Month: April 2026

I think…

The term parental alienation, while not fully applicable to my situation, does apply in many ways to my situation. It really feels like an us vs. them dynamic where the ex is trying to “win” and is willing to do anything for these kids in order to achieve that “win”. This has lead to a great deal of malicious activity, including granting exorbitant freedoms and blaming any setback or degradation to that freedom on me. I’m the bad guy. I’m the only one who is ever going to hold the kids accountable for anything. If I don’t then what type of adults will they become?

I think…

I am burned out. There is little doubt about that in my mind. It’s like when a body gets dehydrated and you feel that need; you feel yourself drying out. I feel myself withering and pulling away from routine. I’m very much in the mindset of not at all appreciating where I am at or the work situation I am in. I’m ready to step away for a while… a long while.

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer is leaving Trump’s Cabinet after abuse of power allegations” This includes drinking on the job and having an affair with a subordinate, which feels like the new normal in this government. The best people…
2. Also… “Mount Holyoke’s corpse flower blooms again, drawing crowds to its ‘rotting flesh’ stench”

Sunday now. The existential dread that accompanies it being Sunday is such a dramatic shift from the carefree joy of Saturday that you might wonder how these are consecutive days at all. Don’t even get me started on Mondays. My existential stress gets a daily boost from reading the news. It feels like a matter of time before the US military commits a war crime so egregious that the world cannot ignore it, and as a result, we double down. Not back down mind you, because we don’t have the mechanisms to do that under this administration. We simply pivot and claim victory in the face of overwhelming shame.

It isn’t going well, American Life.

I could write about the strain on the system ad nauseam, but I don’t know it would do much good other than getting it out of my own system (again). Short version, we are a country predicated on growth in a handful of key markets that are overwhelmingly powered by a base of people who are losing their opportunity and will to grow said markets. I know the market leaders see this, but most appear more interested in milking that cow than feeding it… and are also trying to find new ways to profit off us. I.e. new markets. It is painful. It is sad, and I am in no position to do much more than ride this thing out. I’m trying to get to a better financial position. That will take time I am no longer sure we have.

In the meanwhile, I need to get my heart, body, and soul back to a place where I can be a productive member of society. I’m not there yet. I am hanging on by the strandiest of strands these days, between kid drama, finance woes, and a creative block the size of New Hampshire. This too shall pass, I always say. But when though?

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “Pete Hegseth reads a prayer adapted from ‘Pulp Fiction’ during Pentagon service” The path of the righteous man, indeed… I love how he tried to make the Strait into the valley of darkness. Bro was not cooking. Yet he truly, deeply, believed he was. This is what happens when you put ego-focused fail-ups in a position of near-absolute power. Bad things, man. Bad things…
2. Traded Sexy Dexy. Got legit value back. Don’t F this up, Harbaugh.
3. Not looking forward to the new Madden or college football, because I’ve heard nada in terms of improvements to play. Just new players. At least give me some FCS magic and let me pay with my own kid.

Hard to believe it is only Saturday. The days seem so much incredibly longer, draped in the weight of emotional uncertainty. I have unresolved issues and am waiting for a conversation with my son. It should have happened the night of the incident, but it didn’t for reasons previously discussed, and now we are in a situation where I am waiting to see him and when I do I’ll need to unload this emotion, but in a controlled way. I’m not mad at all. I’m sad and worried for the kid and for the relationship I want to have with the kid.

I dwell. I have that problem emotionally. I need resolution. Without it and without understanding I am adrift. Of course, I’ve been adrift in one way or another since ’25, and it is time I pulled myself back on course. I’m working on that in a number of ways. A lot of it is about clearing my head and setting stronger boundaries and priorities for myself. It’s work, but I’m worth it.

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “Life jacket worn by a passenger who survived the Titanic auctioned off for over $900,000” Some people have way too much money and way too little sense of what to do with it.
2. Also this: “Prosecutors say makeup, wigs helped former Alabama tackle impersonate NFL players in $20M fraud”

Oh how I wish I could blame AI.

That would be so easy, wouldn’t it? I could sit here and claim that AI is ruining the writing industry and as a result, I have less and less motivation to create wonderful stories. Only, AI isn’t ruining the industry quite yet. In fact, AI creative writing is pretty easy to spot and often not very good. I could argue that easy, not so deep writing (i.e. beach or airplane books) are ruining me and crushing my will to write because they come out so fast and have such a fervent following (easily likened to that of romance novels) that I am losing my will to write.

Also not true.

The truth is that I am struggling to put my butt in the chair because the stories I am telling are only interesting enough to me in concept and not execution, so I cannot dream up the will or intricacy to actually write them. I’m bored by my own stuff! Stephen King famously wrote about losing the thread of stories, once even writing himself into a story where he lost the thread. I am not doing that. I am not doing anything right now except for wallowing. So, I decided to own up to that here in the blog.

I need to find better stories to tell. I need to find the stories that excite me enough to write them. If I don’t, this entire enterprise may be reduced to little more than a blog and a teaching resume.

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “Trump draws Marie Antoinette comparisons as he leans into the gilded trappings of the presidency” How are we in this timeline?
2. Speaking of Timelines and the Multiverse, Doom trailer dropped at CinemaCon. I’m supposed to be excited, I guess.

Sitting down to write this blog, I have zero idea what to say. It isn’t like I don’t have stuff going on. I am still getting over that brief flash of depression triggered by the recognition that my youngest is a manipulative person who has yet to take responsibility for anything in his life, leading to a scenario where failure is more likely than success. I was reading about Justin Fairfax this morning and thinking, “this is worst case scenario” for someone who has to be accountable after a life of not having to be. You just fall off a cliff when faced with the weight of accountability. It is going to end very badly for my kid unless I get him turned around. At the very least, he is going to fail at his chosen path of football, because coaches expect accountability–not blame.

I don’t want to see him fail. I don’t want to spend my days worrying about his failure. I also don’t want to see him turn into the kind of person that fails to be responsible for anything in his life–that sort of lingering victimhood that led me away from my first marriage. It is happening regardless of what I want. I just need to figure out a way to stop it, or at least let him see what he is doing to himself.

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “AP Exclusive: Europe has ‘maybe 6 weeks of jet fuel left,’ energy agency head warns” Yo! That is not good. At least we are not headed that way and into that pricing chainsaw.
2. Fox News is still advertising on AP news. I am shocked by this… I should not be.

I was not going to do the Waiver Wire this time. I didn’t really have much to say other than to show my legitimate angst at my teenager being, well, a teenager. This is not to excuse his behavior (No chance of that at all… He’s getting that verbal whipping). I expected more from him and from our relationship and he did not deliver on his end of the bargain. Instead he fell into that modern trap of playing the victim and using clinical language in order to reframe the situation as anyones fault but his own. This is what happens when you get a girlfriend and start to feel yourself a little.

But I digress…

How is he gonna ball? Well, based on the new AZcentral.com report, he is not one of the top 40 players in the state. I can see why: He doesn’t get turnovers. When I studied the PFF grading system in relation to his big brother I learned a very important fact. Grades are swayed remarkably by splash plays. If you give up a touchdown, it hurts. If you don’t get interceptions, it hurts more. Still, he did force several fumbles and that peanut punch got him 4 offers so far. I still implore him to take one of these offers, because I’m learning that the teams that want you first are the teams that actually want you. He’s supposed to visit one of those teams this weekend, but we will see if that happens given how much trouble this child is in.

Short waiver. We need to talk schedule and playing both ways and all of that eventually. I think that waits till after the summer. Next time I return to the waiver, I’ll get into an analysis of UNI and what is going to happen on defense with my boy joining the roster. There are impacts to be made.

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “Hot dogs and steaks and bacon, oh my! Meat raffles keep a beloved Midwest tradition alive” We are an extremely strange country.

I Think….

I’m low energy lately. It has been several days of this. I thought it might be just the days I have no coffee, so I should continue to monitor that situation. But I know it is more than that. I got struck down with depression a few days back and I am trying to work myself out of it. Until I do wipe away the residuals, I will definitely be struggling.

I Think…

My classes all need a rebuild and a streamlining. I need to make this all go faster and make more sense so people can spend more time actually working with the material they are learning.

I Think…

People get upset when you talk about politics because it makes them feel upset and powerless. I also think it makes some people nervous because they don’t agree with you and want to avoid that confrontation. Politics is a difficult bridge to traverse. We have to get away from the sides and the polarization and get back to starting at a place of recognizing what we have in common, as opposed to seeing disagreement as unamerican. Until then, we are gonna always cringe when we try to talk about politics.

I Think…

We need to talk about politics, because the Trump stuff is getting worse by the hour. This is pretty much new territory when it comes to dereliction of duty. I’m not here for the whataboutisms either. You cannot constantly use what we all agree was a fading old man as an excuse for being bad yourself. I fear though that is exactly what future administrations will do based on the straight grifting and dereliction Trump has put on full display. We’re at war. We started this war alongside Israel. Yet, when it comes time to have negotiations the president and the secretary of state cannot make it there because they’re at a UFC Fight? Come on, man.

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “NFL reporter Dianna Russini resigns from The Athletic after photos published of her with Mike Vrabel” Some context here is needed. See, Russini and Vrabel are longtime friends. Moreover, these photos showing them together laughing in a pool, were zoomed in to remove the other people who were also hanging out with them. This helped to promote an affair narrative. As a result, she had to quit her job before the Athletic fired her. What is nuts to me is that these friendships she has with these powerful sports figures are exactly why she gets scoops. Someone wanted to make a story happen. Someone succeeded.

When things erupt in my life they rarely do so quietly. Instead it is as if everything in my history was waiting for this moment to explode. This weekend it finally did. What started as a relatively banal parenting situation quickly spiraled into what I would describe as a game changer. Short version: My kid lied to me about where he was. I told him to come home. He told me no and decided to go to his mom’s house instead. We haven’t spoken since.

There is a lot to break down there, but the game changer is his refusal to listen and ability to retreat to another parent who does not discipline or agree that what he did was even wrong. It is very tough to parent a kid who lives between parents. It is especially tough when one of those parents isn’t willing to work with the other and uses anything they can to further endear herself with the child. The weaponization of children is a terrible thing, but one I’ve long been used to. My children have been riding those waves for over a decade. This is not the first time it has been a situation where one ran to the other parent because they knew there were no consequences on that side. However, that kid was over 18 at the time. This one isn’t.

So, what comes next? I don’t know. I want to believe the relationship with the kid is repairable. I don’t know that it is. He’s at that age where lying and manipulation come easy. Worse still, he’s surrounding himself with people who thrive on such things and are not willing to hold him accountable for anything. Instead any perception of him being in the wrong or any perceived failure is blamed on external sources. Even in the moment this weekend his refusing to come home was labeled as ‘my fault’. This is a recipe for failure. What does he think is going to happen when he gets to college? Does he expect these same ploys to work? My best guess is that he washes out as a freshman and returns to his mom where he will continue to be coddled well into his adulthood, because that gives her purpose and value. Some people are willing to sacrifice their kids future to feel good about themselves. I’m not the one.

So, what does that mean I do? I don’t know. I’m not sure how to fight this battle and teach him to stand up and stand alone. I am running out of time to figure that out.

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “Hungarian election winner Magyar vows to fight graft, change constitution” for context, Orban provided the framework for the gerrymandering and other steps towards legally rigging elections. He stacked the deck so heavily in his favor that in spite of overwhelming numbers of people hating him and his politics, he stayed in power for 16 years. Just recently JD Vance campaigned for the man, on our tax dollars. He still lost. This is going to ripple across the world. Hopefully the wave hits us in the next presidential election, because if it doesn’t we’re done for as a positive global influence.

I was going to do a dad blog, but I decided to wait on that one until this presently occuring dad situation unfolds to completion. Instead, I figured I’d leap right into…

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “JUST IN: Trump says the US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz will be ‘all or none,’ with no passage for any ship until Iran relents.” To share a later quote, “I don’t understand how blockading the strait is going to somehow push the Iranians into opening it. I don’t get the connection there,” Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. So now we are the ones blocking the strait because they’ve decided to toll people going through, and we won’t let what we describe as a terrorist organization toll their own space? This is getting so dramatically out of control that I no longer expect a peaceful resolution in my children’s lifetimes. I mean how much damage can we do to our world reputation in four years?!
2. Meanwhile, we are about to host the World Cup in the worst possible political climate for such things. I fear for the fans, honestly. That is if the ones we consider “undesirable” even get let in.
3. I don’t like the way things are going and the level of existential stress it is causing me as a human. It feels like this administration is resetting us to a time when we all had to consider the constant threat of global nuclear war. However, there are so many more threats at play now with the way we’ve handled technology. Oh to be able to go back to a time where it wasn’t like this!
4. Then this happened: “Israeli strike kills infant girl in south Lebanon during father’s funeral” Which brings me back to the root cause of much of this. I don’t deny Israel’s ability to protect themselves, but what we are seeing here is another example of hardliners silencing the masses and creating conditions to both keep themselves in power and carry out their life-long missions of not only destroying other cultures that threaten, but expanding their own footprint. Israel doesn’t care about societies that are not as wealthy or globally appreciated as they are and man, it is showing here.
5. Then there is this: “In February, Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee released a report that said the deportation agreements with foreign governments cost American taxpayers millions ?of ?dollars – at times more than $1 million per ?person shipped out of the country – and produce little benefit.”
6. Well, that’s our stem of reality. It could be worse. It could also be quite a bit better…

“It’s International Fact-Checking Day. Refresh your AI identification skills” When I first started using computers back in the early 90’s we still used the terminology Mega Instructions per Second, or MIPS. A publicly available computer could run at 10 to maybe 35 MIPS. We don’t even use the terminology anymore because it reflects an architecture that is too slow and outdated. In other words, start adding zeros. The average laptop is 50,000 times faster and more capable than the computers I grew up with. Yes, we used to believe that Moore’s law would show that we’re gonna peak, but that law was proved false four years ago, and we’ve made huge jumps in processing since then.

All of this is to say that we are moving into the AI era, and it is going to be a lot like the massive jumps in technology experienced during my childhood. Where I was accessing amazing new visuals and realizing that Basic was not the end all to coding, we are starting to witness self-replicating code and technology that evolves to meet the expectations of its audience. The worst part of it–or the scariest–is that we are not ready as a mature and intelligent species. At least not here in the USA, and probably not in a lot of areas of the world.

AI is a tool, but the problem with tools in our culture is that we become reliant upon them and fail to both mentally safeguard ourselves against the effects (pay close attention to chatbots), nor are we aware enough to understand (or even want to?) how they work. This scares me on a few levels. Mainly, we are putting these tools in control of functions that shape our lives. We know already that power corrupts. Why do we continue to fail to respect that axiom?

Andon Market in San Fransisco tried to let the tool take control. The company is, “preparing for a future in which organizations are run by autonomous AI systems, or agents, like Luna.” It hired its own employees through Luna AI, an open source ai bot matrix. It did all of the things a business should do. It also did more. Read the article. Sounds mundane. Winds up not being. This is only the beginning.

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “Ichiro Suzuki’s statue unveiling has a mishap as bat snaps during ceremony”