Five Things on a Friday: We're Using BookFunnel, Friends

Good morning and happy Friday, everyone. I hope you all had a decent week, but even if you didn't, it's Friday now. Wahoo!

The Black Knights have a monster game this week down in Tulsa, Oklahoma, tonight. I mention it because I'm super-excited about it, obviously, but also because I was really happy with the work I did over at As For Football this week as well. With James out learning to fly a new airplane, I've had to do both the Preview and the Keys to Victory for the last two weeks, and I felt like this week's Preview in particular came out really well. Go check that out if you want to see the kind of writing that earned us a following back in the day.

With that out of the way, let's get into it.

AFF Lifestyle #1: Football, R-Day, & Robots

Are there people who follow me here who don't follow AFF? I've wondered for awhile. Granted, I don't necessarily post a lot here anymore.

Anyway, the new show is up. We wound up doing about half of it on off-season Army Football news, schedule analysis, and Mailbag questions. For the rest, we talked about AI!

I'm still wondering if we're eventually gonna get cancelled because of this show, but I was really happy with it, so I'm sharing it.

6 Things on a Sunday: Dragon’s Lair + Free Wrestling

I’ve been working on this post since the middle of last week, but without my regular commute rides on the train, my writing schedule is out-of-whack.  Also, the COVID-19 outbreak has gotten so bad that making jokes about it isn’t really in good taste anymore.

Happy Hour at Casa Cabeza in the era of COVID-19.

Well.  Let’s do it.

5 Things on a Friday: Trying to Move On

Back to work this week.  It hasn’t been an easy transition, and yet here we are.

I hope you all enjoyed your time off.  I know I did.  I already miss skiing.

#SBRLLR: Afterword

My wife Sally and I conceived this book as a joint project.  We wanted to show off our partnership as one of the world’s great love affairs.  I gradually came to realize, though, that Sally doesn’t quite have the time to write a whole book about her formative years, and even if she did, the resulting two-volume biography would read like The Winds of War.  Part of me still wants to do it that way, but I wonder who would read two hundred thousand words about a couple who are not famous and not looking to become famous.  

It seems like a tough sell.

#SBRLLR: Choosing Something Real (Part 1)

“Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

― President Abraham Lincoln

My buddy Joe rescued me in the way that only an old Army buddy can.

Joe and I had met back at Ft. Knox.  The Armor Captain’s Career Course ended with a capstone exercise, a brigade defense fought via computer battle simulation.  The event was primarily a staff exercise for which we were divided into four notional armor battalions with me and Joe serving as the leads on the same notional staff.  I served as our battalion’s operations officer, developing tactics and drafting the bulk of our group’s tactical orders.  Joe ran the staff itself as battalion XO.

#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.

#SBRLLR: Firstie (Part 2)

A lot of guys stayed in Europe following the staff ride, but I caught a flight back to Rhode Island and spent my time laying on Newport Beach with my girlfriend Marla.  Alas, we didn’t have much longer as a couple.  She’d decided to head to California for college.  We made the most of what we had, however, and we parted without regrets.  In another life, our relationship might’ve had legs.  At the ages of eighteen and twenty-one, respectively, neither of us wanted anything permanent.  We held tight to what we had, though, and if we parted mostly without tears, this was only possible because each of us realized that we had the rest of our lives ahead of us.

5 Things on a Friday: Pics from Our Camping Trip

We're back from vacation today, having spent a few days camping up by Lake George.  It was much cooler up there, but we got rained on a few times.  The trip was a lot of fun, but I'm sort of enjoying being back, too.

How was your week?  Good?

#SBRLLR: Firstie (Part 1)

" I, ___, having been appointed an officer in the Army of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of Second Lieutenant, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter;. So help me God.”

― U.S. Army Officers’ Commissioning Oath

I met my counsellor at the end of cow year to again discuss my options.  He’d been happy to see me the last time, but this time he looked a little more serious.

Army Football Preview: What's the "So What?"

I posted the following to a few of my social networks this week and was a bit surprised by some of the responses.

Thinking about doing one more #ArmyFootball season preview post. Topics so far:
—Tailoring the offense to the new QB
—Parking & traffic flow

What else?

— Danno E. Cabeza (@Dan_T_Head) July 12, 2018

#SBRLLR: Duty - Honor - Country (Part 4)

While I’d been a yearling, my father had served as the Operations Officer (G-3) of the Third Marine Division, located in Okinawa, Japan.  Call sign “Warlord.”  He went a little crazy.  Drank the way they used to drink back in the 1960s and 70s and kept a full-time in-house mama-san³⁵ among many other personal indulgences.  He remained one of the best operational planners in the Corps, but his time at Special Operations Command had put a serious dent into whatever commitment he’d once had for “clean living”.  By himself overseas, my father degenerated into a legitimate party animal.

#SBRLLR: Duty - Honor - Country (Part 3)

I passed all of my classes, even Russian, but that semester was hardly a tour de force of academic excellence.  I pulled out a B- in Russian and C+ is Statistics, earning a grade point average of exactly 3.0, even with an A+ in “German History from 1848 to 1945.”  With that, I squeaked onto the Dean’s List.  I was still on track to become a second lieutenant.  

That was good enough.

#SBRLLR: Duty - Honor - Country (Part 2)

We marched back from Camp Buckner a day before the plebes returned from Lake Frederick, and in no time, my classmates and I settled back into Academic Year rhythms.  I watched my own plebe struggle through Reorganization Week, eventually pulling him aside that Friday afternoon as my own team leader had done with me the previous year.

“Cangolosi!  Go take a shower right now!  That’s an order!”

#SBRLLR: Duty - Honor - Country (Part 1)

“Duty-Honor-Country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, and what you will be. They are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn."

― General Douglas MacArthur

Swim season ended with the Patriot League Championships, and suddenly I didn’t know what to do with myself.  A handful of swimmers also played on West Point’s water polo team, and although I knew that my playing polo might raise eyebrows with the swim team’s coaching staff, I found myself wanting to throw the ball around more than I wanted to participate in the swim team’s anemic offseason training program.

#SBRLLR: Beast (Part 2)

My roommate John turned out to be a prior-service soldier who’d just finished a year at the Academy’s Prep School, getting his grades up so that he would be able to compete with a bunch of high school heroes once the Academic Year started.  If R-Day or Beast Barracks ever fazed John, I never saw any sign of it.  I don’t know if they put me with John because his last name was near mine alphabetically, or if somebody somewhere thought that maybe I would need a little extra help with some of West Point’s overarching military bullshit.  John was a huge help, and I was extremely grateful for it.  However, we came from radically different pre-Academy backgrounds, and so we didn’t hit it off immediately—not in a deeply personal way at any rate.  We got along well enough, but I think my shell-shocked military stupidity and ongoing emotional numbness must surely have tried John’s patience.  He was a few years older, and he’d already been through Basic Training and had served in the Regular Army.  The last thing he wanted, I can well imagine, was to deal with a barely eighteen-year-old newbie who didn’t know his head from his ass.  However, he taught me as much as he knew, and for that I was extremely fortunate.

Crunch: On Competition & the Value of Short Term Goals

I went skiing with my buddy Brian a few weeks ago.  Despite losing a day at Mount Snow to comically extensive airline delays, we wound up having a great time out at Okemo once we finally got out there.  We put in something like fifteen runs over the course of maybe five hours plus lunch.  It was enough that we staggered off the mountain at the end of it, exhausted but happy.  About the only thing that kept me awake on the drive home was Brian’s minute-by-minute updates on Army’s lacrosse game against perennial powerhouse Syracuse.

Six Things on a Saturday: Trying to Get Caught Up

I’ve had a busy week.  Did a lot happen while I was gone?

I actually have the day off!  Yay!!!

5 Things on a Friday: Not Going Back to Korea

Happy Friday, folks!

5 Things on a Friday: In Search of Happiness

We took a couple of weeks off, but now we’re back.  I hope you missed us.

Happy Friday!