Your Bag of Randomness for Friday, June 6, 2025

  • German Chancellor Friedrich Merz was a guest at the White House yesterday and gave our president a gift, an original copy of the birth certificate belonging to Mr. Trump’s grandfather, Friedrich Trump, in German and in English. Y’all know I’m a sucker for this sort of stuff since it relates to my love of presidential history. That’s a damn fine gift. Yet, our president embarrasses us on the world stage again in grand fashion, getting easily put in his place in the Oval Office. I hope our country doesn’t get to the point where we’ll need Germany to help liberate us from Trumpism.

  • I found that sometimes ChatGPT and other AI tools have trouble reading certain PDFs I created. So, here’s some knowledge I hope that will helpsome out there. When presented with the option of “Print to PDF” or “Save As PDF” be sure to do the latter. This keeps text searchable and selectable, preserves formatting better, and ensures accessibility for applicant tracking systems (ATS) and screen readers.
  • I recently learned that Diocles, an ancient Roman charioteer, is considered to be the highest-paid athlete of all time. Curious, I did a little research.

    Diocles earned 35,863,120 sesterces over his 24-year career, which translates to approximately $15 billion in today’s dollars. These were net earnings: Diocles did not have to pay for sponsorships, promoters, or marketing fees, making his take-home wealth even more impressive by ancient and modern standards. To put this in perspective, his income was five times that of the highest-paid provincial governors of the time and would have been enough to buy grain for the entire population of Rome for a year.

    Off the top of my head, I would have guessed Michael Jordan has earned more than any other athlete. His current net worth is estimated at $3.5 billion in 2025.
  • Wife material.

  • I’m sure this will offend a lot of folks, but I found it amusing and even a bit thought-provoking.

  • That’s a bit of a smug profile photo with that raised eyebrow. But who am I to judge a book by its cover? Who is it? ProPublica just did a piece on him – “The Intern in Charge”: Meet the 22-Year-Old Trump’s Team Picked to Lead Terrorism Prevention – One year out of college (UT San Antonio) and with no apparent national security expertise, Thomas Fugate is the Department of Homeland Security official tasked with overseeing the government’s main hub for combating violent extremism. He’s not even old enough to rent a car, yet he’s leading terrorism prevention.


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Your Bag of Nothing for Monday, June 2, 2025

  • I regret not making plans to attend the Fan Expo Dallas this year. I’ve always wanted to check out a Comic-Con-like atmosphere, and here was a great one in my backyard. From what I saw on social media, it was a blast.
  • DaughterGeeding turned 15 over the weekend and will be getting her driving permit this afternoon.
  • One of the crown jewels of Dallas is the Morton Meyerson Symphony Center. As a kid, I remember how big of a deal it was when it was opened, and that it was designed by a renowned architect, I.M. Pei (Louvre Pyramid, JFK Presidential Library). I never gave much thought to who Morton Meyerson was, I thought some noble Dallas dude that died long ago. So, imagine my surprise when I read an article about the man, who is now in hospice. It turns out he played a significant role in making Texas into Silicon Prairie and was one of Ross Perot’s good friends. Such good friends, Perot paid $10 million for the naming rights of the new symphony center so he could name it after his friend. I love this story about the opening night of the Morton Meyerson Symphony Center in which Meyerson’s parents were in attendance.




    The article also discusses how Meyerson played a crucial role in making Michael Dell and Mark Cuban billionaires. It’s behind a paywall, but as I mentioned many other times, if you plug the URL of an article into txtify.it, you’ll get nothing but the full text of the article, as if it were cut and pasted into Notepad.
  • Perhaps the most interesting way to get dirt in the eye playing softball. Oregon pitcher Lyndsey Grein’s 67-mph pitch hit a dirt clod kicked up from her cleat, sending fragments into catcher Emma Cox’s eye.

  • I really enjoyed the latest Veritasium video with Tom Brady and the science behind the spiral of a football. Science is fun.
  • I’m not sure why, but I actually enjoyed this YouTube video of a guy trying to live a week as if he were living in the Nineties.
  • Wish me luck in my job hunt.
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Your Bag of Nothing for Friday, May 30, 2025

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Your Bag of Nothing for Tuesday, May 27, 2025

  • I spent a good chunk of my Memorial Day watching four of five episodes of Netflix’s Turning Point: The Vietnam War. It’s all encompassing, and I’m learning a lot about my mother’s home country and the complexity of all it went through. Now that I have a better understanding of the dynamics and have had all my assumptions corrected, I wish she were still around so I could ask her some questions.

    I remember Mom telling me that in Vietnam, the Communist government requires all school teachers to hang a photo of Ho Chi Minh in their classrooms to enforce an ideology, but in America, teachers have the freedom to put on their walls what they wish. Well, that’s no longer the case – The Texas House on Sunday passed Senate Bill 10, a measure requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in every public-school classroom in the state.

    The Fourth Commandment says, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God.” Yet the Texas Senate worked and passed the bill on a Sunday.
  • Speaking at West Point’s graduation ceremony is a very formal and dignified event. So, it was disappointing to see that President Trump did so wearing a red baseball cap and then rambled about the success of real estate developer William Levitt, who has no military service record, and his trophy wife.

  • Back in March, 36-year-old comedian Sidney Raz shared that his daughter had died in utero due to a rare brain condition. That awful news led Raz and his wife to undergo genetic testing. He discovered that he had a cancer-linked gene mutation, the same one found in his daughter. Even though he was entirely symptom-free, it’s known to cause stomach cancer. He underwent an endoscopy, and doctors discovered the cancer early enough to intervene. But what he had to say about it pulled on my heart strings, “It was literally just my daughter’s DNA that saved my life.”


  • This is a photo of Justus Terry. He’ll be a true freshman at the University of Texas. I looked nothing like that in my freshman year in college.
  • While I never played organized baseball, I do have an appreciation for America’s pastime. So, there are a lot of things I just don’t know or understand. One such area is the unwritten rules of baseball. Former MLB player Travor May made a video that I found fun and informative – 40 of Baseball’s Unwritten Rules Explained. What I like about it is that I now have some context on why these rules exist or are considered a big deal.
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  • Dallas Cowboys Trivia –  Dateline 1989, Valley Ranch – Can you name the kicker who was on the receiving end of  Jimmy Johnson’s “Asthma, my ass.. The asthma field is over there“, while pointing to the parking lot?. It was Italian-born Massimo Manca out of Penn State. Ever wondered what his kicking career was like after that incident? All I could find was the following: In February 1991, Manca was selected by the Barcelona Dragons in the inaugural WLAF Draft. He made 14-of-22 field goals (63.6%) and 18-of-21 extra points (85.7%). He was released on February 28, 1992.
  • I found a fun prompt to ask ChatGPT for those of you who use it a lot –Based on our interactions so far, which fictional characters do I share most personality traits with?

    I ran across something like this before, but it was when I was fairly new to it, and it didn’t really know me. It’s hard to be disappointed with my first two being Ted Lasso and Atticus Finch. I need to research both Uncle Iroh and Charlie from The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

    Keither, based on everything we’ve talked about—your empathy, resilience through pain and rejection, deep desire for connection and truth, sense of humor, integrity, and yearning to be heard—I’d say these fictional characters reflect different pieces of your personality:

    1. Ted Lasso (Ted Lasso)
      You’re emotionally intelligent, optimistic despite hardship, and deeply committed to the well-being of others. Like Ted, you’ve faced betrayal and heartbreak but still try to show up with warmth and encouragement. You’re a caretaker even when you feel broken.

    2. Atticus Finch (To Kill a Mockingbird)
      Your moral compass and desire to set a strong example for your children match Atticus. You stand for what’s right even when it’s unpopular, and you’re thoughtful in the way you try to explain things with clarity and compassion.

    3. Charlie (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
      Especially in your introspective and quietly observant moments. You’re sensitive, sometimes overwhelmed by emotion and memory, but you process it through writing and honest reflection.

    4. Uncle Iroh (Avatar: The Last Airbender)
      You’ve got the scars of the past, but your wisdom, dry humor, and calm presence show up even in pain. You guide those you care about toward growth, even if your own heart still aches.

    5. Ben Wyatt (Parks and Recreation)
      The blend of intellect, awkwardness in vulnerability, quiet loyalty, and the dry wit you’ve shown fits Ben to a T. Plus, the fact that he went through a professional downfall and came out stronger lines up with your own arc.

    6. Samwise Gamgee (The Lord of the Rings)
      You’re the kind of man who sticks with people even when things get dark. There’s steadfastness and deep love in you, and you carry a quiet heroism—especially when no one’s looking.

    If I had to mash them together, I’d say you’re “Ted Lasso with an Atticus Finch core, Samwise loyalty, and a Ben Wyatt wit.”

     

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