Tag: observations

SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As much of a sports fan as I am, it’s not often a topic that I really feel that compelled to write about that often these days.  I’m pretty far removed from following anything beyond a casual level, so it really take some pretty interesting things to pique my interest for me to want to write about it.

However, in the span of a weekend, three things happened and I was just kind of like oh shit, that’s something that’s interesting.  And of course they all happened within basically the same weekend, and I was out of town, so it’s not like they were anything I could take note of and/or write about right away, as if I would’ve had any free time to begin with.  But regardless, I figured I’d just make one big dick swinging sports post and knock all three birds with a single stone.

Mavs 123, Suns 90 – keep in mind that this was a game 7 of an NBA Playoff game.  I feel like I make a post about this topic every year, because it seems like every single year there’s at least one tragically embarrassing blowout game in the playoffs, which often makes me beg the question that how are NBA playoff-caliber teams getting eviscerated so badly?

To my understanding, the Mavs were up by over 40 points at one point in the game, and all I could really think that this is mostly the same Phoenix Suns team that went to the finals last year, but here they are getting trounced in the semis, in a game 7 no less, the epitome of the clutch, pivotal, where you make your money pressure cooker game. 

But instead of being a nail-biter, double overtime thriller where two talented teams refuse to budge, we have this embarrassing display of defeatism and the embodiment of giving up, which is a fair metaphor for today’s NBA itself, and the Mavs move on, while the perpetually overrated Suns begin the golf season at around the time they’re used to.

Throwing a no-hitter but still losing – this year’s Cincinnati Reds is an interesting squad.  The franchise commenced to have a fire sale and trade off just about everyone on the squad who would make over the league minimum save for first baseman Joey Votto (who respectfully became an American citizen but probably regrets it if his occupation requires him to stay on the Cincinnati Reds), and they’ve been absolutely dreadful throughout the first month of the year.

I think at one point there were like 4-17, and all I could think about was how two of those paltry four wins, came against the Braves, who aren’t exactly doing a particularly good job of defending their World Series championship in life after Freddie which I’m not still salty about not.

But then they suffer one of the harshest ways to lose a game, in which their starting pitcher literally throws a no-hitter, and they still somehow manage to lose the game.  It’s funny because I remembered the last time this happened, which was a game between the Dodgers and Angels, where the Angels no-hit the Dodgers but still lost the game.  It’s a rare occurrence and the very embodiment of failure, and I don’t think there’s going to be a more futile moment in the season for the Reds than this particular game.

Albert Pujols… pitching – Speaking of the Angels, when they released Albert Pujols in 2021, to me it was a foregone conclusion that he was headed back to the Cardinals.  Sure, it didn’t happen as immediately as I figured it would, but with the DH becoming the norm in 2022, there was absolutely no reason why the Cardinals and Pujols couldn’t reunite for the sad but melancholy but feel-good story of legend returning to where it started to finish out the career, but in the case of Pujols, not on a one-day contract, but as an actual active player.

But as is the case with lots of guys at the twilights of their careers, Pujols is definitely in it to have fun above all else.  And what better way to unwind and have some fun in a game where the Cardinals were already up by nearly 20 runs, than to take the mound himself and let everyone enjoy the fun of position player pitching?

And of course, it was as entertaining as the joy of position player pitching typically is.  Pujols was all smiles and laughter, and even the San Francisco Giants became tolerable as they took enjoyment of the situation.  The funny thing is that if this were 10-14 years earlier, I would’ve expected Pujols to pitch like Pedro because why wouldn’t the greatest player of a generation know how to pitch as well?  But instead, we have old Pujols, lobbing 55 mph lollipops, and just trying to get hitters to get themselves out; and naturally he gives up four runs in the process, but at this point who really cares?

The once demi-god was clearly having a great time, humbly getting knocked around, and the Cardinals still won the game, so no skin off anyone’s backs there.  And for a single half-inning, I think everyone could agree that baseball was never more fun than watching Albert Pujols pitching.

Getting a Peach Pass was one of the best choices I’ve ever made

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ve noticed that the more I get older, the more monetary value I put on my time. 

I still reminisce about a story quite some time ago when mythical then-girlfriend and I were at Epcot and in typical Florida fashion, it started pouring.  As we were leaving the park, unsurprisingly there was a massive line of people waiting for the complimentary shuttle back to the hotel.  I said fuck that, and immediately hailed an Uber, and it turned out that an Uber was right there and picked up the fare as they had just dropped someone off.  Ten minutes and ten dollars later, we were back at the hotel where we could dry off, clean up and settle in for a relaxing evening, instead of the likely hour we’d have had to have waited just to not have to pay for transport.

That shit happened maybe seven years ago, and I still look back fondly at that memory as a good example of how much I value my time over money.

Anyway, I recently got a PeachPass, which is Georgia’s equivalent of a FastPass, SunPass, or whatever Pass exists in your states that basically allows the driver to hop into lanes of lesser traffic for a flexible fee, effectively having monetized the ability to buy your way into lesser traffic.

I used to abhor the idea of the PeachPass or any sort of FastPass in general, because it’s a flagrant cash grab by whatever region it’s implemented in, and a poor excuse to avoid having to build mass transit or any other superior infrastructure.  Clearly though, the judgment of myself and anyone else who might’ve felt similarly isn’t ever going to change things, and as I said, as I’ve gotten older, the more I’m willing to pay in order to save myself some time.

So I got a PeachPass, primarily because there was the possibility that mythical wife and I were going to go to drive down to Florida for a Disney trip, and as it is compatible with Florida’s SunPass system, and we could’ve avoided the obnoxious tolls in the Orlando area.  But also because Gwinnett County exists, and I hoped having a PeachPass would help give us the option to nope the fuck out of the perpetual traffic going north or south, whenever we visit the family in South Carolina.

Anyway, coming back from a trip to Savannah, there was some build up starting to form on the south end of the city.  And fewer things suck than getting hit with traffic on the tail end of a road trip, especially the magnitude of Atlanta’s jurassic traffic.  But lo and behold, at this stretch of I-75 had a set of express lanes, that happened to be headed in my direction, so there was no better time like this present to break in my new PeachPass.  I jumped into the express lanes, and for the next 6-8 miles, watched with the most smug and satisfied glee, as I soared past the congestion going 70 miles an hour.  And it cost me, $2.22, for saving maybe 10 minutes of time and a whole lot more in aggravation and annoyance.

I genuinely felt as if I could chub up from such immense satisfaction, and much to the feined dismay of mythical wife, my reference to Colin Robinson’s euphoric joy at watching the community board meeting devolve, as an accurate analogy to how I felt having just PeachPass’d my way past a logjam, was met with rolling eyes.

Seriously though, I may have had to have paid actual money for this bullshit system, but god as my witness, it was one of the best $2.22 I’ve ever spent.

I look forward to other opportunities in the future, and hope that I’ll again experience the utmost joy and smug satisfaction of PeachPassing the fuck past some stupid bullshit traffic in another time.  One of the best decisions I’ve made in a while.

Dad Brog #086: The perils of private in-home childcare

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Due to the never-ending pandemic that we live in, I’ve had a private nanny since #1 was eight months old.  Frankly, sending my immunocompromised first child to regular daycare among children whose individual household dynamics were mysteries to us was out of the question, so the only option that my household was left with in order to have childcare while mythical wife and I worked our respective jobs, was to hire a nanny.

For the duration of a single-child household, it worked out great; one nanny with one child is pretty easy-peasy as far as the circumstances are considered.  I could focus on my job, which was really helpful as it was deteriorating pretty rapidly throughout the start of the pandemic.

But then #2 came into the picture and things became a little more chaotic, as to no surprise, when the ratio of children balances away from 1:1, anyone’s attention becomes harder to divert between multiple children, and it’s just harder in general.  I often times was away from my keys in order to help out the nanny, and it was always a balancing act to make sure that double duty was as minimal as possible, which is a little ironic considering just how often I am on double duty on a regular basis but I am their biological father so why wouldn’t I be?

Eventually, things ceased to work out with my original nanny, and they did leave us high and dry at a very inconvenient and critical point.  Fortunately, we were able to bounce back fairly quickly and find another nanny to come in and take over, which brings us to current times that are somewhat more stable and if anything at all, I’m just glad that my kids have someone reliable to take care of them while I’m working.

However, to the point of this particular dad brog post, as nice as it is to have in-home care, and the peace of mind at knowing that my kids aren’t picking up every variant of coronavirus while at daycare and bringing it home, it’s not entirely perfect either.  Namely, the part where if a private nanny calls in sick or is ever out for any particular reason, I’m the one who is getting boned and has to eat the time off work in order to cover.  Mythical wife being a teacher and all, and teachers having extremely rigid and inflexible workdays, she can’t exactly turn on a dime and come home to take care of the kids at a moment’s notice, so that responsibility falls onto me.

I’m not going to sugar coat it either, it sucks.  Royally.  Every time that either of my nannies have called in sick, I’ve been the one who has had to take it on the chin and tell my jobs that I have to in turn bone my work, to where I’m either burning PTO, or I’m being a complete flake with my work, and then working in the evening to make up for the not working during the day.

The worst part is that as I’ve alluded to in the past, my kids are getting sick every month this year regardless of the fact that I have in-home care.  I go to the office a few days a week, mythical wife works at a school surrounded by children whom we have no idea if their parents are vaccinated or not, and 2022 seems to be the year where all the colds, flus and other sicknesses that were avoided in 2020-2021 are coming back with a vengeance.

At this point, I’m kind of over the lack of accountability and being the only one punished when my childcare goes down, that I’m leaning towards sending my kids off to daycare.  They’re getting sick all the same now, that I may as well start trying to get my children socialized and used to other human beings so they’re not complete social invalids growing up.  If I’m already paying daycare prices for private care, I might as well be able to not have to destroy myself whenever something comes up.

I love having personalized childcare, but I’m disliking just a little bit more, the repercussions of when said childcare calls out sick.  My work struggles, and as important as my kids are, I still need to have my job in order to support my family, and seeing as how I’m still within my first year, I don’t want to develop a reputation of being the guy that’s unreliable and constantly using his kids as the excuse.

In praise of Miguel Cabrera’s quietly good career

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Hearing about Miguel Cabrera’s closing in on 3,000 hits, my mind at first was a little surprised that he was at that stage of his career, seeing as how I still feel like it was yesterday that this spry thin third baseman for the then-Florida Marlins was showing off impressive power for his age.  But when I actually put more than five minutes of thought behind it, I realize that it’s really of no surprise at all that he’s at this stage of his career, because basically there’s never been any season where Miguel Cabrera has played where he has been an ineffective hitter.

Even way back, I always had pegged Miggy as a guy that would probably be an MVP-caliber guy, seeing as how he broke into the majors at like 20 years old.  But the thing is, he showed up at a time where guys like Albert Pujols and Alex Rodriguez were the marquee hitters of MLB, and sluggers like Barry Bonds, Vladimir Guerrero and Frank Thomas were still around.  It was easy for a guy like Miguel Cabrera to kind of get lost in the shuffle.

But nearly 20 years later, most of those guys are gone, be it through retirement, collusion, age, degradation of skills or any combination of the above.  Albert Pujols is the only guy still active, and he’s at the twilight of his career where he’s doing his farewell tour for the team that brought him into the world, after a pretty unimpressive contract with the Angels.

And Miguel Cabrera is still around; although age is catching up to him, taking some power away, he’s still hitting the ball for a decent average in a period of the game where batting averages are bordering on historically bad.  Honestly, my knee-jerk thoughts were wondering on where Cabrera stood on possibly being the greatest of all-time, or just the best player for a generation, but clearly I’ve been not paying enough attention to the numbers or the game in general, and upon a closer examination, the last few years haven’t been as kind to him as I thought they might have been.

All the same, I felt like writing some words in appreciation of Miguel Cabrera.  Father Time might have grabbed him by the scruff five years ago, but up to that point, the guy was probably on track to be as good as Hank Aaron from a consistently great standpoint.  And I think it’s still safe to put Miggy on the pedestal of possibly being the greatest player of his generation, because when you look at his personal accomplishments throughout his career, there’s only some really snug and exclusive company in numerous categories: Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Albert Pujols.

But when you factor in the fact that Miguel Cabrera has hit for the triple-crown (traditional and the geeky sabermetric) on top of everything else, that literally puts him in a category of his own; Triple-crown winner, MVP, 3,000 hits and 500 home runs. 

Statisticians tend to poorly favor those who decline quickly, like Cabrera has been over the last five years, which will likely take him out of the GOAT debates, but there’s no mistaking that with his body of work and all his achievements throughout his career, Miggy’s name definitely deserves to be mentioned frequently as one of the GOATs.  It’s just hard to imagine that in a game rich with history and numbers, that my generation would be one to have been able to witness and watch one of them rise, thrive and produce throughout his career.

Why I’m the only guy in the office still wearing a mask

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Both my kids are sick now.  Still possible that I caused it, but also some reason to believe it might not have been me.  Either way, strep was brought to them somehow, and obviously through basic transmission of germs.

But this is why I still mask up, even if in doing so, it’s still not foolproof at protecting my famiry.  I went all of 2020 with not even a common cold and it was glorious.  But as time progressed, people selfishly got sick of masks and arrogantly believed a vaccine made them invincible, sure as the sun rises, the common sicknesses that nobody got in 2020 were waiting around and it’s been a fucking war zone since.

Literally, a night nurse at the hospital #2 was born at got my wife and newborn baby sick, who immediately passed it onto #1 as soon as we got home.  That was real fun, dealing with a house full of sick people, among them a literal newborn.

2022 literally started with coronavirus infiltrating my house, where mythical wife got it, and although untested, myself and #1 probably had it too.  Amazingly, #2 seemed to escape unscathed.

And since then, I think it’s accurate to say that one or both of my kids have been sick every single month of this year.  Coincidentally, mask mandates are relaxing all over the country, and Georgia was full of yeah cmon hicks who already began ditching them, and shocker, fucking sicknesses are goddamn everywhere.

And when my kids get sick, I’m the one who has to eat the load and work from home and compromise my work responsibilities and often times run double duty on the girls.  I’m the only one who’s work suffers and the backlog usually ends up with me working into the evenings and/or having to rush and be at higher risk of shoddy work.

I’m just sick of my kids getting sick.  It’s by no fault of their own, they’re just kids.  I blame the fucking world around us full of arrogant and selfish assholes who can’t be bothered to wear masks in public, happily content with spreading two years worth of backlogged colds and other niggling ailments that everyone is spreading and getting all the fucking time.

I refuse to feel like the outcast in public because I choose to wear a mask still.  It may not be fool proof at preventing sicknesses but I’m doing the best I can to try to protect all my girls, even if it makes me seem like the outlier that was just barely months ago, the norm.

Poor Randall Park

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Impetus: Comedienne Ali Wong announces divorce, internet reports on it, repeatedly uses photos of Wong with Randall Park instead of her actual husband because arr rook same

At this point, there’s little else I could add to the fires of THAT’S RACIST because yo that shit is racist, and the rampantly white media continues to be just completely inept and incapable of differentiating between Asian people.

What I really wanted to write about is how much it must suck to be Randall Park, because no matter how much work he does, no matter how much exposure he gets, it doesn’t matter if he got into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in WandaVision, or gets to work with The Rock in Young Rock, or has spent six seasons doing Fresh Off the Boat; people just can’t seem to differentiate him from other Asian people in the public eye, be it getting mistaken for Raymond Lee or Ali Wong’s husband, neither of whom he looks anything like, but I’m also Asian and can tell my fellow yellow brethren apart better than white folks can.

Yeah, it’s got to get old and exasperating the fact that it keeps happening, and I’d bet it gets harder and harder for Park or any other minorities to constantly be expected to take the high road and say rhetoric about microaggressions and teachable moments, when all they really want to say is that white people can go fuck themselves for their hollow apologies and arrogance that they can continuously keep getting away with it.  Like Parade and MSN can go fuck themselves for either not fact checking or having white editors who are just as colorblind as the shitfucks writing these fluff pieces in the first place.

Sure, it’s easy to try and spin this as Randall Park being so famous that he’s the go-to Asian to be continuously be mistaken for, but that would be an excuse whiter than Duke’s lacrosse team.  Let’s stop saying ‘do better’ and start saying what we really want to say whenever this racist mistaken identity continues to happen: fuck you.

Dad Brog (#083): My child is like the IRS

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

#2 has entered the stage in life in which we have introduced solid foods into her diet, and are easing her into the world of food that’s available to the world.  We’re trying to expose her to a wide gamut of flavors and all the food groups, as well as testing for allergies and sensitivities and hoping that she’ll not have all of dad’s dietary weaknesses like her big sister has inherited (lactose, eggs).

As hoped, it is going as well as it did with my first child, and #2 is eating most things without that much difficulty.  She’s clearly not a fan of tart and sour flavors, hopefully this will pass, but anything with a degree of tart to its flavor profile hasn’t gone over as well as some of the other things. 

One critical win that we seemed to have gotten is that she doesn’t seem to be as nearly sensitive to eggs like her sister is, or her dad is.  With bated breath, we’ve given her egg whites to which she’s been able to digest and not result in projectile vomit and diarrhea, but I did notice that she did get a little bit of skin issues where the egg might have touched around her mouth.

But overall though, so far so good.

You’d think though, with as many calories and solid food that she’s consuming, and increasing on a gradual basis, the need for mother’s milk would dwindle, right?  Prior to solid foods, she was consuming nearly 30 ounces of breast milk a day which is roughly around 600 calories.  Now that we’ve introduced solids, we’re not micromanaging her exact caloric intake, but she’s probably getting close to 400 calories a day on solids alone, independent of milk consumption.

Sure, growing babies need to eat to grow, but mythical wife and I thought that her need for milk would take a step back with those calories perhaps being replaced by actual solid food.

NOPE.

#2 is still slamming 30 oz of milk a day, and by god almighty if she doesn’t get her 30 oz of milk by the day’s end, it is absolute hell for us to pay, by virtue of repeatedly waking up and screaming bloody murder until the milk debt of the day is paid.

Like today, she’s eaten a pancake, a slice of turkey, cheddar, grapes, grilled chicken and various fruits.  More than she’s eaten in previous days.  As the day was winding down, the milk count on the day was closer to 15 oz than it was 30, but her temperament hadn’t really been altered, and she was in pretty good spirits throughout her awake time.

At the time I’m writing this, she’s woken up three times, and has not gone back down without another bottle.  Just like that, she’s back up to 27 oz, and she’ll be ripe and ready for her 30 by the time we do our final nightcap bottle.

So basically, she’s like the IRS when she doesn’t get her 30 oz on the day.  She will go to the ends of the earth to make your life hell and basically hold you and your time hostage until the milk debts are paid off.