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Peeping in on the kid’s football game while I am blogging. It’s already 40-14 and they look awful… as usual. Smart coach would look to next seaosn already–deciding how he can build up his Juniors and below while giving his Seniors a last chance to enjoy their careers. From a pop perspective that means lettign my kid play both sides of the rock and develop into the weapon the QB needs next year. Maybe even pulling the Senior starter late in blowouts to give the next man up some real reps so he doesn’t show up senior year with minimal game time.

That isn’t happening. I hope the guy gets fired. Trash everyone but the very solid DC (who is a great DB coach). This is how I feel after the latest beatdown. They’re a team that doesn’t have a winning culture with a coach (a series of 5 in a row now) that has no idea how to create one. It is a tough thing to watch, but I believe that it will harden my kid. You have to learn how to lose and you have to learn how to win. That second part is easier if you have a history of losing. Losing is adversity. Being able to deal with that holding your head up high is what I want to see the kid learn.

The upside is that the last three games are truly winnable games. The next one ought to be the hardest of the three, and if they can pull that off, they may get to a 5 win season for the first time in a long time. The bad news about that is that it will engrain the coach aa a winner, but the proof of what I am seeing game after game is that he isn’t that.

Some Thoughts:

1. Not much to be said more on the subject. Moreover, too much is constantly said on the subject already. Balance in all things. Balance for the sake of my mind!

people talk a lot about finding themselves—as though they’ve been lost through time and circumstance or perhaps never once found in the cacophony of years and travel. I don’t know that I believe you can find yourself because you are always who you are, in spite of the layers of doubt, situation, and even opportunity that clouds our awareness of self. I suspect finding yourself is a shorthand for cutting though all of that to the core of who you are, the way a sauna burns out all of the sweat accumulated and seeps away the sick that lives within it.

I don’t have that sense of being lost or displaced from a core sense of who I am—perhaps I am detached from who I want to be or what I want to obtain. I know I don’t fully live the life I hope to experience before I can experience no more. I should be fueled by that hope. I should be pushing forward towards a future self and situation that is filled with the adventures and stories and opportunities and experiences I wish to claim as my moments of life. Instead, often, a sourness settles over me like a kid who has seen his parents doing something terrible and realizes at once that the world is not the magical place he once believed it was.

the trick to life is not finding yourself but realizing that you can find your space and happiness within the sour. No, I haven’t found the perfect place—not by leagues. I’ve found a place that is good for now. I’ve uncovered Sarah Mac’s “Good Enough” and I’ve settled into it as if this good enough is going to last long enough to wipe away the need for more. I know it isn’t and that is what unsettles me.

I’m running out of time to enjoy would could, should, and eventually must be.

half my roster has a Q or worse next to their names. It isn’t looking good for seeing enough of them for this to be a solid win. It’s gonna be close or I’m going to lose badly. I’m hoping I don’t need to worry… but I know I do and ought to build towards

who am I kidding… it is gonna be what it is gonna be.

fantasy aside, life is really good this week. I’ve stepped away from the house and that has allowed me to recognize how important it is to prioritize myself. I don’t do that. I rarely prioritize my writing even. I live in the margins of the lives of the people I love. Wrong kind of person could really take advantage of that. Fortunately I’m married to the right kind of person and that makes me feel safe—not only about protecting some time for myself but feeling like I have a partner who understands that we both need to prioritize ourselves from time to time.

Balance in all things, right? I am truly falling into learning what that means as well as how much it means to me to have someone with me who wants to see the best version of me. I’m wanting to be that for the both of us.

Some Thoughts:

1. Doing this one in the phone. Didn’t go as well as I planned in terms of how I was able to organize this piece. I don’t know how these kids do it…
2. actually, they don’t. Nobody blogs anymore. On the other hand, they do manipulate much of the world through this singular interface. I don’t know how they do that either.
3. look at me sounding like a geezer .

Kendrick Bourne. I had a shot at that dude and I didn’t take it. I am still regretting the mess up, which at this point has cost me two games. I was waiting on Juan Jennings to buck up. He hasn’t–won’t. The same scenario may be unfolding for the speedy little Tez Johnson. He of “why they chanting MVP for me” status did finally light up the scoreboard. He has a lot of opportunity to keep at it given the MASH unit that is the Bucs receiving corps. Those MVP cries were for Baker. He kinda has an inside track based on his current performance. If you need a flyer on a W/R/T you may want to take a look at Bourne first and Johnson right after. Both if it do ya.

I’m dealing with a rash of injuries and at the point where I don’t have enough Wrs to even fill the slots. So, I’m going to be looking at Tez and Luther Burden (who I dropped weeks ago). These are the fliers I’m taking. I need to do something to pull myself up out of 7th of 12th in that league. I’m 7th of 8 in the other, which means there are more options to claim players. Still means I need to get to 6th to be in the playoffs. The bottom 4 teams are 2-4. Part of it is bad luck. I lost to the highest scoring team of the week by ten and blew out every other team in the league. That level of scoring is why I’m not dead last. Still, to win the playoffs you gotta make the playoffs, so I have work to do.

I’ll let you know how the rebuilding goes tomorrow…

I have my bluelight blocking glasses on and I am writing my ten before the two hour writing session starts. I wanted to get it in on the front end, because I want to make sure I am warmed up. Writing hours have been quite atrocious as of late (likely mirroring the sad state of the blog). I’m facing this extended lull driven by finishing (what I hope to be) the final edit of the Novel, tossing in 4K on an upcoming Shadowrun book and trying to edit the first chapter of the Justice Engine without having a realistically thought out structure for anything beyond that first chapter. This is the between time where I always look up at my whiteboard and see pages upon pages of fantasy work stuck to the wall and wonder, when? Meanwhile there is that undisclosed post apocalyptic RPG project humming lowly in the back of my mind.

You would think by all of the things I’ve listed that I have too much going on. In fact the opposite is true. I don’t have enough of one thing going on to hold my attention. None of these projects are leaping up to grab me by the throat. There’s even another Shadowrun story out there that I was hoping to write and fold into the grad class starting next week, but haven’t truly gotten the opportunity to explore. In short, I am lost and in need of a shore upon which the waves of fictional ideas, plots, and constructs may lap against. I need to get my mind in the proper shape and my focus back to the wonderful place it was not 70 days prior.

It is hard to fathom that I’ve been back in the desert for two months. It feels like I’ve been here an entire lifetime–this with leaving no less than three separate times in order to visit greener lands (with a 4th arriving this week and more to follow in quick succession). Maybe leaving twice a month is part of why settling in feels so far away. Maybe being here is why I feel so far removed from anything stable.

Remember being a kid locked in timeout or the further back idea of ‘on punishment?’ Being in the desert feels a little like that. I feel stilted, which stems from a lack of sleep and a poor flow of ideas. Knowing this is a step towards a solution. I hope…

In this topsy-turvy reality few things are truly certain. Death, for now, and taxes continue to be stalwarts, but other sure-fire bets aren’t so sure anymore. So, here are a few things I think I think…

1. The Gaza ceasefire ends in a bloodbath: The fact remains that Bibi wants to hold on to power and war gives him that option. Elections are approaching and once he gets the hostages back later today, the expectation will be that he pulls the troops all the way back. That is not going to happen. He’s too closely aligned with the No-more-Gaza contingent to do anything less than a full re-escalation. I think he finds a way to kick things back off. The Wall Street Journal already hinted at such, claiming Hamas has refused to leave the area. We’re well into the genocide stages now folks, and the victims will be blamed for the next decade. After, blowback is gonna be a bitch.
2. Parity is coming to everyone but the Power 4: Football prediction, folks. I’ve watched the FCS start to lose cohesion because voters are ranking by logo and are constantly surprised when an unranked or unheard of team gets hot. It is good for the sport, and it is going to happen more. Football is more and more about money, and the people who have it are at the Power 4 level. Everyone else is just playing second fiddle. Once those top talent kids (or top rated) get paid, they’ll realize they cannot play where they are at and they are going to hit the portal for a chance to play. That chance more often than not will come at the FCS level. These are hungry clubs with limited resources, but a great chance to start and earn the clout and numbers to claw back up into the P4 where the payday hits. A lot of teams will be talented.
3. AI Authors are on the way: Type.AI, Squibler (I hate these silly names), SudoWrite, AuthorCraft…. We are mainstreaming AI writing. It is cheaper and faster to produce books that are not actually written by people. I suspect the romance genre will be the first hit, because so many of the plot elements are coded into the genre. Thrillers will follow closely…
4. AI movies are on the way: Shane Black’s latest film feels like AI Slop. Not sure that it isn’t. It may feature real actors, but the stuntwork is performed at the level of GTA 6. While the Guardian praised the film it it’s review, the truth is much sadder. 2 out of 10 and that is Sunday generosity. At some point in the film the actors chucked their characters and began to freestyle the roles. That was probably better.

I always find it interesting how we shape meaning around our own upbringing and culture. For example, because we call it Saturday there is an expectation that everyone else does too. That isn’t the case at all. In fact it is surprising that we have a almost universally agreed upon standard of seven days. The Egyptians once used 8 while the Aztecs had 13. I won’t even get into the Korean standard. Yet for all of this, my lens of this day is really only ever seen through football this time of year.

My kid won his game. They beat #13 ranked Idaho and put the rest of the Big Sky on proper notice. People kinda knew, but now they legit know. These next few weeks will be different. They are starting to operate with a swagger that the team, as it gets healthy, can back up a bit more. Still need to figure out how to stop the run consistently. That has been a big problem. However, they are headed to California next week to face a surging Sacramento State team that likes to throw. My kid will get the test he wants and we will see how far his game has come.

Meanwhile, Coach Prime got a win against my Cyclones. That’s a big moment for his squad. It makes them relevant in the Big 12 battle for now. The rest of it will be decided by the teams at the very top–if they can sustain their own streaks. However, if Texas Tech takes a loss and The Utes take one as well, the Big 12 will get a lot more interesting.

I couldn’t even come up with a name for the post. The idea ought to be the name and the idea is so basic and formative that I ought to be able to see it clearly. I don’t. I’ve submerged myself in a great deal of fiction lately—3 months or so of Stephen King’s writings —but none of it has simmered even a thought of how technology can impact our nascent future. I took my eye off the road in that sense and now, as I return to center I’m trying to take in all of the things I’ve missed. Whatever that term is should be the title of the blog today.

instead I’ve baked the first few minutes into an assessment of what I don’t know. Even that feels all too familiar as part of the process. In fact, the process depends on it.

I am trying to figure out where we are going in the next twenty years and trying to write stories built around that coming future and investing these ideas into how I decide what my personal tech and work future ought to resemble. I’m trying to get back ahead of the curve. Unfortunately, the curve argues that what I do is going to be drifting towards obsolescence within my lifetime. This is not to say that writers and teachers of English will have no value but to say they will be devalued in the way radio was devalued with the rise of television—the way network tv was devalued by streaming.

we are moving towards something by. I want to figure out what it is, write about it, and head for the exits before it gets me.

I’ve been thinking about recycled ideas. This sprang to mind last night when watching All of You, and thinking I’ve seen this idea before. I just had to figure out where. It wasn’t the 2009 film Timers where people where a device that counts down to the moment you will meet your soulmate. Nor was it Soulmates, the 2020 anthology series where Goldstein and Bridges first tested out the ideas for the film. No, it’s The One, a netflix released film that turns this concept into a thriller where the focus is on the creators and not the people being matched.

It has been done a lot.

I believe that when things like this keep popping up then we are building towards real scientists somewhere getting the idea they can make this happen. I believe this is the way science is influenced by science fiction. See a thing long enough that is cool enough and eventually someone is going to make it. The “rule 34” of science. So, is this a tech we want? I bet most people do. I believe I am with the right person, so I have no interest in someone else taking a test to decide if I am their right person or my wife’s. We’re good here. That is another part of this tech that is not discussed. Except in this latest film it sort of is…

Podcasts have really become a background noise of my life as of late. I am trying to get a sense of the medium while preparing to teach students how to do the very thing I am learning to understand. Because art imitates life, the crime podcast has become interesting to me if for no better reason than my personal enjoyment of the show Only Murders in the Building. That show has sustained itself despite the incredibly limiting title. The medium is pretty interesting. I’ve been trying to find shorter form podcasts to share with the classes. I’ve found a few that work for the classes, and I will try them out moving forward. I also think that paranormal podcasts and short videos could also be an interesting approach to share with students.

Here is the thing: it is hard to share most things, because we are dealing with a dark time in political freedom. We are polarized in this brief and unfortunate time of discourse, and it can isolate and even alienate students. So, when I think about approaching these new media and trying to teach skills through context, it can be a good approach to help students feel at ease by contextualizing new material in a subject that is benign yet interesting.

I think that this is the way. I love the idea of doing this, as I have before with conspiracy theories. It could be a good look, given the time and material to get it right…