Football Counter-Programming 2023: Week 11

 

Lynda and I worked outside cleaning up the yard this morning and we also decided to take advantage of the mild weather to hang Christmas lights now. But we are not preparing to turn them on until after Thanksgiving. Just pre-prep.

We are one of those families that don't do our Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving has passed. But we also wanted to avoid being outside in colder temperatures and climbing up and down on ladders with stronger winds blowing.

We are learning and growing.

Hmm . . . what else can I tell you today to distract you from watching football?

Jay and Grace went to see The Marvels last night while Lynda and I were celebrating the end of the marching band season at a parent's party. I think a good time was had by all--even those who went to see the latest MCU movie. (Lynda and I may be able to go see it tonight while Jay is attending the student end-of-marching-season party. So we are doing our part to prop up the revenue for the MCU once again.) The reviews and pre-speculation for this movie are shaky, but I am expecting to find things that I like about it.

Speaking of things that I like, and as I mentioned above, the marching season has come to a close and Non Stop 2023 is done. It is certainly a sad time when that activity that takes up so much of our time and our effort finishes, but there are a few things that console me once again.

First, this was an excellent season! Non Stop was such a fun show and the students gave it there all each and every week. And the results show how strong the show was and also how strong their performances were. It ended up being one of the most successful competition seasons that the Marching Warriors have had in a very long time. We competed strongly in every event we entered and won most caption awards and rankings in the band's class. And the re-entry into the Bands of America competition circuit after several years away was illuminating and enjoyable. I think the band and the staff learned a lot from that exposure and think that it will be reflected in next year's show design.

And here is a final band-related thought--along with an accompanying video.

For the last several years, the band has captured a variety of Go Pro POV videos from individual band members. For 2023, there is a flute video, a trumpet/flugelhorn video, a Guard/Rifle member video, and most recently a drum major video. And it is the drum major video that I want to highlight here--and for admittedly selfish reasons. While the video itself is very interesting and it displays a fun perspective, I noticed when I previewed it that I show up at the very end. And when I do, I remembered that this run-through occurred around Halloween. And that I chose to wear my Steve Harrington "Scoop Ahoy" costume to the game that night. What I find funny is that there is very little, if any, clue to explain WHY I am wearing such an outfit. And years from now no one may know at all. So it may be very confusing to some future viewer to understand what exactly some sailor-looking guy is doing at the end of that video?!

Anyway . . . watch and enjoy.

I further encourage you to spend the rest of the day watching videos on the WNHS Marching Band YouTube channel. It will be much more enjoyable and a better use of your time than watching college football. 

(And this counter-programming is even football adjacent!)

Until next week!

Football Counter-Programming 2023: Week 10

One thing about blogging (even doing so sporadically) over the last 19 years is the inevitably of capturing the passage of time.

That was part of my reason for beginning this blog back in 2004. To capture the years of my early parenting and to help describe the younger years of my children. (In high school I was a scrapbooker and I began capturing bits of pieces of my life and the things that I loved at the time. This blog was something of a digital extension of that impulse.) 

That was not the sole inspiration for my blogging in the beginning, though. I also wanted to give myself a creative outlet for writing. But, unavoidably, the family element of the content grew and grew as that part of my life became so central to what I was doing every day. If you scan through the early years, and if you ignore the very obvious focus on television (still true!), most of my posts are family related. Check the tags and categories if you don't want to submit yourself to reading all of that . . . stuff from back then.

Andbutso . . . the passage of time. It's inevitable. Whether I accidentally chronicle it when writing or not. Time doesn't care what I do. And what I do has no significant impact on time. So . . . . what's up this week?

What's up is that I realized (obvious though it is) that as I age, I am mentally shifting my observance of events to a perspective that sees more things as ending rather than beginning. 

What do I mean?

Well, when you have been doing the same thing consistently for a long time--as I have--it becomes unavoidable, I suppose. 

I've had essentially the same job, at the same place, with some (but not most) of the same people for about half of my life. And my non-work life is comfortably routine as well. My family is stable. And despite the fact that they keep getting older and they don't all live at home anymore, the kids and Lynda are all still here. And almost all of my extended family remains in touch, since I've moved away from childhood and college. So, this back half of my life (so far) has been . . . predictable and stable.

You should be so lucky!

It is, however, as I say, inevitable that as time goes on, the number of unique experiences decreases and the number of repeat experiences increases. And that being the case . . . I sometimes find myself ticking off (in a vague way) the times that I have already done something and a slow awareness that those somethings have a finite number. Am I on the downward slope of those things? I am not given to know the day or the hour . . . so I cannot with certainly answer that thought. But the vague mental math checks out.

What's to be done or further said about this? Probably nothing and nobody asked me to say it anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter. But I felt it, so I sat down to express it.

In a glass-half-full sort of attitude, I can take this awareness and push myself into new things. Sure, the kids are growing and spreading out. But that opens up new space in my life to fill. Maybe I should accept this reality and fill that space with a new thing that gives me a new set of First Times to experience. What that might be . . . ? . . . is something to contemplate.

But . . . spending my Saturday watching football certainly isn't the best way to answer that question.

Football Counter-Programming 2023: Week 9

Can you name something that you do that was based on a TV show or a movie that you once watched?

I don't mean impersonating Han Solo or Luke Skywalker in the Millennium Falcon by putting a folding camp chair (the old kind where the fraying nylon straps are latticed together to form the seat between the folding chair fame) . . . putting that chair on top of your old. weather-beaten picnic table in the backyard and making "space" noises.

(Not that I ever did that.)

Everyone . . . but never me! . . . did THAT.

I'm asking if you did something that is maybe more obscure and if someone saw you doing it, they might not know what you are doing is from a movie. Or (even better) they DO recognize that what you are doing is from a movie and it is entirely random and weird, but they see it and you become kindred spirits because of this share bit of pop ephemera.

Which truly has not happened to me.

Do you know what I'm saying? Need an example?

Okay.

Unfortunately, this clip doesn't include the crucial part that I am referring to. But I hope it gets you mentally in the ball park.

Right after this scene, Lloyd Dobbler opens the "mother dictionary" and sees that Diane Court has placed Xs beside words on almost every page. Simultaneously, Diane (from the bathroom) tells Lloyd that she has the habit of marked every word she looks up.

That's what I'm talking about.

I do that.

***

Some people emulate sports figures. Some people emulate space wizards (But never me!). And some people emulate other things that they have seen in the entertainment world around them. And I apparently emulate myself . . . because when I started writing this post, something in my brain told me that this wasn't the first time I had brought it up.

And after a bit of Googling on the WWYG?! archives, sure enough . . . the sincerest form of flattery is imitation. But when you imitate yourself aren't you really just admitting poor memory skills?

Anyway . . . here is your proof.

https://www.whywontyougrow.com/2007/11/random-definition.html

***

But you already know the best way to flatter and imitate me is to not watch college football today. Go exercise at the gym or visit a local coffee shop. Or read a book that you have been meaning to finish. Or take up a new hobby. 

But don't spend your time watching football--ESPECIALLY if you aren't even there in person.

Just remember. Your alma mater is going to play that game today whether you watch it or not. It has too much money committed to it. (Money that could be funding some scientific or social science effort somewhere else on campus.)

Until next week!

Football Counter-Programming 2023: Week 8

So, I started reading Lileks again this week. He was there when I started my blogging days back in the early 2000s. I read his weekday blog (the Bleat) every day at the start of my workday. 

I'm not really sure what prompted me to start reading him again. (But is it a coincidence that I also rewatched this favorite-of-mine YouTube  Time Travel video the same week?)

I return to Lileks in a similar way to how swallows return to Capistrano or like Halley's Comet returns. (Infrequently and . . . regularly? . . . no--let's say predictably.)

As I typed the Capistrano reference, I wonder . . . does anyone know that reference? And other than my own Looney Tunes memories . . . do I even know the reference?

Well, the Internet provides--sort of.

This is what I heard in my head when I thought of the Looney Tunes clip. (Go to about the 2 minute mark to hear it.)

But this is the visuals that I thought of, combined with the song from the previous clip. And this is from a very different cartoon altogether. (Who knew that this song was so popular that it needed multiple references?)

This guy probably knew that it needed multiple references.

So, there you go for this week. Some randomness bolstered by some video clips. But watching these clips is much, much better than watching college football today or even pro football tomorrow.

Do you think Bing Crosby watched lots of football? Maybe in a movie, but in actual life? 

Do you think there is a football team in Capistrano? (Probably yes, given that it is California.)

Despite all of that, DON'T DO IT!

Until next week . . .

Football Counter-Programming 2023: Week 7

When you sit down and are confronted with a blank canvas (or blank white screen), you hope that you have an idea at the ready to fight against the vacuum.

But sometimes you don't. 

And so you sit down and you just start typing the words that appear in your mind's eye as fast as you can and try not to think too much about self-editing while you are also getting too bogged down with clever vocabulary, run-on sentences, proper punctuation, and trying to fix spelling errors as the words appear on the screen.

And you wonder where you should put the paragraph breaks.

And you wonder why there are some consonant combinations that you always mistype ("dl" when you mean "ld"). And you try to ignore (ingore?--really?) the squiggly lines that are appearing in the lines above because right now you are simply trying to typ and not trying to edit and good lord as you do this the squiggly lines are just appearing in massing numbers and its embarrassing but so what? You'll fix it later and the future reader won't know.

But simultaneously, part of your brain is thinking about that time in college when you were applying for a campus-based job and you had to take a typing proficiency test as one of the requirements for the job application. So you sat down in front of a 90s keyboard (a Windows clone or an honest to God IBM-made computer . . . who remembers now? You know, those dirty white, sort of beige colored computers that might actually have been off-white sometime in its early use but due to human skin oils and South Georgia sunlight has been altered into some other color that I'm just now going to call tired)  . . .

(where is the thread of this story? where is the paragraph break? should this be edited later?)

. . . anyway . . .

So, you're sitting down and performing this typing test and you've got some paragraph of text on the desk beside the tired keyboard and you have 60 seconds (is 60 seconds a more effective descriptive than one minute? is one minute less impactful than 1 minute? does anyone care?)

And so, you've got 60 seconds to type as much as you can as accurately as you can. And that is only part of the job application. But you do it and though I don't remember precisely how the person said it, I know that they suggested that they were impressed by my typing proficiency and output in this. And isn't it odd that such a random and completely unimportant compliment (is it?) has stuck semi-firmly in my brain for . . . . pausing typing to calculate . . . almost 25 years? 

And so, as I stream of consciousness my way down this screen that was once blank and is now full of mistyped words, you can see how my brain decided to remind myself of when I was more nimble and my future was also blank and full of promise--much like this screen was also once blank and full of promise.

. . .

Damn, David . . .

You did it. You actually stream of consciousness-ed your way to something semi-profound and you had no idea how you were going to get there. But you did it.

You can't accomplish this stuff watching football.

So don't do it.

Until next week, when the screen will be blank once again.