the games.

Some Thoughts:

1. I don’t speak of the ex-wife situation often in this space, because I don’t want it/her to occupy space and energy. However, today’s conflict is a further reminder that some people are all about getting their way–even if that way is entirely separated from reality. I could lay down and take the abuse and foolishness, but I am sick and tired of that being a factor in my life.
2. I certainly need to figure out what the issue is with my hand placement or keyboard for the typing situation. The flow is ruined by the screen suddenly jumping to another place and me typing in the middle of a word or entire paragraphs being highlighted accidentally and then, quite suddenly erased. This is a hinderance.

Writer’s write. That is pretty much the gig. Where it gets complicated is in the ‘having something to say’. I feel like I am in a space right now where I do have stories to tell and in some there is that greater and larger message. Others are really fun or interesting rabbit holes I’d like to travel down. The key here is that I do have stories to tell, and that is an evolution (or return) from where I have been for a while now. That makes me feel really good, because I was in a place where I did not think I had stories left in me. Here now I know that the Shadowrun Trilogy I am writing is in fact a trilogy and not a one-off as I assumed. I have more stories that need telling in that world. I have the Torathae–My fantasy world. I have a modern sci-fi story that is starting to feel more and more real each day, so I need to get that one finished before it starts to read like a history text.

Those are the big three. The thing is, those are no longer the only three. I may not be at the Idea Archive level anymore, but I want to tell stories. I want to find new stories to tell and grow from that experience. I never stopped loving being a writer, but I stopped being in love with being a writer and even knowing how to do that in my life. I am learning my way back and in that my way forward.

Some Thoughts:

1. Really struggling with the laptop lately. I don’t know if this is a hand placement issue or a mousepad situation, but I am having trouble with jumping off the page–The pad feels incredibly sensitive and when I type in the middle part of the keyboard I often end up swiping the pad and erasing words or jumping off the window entirely. This is not good.

I decided to take an earlier stab at the blog situation this morning. It’s 9:30 AM and in the background one of my kids is walking around trying to decide if he wants to watch TV or play a video game. Big life choices are happening daily here. I think that is what inspired me to get to the blog right away: the stillness. Nobody here appears to be going anywhere. My youngest and oldest boys are engaging in mirror behaviors and are basically running in place if I am being honest about the situation. The older one spends upwards of 8 hours a day playing video games and watching shows. Occasionally he goes to work, but his job doesn’t approach full time, nor has he considered supplementing that work with any additional employment, mostly because he doesn’t have to. If he were out on his own he would not make enough money to survive. However, he lives at home and can work part time hours gaining experience in his degree field and waiting patiently for the right opportunity to emerge where he can get a full time job in his degree field. His kid brother is still in High School and still expecting to be a professional football player yet not putting in the work and energy required off-field to make that happen. It feels like both of these kids are waiting around for life to open doors for them, and we parents are creating the conditions for them to grow lazy and comfortable in the habit of doing that. Heck, they don’t even take the trash without explicitly being asked to do so–a small but meaningful gesture that would at least allow me to believe that they get that our contributions matter and furthermore that they should themselves be contributing in some fashion as a form of mutual responsibility to this space in which they occupy or at least as some basic form of recompense.

This isn’t what I was planning to blog about but it wound up taking half my time… I was actually thinking about the past–specifically I was thinking about how I used to do Idea Archives and how it felt to be so overflowing with ideas to write about. Lately I have felt like I do have good stories to tell, but I am far from overflowing with ideas. Heck, I am trying to force a ton of content out mainly because I spend time working and writing for money as opposed to pursuing the passion projects. When work comes up it is a matter if if I can do it successfully as opposed to if I feel good about or passionate about the particular assignment. In that sense I am more of a spec writer anymore than a fictionalist. I want that to change. I want a lot more balance in my writing life–which doesn’t mean less spec writing, but means more writing in general in order to have access to the projects I want to write on my own.

What are those? Let’s talk Friday.

Time for some good old fashioned football talk. Let me start out by saying Sam Darnold is who we thought he was. That would be: A scrub. Seriously. Daniel Jones could’ve won that game. He sold the bag by holding the ball too long and missing easy passes once flustered. Yes, I too am a scrub, but takes one to know one, right? Seriously. There is a level of expectation that comes with an NFL job and too many guys that look like Darnold physically get the shot whereas QBs of a different stature or ones classed as runners get crapped on. Let’s not forget this man was drafted ahead of Lamar Jackson. So was Josh Rosen. So was Baker Mayfield and Josh Allen… I see you Amon-Ra St Brown. All that tells me is these professionals get swayed by the media coverage and the hype. College is no different. 5 Stars doesn’t really mean the kid is necessarily that guy. Sometimes it can. Sometimes it don’t.

Lamar is that guy and he’s going to be putting up big numbers against the Bills. It is going to be close, but that Baltimore run game is too strong. I give it to the Ravens. I give it to the Chiefs too. They have a legit D and Houston is out of weapons. Oh, and Patrick Mahomes is blessed. On the NFC side, Saquon is doing Saquon things behind that beauty of an O-line. They too legit to go down now. As for the Detroit matchup, it also does not matter. The Eagles-Lions Cat v Bird fight is happening on the 26th regardless. We can talk about next week next week, because I don’t know who is going to emerge from the conference finals. I’d put cash on ‘Quon tho.

Some Thoughts:

1. Mousepad sensitivity is on 12. I keep finding myself typing on a different part of the screen because my hands hover above the pad. Too much. It is not only slowing me down but it is crazy disorienting and makes me type funny.
2. I finally understand the term “get a life”