5 Things on a Friday: Wrestlemania, the AEW, & the XFL

There’s no sports since the outbreak of COVID-19, but there’s still some sports entertainment, and in a pinch, that’ll have to do.  Truth is, it’s been a good, long time since I was more than a cursory fan of pro-wrestling.  But if you’ve known me long enough, then maybe you’ll remember that time I was a pro-wrestling super-fan.

My grandfather introduced me to pro-wrestling back in the late 1970s, and yeah, I marked out to Hulk Hogan like the rest of my cohort back in the 1980s.  However, it wasn’t until I got married to a girl I’d met at my folks’ hometown church in 1995 in the tiny town of Tullahoma, Tennessee, that my interest in wrestling turned into anything like a genuine personal interest.  I’d been a casual fan like a lot of folks, but once Misty and I walked down the aisle, shit got real.

5 Things on a Friday: Notes from Quarantine

People are dying, and that’s bad.  It’s also not something that many of us can do much to fix.  We’re all locked in isolation, having seen vacations cancelled and lives put on hold.  Yes, the tragedies are tragic.  However, we still have to find a way to move forward in our lives and make each day count for whatever it can.

Manhattan

This week’s post is about that experience, for whatever it’s worth.  I’d love to hear what’s going on with others.

Public Service Announcement

My seasonal allergies have started acting up, and as you may imagine, it's making me paranoid as all Hell, especially since I work in Manhattan.  I've been on Metro-North pretty much all week.  Thankfully, no one in my family is at particular risk from COVID-19, but we are all quite anxious about getting the disease, having little-to-no symptoms, and passing it on to people who aren't as fortunate as we are.  That thought is making us all a little nutty.

In particular, I do not want to take the damned thing to work.  Seriously, if there's one thing I've learned these past 17+ years, it's that people in New York really need electricity.

So.  Amazingly, I found this on the Daily Mail website.  It's from the CDC, and it is totally useful. 

We've been taking our temperatures routinely around our house the past few days.

XFL Pics: NY Guardians vs. LA Wildcats

I don't know how many folks read my XFL recap yesterday.  Emma and I had a lot of fun despite the cold, but maybe my favorite part of the game was taking a bunch of football pics.  I started working on photography because I wanted to better express what it feels like to watch Army at Michie Stadium, and being at MetLife gave me the chance to practice my new favorite hobby in an athletic context.

I ran some of these as part of my recap.  Others got cut because I flat ran out of space.  Regardless, these were my favorites from the game.  The good thing about running them here is 1) I can talk a little more about them, and 2) I can spend a little more time considering the display in terms of size and aspect ratio.

As always, pics after the jump.

5 Things on a Friday: The ‘Stick to Sports’ Edition

With the State of the Union, impeachment, and every other thing going 24/7 on all the major new channels and Internet sites, we’ve decided to stick to sports here at Casa Cabeza.  Not because we don’t have opinions -- we definitely do have opinions -- but rather, because it feels very much like the best thing we can do collectively as a society is to just suck some of the air out of the room.  

EVERYTHING is politics, all the time.  It doesn’t feel like that’s helping.

For all the outrage, the actual Will of the People has become a forgotten concept.  No one cares what people actually think.  The only thing that matters is that we stay mad -- about anything.  It doesn’t matter what you’re angry about, just that you’re angry.  There are a million places to post an opinion, but just so we’re clear: NO ONE IS LISTENING.  We’re relevant only to the extent that we can be commoditized, and not one inch further than that.

Thankfully, it’s been an interesting sports week.

5 Things on a Friday: Titans, Jeter, Rush

By the time you read this, I will be on my out to Colorado to ski with my buddy Brian.  Yay!

Alright.  Let’s do it.

Goals for 2019

I refuse to call them "resolutions".

Saturday New & Notes: Beat Colgate!

Hey folks.  The Saturday Celebration posts weren't doing a lot over at AFF, so we tried something new and moved that particular discussion to Thursday.  I'm not sure it did any better on Thursday, but the end result freed up the Saturday spot here, and here we are.

Some of the stories I'm following this weekend are after the jump.

5 Things on a Friday: Did I Mention That It Snowed?

Happy Friday, folks.  We’re 'bout to get our weekend started right!

Thursday turned out to be a cold day in Hell.

#SBRLLR: Welcome to New York (Part 2)

It turned out that my new company had lost two complete substations, something like five hundred million dollars’ worth of equipment, and that this had blacked out Wall Street and much of Lower Manhattan.  We had one killed-in-action, Dick Morgan, a recently retired executive who’d been at the Trade Center that morning for a meeting with the Transit Authority.  I’d never met Mr. Morgan, but he was famed for being the only “nice guy” executive in the entire company.  For months afterwards, folks said, “They got the only good one.”

#SBRLLR: Welcome to New York (Part 1)

“Cut off as I am, it is inevitable that I should sometimes feel like a shadow walking in a shadowy world. When this happens I ask to be taken to New York City. Always I return home weary but I have the comforting certainty that mankind is real flesh and I myself am not a dream.”

―  Helen Keller, Midstream: My Later Life

I spent two weeks in temporary corporate housing while I familiarized myself with my new home.  They put me up in Jersey City, New Jersey, down by the PATH station near the banks of the Hudson River.  From there, I spent time exploring various parts of Manhattan and trying to decide where to live.  I toured Trump Tower, decided it was far too expensive for what it offered, and finally settled on a one-bedroom basement apartment in a brownstone in Hoboken.  My landlord turned out to be the local judge.  Her husband was a powerful corporate attorney working out of an office in Manhattan.

#SBRLLR: Loneliness

“Because you can’t trust freedom when it’s not in your hand,

when everybody’s fightin’ for the Promised Land…”

― Guns ‘n’ Roses, “Civil War”

I drove over the Kosciuszko Bridge and into the heart of urban New Jersey late in the afternoon on August 5, 2001.  After almost a year out of uniform, I’d been offered a job in New York City and—with some trepidation—had decided to accept. The drive up from Tennessee had seen me through the rolling farmland of western Virginia and rural Pennsylvania, but population had picked up steadily as I worked my way east.  Halfway through New Jersey I began seeing the unique urban cityscapes I remembered from my Academy days.  It wasn’t until I hit the bridge, though, that New York Harbor came into view alongside the Statue of Liberty and Liberty State Park.  The glass and steel skyscrapers of Manhattan’s skyline emerged when I crested the next rise, beckoning me forward as they have so many others looking for a fresh start.  

I was badly in need of one.

Quick Thoughts: Army 64, Fordham 6

My God, what a game!  I thought Army would win.  I did not think they would romp the Rams 64-6.  In fact, when we met for the group picture at halftime, guys were saying, “Hey, I thought you said these guys were good?”

1-0 ✔️ pic.twitter.com/ReXeSxkgT8

— Army WP Football (@ArmyWP_Football) September 2, 2017

5 Things on a Friday: A Day in New York City

Different format this week.  Sally and I took the girls to Midtown West for a day of sightseeing.  I think this was technically a part of Hell's Kitchen, so Hannah kept telling us to stay on the lookout for Daredevil.

I reminded her that Matt Murdock is a lawyer by day.

I had sushi tacos with fries and a beer yesterday for lunch.
Part of why I love New York.

There's a giant AT-AT in the Disney store in Times Square.  Who knew?

Yankee Stadium

My daughter Hannah and I went to the Yankee game on Sunday, the one where Aaron Judge hit the 496 foot home run that’s been playing on repeat on ESPN ever since.  I still don’t think of myself as an expert on the stadium or anything, but I’ve now been there a handful of times, both for baseball games and in 2014 to see Army football’s upset win over UConn during Coach Jeff Monken’s inaugural season.  I like Yankees Stadium, and for once I think I actually took enough pictures to tell a useful story about the place.

Hannah on the walk up to the stadium, aka The Cathedral of Baseball,
from Metro North.

5 Things on a Friday: It’s All Connected… Or Is It?

It’s mostly sports this week.  Except for the piece about the monster movies.

Learning Baseball: Early Season Thoughts

I’ve never been a big baseball fan.  But my first job in New York was as a construction supervisor in the Bronx, and that was enough to make me a casual fan of the New York Yankees at the tail end of their late-1990s heyday.  My wife Sally and I then started going to Bridgeport Bluefish games last year, and we really enjoyed ourselves.  One of the highlights of our sports year was renewing our wedding vows in front of the home crowd at the Ballpark at Harbor Yards, and in the months since, I’ve started to think of myself as an honest-to-God Bluefish Fan.  Which can be a frustrating experience in its own right, but the Bluefish at least have a top-flight beer garden right off the first base line.  

I try to keep my sports frustrations in perspective.

Rockin' the Chocker

Didn't realize this was a faux pas until Matt Lauer did it on the Today Show
and everybody went crazy.

5 Things on a Friday: Let's Hope We Make It to Star Wars

It’s kind of a good news, bad news sort of day.  

Bad news: the Son of Satan will be inaugurated later today as 45th President of the United States, beginning a process that will inevitably trigger World War III, the Apocalypse, and possibly the Rapture, depending on whether you believe in those sorts of things.  Even if you don’t, now might be a good time to start reading the Book of Revelations—for near-term investment advice—or to perhaps start praying for the future of humanity.  Your choice.

The 9/11 Memorial and Museum

After some debate, Sally and I decided to take the girls to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum as a last family outing before the end of the summer.  The Memorial is, of course, located on the former World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan just a few blocks north of Battery Park.  We went to Battery Park immediately before touring the memorial; the walk north went maybe ten blocks and took no more than fifteen minutes.  I hadn’t been down to that part of the City in ages and was amazed by all of the bike lanes and open space that now exists in Lower Manhattan.  It’s become a truly beautiful part of the New York.

The new World Trade Center building as seen from Battery Park.