Writin' Forty

I grew up as a brainy kid. I was called nerd a lot. This blog is not about how much I was called a nerd as a kid. Not really.  I was always in Quiz Bowl, or Academic Bowl, as a kid. Did a decent amount of it in middle school. It made sense for me to continue trying it in high school. What I have learned in my middle age is that you can be a hotshot at something, but if you have to move to a different location to keep doing that thing you’re going to have to prove yourself all over again.  I was kind of a hotshot in middle school at quiz bowl. Moving into high school, I had to prove myself all over again. I found out there was an Academic Bowl team for the high school  and joined up. The proving myself part came when I had to “sit the bench” for the first half of the competition. If memory serves me correctly, each match between schools was 25 questions long. There were four people on the team. A coach could sub in any or all of the four team members after 12 ques...

I didn’t mean for so much time to pass between posting but life and laziness happens, of course. When I started this thing it was to counter my fears of writing in public. It was also to make me write more because I’ve had several people tell me in my life that I should write more. With apologies to President Dubya, I’d think the whole experience has been Mission Accomplished! I posted 30+ times in a year on the blog, which is good. I’d like to think that largely due to this I stepped up and volunteered to write Facebook and Twitter writeups for the podcast I’m a part of, the Longbox Crusade. I noticed that the main man and DJ, Pat, used the same or similar write-ups for our podcasts once they came out. It was my idea to take over for those write-ups; I wanted the hard work that he does and that the boys put into the show to stand out! My humble part in that is the write-up. End result of that would be positive feedback from the write-ups and as is normally the case, more work! I no...

Thanksgiving was pretty dang great. After a somewhat turbulent flight into San Antonio Miranda and I landed and picked up the rental car. The rental car was a Ford Fusion Hybrid and I was less than enthused to be driving it. Let’s just say it grew on me, somewhat. I can see the appeal in driving 550 miles or so and spending about $30 dollars a tank to do so. I do not see the appeal in being able to only drive 70 if you put the pedal to the metal while even nervous 16 year old drivers on the interstate are passing by you ticked off to all hell.  We get to the in laws and they were fantastic as normal. Thanksgiving dinner the next day was amazing, as normal. It’s worth me noting that being able to gloss over having an amazing meal with loved ones means that I am incredibly blessed. I do everything I can to not take that for granted. I’m multifold blessed as well because I was either contacted by or I reached out to so many different people wishing them a Happy Thanksgiving; I k...

While I didn’t think this, if I did think that receiving my blue belt in jiu-jitsu was the end to anything I would be sadly mistaken. I’m going to go ahead and say I don’t get why anyone goes through the trouble of earning a blue belt in jiu-jitsu and then decides to quit going to class. Of course, life happens and things come up so I’m not talking about those people. I’m talking about people who actively choose to stop going after blue belt, they could go to class, and just decided not to go. I’ve read somewhere that earning your blue belt is the equivalent of knowing who you are as a jiu-jitsu artist. So imagine if that applied to real life: you finally figure out your purpose, who you are as a person, then you just don’t do any of it.  It’s unlocking a door and then just walking away from the door without walking through it. That’s crazy.  Why am I rambling about this? If I figured out what I am in earning my blue belt it would be that I’m a big dude and I like smashing...

I think if I had a redo on what I went into college for it would be for journalism or broadcasting. I look at people talking about sports or being a talking head on TV and I think “Hey, I can do that” or “Hey, I already do this for free anyway, why I wouldn’t want to do it for a living?” And while oftentimes as a beat writer or broadcaster you often have to talk about whatever is placed in front you when you write a blog that only about 8 people read you can write about whatever the heck you want! Ah, freedom. Here goes a rant about the Iron Bowl, which is the yearly football game between Auburn and Alabama: The last time I looked, Alabama is a 24.5  pt  favorite to win the Iron Bowl this year and some other metric I saw said Alabama has a 91% chance to win the game , which Alabama is the home team for; the game is played in Tuscaloosa . Alabama is 11-0 heading into the game, they’ve already won the SEC Western Division and will be facing Georgia in the SEC Championship....

It occurred to me that I haven’t written about my trip to San Antonio, TX a few weeks back. Not sure how or why I forgot because at least two significant things happened to me, singularly, in that time: One, I put on a military uniform for the first time in almost 4 years and two, I had to shave  off my beard in order to put on that military uniform. I knew this day was coming and have known it for years. About 3 years ago I reacquainted myself with my buddy Sean and he told me then, authoritatively so, that he wanted me to preside over his retirement ceremony. Let’s pause here: The reason of Sean choosing me is important because there simply aren’t many people who make it from any branch of service to an official retirement, which is (normally) a period of over 20 years: when you get to that point you get to “call your shot” as to when you retire and who does it. People who perform these ceremonies usually are people of a high position or rank that the retiree respects. I r...

I joined a military support group at work. I figured it was a good way to meet people who have something in common with me in such a huge organization such as the one I work for.  The premise under which I joined this group was that I would join this course and also be connected with a mentor who is military or military friendly and talk to you during the duration of this course. Turns out I had a good rapport with my guy, Aaron, so after the course ended we have continued to have discussions. I’m glad for this. It’s nice to see someone outside of my regular day to day work people. Aaron challenged me to take better care of my spiritual growth. He firmly believes that you need to have work life, spirit, home life, and physical health taken care of. Aaron wasn’t even necessarily referring to going into a church every Sunday. To be frank, I’m kind of glad about that. I grew up in the church, Southern Baptist. My favorite lady on the planet, my mom, had trouble as a teen; going...