Seeing the World Through Grrs and Greats

Some ideas are so great it’s great to use them more than once.

(Using the same word in the same sentence twice isn’t a great idea. Oops. I did it again.) Think about some great ideas in history. Playing football on Thanksgiving? Great. Let’s do it again. The beautiful and comedic Elizabeth Banks on a real estate commercial?

Yes, great.

You can’t have greats without grrs, however. A grr is … playing football in a stadium like Heinz Field in Pittsburg, where it’s impossible to kick a field goal on one end. Ever. Or … persistent ads on Pandora for problems of men my age.

Go Ask Daddy About Vocabulary, Liability, and Rad 80s 3D Puzzles That Forever Stump Me

Competition wasn’t a problem for me as a kid. It was the success I had a problem with.

No bother. I embraced a life of green and white third- and fourth-place ribbons on field day as part of my DNA. (I can’t remember which was for third, which for fourth.) I toiled on the second level of Donkey Kong and Pac-Man, even.

I made the Detroit Lions look like the dynasty to end all dynasties.

Imagine if I’d been able to compete in something squarely in my wheelhouse. Alas, there existed no competition that involved eating tacos (that I knew of) or throwing a plastic football on the roof of my grandma’s house and catching it at least 20% of the time.

If I Could Spend a Day Alone … This is How it’d Go

I spend a day wishing for time to write after the kids’ bedtime.

Yet, when I get that time, I miss them. And I fall asleep. I’m always sleepy if I don’t keep the Coke Zero flowing. I slow to a crawl. Mind, body, and spirit. I institute process and procedure to possibly accomplish anything and also the leeway to set it all aside.

If I could just get a day, though …

What could you do? If Jesus or Buddha stuffed in an extra day – just a one-off, not an extra day. We can’t mess with the interval between Thursday night football and Monday night, or Sunday meditation service and Wednesday.

Go Ask Daddy About Utility, Emergency, and Conservation Opportunity

This might be a good time for a history lesson.

Go Ask Daddy has been a Friday feature around here for years. My girls ask lots of questions. I know your kids do too. It felt derelict of daddy duty to answer with look it up or I dunno. I don’t feel right, not at least putting down my grilled cheese and giving fatherhood a good try.

I wrote the girls’ questions in a notebook, and then feared I would leave the notebook in the cafeteria and not have a thing to write on a Friday.

So I started a Word doc, on my work computer, and I try really hard and follow the rules at my job so I’m not fired and would lose the entire list. This motivates me at work to avoid criminal activity and also to try good like I would with being a dad.

#GirlsRock: An Interview with Freelance Writer Stacey Gill

Sometimes, I find myself in rare air.

No, not downwind of a barbecue joint, although that qualifies too. Among my extended blog tribe lives a group of women who get after it – like, New York Times Best Sellers List after it. (Also, this book on the list.)

Meet Stacey Gill.

You probably know her already. She deserves her blog URL more than seems humanly possible – OneFunnyMotha.com – and you’ve seen her work in obscure places such as the Washington Post, The Huffington Post, and Good Housekeeping.

5 Blog Post I’d Recommend You Read

I gave blood on Sunday.

Not a big deal. I love that I can. I’m O positive and have some special particles or sorcery in my blood that makes it good to give babies. Who doesn’t want to give good stuff to babies? I’d rather give baby crackers or baby nunchucks than my blood, but …

If they need it, I’m glad mine is compatible.

I watched my blood – which looks not surprisingly like barbecue sauce, in those little bags – go out of my arm, and clear saline solution flow in. I do something called double red cell donations, so they take the red stuff out and wash me out with the saline.

Go Ask Daddy About Spherical Worlds, Housekeeping Tips, and the Truth Behind Democrat Food

I argued with a friend about politics while she waited for her egg, sausage, and cheese English muffin at work on Thursday.

I know. I’m so far removed from politics since my media purge in October, but now and then, a news story works its way to my attention, between audiobooks and Matchbox 20 on Pandora and Yahoo! Sports updates on Colorado Rockies games. Much of current events are foreign to me.

The subject of our disagreement isn’t the point.

It’s the fact that our belief systems can feel right as rain and can change and sometimes can’t be changed. Where does belief even come from? It’s in conviction, what we know to be right, but what if others know it to be wrong? That doesn’t change it for us.

#GirlsRock: An Interview with Freelance Copywriter Annie Maguire

I found Annie Maguire in a magazine article.

True story. She’s one of those people you hear stories about. People who quit their 9-to-5 to forge a life on their own terms. Then, she wrote a book about it. Also, she incorporated the word badass into the subtitle, which of course, is badass.

Annie’s story happens where talent, drive, and resourcefulness collide. Today, she’s here to tell about her journey, for #GirlsRock.

#GirlsRock is an occasional series here on Coach Daddy that spotlights women who do cool stuff. Annie definitely qualifies. Her background runs parallel with mine in content marketing – only she absolutely slayed it.

Alphabet Recap, Mindfulness Challenges, and 7 Random Smartphone Photos

Seems as if there’s room for just one challenge in this coach’s bag at a time.

Those of you not participating (and probably a percentage who are) probably turned the calendar to May with a touch of gratitude. We’re cultish, we A to Z knuckleheads. We flood your inbox and social media feeds with sorcery and daily posts and crazy rules.

And who the hell blogs every dad-burn day? We do.

The cleverest among us have compiled posts of their favorite posts from each of 26 days of the challenge. Others have shared their most viewed and commented-on posts. I’m not among those cleverest, but you can bet 10 publish buttons I will next year.

#AtoZChallenge: Z is for the Zen in Building Chances

Man – sometimes the shots just don’t fall.

I mean the shots, tactically (as in soccer) and philosophically (as in life) – and this is coming from a dude who sometimes sits and thinks. It can be a bombed test you studied for or the girl who says no (even when you stand up straight and comb your hair).

You might not get that handful of Skittles or promotion at work or the C- to raise you GPA (was that just me?), but in the building those chances, well, there’s a Zen to be found.

Zen (the term) gets as much overuse as Beethoven’s music in TV ads for toilet paper. It’s in those perfect moments, with full bellies and full beer mugs, in 70-degree bliss, bills paid and the trash out at the curb. It’s a good book and a better glass of wine, right? Zen.