My name and I made one bettor some green one Super Bowl Sunday.
I worked at the Hilton for Super Bowl XLII, between the yet unbeaten New England Patriots and New York Giants in 2008. A boisterous man, upon check-in, clapped his meaty hands together – Gator style, although I don’t know where he matriculated – when he saw my nametag.
“I’ve been wanting to bet on the Giants all day!” he broke his happy white-boy clapping to say. “Your name is Eli? This is a sign! I’m betting on the G-men!”
Hours later, the Giants, a 12-point underdog, pulled of a classic upset.
Continue reading “#AtoZChallenge: P is for Pacheco (Plus Random Thoughts on Names)”
At what age should you leave your kids alone at home? This slide rule could have a side for age, one for maturity quotient. One for boy craziness, probably, couldn’t be discounted. What of that kid in your brood who fosters a healthy obsession with setting things aflame?
I had to look that up on urban dictionary, of course. It’s pretty bad-ass, actually. Totally not me, though. I just wanted to cap a rough day with a Red Baron pizza and a 40. Yeah, a 40. Only, apparently, I don’t know what a 40 is.
Yes, dad needs downtime. He’s got to write these posts and, oh, earn a living and stuff. And sometimes, he coaches other people’s kids and even goes out to play disc golf. Really, though, those times we sing AC/DC in the car or crash the Taco Bell happy hour, those are the best of times.
Twice. And what’s even better, I razzed fellow blog dad Eric of 
Like, the time I called Jeremy Mayfield’s race team shop on a Friday afternoon to talk to his publicist. All I wanted was a snippet of news I could use as padding in my racing notebook in the Hickory Daily Record. That publicist said, “I’ve been so busy with this driver change for anything else!”
With white conservatives and Denver Broncos fans, teenagers rank among the ranks it’s still okay to belittle. They’re moody, they say. They’re unpredictable, they say. They’re a bubbling, volatile cocktail of angst and 
So, you’d normally see a guest post in this space here, midweek. Sometimes, that doesn’t work out. When your blog’s page authority registers at just 54, and your favorite baseball team is 1-1 with 16 runs scored (and 16 runs allowed), the universe asks you to sit down and 
I would. I could. Daddy Homeschool lessons slipped in easily when the girls were young. At the zoo, in the grocery store. At the ballpark. In the park. When we hiked or fished, shopped or ran errands, colored or ventured out on daddy/daughter dates, learning was fun.
Can I just lie, dad? It sat among hundreds of other questions my girls ask on a given day. The ones I remember to write down, anyway. Some float away into the ether and out of my memory. Sometimes … sometimes, they stick.
Just a dad ... 