Day: September 18, 2024

If you’ve ever wondered what it looks like to watch a fantasy team (and fantasy manager) implode in real time, just keep your eyes on this post once a week. I am in the midsts of a terrible season. Perhaps midsts is being too forward. It is week, what, three? I’ve already lost CMC and Kupp to IR. I have yet to be featured in the wins column or even sniff the dang vicinity. I drafted poorly (in retrospect). Now I am trying to salvage what I can with backups and late waiver grabs. At least the Beach Born league looks vaguely promising. I managed to offload CMC for Barkley an A. Jones prior to the IR announcement, giving me something vaguely resembling hope during a 1-1 start to that season. This is how it goes in fantasy. You want something to happen and then reality steps in.

The reality of this week is games that should be blowouts but may be winnable. At the college level my kid faces a #6 FCS ranked South Dakota. They lost by two scores to FBS Wisconsin, a team that gets highlights for being in the Big 10 but is not actually terribly good this year after having essentially the same margin with Western Michigan as they did with SD and getting blown out by Ohio State pretty much in the first quarter. South Dakota is good. Drake is better than people think. They’ll try to make it a fight.

Desert Vista is facing a very young Hamilton team. They’re top 8 in the state and undefeated with wins against two middling teams and a tough W over A Centennial program that was in the open state championship last year but has not one a game since, currently standing at 0-3. I don’t know who Hamilton is, but I know who DV is. I know that if they keep their heads in the fight they can make this a game. I expect that they will.

I’m turning it back to a version of 4.85 that apparently never was printed. I found it on the list of drafts. It goes as such:

Long day today. Not a lot of sleep from yesterday and a ton of activity across the span of the day. It felt like the hypertension was surging towards stage 2 for the better half of the morning, and then I came down to stage 1 again. That may have something to do with the anticipation of all that I had going on over the course of the day. It has been a really good day overall and has already transitioned into a very good night. I’m pausing on the night for ten to get this in.

Some Thoughts:

1. I still love the keyboard feel of the very old (2013) macs and the recently not new (2017) macs. At the same time I am hugely disappointed in the mouse click feel. Such a letdown.
2. This tells me that I am definitely a weirdo to have so much to say (and more to think) about the feel of a keyboard.
3. Enjoying the youth football season. Kids are doing well and really growing and adjusting to not being the best–but wanting to be. I can see that transition and growth happening and I love it.
4. I also love that a lot of these teams that once seemed invincible are not. It furthers this nascent idea of hope and competitiveness.
5. In the end though, it is still JUST youth football and not a big deal. In the end it is just me diving into everything around me and swimming around in the drama of it all. Totally a me thing.
6. Maybe also a writer thing? That there is my version of hope…

Me diving into everything has been a thing for most of my life. I remain convinced that I can do and be all things without stressing. Ace of all vs. Jack, because I can never settle for Jackdom. A lot of that blog still feels current despite being years old. The feel of keyboards, the hypertension, the football… I’ve always been intrigued by the theory (perhaps false) that the body renews itself every seven years. I think about being at the point of renewal now and what seems to remain as a core tenet of my personage. I am all about particular things. I am all about the football, though I’ve transitioned from improving myself as a player to improving myself as a coach–even if I am no longer that either. The tech crawls forward, but the feel of what I like remains. The high BP is being dealt with, though it too creeps upward all the time.

I guess what I can take away from all of this history is that there are things that I recognize as making me me, but I never dive too deeply into what it is about those things that defines me. Looking backwards today gives me a moment to pause and think about that aura I create and more importantly, why.