Bag of Randomness

I’m looking forward to the day I can start a post by saying I accepted a new job offer. But today is not that day.

Most Dallas Cowboys fans don’t appreciate how good a quarterback Dak Prescott is. He was exceptional last night.

Everyone thought the Cowboys were going to get blown out, and Micah Parsons would have at least a couple of memorable sacks. To our surprise, the Cowboys played better than expected. Not only did Dak play lights out, but Shotty called a great game. So many times, you can tell the Cowboys lost to bad coaching, but not last night.

But it ended in a tie. How do we feel about that? Well, this is what BoyGeeding said, “We lost to the Bears last week, so consider this an upgrade.”

Last time I posted, I stated that it should be obvious that Superman is uncircumcised. I still stand by that. In all likelihood, his biological parents could have had him snipped on Krypton. Buy, why would they, especially if they are an advanced civilization? The main reasons for circumcision are religious and cultural. Yes, there are medical reasons for the procedure, but it’s mainly done for religious or cultural reasons. And think what would happen if he and Lois had a son. It would take a lot of effort to get that boy circumcised, considering his super genes are passed on.

Maybe I’m wrong, but when someone gold-plates his office with the “highest quality 24 Karat Gold” and builds a ballroom larger than the historic mansion he’s living in, he has no plans moving out in three years.

Meanwhile, we’re bringing back measles and discounting the effectiveness of trusted and well-established vaccinations.

Chinese scientists develop bone glue to fix fractures within three minutes: Report

I always get a kick out of skills or random bits of knowledge we carry over from other jobs that we will never have a practical use for. For instance, a college friend worked at a postal facility, where his role involved reviewing images of envelopes with hard-to-read ZIP codes. He could easily tell you any ZIP code in Texas. So, if someone mentioned they were going home for the weekend to Lubbock, he’d rattle off all the ZIP codes in the area. More impressively, he’ll just ask for the street and would still be able to tell you not only your ZIP code, but your ZIP+4. He could do this for other parts of the country as well. He hasn’t worked there in over 25 years but a lot of that knowledge has stuck in his head and it’s a great party trick.

For me I used to work at Southwest Airlines in the Technology department, helping to test their website. For a while, I could tell you most of the airport codes.

I’ve never seen so much chicken cooked at one time.

I used to watch a lot of Hunter episodes with my father back in the day. I was shocked when Dad informed me he played in the NFL. He looks great at 79. Now that’s a series I’m surprised that hasn’t been rebooted. According to Wikipedia, a small reboot was done in 2003, but I don’t recall it.

Who would have thunk? Hong Kong has more basketball courts than any city in the world

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Bag of Randomness

Of all the things for me to think about in Sunday school, Superman is obviously uncircumcised.

While we studied Luke 5 this morning, I was struck by how Jesus handled the man with leprosy. Luke says Jesus touched him, healed him, and then sent him to the priest.

That order matters. In Leviticus, the priest was the gatekeeper for someone returning to the community after a skin disease. It wasn’t just a medical check. It was a ritual that allowed a person to come back to worship, to family meals, to ordinary life.

Jesus doesn’t bypass that process. He restores the man’s health instantly, yet tells him to “go, show yourself to the priest.” The healing is complete, but the man still walks through the door the Law provided so that everyone else can see, yes, this person belongs again.

I couldn’t help connecting that to how we talk today about reintegrating people who’ve been cut off from society, like those coming out of prison. Healing someone’s body or granting forgiveness is one thing; helping them reclaim their place among neighbors is another.

Jesus cared about both personal wholeness and the path back into community. Maybe part of following him is looking for ways to make that second step possible for people in our own time.

I updated my LinkedIn profile. Feel free to take a look at it, connect with me, and give me any substantive feedback you think might help.

A lot of folks, the president included, don’t like the new NFL kickoff rules. But, I’ve noticed kickers and special teams coaches are inventing new styles of kicking that make kickoffs more difficult for returners to track and catch. It really came into play in the Rams vs Eagles game. The Rams kicker has this knuckleball of sorts that’s so effective, the kick returner bobbled it on three different kickoffs, affecting field position.

Skyballs, diveballs, knuckleballs: Kickers creating new kicks for NFL’s new rules

Michael Phelps was on last night’s Manning Cast version of Monday Night Football. He and Eli shared stories of how fans have confused the two in public in their younger days. Phelps looks very different today with a beard and a manbun. Hey, if you win 28 Olympic medals, you deserve to wear your hair any way you want without getting poked fun at, even if it’s a manbun.

Phelps also shared, and it came across as genuine, of helping several Baltimore Ravens overcome their fear of water, and that some had never put their head underwater until they met him. He spoke about how humbling it was to teach a 6’6″ 330 330-pound person to overcome their fear.

In case you missed the NFL Today, they went full retro, celebrating 50 years, and even brought in Brent Musburger for a large portion.

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Bag of Randomness

I’m so frustrated and concerned about what’s going on with the attack on free speech right now. It stinks not having my kids around because I really wanted to talk to them. So, I did what I thought was the next best thing and sent them a text.

A day in the life of being a fire lookout. Not that it’s really involved, but I’d say it may be more so than you’d first consider. I’m curious how technology will replace this in the future, probably a combination of high-resolution cameras, drones, and AI.

I’ve never been to a political rally until last night. Maybe I shouldn’t, but I have high hopes for James Talarico. It was an interesting evening.

 

 

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Bag of Randomness

I spent about a third of my Sunday tuning up some neglected back-end stuff on this blog. Hopefully, it loads more smoothly for you.

Let’s start off the week with a grateful mindset. Jameis Winston has really impressed me with how much he has matured since his college days. I’m proud of the man, and hope I can be more like him.

If you are a fan of AppleTV’s Severance, you’ll appreciate the Easter Egg on the back of Britt Lower’s acceptance speech.

I also admire the Northwest football team for being imaginative and doing their darndest to get students to attend their games.

BoyGeeding’s class is taking a field trip to the George W. Bush Presidential Library in early October. I thought it would be a cool thing to chaperone, since the school is always asking for volunteers, and I love presidential history, with a soft goal of visiting all 15 of them, I thought I’d tag along. But first, I wanted to ask BoyGeeding if he was cool with it. I told him how I wouldn’t be hanging around him and his friends, I’d just be doing my thing. But I also told him I understand that having your parent around for such a thing can feel uncool or take away from the experience. He asked me to stay home, and I shall, and will save the embarrassment for another time.

A few things have caught the public eye as of late, and they’ve got me thinking about restraint and character. It’s easy to critique someone and say you would have done such and such, but we really don’t know what we’d do unless we were actually put in the same fire.

We’re all familiar with how the father of a young boy handled himself when Philly-Karen jumped in the man’s face, accusing him of stealing her home-run ball. He was praised for his restraint and for showing his kids how to de-escalate an issue when something abruptly blows up. I’d hope I’d have acted similarly if put in the same situation, though I suspect my initial reaction at being grabbed and yelled at in the face, while holding my son, would not have started off well.

A video posted to Twitter trended on Saturday caught my attention. A man was arrested for indecent exposure at an AMC theater in Arizona after urinating during an animated movie and splashing a nearby child. All we see is a father beating the living piss out of the pisser until the house lights come on and someone finally pulls him off the pissing perpetrator.

As with the other example, the father was praised for how he handled the situation, but this time for not showing restraint. Honestly, I don’t know what I would have done if put in the exact same spot. I can justify the violence; heck, I even praise it. And in this case, showing restraint and simply notifying an employee doesn’t feel like the immediate right thing to do. This is one of those situations I’d love to have a deep conversation about with a variety of men, just to hear their perspectives and justifications.

Going back to the Philly Karen. This AI video, based on the “Most Interesting Man in the World” commercials, gave me a good laugh, and I hope it does to you.

Does anyone remember when former Texas Rangers manager Bobby Valentine was managing the Mets, got thrown out of a game in 1999, and then came back out in a Groucho Marx disguise?

Well, this happened over the weekend during the Mets Alumni game. Bravo, Bobby V!

Impressive Swiss engineering. I suppose it’s worth the setup time, but I’m sure drivers are happy not being delayed.

I’ve always respected Matthew Dowd’s political insight, even when I used to disagree with him all the time. But it’s absolutely ridiculous for him to get fired for speaking nothing but rational common sense. But I was surprised to learn he’s been dating Maria Shriver for about twelve years. It’s also beyond belief that wrestler Ava Raine is getting heat for what she said about kindness. Thankfully, she doubled down on them.

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