Bag of Randomness for Friday, January 19, 2024

  • Dana Carvey recently lost his son. This week he returned to his podcast with David Spade. He mentioned going to church, which made me curious about his spiritual life, “We’re all together and we do a lot of fun things,” Carvey said. “We hike, we go to church. You just want to make sure that you keep moving.”
  • I’m not sure why I’ve had a stigma of East Texas since childhood. In particular, Tyler. I think my brother had a playoff game there and I didn’t have a good time or the long drive out there. In my Texas history class, when I learned the city was named after the president in office when Texas was annexed, I thought that was pretty cool. As an adult, when I read about how that president betrayed the country he once led (he pledged his allegiance to the Confederacy, and his coffin was draped with its flag, making him the only president not to have the United States flag used), then I thought it was weird for a city to hold the name of a person in disrepute. Over time, I don’t think the name is held in disrepute at all because people don’t make the connection and link history as I often like to do.
  • I think I wasn’t a good student when it came to the Civil War. It’s possible that my school system did a poor job of teaching it, but I feel more responsible for my lack of knowledge, even if my teachers would disagree. But I remember the first time I came across the name Jefferson Davis. I was courting who would become my wife and we were visiting her sister and brother-in-law in Marshall, in East Texas. They lived on a street or avenue named, “Jeff Davis.” I knew who Jim Davis was (the creator of Garfield the Cat), but not Jeff. Smartphones weren’t a thing then, so I had to look it up, which I did during a break at work. The top results stated it was a shortened name for Jefferson Davis, and I read about who he was.  I was like, wow, they live on a street named after the leader of a man who betrayed his country. Why would a place do that? I don’t think I could live on a street named after such a person. Then, I slowly started to learn that East Texas is much different from the area of Texas I grew up in. In my neck of the woods, I guess you could say the South was respected, but wasn’t held in esteem, like East Texas.
  • Why did I lead off with those two bullet points? It’s just stuff that came to mind after I was reading about the Miles Morales version of Spider-Man. Yes, for you non-comic book character fans, there are multiple versions of Spider-Man than just Peter Parker, I know it can be hard to keep up. His father was a Black police officer who shared the same name as the late president of the Confederacy. Though the character later changed his name, that’s another story. But, that led me to research why the author, who is white, used that name. It turns out it was the name of a friend’s father, and he never made the connection until readers pointed it out to him after publication.
  • Instant leader of the pack.

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Bag of Randomness for Thursday, January 18, 2024

  • Cowboys keeping Mike McCarthy? I’ll believe it if nothing happens over the weekend. Again, if I were writing NFL fan fiction, I’d have it where Jerry contacts Belichick by that back channel route I referenced earlier this week. The coach then calls Parcells for his thoughts. Parcells will say it never set well with him when Jerry brought in Terrell Owens, that Jerry is not a man of his word. That’s enough for Belichick to hear, and through that back channel informs Jerry that he isn’t interested. Jerry, then is able to save face and is never publically turned down and releases a statement it’s in the team’s best interest to keep McCarthy.
  • You may remember I had my kids over the night of Christmas Eve in 2022, which was extra cold that year. All was well when we left to go to our church’s candle-lit service. But when we got home, the garage was flooded. Water was coming out from the wall near the washing machine. Turning the water off at the connections didn’t stop things, so I had to turn the main valve off. I called my landlord, but there was no way I would get a plumber or any crew over that evening. To make things worse, the garage floor doesn’t slope outside. So, I did my best to sweep the water out with what I had available, a broom and a one-gallon wet/dry vac. That was a heck of a night. Yesterday around lunchtime, I left the house to pick up some prescriptions. When I arrived home, I found the garage flooded again. Thankfully, it wasn’t the night of Christmas Eve and I was only away for maybe 15 minutes. The landlord was sending a plumber who would be over in a few hours. I used my little wet/dry vac, but after bending and lifting from using and emptying it half a dozen times, my back was really starting to hurt. So, I thought I’d work on being more of an extrovert and instead of doing things myself, ask for a little help. So, I talked to my neighbor, and he loaned me a huge wet/dry vac. Oh man, that saved me a lot of work. I think in all, I vacuumed over twenty gallons of standing water.
  • I keep forgetting to write a little more about my trip to see U2 at the Sphere in Las Vegas and the very brief relationship I had with a girl who liked my profile on a dating app who was so beautiful, that there was no physical feature that could be added or taken away to make her better looking. Oh, I smitten I was. She gave me hope that someone great may be out there, and could be interested in me. She made me realize that when it came to dating since divorce, I’ve been doing a lot of settling in hopes of trying to find a best friend again.
  • I sent a text expressing how much I love and appreciate my closest friends last night when I heard the news that Warriors assistant coach Dejan Milojević died of a heart attack at 46. All of us are 48 years old. Most were math majors, so it was no surprise when one of them said that 48 years is 2/3 of the 72 years that used to be life expectancy. I remember reading that life expectancy statistic in high school, circa 1993, which was for white males. My dad was 69 at the time. That was a major reason why I was a homebody and drove home at least once a month from college. Family always came first for me. You may remember that Dad had a cardiac episode and a pacemaker put in three days before my high school graduation. But, back to that stat and how it relates to us. Thankfully, all of us are non-smokers, and the overwhelming majority of those men in that statistic were smokers. And, medicine has advanced. But, we all know how unpredictable life can be and the curveballs that it will throw.
  • On the evening news, there was a segment on Nikki Haley’s comments about the U.S. never being a racist country. The reporter asked a person in a control group her thoughts, and she said, “Was she asleep during the Sixties?” Well, to be fair, and hopefully not come across as a smartass, but she was born in 1972 and totally missed that decade.
    • That, along with any talk of book banning, makes me think of this classic scene in Field of Dreams when Annie says,
    • And, anytime I hear a reference made about the Sixties, I think of this classic scene from the same movie.
  • The Mavs did well drafting this mature and encouraging 19-year-old. I like that he took the opportunity the reporter gave him and what he said. Sure, we’ve all heard the same message from an athlete a thousand times, but it encourages people like me who feel they are surviving life instead of thriving at it, who live alone, and have little to no family.

    Sidenote: I think it’s commendable that the reporter, Jonah Javad, ends the end of every 1-on-1 interview asking if the person has anything else they’d like to say or add. I literally ended every argument with the person I was married to the exact same way. The number of times she ever added or asked anything – zero. That led me to believe we were on the same page. Boy, was I wrong, and that’s why I never saw the divorce coming.

  • I hope you don’t read that as “negative zero,” because zero can neither be negative nor positive.
  • I think it’s pretty darn neat that every time Mark Cuban has sold a company, he gives all his employees some type of bonus. He’s doing that with the sale of the Mavericks, divvying up 30 million dollars. He was being interviewed by one of those employees yesterday on the radio, who has worked for the organization for 13 years. Cuban had to think about it for a second but said the bonus should be $75,000. I wonder what would happen if Cuban over-quoted the amount by mistake. Like, when the employee actually gets the bonus, it’s $55,000. Surely, Cuban would make up the difference.

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Bag of Randomness for Wednesday, January 17, 2024

  • NASA is trying to turn the sonic boom into the sonic thump.
  • What the heck did the reporter have in mind when asking this question?

  • Every home team won their playoff game except our Dallas Cowboys.
  • Seeing arrogant and cocky Philly head coach Nick Sirianni’s team implode brings joy to most of the football world.
  • Everyone laughed at this tweet sent by the @AtlantaFalcons on Monday, “We have interviewed Bill Belichick for our head coach opening.” Why the laughter? Because everyone knew it wasn’t the Falcons interviewing him, it was Belichick interviewing the Falcons. More than likely, it went like this. Team owner Arthur Blank tried to start a legitimate interview, then Bill Belichick grimaced, and said, “Look, here’s how this is gonna go …”
  • Belichick will not make up his mind about where he is going until Jerry makes up his mind.
  • Belichick has a lot of admiration for Roger Staubach. His father coached at Navy when Staubach played, and seriously, they used to play catch. If I were to write some Dallas Cowboys fan fiction (though, I wouldn’t doubt this may be happening), I’d have Jerry communicating through back channels to Belichick through Staubach.
  • Per Jay Fowler of ESPN, Bill Belichick is seeking to coach a “talented” but “underachieving” team. This has Dallas written all over it, and I’m sure he can’t wait to coach the closest version of LT he’ll ever see with Micah Parsons. Eagles fans think this means he’s coming to Philly. He ain’t going to Philly.
    https://twitter.com/Thomas_Carrieri/status/1747103480987177463
  • A lot of folks keep blaming ownership (Jerry) for the Cowboys not making it to the NFC Championship game over the last 28 years. I think that was a legitimate argument before Parcells coached the team. Since Parcells, the Cowboys have made the playoffs nine times. The last three years they went 12-5. Most GM duties are done by Will McClay. How exactly is ownership failing the team? Jerry and his family aren’t putting the pads on or calling the plays. Sure, he and his family are the one constant, but what more or what less can he do?
  • I don’t like how Iowa is always the first state that kicks off the presidential race for a plethora of reasons. I don’t know what I want, but I know I don’t like Iowa kicking things off.
  • I’m not saying I want this, but I’d like to hear a healthy debate there being no party nominations or state runoffs for the presidential race. Just one election the second Tuesday in November and that’s it.
  • https://twitter.com/buitengebieden/status/1747380542503358647

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Bag of Randomness for Monday, January 15, 2024

  • The Cowboys are simply not a cold-weather team.
  • Somewhere out there someone read that last sentence and said, “But Keith, they play indoors.” Yes, I know we play indoors. That’s the joke.
  • Well, Arlington is a baseball town anyways.
  • The Cowboys had seven pro-bowlers, the Packers had none. The Packers have played a total of 12 games in that stadium and have never lost.
  • The Cowboys have been 12-5 for the last three years. Belichick wants to pass Shula on the all-time wins list. No team is best suited to get him that record faster. He’ll get that record in Dallas in two seasons, four seasons with any other team. Especially with our weak division. He’ll have to rebuild with other teams and at his age, isn’t that patient. Some will argue that he will want all control, and Jerry won’t give that up. Beleichick’s mentor, Bill Parcells, was famous for saying, “If you want me to do the cooking, you should let me buy the groceries.” And, he worked with Jerry. As a matter of factor, I bet Parcells and Belichick will talk this week about what it was like working for and with Jerry. Not to mention, Will McClay has been the GM here for years (in all but title) and has a great track record with the draft and free agents, he’ll stay on staff. One may argue the Terrell Owens situation. That was long ago, Jerry has learned from that, and proof of that was when he didn’t draft Johnny Manzel. I predict most of this will happen the week before the Super Bowl. But don’t think just because the New England Patriots planes are at Alliance Airport right now will mean anything, they are just being worked on. Oh, one more thing that relates to the next bullet point. If you watch pro football documentaries, you know Belichick and Jimmy Johnson are good friends. So much so, Bill will stay nights at Jimmy’s place and go boating. Jimmy and Jerry have patched things up. Jimmy will help sell Belichick on Dallas.
  • This was Jimmy Johnson at halftime, he was fired up.
    https://twitter.com/TheDallasNation/status/1746671457617232187
  • A lot of the men in my divorce support group made mention of this – The Miami Heat waited until Erik Spoelstra was finished with his divorce proceedings to give him the $120 million contract extension.
  • It was neat seeing two competing meteorologists complement each other.

  • When it comes to playoffs and championship games, this man is a cancer.

  • Great tradition.
    https://twitter.com/DallasStars/status/1745966306686337220
  • In case you wondered what an underground heating system looks like under a football field.

  • This had to be a great feeling for both the author and the teacher.

  • We all have that one team member, don’t we?
    https://twitter.com/PicturesFoIder/status/1746518406340440501
  • https://twitter.com/KillaCam0531/status/1746179004715913627

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