Bag of Randomness for Monday, January 24, 2022

  • BoyGeeding plays a lot of Roblox games and recently expressed interest in creating his own, but needed some help with coding. So, I turned this opportunity into a bonding experience and we created our own on Saturday. I’m not much of a coder, I know just a bit, but enough for us to have some fun and for him to think I’m an expert.
  • Another great bonding experience for us was watching all the NFL playoff games. Every single one of those were classics going down to the last second or overtime. Three of the four visiting teams beat the home team. We’ll take the NFL over the college game any day of the week. Playoffs are so much better than meaningless bowl games, of which there are too many anyway. There were 44 bowl games last season, which means there were 88 teams. There are 125 Division 1 FCS football teams and 129 FBS football teams. So roughly 70% of teams get to play in a bowl game. The scheduling in the college game is way off as well. For instance, Alabama will play both Utah State and Austin Peay. Texas will play the University of Louisiana Monroe. Who really wants to see those games? And now with the new transfer and salary/endorsement rules, the purity is long gone, and has been for some time. Something else I like about the pro game is that an entire city is welcome into the fandom as opposed to a single campus and alumni. There’s more of a community and inclusive aspect for pro fans vs college fans.
  • It seems like Meatloaf was getting a lot more love than Louie Anderson, and I’m not sure how I feel about that.
  • I saw the new season of Ozark dropped on Netflix. I loved watching it with my (ex)wife, feels so different watching it without her, all part of the new normal which is so damn hard to get use to.
  • One of the longest-delayed movies ever is finally playing in theaters – How long? Well, lavish fantasy The King’s Daughter wrapped principal photography way, way, way back in May of 2014. That’s right; the ‘brand new’ literary adaptation finished shooting almost eight whole years ago, and has only just made it onto the big screen after Gravitas Ventures stepped in to acquire the rights in late October.
  • Billionaire Mark Cuban Opens Online Pharmacy To Provide Affordable Generic Drugs – He said he decided to put his name on the company to “show capitalism can be compassionate and to send the message I am all in.” It’s not clear how much he had invested in the company. 
    • The Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs Company (MCCPDC) is a registered pharmaceutical wholesaler and purchases drugs directly from manufacturers, bypassing middlemen to lower the price of more than 100 medications, it said in a statement.
    • For example, the leukemia drug imatinib is priced at $47 a month on MCCPDC compared to the $9,657 retail price.
    • The online pharmacy’s prices for generics factor in a 15% margin on top of actual manufacturer prices and a $3 pharmacist fee, the statement said.
    • The markup on generics average “at least” 100%, the MCCPDC said, while the Wall Street Journal reports in some cases it exceeds 1,000%.
  • Georgia school asks 4th graders to write letter to Andrew Jackson on how removal of Cherokee helped U.S. grow and prosper
  • Cruise Has Surprise Ending After Judge Orders Ship Seized Over Debts – The Crystal Symphony was set to arrive in Miami on Saturday, but it was diverted to the Bahamas after a U.S. judge ordered the ship seized over $4.6 million in unpaid fuel bills.
  • Worth reading: Life After 7’6″: Shawn Bradley, Paralyzed in a Bike Crash, Knows ‘It’ll Never Be the Same’ – The retired NBA center is finding that his 90-inch frame—which brought him fame and fortune and 2,000-plus blocks—is now a challenge without medical precedent.

  • In case you were curious about the history of the fire pole, Mental Floss has you covered.
    • The pole was originally the brainchild of a Chicago firefighter named David Kenyon, who in 1878 noticed that a co-worker in the building’s loft had used a hay transport binding pole when the fire alarm rang, sliding down in a flash from the third floor to the first instead of having to navigate a spiral staircase.

      Firehouses of this era typically had horses on the first floor, sleeping quarters on the second, and hay on the third. Spiral staircases connected the first and second floors, so that the horses wouldn’t wander upstairs. While the stairs kept the horses at bay, they also slowed down responding firefighters.

      Inspired by his co-worker, Kenyon installed a wooden pole 3 inches in diameter connecting the first and second floors of the firehouse and used a coat of varnish to reduce friction. By 1880, the Boston Fire Department had a pole made of brass. From that point on, fire stations across the country were skipping the stairs altogether and using the pole to make a fast exit.

  • I was surprised to see Britney Spears on one of their lists.

https://twitter.com/NextFuckingLeve/status/1485198527211126789

  • Meaningless presidential trivia which interests me.

  • The Texas governor spoke at our children’s school and signed the Parental Bill of Rights. However,

 

Posted in Personal | 7 Comments

Bag of Randomness for Friday, January 21, 2022

  • Governor Abbot spoke at the kids’ school yesterday evening. Here he is signing the Parental Bill of Rights into law. It looked a bit gimmicky signing a poster-sized version.
    • Before he talked about the incident that put him in a wheelchair, he stated he doesn’t tell this story often.
    • The school choir sang for him. He literally said they sounded like angels and it was the best version of that song he ever heard. He said it so sincerely it sounded like he meant it, but I’m sure he’s said the same thing to many other choirs.
    • He bragged heavily on his banning of mask mandates and critical race theory.
    • Bill Bennett was a big part of the event, speaking via Zoom. He heavily praised the governor, especially his role in protecting the border.
  • 35 Scientists Share That “One Science Fact” They Wish The Whole World Would Know
  • The woman dressing as a household item every day in January
  • Why Big Tech Companies Have Been Quiet on Texas’ Abortion Law – Between January 2018 and June 2021, at least 113 California companies relocated to Texas
  • This 22-Year-Old Builds Chips in His Parents’ Garage – Sam Zeloof combines 1970s-era machines with homemade designs. His creations show what’s possible for small-scale silicon tinkerers.
    • With a collection of salvaged and homemade equipment, Zeloof produced a chip with 1,200 transistors. He had sliced up wafers of silicon, patterned them with microscopic designs using ultraviolet light, and dunked them in acid by hand, documenting the process on YouTube and his blog. “Maybe it’s overconfidence, but I have a mentality that another human figured it out, so I can too, even if maybe it takes me longer,” he says. Zeloof’s chip was his second. He made the first, much smaller one as a high school senior in 2018; he started making individual transistors a year before that.
  • Why Airlines Are Fighting the 5G Rollout
    • AT&T’s and Verizon’s C-Band frequencies primarily range from 3.7 to 3.98 GHz; airlines are concerned these mid-band waves may impact the radio altimeters that pilots use to know how far planes are from the ground. A recent statement from United Airlines says that, “when deployed next to runways, the 5G signals could interfere with the key safety equipment that pilots rely on to take off and land in inclement weather.”
  • Mitch McConnell says African Americans voting just as much as ‘Americans’ in viral video
Posted in Personal | 3 Comments

Bag of Randomness for Thursday, January 20, 2022

  • DaughterGeeding tested COVID positive yesterday. She’s been fully vaxed and her symptoms have been light. Her mother tested negative, has never been vaxed, currently not experiencing any symptoms, and I’m assuming staying in her apartment with our daughter. BoyGeeding tested negative and has no symptoms. His visitation starts tonight, but we moved it back a day to keep him away from his infected sister. Thankfully, BoyGeeding is also fully vaxed.
  • Okay, where did I leave off. My wife of 17-years called, who I haven’t directly communicated with for like ten days, called and told me she was divorcing me, even though we’ve never been to a single counseling session, talked to our pastor, or even tried a separation. No reason was given. She then said any other means of communication from me would have to go to her lawyer. Through our lawyers, I was able to negotiate a single evening with our children and agree to some of her absurd demands. My kids missed being with their father so much, they asked if we all could sleep together on the big bed.
  • Several nights after she initially abandoned me, a friend suggested I seek counsel from a lawyer and suggested one. It was a female attorney, which I thought was a good thing. However, I will later talk about the importance of having someone of your sex be part of the divorce process because they can provide insight and understanding the other sex simply cannot.
    • My lawyer listened to my case and thought it was odd for my wife to make such a drastic move. Especially since a lot of the house has been remodeled in the last six-months and the fireplace itself was demolished to make way for an upgraded one she always wanted. Also, we just remodeled the kids’ bathroom I finished the day before she left with the kids. They haven’t even had a chance to use it one single time. We just put new carpet in DaughterGeeding’s room and were looking for new furniture for her.
    • She strongly suggested I file for divorce first as it would put me in a position to better get possession of the kids. But I just couldn’t do it. I don’t believe in making a divorce an option, it goes against our faith. I made a covenant with God and promised him and her I would stay married and love her until the day I die. I also thought there could be a chance of reconciliation, still perplexed that the nuclear option was her very first choice. If I filed for divorce, then I wouldn’t be doing all I can to keep my family together. But man, if I could go back in time and give myself some advice, it would be battle up and leave no prisoners because she and her mother was coming at me with all they got.
    • My wife filed for divorce first. She had her lawyer do it on a Sunday night. She wanted to send a message that she couldn’t even wait until the offices opened Monday Morning. My lawyer was kind enough to accept the divorce papers on my behalf, that would have really tore me up.
  • In Texas, our version of “irreconcilable differences” is “incompatibility”, and that’s what my wife listed as the reason for divorce. She went for the whole kitten caboodle – full custody, max child support, for me to pay both her and my legal fees and court costs, and a whole lot more. At this point I couldn’t believe the ugliness. I was wondering why is she making this so nasty so soon, can we not end our relationship and do something amicable or respectable. Now I had a custodial trial to prepare for. The first time her lawyer contacted my lawyer, she left a voicemail saying my wife is her new client and she intend to “stay in Lindale, TX indefinitely.” I was determined to do all in my power to keep that from happening, my kids loved their school.
  • We were going to include that voicemail as evidence. Judges don’t like the idea of children being forcibly taken away from their homes and schools, they don’t want to disrupt any child’s life more than they have to. But, for reasons I still don’t quite understand, the judge wasn’t going to allow it.
  • My lawyer had to ask me if there was any physical abuse or anything she could claim as physical abuse. Or, is there anything I thought she might use against me. I stated we got kinky, probably more so than the average couple, but it was always consensual. My lawyer told me not to be surprised if photos of her with bruises show up in court.
    • I told her when I found out my wife’s first act of infidelity about five years ago, with whom, and how she admitted she deceive me by deleting backup photos from our cloud storage. In anger, when she was in another room, entered our bedroom and took down our wedding invitation and a picture she had framed. I tried to break the frame with a blunt object, but the glass was so strong I had to grab a hammer from the garage. My intent was to leave her the message that she was breaking apart our marriage with her actions, just as I had to leave to go to a wedding rehearsal. But no one was in the room when it happened.
      • We spoke about this event several times over our marriage. Her response was that I was acting immature by breaking it. I told her she was immature for gloating about dating a D-List celebrity and putting photos of them together 20-years apart on Facebook just to get a bunch of likes. I asked that she take time to look at what I did not as an act of immaturity, but to get her attention. What I didn’t want her to take away from all this me acting immature, I wanter her to understand how profoundly hurt and disappointed  I was as this act and the more I found out all about it started to validate all my fears and suspicions. Especially before she left for the event, when I told her that I shouldn’t be concerned about anything because I know that she’ll never do anything to hurt or embarrass me. So, I basically told her what not to do and then a few hours later she specifically did that thing.
    • I told her about a day in late November when I suspected something with WifeGeeding. I was in my office on the computer and she stopped by. I asked her if I were to search her Facebook, would I find anything to be concerned about. She said no, not at all. I took her at her word until the next morning when I decided to check.
      • I tried to have a marriage that was transparent. We had joint accounts for everything and knew each other’s user names and passwords to everything. I don’t have a Facebook account, but she allowed me to use hers to look up a few old classmates and college friends. My search history was never hidden or erased, it was important for me to be transparent.
      • It didn’t take long before I found out that a handful of years ago, she reached out to the last man which she had her first sexual experience with. I thought, there she goes again, she can’t let go of college. I was profoundly hurt and upset, and it made me question a lie or twist of words she told me not too long ago.
        • She used to text me often throughout the school day, which surprised me, so I never felt texting her would be an intrusion. So, I sent her a text and screen print and used some very terse language. The thing with her is, her first response whenever she’s busted or caught is to never apologize, but to try to rationalize what she did was okay. Even though when I asked her about it later, if she felt what she did was wrong, she said not at first, but three days later she had thoughts it wasn’t the right thing to do and didn’t reach out to him.
        • When she and the kids came home, I surprised her with flowers and the playing of our favorite Christmas song and popped out from underneath our new kitchen island. I told her she may be confused, but what I wanted her to know is that no matter how mad or hurt I may be by something she did, she’s the love and priority of my life. We need to talk through some things, but I made a promise to God to love you and stay committed. But, we got to talk about priorities, again.
          • That evening when the kids went to bed, we talked in the bedroom and later argued. When I get upset, I yell. But I tell her, that when I raise my voice, I always do so from at least six feet away so she knows she’s not in any physical danger.
          • As she sat at the head of the bed, I noticed the framed wedding invitation and photo that I broke about five years prior in an act of symbolism (of our marriage cracking apart) when she just couldn’t let go and show off another former college boyfriend. All that was missing was the glass. I’ve tried speaking softly to her about these things before, and I’ve yelled during these arguments other times, but I wanted to do something to let her know how bothered I was by this. So, I took the framed invitation and picture off the wall and smashed it a few times over the foot of our bed, telling her she’s literally breaking apart our marriage. Since she was at the other end of the bed and the frame was missing glass, I knew she wouldn’t be physically harmed by any debris considering where I smashed it. If I felt any piece would have hit her or if she was going to be physically hurt (which she wasn’t), I wouldn’t have done it.
          • I think I had that emotional breakdown I wrote about the very next night.
          • After the discovery of her reaching out to this guy, her non-apology and rationalizing, not agreeing that her actions didn’t honor her husband, other past infidelity-related actions, and us not being able to resolve it before going to bed, I was a wreck the next day. I wanted her to come home and talk. And here’s what I regret doing the most in my life. It was wrong and a selfish plea, but I  wanted to get her attention and see if she would make me a priority and get her home so we could work/save our marriage. So, using one of those apps in which every message is erased after it’s viewed (we used the app to spice things up), I sent her a photo ofme and with my father’s rifle. It took her a while to respond and she was slow to come home, but she did. We talked for about 20-minutes until she said, “I know this is not appropriate at this time. But all of this and the kids not being home is making me very horny and I want to take care of that now.”
            • We spoke about my poor choice and how she felt about it two other times, and I thought we got past it. My lawyer didn’t seemed all that concerned because after I did that, she stayed home for another two-and-a-half months before leaving. During that time, she never feared for her or your children’s safety, even leaving you alone with the kids. If she was really bothered she would have left or found me some help sooner. It doesn’t make sense for her to stick around for two-and-a-half months and did nothing if she really thought you were a danger.
        • In an argument two or three months back, I threw our television remote. It wasn’t in her direction and I meant for it to go down the hall, but it hit our pantry door and made a small hole. I felt like a heal, and later that night apologized.
      • My lawyer also asked if I ever had a reason not to trust Kelsey before she the kids out of school at 11:00 AM and drove them 110 miles to her mother’s house and keeping them from communicating from their father.
        • I told her there’s a part in the Bible in which we are told simply to let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ And when it came to Kelsey, a yes or no was never a simply yes or no. And then I gave her a for instance.
          • When I took her to Disneyland for her 40th birthday, we turned on the GoogleMaps feature which lets you track each other, thinking it could come in handy when we get separated. Well, one evening, she’s late getting home from a deacon meeting at church, it’s getting close to 10 PM. Instead of calling or sending a text which could disrupt the meeting, I opened GoogleMaps to see where she was. I saw she was driving home and wasn’t far away, so I thought I’d just watch her drive all the way home. However, she oddly pulled into a subdivision in our neighborhood, a place in which we don’t know anyone or every frequented. And she parked in front of a house for five to ten minutes. This concerned me, so when she arrived home, I asked her how the meeting went. She answered, saying it went fine. Then I ask if she came straight home, and her answer was, “Yes.” That’s it, that’s all she said. Knowing this was not true, I asked if she was sure, and she assuringly said, “Yeah,” while nodding her head. I said okay, and we went to bed.
            • But it bothered me. The next day I spoke to her about it before we went to bed. I told her how I was able to track her by GoogleMaps and why I did, and I knew she didn’t come straight home. She then told me that her sister called when she was driving home, and she wanted to finish that conversation before coming home. She wanted some privacy, and knew when she arrived home the dogs would bark like crazy and wake the kids. This is common for her to do, not to answer my direct question but provide an answer to a possible related question I haven’t asked. I then ask her why did she say “yes” when I asked if she came straight home. She said she did come straight home. I told her she did not, she pulled over and parked for five to ten minutes in a subdivision we aren’t familiar with. She stressed because she never got out of the car and the engine was never turned off, that means she came straight home. I tried to explain how that is false logic, by saying if she stopped and went through the Whataburger drive through, that even though she never got out of the car or stopped the engine, that still means she would  stopped somewhere and didn’t come straight home.
              • It was this untruth which led me to ask her if I searched through her Facebook, would I find anything questionable. I did, and then some. That was part of my breakdown I wrote about. That was when all my fears and insecurities I had about our relationship came true.
            • I also asked why didn’t she just drive to our neighborhood, a place she knows well and 30 seconds away from where she pulled over, and then park and talk to her sister. She had the option of parking in the HOA clubhouse parking lot or near the alley we take to get to our rear-entry garage. She said she didn’t think of that. Because she coudn’t simply answer that she didn’t come straight home, I wasn’t sure how to accept this answer. But one thing was for sure, the trust I had in her was already erroding, and now it was gone and I had no idea how she was going to be able to earn it back.
Posted in Personal | Comments Off on Bag of Randomness for Thursday, January 20, 2022

Bag of Randomness for Wednesday, January 19, 2022

It was a different game back then.

https://twitter.com/SportsCenter/status/1483552993748389889

Posted in Personal | 19 Comments