10 Minute Rule

Let me start off by sayin I am exhausted. As I write this my back, tortured broken thing that it is, has started to feel better. I’m not going to die. I might even be able to walk at a fairly decent rate shortly. Over the last few days I’ve done little but experience back pain, try not to complain too much about it, and watch the world go by. If this is what old age is like then I need to be uploaded to a computer network and do things a different way. (side note–I am tired enough that I had to re-type different four times in order to get the spelling right).

So, yeah, tired.

I expect tomorrow to be a fresh start for me. I expect to move towards healing physically and also a mental reset, because I need one. I need to get right and focused again.

Some Thoughts:

1. 27 days before the day. It will be one year since the reboot and it feels like a ton has happened. I feel like I ought to mark the day in a special way. It looks like it will land on the 4th.

I met Nash one night in August. I was driving along the 347 and I saw a man walking. He was about my age and looked tired. He was dressed well enough that he didn’t seem like a bum or dangerous. He just looked like a guy whose car had broken down and needed help. So I pulled over.

He told me his name and said he was trying to get to town. I asked him if he’d broken down and he kind of nodded, but there was a strange look on his face that made me think there was something more. It wasn’t more than a five minute drive to the city from where we were, but it was eight lonely miles by foot.

We pulled into the city just after nine. I let him off at the autozone store. He said it would be fine and he would just walk back. Something in me didn’t feel right about that, so I waited.

Some Thoughts:

1. I started the freewrite above with a handful of ‘knowns’ and wanted to see where it got me. Nash was going to be a ghost. Nash was going to be from the future. Nash was going to want something. The ‘I’ was going to eventually believe he was crazy. That led to this thing above. Needed more than ten. I was just getting started…
2. Continue to be alone in regards to the coaching thing. While pre-season OTAs continue, no coaches are contacting me. That leaves me in a position where I don’t feel like I will be coaching this season. Regardless, I will make the play system I desire. I shall deprioritize it, but I will still do it–for me.
3. Now, what are my priorities?

My back went out again. I’m attributing the latest incident to not stretching on the front end of my workout. I needed to stretch but did not and as a result, I’ve been in a ton of pain for the last few days.

Cannot walk pain. Useless human pain.

So, now I am sitting in bed writing this and thinking about the chances and opportunities to turn this thing around. I cannot allow myself to continue to fall apart, because there are people who are counting on me to be at the top of my game and here I am somewhere near the bottom.

Some Thoughts:

1. A lot goes through your mind when stuck in bed all day. Most of it is about your own uselessness…
2. The rest is about what you can do and how you can strive to be better and more productive and do the things that a man your age needs to do in order to be successful for yourself and for those around you.
3. Best thing is to be the best you.

For as long as I can remember I’ve been about sports. From the time I hit high school it was football over all else. I managed to walk on to a college team and stick around for one season. After that I bounced around flag leagues and coached a bit. Once I hit the post-grad, real life, stage of things I went right back to football. I played one more season as a semi-pro and left deeply unfulfilled. I didn’t stop because I had nothing left. I stopped because I had a kid.

Over the years those kids started playing sports and each gravitated towards football. I coached. I loved being a coach at the flag level. I transitioned to tackle as an assistant and was handed the reigns of my first club when my eldest was 12. It wasn’t what I wanted and I was not ready. I’ve wanted another go at it since then. I want a chance to develop an offensive system that works and highlights the strengths of the players at my disposal. I want to do this for me. That is what I worry about. This is not about the kids as much as it is about me chasing my dreams and trying to create something special that makes me feel good.

But at what cost?

The person who matters most to me in life appears to wish I didn’t want this. Yet I still make choices and put myself in position to create this when it would be so much easier on everyone else to just let go. So, that is what I am thinking about today. Can I let go? I am sure I can and I am sure, as it stands, that will come with disappointment and regret. In my perfect world there is one last season in which I execute this system and hand it off to another coach who improves upon it and everyone is successful and happy. This feels nothing like reality. I won’t even truthfully attempt to guess what happens next. I want this. However, I am the only person on the planet who wants it for me and that is a reality I am fighting to accept and act on.

Some Thoughts:

1. Cannot believe I didn’t capitalize on 3.333. That will never happen again. Then again, none of these numbers shall ever repeat, so assigning arbitrary specialness to one is silly.
2. Messed up my back in the gym today. My partner says I need to stretch. My immediate reaction was rather male: Stretching is for kids! Yes, I was properly laughed at.

I’m getting back to making this blog more about the writing. There are many moments in my life where I feel that I need this space–this platform–to talk about how I think and feel. I try to mask some of that as backfill or explanations of why I write and where my stories come from. If I can be more honest and open and even compartmentalized in these writings I believe better content will emerge. I’ve only been at it for a few years and this blog has been all over the place.

So, let’s make this one about me.

I’m supposed to go to the gym shortly, and then put in the hours for the words. I want both of those things. I want to spend time with my partner. I want to coach. I want to present to writers. The thing I don’t want so much any more is the daily teaching grind. Being in an online only grind thus far this summer has reminded me how little I enjoy campus life and the sharks that make that entire experience difficult. I endure it for the teaching, the students, and for the cash.

Understanding that helps me to put the rest of it in perspective. I’ve watched other instructors I respect go through this, and now it is my turn. I’m asking myself what matters and what makes me happy and what makes my heart feel full. At this point in life, those are the things I am gravitating towards.

In an odd headspace of not a lot to say. Working hard on the stories and that has me ‘writer drained’ in other ways. So, I’m going to try to spit out…

Some Thoughts:

1. At some point I became convinced that my youngest has the potential to be an elite athlete. I’m beginning to think that I was right physically yet dead wrong mentally. Time will tell.
2. Game 2 of the NBA Finals lived up to the hype. Here is what I am worried about for the Raptors: Leonard looks really really tired.
3. The internet is filled with content whores. They create moments in their lives in order to have content to post to the world on the daily. In doing so they become desensitized to the day by day reality. It is a painful shift on reality and deeply unfortunate.
4. Still cannot believe we have a President who is really so deeply wrong and unaware of the world around him. Moreover, I cannot believe so many people apparently plan to reelect him.

We don’t take sci-fi very seriously here in the USA. In truth, we do not take science very seriously. We take alien sightings even less serious than any of the above. Recently a ton of footage was released from 2014 & 2015 UFO sightings from the U.S. Navy. Turns out they’ve been seeing stuff for years and don’t know what it is. More importantly, they don’t entirely seem concerned. In the footage pilots can be heard hooting and laughing. There is no real evidence of threat. Space.com commented on a recent NYT post on the subject. They argue that UFOs are not necessarily alien, which I completely respect. Still, the argument does attest to the fact that many sightings occur when we upgrade tech. Once the tech has been in circulation for a brief period, the sightings go away. This could in fact be the presence adjusting to our heightened tech.

There are many things that these sightings could actually be. I don’t know what they are. I do know that we as a people have developed a habit of dismissal. The majority of people don’t care if there is life beyond earth or just flat out don’t believe there is. This is a short sighted view which fails to allow us to grow into the people promised by sci-fi. What happened to exploring and going boldly where no man has ever gone before?

I took my first look at Kindle Direct Publishing. It is pretty amazing what is available. Used to be that you needed one of the major publishing houses or a small college press to get a book out. Then technology made it possible to self publish at often large ($5000 or more) cost to the writer. Now anyone can put themselves out there on Kindle and perhaps wind up on Audible and work their way up from there. We don’t need approval from the firewall of literary editors in order to get published. We can get it done ourselves.

So, is that a good thing? Mostly yes. I think the cavalcade of words does make it harder to find good stuff. I think the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) does largely promote the power and ideations of Amazon above all. Still, it gives an avenue. I believe that is needed especially when that aforementioned firewall appears more concerned with profitability and movie rights than good stories.

So, am I gonna do it? Yeah. Heck yeah. I have a series all picked out. Just gotta sit down and write that series. I’m working hard to make writing the top non-relationship priority in my life. It is my passion and I want to be able to make it all I do professionally.

This is largely about…

Some Thoughts:

1. NBA finals are all that was promised and more. Lowry’s long distance 3 pointer was a killer late game move that was all about swag.
2. Tough day. Emotionally it has not been a good two days for me, and to make matters worse, my most important is in pain.
3. I’m really biding my time this time around. I’m not motivated to write and am trying to run out the clock any way possible.
4. These nights will happen.
5. One reason this night is happening is listed above. Another is the transitional nature of the day. I have my kids back and as with all transition days, they are a mess. Perhaps they are a mess all the time.
6. Long talk with the first born about his low level of maturity. It is a problem.
7. Beyond the kids I am adjusting to the summer schedule and that in of itself is a work. I am still trying to figure out my schedule and my routine amidst the madness of my kids.
8. The steampunk-esque novel kicking around in the back of my mind popped up again today. I think I need to wander back to it sooner than later. That one ought to be my Amazon novel or novel series.
9. Struggling with the football stuff. Joined up for an all star game and now we are out $400 with no game and no coach in sight. Hot mess.
10. Well, that’s all. Mission Accomplished.

I really wish I had the opportunity to be the Knicks GM. With everyone pointing fingers to explain the long time suckage of the Knickerbocker franchise (I’m looking at you James Dolan), I want to think about ways in which to turn things around. No, it doesn’t have to do with LeBron or any of the A-list stars out there today. I want to play Moneyball.

Here’s the thing: Superstars are only super in the right system. I’ve watched D’Antoni turn average players into beasts. I’ve also watched the draft produce all of the greatest players in the NBA. With that being said, I say we build from the ground up. I say we use the draft as an opportunity to get some pieces to build around and then use free agency and trades to get the pieces that bolster the pieces we’ve already added.

This is not the way of the new NBA. In the modern league you gamble for an all star and hope he can turn the franchise around. I don’t feel that is the best use of resources or fan energy. I want a team built around the philosophy of the coaching staff in-place or built around the ball movement principles that have been so successful for the teams that are winning right now.

I don’t want Durant. I want the next Curry. I want a point guard and a 2 who can both distribute and shoot. I want a slashing small and two bigs (interchangeable at center/forward) who an play solid D and scrub the boards like Mr. Clean. That is what feels like success to me.

So, that is my pitch in ten minutes. I’m still looking at you, Dolan. Bring me in and lets turn the crap boat into a damn cruise ship.

Some Thoughts:

1. Mueller’s speech was something. He straight up said the president could not be absolved of criminal action, but it was against the constitution to charge him. How hard core is that?
2. 412 words from the daily allotment. I wanted to finish before my date, but this will not happen. At least I won’t have to blog later too…
3. The cat drags bugs into the house to play with them… Bad kitty!
4. Yes, that small detail will wind up in a story eventually.