Writin' Forty

Last night will be the last class I take at my regular school before the tournament on Saturday. I foolishly decided to do a work thing on Wednesday (ok, not that foolish. A co-worker wanted me to attend some sort of military networking event; I do like to go to military related events and I do like and respect the co-worker and that’s why I said yes. Still, the timing of this event as it relates to the tournament and me losing weight to get where I want t o get to is just laughably bad) and this bumps my normal schedule of having to go to class at Denver on Thursday instead of at Charlotte on Wednesday. Never mind I just constructed the worst sentence ever made and stay with me. I talked with my instructor, Steve, and told him I wouldn’t be in for the rest of the week and that the tourney was Saturday. He basically said, do what I know and nothing else. My game is on top. Stay on top. If I get put on bottom? Get back on top. That is enough for me to win. I told him that I had a p...

Getting ready for this tournament and several things are going through my head right now. I’m sure they’ll all string together at the end but if they don’t, here’s my apology in advance. You got what you paid for: 1.  Jeff mentioned to me about a week or so ago about what my “Happy Plan” was for the tournament. I had no idea what he meant. A happy plan is how you’re going to envision your tournament rolls going from start to finish. I was asked this question by one of the brown belts at my school, Tyson, but it’s good to know there’s a term for it. I have now mentally practiced what my happy plan is. 2.  I am worried I haven’t physically worked that plan well enough. On the off chance that one of my competitors is one of the 8 people who read this thing I won’t give away what I have and haven’t worked but I am worried I haven’t prepared enough. I have used my regular training to figure out what it is I feel I can and can’t do in reference to the tournament. I hope tha...

Dan from Victoria is beardless now. I don’t like it and I want him to grow it back immediately. It was so striking that I knew he had shaved it, saw him walking up, and it still didn’t register that it was him when I saw him. When I was in Victoria, Dan worked two jobs, both of which allowed him to have a beard which was full and luxurious and awesome and with his belly and smile he looked like a younger, awesome Santa Claus. He had his reasoning for shaving it, you know…employment…but my Dan in my head has a beard. I was going to do my normal thing and say “I digress,” but I can tie this in. Really, I promise. Over the course of the evening in Victoria I had several meaningful conversations. Dan mentioned to me that he wanted some help with fitness; his idea was that he would join a gym and start and I would continue to grow my beard out in a show of solidarity. There’s a big problem with that: my wife. Miranda is happy with my beard as long as I keep my beard looking neat and tr...

My wife does all of the booking and planning for our trips.  I’m not sure when this started happening, but anytime we go anywhere it just became the default that Miranda gets the plane tickets and the rental car, which also means she determines when we leave and when we come back home. For the most part, she’ll run that information by me so I can make it fit my work schedule. For Thanksgiving, I came up with a (for me, anyway) brilliant idea of bringing my work computer and work from her parent’s place before the holiday in order to maximize the time she got to spend with her family. The reward for this good deed is she booked the flight from Saturday to Saturday. Which means the first Saturday, I would have to be in the air while Auburn played Samford, a small school in Birmingham. No big deal. But what this also meant is that I would have to be in the air for the second half of the Iron Bowl: Auburn. Versus. ALABAMA. Crap! For those of you who don’t know, Alabama and ...

Saturday, the  Mrs  and I go to her parent’s place in San Antonio. I’m basically out of vacation days but I told my boss I’d bring my work computer with me in order to maximize the amount of time that my wife gets to see her folks. It was a surprisingly forward thinking move on my part and I’m glad that the few times my brain fires off on all cylinders it produces a good result. Anyway, that’s not the reason I’m writing today. When I lived in Victoria, TX, which is about 2 hours from San Antonio, my last half of living there I spent a lot of time at the best bar in the town, Moonshine  Drinkery . I never necessarily planned on staying in Victoria for a long period of time but once it was clear I was going to be there for a minute I needed to find a social scene. Moonshine became (one of) my main ones. It started one night where I met the manager of the bar, Beau, and took off from there. Sometime after I left Victoria for Charlotte I heard that Moonshine was clos...

Rooting for a sports team is really akin to being in a relationship. There are moments where you love them more than anything else on the planet. There are times where they frustrate the hell out of you for any number of reasons: maybe they didn’t put forth what you perceive to be enough effort, maybe the team was not put in the ultimate position of success (coaching), or maybe someone stepped in and prevented the team from being the best they could be (referees). There are so many different  variables involved  but much like a relationship, the key to rooting for a sports team is that you’re supposed to love and support them regardless of the circumstances. Which can be tough. Trust me, I know that. The good news is that over time the law of averages means your team is going to reward you for  your support. Eventually, the cards are going to fall where your team gives you a magical moment or, sports gods will it, a championship. Those are the sweetest times for so m...

I saw a meme recently and it goes something like this: you have a house and the basement is flooded with raccoons. Try as you might, you can’t rid of the infestation of raccoons. You seek help to get rid of the rodents but no one  in town seems to be able to get rid of them entirely. Then you hear about a  guy  who can . This guy does not have the best of reputations. This guy doesn’t smell the greatest. The guy is basically a slob.  His methods are questionable.  But he get s rid of the raccoons. You wouldn’t  have to wo rry about the raccoons anymore and that’s all that matters, because r esults matter. What do I think of this meme? This story that has been passed around  to basically say the ends justify the means? Well? I could attack the premise of the entire meme and say this is a completely made up, self-serving story. But in a way, that’s self-serving to me. So let’s take another angle or two. I think that getting  to the  ...