Month: August 2023

The Beach Born league draft was a bust.

I cannot explain how I misread the space, but I wound up picking my top WR too early, and grabbing the entirely wrong QB by autopick. Moreover, I don’t have a reliable TE. By the time I got to it they were all gone! Lesson learned. I have one more draft this coming weekend, and I need to make sure I’m getting the talent I need early. I plan to go with Waller at TE and Wilson (Jets) at WR. That’s the PPR city combo right there. Other pics need to be locked down for sure, but I will make those my first two in this keeper league. I have a RB in Mcaffery, but keeping him slid me about down the to last pick. It is a snake, so I ought to be able to snatch both my picks in short order. Then a QB. George Pickens out of Pittsburgh is my look at WR for a few rounds in. I think he, Justyn Ross, and Calvin Ridley will be lighting up the league this year. If I can pull two of them I should be okay in that area.

The super good draft news is that I was invited into the Yahoo champions league based on my performance in my own league last season. It is a different format–you are given X$$$ to purchase your play roster per week. So, I will be keeping you updated on how that works. My initial foray into that league following my victory last season was fairly awful. It is a different style of play, and very fun to learn and experiment with. Here the home league may be winding down. The interest from half the boys is considerably low. Two have largely written off football in favor of basketball (where they can cheer for a team that might actually be good and where they find more value in spending their time indulging in the research and watching). I’m a football guy, so I love the sport regardless of fantasy play. If and when that part of life ends, I will continue to talk football. Perhaps not fantasy but more X and O stuff. It is a hobby I love to learn more about.

I’m sitting here in the classroom as my students work through a prompt. They have ten minutes left to figure it out, so I decided to keep time with the blog here. I find myself looking back in time to when I was first teaching this subject matter at another school–Estrella Mountain Community College. I was still in my (very late) twenties and thinking that life was endless. Here I am in my late forties and wondering where all of that time and energy and youth went. Was it wasted? What were the experiences I absorbed, appreciated, endured? Since then I have been divorced, moved one of three kids into college, gained three more kids, 50 more lbs, and developed a heart condition that if left unchecked is going to murder me in under a decade.

Things have changed quite a bit.

I don’t have a vision for what life will be like in 20 more years. This is the first moment I’ve thought about this as a real midpoint in that post collegiate journey or a stage in my life that will shift dramatically in short order. I don’t know that I can ever retire and live the lifestyle my partner and I want and have grown accustomed to. So it becomes a matter of deciding what life should — even could — look like.

I don’t know.

I am trying to figure it out everyday between working, playing games, living a couples life, raising kids, and living out my fantasy life of being a writer. Maybe the answer is somewhere in what I just wrote.

Football is a strange sport. You get these kids who are the physical build for a specific role at the higher level, but because of one thing or another they end up playing ‘out of position’ and never get recognized for how good they are at a particular thing. My boys are getting shifted around all over the field. Both are true corners–D1 build corners standing at six feet plus with blazing speed and a narrow frame. They aren’t safeties and Linebackers, but that is what coach needs, so that is what they are doing. That is the oddness and the particularly destructive nature of football. There are 11 positions on each side of the ball, and for my senior who has 1 offer at CB already and needs a better one (it in’t a full scholarship) if he is going to play college ball. He does not have a lot of time, but injuries across the secondary means that he is unlikely to get any more tape beyond that one truly fantastic game. Somehow the coaches at both levels feel these boys are wasted at corner. Yet, without their play the team would’ve given up more points.

Life does not always hand you the conditions you seek. Often you fight through what you are given and make it into a situation in which you can at least survive until you learn how to thrive.

I am finding a measure of peace in the overpriced hum of the air conditioner. It is Sunday morning, and while I don’t have F2F classes tomorrow, I am preparing to roll into a very busy week. Most of my in-person classes stack up on Tuesday where I find myself teaching from 7 AM through 2:15, with one break around 11:30. By then I am wiped. The hardest part of the morning schedule is teaching the same subject three times in a row to three different populations of students. Classrooms have a vibe. Sure, the teacher is part of creating that vibe, but it comes from student interaction with each other and the content itself. How do they feel about what they are taking? What is their purpose for being there? What else is going on in their lives?

I have a son who is close to graduating college. He goes to class every day and is almost entirely disinterested in what he is learning… as his profession. He doesn’t see the value of things like terminology. He’s about to graduate. He has had time to consider the worth of such things in his line of work and utterly dismiss them. Now consider a freshman walking into an english class in the age of ChatGPT. What chance do I have to retain their attention in a subject they feel is probably outmoded. Not only will they try to write essays with the tech, they won’t even engage with material that is not entertaining.

So, I’m an entertainer. I try to be on for hours and build toward a general understanding of the process and context of writing, so that when they do use the tech (as they will) they will be able to do so effectively and towards their personal purpose. All of that requires being very prepared and very ‘on’. That requires being in a state of mind where I feel centered, organized, and ready to go.

As the semester wears on, Sunday will be football and chill day. I’ll watch my Giants (which I paid nearly $450 bucks to do) and relax into the new week. In order to get there, I need to get to a place where I know in advance what is happening week to week. I think all teachers at all levels need lesson plan books (with accompanying cueing powerpoints, handouts, games, and whatever else). That is my goal for this week. I intend to build out mine for these five different subjects/formats I am teaching. But hey, at least it isn’t as many as last semester.

I genuinely care about teaching. I must, because it is Saturday evening and I am thinking about what I plan to put together tomorrow in terms of developing a semester for these freshman comp students. Heck, I even gave some thought to writing up part of it this evening. I won’t actually do that. What it all means is that I care about the work. I care about being good at the job and providing an experience the students can walk away from with some genuinely valid information and skills. I feel that way about all the classes. I also want them to have fun. I want them to be able to enjoy the learning process.

I care about the work I create. This is what I’ve spent 45+ years figuring out. I care about what I write and how it is received and how I am perceived. I don’t care about the ‘level’ I am writing at or teaching at. I just want to put out a good product. That is enough for me to be satisfied with my work life.

Some Thoughts:

1. The mid-kid is out hanging with friends. He drove. This is a different situation than we’ve had with all but one other boy, and for me it is the first time a kid in school really went to kick back with friends and handled his own transport. They are growing. I am moving further away from the raising kids phase of life and closer to the exploring who I am post-dad phase of life.
2. So who is that guy?
3. Presently I think I am on my partner’s nerves. The stray snide comments are striking like hot embers. I don’t know why I launch them. Moreover (yeah I overuse that word), I don’t know why I continue to complain about the absolute over-saturation of anime culture in the house. It isn’t going to change. So why complain?

Low day.

I need to get back to turning Fridays into a fiction post. I just am not feeling it today. From time to time story wanders away from me, and I feel like I won’t ever be able to get it back. Those are the lowest days. Those are also the days I realize how much passion I have for the craft. I recognize that this week reflects a bit of an overload. I have a meeting in twenty minute for an upcoming project that I have devoted next to no energy towards. It is a passion project, but I have so much else going on that I cannot turn my passion towards that project and make it the best ever version of that type of writing.

That is the thing with me. Every time I press down on a keyboard I am trying to be better than the person before me. I am striving to manifest everything that is good in me and pour it out on the page so the reader gets the full blast. So, why is it a low day? I do not think I surround myself with winners. I do not feel like the people in my life spend every day trying to master what they feel is the fundamental pulse of their existence. Sure, I have good people around me and some are winners, but most are lazy. When I am surrounded by lazy people, I am lazy too. The tide of such things overwhelms. I walk into a classroom and know immediately that most of the faces don’t want to be there. They are looking for shortcuts/ways out/chances to put the pressure on me vs. them. So I spend my energy guarding against that and not creating and not manifesting what I want to be my purpose.

I am in a position to fail every day. Yet some days I succeed.

I realize this is truly out of order or at least not the day for such things, but with the acquisition of Isaiah Simmons, I am absolutely giddy here about the options on defense for the team I love. There is an article about the trade on ESPN which, if I’m being real, is overwritten. First off they start by calling the trade a ‘risk’. What risk is involved in trading a 7th round pick for a number 8 overall pick who is only owed 1 million. Frankly, that is likely less than the vet being cut to make room for the guy–whomever that may be. Simmons is a ‘tweener’. He isn’t a guy who is going to take on Linebackers as a MLB or even OLB. He’s also not good enough to be a safety. He lacks the pure coverage skills. However, between those two roles is the Money back. That is a hybrid position that doesn’t take on the big boys but thrives in covering TEs in space and blitzing the QB. Last season the Giants used Tony Jefferson, Jason Pinnock, and Landon Collins in that role. Simmons is a physical upgrade from all three… combined. In addition to that he is in a contract year and extremely hungry to prove himself.

That isn’t even the best part.

Simmons thrived in the Clemson D in college, thanks largely to sexy Dexy, Dexter Lawrence II. Yeah, they putting the crew back together. Now the argument is that Simmons doesn’t want it. He won’t play LB, and really prefers to be a safety lurking and blitzing and hitting fools. Well, he got his wish in all but position name. Simmons is in the best possible position as a positionless player in Wink’s D. I’m entirely stoked to see him excel and earn his next contract.

We didn’t draft.

Due to unfortunate circumstances our draft needed to be rescheduled to a yet undisclosed future date. Meanwhile, in RL, football season started at the High School level. The newly inducted high schooler played his first freshman game and the rust was very evident. He is a leader on and off the field for his team but that leadership stopped about four minutes into the first quarter. He looked gassed and disinterested throughout. I am left to wonder if the coaches are going to consider him a bust and lose faith or if this is just to be seen as what it is: A momentary blip on the radar driven by a lack of understanding of the level he is expected to be at right now. He didn’t hydrate and he didn’t compete at his level. He notched 5+ tackles from the CB position to lead his defense, but it is the ones he gave up that will haunt him. Those were from lack of effort. Loosing is a lesson you have to face. He hasn’t lost terribly much in his life, so this is going to make him aware that it feels really bad–especially in a context where you thought you’d win easy. Especially when you realize you beat yourself. He has to figure out a way to grow from it and get ready for next week.

His big bro plays tomorrow and the excitement for the team is building. If they can get a good practice under their belts tonight and start to believe early in the game tomorrow, it is going to be a great show. The High School intends to show up and show out in neon. I’m looking forward to seeing that show.

Some Thoughts:

1. Truly enjoying this season of Hard Knocks. I like the Jets and I am excited for the game this weekend. It’s pre-season, but it is also the Snoopy Bowl. Jets v. Giants matters, people.

Just finished watching the youngest play his first High School game. He plays for the same team his brothers competed on. New coaching staff (that changes every year these last 4) but same outcome. He took the L. I don’t really have a post I am reflecting back on here, jut the emotions of going through seeing three different boys play in their first High School game. The first two didn’t even get to see the field. The second was only 12 years old, so that made sense at the time. He lacked the size to be certain. The first also lacked the size. This one has the size and the skill, but showed a lack of stamina for the roles he was asked to fill. He’s the team captain, and a starting receiver, and a starting corner, and the punt and kickoff returner. He was gassed by the second quarter. Of course, it was already 35-0 by then. To say they struggled is an understatement.

I’m glad they faced adversity. I am glad he is realizing the burden being talented puts on you. He thought about quitting and didn’t and I am proud of him for it. He’s the one who wants to be pro, so he needs to get used to all the weight. He has a ton of room to grow. Heck, he could dress for Varsity by mid season, but I don’t want that to happen until he figures things out here and adjusts to the workload both in and out of the classroom. He is just a kid, but a kid with big dreams and big talent. He just has to remember how to play like it.

I spent part of the day working on one of my writing projects (there will forever be three or more it seems). The rest was spent checking back into the office and preparing for the first day. It is going to be exciting and more than a bit odd or even terrifying to attempt to slide back into the role after a summer that feels like it has lasted for two years. Even more interesting is the discovery that I have not taught the novel writing class since 2017. That is a very long time ago. I barely remember who I was back then. I definitely wasn’t a guru of canvas course design, because the shell is absolute junk. It is actually empty. Just a calendar and some notes. So, one more thing on the list is to prepare myself for the class by building a course shell that actually functions as a resource for the students. Given the time of day we are presently at, this will need to occur tomorrow in under 75 minutes, because I only have one break before that class and my classes start at 7 AM.

I need to start doing better at getting sleep. I have not done well. It vexes me. Perhaps the strain of all the due dates is getting to me and I just feel like I need to be grinding more. I suppose I would feel that way, because I don’t grind enough during waking hours. Some of that is limited discipline and some of it is mental fatigue from lack of sleep. It is a vicious cycle.

Some Thoughts:

1. Draft night here for the fantasy football league. Whats odd is that nobody but my lady has even acknowledged the draft is happening. No evidence of prep or care. I am beginning to think they don’t care and thus I should be canceling this league season. Maybe if we did fantasy basketball they’d find some interest. Regardless, it was a way to try and include everyone in some version of the sport that takes such prominence over half our family. Accept the fail.