A Life For Itself

Category: five things

  • Five Things – 26 November 2015

    Five Things – 26 November 2015

    1.

    This came out …

    2. Another video came out, too. Except this one depicted real violence — real, heartless, inhumane violence.

    16 shots.

    16 shots to a child.

    16 shots to a child not posing a threat.

    16 shots to a child walking away.

    Shots to a child already down on the ground.

    Then left to lay there and bleed out.

    Never lunged.

    Never punctured a tire.

    Never given a chance.

    The saddest part is that there may never have been a chance for justice had people not pressed for the video to come out.

    And people shot protestors in Minneapolis the night before the Chicago video came out.

    3.

    It’s now unfathomable how bad this Ravens season has been.

    And we won this game.

    At least Ed got the sendoff he deserved:

    Matt Schaub will take over the offense on Monday night vs. the Browns. Jimmy Clausen, signed during the week, will back him up. Looks like Buck Allen and Towson’s Terrance West will get the chance to show what they can do.

    What a season.

    4.

    Fall finale for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D was excellent.

    I wasn’t as happy for the Blacklist finale. Didn’t like the killing of Reven Wright. I wonder if they have a device that the person in that job will always somehow end up getting killed.

    Didn’t like Dembe being arrested with Liz.  He was held captive by the Cabal and now he’s captured by the F.B.I.  He can’t catch a break this season and they had a good, little thing going at the start with the daughter and granddaughter.

    Aram came across like a 5th grader whose crush ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with another boy during lunchtime. I know Aram isn’t a main character, but his keeping Samar’s secret to the detriment of his feelings would have been more interesting than his running to Ressler and selling out Samar and Liz because he was hurt. Not saying he had to be Agent Fitz, but still. (Iain de Caesteker and Elizabeth Henstridge have both done some great work depicting this love triangle without the third party actually there.)  Samar’s going to be alright, though.  I haven’t forgotten that Red got her that job in the first place

    5.

    Be nice to your local retail workers this holiday season. And if you find a Patti Pie in the store, let me know somehow.

  • Five Things – 19 November 2015

    Five Things – 19 November 2015

    Twenty years ago today, the Baltimore Stallions (“Baltimore Colts,” “Baltimore CFL Colts,” “Baltimore CFL’ers,” so on, and so on …) won the 83rd Grey Cup, defeating the Calgary Stampeders.

    One could call this the climax of a two-year flirtation with Canadian football.

    Even though the Stallions filled a vacuum left after the demise of the Baltimore Colts, the announcement nearly two weeks before that Art Modell and his Cleveland Browns would be moving east, meant Sunday afternoons in Baltimore would be spent with the NFL again.

    It meant that the CFL’s American experiment, at least in Baltimore, would be over.  Stallions owner Jim Speros would not even try to operate in what was again an NFL city.  It meant he would not field a 1996 Stallions team.  His franchise would be transferred to Montreal, returning the CFL to that city, to become the continuation of the Montreal Alouettes.

    It meant another Baltimore team disappearing overnight.

    In the midst of a terrible on-field season, the Ravens still celebrate their 20th anniversary this season.  Future Ravens Hall of Famer Ed Reed will be inducted into the Ravens Ring of Honor this Sunday ahead of the game vs. the St. Louis Rams (no irony there).  Ed’s accomplishments for the Ravens have gained him immortal status in Baltimore and one day in Canton, alongside names like Unitas and Mackey and Marchetti.

    But if you’re old enough … and you were there … you remember Tracy Ham running and throwing the way some NFL quarterbacks are praised for now.  And Mike Pringle kicking up Lenny Moore’s dust.  And you remember walking up into the stands at Memorial Stadium and staring at that strange 55 yard line.  Feeling a sense of cognitive dissonance when a team would punt on 2nd down.

    And seeing the Baltimore Colts legends there on the sidelines and feeling like this was it, this was your team.  Your parents and perhaps your grandparents had the Baltimore Colts.  CFL or not, the Stallions were yours.

    These days, the Montreal Alouettes don’t officially consider the Stallions years as part of their history.  There was never going to be a commemoration at M&T Bank Stadium on Sunday.  The history and accomplishments of the Baltimore Stallions are often drowned out by conversations of the NFL expansion and the controversy surrounding Art Modell’s move to Baltimore.  The last time I even saw any interest was when O.J. Brigance was in the news for his heroics in his battle with ALS, as he won championships with both the Stallions and Ravens during his playing days.

    I’ve said before that the 1983 Baltimore Orioles championship is often overshadowed by the end of the Baltimore Colts nearly 6 months later.  In comparison, the 1995 Baltimore Stallions Grey Cup title is nearly lost, due to the emergence of the team that would eventually be named the Baltimore Ravens.

    Unless you were there and unless you remember.

    And if you do, you know it was more than a flirtation.  It was fun.  It was wacky and strange, just like Baltimore.  And if you were in, you were in fully because you just knew Paul Tagliabue was shutting Baltimore out of the NFL forever.  It wasn’t what our parents grew up with and I’m sure people outside of the area laughed a lot at our expense.  But the team embraced Baltimore.  It embraced our wacky fans and our NFL history and even helped us needle our old friends out in Indiana and in the NFL offices a little.  And the Stallions won us a title.

    Yet, it never sated the appetite to get back in the NFL, never got to be what it could have been, had we not awoken to the news that November morning that the NFL was coming back to town.

    We never got a championship parade.

    Rolling Stone | Wild Stallions: How a Team From Baltimore Rocked Canadian Football

    The Snap | The Baltimore Stallions Celebrate Grey Cup Win, 20 Years later

    Baltimore Sun | After 20 years, Stallions finally celebrate Grey Cup win

    2.

    Ed Reed will indeed be inducted into the Ravens Ring of Honor on Sunday.

    Ray called himself the Ravens’ General.  But if he was the General, Ed Reed was the Admiral, our other Joint Chief.  Ray’s shadow was very wide, and Ed always shunned the spotlight as much as possible so he never got the recognition for his own leadership.  If you doubt it, read this ESPN article from 2013.  Ed did what Ben Zander talked about in his book The Art of Possibility, he led from his own seat.

    Regardless of how much attention he never got, his stats aren’t in doubt, though.  He’s an all-time great.  His Canton introduction is another one I want to go to when the time comes.

    When the Ravens won Super Bowl 47, I was happy that Ray had ended his career with another championship and gone out on top.  But with everything Ed had physically sacrificed for his teammates, all the preparation to go out there and do what he could (making himself so respected that even greats like Manning and Brady would just not throw in his direction) even when he was almost constantly injured, I was so much happier that he’d gotten there just that once.  I really wondered after the 2012 AFC Championship game if that was as close as he’d get to a title.

    3.

    These college kids are getting it done.  #OccupyTowson #OccupyMizzou #OccupyPrinceton

    4.

    I can’t lie.  All this NaNo stuff is kicking my ass.  But it’s worth it.

    5.

    The kick heard ’round the world.  Given her lackluster performances in her first two UFC fights, I didn’t think Holly stood a chance pretty much.  I figured Ronda would go in there and on aggression alone, regardless of how good Holly’s striking was, end this fight the way she’d ended most of her other UFC fights — a clinch, a hip toss, an armbar, a tapout.

    Wow, was I wrong.  Holly dominated her thoroughly.  She kept the fight standing, where she had the advantage, and where Ronda ended up having no shot.  The fight got away from Ronda pretty quickly and she never recovered.  I think Ronda didn’t expect Holly to back down and fight with the poise and confidence she showed.  Holly showed no fear.  Holly didn’t rush her.  Holly fought her own fight and in the end, put on a great win.

    I was hoping for a Cyborg/Ronda fight, but if there’s going to be an immediate rematch, I’m happy for that, too.  Maybe we’ll also get the rumored Miesha Tate/Cyborg fight.

  • Five Things – 12 November 2015

    Five Things – 12 November 2015

    1.

    With everything going on over the last few days out in Missouri, this feels apt

    #standwithmizzou

    2.

    One of my old classmates from school, is running for Mayor of Baltimore.  Looking forward to seeing the details of her platform, but she did say some good general things outside of City.

    3.

    I like the Bills all-red uniforms.  I’m probably in the minority there.  I always seem to be when it comes to these different NFL and MLB uniforms.  I wish the Ravens would wear their all-blacks more often.  I wish the O’s would wear their oranges (and wear orange over orange sometimes) and blacks more often, too.

    4.

    The other day, the CEO at my job came over to my desk and asked me to help him get Dragon onto his MacBook.  I suggested he try Dragon on his iPad.  It was already there and therefore, free.  As it turns out, he did just that and had dumped his copy into Google Docs.  When I saw him this morning, he was asking how to get it into the office system to put it in Word to edit it.

    He says he’s writing a book, but doesn’t have the time.  I wonder if he knows he may have stumbled into the solution to his “no time” problem.  I heard last week there’s a book by a guy who dictates and puts out 5000 words a day.  At that rate, he’s probably writing 2-3 books a month.  If you don’t have time or if your interest is quantity, there you go.

    I always wondered if it was cheating if you’re dictating while really able to type.  It’s being discussed here: http://nanowrimo.org/forums/rules-regulations-and-other-minutiae/threads/253594

    I’m not there yet.  I like using Scrivener for Windows and Writebox for ChromeOS.

    5.

    Writing bootcamp this weekend.  I had a great time at the last one and I’m anticipating the same this time.  It’s worth it to be in the room with writers at varying stages — the workshop leader(s) who is/are already published, young, hungry writers, and even some of us older ones in different times of our careers.

    I love being in the room, the energy.  I love the writing without expectation except practice; the things that people in the group wrote last time were exceptional.  I was blown away.  I want to go to one of the readings soon, too.

    I want to get into a regularly meeting class, soon.

     

  • Five Things – 29 October 2015

    1.

    November Writing: Finally came to the idea of writing essays based on questions.  It’s probably a fallback option, but I wasn’t really feeling writing a larger work.  The whole project feels much less daunting.  It’s still an average of 1600 or so words every day, 90 minutes or so every day at my pace, for 30 days, but none of the words ever have to be related to the ones before.  Or the ones after.  No narrative arc.  No through-line.  Just a new writing adventure each day.  Feels liberating, even as I still must show up every day to make it work.

    2.

    I said a couple of weeks ago that I might document the whole process.  I am.  One of my immediate writing goals and reasons for taking part in this is to build my daily writing practice back up.  To that end, in addition to the above work I’m going to complete, I’m committing to 30 writing blog entries during November.

    I was finally completing my signup for National Nonfiction Writing Month and saw that one of the other participants was also doing both the NaNoFiWriMo and a blogging challenge.  I thought, hey, I can do that, too.  I checked it out and with the only requirement being to post something to your blog everyday (no word counts), I figured I could do it.  Besides, the whole point is to build up a habit.  It’s more work, so instead of just 90 minutes per day around my job, I’ll be writing 2 1/2 hours.

    3.

    And on top of all of this writing, I’m participating in a writing bootcamp next month.  The bootcamp is several hours of one day, so that’s going to be a heavy writing day.  But given my experiences at the last one I went to, this one should be well worth it.

    4.

    Things were looking much better for the Mets last week.  A 2-0 series isn’t necessarily over, but it’s going to be a challenge getting back.  Especially since they have to beat the Royals at least once in Kansas City to win the whole thing.  Too bad I can’t get tickets.  I know where I’d want to go as soon as I got in town.

    5.

    Just enjoying the ride with the Ravens.  Joe Flacco said this week that Baltimore is “entitled to good football.”  I won’t argue with that and if they turn things around, it’s all good.  And if they don’t, that’s all good, too.  If we can use the franchise track record as a guide, I can expect them to be back at the top soon.  Ravens fans have had good football the majority of the last 20 years, so this being a down season is nothing.  Besides, things could be worse — we could all have been fans of the Landover team over that same time period.

  • Five Things – 23 October 2015

    1.

    The Mets are going to the World Series and they celebrated with a massive bottle of champagne.

    Last time, they created a beer slip-n-slide.


    If they win the championship, will someone perhaps drive in a truck with a pool full of booze in it that the players can just bathe in it?

    Still, though, the whole thing got lit pretty quickly last night without anything so ridiculous.  During an interview with Tyler Clippard, the holder of the massive champagne bottle insisted on pouring some into Clippard’s mouth, as well as Daniel Murphy’s mouth, as he stood slightly off camera.  I guess not wanting to mar the celebratory atmosphere on camera, they both drank.  And just before the camera cut, Murphy spit his out.  They need to get these interviews done more quickly during these celebrations or something.

    I do wish they’d had this massive bottle that time Chris Bosh doused himself with champagne when the Heat won.  You remember that.

    2.

    I love the email conversation my sister and I are engaged in.  Part of me wishes we could move the discussion into handwritten letters, but people here can’t even read my handwriting (In case you’re one of my old teachers from my K-12 years, the legibility issue with my handwriting apparently has not improved).

    3.

    Black Poetry Day occurred since the last time I did a five things.

    I haven’t written a poem in a good while, a couple of months or so.  I haven’t had a regular poetry writing practice in a much longer time.  I sometimes feel like poetry is a vestige of my youth, something I can look back on and find pride in the successes and lessons in the many failures.  It’s a craft I really did my best to learn and enjoyed what one could do with a poem, but still something that was “way back when.”

    And then I’ll sit down do one of the writing prompts from the Poetic Asides blog (sometimes I might even submit) and I’ll remember what it felt like when I first began trying.  No pressure, no critique, just me and thoughts and a little bit of craft.

    Sometimes I want to learn more about prose poems to try and split the difference.

    That’s a great read linked above about the view of black poetry in professional poetry circles.  Definitely sentiments I’ve heard during the years.  Nothing new, unfortunately.

    4.

    This will have taken a little over 12 hours to finish from the time I started it.  I really need to find a better place to write for a few minutes during the day on weekdays.

    5.

    My thoughts and prayers are with her.  As someone told me online earlier, there’s no worse feeling than burying a child.

  • Five Things – 14 October 2015

    1.

    October.

    As I was on my way to the library, Edwin Encarnacion hit a 443-foot shot to tie the Rangers-Blue Jays game 5 in the bottom of the 6th.  By the time I got in and unpacked and plugged in, the Rangers had taken the lead again.  The online box score says Rougned Odor stole home to put them back up.  If they hold on and win this game, Cole Hamels might end up becoming a Texas hero as his fellow Phillies cast away, Chase Utley, creates one of the most controversial plays in recent memory and turns himself into public enemy #1 in Queens.

    October.

    The other day while I was at work, I listened online while the Royals strung together a series of hits and runs to come back from 4 down to go up 1, then get 2 more insurance runs in the 9th and force a game 5.

    October.

    The Cubs beat the Pirates in the Wild Card game to get the right to play the Cardinals, the best team in baseball this year.  They run into this year’s playoff buzzsaw, Jake Arrieta, who pitched out of his mind all during the regular season and now in the playoffs.  Toss in a few home runs and the Cubs have a chance to end the curse.

    I wish the O’s were in it, taking another run at the Royals, but the Mets are still going, facing down Zack Greinke tomorrow.  At least the Dodgers will have to get through Jacob deGrom to make it to Saturday.  It’s still great baseball.  Definitely takes the edge off what’s been a disaster of a football season so far (see: Ravens 1-4; Ravens IR list).

    (Blue Jays tied the game on a bases loaded bloop single and then Jose Bautista hit a 3 run home run to put them ahead 3.  He also flipped his bat like no one ever before and maybe since.  October.)

    2.

    It stormed here last night.  It was partly sunny when I walked in to check on my computer (more on that later) but 20 minutes later, it had already rained and left puddles.  Lots of lightning with these storms; to the south, cloud to cloud and ground.  If it’s raining hard enough when I’m at work, I go stand outside of the front door and take video with my phone.  The street there is a broken, pitted mix of brick and asphalt, partly resembling a series of horizontal waves, and in some places, the water runs and in others, it pools.  You could slip and slide down one side, splish and splash down the other.

    I keep track of this sort of thing in my journal, as well as Nor’easters during the fall and winter months, blizzards, regular snowstorms, hurricanes, all of it.

    3.

    I wanted to be a meteorologist when I was younger.  Atmospheric phenomena both thrilled and scared me.  Like that time we had thundersnow.

    I was out with my mother and trying to rush her back home, as I’d heard that the oncoming snowstorm might produce such an event.  Thunder with snow?  I’d faithfully watched the morning and 11 PM weather reports faithfully for years (I had to sneak to watch the latter) and I didn’t recall any meteorologists ever mentioning even the possibility of something like that.  It sounded fantastical, like time travel and magic and faster-than-light travel, all the imaginative things in all those children’s novels at school that I refused to read.  My mind raced.  I wanted to believe it was all bullshit, but still, what if it could thunder during a snowstorm?  What couldn’t the weather do?

    (Years later, the question would be answered by tornadoes wiping out entire towns, Hurricane Katrina nearly taking New Orleans off the map, and Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy flooding what seemed like the entire Jersey Shore.)

    We were just outside the house when the storm blew in.  One moment, nothing, the next, a wall of snow and wind pushing us back down the street.  After we fought our way inside, I decided I wanted to see.  I was hoping for enough snow for school to be closed the next day.  The window in my room was small, but there was a huge window in the kitchen.  I went downstairs and stood right by it.

    The snow was coming down so fast, I just knew school would be closed the next day.  The school system had no choice, I thought.  It would take a lot for them to make the decision, but this one was looking bad.  And the best part?  No thunder, just snow.  I knew they were bullshitting on TV.  There wasn’t any such thing as thunder and snow in the same storm.  And as I was just about to celebrate my rightness and the desires of children all over the city over the powers that be …

    -BAM-

    The whole kitchen lit up.

    No.

    I stood there frozen.

    All I could think of was how wrong this was.  Later in life, I’d learn the term for how I was feeling: cognitive dissonance.  All of my watching of the skies and of the news and waiting for severe storm watches, had taught me that lightning and thunder were summertime affairs and here we were in the middle of a snowstorm, and …

    -BAM-

    The kitchen lit up again.

    As soon as I could move my feet, I backed away, far away from the window, past the table in the middle of the floor.  I crept away from the kitchen entirely, my mind jumping back to all the stories and explanations I’d been told growing up, of God sending things like lightning and unexpected weather events like this to punish people.

    On one hand, I didn’t think God would be punishing me for damn near dancing for celebrating a day out of school; surely, God had to have more on the agenda than that.  On the other hand, I didn’t want to take any chances, so I sprinted back upstairs to my room and put out my clothes for school the next day.  Surely, this had to be enough penance.

    The weather people were right.  As the terror subsided, I thought about how cool it was that you could even forecast whether a snowstorm would make lightning.  Even though this storm had scared the hell out of me, it made me want that kind of power more and more.

    4.

    I love question lists;  I’ve pretty much always answered them when sent in email.  I was looking up some things I might want to talk about in these 5 things posts, and came across this list, answered by Ashley Ford.

    1. The meaning behind my URL

    It’s my name.

    2. A picture of me

    Not now, maybe later.

    3. Tattoos I have

    None.  Not one.

    4. Last time I cried and why

    When my father passed away.  It was because my father had passed away.

    5. Piercings I have

    None.  Not one.

    6. Favorite Band

    Incognito.

    7. Biggest turn off(s)

    Misused apostrophe’s, spoken word, crazy sports fans.

    8. Top 5 (gelato flavors)

    Strawberry, mango, Granny Smith apple, mango, and strawberry.

    9. Tattoos I want

    None, not one.

    10. Biggest turn on(s)

    Someone who knows when I want to be bothered and when I want to be left alone.

    11. Age

    38

    12. Ideas of a perfect date

    A Ravens night game in September before it gets too cold.

    13. Life goal(s)

    Write. Make theatre.  Marry and love this woman.  Spend as much time as I can with my family.  Root for these teams.

    14. Piercings I want

    No piercings.  Ever

    15. Relationship status

    See number 13.

    16. Favorite movie

    “Contact.”  The interplay of skepticism and spirituality has been a theme throughout my life.

    17. A fact about my life

    I’m afraid of lightning.

    18. Phobia

    Lightning.

    19. Middle name

    Alexander

    20. Anything you want to ask

    Why do I like doing these?

    (Blue Jays won.  Royals won after I finished writing this.  October.)

    5.

    Another huge turnoff: business jargon.  I’ll have to talk about this at length in the future.

  • Five Things

    One of the highlights of my week is to read folks’ Five Things blog posts.  The ones I read a nice diversion from the mishmash of the usual political BS, upcoming must-have gadgets, sports happenings (the Lions got screwed the other night), and entertainment brouhaha (trust me, making theatre and other entertainment is much more fun than reading about the entertainment that others make) that I read daily.  They remind me that there are some people still living as humans having actual experiences, and just not head-to-toe sports stat machines, OS-or-hardware-manufacturer-branded-cyborgs, or political talking point dispensers.

    So, after some gentle prodding from people who won’t let me anymore tell them that I have nothing to say or that I wrote everything I might say into my paper notebook, I’m at least going to try to write Five Things every week, to be posted on Wednesdays or Thursdays.  My first one will be on a Tuesday because today is Tuesday and I have to write and publish this today or else.

    1.

    I decided to go to the library to write.  Not only are there too many distractions at home, but I don’t have a desk.

    I need a desk.  Writing at a desk makes the writing feel more real to me.  I read once that sitting on the bed or the sofa can hinder the writing process because when you’re on the bed, your body gets the signal that it’s time to go to sleep and on the sofa, your body is ready to sit and relax, watch TV, read (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s just not writing).  However, if you’ve ever been to school or an office job at all, sitting at a desk tells your brain that you’re ready to get work, since that’s what it’s been trained to do.

    Given the number of words in this blog and the fact of my often trying to write sitting on the sofa before something invariably comes on TV, I’d imagine there’s some truth to this.

    So I need a desk.  Other than my one at work.  I’m always being sought out there.  Not conducive for writing.  Unfortunately, none of my hiding spaces at work have desks or even room for a desk.

    I also want to stop writing on my laptop and get a PC again.  Even if it’s a Chromebox.  Something with a mechanical keyboard.  Maybe I’ll even get a mouse with a cable attached, again.  Something not facing the TV.  Something I won’t feel tempted to pick up and go sit near the TV with.

    2.

    This time last year, the O’s had won the AL East and it was the best time in my adult life to be a fan.  Now, we have Chris Davis signing going-away bats for his teammates and Buck hugging him, seeming like a father about to see his son head out into the world.  All discussion is about who might be staying, who might be going, and how the team will look vastly different next year.  Even after the Royals gutted the O’s in the ALCS last year, there was still hope and excitement.  I knew they wouldn’t go back to being the same sad O’s we’d become accustomed to.  AJ and Manny and Crush would still be here, even if they let Nelson Cruz and Andrew Miller walk.

    This time around, I’m not so sure.

    3.

    Now they’re talking about magnetic trains and futuristic pods to get around back home.  I guess if they don’t put any of the pods in the hood, folks can just go back to riding horses.  Might be faster than the bus or the current light rail.

    They should have just built the new light rail.

    When the maglev is finally done, you’ll be able to get to DC in 8 minutes.  Once you get back, you’ll probably have to take a bus to get to your final destination and that bus will take an hour to get you there, but I guess that’s progress there.  Maybe they should find a way to magnetically levitate a bus or everybody’s cars if they live in the county.  The state might be willing to pay for that.

    4.

    Coach Jim Harbaugh and his Michigan Wolverines took a picture in front of a local Cracker Barrel and thanked them for the great food and service.

    While I do enjoy a trip to the Cracker Barrel for a hamburger steak, I really hope they didn’t travel 700+ miles to eat only at a chain they can get probably get anywhere, when they were literally minutes from G&M Restaurant and some of the best seafood in Maryland.  Maybe they had to stretch their per-diem money.  You can get a couple of hamburger steak dinners for the price of a crab cake platter.  Not that I suggest this.

    5.

    The Lions got hosed during Monday Night Football.  Sure, had they been given another play, they might have fumbled the ball again.  This is the Lions.  But at least get the call right, especially if you’re standing right there.  Saying that you didn’t make the call because the batting of the ball wasn’t overt, is a cop out.

    You know what else might not be overt?  Doctoring a baseball.

    “Sure, he threw a spitball, but we’re not going to eject him because he wasn’t overt.” Sounds ridiculous in that situation, too.  Just call the game as it is.  The Seahawks have been to two straight Super Bowls and won one.  They don’t need the help.

    Bonus:

    Nearly 90 minutes of writing can go by so quickly when you’re really in it.  My reward for this: relaxing with a nice cup of Kefir while watching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

    What I’m reading: “Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy” by Dinty W. Moore

    What I’m listening to: WFAN. Bound to be lots of angry Yankees fans tomorrow.