the foco dad

a stay-at-home dad muses about raising his two children

recent posts

about

  • Horsetooth Half Recap

    A couple weeks ago I took my third crack at this notoriously difficult half marathon course. It was the ninth half marathon I’ve raced (darn it, I really thought I was in the double digits by now) and this time around I was not pleased with my performance. I’ll write a bit more about that later, but first, some observations from race day.

    One of the many hills on the HTH course.

    There is really nowhere else in the human experience where you can find a large group of people more excited about a massive bank of porta potties than at the starting area of a race. Everyone lines up for a nervous shit (I don’t understand you if you only need to pee). Once you have sunglasses, phone, and energy gels secured so none of it will fall into the depths of that tank, it’s the greatest relief to sit down and take care of that last thing on your race prep checklist. This truly was what I was thinking about that morning as I patiently waited for my turn to squat.

    Moving on. One thing I love about the Horsetooth Half (HTH) is the sense of community at the start. We are all there to run a half––not an easy thing to do––but a half that just absolutely kicks your ass right off the bat with about 500 feet of climbing in the first 1.7mi. We are there for a multitude of reasons. We will all feel the pain––the suffering is optional. And we will all reunite over a free beer at New Belgium Brewery in 13.1mi.

    The strategies of the HTH are absolutely hilarious to me. To be sure, to call these strategies is not accurate, but someone thought sprinting up the hills was a good way to get over them…well, not if you want to be able to run for the next 10+ miles. I encountered one guy who was determined this was the way. It is not the way. Yes, he passed me several times, but there’s a wall out there and he smashed into it around mile 5. I hope he finished.

    As seen in The Coloradoan.

    Next is the runner who has not seen what they are getting into. This runner knows it’s a hilly course, but they’ve forgotten it’s a mountainous course for the first few miles. I was running next to someone like this as we rounded the corner on Monster Mountain to see the climb disappear over the false summit. Loudly he said, “Holy sh………” His exclamation really drifted off like that. He was genuinely surprised at what lied ahead. I hope he finished.

    I know it’s not easy for Kate to haul the kids around on race days, dealing with the crowds, finding parking, and getting to a spot, sometimes several, from which they can cheer me on, but I love when they do. It lifts my spirits and it’s great for the kids to not only see their dad running hard, but to see all the many types of people who are out there doing there best from start to finish.

    As for my race, well, I’m glad the family was there at the end because that helped my spirits with my underwhelming performance. This is the HTH, not a PR-friendly course, and I never thought that was within reach, but 1:40:00 seemed entirely reachable. By mile 4 I felt like 1:40 was slipping away from me. I could literally watch the bright yellow 1:40 pacer flag disappear out in front of me on hill after hill and then again on turn after turn. I crossed the line at 1:43:23 with no kick left in my legs. Usually, I pride myself in a kick, passing one to three runners in the finish chute, but this day people did that to me. When it happened, I glanced to my left and an official race photo caught the moment. I look disgusted.

    Getting passed at the finish…usually something I do to others. You can see my mom over my right shoulder.

    This was the first half marathon I didn’t follow a training plan for. First mistake right there. Even though I’ve been hitting 30 miles a week since the New Year, I did not run enough of those miles at tempo pace and I certainly didn’t do enough speed work. I had plenty of hill work and I felt that, but on the flats I could not reach the gears I usually can when I’ve properly trained for a race. My second mistake was consuming too many energy gels during the race. Overconsumption contributed to my sluggishness, I’m convinced of that.

    So, I will need another half marathon soon to redeem myself. I’m eyeing the wonderful Fall Equinox Half Marathon. I’ve raced it before, getting a PR on that course. I don’t know if a PR is in the works, leaning no, but something faster than 1:43 is definitely going to happen.

  • The Autistic Athlete

    What I see when London participates in sports is a mind that wants to go faster, a face that believes in her ability, but a body that isn’t quite there yet. It’s a real thing that some studies suggest 50% of autistic children deal with and it is called hypotonia (low muscle tone). Autism Parenting Magazine defines it as:

    …muscles feel soft or floppy even though they’re not weak. It’s a neurological issue, not a strength one. Muscle tone refers to the resting tension in a muscle. In other words, it’s the readiness of a muscle to activate and hold posture. Strength, on the other hand, is about how much force a muscle can exert. A child with low tone may look relaxed or even lazy, but they’re actually working harder than other kids just to sit upright or hold a pencil. It can impact everything from gross motor skills, such as running, to fine motor tasks, like buttoning a shirt.

    It’s been a long time since London struggled with fine motor skills, but gross motor skills continue to be much more challenging for her than they are for neurotypical middle school kids. When I watch her compete in XC or track my heart is so proud of her, but it also aches at the same time too, just wanting a level playing field for once. When it comes to sports, I don’t know if she will ever have one and as someone who grew up with heaps of expectations on him to be a great athlete I know what it can be like to not meet them. So I try and I try to not have expectations when it comes to sports, but I fail again and again.

    When I sat down this morning to write this I did a bit of research into hypotonia in autistic children and teens. One of the more interesting bits of information I found was a conclusion from a study, that I don’t have access to, but still I find it worth sharing now. The study followed autistic and non-autistic youth from childhood into their teens and found that, “Strength gaps got bigger as kids became teens. Autistic youth fell further behind in grip, core, and leg power. Other motor skills stayed about the same. Ceiling effects on easy tasks may hide later problems.”

    The study’s conclusion and action item:

    Strength deficits in autistic clients widen fast during the teen years, so build quick power moves into every session.

    It’s a report aimed at helping BCBAs and therapists develop strategies to offset the effects of hypotonia in autistic children, but it was helpful for me to see that conclusion because I’m not really helping London in that way. There are things that I could be doing with London to develop some strength and muscle mass and the activities would only take a few minutes every other day. In the long run, will this level the playing field? I don’t think so. I don’t know. But it’ll bring her body closer to matching the sheer determination on her face and the burning desire to simply belong and feel like one of her peers.

  • Horsetooth Half Marathon!

    It’s race week! Time to panic, I mean, spend all week trying not to panic about the upcoming race even though I’ve spent the last three months gearing up for it, which, this year, is a big one––the Horsetooth Half Marathon. If you know anything about this race, you know its distance isn’t really the hard part. It’s this elevation profile (below), specifically the first 1.7mi, the Dam Hill (sort of), and that Bingham Hill climb. Despite this profile, race organizers really drive home the fact that the course is net downhill as if that’s gonna make it mentally or physically easier. It does not. Physically, it’s an obviously tough course, but mentally tougher in ways because those downhill segments go by so quickly and just after mile 8 the course feels unbearably flat, hot, and somewhat boring the rest of the way.

    This year, I have prepared for the climbs in a way I did not the previous two times I have run this race. A weekly trail run with a friend has helped greatly, but I have sought out hillier terrain on a much more regular basis in the lead up to this race. I have run the first several miles of the course quite a few times, including a 5.5 mi out and back run from the start, which had 1346 ft of elevation gain. Still, on an easy 3-mile run this morning I felt panic creep in as it always does days before a race. Did I do enough tempo runs? Enough speed work? What can I do this week to get faster? Should I run 3 miles right now or 4 miles?

    Reminding myself again and again that the actual race is just part of the experience, not everything, is also a race week tradition, especially as I have matured as a runner and racer. It’s the HTH and here are a few truths I’m going to repeat to myself throughout the week.

    The hills are going to be hard no matter what. Run them a bit slower than you think you can and you’ll be very thankful the rest of the way.

    Run the tangents everywhere you can.

    The race is nowhere near over after you summit at Bingham Hill.

    Take all the gels and fuel you comfortably can.

    Smile for the cameras and enjoy the views.

    Wave at your family. This seems like an obvious one, but in past races I have certainly chugged by without looking in their direction.

    No matter what happens, the finish line at this race is fantastic. A great chute, loud fans, a great announcer, and good beer afterward.

    Show your kids that doing hard things, and hopefully doing them well, is a thing worth doing. The picture below is from the 2023 finish. It was a hard thing that year and I did not do it well, but the kids didn’t care. Show them that you can forgive yourself for mistakes made in training or during the race. The race is still worth running. No matter how you finish, they’ll take your hand and look up to you.

    Have a delectable recovery beer.

  • Review: 2000 Meters to Andriivka

    Two years ago the winner of best documentary feature at the Oscars was a movie called 20 Days in Mariupol, directed by Mstyslav Chernov. The movie includes compelling and tragic footage and interviews from the first few weeks of Ukraine’s war with Russia following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It was one of the hardest docs to watch, but I could not look away. I might have even blogged about, which really says a lot because at that time I wasn’t writing about anything. I found the movie to be a compelling argument for the US to continue to send aid and funds to Ukraine so they could continue this fight, maybe even push Russia out of Ukrainian territory.

    Last year, Chernov returned with a documentary feature film, 2000 Meters to Andriivka. It’s available to watch on PBS. You don’t even need a passport subscription to watch it. Chernov’s latest documentary is a sobering look at where Ukraine is now, specifically struggling through their much-publicized counteroffensive in the summer of 2023. The mission Chernov focuses on involves Ukrainian troops moving through a narrow strip of forest 2000 meters long, so that they can reach Andriivka, a small, but critical town along Russia’s resupply line. The Ukrainian soldiers must stay in the forest because on either side of it are large, barren fields filled with mines. The forest used to be a forest. By the time Ukraine’s push for Andriivka takes place the tops of trees have been blown off, the only green is ground growth, and the Russians have built trenches and tunnels weaving back and forth across this ribbon of war-torn Europe.

    Throughout the film the Ukrainian side appears focused, motivated, justified, but also disorganized and undersupplied. In contrast, Russia seems rich with soldiers (the dead ones litter the forest belt to Andriivka) and munitions, constantly shelling the strip from afar and at one point not discriminating between Ukrainian troops and their own. Andriivka is finally reached by the Ukrainians, but Russia has laid waste to the village. All buildings and infrastructure is demolished and the viewer gets the impression that Russia will just redirect their supply lines and that the whole push for this town was just Russia draining more life from Ukraine.

    Whereas 20 Days was a solid argument to keep up the fight against Russia, 2000 Meters is a strong argument for both parties to come to the table and settle the war sooner rather than later. Ukraine will never stop fighting and Russia will never run out of young men to send to the front lines. That’s the overwhelming feeling I had during this entire movie, which is mostly comprised of body camera footage from the Ukrainian soldiers tasked with getting to Andriivka. And when they got there, a flag was raised, extending out from a barely-standing brick wall, near which the soldiers find one living creature, a house cat, taken back to safety in a soldier’s backpack. The shot of the flag and the pathetic meows from the backpack underscore the vanity of it all.

  • We Just Said A Little Loud Prayer As A Team

    Trump’s party and their “Christian” message is probably creating more atheists and agnostics than any other point in American history. I’m making an assumption here, an accurate one, I think, but certainly not one for which the necessary studies have been conducted.

    What leads me to conclude this about Trump and his party are the messages he put out into the world on Easter morning and today, Tuesday, April 7, 2026. His Easter message was this:

    And this morning, he went with another equally inspiring and “Christian” message:

    I’m just gonna gloss over the fact that Obama would have been impeached if he ever tweeted, Praise be to Allah, on Easter or any other day because that’s not what this post is about.

    This post is about how confusing and hard it must be to arrive at the Christian faith nowadays. The most public references to God and faith I see/hear on a daily basis are, unfortunately, from the American regime. If it’s not Trump’s Happy Easter message, then it’s Pete Hegseth’s messaging that our war with Iran is a just and holy cause, that God is on our side. Or it’s Karoline Leavitt’s bizarre exclamation to start off a presser last week, “Could you hear our ‘amen’ in there? We just said a little loud prayer as a team.” Imagine circling up for a prayer (bragging about it, too), then going out to face the media to promote and justify killing innocent Iranians or to talk about taking out Iranian infrastructure? If I were looking for a religion, a savior, a movement to put my faith in why, oh why would it ever be the “Christian” one the power players in the GOP serve to us on a daily basis? How could anyone make the connection from Jesus’ words to the words featured above?

    Faith-wise, I am in a place that is not tied to a political party. I am highly skeptical of any talk that refers to God being on our side, whether the conflict in question is a war or an NCAA football game. I think it’s a good, informed, wise place to be, but not the end of the journey (just where I am). If I was coming of age now, looking at the party and the people exclaiming that they are God’s warriors, I would not arrive at the same place. I don’t know what I would be. Agnostic? Maybe. I know one thing, “Christians” would be the most confusing people ever and I wouldn’t once say, I want what they’re having.

    My kids are coming of age in this tumultuous time, in which the Christian faith has been hijacked by a political party in the most obvious and obscene ways I have ever witnessed. When my daughter and son see things on the news and turn to me questioningly, I am reminded to tell them the message Mr. Roger’s mom told him, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

  • Must See TV: Dan and Madden Orlovsky

    Last year was the first time Dan Orlovsky’s son, Madden, was on ESPN live for World Autism Awareness Day. I remember coming across the clip on Instagram and it immediately stopped my scroll. I watched it multiple times. I wept. I recognized in Dan the pride he has in his son. It was so touching and instantly relatable. Well, Madden made his triumphant return to the ESPN set yesterday and it was some of their best programming they do all year. I have linked to the clip below (ESPN does not let me share the clip on my site). The most tender part of the video starts at 8:00 and goes to 11:00. It will have you in tears, especially if you know someone with Autism (or have a heart), but if you have twelve minutes to spare, give the whole thing a watch.

    I love that ESPN doesn’t just do a two-minute segment with Dan and Madden. Madden hangs out in the studio for a long time, provides some hilarious off-camera comments, and the entire studio features Madden’s drawings, which are perfect. So ESPN, from one little tiny blog to one giant, corporate, sports behemoth, thank you for highlighting the emotions, thoughts, excitement, and artistry of an autistic child. And to see Dan Orlovsky’s reactions is to see myself in similar moments I have had with London, albeit they weren’t in a fancy TV studio.

    Madden Orlovsky decorates the NFL Live studio for World Autism Awareness Day.

  • Give Autism A Chance

    Today marks the beginning of Autism Acceptance Month. Two things really quick. One, that’s every month in this house. And two, I am not great at always making note of acceptance/awareness days and months, especially if we are already living it.

    My message to you on this day is be kind to those that seem slightly to drastically different than you. We have had some sad conversations with our daughter lately, tales of friends telling her they “need their space.” Similar observations have been made by her care team at school, who did a student observation of London prior to our IEP meeting with her in December. They watched her during lunch and observed her walking “to dispose of her food tray and returned to the table, sitting with some physical distance from six peers [read: by herself, my addition]. The peers did not orient toward her, greet her, or engage her in conversation. London fidgeted at the table and got up multiple times.”

    When Kate and I reviewed this information with London’s team in December we both starting crying. It’s like having your worst social fears for a child confirmed. I felt as if my heart was on the floor and people were taking turns stomping on it. It was one of the more difficult meetings we have ever had with her teachers and care team at any school, but it was this school’s idea to give her more support. We are so thankful for their suggestion and follow through.

    Since then there have been some helpful elements and meetings added to her IEP and I believe those have helped. But the struggle is long and still with us (probably always will be), evidenced by this week’s stories of notes passed back and forth between London and a friend, with the conclusion that London is not considered a friend by this person.

    London can talk more than average. She has an inclination to get closer to you than most middle-schoolers would feel comfortable with. She is bursting with ideas and wants to let the world know. I know that can be tough for some, especially for her peers, who are not as accepting as I know they will become. I think London has recognized this from the earliest years, having a strong attraction to adults, preferring to converse with them. No doubt, London learned to recognize friends as those who listen and adults listen so much better than kids, so adults often are her dearest friends. She might not come across as mature for her age, but in this way she has been waiting for years for her peers to catch up to her. I want so badly for her peers to join her at this level and I believe the right ones will, but it is an agonizing wait, the weight of which can just crush my spirit for days on end.

    London doesn’t ask for much, but she yearns for friendship like all of us. All autistics do. So this month, and hopefully beyond, when you encounter someone who is wired differently than you, please engage, befriend, converse, smile, invite, hug (but ask first), sit with, and give them the same things you would want in a friend. If you do that, I promise they will enrich you in ways no neurotypical person ever could. We know the truth of that in this house. And I want you to know it too.

  • 2005 vs 2026: A Comparison of Winning Swims at NCs

    In collegiate swimming if you make NCs (National Championships) you’re already a very fast swimmer. If you did that and finaled in an event, I pretty much thought of you as a god back in the day when I was swimming at the University of Wyoming.

    NCs just took place last week and the times were very impressive. So, how do the winning times at NCs in 2005, when I was a senior, compare to this year’s championships? Well, you probably didn’t ask yourself that, but I did, and I’m very curious to see how the gods of the pool back in the day, like Lochte, Bousquet, Grevers, and Draganja, would have finished in 2026’s very impressive field.

    Here’s how the winners in 2005 stack up to the winners in 2026. I’ll list the winning time from 2005, the result of that time in 2026, and the winning time from 2026.

    50 Free – Frederick Bousquet 18.90, would have finished 20th, and the winning time was 18.06.

    100 Free – Duje Draganja 41.49, would have finished 15th, and the winning time was 39.91.

    200 Free – Simon Burnett 1:33.28, would have finished 36th, and the winning time was 1:30.03.

    500 Free – Peter Vanderkaay 4:09.82, would have finished 6th, and the winning time was 4:06.56.

    1650 Free – Larsen Jensen 14:32.01, would have finished 5th, and the winning time was 14:10.03.

    100 Backstroke – Matt Grevers 45.62, would have finished 33rd, and the winning time was 42.61.

    200 Backstroke – Ryan Lochte 1:38.37, would have finished 5th, and the winning time was 1:34.13.

    100 Breaststroke – Gary Marshall 52.68, would have finished 35th, and the winning time was 49.90.

    200 Breaststroke – Vladislav Polyakov 1:53.93, would have tied for 24th, and the winning time was 1:48.61

    100 Butterfly – Duje Draganja 45.39, would have finished 29th, and the winning time was 42.49.

    200 Butterfly – Davis Tarwater 1:42.30, would have finished 26th, and the winning time was 1:37.66.

    200 I.M. – Ryan Lochte 1:41.71, would have finished 7th, and the winning time was 1:38.48.

    400 I.M. – Oussama Mellouli 3:39.19, would have finished 13th, and the winning time was 3:32.96.

    200 Free Relay – Cal 1:15.78, would have finished 15th, and the winning time was 1:12.46.

    400 Free Relay – Cal 2:47.70, would have finished 12th, and the winning time was 2:42.38.

    800 Free Relay – Florida 6:16.53, would have finished DEAD FUCKING LAST (truly astonishing, they would not have beat Yale this year), and the winning time was 6:05.82.

    200 Medley Relay – Cal 1:25.30, would have finished LAST, and the winning time was 1:20.07.

    400 Medley Relay – Stanford 3:06.45, would have finished 27th, and the winning time was 2:56.79.

    Wow! This year was fast, but I’m shocked by some of these results, especially the 800 Free Relay. It’s clear that collegiate swimmers have made huge gains in their 200 Free times in the last 21 years. Ryan Lochte was on that Florida 800 team and even with that boost their time would not have been anywhere near the top 8 in this year’s field. Likewise, the championship swim from 2005 in the 200 Free was 1:33.28, a very impressive achievement at the time, but now a paltry 36th place at this year’s championships.

    Since I thought the winners in 2005 were gods of the pool, I’m at a complete loss of words for the 2026 champions. Jaw-dropping performances.

    About to swim my last 50 Free for the University of Wyoming at Corbett Pool. I’m second from the bottom. 2005.

  • 2026 Oscar Predictions Nobody Asked For

    Timothée Chalamet is not going to win the Oscar for Actor in a Leading Role. That’s a prediction for who will not win, but predicting the winner this year feels like a guessing game in a way it hasn’t for years. I used to post Oscar predictions on an old blog. I was just looking at them here. Previous posts about them come across as cringy, funny, and incorrect. No one was asking for the predictions at the time and no one is now, but I am going to do it anyway. If you want to hear what the pros predict, please, please give The Big Picture a listen.

    Old Oscar Thoughts from 2008.

    Shall I continue?

    Actor in a Leading Role. Nominees: Timothée Chalamet (Marty Supreme), Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle after Another), Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon), Michael B. Jordan (Sinners), Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent)

    Winner: Michael B. Jordan. Going with the slight underdog here. Earlier in the race, DiCaprio seemed like a lock and even earlier Chalamet was the favorite, but MBJ has a full head of steam here, fresh off a SAG win. What he does in Sinners, playing twins with noticeably different mannerisms and affectations, is terribly impressive. Personally, I think DiCaprio’s performance is the more impressive one, but MBJ has the momentum and buzz right now.

    Actor in a Supporting Role. Nominees: Benicio Del Toro (One Battle after Another), Jacob Elordi (Frankenstein), Delroy Lindo (Sinners), Sean Penn (One Battle after Another), Stellan Skarsgård (Sentimental Value)

    Winner: Sean Penn. I feel like Skarsgard and Lindo have good chances too, but I’m sticking with Penn’s performance. He plays one sick dude in this movie.

    Actress in a Leading Role. Nominees: Jessie Buckley (Hamnet), Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You), Kate Hudson (Song Sung Blue), Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value), Emma Stone (Bugonia)

    Winner: Jessie Buckley by a mile. Rose Byrne gets the silver. If anyone else wins, they got it wrong.

    Actress in a Supporting Role. Nominees: Elle Fanning (Sentimental Value), Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas (Sentimental Value), Amy Madigan (Weapons), Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners), Teyana Taylor (One Battle after Another)

    Winner: Teyana Taylor. Much harder to predict than the leading role winner, but I think she edges out Madigan, although it would be so cool if Madigan won.

    Animated Feature Film. Nominees: Arco (Ugo Bienvenu, Félix de Givry, Sophie Mas and Natalie Portman), Elio (Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina and Mary Alice Drumm), KPop Demon Hunters (Maggie Kang, Chris Appelhans and Michelle L.M. Wong), Little Amélie or the Character of Rain (Maïlys Vallade, Liane-Cho Han, Nidia Santiago and Henri Magalon), Zootopia 2 (Jared Bush, Byron Howard and Yvett Merino)

    Winner: KPop Demon Hunters. Since becoming a dad, I have seen every animated feature film nominated for an Oscar many times over. This year is an anomaly. I have only seen three of these movies so this is not a terribly-educated guess.

    Casting (a brand new Oscar category this year). Nominees: Hamnet (Nina Gold), Marty Supreme (Jennifer Venditti), One Battle after Another (Cassandra Kulukundis), The Secret Agent (Gabriel Domingues), Sinners (Francine Maisler)

    Winner: Sinners.

    Cinematography. Nominees: Frankenstein (Dan Laustsen), Marty Supreme (Darius Khondji), One Battle after Another (Michael Bauman), Sinners (Autumn Durald Arkapaw), Train Dreams (Adolpho Veloso)

    Winner: One Battle after Another (Michael Bauman).

    Costume Design. Nominees: Avatar: Fire and Ash (Deborah L. Scott), Frankenstein (Kate Hawley), Hamnet (Malgosia Turzanska), Marty Supreme (Miyako Bellizzi), Sinners (Ruth E. Carter)

    Winner: With my exceptionally deep knowledge of the subject, I am going to go with Sinners.

    Directing. Nominees: Hamnet (Chloé Zhao), Marty Supreme (Josh Safdie), One Battle after Another (Paul Thomas Anderson), Sentimental Value (Joachim Trier), Sinners (Ryan Coogler)

    Winner: Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle after Another. Ryan Coogler has the best shot at bumping PTA from the top spot, but I don’t think the Sinners momentum is enough to make the knockout punch.

    Documentary Feature Film. Nominees: The Alabama Solution (Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman), Come See Me in the Good Light (Ryan White, Jessica Hargrave, Tig Notaro and Stef Willen), Cutting through Rocks (Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni), Mr. Nobody against Putin (David Borenstein, Pavel Talankin, Helle Faber and Alžběta Karásková), The Perfect Neighbor (Geeta Gandbhir, Alisa Payne, Nikon Kwantu and Sam Bisbee)

    Winner: Mr. Nobody against Putin. I have a 20% chance at being right. I have seen all of these films except Cutting through Rocks, which has not been available to stream or rent yet. I have written about Mr. Nobody against Putin. What I didn’t write about at the time were the repercussions of making a movie like this. The filmmaker, Pavel Talankin, fled Russia, but everyone else is stuck there even if they expressed pro-democracy views or expressed concern about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. So, I worry for those people, but I think this is the movie that the Academy will award at this time though it is not the most widely seen.

    Documentary Short Film. Nominees: All the Empty Rooms (Joshua Seftel and Conall Jones), Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud (Craig Renaud and Juan Arredondo), Children No More: “Were and Are Gone” (Hilla Medalia and Sheila Nevins), The Devil Is Busy (Christalyn Hampton and Geeta Gandbhir), Perfectly a Strangeness (Alison McAlpine)

    Winner: All the Empty Rooms. I have not seen this, nor have I seen Children No More or Perfectly a Strangeness, but the description of All the Empty Rooms is this: Follows correspondent Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp as they embark on a seven-year-long project to document the empty bedrooms of children killed in school shootings. I have yet to click play on this one even though it’s on Netflix. I don’t think anyone wants to watch this, but it should be required viewing for Republicans. Armed Only with a Camera and The Devil is Busy are both available on HBO MAX and are both quite good.

    For the rest of the categories I am simply guessing the winner, not listing nominees, and not elaborating on the guess. Furthermore, I am skipping some categories that I have no interest in or any real knowledge of.

    BEST PICTURE: One Battle after Another. Again, Sinners has the momentum here, but going with the traditional Academy winner here.

    Film Editing: One Battle after Another.

    International Feature Film: The Secret Agent (available on Hulu)

    Makeup and Hairstyling: Frankenstein.

    Music Original Score: Sinners, Ludwig Goransson.

    Music Original Song: GOLDEN, can it be anything else? Although I believe Train Dreams is magnificent.

    Sound: F1.

    Visual Effects: Avatar: Fire and Ash.

    Writing Adapted Screenplay: One Battle after Another, Paul Thomas Anderson.

    Writing Original Screenplay: Sinners, Ryan Coogler.

    Okay. Maybe I’ll be back to see just how bad I did on the categories I bothered predicting. As for the Oscars broadcast itself, I am pleased that Conan O’Brien is hosting again. He knocked it out of the park last year. You can watch them on ABC if you have cable or a terrifically positioned TV and antenna, which I do not. Luckily, you can stream them live on Hulu with a subscription and replay starting the next day.

    If you haven’t figured it out by now, I love movies.

  • USAID or War with Iran

    Way back in October of 2024, Elon Musk and his DOGE shock troopers, which included a man with the social media handle of Big Balls, claimed that they would cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. (That would be nearly a third of the entire budget.) It was a new era of austerity and employment cuts, such as eliminating 10,000 jobs at USAID.

    Of the targeted agencies, USAID was easily the most criticized. With an annual budget of $40 billion it was doing insane things like spending millions a day to save lives across the globe. But the expenditures that Trump and his truly lovely press secretary Karoline Leavitt liked to bitch about were so insignificant they wouldn’t pay for the fins on a tomahawk missile. We are talking about $47k for a trans opera of some sort in Colombia or $70k for a production of a musical in Ireland that reportedly promoted DEI ideas.

    The daily operating cost of USAID was around $109 million. So, the trans opera amounted to 0.043% of the daily operating cost of the entire agency. Some other neat facts about USAID: its budget was 0.3% of all federal spending, it ranked 19th in spending among federal agencies, and the share of USAID spending in FY 2024 was lower than in FY 1980, not ballooning like ole’ Musky would have us believe during his ketamine-fueled trips, I mean pressers, while standing next to Trump in the Oval Office.

    One last fact worth sharing comes to us from the Center for Global Development. They’ve calculated that as a result of USAID being gutted by Musk’s minions, 500,000 to 700,000 additional deaths will occur worldwide…per year. They’ve ever so kindly reported that their initial estimate is quite conservative and that the number will almost certainly be higher.

    USAID was the agency labeled as the enemy, the poster child for crazy, woke-riddled, DEI-pilled projects. But the main argument was that USAID is the best example of government spending gone wild! We were to believe that there was no justification for spending $109 million a day to save lives, prevent disease, to educate and uplift struggling populations across the globe.

    They want you to believe that spending $890 million a day on the Iran War is a better use of our dollars because, hey, at least it’s not woke, am I right? And these dollars aren’t being spent on DEI, they’re spent on killing people. That makes it all better for Trump and his followers. When they tell you they are fiscally conservative, ask them how much of total federal spending did USAID amount to?

    Ask them how much an F-15 costs? (Of which we’ve lost three so far in this war.) Answer: $90m a piece for a total of $300m lost.

    Ask them how much a tomahawk missile costs? Answer: $2m a pop.

    Ask them how much it cost to move war-making machines over to the Middle East and to keep them there? Answer: $630m for transportation. $13m a day to have two carriers there.

    Ask them how much a one-way drone costs? $35k a pop. (Source for these costs.)

    After all the hype, the little men and women working at DOGE to rid the country of wasteful government spending reported that they cut $160 billion in government spending, not $2 trillion like Musk promised. The only problem is, you have to trust DOGE to believe that $160 billion number because only 40% of that figure is broken down and detailed.

    Meanwhile, GOP lawmakers have heard estimates from the Pentagon that the Iran War is really costing $2 billion a day. Today marks day 9 of the conflict, bringing the total cost so far to $18 billion if you believe what the Pentagon insiders are saying, or a mere 8.01 billion if you want to use CNN’s conservative number.

    Put another way, the total cost of this war through day 9 is the equivalent of putting on 257,142 DEI plays in Ireland. Pick your poison, I guess, but for me it’s not even a choice. If one has to live with bloated government spending, I’ll choose, time after time, the kind that saves lives instead of blows them to pieces.

  • Super Tall – A Love/Hate List

    Love helping a person at the grocery store (usually a mom) with getting something off the top shelf, or even higher than that, you know the top of the grocery store shelves that is used for storage? That dreamy place that is truly off limits for you, but just another high shelf for me. Yes, I love that place.

    Hate car shopping. It’s already an unfortunate experience, but as soon as a car salesperson looks at me and confidently says, “Oh, you’ll fit in this car,” I’m about to ruin their day because no, a Toyota Highlander no longer fits super tall people and the salesperson’s job just got a lot harder.

    Love being the first to spot my kids from a gaggle of parents. We are all looking for our little ones and no matter if I’m in the front or the back, I see my kids first and, naturally, they see me first.

    Hate brands that I love, but they don’t have anything that fits me. Prime example, Patagonia. Blessed are the makers, but will you please make pants that fit someone over 6’5″? Your tops are great. And you make appropriately sized underwear, but your pants are truly lacking. Just introduce a tall size and I’ll buy lots of it and give you all the money.

    Love brands that fit me. I’m looking at you American Tall, you headquartered-in-Canada company, which makes me like you even more. Their clothes have changed my wardrobe for the better. I remember getting my first order of their jeans with a XL Tall long-sleeved tee. I put them on and was in heaven. I wanted to sleep in them. They brought me a simple joy that most people get to experience, wearing clothes that are made to fit your body.

    Hate sitting in an airplane seat. It’s been years since I have sat in a true economy seat. As they have shrunk over the last twenty years, stuffing myself into one just got to be this very painful exercise. Imagine folding yourself into the least comfortable position and being told to stay like that for 2.5 hr. Yeah, I’m just not doing that anymore. I spend extra money each time I fly to get into United’s Economy Plus or Delta’s Comfort+. As for Southwest, their recent changes in seating goes to aid super tall flyers like myself. It used to be that buying Early Bird was my best shot at getting good legroom, but that never guaranteed an extra legroom seat, it only bumped me toward the front of the line. There never failed to be some short frequent flyer in spot A12 who would take the extra legroom seat.

    Love that my height didn’t just mean I was gonna be good at one sport. I have athleticism too. I can’t tell you how many very tall athletes I have played with, coached, or watched, who were just there because they were tall. I have my parents to thank for the height, the reflexes, the agility, and the athleticism.

    Hate that I can’t blend into a crowd. Okay, I don’t always hate this, but being able to walk into a bar without seeing the heads of 15-20 patrons turn toward me would be nice. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced that. Must get thyself to Norway.

    Love watching someone who thinks he’s the tallest in the room and then right when he walks by my table I stand up. Take that, whoever played Chewbacca at Disneyland on July 8, 2025.

    Could have taken Chewie’s job that day.

    Hate making a table and two chairs look like I’ve shrunk them. This is egregious in a Starbucks. I feel like I’m sitting on furniture that belongs in my son’s 2nd grade classroom.

    Love, Love, Love when people assume I cannot run that quickly and that I’m out there to jog a race. No, I can run and I’m there to race you and do my best to beat you.

    Hate looking for homes I fit in because…there just aren’t many.

    Love painting a ceiling without a ladder.

    Hate an airplane bathroom. (Certainly not exclusive to tall people.)

    Love owning toys that match me in size.

    My 15ft-long paddle board.

    Hate not fitting in bathtubs.

    Love having tall kids. Gosh, they grow so fast, but they look so good. Tall people are beautiful.

    Lastly, I love a good list. I hope you’ve enjoyed this.

  • Hugging God

    I wrote the following into the One Line A Day journal I kept for London.

    March 5, 2019.

    On the morning drive to pre-K you said you “love hugging God.” Then you started to look out the window and pray, “Dear God, I love you so much.” And then you blew God a kiss.

    The morning sun lit up your smiling face at the exact moment I turned around to look at you. It wrecked me. There were tears.

  • Ignoramuses For Office

    The war with Iran will stir me to write more about politics, current events, and international relations, but not now. Today I am just a swirling mess of ideas I can’t quite put down on paper and so I looked at a long note on my phone, which is full of some of my favorite quotes. I came across this one from Mark Twain and it pairs nicely with my comments yesterday, specifically those comments regarding POTUS and his drunken Secretary of War…

    “We will not hire a blacksmith who never lifted a sledge. We will not hire a school teacher who does not know the alphabet…But when you come to our civil service we serenely fill great numbers of our minor [and major] public offices with ignoramuses.” – Mark Twain, September 30, 1876.

  • Not Normal To Live Like This

    I check in once a day with my dear friend in Israel. He and his family already live in a volatile region of the world and what Trump did in the wee hours of Saturday morning has made day-to-day life in Israel and the Middle East even more fraught with peril.

    Trump and Hegseth live in this imaginary world that never existed, but one we all thought existed after 9/11. It’s a world in which people believe the strategy to kill off a terrorist group is to take out its head and then everything will be all right. That didn’t happen in Afghanistan. That didn’t happen in Iraq. And it didn’t happen when Osama bin Laden was killed, although I cheered when he died. However, I knew it didn’t mean the hour of freedom was at hand for the thousands living under al Qaeda’s watchful eye or the multitude of terrorist organizations modeled after it.

    So if you’re thinking Trump just solved ME peace again (remember he did that just a few months ago as well, saying Iran’s nuclear capabilities were “totally obliterated”) you haven’t been paying attention for a very, very long time. The newest power vacuum in the ME has just been created by the trigger-happy boys in charge of America’s firepower. When Hegseth talks about the war and American strategy, which there is none, one can truly hear that he is a stupid individual. Yes, SNL joked that he might have borrowed his Iran strategy from a bad GameCube game, but the really sick part is that it’s entirely believable. He is a stupid, boneheaded, shadow of a man. He truly makes me feel embarrassed to be a part of this country. And his boss, well, he clearly did not think about the repercussions of a regional war with Iran. He has put that part of the world under a blowtorch and now we have to watch it burn, we have to come to terms with the fact that we are responsible for blowing up a girls school, and we must prepare ourselves for what comes next. No matter how bad the next iteration of Iranian rulers are, Americans in power must say we did that.

    The Board of Peace must also say we did that, when rockets fall onto Israel, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, and the UAE, killing citizens. Or when US troops die, as they already have in this, only the latest, disastrous adventure in the ME.

    My friend in Israel sends me videos of air raid sirens right before he and his family huddle into a safe room. He has sent me a video of an impact crater in his neighborhood. Again and again he says it’s not normal to live like this. But he is also getting to know Trump’s motivations, mentioning they are for his own financial benefit and that he’s acting like a man who is running away from something, read Epstein files. Again and again, I say I’m sorry. I added this morning, on behalf of the USA and everyone who voted for Trump, I am sorry.

    It won’t be the last time I say this. I look forward to the day when more people say it too.

  • Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuce!

    I just had a weekend with London.

    We finally concluded the Hunger Games movies with viewings on Friday night, Saturday morning, and Sunday afternoon. At one point during the viewing London told me, “This is what happens in chapter 25 of the book.” Things like this happen when you hang out with London. You think, that can’t possibly be right, but you double check it later when you’re by yourself or maybe even in the moment and you realize, yes, she is right.

    Saturday was big. I took London to Root Down, one of our favorite restaurants in Denver. Once settled into our seats I had to go use the bathroom. When I got back to the table, London was talking to the server and she asked, “Do you have any other entrees besides these four?” I mean, she wasn’t wrong. If there’s something I would change about Root Down, I would like maybe 6 entrees, but I’ve never said that to them. London cut right to the core of the problem in the 90 seconds I was away from the table.

    Despite the limited selection, we fared quite well at Root Down, getting their quintessential lamb sliders and sweet potato tots. We also shared the crispy brussel sprouts and devils on horseback before “sharing” the hangar steak. I let London have 8 of the 10 tender slices of steak and in between bites she announced, “I’ve never been exposed to these flavors before.” We then had the banana cream pie and salted chocolate chip cookies to finish off the meal. As we finished up, Governor Polis took his seat in the corner of the restaurant.

    The true highlight of the night, and the real reason we were in Denver, was to see Bruce Hornsby perform with the Colorado Symphony at the Boettcher Concert Hall. London has never seen Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuce in concert, but Kate and I have been going to Bruce concerts every year of her life. She’s heard a lot of Bruce at home and is more familiar with the songs than even I believed her to be.

    Once the show started and we were settled in with our drinks (Shirley Temple for the lady and an Odell IPA for me) London was naming songs after a few keystrokes. Bruce played a long time and London might have fallen asleep—resting her head on my shoulder—during a song or two. At one point, Bruce announced that his next song has a curse word in the title and went on to explain a bit about “Shit’s Crazy Out Here.” Before play resumed, London turned to me and said, “Oh my, I’ve never heard an artist swear before.” She got a laugh from our row in the concert hall.

    Bruce Hornsby, the CO Symphony, and the standing O.

    London rallied for Bruce’s second set, even whispering into my ear the name of an obscure song Bruce was dabbling in, “Hop, Skip & Jump.” For the second time in two days I was later looking it up to see if Bruce had been playing that song. He had been. She was right. I could have never named it.

    An hour later we were home and in our beds, so happy that I saw Bruce with my daughter, thankful for a great meal, and treasuring new moments which will always be with us.

  • Brainstorming Blog Titles

    I’ve just been brainstorming for a few days about a new title for this blog. Here are the frontrunners in my mind:

    South Suburban Salutations

    Folio From Featureless Fort Collins

    Scrawls From Suburban Sprawl

    Filings From Barely Fort Collins

    Shoutouts From The Sterile South

    The Exurb Epistolary

    Missives From Monotony

    We Have Trees Down Here Too

    Notes From Nothingness

    Letters From Lifeless Locales

    I Go On Runs Longer Than This City

    If you have alternate ideas, I’m open to them. Please leave a comment with them or your favorites from above.

  • The Cognitive Dissonance Outfit

    Cognitive Dissonance is defined as “a mental phenomenon in which people unknowingly or subconsciously hold fundamentally conflicting cognitions. Being confronted by situations that create this dissonance or highlight these inconsistencies motivates change in their cognitions or actions to reduce this dissonance, maybe by changing a belief, by explaining something away, or by taking actions that reduce perceived inconsistency.”

    I saw this mental phenomenon in the form of an outfit this week.

    A man was wearing a tank top with pink lettering that said, “Support Your Local Girl Dad.”

    And, he had a Trump hat on.

    You cannot be both.

    That’s it. That’s the post.

  • Must They Ruin Everything

    I am not a devoted hockey fan, but if it’s the Olympics or the Avs in the playoffs, I’ll watch a match. So I was Sunday when I saw Jack Hughes’ golden goal just 1:42 into overtime. To see the excitement of the team was absolutely contagious. I replayed the final minute of the match for the kids. We were stoked. And then the players held up Gaudreau‘s jersey and brought his kids onto the ice for photos with the team. It was a beautiful moment and a show of brotherhood that few of us get to experience.

    I truly felt proud of these guys, none of whom I follow, but it was a moment—rare these days—to be proud of something the United States of America has done. That was the before.

    The in-between was just a few hours later when, as I scrolled through Instagram, I saw the familiar coke-addled, deer-in-the-headlights look of the FBI Director Kash Patel slamming back beers with the team. I felt the moment died right there.

    Big peaked-in-high-school energy.

    The after was coming to grips with the taxpayer money used to fund such a trip, apparently $100,000. There was no such support of the women’s team when they won their gold medal. In fact, this celebration did feature the women’s team (after a few more shitty beers were had) as they were the butt of a joke by the president himself when he said, “I must tell you, we are going to have to bring the women’s team, you do know that.” Adding that if he didn’t invite the women’s team, “I would probably be impeached.” To this, the men’s team laughed, both after the mention of inviting the women’s team and again after the impeachment joke. There was one man decent enough to be heard saying 2 for 2 in the video, a reference to the USA hockey teams sweeping the medals at the Milano Cortina games, but other than that the video was filled with very bro-y chuckles and slaps on the back.

    So there we have the president and one of his closest servants mock women’s sports, even though they pretend to be the party that wants to save women’s sports, but not behind closed doors. Behind closed doors they are pedophile-protectors, misogynist pigs, and care little about serving their constituents or solving a high-profile missing person case (you forgot about Guthrie, Patel). It’s all jokes and glad-handing. Duty and honor are absent from these men. They have proven it again and again. Their love of taking credit for any American victory, whether they played any part in it, is face-palming toddleresque.

    The kicker to all this is that as far as I know, no member of the men’s hockey team has spoken out about what went on in that locker room. They could have collectively not let that wee spotlight-grabbing, sad sack of a man in the door to celebrate with them. His role at most, should be to shake hands with the players once they were back in country. And not one man has defended their much more successful counterparts, the women’s USA hockey team, after Trump made them into a joke for all the men and the world to hear.

    If I could, I would make the men’s hockey team hear this poem I just heard last night for the first time (potus and Patel are a lost cause, clearly), it’s by Daragh Fleming and it’s titled “If I Ever Have Girls.” Here is a brief passage from the poem, intended for the US Men’s Hockey Team because they clearly need the education:

    My girls will know poetry and song.
    They’ll know I will listen when something feels wrong.
    They’ll learn that “women are too emotional” is an original lie,
    And they’ll not grow up with a father who refuses to cry.
    So yeah, my girls will make some weak men shake in their knees.
    They won’t be the women that society expects.
    They’ll be the women society needs.

    —Daragh Fleming, “If I Ever Have Girls”

  • The Pulse of the City

    Denver has a pulse. I have found myself missing the beat of the city lately. I left it with relative ease in June when we packed up everything and moved to Fort Collins, but now that we have had time to settle into our new house and new hometown, I spend a lot of time thinking about the last hometown.

    Kids playing in the park, down the street from our old house in the Lowry neighborhood of Denver.

    There is always the grass is always greener excuse, but that’s not exactly what I am feeling. I don’t want to be in our last house, although I absolutely loved it. I don’t want to be back in the old neighborhood, although I sort of liked it. I just miss things about Denver, things that maybe I thought Fort Collins had too, but I haven’t found them yet. For example, good restaurants. Denver has many of them. A hundred? I don’t know, but enough that there was always some eatery with a great reputation that you could go try for the first time every single time you went out to eat. Fort Collins has an inexplicable amount of restaurants, but finding a good one is as rare as finishing the NY Times Sunday crossword in one sitting. It’s quite the task, one that we’ve been surprised by. Thankfully, we were taken to a great one on Friday, Rare, a steakhouse at Mountain and College, right in the heart of town.

    I guess I underestimated how much I was tuned into a Denver lifestyle after 15 years there. It’s a big city, especially by my standards. There was always something going on. That doesn’t necessarily mean we always partook, I mean, there’s never a need to go to some event on 16th Street, but similar activities were always an option. Prior to our time in Denver, we lived in Milwaukee, which is a noticeably smaller city, but still a city with a buzz and an identifiable scene. So, Kate and I have had 18 years of marriage in big cities, and nearly eight months in a certifiably small city.

    Fort Collins has a pulse too. But I haven’t found it. It has felt so laid back and slow it appears lifeless from some angles. I suspect that I will find the beat of this city. Time will strengthen the bond as it always does. I guess I still feel bonded to Denver in a very strong way. I don’t want that to weaken, but I want my bond to FoCo to be just as strong.

  • Feeling Well-Off

    I do not once remember my parents implying that the key to happiness is money. They expressed that money is important, of course. It pays for a roof over your head, food on your plate, a car in the driveway (or other means to easily get around town), and, if you’re lucky, it pays for other roofs over your head on an annual vacation.

    I grew up in a family that vacationed more than once a year and we were never left wanting on Christmas morning. My sister got a car on her 18th birthday. I was given a car in my second year of college. Like many families, a washer and dryer breaking down and needing immediate replacement was a financial burden, but it was not one that economically broke the house. We were not in the third of Americans who couldn’t cover a sudden $400 expense. We earned above the median household income, which currently stands at $81,600. We were reminded of unhoused people all around us and helped them through charities and mission trips.

    Essentially, I was raised in a household that made me believe we were well-off. And we were. Things were kept in perspective. Yes, there were people richer than us and we were told there always will be. But, we weren’t on the streets, we had a very nice house, I had very nice toys, I had Shaq’s Reebok Pumps (look at these beauties, damn), a Duke Blue Devils pullover jacket, and the gold Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time N64 cartridge (still do). I felt lucky. I felt undeserving on many occasions because of what my parents gave me and gave the family.

    So when my kids ask me, are we well off? I tell them the truth. Yes, yes we are. We keep it real. I don’t want them comparing up the economic ladder, I want them looking down the economic ladder to see how well off we are and thinking how we can make things easier for those who aren’t well-off. In this house, like the one I grew up in, a matter of being well-off is knowing the facts, having humility, being respectful of the majority of the country who cannot live the way you live, being grateful, and not acting like you are owed something because your family can afford it.

    And it’s about holding onto rare N64 cartridges.