BagOfNothing.com

• Tomorrow it will be exactly one year since my wife (now ex-wife) dramatically abandoned and alienate our children from me. It’s a really tough adjustment. Literally, one day I go from trusting this person I prioritized over everything for 17-years with my life and my utmost top secrets and concerns, and the very next day she becomes an enemy. During that phase, I thought there were certain boundaries that would never be crossed out of respect and because this was her very first sign she ever wanted to end our marriage and tear apart our family. But no, she went full throttle and held nothing back. Nothing was out of reach.
• When it all started, I handled everything cautiously and gently because I wanted to reconcile and couldn’t fathom her wanting to end things without at least going to one counseling session or trying a separation. I thought the most important thing to both of us was our family. I feared if I was too aggressive with something, I’d risk losing my family forever. If I could go back and do things over again, I would have matched her aggressiveness. I’d reveal things to the judge like her taking my Adderall because she wanted to get more things accomplished during the day. Like Thanos said, I should have gone for the head.
• Interestingly enough, my ex planned my son’s birthday party tomorrow. He’s taking a few of his friends to Medieval Times. She contacted me a few weeks ago, asking if I would split the costs. This coming from the same person whose daughter asked if she would buy her a Halloween costume and she answered, “Isn’t that something you should talk to your father about?” This is also the same woman who wouldn’t invite me to our daughter’s birthday party. I’m not sure she understood the awkward position this put me in. If I refused to split the costs (she gets plenty of child support and got a lot more out of the sale of our house than I did, and her mother paid all her legal bills) I’m scared she wouldn’t allow me to attend his party.
• This seems like it should be bigger news – Texas Restaurant Workers Are Eligible for Free Child Care
  • In a somewhat shocking move, it seems like the state of Texas has come up with a plan to meaningfully support parents working in the service industry: providing free child care for up to a year for those who qualify. The state’s Service Industry Recovery Child Care program launched in October of last year and promises a stipend that is paid directly to a child care provider of the parent’s choice, so long as that provider is licensed by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. The program also requires that single parents work at least 25 hours per week — 50 hours per week for a two-parent home — and that the family receiving the benefits earns an income that is at or below 75 percent of the state’s median income.
• Attention grabbing dirty politics – Gov. Greg Abbott campaign hands out empty ‘fentanyl’ pill bottles at Beto O’Rourke event
  
• Attention grabbing positive politics – Girl with down syndrome from North Macedonia gets bullied, president walks her to school
  • After hearing that an 11-year-old girl in North Macedonia was bullied at school, the country’s president decided to visit her family and personally escort her to class on February 7.
• Many Republicans think the NFL does too much for Black players and are losing interest in the league, poll shows
• April 18, 2022 – ‘Better Call Saul’ Sets Final Season Premiere Date
• Here’s a real downer – dogs burying one of their own
• I had no idea Muhammad Ali attended a Texas Rangers game, much less at the old Arlington Stadium.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. #TBT pic.twitter.com/Pd7T5HOOhA

— Texas Rangers (@Rangers) February 10, 2022

• Go Bengals!

• I wonder if I’ll ever be able to buy a house again. My legal bills took the majority money from the sale of the house. I now have child support to pay for the next nine years and home prices are sky high.
• It’s interesting speaking to other divorced fathers. We find it peculiar how we are all required to take out life insurance to pay for the remainder of child support until our youngest child graduates high school should something happen to us, but our exes aren’t required to take out any in case something happens to them.
• Being a divorced dad makes you feel like a criminal. Having to create a profile on the state’s attorney general’s website and set up child support is humiliating. By court order, we are required to contact the payroll department of our current and future employers so child support can be automatically set up to be taken out on all paychecks. Anytime we move to a new address, we have to inform both the court and our ex by certified mail.
• Depending on certain factors, every two years our exes can inquire or request a cost of living adjustment. The method they do this is odd. It’s done by us being served court papers, which seems cruel and invasive and as if we committed a crime.
• The system is so skewed, women find more incentives in tearing a family apart instead of keeping it together. And, most of us fathers don’t even get the kids 50% of the time. Most of us are lucky if we get something called expanded-standard visitation, which is basically every Thursday night and every first, third, and the rare fifth weekend. It works out to basically 55-45. I’d like to know why I’m not deserving of that extra five percent. It sucks being a glorified weekend dad.
• I’ve always heard that when a divorce happens, the husband will often be shocked at the friends who happen to side with the wife. The number of Pontius Pilates in my life was shocking.
• Yesterday, my son asked me who was Adolf Hitler. I gave him the best explanation I could give a soon to be ten-year-old, and withheld any comparison to his mother and grandmother.
• TheTruesSize.com lets you drag and drop any state or country and compare it to others.
• @dallastexas_tv – Someone decided to paint a thumbs down on the Federal Reserve building in downtown today
• Hudson, Ohio mayor suggests ice fishing could lead to prostitution in ice shanties
• Boston Woman Gets on The Price is Right Only to Win a Trip to New Hampshire
• Disney is placing its bets on sports streaming and the metaverse
  • Disney today reiterated its commitment to expanding its sports streaming portfolio, with Disney boss Bob Chapek confirming that the company is bidding for the NFL Sunday Ticket. Disney also plans to innovate its product around sports-centric features and its still-vague metaverse plans.
• Disney Secretly Invented Two Colors (and They’re Everywhere!)
  • Go Away Green and Blending Blue are two of the most used paint colors at Walt Disney World Resort, but each particular shade is engineered by Disney Imagineers to make your eyes ignore them. 
• Bob Odenkirk’s Long Road to Serious Success – He was a comedian’s comedian — until “Better Call Saul” revealed him as a peerless portrayer of broken souls. What will he turn himself into next?

• Woman With Nut Allergy Thrown Off American Airlines Flight Because Flight Attendants Claim They Are “contractually Obliged to Serve Hot Mixed Nuts in First and Business Class”
• Phoenix priest who botched baptisms for decades apologizes, seeks to make amends
  • A Catholic priest in Phoenix has apologized, asked forgiveness, and resigned as parish pastor after a determination that he had failed to baptize validly over his two decades of priestly service in Brazil, the Diocese of San Diego, and the Diocese of Phoenix.
• Disney Plus just experimented with its first livestream – Disney Plus is experimenting with live streams, dedicating its first to Academy Award nominations.
• Man breaks into home, takes bath, eats shrimp leaves $200 for damages
• Las Vegas bartender robbed at gunpoint was forced to repay bosses stolen money, lawsuit says
• ‘Mark of the beast’ and fears of concentration camps upend hearing on bill to expand Utah’s digital driver license program
• Earthquakes in Texas doubled in 2021. Scientists cite years of oil companies injecting sludgy water underground.

• Here’s the background information on that photo – When Horses Fly: The Business Of Equine Air Travel
• Specialized shoes interest me for some reason. So, while watching curling, I thought I’d check out curling shoes.  Here’s a good summary, and a decent pair will set you back around $250.
  • The mechanics of curling shoes are way more complicated than you imagined — and no, curlers don’t wear skates
    • A pair of curling shoes features one sneaker — known as the gripper — with a soft, rubbery sole that offers traction on the slick playing surface. The second shoe — the slider — boasts an underside covered in Teflon or stainless steel to enable the player to slide across the ice with ease.
  • But if you want more detail, check this site out – How to choose curling shoes
• The upcoming new space race between East and West will be interesting since the commercial industry is now a player – Russia and China to Formally Sign Lunar Research Station Agreement by End of Year
• At Last: New Synthetic Tooth Enamel Is Harder and Stronger Than the Real Thing
  • Yeah, we all know how dental insurance is going to handle this. All dentists will use it and it will become commonplace, but the insurance companies won’t cover it.
• Tempting video of the day (if you can stomach it) of a very long ingrown hair.
• Texas Church-Shooting Survivors, Families Awarded More Than $230 Million From U.S. Government – Judge previously found the Air Force mostly responsible for the Sutherland Springs shooting in which 26 died
• TxDMV Director Resigns Amidst Paper Tag Mess
• An Oregon woman was duped into thinking she was training to be a DEA agent for almost a year, officials say (WSJ, paywall)
  • A woman in Oregon who believed that she was training to be a Drug Enforcement Administration agent realized she had been tricked for a year by a man pretending to be her supervisor, according to a criminal complaint seen by Insider.
• I divorced my husband, but I kept my mother-in-law – When my marriage fell apart, I was most scared of losing the special friendship I’d built with my mother-in-law.
  • If I’m ever ticketed, fined, or arrested for public urination, it would happen within an hour of my former mother-in-law’s burial.
• Every carmaker that’s truly going all electric to compete with Tesla
• Students begin protest after chocolate milk is banned at school
• Shaquille O’Neal says gorillas freak out when he comes near, and Zoo Miami executive confirms they are intimidated by his enormous size
  • During a recent episode of “The Big Podcast with Shaq,” the former NBA big man explained that gorillas freak out when he shows up at zoos and that they want to fight him. Shaq even called an executive from Zoo Miami during the podcast who confirmed the tale.

    The conversation came up when Shaq was contemplating whether to let his gray hair grow out, joking that he would be a “silverback” gorilla and not a “silver fox.”

    This led to Shaq, a huge zoo aficionado, explaining how gorillas react to his size when he shows up.

    “True story,” Shaq said. “I’ve been to every zoo in the world, and every time I go to the gorilla section, they look at me like, ‘Hey man, where your fur at?’ For real. For real. That’s how they look at me. They also look at me like, ‘What am I doing in here and you out there?’ And they always go crazy when they see me.”