Writin' Forty

The first city I lived in after I left the Air Force was Victoria, TX. Victoria is located in a part of Texas, southeast or so, that is called “The Crossroads”. While I personally think that’s a cool name the practical reason for the name is the city and area is kind of in the middle of nowhere. Victoria is located 2 hours away from Houston, 2 hours away from Austin, 2 hours away from San Antonio, and 1.5 hours away from Corpus Christi. Those are at least 4 Texas cities anyone has heard of all surrounding a city no one has heard of.  Ok, maybe you’ve heard of it if you’ve watched professional wrestling. That isn’t a typo. Stone Cold Steve Austin, if you’ve ever listened to his introduction beyond the glass shattering, is announced as being from Victoria, TX. Here’s the punchline: Stone Cold is NOT from Victoria, TX. He’s from nearby Edna, TX, a shotgun town that is much, much smaller  than the 70,000 or so in Victoria . Edna is so small  of a town  that Stone Co...

There are times where if you see or hear someone react a certain way, you can figure out a lot of what they might or might not know. A common refrain that I’ve heard is that (in general terms) government is too big/powerful/cumbersome,  etc  and that government (in general terms) needs to be smaller.  From someone who thinks this, I infer a few things: 1.  There are two powerful entities the US has: government and corporations. If you want one to shrink, government, you are essentially saying that you want corporations to be more powerful. 2.  By corporations I only mean the biggest of businesses; if you own a small business you most likely wouldn’t be getting more power with smaller government. 3.  The individual has even less of a say if government gets smaller. At least in theory, anyone can run for government and change with they don’t like. For corporations if you’re not on the board of shareholders you’re not going anywhere, or at least the a...

Sometimes I wish I had definitive answers about myself. I’d love to know how I process information and why; what parts from my mom and what parts from my dad plus any parts God make me think the way I do. Rod  Bramblett , voice of the Auburn Tigers, and his wife Paula were killed in a car accident this weekend. The news hit me like a depth charge; I waited for confirmation of the worst news and then I read a ton of comments about how people were mourning the event or retweeting Rod’s historic call of the Kick Six, Chris Davis’ 108  yd  return for the most improbably satisfying Auburn victory over Alabama that anyone may ever see in their lifetime or the next. Some people shared pictures of them with Rod. Some people shared memories or stories of what a kind, nice man Rod was and what an amazing couple the  Brambletts  were. Some lamented the two children, both young adults, the  Brambletts  unexpectedly left behind.  Some shared they were cryin...

I had a conversation today with my namesake about what it takes to succeed in the podcast world. What, that sentence doesn’t make sense and I have to explain it? FINE. Guess I have to do all the work around here. My name is Delvin. Randomly, on twitter one day, I saw a like or share or tweet from another guy who shared my name, but instead of the last name of Williams, his last name was Cox. Instead of my, like, 500 something followers on Twitter he had about 7,500. I am not used to seeing anyone with my name so I was intrigued. I am also a big smartass so I had to reach out to him and playfully mess with him about not only having my same first name but having so many more followers than I do! Much to my surprise , Delvin actually replied back with humor and good nature. He then invited me to come onto his podcast. What, I have to talk about that now? Blogging is a lot of work, I swear…   Delvin Cox has hosts his own podcast called the Delvin Cox Experience. I’m going ...

I  gotta  tell you, I have enjoyed the heck out of jiu-jitsu. Here’s how much I’ve enjoyed it: the school I go to, nearly since I’ve been there, had a Thursday class where fundamentals were being taught. I loved it because it was a way to refresh what I learned on Monday and Wednesday’s class. This class also was a way to move a little slower and not be as chaotic as going into free sparring after. It was a way for me to practice and not bring all the war and hell of hard rolling. Anyway, they cancelled this class recently as the guys running it felt the purpose of the class had run its course. And to wrap this paragraph up, the reason I know I enjoy jiu-jitsu is I was sad when this class was cancelled. Maybe it’s  because I like my routine and this class was a part of it. Maybe I liked the personal thing I had set up where, during a normal week, I was going to class Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday. But I do miss it. As much as I enjoy jiu-jitsu, it is hell i...

Ya  know, we weren’t even supposed to be here today! I mean that. When the NCAA basketball gods put together the tournament brackets year by year the whole purpose of seeding the brackets 1-16 is that by the time two rounds end, or known to everyone as the Sweet Sixteen, only the 1-4 seeds of each bracket should remain. While this has never happened the intention seems pretty clear: there is a line of demarcation of the teams the tournament designers feel should make it far and there are teams the designers feel should not make it far.  For the year of our lord, John Wooden, 2019, Auburn was NOT supposed to be this far and you don’t have to go any further than looking that Auburn was assigned a ‘5’ for its dance invitation.  Quick recap of Auburn’s season: great start, a stumble out of the gate for the start of the SEC season where we were predicted to compete for another regular season championship marked by a series of narrow defeats, the absolute nadir when Au...

I read a  stat  somewhere that the average white  (American)  owned small business owner starts off with about $100K in capital while the average black owned small business owner starts off with about $31K. Not playing “identity politics”, whatever that is. I’m simply relaying what I have read to make this point: I think I want to start my own business but I don’t really have the capital to do so. Let me check that, I probably could get the capital but in order to do so I’d have to place myself and family in a position of financial discomfort; I worked too hard to get to this point in my life to risk that money away. I believe I want to start a small business; I do not want to make it the “last ditch effort” where either the business succeeds or my wife and I go hungry! I like to eat. She does too. Decades ago I had the dream of opening a comic book store. While the first comic book I ever picked up was from a Big B Drug Store in Birmingham, AL the first time ...