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• I’m not joking or trying to make light of anyone who has gone through a genuine tragedy and suffers from PTSD, but I felt like I was suffering from it yesterday with all the news coverage of the icy weather and school closings. I’m approaching the anniversary of February 12, the Friday before of the big freeze that hit last year, and the day my wife pulled our kids out of school at 11:00 AM and drove them 110 miles to her mother’s and alienated them from me. Oddly, last year, I was grocery shopping at that time, stocking up for the icy weather buying a lot of ingredients to cook a lot of comfort food for the family. Yesterday, I was at the grocery store stocking up for this upcoming winter storm and it all felt eerily familiar as I was shopping for my children’s stay with me this weekend. Then, all the news talked about was the upcoming winter storm. Dreadful memories started to fill my mind, as well as a lot of anxiety and an immense sense of loneliness and abandonment.
• At least this year I won’t have to suffer through the start of the winter storm isolated by myself, I’ll have my children. My ex will have to go through the storm alone (I’m guessing), though at least she’ll know the next time she’ll be able to hear and see her children again and the worst of it will only be a few days instead of an entire week full of power outages. I did send her a text saying if she needed any help or ran into an emergency regarding the winter storm, not to hesitate to reach out to me for any assistance.
• As I mentioned, she didn’t allow the children to speak to me for four nights and then the fifth day was our son’s ninth birthday, and she had her mother grant me a monitored five-minute call on speakerphone with him. She also bought the children new iPads and created new accounts for them to keep me from being able to contact them, despite us buying them both new iPads a month and a half prior for Christmas. I thought she’d return with the children that Sunday so she could return to work and the children to school on Monday. Nope, without my knowledge, she enrolled the kids in online school to keep them away from me for another week. She did this despite the teacher writing on our daughter’s report card that she struggles with online school.
• She did return the following week, but wouldn’t reveal the location of where she was keeping our children. She allowed a few FaceTime sessions and I could tell wherever they were staying didn’t look like a safe place. Through her lawyer, she asked me to leave the house for four hours so she could collect some clothes and belongings, but I refused to leave my own house and that amount of time seemed unreasonable. Through our lawyers, we worked out a compromise that during school, I would place her clothing in our SUV and I could have the children for a whopping two hours for dinner. The next day was the custodial trial.
• At the trial, she told the judge I was controlling, an emotional abuser, and a manipulator. I refute every one of those claims and don’t understand why she couldn’t have told me she ever felt that way before or would want to resolve any of that with at least trying a single counseling session before going nuclear by filing for divorce or trying a separation and destroying a family. The first I ever heard of any of those claims was when she told it to a judge. She still won’t grant me a single conversation about why she feels that way or can provide an examples.
• She told the judge she was withholding the address of the children because she feared I was going to do something to damage our SUV. I do not know why she would think I’d ever go to that extreme when I have done nothing remotely close to that before.
• As I mentioned, I’ve been proactive in treating my depression (a lot of it caused because of her emotional infidelity), so I’m on antidepressants. And, you know I have a bad back and I sometimes take pain medication for that. She played those things up to make it appear I had an addiction problem. The thing is, I was always transparent in everything I did. So, anytime I took pain medication, I told her because I wanted her to know I wasn’t hiding anything and wanted her to know she could hold me accountable. She also claimed I was abusing Ambien. That didn’t help at all because the judge had several cases in which Ambien was blamed for causing some odd behavior. So, as a caution, the judge ruled that I had to take a psychological exam, go to anger management classes, and worst of all, only get the kids to visit me twice a week with no overnight visits. They only got to visit me on Wednesdays for two hours and on Saturday for seven. That’s right, a total of nine hours a week with no overnight visits. That was torturous. However, the judge also required for both of us to take a 12 week parallel parenting course and for her to reveal the address of the children before the evening. I also had to listen to the judge talk down to me after she told my wife to reveal the children’s address, stating if I ever step foot on property I’d be arrested. I was like, geez, that’s overkill, but I bit my lip and nodded my head out of respect.
• It was also annoying hearing my wife claim she did most of the laundry, cooking, and cleaning. I did those things because I wanted to spend more time with her. I had the bandwidth since I worked from home, and I wanted to free up her time so we could spend time together as a couple.
• I will say my evening ended on a fantastic note because I got to watch the latest episode of The Book of Boba Fett with my kids, and it was the greatest episode of Star Wars from a cartoon or series ever. I won’t say more because I don’t want to ruin anything, but was so happy I got to watch it with my kids because it made me feel like I was a kid again. So I was a kid, with my kids. But, I will be honest, I miss watching television and experiencing these moments as a whole family.

• I disclose a lot of personal stuff. It has come back to bite me a few times, but sometimes I receive some heartfelt letters about how I may have helped someone and the impact I’ve made on their life. It helps to know you are not alone. So, that’s one reason I tend to be an open book and reveal more than what a lot of folks are comfortable with. With that said, I’ve taken some serious steps to fight my depression, but not willing to go into detail because I’m scared it will be used against me from accessing my children, as it was before. I will admit, that hurts. I tried to be proactive in taking care of my mental health. But the court views it differently. With that knowledge, my ex used my attempts at bettering my mental health to keep make it seem I was mentally unstable and keep my kids away from me. She was so successful at it; she convinced a judge to make me take a psychological evaluation. Talk about humiliating. And until the results were came in, the judge only allowed me to see my children for only nine hours a week, with no overnight visitation. I had to go 137 nights without giving my kids a kiss goodnight. It’s hard to forgive someone who keeps you from your own children. The judge’s orders allowed us to mutually agree to other options, but my ex would have nothing of it. She knew I was never a danger to our children, and despite them wanting to stay the night in the only house they have ever called home with their father, she refused to let it happen.
• Despite seventeen years of marriage, me never physically harming her, and us never going to a single counseling session together, she was so determined to divorce me she got my estranged sister (actually, my adopted cousin from Vietnam who was 11 years younger than me) to testify against me. There’s a lot of history here, but basically after our mother died, I was literally the only family she had. She wanted to become an actress and needed to attend acting school, but she could only do so with private student loans, so she asked if I would cosign them. I did. When she moved to New York and that didn’t pan out, she wanted to become a chef and attend cooking school. Once again, she needed a cosigner for her private student loans. I was hesitant, but felt like it was the right thing to do. She ensured me she would pay off the loans herself and would never do anything to harm the future of my children, but she went back on those promises.
  • I attended my sister’s graduation from the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu cooking academy, where she was first in her class. She asked me to give her away at her wedding. When she needed a car, I gave her mine. After mom died, she lived in our house rent free. But for some reason, she stopped communicating with me. I was sad she wasn’t being a part of my children’s lives. When it came to family, all my kids knew were my wife’s side. As opposed to me, her parents are still living, and she has siblings who have their own families. I thought it was sad that my kids would never get to know anyone from my side of the family, who I felt were equally important.
  • The total amount of the two private student loans I cosigned was over $40,000. One day I started to receive notices in the mail that payment was due and she wasn’t paying. She was three months behind. Then, I started to get phone calls from the student loan company. I tried to reach out to her, but she never responded to any of my emails or voicemails. I no longer knew where she lived. Monthly payments were over $800 a month and the interest rate was insane. I spoke to my wife about what we should do as we couldn’t budget that amount. We both decided it would be best to refinance the house and get cash back to pay off the loans.
    • My wife and I paid off the larger of the two loans, about $32,000, thinking my sister could handle the lesser of the two loans in which the monthly payment was less than a hundred dollars a month. Or, if she failed to pay that, could manage that amount. After paying off the larger loan, I heard nothing from my sister. No thank you, no acknowledgement. A lawyer friend told me Texas law was set up where I could sue my sister, but I had a two-year window to do so. I kept that in the back of my mind in case she defaulted on the lesser of the two loans. After about 14-months, I started to get letters and phone calls from the student loan company that she was three months behind. I spoke to my wife about what we should do, and we both decided to that we shouldn’t allow her to walk over me like that and take money away from what would go to our children’s college savings. So, I sued.
      • It’s not everyday you decide to sue your sister. I hated the idea of it. I made an appointment to meet a lawyer about it, and remember confiding in my wife how hard of a decision this was. Rarely have I felt my wife made me a priority. Proof of that came after I met the lawyer about suing my sister. She never asked me how the appointment went. Two weeks went by, and she never inquired a single time about me meeting with a lawyer to sue my sister until I brought it up to her. Yeah, I could have brought it up, but it was difficult to talk about. A compassionate wife would have had it on her mind.
    • To make a long story short, the judge, via Zoom, ruled in my favor. It wasn’t the ruling I wanted. My sister claimed she was never informed the loan was in default or paid off. To my astonishment, she said the following, “He paid my loan off without my consent.” Seeing her in online court was the first time I saw her in five years. Before the trial, her husband sent me an email and attached an audio recording of her speaking to a customer service representative of the student loan company. I’m not sure if they were aware, but they didn’t turn the recording off after the call and I could hear them tell me to suck a part of a male anatomy and how much money he was earning selling luxury cars while she, a woman in her mid-thirties, was a full-time college student who still didn’t have a bachelor’s degree. The judge said she could start paying me back in five years once she graduates medical school, which was she still didn’t know if she was accepted in.
  • As I said before, I never physically harmed my wife and we never went to a single counseling session, yet her first step was to abandon me, kidnap the kids, alienate them from me, and file for divorce. Not only that, but she reached out to my estranged sister and got her to testify against me in court at the custodial hearing. My lawyer objected, stating since my sister hasn’t communicated with me in five years, had no idea what kind of parent I am. Nevertheless, the judge allowed her to testify, and she lied in court claiming that I once got on top of her, held her down, and beat her. That is a total lie. My lawyer objected, but it didn’t matter, it was said and I’m sure it stuck in everyone’s mind. Before the trial, when my lawyer first talked to her, she claimed my parents abused her.
  • More about the trial, later.

• If I understand the NFL landscape correctly, Thursday night football will only be available on Amazon, a streaming service. If I were them, I’d sign Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, and Sean Payton to announce all the games. The Manning brothers already proved thoughtful and entertaining with their Monday night hosting gigs this year. Amazon may feel the need to hire a play-by-play person, but I say do something different, and just have no play-by-play person, just have those two former quarterbacks and coach. They would not only be entertaining, but insightful. And, it would be delivering the same product like all the other networks, just in a different way. Now is the time to dare to be different.
• I say instead of a coin flip for NFL overtime, possession should go to the team with the least amount of penalties.
• Something I learned from Peter King’s latest column – Terry Bradshaw was tackled for a safety in his first career game against Houston, in his second career game against Denver, and in his third career game against Cleveland.
• I just finished watching the latest season of Ozark on Netflix. I loved watching it with my wife. That Wendy Byrde is one evil woman, but unlike my ex, she fights to keep her family together.
• I’m not a fan of the NY Times buying Wordle. I’m on a seven day streak.
• Arose – This is the best word to start Wordle with, according to science
  • Personally, I like starting with “adieu”.
  • If we want a word that is most likely to get letters in their correct positions, the best option is “samey” (monotonous, repetitive, unvaried). But let’s not stop there. If we put these approaches together into one final score, we get a word that looks eyrie-ly familiar: “soare” (a young hawk) – “arose” but in a more strategic order.
• Pope blesses tax collectors, says paying taxes is sign of ‘legality and justice’
• Homeowner using flamethrower to melt snow sets house ablaze, Connecticut officials say
• That’s about right.
  

• I have great memories of watching football with my father. Last week I was fortunate enough to watch some great NFL playoff football with my son and make some lasting memories. Because of the stupid divorce, I’m robbed of watching football and making memories with my son with the NFC and AFC championship games yesterday. When it came to the divorce decree, I wasn’t able to negotiate much, but I do get the kids for every Super Bowl Sunday.
• The NFL playoffs have been fantastic, and is testimony to why I prefer it over the college game. People used to be able to argue to the like the college game because players played for the purity of the sport, but the way the landscape has changed, that’s no longer a valid argument. Some folks are upset about the difference in pass interference penalties, but one rule will not sway me one way or another. If you like bands and school pride, then go for it. But I like how the NFL unites an entire city and community rather than a select group of people who chose to attend an institution. Also, games in the pros are more competitive and you don’t have those crazy blowouts when Oklahoma decides to play North Texas.
• Some days/weekends, the divorce hurts more than others. I’d deal with it better if the marriage gradually fell apart, but her darting off and alienating the kids from me was totally unexpected and such a shock to the system.
• My date on Friday night was pretty meh. I have a feeling a lot of them are going to be like this. You like each other on an app, and messages back and forth for a while. Then, you decide to meet only to realize you don’t click and never message or meet one another again. I guess meeting up is better than staying home by myself on a Friday night.
• I used to tell people how thankful I was marrying when I did, as I just avoided the start of dating apps and couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have to use those things. Now, I’m eating humble pie.
• ‘I’m really just high on life and beauty’: the woman who can see 100 million colours
  • Antico is a tetrachromat, which means she has a fourth colour receptor in her retina compared with the standard three which most people have. While those of us with three of these receptors – called cone cells – have the ability to distinguish around one million different colours, tetrachromats see an estimated 100 million.
• China says United States plans to pay athletes to ‘sabotage’ Beijing Olympics
• Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas invested in electric cars after bashing Democrats for being ‘obsessed’ with them – Rep. Dan Crenshaw recently invested in Tesla and Rivian Automotive stock. He’s on a key committee that regulates EVs but has voted against expanding access to the vehicles. Crenshaw’s office says the congressman supports banning stock trades in Congress.
• Suicide hotline shares data with for-profit spinoff, raising ethical questions –
  The Crisis Text Line’s AI-driven chat service has gathered troves of data from its conversations with people suffering life’s toughest situations.
• Xylyl – You’re not a true ‘Wordle’ connoisseur until you start with the scientifically proven worst word
• He Spent 25 Years Infiltrating Nazis, the Klan, and Biker Gangs – Scott was a top undercover agent for the FBI, putting himself in harm’s way dozens of times. Now, he’s telling his story for the first time to sound the alarm about the threat of far-right extremists in America
• Oddly specific.
• 

This angle of Yu Darvish’s slider is another example that shows hitting a baseball is the most difficult thing to do in sports pic.twitter.com/sk8dJA4qo1

— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) January 28, 2022

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