BagOfNothing.com

• Yesterday, Norm and Donovan of The TICKET were broadcasting nearby so I decided to pay them a visit. Norm was the warmest, kindness, most gentle person I’ve encountered in a very long while. Donovan was also very friendly, but he doesn’t carry that old man charm like Norm.
  • Not a lot of folks were watching the broadcast when I arrived, so I was the lone audience member for a while. When Norm was doing a segment with Donovan, he kept eye contact with me, as if we were having a conversation the entire time. An old neighbor stated this happened to him a long time ago.
  • Talking to Norm was surreal, it’s exactly as you’d imagine. He’s like a computer program full of Ticket drops you’ve heard over and over again. You can tell he’s full of joy and just enjoys what he’s doing. He was engaged with anyone who approached and just continued to talk sports with no worry about running late getting back on air.
  • I gave him an idea for the Norm-a-thon – auction off a chance to do a ticker. He loved the idea.
  • I asked him who is the one DFW area athlete who disappointed him or broke his heart the most. His initial response was his classic, “Oh, geez…..” The answer is obvious if you think about it for a second…Roy Tarpley.
  • Watching him do a commercial spot was interesting as he didn’t use any notes. You’d think a lot of the spots were recorded, but no, they are done live.
• We have a friend who was a minister at a Baptist church but will now become a minister at Highland Park Presbyterian Church. Around these parts, I don’t think working for different denominations is very common. And if I had to guess, it’s easier to go Baptist to Presbyterian than the other way around.
• I’m not a fan of traveling whatsoever, but I love the scenery in the show and wouldn’t mind doing something like this – For $2,185, you can travel Game of Thrones’ Seven Kingdoms
• How much do I enjoy mowing my own lawn? So much so, I do it with back pain, but with help with some hydrocodone. That stuff doesn’t make me sleepy, but it does mask the pain. It also gives me a strange clarity of thought and I become very talkative. Maybe that’s just the high I hear people talk about.
• While eating dinner, DaughterGeeding excused herself from the table, walked about 20-feet away, and then let out a fart that scared the dog. We started to laugh and with a serious face, she tried to explain she was trying to be polite because we said no farting at the table.
• Something Strange in Usain Bolt’s Stride
  • Last month, researchers here at Southern Methodist University, among the leading experts on the biomechanics of sprinting, said they found something unexpected during video examination of Bolt’s stride: His right leg appears to strike the track with about 13 percent more peak force than his left leg. And with each stride, his left leg remains on the ground about 14 percent longer than his right leg.
• Atlas Obscura – How a Group of ’70s Radicals Tried (and Failed) to Invade Disneyland
  • On August 6, 1970, Disneyland abruptly shut down about five hours early. Around 30,000 visitors were kicked out of the park, and it wasn’t due to a national crisis. The motivating factor was a group of about 300 young “Yippies,” who entered the park with grand plans of capturing Tom Sawyer Island, liberating Minnie Mouse, and cooking Porky Pig.
• Texas is getting an Africa themed water park.

Today, @realDonaldTrump hits the 6-month mark of his presidency.
Some milestone markers: pic.twitter.com/v6ocklYt4b

— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) July 20, 2017

• It was a real bummer hearing Senator John McCain has brain cancer. The announcement somewhat reminded me or felt similar to when I first heard Senator Ted Kennedy had brain cancer. Both are icons of the Senate, and you get this feeling it’s now going to be a long goodbye, with the public judging his health with every public appearance. I thought something was a bit askew when I heard Senator Mitch McConnell was delaying the vote on the healthcare bill and then withdrawing it completely two days later.
• There are a lot of things I don’t like about President Trump and question his leadership often. And while I disagree with him on policy, he impressed me yesterday when he invited all the Republican senators to the White House for lunch and then publically called them out, right to their face where they all had to swallow their pride. It seems like something Teddy Roosevelt would have done.
  • “For seven years you promised the American people that you would repeal Obamacare. People are hurting. Inaction is not an option and frankly I don’t think we should leave town unless we have a health insurance plan.”
• Toronto Star – Six months of spelling mistakes from the Trump White House: Analysis
  • Forget Trump’s tweets. From “lasting peach” to “putting our minors back to work,” the White House has produced a stream of mistakes in formal statements that would be unusual even for a small-town mayor. 
• This shouldn’t be a ‘Game of Thrones’ spoiler, and if so, it’s a minor one. But you may not have noticed in the last episode that Sansa is now wearing her hair like Cersei once did.
• I love that the original cast narrates this audio book – The X-Files: Cold Cases
• I drove by a shiny black 18-wheeler and playfully wondered if was one operated by Knight Industries and if the trailer door was about to lower so K.I.T.T. could drive inside of it. Speaking of K.I.T.T., I watch this video about it and discovered it’s not pleasant to drive at all (here and here), there’s not even a rear-view mirror.
• If you are a fan of the history of firearms and/or mechanical systems, you may enjoy the Forgotten Weapons YouTube channel. And somewhat related, this guy opens old and new MRE’s to see what they look like and consumes some of them.
• How US gun culture compares with the world
• The creators of the “Game of Thrones’ television series are working on a strange but interesting new show for HBO. I can’t put my finger on it, but I’m uncomfortable with it.
  • “Confederate,” a series from David Benioff and D.B. Weiss that takes place in a reality where the southern states successfully seceded from the Union, “giving rise to a nation in which slavery remains legal and has evolved into a modern institution,” according to the network’s description. The show “chronicles the events leading to the Third American Civil War,” with characters ranging from freedom fighters and abolitionists to slave hunters and politicians, HBO said.
• GQ – Waffle House Might Be The Only Thing America Can Agree On
  • “The very best restaurants not only fill us with food, they also provide some sort of emotional sustenance. The most comforting thing about eating at any Waffle House location is the constancy it offers. The world may be changing radically as quickly as we can reload our Twitter feeds, but Waffle House has mostly stayed the same, and offering the exact same menu and dining experience at every location provides a certain familiarity. I love the staff shouting “Hello!” as I walk into any Waffle House. I love the retro-cool hanging orb lambs. I love the tissue-thin napkins that are barely effective, the laminated menus, the wire baskets on each table that serve…“
• AmericaMagazine.org – Why does U2 irk so many people? A look at their struggle for pop hits and social justice
  • I identified with this part, but I’m not from Nashville:
    • As a native of Nashville, I would like to pretend that the life of Martin Luther King Jr. and the beloved community that fostered him entered my radar through my judicious study of civil rights history and culture. This would be a lie. It was MTV and U2’s decision to craft and promote what proved to be a radio hit called “Pride (In the Name of Love),” commemorating King as one more pioneer of human seriousness (one more in the name of love) along a trajectory of individuals who chose to give their lives as gifts to others, an international parade of conscience.