August 2023

This was a month filled with distractions.

The dog days are not over, Florence. We’re maybe halfway through the summer, depending on where you live. If you reside in a “stay hot” place, like the American southwest, like I do, then you might only be a third of the way through the hottest damn days of the year. Our heat stretches into Halloween sometimes. That’s not a humblebrag by any means.

August 2023 came and went with a specific quickness that confirms we’ve climbed the staggering heights of the peak of the year a couple of months ago, dragging our bodies towards the top as time grinded forward, and now we’re sliding down the backside of 2023. The finish line will be upon us swiflty, and we’ll all be talking about how “another year has gone by.”

Back to School

The kids and my wife (a teacher) went back to school at the beginning of this month. What’s the logic behind having schools in these aforementioned “stay hot” areas return during the dog days of summer? Is it a power grid saving measure? Does one school —open for business, running its A/C—use less energy than a bunch of single-family homes and apartment units (equivalent to how many students, staff, and faculty are in that school)? I don’t know about that, but I know that no one was stoked to go back to school.

For my wife, it’s a return to work after a month off because she taught summer school back in June for a few weeks. I understand why she’s bummed to be back on campus. For our daughter, she’s bummed that it’s her final year in elementary school (5th grade out in my neck of the woods). She’s not stoked on middle school because she’s not ready for the changes that come with it, and neither am I. It’s all the changes in the school format that she’s not stoked about, and it’s also the farewell to her childhood that bums her out a bit. I found this to be a precocious senitment for a fifth grader on the verge of entering middle school.

She’s right. This era is just another transition away from the excitement and wonder of her well-supported childhood. I’m sad about it, too, for similar reasons. I’ve enjoyed a second childhood through her first-time experiences and requests to play with her and walks to the park to hit up the playground and all of the great stuff we’ve done together. I can still do that stuff with her younger brother, but it’s a different experience. I’m sad to see my little girl start to grow up.

Another year of school means another year of cool stuff for our kids to learn and experience; it means their growth and all that shit, and that is important to me (obviously), but it bums me out that it all flies by.

Hillary Makes History

That could have been a mock headline about the 2016 election, but it’s actually about the tropical storm that sailed over So Cal a week ago. 97% of the people living in the region had never seen anything like this happen here before. The brunt of the storm was inland, but it wasn’t as bad where I live as it was further east in the mountains and in the deserts beyond them. It might be a “once in 100 years” event—we’ve had a few of those in the last few years, so that tracks. It seems like we’re either in some sort of bizarre phase of humanity, or we’re approaching an extinction level moment when there will be no humanity left.

“Geez, dude. This is getting dark.”

“Again?”

“Again.”

Fantasy Football

Someone once described fantasy football to me as “‘Dungeons and Dragons’ for jocks.” That’s accuarate. If you’ve ever been around a fantasy football draft party—or maybe you know someone who plays it, or maybe you are a player yourself—you’ll attest to that quote. We are in fact nerds.

If you are the one person who has been keeping up with my fantasy football coverage on FarFromProfessional.com, you know how important our fantasy football league, Any Given Sunday, is to us who participate in it. We had our 2023 draft party at our Draft HQ in San Diego this past weekend, and some unexpected surprises took place—both in some of the guys’ draft picks and in one of the guys completely bailing on the league. We managed to get through the draft, unwind a bit as we had a couple of days away from our beautiful families, and have a blast. Lots of laughs. Some deep conversations about our lives. A heap of shit talk.

I managed to record a pilot podcast episode about the league with a couple of the owners despite some technical difficulties and an obvious lack of experience. We’re working on getting that out before next Thursday’s official NFL season kickoff. I know you, specifically YOU—that one person who reads this blog—are looking forward to this, so I’ll be sure to let you know about it.

Check out this audio blog and Rebel Scum hype video. I told you…

NERDS!