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1. An uninspired second half of offense left me feeling flatter than I did after the boy’s one loss of the season. At least then I could blame three missing QB’s, a late 4th QB and a dearth of safeties. No, this offensive blackout was 100% lack of effort on our part along with an unwillingness to pay attention and throw the ball where I told them.
2. The Giants have apparently released Ahmad Bradshaw and Michael Boley, two of my favorite G-man players. This has serious implications. In fact, it means the Giants are comfortable with letting emotionally leaders go in order to clear cap space and give some of the younger guys a chance. Nobody is safe. Well, nobody except Eli. He’s all the way safe I’d bet.
3. One of those potential releases is Osi. His agent is already chatting up the Jets as a way to keep the big O in the Bigger Apple. Now I am okay with that, but I do wonder if Osi is going to be okay with still being a situational back. His style of game seems less suited for the 3-4. Of course, the Jets are in patchwork mode and could be taking several G-man casualties. I fully expect to see Ahmad Bradshaw in green as part of a backfield that could also include Reggie Bush.
4. Getting back to the sadness over the win, I am worried that the offense I put together is totally flaming out. I have a few players who are struggling with focus and others who are just physically unable to live up to the demands of the game in the way I coach it. Now we are going into the game of the season on a two-game win streak but really flat on offense. I need to find a spark right away, but I don’t know for sure what that spark is. I may need to move my own kid to the other squad as a way to add the spark. No matter the call, it is going to be an interesting weekend.

Seems like everything is turning to the zeros these days. My car–born in 2008–is now at 100050 miles while the blog is at 1005. I want to find symmetry in the numbers, the way the arronovsky painted hidden meaning in the sequences of Pi. It probably isn’t that deep, instead being a random coincidence of events all stemming from a causal point. I’ve spent a lot of time wondering about causal points lately and whether or not the choices I made in life were the best choices for me. The same friend who convinced me to start this blog is convinced that the majority of my life choices are selfless, meaning that they are for other people.

Maybe.

I am selfish about my writing when i actually have time to do it. That is about me and my own escape from this sometimes torturous reality. I am slipping more and more into these other realms, building to a crescendo of writing and maybe, just maybe, growing my legend a bit more.

Oh how the fates do conspire for me. I suppose it is egotistical to suggests that it is anything more than coincidence that my TV remote disappears on a night that I need to be writing more and watching TV less. I use Direct TV, which is notoriously difficult to operate sans remote control. So I managed to watch an episode of How I Met Your Mother and then retired to the couch to pound the keys for a few hours.

Truthfully, 40 minutes plus went to surfing the web, but I got in a good chunk of actual writing and made headway in a project that vexes me. It isn’t a project I am bored with or anything, but instead it is something that feels like a heavier responsibility/challenge than it should. Some work is just that way while other stuff flies out of me like literary projectile vomit. I suppose it is the delicate balance between time, place, and mindset that turns one into the other–sometimes between paragraphs of the same assignment.

Regardless, I have a huge need to get the work done and move forward with my working life. There is a great deal more I hope to accomplish as a writer this year. Perhaps the most important thing is establishing a writing routine I can live with.

Some Thoughts:

1. I am not the best dad I can be. I know my kids want to work hard, especially when it comes to running and learning sports. I don’t provide them with enough opportunity to do so. I could do more and often promise myself I will, but a intoxicating mixture of responsibility and laziness always seems to get in the way. Story of my life.

Over the next few weeks my online writing students are trying to uncover the reasoning behind why we values some things over others. Their conversation starts with  simple question: Why do sports matter? I know that for me sports matter because of the story they tell about the individuals who play the game.

Football is not just about being hungry for recognition and accolades. It is about individuals hungry to prove themselves through perhaps the only medium they’ve known in their life and by that become greater than themselves and even find greater in themselves. That is the story of Ray Lewis as I see it. Tonight he won his second Superbowl title on the last game of his storied career. This is the way a champion should go out.

Many people are talking about the murder allegations in Ray’s past. That coincides with the belief that our athletes should also be our saints off the field. I don’t know what 52’s involvement was in the double homicide back in 2000, but I do know how much his words and present actions inspire me. That is his legacy.

Congratulations 2012-13 Ravens. Congratulations Mr. Ray Lewis. This one is well earned.

Today was a three game day and I am proud to say we took two out of three. The one loss is perhaps the one I never saw coming. My middle son lost his first flag football game of the season and perhaps his 3rd all time. This was largely a result of being outclassed by the opposing team. They were bigger, faster, stronger, and rougher than my 7 boys and it showed. The truth of the matter is I have maybe 5 kids who are legitimately competitive and two who haven’t matured enough to be competitive. Of those 5, only 3 can be counted on for both sides of the ball. That core wasn’t strong enough to overcome the athletic advantage of the other team along with bad reffing. I’m not one to complain about the refs all the time, but this guy let the kids score with flag guarding. He let em tackle my smaller kids and continued to grant them opportunities we did not receive.

In the end, the game came down to my kids being more interested in arguing than in playing. They all wanted the ball every play, but nobody wanted to listen. We blew a few possessions almost solely because I failed to maintain control of the offense. On defense we just did not do a great job tackling kids who can cut and weave. This is something I need to work on in practice–once I figure out how.

8-9 is going well. We played an incredibly tough Niner’s team and won 20-18. Good ball movement, but I need to get the ball in the hands of a couple more kids in order to feel good about how we spread it around. Kids are getting the routes and the offensive sets. This team is going to be great.

I’ve mentioned before that printers are a hustle. They are the medium through which the drug is produced, the wrapping paper for the weed. The drug itself is the ink and without the ink the printer is useless. This is a fact often made clear to me when an form of ink vanishes from its shallow coffer. Presently my Canon printer is certain it needs yellow ink to print a black and white document. It is so certain, in fact, that it won’t follow any commands until I race out to the store and get some more expensive ink.

I cannot do that for a few reasons. One, if I leave the garage will wake the kids. 2) F#$k that printer and the companies that make similar products that get you on the comeback. Now I gotta run out to the store in the morning, making my day all jacked up and out of whack.

I made it this far.

Some nights, like tonight, are harder than others. I reach a point where I am so tired and so drained from the hour, day, week, I just suffered through that I have no desire to sit in front of a glowing screen and pour myself out into a tiny white prompt box. Still, that is why I started this thing 1,000 days ago.

1,000. Take a moment to suck in the majesty of that number. It is a handful of years slipping between wet fingers. It is a lifetime. It is a heart-stopping fright to realize how long I’ve been doing one thing.

I suppose we know this: The blog worked!

The arguments I am hearing about why women should be kept out of comment are beards. By that I mean they are thinly constructed excuses meant to veil the real issue. That real issue is this: We, as a patriarchy, want to believe it is our national responsibility to protect women. That national identity starts to crumble when women are on the frontline. I for one believe the national identity needs to be revamped. See, that identity reflects the era of Leave it to Beaver, and we’ve left it far behind.

We talk so much about Isreal and how much they are like us and we need to be together. Well, Isreal has women serve. Looks like we are not in the business of trying to be like Isreal after all. I know, it is a simplistic argument. The fact is, this is a simplistic issue. Give the ladies a chance to do as they wish. Give them a chance to defend our nation.

Some Thoughts:

1. Had a tough football practice tonight. The kids struggled with listening and understanding what to do. Those two things go hand in hand and I recognize that I need to work a lot harder to get them to understand how to blend fun with learning.

Here is what I think I know:

1. I think I will be done with my main Shadowrun project tomorrow. There is about 5k to be finished, and given a useful stretch of time and good eyes I will knock it out. I need to, because it is due.
2. I think I am looking forward to throwing a small Super Bowl party. I threw one the last time Ray Lewis and crew went to the show. I was cheering for the Giants and the Giants were spanked. In a perfect world my New Young Maricopa Giants will win on saturday and the Ravens will win on Sunday. Show me some love, universe!!!
3. I think I’m at a place where I understand how fortunate I am in life and also recognize the terrible burden that laziness places upon the ambitious. It is better to never dream than to dream and never effort to realize that dream. I have a lot of work to do and I am finally starting to dream again. It starts with wanting something and wanting it in the worst possible way. I’m not all the way there, but I also don’t have a Maggie Grace-like muse pushing me towards my inner angel (californication reference).
4. I think Self-actualization is a trap. It is, in the least, fleeting. Just when you know who you are, you become someone else. And once you’ve reached that pinnacle you tend to rest on your laurels. Bad idea. Fried Butter bad.
5. I think I’m done with this post.

40 is just a number, lie 39 and 38. The latter number belongs to me, or at least it will in a few months. I find that I am thinking about it more and more and considering the perceptions of what that means. Perception is reality. Though I wonder if my own perceptions are as important as those of the people who affect me on a daily basis.

I was watching TV recently and noticed a spate of films and shows depicting fat, goofy, unintelligent white boys as the norm in well-to-do middle to upper class society. It is a perception that shapes the actions of the people of interact with those who look like the people depicted on TV. This might be deeply silly and unintellectual, but aren’t we a deeply silly and unintellectual as a nation?

So that brings us back to me and this idea of age perception. What does it mean to be 38? I’m not quite sure. I am still in the 30’s, so there’s that. However, I gotta find a way to understand what 40 means and rationalize that with this idea of still being an emerging success. I mean, how much more can one emerge after 40?