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A Background Count is a direct reference to the baseline of detected signals of any sort. Yesterday I used the term to indicate the level of chaos seen in our world during this administration as opposed to, say, Obama. The background count here is much higher. The amount of noise and chaos that we hear on a daily basis–the level of baseline cognitive dissonance is innately higher. It is in fact so much higher that I am stressed out before diving into my own stuff. I do have stuff–we all do. However, I cannot focus on my stuff as much as I want to, because I’m stuck in this media loop of needing to worry if I’m safe as a black man in my own country and if that country is about to go to war. Just today the Fox News Reporter turned head of the US Military, Hegseth, called a meeting of all the top military commanders. Meanwhile, Iran is testing missiles, and Russia or some other unknown force is buzzing Denmark airports with hostile drones.

This is not okay.

I’m entirely stressed out in life. I’m trying to work through it.

Some Thoughts:

I didn’t write the waiver yesterday and I’m not considering it today. My mind is on other problems. Overload, actually. Bad AC units, being behind on projects and similar issues. The main issue is an inability to get on track. I need the formality and routine that I found on the beach, and it doesn’t exist here. Perhaps it never has. Instead the ‘routine’ is a slowly increasing list of responsibilities meeting with a quickly receding pool of time. I do my best to maintain enough free time to get my mind right because I cannot burn out and shut down completely. However, that feels like it is constantly on the verge of happening. It already happened once this very month.

I’m stressed. I’m not dealing well with the situations of the space nor with the challenges of the schedule and the challenges both my partner and I are facing individually. It isn’t going well and it is going to hell in a handbasket. This is no way to live. It is merely survival amidst a rising background count of stress and chaos.

I need to find a way to be still and reset.

Better, I need to find a way to thrive as opposed to barely surviving.

Ever wonder why I do the waiver wire on Wednesday? Probably not. I’ve done it like this for years so that a kid or other competitor of mine in fantasy wouldn’t snake the players I’m talking about being hot in the coming week. I’m going to forego that, as I am in the midsts of yet another losing season in both leagues. I am much like my beloved Raspberry Racers. I get you hyped up for success and then immediately let you down. My fantasy football skills have eroded dramatically. I thought it was about attention to detail, and that may be somewhat true, but that cannot be the entire story. No, its an erosion. That’s just how it be.

So, I will be considering moving the wire earlier in the week as a way to improve the research aspect of the fantasy game. Not today, because I spent my time writing this out and I am fully unprepared to hit the wire, but I am ready to share what (little) I know.

ChatGPT launched 3 years ago. Back then the model was clunky and could be detected. In five years it will be indistinguishable from human thinking. This is the age we are living in–one where human thinking is quickly becoming obsolete. Instead the value of people will be linked and graded based on Network Capital, which is “a concept in sociology and economics that refers to the value created by social connections and relationships. It represents the resources, opportunities, and advantages you can access because of who you know and how well you are connected.” That definition is courtesy of ChatGPT. That definition argues for a return to a very old model of human connection not seen since the invention of the telephone. It is going to be about who you know and it already is about how long you can keep someone’s eyes on a screen.

We’re headed in this direction and it is too late to stop it. This is not me being negative, but me being a realist. So the question is this: How do we survive this wave? Well, if you’re in an industry where cognitive process is at the core–especially in the public sector–get out while you can. If you need to ride it out till your retirement, better hope to retire in ten years or less. The world moves faster than it used to and we’ve raised several generations of simplistic bottom line thinkers. School teachers are already being replaced by AI, because the reliance on testing is beginning to fade in many sectors. The idea that you won’t have access to these tools while doing anything is fading into myth. Doctors are going to have the assistance of AI and robotics in all phases of the job. So will lawyers. Brokers already rely on these tools. Look at the commercials on TV. What is being preached is how to have seamless integration. These are the steps forward people are waiting for. We have the software and need better hardware for integration.

Listen to Emad Mostaque. He’s worried we’ll lose what we call reality in 1000 days. I fear he may be on to something. Look what’s happened in the first 1000 days of the technology being publically available.

I proposed the idea of buying a 175,000 bit of property to the Lady Talis. A discussion will follow. If it ends up being a positive and we do get such a spot it will certainly entail cleaning up a spot or at least making it the right spot for us to chill out over a longer period of time. The spot feels like a getaway, but the price feels like a hoax. The pure truth of it is that I’m thinking about the way forward. That way means closing the door on here in the near future (maybe up to four years) and looking towards… where?

Moving is not as simple as getting up and saying “I live here now.” I need a job and a place to live. I need to find a place where we both can be happy as a couple and perhaps with land to build out so our kids may have homes nearby. All of these things I want. I don’t even know what country to want them in. This is the fundamental problem of trying to find the way forward.

At least I’m starting to understand the concerns.

The coolest thing about the last post was that I got to figure out how to embed videos from different sources. I realize most of my readers (should I have more than the one) don’t really care about the high school football stuff any more than they care about the college football or about the waiver wire. That isn’t truly what this blog is about… if it is about anything. When I imagine a reader that isn’t the Lady Talis, I imagine people who write or who read my reading, or who will one day read my writing once I can move some product effectively and wander across the internet wondering where to find more. Eventually they’ll land here and they will say… WTF?

Indeed.

I know a bunch of writers keep such blogs, but most keep it on subject and censor themselves ruthlessly. I don’t do any of that, which makes this authentic and perhaps authentically nuts. One day someone will scan the blog and realize I didn’t bend the knee for Charlie Kirk, and it’s all over then. Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe we still live in the kind of world where one can have a distinct opinion and, as I said before, still mourn the loss of life and thus mourn the loss of freedom that it brings. I’m rambling, but that’s sort of the point of today, isn’t it?

The fact is I am tired. My mind is overwhelmed by all of the madness going on in the world and I don’t feel safe. I don’t feel like I am operating from solid ground–not as an educator. Not as a parent trying to explain what world I am leaving to my kids. Not as a writer who means to tell stories about dystopian future but cannot write anything with more punch than the non-fiction of the day.

I’m tired and I am worn thin by all of it. I was this way last time this man was President, but it is worse now and it is happening much faster. We are in a situation where genocide is occurring and we don’t have the mental space to hold that in our heads at the same time as everything else that is being rapidly dismantled. Well, at least I can watch a football game and feel something genuinely good for a few hours.

In fact, I’ll go do that right now.

He’s starting to cook. Third year is the time that players have to get it going. If they cannot by then they are going to struggle to find any sort of scholarships in this new reality of college sports–especially at the D1 level. There are 129 FCS football teams and 136 FBS teams, adding up to 265 football teams that each start a single free safety or two Corners. He is able to play either position. I’m not talking about the nickel position here, because that’s a ‘maybe’ start depending on the D. So, if he wants to be a starter he needs to become one of 530 people in the nation to have that honor.

His brother made the cut this year. He wants to make it in the next two or three. This is the goal. We keep climbing. We keep working. We keep showing up and showing out. If this is the future a person chooses then the commitment needs to be complete.

“Great News for America: The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED. Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done. Kimmel has ZERO talent, and worse ratings than even Colbert, if that’s possible. That leaves Jimmy and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC,” Trump added. “Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!! President DJT.”

So here we are. As comedian Wanda Sykes put it, “So, let’s see, he didn’t end the Ukraine war or solve Gaza within his first week but he did end freedom of speech within his first year. Hey, for those of you who pray, now’s the time to do it. Love you, Jimmy.” Just like that we’ve entered a turn in the USA where free speech only applies to the messages that the people in power want to promote. We’ve entered a space and time where truth has no value but the idea of what you want to believe has the most value.

We’ve entered a bad time in the United States, and it is one I don’t see this country ever coming back from. Set aside the optics of the thing–we dismantled the safeguards of our country in less than a year. The real lasting horror is that we are now clearly an unreliable nation as we bend effortlessly to whomever is in power at the time, meaning that every four years any arrangements in place with our country are at risk. I find this particularly desperate, given that we no longer have the largest banks in the world. In fact, that honor falls to China, who operates the 4 largest banks in the world, followed by 2 US banks, a UK bank (HSBC) and a couple of French operations. You have to get down to 12 on the list to find another US operation an then 19 and then….32. We lack the financial punch we did in the past and the one thing we still do better than anyone else in the world is spend.

People still care what the US does and thinks because we buy their stuff. That isn’t going to last forever, given the stripping away of trust that is so rampant due to the current condition. DJT killed the USA. We just haven’t caught up to that reality yet. We don’t know how to imagine what the world we live in will look like in three more years.

Is it strange I generally post the Waiver on the same night as Date Night? Perhaps not so much, given the contrast between moving into the weekend of football and celebrating my love for the Lady Talis. Often during this season it feels like I’m reminding myself that I need to be focusing on love on Wednesday’s before giving myself over to the anxiety of watching my boys do what brings them joy and what brings me joy to watch them do successfully. They have been successful as of late. There’s that at least. No, there are not the wins I’ve been looking forward to, but for each team there is a reason and there is a will.

The High School Saga
The Desert Vista Thunder are a terrible football team–at home. The more I watch them, the more I understand what is happening. On the road, these kids are dealing with less social interaction. They are forced to focus on the football side of it and not deal with the pressures of knowing who is in the stands or trying to show out in front of this one or that one, and especially not trapped in the comfort of their crappy locker room and all of the social dynamics attached when the coaches step out of the space. Road games are isolating, but they also keep the focus on football. The trip by bus to a game is a bonding experience. The group of players on the sideline for a road game is different. You lose the non-travel players and the JV kids and, basically, all the folks who make being there at home a difficult fit. I’ve watched this team lose themselves twice during home games. I’ve watched the turnovers, the infighting and blaming, and lack of cohesion on the bench turn itself into turmoil and losses.

Road games hit different. They beat a good team on the road last time out. This time they play a bad team. Let’s see if they can bounce back from dropping two in a row.

College Rules
There’s a concept in college football called The third Year. This is the presumption that it takes three years to rebuild a program. Nowadays fan bases are tough and greedy. They don’t want to wait three years and coaches don’t want to risk that impatience and lose their jobs before that 3rd year hits. Colorado is a clear example of that, though they’ve actually managed to turn the corner. You cannot really tell because Prime rushed it. He hit 2nd year success and had to given the fact his son and best player (Hunter) were leaving that season. This 3rd year will likely not be as good… It is not that way for my son and the UNC Bears. They ought to be 3-0 and are on the verge of making big noise in the Big Sky. This weekend’s business trip to Houston marks the last of the out of conference games. A win will leave them 2-2 and looking at a conference schedule where every game is winnable. They’re a much better team than the one that only amassed 1 win in the previous two seasons. I think they can make the playoffs, but it has to start with a win on Saturday evening.

Today’s been a bit of a mess. I don’t really know where to start. It felt like the day fell apart long before the sun threatened to burn us all. Our AC went out in the middle of the night, leaving me to swelter in an increasingly pressurized room. I only had to deal with it for three hours because I was up by 5AM trying to start the day.

Fits and starts.

It is past 6 and I feel like the entire day got away from me and nothing of personal worth was done. Meanwhile I’m spiraling in writing and keeping up with the kids’ drama and, most importantly, in my marriage. It isn’t a spiral so much there as a husband who can never seem to get out of his own way. If I can take anything away from today it is that there are a lot of people in the world on edge. There are a lot of situations in the world on the edge of falling apart. Often the nexus of those two things will collide directly in your living room. If you aren’t ready to relax and receive, it is going to go a lot worse.