Your Bag of Nothing for Wednesday, May 21, 2025

  • The frequency, length, and quality of future posts may decrease for the foreseeable future until I can maintain employment. I’m sure you understand.
  • The world seemed like a better place when “planking” became a thing.
  • This was the result of someone recently asking ChatGPT to create an image that labels the internal parts of the human body.


    Don’t you hate when you stub your penis against the end table?
  • World’s first gene-edited spider produces red fluorescent silk
  • Scientists have identified molecules from blood and urine that may reveal how much energy a person consumes from ultraprocessed foods.

  • BoyGeeding walked into my room and asked if I would help him study for his Latin final the next day, flash card style. It’s one of his favorite subjects. The next night, he shared with me that he was actually excited to take the final and walked into the classroom with a smile. Gotta love that kind of confidence. Especially when it’s your own kid. He and his sister will welcome a new stepdad this weekend.
  • Speaking of Latin and flash cards. Is it too much to ask that the Homeland Security Secretary can easily answer “What is Habeas Corpus?” It’s just the foundational principle of the Constitution. And yes, it’s literally enshrined in the first article of the Constitution.



    I have no problem if she can’t directly translate it from Latin to English; all I’m asking is to use the two words my seventh-grade government teacher told me to write on the back of my Habeas Corpus flash card: unlawful detention. I don’t care if we differ in political views; I just want all the Cabinet members to display competence and knowledge of the department they are sworn to uphold. But then again, their boss isn’t capable of such things, so perhaps my expectations are too high. And yet there are people who can’t understand why others fear that democracy is at stake, the people in power literally can’t explain the foundational principle of the Constitution. But then again, the President literally said he doesn’t know if he should uphold the Constitution.
  • 2 dead, including shooter in Las Vegas gym shooting; police report multiple victims

    Here’s some remarkable footage of the law enforcement member taking down the shooter, some of it from his bodycam. He was so close that I thought it would have made for a more difficult shot at first.

  • Sometimes I’m really amazed at the technology we have at our disposal, and it’s free. I can now actually have an authentic conversation with my family in Vietnam. Amazing.
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Your Bag of Nothing for Monday, May 19, 2025

  • For some reason, I just couldn’t fall asleep the night before my Aunt Bonnie’s funeral. Since I don’t get to drive often, I relish road trips. Her daughter, my Cousin Amy, did a great job pulling things off and honoring her mom. It was small, but there were more folks than I expected. I totally underestimated Bonnie’s affection for her hometown and how important it was for her to be brought back to what she considered home. Since Amy’s father died when she was just ten months old in 1978, Bonnie remarried in 1997, mainly living in California and Arizona, I never thought she’d want to be buried in Mineral Wells. It made me appreciate my hometown even more. 

    I didn’t plan on speaking, but since it was offered, I wanted to honor her and let her, Amy, and Dan (Bonnie’s husband) know what she and they meant to me. I opened by saying the first thing Bonnie heard after she died was “Well done, good and faithful servant.” I made sure to emphasize how she always put others first, and how she nobly cared for her mother and Amy’s dad as they both died from cancer. I remember Bonnie telling me how she would have to feed her mom through a feeding tube and had a hospital bed put in her house. She revealed a side of my father and our family I didn’t know existed, and I recognized that, on a limited budget, she was saving money to come back to town so that Amy could see her grandparents on her father’s side. I wanted to make sure that if she was listening, she knew I noticed the little things, that they didn’t go unnoticed or unappreciated. 

    I also mentioned how my mother would pray that Bonnie would find another husband because she’s such a great woman and deserves to be loved. And how thankful we were to hear that she had found a Chief Petty Officer named Dan. I talked about her telling me the good news and asking her what her new last name would be, and she said, “Stangel. You can remember how to spell it correctly because it’s St (Saint) angel.” And then I explained how thankful we were for Dan, this saint of a man, to take care of our angel.  When Bonnie fell ill, I knew she was going to be well cared for because Dan is a man of his word, of honor, and integrity. And when he vowed to be with her through sickness and in health, that’s something I know he’d never break. And yes, I did think about how it applied to my situation.

    On the way there, I pondered if it would be awkward at all for Dan to bring his wife home to be buried with another man. But Dan is the epitome of selflessness, and as he spoke, you could tell all he wanted to do was fulfill the wishes of the person he loved most, and understood how much it meant to Amy. Which was something I didn’t consider. Since she never knew her father, I again underestimated how big of a deal it was for her to reunite her parents. I was thinking about that at church the next morning and texted Amy that there’s something beautiful knowing that this was the first time in 45 years her parents were reunited, side by side.

    After the service, we all met and ate at a local restaurant. Despite their overrated chicken-fried steak, it was a great time to share stories. One gentleman served with Amy’s father in the Air Force and was a close friend. He was deployed somewhere and never felt closure on missing out on attending his good friend’s funeral until this graveside service. And he drove from Colorado Springs to make it so. Some great photos were displayed on the table, and a photo album was passed around. I smiled when I saw that Amy made sure to include photos of my mom, children, and me with her. Speaking of which. I tend to get a little sad that no one is around to include me in their pictures. My kids get a photo album each Christmas, which goes over the year, but I’m not in any of them. But I tell you what tugged on my heart strings a bit, Amy took the very last hug Aunt Bonnie and I had together. 


    But it was this one photo of her being a free spirit riding on the back of her husband’s motorcycle with her arms stretched out and carefree. She looks so at peace at that moment, and I can tell that there is absolutely nothing else she would rather be doing.



    Once we went outside after eating, we were immediately hit with a hailstorm and didn’t have time for formal goodbyes. But I made sure to text before driving off.

  • For all the local sports fans who are frustrated with poorly managed professional teams but have never given the Stars a shot, they are by far the best-run franchise in town and deserve a chance. They win, the players don’t get in trouble, and they respect their fan base. Be open to something new, and give them a try.
  • When I took my mother home for the last time to Vietnam, I vividly recall seeing a billboard advertising the country’s lone golf course. Saigon (and yes, I will forever refer to it as that) has also changed quite a bit. There’s no telling what my mom would think.

    Vietnam approves Trump Organization’s $1.5 billion golf, real estate project


  • We have a hero down.




    I do love the “square peg, round hole” sequence in Apollo 13. However, finding out how it was dramatized and how he played down the complexity was like finding out Mickey Mantle played with a corked bat. But I don’t care what anyone says, having the ability to provide a set of verbal instructions detailed enough for the crew to recreate is remarkable.




    If you are interested in a 26-minute documentary about the event in which he’s showcased, here ya go. And since it’s great cinema, here’s the movie segment.
  • My loyal BoN reader who writes for SNL told me to pay attention to the character names because my name would be dropped four times. Sure enough, “Keith” was referenced four times in the first skit after the monologue.
  • Christopher Nolan and Matt Damon’s The Odyssey Makes History as First Movie to Film Entirely with IMAX Cameras
  • From 2000 to 2018, over 41,000 girls and boys under the age of 18 were legally married in Texas.
  • For some reason, I couldn’t embed this video, but I was entertained taking this trip down memory lane. In this 1995 clip, a farmer is being sold an Apple computer at Incredible Universe. And if large warehouse lover LiberallyLean is reading, this sentence from Incredible Universe’s Wikipedia page will entertain you. It seems like to day, you can’t build a large warehouse-type building big or fast enough.

    The closed buildings were so large that they could not be readily adapted to other business purposes, and buyers were so scarce that Tandy sold the empty buildings for mere pennies on the dollar.

  • I’ve noticed subtle changes in my mood. For instance, I catch myself laughing out loud more often. I’m sure most of y’all wouldn’t even consider how often a person verbally laughs while alone. The first time this came to mind was when I watched TV with my best bud and college apartment roommate. The one the scholarship honors. He let out a loud laugh at something we were watching. I don’t know why, but I immediately asked him, “Hey, do you think you would have laughed out loud at that if I weren’t here?” I was wondering if we were more prone to audibly laugh when in the company of others, as opposed to being alone. How much does laughter depend on being in the presence of others? His answer, “I don’t know.”
  • The man had talent, indeed.

  • I’m sorry to hear about former President Biden’s cancer diagnosis. This is going to come across as crude, I’m afraid, but this unfortunate diagnosis is why the American electorate doesn’t feel comfortable with elderly presidential candidates. However, it is interesting to entertain the thought that he won a second term. I would have bet he would have typically and stubbornly stayed in office longer than he should before stepping down to allow his VP to become the first woman POTUS. Oh man, the pundits and political commentators would be having a field day.
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Your Bag of Nothing for Friday, May 16, 2025

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Your Bag of Nothing for Thursday, May 15, 2025

 

  • DOGE strikes again. For the second time this year, they eliminated my position, and I’m out of work. It definitely stinks, but I’m trying to look at it as another opportunity to build resilience. And you can’t really work on resilience without a little adversity, right?
  • I get to drive to Mineral Wells this weekend. I think I’ve told y’all about my Aunt Bonnie. She’s a first cousin, but it confused me as a kid because she was so much older. So, I just stuck to calling her Aunt Bonnie. Her only child, Amy, is traveling from Arizona to bury her next to her father (Bonnie’s husband, David), who died of cancer in 1978. He’s part of the Hatfield family of Mineral Wells. If you are from MW, then you should know Richard Hatfield (the number one Ram fan) and the Gulf full-service gas station his parents owned. Amy is a few years younger than I, and other than my kids, she’s now literally the only family I have in this county.

    From her home in Arizona, Amy has managed to plan and arrange all of her mother’s funeral by phone, coordinating with the city, cemetery, church, funeral home, and a restaurant so a small number of us can all have a little get-together. She has zero Mineral Wells contacts and felt burdened to do it all by herself.

    Here’s a photo of Aunt Bonnie on her wedding day. My grandmother hand-sewed that dress, which family lore says is cursed. It looks like the wedding reception was held at my grandparents’ house, which my father designed. Simpler times back then.

  • Concert Ticket Economics: The Shocking Amounts Fans Are Paying Per Live Song In 2025 – An eye-opening analysis by GigaCalculator reveals the eye-watering economics behind 2025’s biggest tours.

    There’s a chart in the article, but here are some highlights:

    • Lana Del Rey leads as the priciest concert performer at $16.02 per song, while Charli XCX tops the per-minute cost at $3.55
    • Oasis generates the most revenue per song at $858,024, with nightly earnings of $17.16 million across their reunion tour shows
    • Budget-conscious fans get the best value from Ed Sheeran at just $0.91 per minute and Usher at $3.76 per song
  • It is a common misconception that most global communication is accomplished via satellite. In fact, over 95 percent of international data and voice transfers are currently routed through the many fiber optic cables that crisscross the world’s seafloors
  • ‘RUMP’: Customers upset with missing ‘T’ in Trump-branded watch that cost $640
    Tim Petit paid $640 for a limited-edition Trump watch that is only one of 250 made. “I thought it was really nice. It was beautiful, and I knew it would be something that she’d like,” he said. Petit bought the watch after hearing an ad for it on the radio, featuring Trump himself.
  • First look at Christian Bale and Nicholas Cage as Al Davis and John Madden in ‘MADDEN.’

  • This was too funny for me not to post. But I know many of you are conservative in nature, so instead of displaying the Twitter video below, you will have to watch it here. There’s no nudity, but breasts are involved, and I think there’s one curse word.
  • He just had to find an answer to his question.

Posted in Personal | Comments Off on Your Bag of Nothing for Thursday, May 15, 2025