Tag: cashmoney

New Father Brogging, #018

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been a little bit in the pits lately, and it’s one of those situations where I think about the things that are making me feel down, and they bring me down more, and starts this cycle of negative thinking that only gets gradually worse and worse if I don’t talk about it and admit that I’m feeling a little depressed.

Firstly, by no means necessary is any of my recent funk on account of my precious baby child doing anything wrong; if anything at all, she’s the one steady and greatest and brightest thing in my life, as should not really be of a surprise, and frankly, my only woes in regards to my child is that I feel guilty that I’m not enjoying my paternity time as much as I probably should.

Sure, I’d love to be able to take her out of the house and go and see things, but in in the coronavirus-addled world we live in, such isn’t necessarily a good idea, not to mention the feed and nap routine we’re trying to constantly reinforce doesn’t exactly make it convenient to leave the house and expect to enjoy ourselves and be back at the bassinet approximately two hours later.  But there are admittedly times in which I feel like I’m failing as a father, by not always having an idea or things to do with my child, and I’m always worried that I’m boring her or not stimulating her enough to where that budding developing brain is actually growing.

I don’t handle with particular stresses very well, and in the case of my house, which has had some recent issues due to the bipolar Georgia weather, I’m frustrated and aggravated at how long and how much it’s going to cost to get things fixed, and if I stop and think about all the moving parts in play, it tends to get me all anxious with annoyance, which doesn’t help.

To boil it down, my skylight issue was an easy solve, since that was basically a $430 caulk job that has prevented further moisture from getting in, but the window issue I’m having, is going to be substantially more, and I’m in this situation where I’m wondering if I had hired an actual window company from the onset instead of assuming it was just a simple caulk job here too, and hiring a handyman, would’ve saved me a tremendous amount of time, money and aggravation, instead of the route that I’m on right now.  But because I’ve already committed, I’m doing myself a favor and not finding out, because if it turns out to be a substantial savings on all accounts, I’m just going to end up way more perturbed than I already am.

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Now that’s how to protest

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Seems unprecedented: in the midst of the NBA playoffs, the Milwaukee Bucks boycott their game 5 matchup against the Orlando Magic, in protest of the shooting of an unarmed black man by the police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, prompting the NBA to cancel all games for the day

To my friends, I first made the obvious, low-hanging fruit joke about how the Bucks did the Magic a favor and kept them alive for one more day, seeing as how they were up 3-1 in the best of seven and were probably going to close out the series tonight, but the reality is, I’m actually pretty cool with what the Bucks did.

Far too often, we see celebrities and professional athletes talk a big game about the reach they have and they say a lot of meaningful things on Twitter about how change is needed, black lives mattering, and all sorts of political statements.  But after they hit send, they put their phones down, and then go back to making movies, music, or putting on jerseys and playing sports, for millions and millions of dollars that they make for themselves, and billions and billions of dollars for the people they work for.  And when the day is over, nothing happens, and this perpetual cycle of humanity failing continues on until the next tragic events causes everything to start all over again.

As long as life goes on, there’s little reason for anyone to stop what they’re doing and try and make any changes, of any size or magnitude.  But when the machine is abruptly killed when it is expecting to be churning at its maximum capacity, people will undoubtedly have to stop and look and wonder what the fuck is going on; and that’s precisely what the Milwaukee Bucks did, when they actually did boycott a pivotal and meaningful nationally televised basketball game.  Make no mistake, the rest of the NBA’s games of the day were cancelled in response and attempt to show solidarity, but this doesn’t happen if one team doesn’t make the first move, and that’s undoubtedly the Bucks.

I also love that it was the Bucks that did it, and it’s obvious why the team from Wisconsin did it, but I just think back to when the Bucks were the bottom dwellers of the NBA and that’s all I can ever think of the Milwaukee Bucks, despite the fact that nowadays, they’ve got a ten-foot tall all-star and are basically the best team in the entire league.

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Why are homes made out of wood?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Seriously, honest question.  Why are homes made out of wood?  A flimsy, degradable material that is so susceptible to the elements, that has pretty definitive expiration conditions.  Especially when there’s a world of materials out there that aren’t nearly as vulnerable?

Naturally, with a query like that, it stands to believe that I’ve gone through some sort of negative experience, to which is affirmative.  We’ve had some gnarly rain, and at one point, hail, and then suddenly, there are two places in my house that started leaking.  A skylight in the sunroom breached at first, leading me to put down some buckets to catch water, and what started as one corner that was leaking eventually turned into three corners, leading to my disgust and aggravation. 

Naturally, at the time in which all this occurred, there’s little sense in trying to call anyone since it’s not really an emergency, so I went on with my day, just very annoyed.

And then I heard the dripping; at first, I thought I left my kitchen faucet slightly on, but it turned out that the light fixture above my sink was dripping water.  Worse off, there was a bunch of dripping along the window frame in front of the sink, and thinking quickly, I put a bunch of little Tupperware containers to catch the water, since they fit on the sill, but it was unmistakable, that there was a second breach in my house.

Long story short, I tracked it down to some angled windows in my master bathroom on the second floor, where moisture was seeping in through either aged seals or rotting wood, and trickling down behind the walls and into my kitchen.  Also seeping through some cracks in the tile in the master bathroom itself too.  But it was clear to where it was coming from.

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A microcosm of American idealogy

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Honestly, I’m surprised it’s taken this long: Cleveland Indians demote pitchers Mike Clevinger and Zach Plesac for disciplinary reasons AKA they went out at night while on the road instead of adhering to a team-wide curfew and safely containing themselves at the team’s hotel and lied about their actions, putting the entire team at exposure risk to coronavirus

At the time I’m writing, this, the Cleveland Indians are 4th place in the American League, and regardless of the expansion of the playoff field, they’d have been at least, playing for the Wild Card, even if it weren’t.  They’re a playoff team, right now.  It’s extraordinarily difficult to get into the playoffs in MLB, as prior to this year’s expansion, typically only five teams make the playoffs, with the bottom two requiring a play-in game to become eligible for a best-of series.

A lot of the Indians’ success has been on the arms of Clevinger and Plesac, whom have been both pitching decently in a year where everyone is a little off-kilter due to the uncertainty of the year.  But it says a lot about the makeup of a team, when a team is without hesitation willing to jettison two starting pitchers because of breaking the rules.

Because it’s not even so much about the rules as much as it was the fact that two guys needlessly and selfishly put themselves over the rest of the team, and furthermore raised the potential for coronavirus exposure, especially when pretty much every single franchise in MLB has had at least some player or personnel exposed at some point already.  Fortunately, both tested negative, but that’s really besides the point.

It should be mentioned that the Indians also have a player who is a leukemia survivor, which is of course outstanding, but also means that he’s immunocompromised, and is at higher risk of contracting coronavirus if exposed.

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Nope.  Never saw it coming

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Four games.  That’s all it took for the 2020 Major League Baseball season to have its first cancellations on account of a coronavirus breakout, as the Miami Marlins are the first team to have an outbreak of COVID-19 cases, after 20+ team personnel test positive.  Effective immediately, numerous home games were cancelled for both themselves, as well as the Phillies, the last team they played prior to the announcement, and MLB will have a great time trying to figure out how to re-work all these cancelled games into their already abbreviated 60-game season.

Honestly, it’s about as surprising as finding out that dogs like to sniff butts that this happened so quickly.  Frankly, I’m surprised it didn’t take two games before the first cases started to happen, but then again considering MLB said that testing would only take place every other day, who’s to say it didn’t, but then there was a grace period of a day in between?

Anyway, this is just a microcosm of how fun the rest of this season is going to become, because as far as I can tell, from what I’ve heard is that there will be many more double-headers played this year to accommodate the crunch of games, and much like the Toronto Blue Jays will have to endure, since the entire country of Canada basically won’t let them back in, many of them will have re-jiggered to where the opposite team will be designated as the home teams, on the road.  I guess when there are no fans in the stands, it definitely makes the venues feel a little bit more neutral, but baseball players are neurotic weirdoes sometimes, so who knows how they’ll react to batting last in someone else’s ballparks.

Oh, and the double-header games will all be 7-inning games – just like in the minor leagues, which is an appropriate comp at this point, considering how bush league the season is becoming.

SO, this just opens up the door more for the possibility of some wonky seasons; I hope by the time we’re nearing the end of the 60-game season, the Seattle Mariners will clinch the AL West in Houston, where they’re the home team against the Astros at Minute Maid Park, and some guy from their taxi squad hits a walk-off homerun.  It would be the perfect beginning of their playoff run to their inevitable World Series date with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

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If only I could’ve held out for another year

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I haven’t really paid much attention to cars in a while, especially since I’d just gotten a new one less than a year ago, and that whole having-a-baby thing kind of tends to take mental capacity away from just about everything else in the galaxy for the vast majority of our waking lives.  But my Apple News feed randomly spit out this article about a Nissan electric car with an attractive looking thumbnail so I clicked it, and then I’m staring at my screen with a not bad look on my face at the Nissan Ariya, that’s supposedly going to hit the United States in 2021, and there’s a piece of me thinking damn, if I could’ve only held out for one more year.

And it’s not like I couldn’t have; my old Kia Forte was still running fine, and at “just” 150,000 miles, I probably could’ve easily gone longer, especially with the sheer lack of driving that’s been done during this fucking coronavirus pandemic keeping smart people like me sheltered in place more often than not.  I just simply wanted a new car, and I wanted a bigger car, because a baby was on the way, and it would’ve behooved me to be ready with a larger and more comfortable vehicle for my pregnant wife and then-eventual kid.

But if I were able to hold out for another year, then most definitely the Nissan Ariya would’ve been in the conversation, when I would be looking for a new car.  I used to always be dubious about electric cars, because of their supposed mileage range per charge, but considering my new car now and most Tesla Model 3’s typically range 280-300 miles per charge, and there’s really not a tremendous difference.  The real angst lies in the scenario of taking an electric car out on a road trip, and running out of juice with no idea of where to get more, in the middle of the night.

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This is really the state of America in 2020

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

No matter how much I never liked to admit to feeling it, now that the faucet’s been turned, it seems like not a day goes by where the words don’t pass through my lips, and it doesn’t make me feel any better verbalizing it now as it did when I first came to the realization that right now, America sucks.

Talking with a friend about the state of the world, I found myself saying things that I’d never said before in regards to how I felt, mostly because I’ve been isolated, and mythical wife and I try not to talk about things too much because they really are that depressing, but what came out of my fingers in text is that I don’t think it’s ever felt so physically possible to feel just how much our country is letting us down, the way America is completely and utterly failing the American people on a daily basis right now.

It really is becoming impossible to keep up with all the ways things are fucked up, at least for me, who likes to jot down notes on a daily basis so I can remember the things happening in history for another day, especially in case I feel inspired to write about them at some point.  But it’s downright sad and pathetic the things that emerge on a daily basis about the state of America in the state of the world currently, and I realize that it becomes a little more difficult every day to not grow more jaded and nihilistic about how things are, which are definitely things I don’t want to be happening when I’m in a period of my life where I’m trying to enjoy and savor the time of new fatherhood and spending time with my baby.

It’s kind of not fair that America is in such chaos and forced to hunker, when all I want to do is show my kid the great big world and can’t, because neither of us want to get the coronavirus that’s fucking everywhere and risk our lives.

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