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The pitfalls of mansplaining coed youth league soccer when you're not the sharpest shear in the shed.

I sat inside a secured warehouse office with three other grown men working midnights, protecting influenza vaccine that nobody ever intended to vandalize or steal.   A political appointee deemed that year’s preventative flu pharmaceuticals a national asset that needed security.  We watched movies most of the night.  Meanwhile, an existing contracted, uniformed security force patrolled the…

Fun fact. I went to high school with Hoda Kotb, but have never watched the Today Show. I'm a bad Fort Hunt alumnus.

Fun fact.  I went to high school with Hoda Kotb.  Me and about 1200 other hormonal teenagers.  I was a lowly underclassman, while she was the senior homecoming queen.  Hoda successfully navigated high school and attained royalty status after four years.  I represented the underclass, a serf freshly flushed from the bowels of middle school, just beginning my high school odyssey.  She sat atop the…

How not to parent the unexpected and unwanted child.

My father only saw me play in one football game.   Not that my gridiron career spanned decades.  We’re talking roughly 50 games, give or take a few.  His absence also included youth league basketball, as he missed all of those games.  He never attended a band recital either, so it wasn’t an anti-sports sentiment.  I hear it’s difficult to juggle a wife and kids when you also live with your…

I’m not a fighter.  I’m not a lover, either.   At least not in the romantic, conquering the female gender sort of way.  My family is so relieved hearing this admission, I’m sure.  If I attached a photograph of myself, you’d immediately understand.   I’ve thrown a few punches in my day, though.  But not enough to earn a title belt or even know how to lace up a pair of gloves.  Seriously, do…

You can be great or have greatness thrust upon you. However, you can also awkwardly trip over greatness without ever realizing what made you fall in the first place. Either way, you'll get reminded of it forever.

It’s fall semester of my son’s eighth grade year.  I coach his youth football team’s offensive line.  Several other player’s dads comprise the remainder of the coaching staff.  My son and I joined this team a season ago.  Since 7 years of age, I coached his football teams in some capacity. This will be the final football season coaching my son.   Next year he and his teammates will progress to…

We’ve got this.  It’s in the bag. A former neighbor, upon getting asked “paper or plastic” by a grocery store cashier, replied she preferred to use a credit card.  And no, she wasn’t half in the bag.  Her scattered mind centered on payment methods, not conveyance modalities.  Although I’ve called credit cards plastic, I never referred to cash as paper.  Drinks are on me boys!  I’ve got deep…

I dreamt last night that I was doing heroin with Matthew Broderick.   To be clear, I do not partake in opioid consumption, be it with celebrities or otherwise.  Regardless, Ferris and I measured out a predetermined number of doses.  Sitting at a bar with drinks lined up like airplanes awaiting takeoff at Laguardia would have been more my style.  I can’t speak for Matty.  I’d figure him to be…

“They” say things happen in 3’s.   But if you’re really paying attention, things happen in 4’s.  It’s the natural order of our world.  Fall’s turning leaves will succumb to winter’s nip followed by the blossoming of new spring life and, hopefully, a summer vacation.  I say hopefully because I can’t remember my last significant July/August getaway, much to my wife’s chagrin.  A compass points us…

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet. – Bill S. My name is lackluster.  It’s about as interesting as John Smith.  If you’re John Smith and this offends you, my apologies.  Hopefully, though, you’re self aware and understand the banality coursing through your first and last name.  But take solace, Juan.  At least John Smith was a famous explorer who…