My 17-year-old son is a workout fanatic. He’s also a funny kid in his own unique — and typically stealthy — way. Recently, when he ordered a new dip belt online, he had some fun with the mailing label name. (BTW, don’t ask me what a “dip belt” is… I thought it meant loosening your pants by a couple of notches after you’ve had too much guacamole.)
Peter has already figured out what his pro wrestling name would be, and he often refers to himself in the third person of that imaginary person. It’s especially funny because in many ways he’s quite shy.
Yep, Jackson Steelflex. Sounds like he could be a future WWE Heavyweight Champ, brother!
The name has a lot of flair.
Peter will be going off to college in a few months. I remember a faculty member who spoke at my freshman orientation (back in the Jurassic Period) and told us that in college, we could be free of the the boxes that high school put us into, and become who we want to be. Here’s hoping that Peter leaves Shy Guy behind, and becomes a bit more Steelflex.
It’s been a tough season so far for Xavier basketball, but the fact that fans can be “disappointed” with a middling season in the Big East shows just how far the program has come over the past two decades. A lot of credit for that growth goes to a man who never played a minute for the team. Dr. Bill Daily was a Xavier grad who returned to teach, and he was passionate about hoops. The university had dropped football in the early 70s to cut costs, and in the late 70s the basketball program was in a similar predicament.
“(Daily) was the single voice to say that this basketball thing is really an important piece of what a University is really all about. He convinced them to make a commitment and spend the resources and he chaired the search committee to get Bob Staak.”
Gary Massa, former XU basketball player (Class of ’81) and current VP of University Relations
Bob Staak helped turn the program around in the early 80s (which coincided with my time at Xavier, btw… merely a coincidence, of course). The teams got better, and the program got bigger – moving from the Midwestern City Conference to the Atlantic 10 to the Big East, and moving from the ancient fieldhouse to the Cincinnati Gardens to the state-of-the-art Cintas Center on campus.
“Dr. Daily was the beginning of an unprecedented run if you go back … he had the wherewithal and the vision to see what basketball could be.”
Gary Massa
Dr. Daily passed away last month at the age of 83. If being a “founding father” of the Xavier basketball program were all that Dr. Daily accomplished, his life would be considered a rousing success. But that merely scratches the surface of his influence on lives. Dr. Daily had six kids, and I know his daughter Maria well from our days at Xavier.
“He really felt his purpose in life was to make sure that everybody knew they were important and they were loved.”
Maria Dickman, daughter
From this Cincinnati Enquirer article: He continued to learn and participate in a variety of adventures like the Urban Youth Academic Service Learning Experience in Over-the-Rhine, where he lived with and taught Xavier students in a house adjacent to Washington Park for multiple semesters. He started out teaching in the education department and eventually became chair of the communication arts department.
He sought every opportunity to help people which led him to become co-founder of the E Pluribus Unum program at Xavier, which helped students learn about diversity in today’s society.
He also received another degree in pastoral counseling from the Athenaeum of Ohio. He went on retreats to Gethsemani and was an associate at the Sisters of St. Francis convent in Oldenburg, Indiana. He took mission trips to Nicaragua, El Salvador and Ghana.
“That’s kind of what dad’s mission in life was. He wasn’t out to get the credit, he just wanted to make sure things got done.”
Mary Beth Bruns, daughter
Nice job, Doc. The entire Xavier community owes you a deep debt of gratitude.
(Please read the entire article about Dr. Daily. This post doesn’t do him justice.)
Thank goodness the powers that be in college football have created a playoff system. Now, instead of the same ol’ same ol’, we get to enjoy a wide variety of teams vying for the national championship. Let’s see, there’s Alabama, and Clemson, and… welp, that pretty much sums it up.
Since the College Football Playoff started in 2014, the “Final 4” has consisted of: Alabama (every stinkin’ year), Clemson (every year but one), Oklahoma (3 years), Ohio State (twice), and a cameo by five other randos. The past three championship games have been ‘Bama vs. Clemson. This year, in a shocking turn of events, the final game tomorrow night is… wait for it… ‘Bama vs. Clemson.
ESPN tries their best to hype the living daylights out of it, but fatigue has set in. Someone wake me when it’s over. Actually, strike that… don’t wake me when it’s over, because I’ll be fast asleep long before the game ends, and I don’t really care who wins.
My friend Dave worked there as well (that’s how we met and became friends). Now that Dave’s two sons and my four kids are a bit older, we have some spare time on our hands. So we decided to create a podcast about our adventures (and misadventures) at 97X.
I don’t think Marc Maron and the folks at My Favorite Murder or This American Life have to watch their backs, but if you listened to 97X before it went off the air, you’ll probably find the podcast semi-entertaining. Even if you never heard (or even heard of) the station, you might get a kick or three out of the podcast. Or not. But hey, it’s only 18 minutes of your day. You’ve probably got some time off for the holidays, right? It’s the perfect aural accompaniment to taking down the Christmas lights, trying to assemble kids toys and/or scrubbing congealed ham/turkey/goose fat out of the roasting pan.
You can subscribe via that same link, so you’ll never have to miss a single scintillating episode. (And you won’t miss the boring ones either.)
You can also listen/download below.
Please don’t feel obligated to listen. Dave and I just have to call it “podcasting” because that sounds fancier (and more productive) than “hanging out in the basement and reminiscing about the good old days.”
On Thursday, a bunch of dudes met up for breakfast at a Panera in Newport, KY. It was the visual arts equivalent of the Algonquin Round Table… designers and illustrators and photographers, oh my. (They let a few writer types hang out too… including a hack named dubbatrubba.)
I was fortunate enough to work with many of these fine fellows back in my ad agency days. They’re an amazingly talented bunch… and super-nice as well (sometimes those two qualities can seem mutually exclusive).
A lot of the folks who attended the breakfast are self-employed. Some by their own choice; others have had their hand forced by ad agency layoffs. Freelance is a tough row to hoe, especially in the Fiverr age where it can be a “who can do this cheapest?” race to the bottom. Not only do you have to be a standout in your chosen field, but you also have to be a salesperson, a client coordinator, a project manager and an accountant. You’re on your own for healthcare. And vacation? No work, no pay. As one of the gents there put it “I’m always on vacation until the phone rings.”
My friends do mostly commercial work, but you can’t commodify what they do. It’s art. Period.
I stink at “Christmas-ing”… I’m the world’s worst at getting gifts, or even remembering to shop for them. And those facts are made painfully clear when I come into the office and see stuff like this:
A holiday treat and a ribbon, hot-glued to a greeting card. And not one of those cheap cards either, it’s a 3-D one…
This person gave similar cards to a dozen colleagues. While I was opening the card, another co-worker came by and was dropping off gifts for ten of his peers: candy and gourmet nuts from two companies in his hometown, which is 3 hours away. My boss got me a bottle of wine — called “Storyteller” — and a fancy winestopper.
Such great planning, such thoughtfulness on their parts. How do I reciprocate? With a big fat box o’ nothin’! I had to scramble to get a gift card for the one and only person who reports to me. (Gift cards – the last refuge of the lazy.) And by the time I got it, she was already out of the office until 2019.
I consider myself a fairly generous guy… I probably treat for lunch or happy hour drinks more often than most folks. But X(mas) does not mark the spot for me… unless we’re talking about a blind spot.
We dumped cable. Dropped it like a two-foot putt. Because I’m tired of paying a ton of money for it each month when I rarely watch it and the kids almost never watch it. I’m also tired of cable companies that offer better deals to new customers than to loyal customers.
I’ve considered cutting the cord before, but never really found a Sling/Hulu/Netflix combo that had all the channels we wanted… live sports were using the missing link.
But YouTube TV has most of the channels we watch (no HGTV… much to my wife’s dismay… and my delight) and costs $40 a month. We dumped the TV and phone part of our cable “triple play,” kept our internet and signed up for YouTube TV. Now we’re saving about $80 every month. Sure, the picture isn’t quite as crystal-clear, and sometimes there’s a second or two of buffering, but that’s a small price to pay for paying a much smaller price.
Cable providers are going to have to come up with a more enticing package than “get it cheap for a year, then pay through both nostrils.” If not, they’ll go the way of Blockbuster Video stores.
Believe it or not, I actually have to pay money to operate this blog. But I do it gladly so that you, the few, the proud, the dubbatrubba blog faithful, can get your semi-weekly dose of semi-coherent ramblings. You’re welcome (not sure if I should punctuate this with a question mark or an exclamation point…maybe I’ll do both)?!
The company from which I bought the dubbatrubba.com domain (surprisingly, there was no bidding war…) is always trying to sell “extras” to me. Their latest pitch gave me pause:
Whoa, I can actually get rubbadubba.com too? I’m thinking I should lock it down, and corner the market on goofy names. Perhaps later I can sell rubbadubba.com at a profit to Three Men In A Tub, LLC.
But what really got me was the fact that “dubbatrubba.com” isn’t considered a premium domain, yet “batrepellant.com” is.
Guess I’ll have to spend the weekend figuring out other ways to “monetize” my site.
You can be a corporate drone and still find a means of artistic expression (like a blog, maybe?). And you can be a real estate agent and still rock… just like Bill Janovitz, the lead singer of Buffalo Tom.
Back in the 90s, he and his bandmates Chris Colbourn and Tom Maginnis released several albums on a major label, and toured the world.
But things have changed.
First came love, then came marriage, then came a baby in a baby carriage… and Bill needed to provide a bit more stability to his family than the rock and roll lifestyle could offer. So he became a real estate agent.
“Now it’s more about getting up and wearing a decent collared shirt”
You can listen to Bill talk about his day job in this Public Radio International interview.
As Bill’s real estate bio states, he and his bandmates “still play and record music to this day.” Indeed they do… and they do it quite well. Here’s a great video for a song from their new album:
Thank you Bill for so poignantly profiling middle-age malaise in your music… and for setting such a good example for other family-centered folks.
impossibly4332b32374 on Light. Laughter. Grace.: “That’s the reply you were talking about! And a reminder to get that book out. I do almost all of…” Apr 27, 15:36
impossibly4332b32374 on Light. Laughter. Grace.: “I’ve got The Wet Engine on my shelf, and think I read about half of it. Time for another look.” Apr 21, 09:15
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