This hasn’t happened to me before! I’m so grateful and I don’t know who to thank!
Cellphone repair
This happened yesterday, and the reason I didn’t know or post about it was because I was getting my phone repaired. I badly needed a new battery and charging port.
My phone is about two and a half years old with heavy use, so I’d have to recharge it multiple times a day with a fast charging cord. So both the USB port and the battery needed to be replaced.
I ordered the parts myself and was going to do the repairs myself, I’m handy with computers, and most repairs are straightforward with a guide and cheap tools you can buy online. I’ve built my past three PCs for gaming, so replacing parts on the phone is easy.
While I can and have blogged on my Personal desktop computer, I don’t like to. I get too distracted. It’s the thing I use to relax after work and on weekends. I’ve noticed that my best production comes away from there in other locations in the morning.
It was as simple as finding my phone model in the settings, looking up: “battery replacement for model” on YouTube, and acquiring what I needed on Amazon, which was about $30. I have much better compared to purchasing a brand-new phone for like $400-600. Plus, that would be wasteful and unnecessary since my phone, as I type on it today, February 1st, is working like it was before the battery started to wear out.
I had a problem with the repair. I got the back case off with the tool kit and a borrowed hair drier, BUT some of the tiny custom screws were stripped, and none of the eight miniature custom screwdrivers worked to remove the screws. So, I brought it to a local cellphone repair shop in my neighborhood on Monday. I picked it up Tuesday night after work. The total cost of replacing the parts with an expert: is $75—a fair price. Maybe I can get another two years out of this phone. Or more? I don’t need a fancy or overpriced expensive model.
That brings us today on Wednesday morning.
Sorry, Im late with a post. I lost Thursday through Sunday because of my health. I had a Long-Covid flare-up out of the blue. While I was feeling better on the weekend, I still had brain fog and could not do anything requiring a strenuous mental effort like blogging. Which is a bummer when that falls on the days I plan to write new posts.
Other
Thankfully I had a doctor’s appointment on Wednesday last week. My bloodwork was in a healthy range, and the results from the EKG were good. I’m already feeling better from her advice on changes to make. Which, among other things are to add a dose of vitamin B12 and CoQ10 to my regimen. I’m also increasing my antidepressant which will help with that part of long covid symptoms.
This is the third round of medical tests done in the past year. While all have been in the healthy range, which is good, it’s frustrating that I’m still dealing with long covid. Since science is catching up on research, and understanding thus disease, I’m doing all I can. It’s out of my control when or if I recover. So all I can do now is to practice Radical acceptance.
All things considered, Life’s good. I’m still terrified of catching covid and waiting until the peak season of winter is over to socialize in person, Still, I’m slowly improving with this and my therapy-centered issues.
I’m not sure how to end this post; Thanks for reading! If the mysterious gift giver would like to identify themselves in the comments, please do! I would like to personally thank you!
Tomorrow after work, we’re having a Potluck Party.
A Potluck at a pot company. Couldn’t pass up this pun. Lol.
This is a a party that I’ve been leading as I proposed the event. It started as a holiday potluck, but changed to a general potluck after rescheduling to mid January so everyone could attend, and to limit the risk of spreading or catching covid after the holidays.
I’m bringing two dishes to it, which will be recipe posts next week. One: Twice-baked Alaska and braised greens. I also wanted a 30-day advent calendar with weed as the prize each day, but… I’ve been too tired after work and spread myself too thin organizing the party. My duties at work have changed in the past month and turned to much more physical tasks of knocking joints and, much more often, grinding weed.
Being able to knock joints or grind weed is a massive step in progress. For long stretches last year, I would not have been able to do these for half or more of a shift. I would compare it to the physical and mental focus that working as a cook in a restaurant requires. One needs physical energy, being able to stand on your feet for hours of the day, attention to detail, checking for quality and speed, and focusing on repetitive tasks for hours.
I digress
Despite the tight time before and after work to cook this week, despite my worry about catching covid in a small space –though it will be required that everyone take a covid test and have a negative result–, despite the stress and exhaustion I’m feeling… It will be all worth it once it’s party time. Then I can relax and enjoy myself like I did at the company Halloween party.
I’ll be doing my part to see that not too many people are in the trim room getting food to mitigate exposure risk.
Well, this short post is all I have time for this week.
This week marks 1 year since I caught covid, which became Long Covid.
Song of the post: Virus by Del The Funky Homosapien · Dan The Automator · Kid Koala on Deltron 3030.
Lat year in 2022, during the Omnicron Surge in the middle of January, I caught covid at work.
It may seem strange that I am giving my catching covid an anniversary… The concept is most known for getting married, being at a job, or being a marker of success for relationship longevity. Since I have read The body keeps the score, I’ve learned that those under the effects of PTSD can hold up traumatic events. Between catching covid, living in a pandemic, and still randomly suffering from long covid, it’s no wonder I’m feeling off today.
I caught covid at a pizza party I threw after my first week as a department manager. While everyone then was wearing masks, and to my recollection, the majority wearing kn95s… I could have been safer and limited how many people with masks down were getting food in our small breakroom. Masks are useless if they are pulled down when people are eating. It didn’t help that the space where I set up the pizza was in our work breakroom, which is tiny and has poot airflow (still). I probably should not have brought the leftovers home and eaten them later. (Even if I did reheat and store them properly, that was too risky.)
I should have been more persistent in getting the booster shot then. I was not boosted because demand was so high in my area.The new covid booster had just become available in December 2021. Nowhere I called or looked had open appointments. The only way I could have received it was to drive to every pharmacy and wait until it closed, after work, for there to maybe be an extra shot.
Now that I think of it, I could have died if I did not have the original vaccine series.
Other factors that didn’t help:
A) I was exhausted by keeping up with safety after 2 years;
B) I wanted to treat everyone at work to pizza (people pleasing);
C) to that point in time, we had not had a work party, and I had barely socialized with anyone outside my immediate social circle.
20 minutes with my mask down/off to eat pizza in a closed space with many people, during peak covid infections was all it took.
This short post below I wrote in the middle of it when I was home sick.
I would add symptoms: Feeling so tired that you can’t focus or do anything but rest, confusion, rapid or slow heartbeat, and the worst fever you have ever had.
If you are sick and suspect it is covid, STAY HOME. The U.S. government is giving away free covid tests here. If you test positive, stay home for 14 weeks. 5 days with a mask is not long enough. Even going to work with a mask on is like having a loaded gun where your mouth is. even if the safety is on, it’s still loaded. A loaded gun that is pointing at others. Your mouth doesn’t have a safety switch, and people make mistakes.
Don’t risk your health. Take your time to recover and prevent the spread to others, please.
Do you really want to put your health in the hands of the American healthcare system?
A reminder on how to properly wear a mask:
This is what the symptoms of Long Covid are
AS is currently understood by science and those suffering from it. Research is underway to treat Long Covid and how it attacks the body.
“Long COVID (sometimes referred to as ‘post-acute sequelae of COVID-19’) is a multisystemic condition comprising often severe symptoms that follow a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. At least 65 million individuals around the world have long COVID, based on a conservative estimated incidence of 10% of infected people and more than 651 million documented COVID-19 cases worldwide1; the number is likely much higher due to many undocumented cases. The incidence is estimated at 10–30% of non-hospitalized cases, 50–70% of hospitalized cases2,3 and 10–12% of vaccinated cases4,5. Long COVID is associated with all ages and acute phase disease severities, with the highest percentage of diagnoses between the ages of 36 and 50 years, and most long COVID cases are in non-hospitalized patients with a mild acute illness6, as this population represents the majority of overall COVID-19 cases. There are many research challenges, as outlined in this Review, and many open questions, particularly relating to pathophysiology, effective treatments and risk factors.
Hundreds of biomedical findings have been documented, with many patients experiencing dozens of symptoms across multiple organ systems7 (Fig. 1). Long COVID encompasses multiple adverse outcomes, with common new-onset conditions including cardiovascular, thrombotic and cerebrovascular disease8, type 2 diabetes9, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS)10,11 and dysautonomia, especially postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS)12 (Fig. 2). Symptoms can last for years13, and particularly in cases of new-onset ME/CFS and dysautonomia are expected to be lifelong14. With significant proportions of individuals with long COVID unable to return to work7, the scale of newly disabled individuals is contributing to labour shortages15. There are currently no validated effective treatments.”
Long covid is considered a disability under the ADA:
“This guidance explains that long COVID can be a disability under Titles II (state and local government) and III (public accommodations) of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA),3 Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504),4 and Section 1557 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Section 1557).5 Each of these federal laws protects people with disabilities from discrimination.6 This guidance also provides resources for additional information and best practices. This document focuses solely on long COVID, and does not address when COVID-19 may meet the legal definition of disability.
The civil rights protections and responsibilities of these federal laws apply even during emergencies.7 They cannot be waived.”
That is the all-time most views for the blog, which happened in 2020. I was close to topping it last year in 2022 but fell short at 2,254 views.
My blogging goal for 2023 is to exceed these numbers. The plan (the CRAZY plan) so far to meet this goal is to post twice a week, or 104 posts in the year. This was 26 more posts than in 2020, when I wrote 78, and more seats than in 2021 and 2022. One thing to note about the 2020 stats is that I posted 28 times with a total of 841 views because I wanted to. I will not repeat that because I worked part-time then, and this was before I had Long Covid.
Ah… I regret making this decision to post twice a week… That’s a total of 104 posts in a year.
My goal for 2023 is to exceed 2,477 views.
For new bloggers, it is wise to ignore the views each post gets and the overall views your page receives. This is because it is more important to focus on discovering and polishing your writing routine, discovering how many posts you can publish that are high quality and stand out from other blogs, mastering the art of writing and blog writing, learning about and increasing mastery of SEO, and patience because it takes time to build an audience. Of course, if your blogging goal is to use it as a journal or post whatever for whomever, this doesn’t apply. That is okay too.
(The movie adaptation is solid and I would recommend watching it. If you are interested, I would recommend reading the book and watching the movie, as both are excellent for their formats.)
When I started blogging a couple of years ago, I naturally started the same process of figuring out how to be successful with the information I had available to me with the resources I had at the time, which weren’t much. I was at rock bottom emotionally, recently laid off, and barely hanging on with unemployment, the pandemic started, and everything shut down. I didn’t feel safe seeing friends or family. While I was living with my mother, she had her own struggles then to face, so I had to learn to support myself and learn how to heal on my own at the darkest time in my life.
Thankfully I gave therapy one more shot and was assigned an excellent therapist who was part of a wonderful mental health organization called Sound Mental Health.
For me, blogging is multiple things. I use it to track my life, journal publically, grow as a writer, and challenge myself. It is a way to hold myself accountable and prove that I can do better and deserve better. I like blogging because it’s a perpetual goal to write. Being an excellent writer is one part of it. In this world, to stand out, you have to acquire skills in multiple areas. If I want to be an author, showrunner, or professional writer, I need to view writing and my brand as a small business.
Naturally, as I change, I want the blog to change and grow. Therefore, I like the traffic to my blog posts to increase and the blog traffic to grow.
Blogging and this website are something that I have complete autonomy over. Its success or lack of it is tied to how much time and effort I put into it.
Blogging/writing makes me feel alive.
I feel I best express myself through writing. I think it’s the one way I can impact the world.
Blogging feels better than being an anonymous message board person. People read and react to your comments, but it’s not the same as coming up with an idea for a long piece, writing it, editing it, and posting it online for everyone worldwide to see. It feels good when people follow you and connect with what you wrote. It feels good to build something that is yours.
At times it makes me crazy because I’m pressed for time. I need to write before work because I’ll be too exhausted to write after work. Bloggers need day jobs like most creative people. Sometimes I do have the energy and clarity of mind, but… I have no idea what to write. And the only way to get it done is to grind the post out one word at a time until you discover inspiration.
One day the pandemic will end, and I won’t have to be afraid of catching a deadly strain of covid. Maybe this will be in a year from now. Once China recovers from this current covid wave, the world will feel safe. There is the threat of the XBB strain here in the US, but thankfully I live in a city and state with a high vaccination rate. As long as I avoid packed places, continue to wear a mask, stay up to date with vaccine boosters, and avoid conservative political dominant areas of Washington state (because the vaccine rate is lower here and every other conservative dominant county of the US), I’ll be safe. All that and avoid socializing in big groups in winter in closed spaces. All I can do at this point is protect my health. Safety is different from excuses.
This year will be the one where I finally heal from trauma. Make this the year where you grow up. Make this the year you finally follow through on things you said you wanted.
3/104 posts done for 2023. As of the time of this post at 719am, 123 views have been achieved toward the year goal of 2477+.
Thank you for reading! I hope that you enjoyed this post! Have you set a goal for 2023? If so tell me what it is in the comments below!
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New Posts for 2023 will be on Mondays and Thursday mornings, before noon, Pacific Standard Time.
It is now 2023, as is tradition on social media and the world at large… It’s time to reflect on 2022 and review my life of the previous year. Unlike the cliche, 2022 felt like a year and didn’t go by fast and, more often than not, slower for me than others.
2022 can be summarized by the following themes: Work, Long Covid, Going out into the world again, online dating, and Inner growth.
This post is about when I went to a book signing for Alton Brown, one of my cooking idols. I used to want to be a chef and worked in the restaurant industry, so going to buy his new book, get it signed by him, and have a word was something I wasn’t going to miss!
Pumpkin Spice Cinnamon Rolls is a recipe I created, which is to add pumpkin pie filling and double pumpkin pie spices to the classic cinnamon roll. This recipe is dairy free and doesn’t use sugar. instead, it uses an erythritol blend.
The Mariners 2022 ALDS… (Part 3 of 3). (Not a fan of this title after the fact) This post is about my experience going to the first Seattle Mariners home playoff game in 21 years! It was the first time I had ever gone to any home professional sports game in my life. Boy, was it worth it. It’s the conclusion to a 3 part series, in which previous posts are linked in the post. It was game 3 of 5, win or go home for the Mariners, the entire state was covered in dangerous forest fire smog, and I did my part by writing a prayer to the god of the mariners by visiting its first stadium site in town, and burning the prayer to the god before the game.
This post is about my experience getting an article published in the Seattle Times newspaper about the challenges of finding a therapy that works for me and learning that I was on the Autism Spectrum at age 36.
Days in a Life is a post set in a challenging time in my life, right after I had finally had sex for the first time and was a virgin no more. My cat Coco wasn’t doing well either, and I was worried she might have had a UTI. I was freaking out and was sure something was wrong with me too. You’ll have to read the post to find out. Unfortunately, I haven’t had sex since.
And finally, Long covid. In about 10 days, it will be a year since I caught covid and I haven’t recovered. While the severity of sickness has improved slowly since I’m not the same person physically, I was a year ago. If you haven’t gotten the covid vaccine or the latest booster yet, please do. You don’t want this disability. I wasn’t able to blog for long periods due to this disease. I can barely exercise without becoming so exhausted that I need to go home and sleep. There’s no cure. There are treatments, but that isn’t a guarantee because it’s basically throwing shit at a wall. Even if there will be treatments, I bet it will be expensive and not covered by insurance in America. Which is the case with conditions that do have medical solutions such as ADD or diabetes.
Now announcing a new site address: Unknownreilly.com!
I felt it was time for a change, being the new year. This has been something that I have been considering for six months, but I was hoping that the old site address theunknownreilly.wordpress.com would do… However, my needs have changed.
Song of the post: You ain’t seen Nothing yet by Bachman-Turner Overdrive
It’s time for me to commit to a domain website instead of one hosted a subdomain under WordPress.
I’m doing this because I feel that I hit a wall with the old host. The free plan that I had was limited by design not to be the best website it could be. Therefore, I’m going up one step to the WordPress Personal Plan. Considering that this blog is still a hobby, unlikely to be my primary source of income, and I don’t want to blog full time as a job, the $80 per year is reasonable.
This plan is $48 a year before taxes, but I bought a domain name before buying the program without knowing WordPress requires a plan to change domain names. Que sera, sera.
Making a living blogging or writing, or the minimum wage is incredibly and statistically unrealistic. Making a living writing or in the arts is hard. I’m not against hard goals. If were to shoot for a difficult goal, it would be to become a showrunner or, to be a novelist who has their work adapted into an animated tv show or movie. (animated because I love anime and animated tv shows and movies.) Most creative people have a day job and create on the side like I do.
Maybe it’s time I start to consider working towards the goal above seriously. It’s been something that I have had to drop for years because I was living in survival mode and because I had to go through the slow process of healing my mental health. I digress.
This is an investment in myself. However I go forward, the first step is by improving this blog. The skills and time I’ve spent writing and learning about SEO and blogging will help me in all aspects of life moving forward.
More changes to come
I plan on making more changes such as a theme change for the front page, which is something that I’ve thought about doing for a couple months but wasn’t sure what I wanted, or what would better fit this type of blog. I’d prefer not to have to pay for this.
One thing that I would like to change is the posting schedule. In 2022 it was, frankly speaking, random. I wrote when I could, procrastination was part, and I had to focus on self-care because of my health. It was a busy year of change too, which required more rest. For now, I feel that the content schedule I would prefer to be Monday and Thursday.
This is my phone use data from the app, Stay Free. I’m not proud of this.
How can I achieve these changes?
The Screenshot above is of the 2022 total app use by me, tracked by Stay Free app. In 2022, I spent 2516 hours on my phone—an average of 6.9 hours daily. While a large chunk of this time is due to me watching videos on YouTube or movies on Amazon prime while working, a significant share is not. It’s time I could have used doing something else.
That being said, I could have written more or been more disciplined. I like to watch anime or animated tv shows after getting home from work, and pretty much watch tv shows or movies on the weekend… But it’s time for a change.
Experience from past failures has taught me that incremental progress and doing things imperfectly are how I grow. I get in my head too much and rationalize why not to do stuff instead of being okay with being “good enough.” I grow by doing.
The only way I can improve is by investing more time into it.
I have three planned posts coming up. First on how the blog performed, second on how my life was in 2022, and third, on the finale of the fantasy football series. I discovered that I like this type of analytic stuff last year.
I want this blog to grow and I want to grow as a writer. This is a step forward. Onto 2023! Onto Year three of blogging!
November 23rd, 2003, My father died in a car crash
Music of the post: Father Time by Kendrick Lamar ft Sampha
Two nights before, he sat us down at the kitchen table and said that he had a problem with drinking.
He said that he was going to stop because he had a problem.
He seemed sincere… But…
I was 17, so I didn’t know how to react. My first reaction was to be skeptical. I’d seen this play out before with my addict aunt—his sister.
I had long given up on needing anything from him after him being a lifelong alcoholic. From him being a shitty father.
I didn’t know then, but it would be the last time I’d see him again.
After work that night, in the middle of the night of the 23rd, he went to a bar with coworkers. The accounts given there, say that he only had one drink. Later confirmed by a blood alcohol test.
Like the many times he did before… He drove drunk.
He had been in multiple car accidents in the past, which I didn’t know about until recently after a conversation about addiction patterns on my dad’s side with my mother.
The vehicles he drove were a reflection of how he lived life.
Used, beat up junk vans with hundreds of thousands of miles on them, near death, poorly maintained.
He was a carpet and floor installer. He needed a van to store the materials he needed for work.
Always a junker from the 80s or earlier, each van being replaced yearly or more.
He ran his life, his vans on eggshells.
Booze came first.
There always was something wrong with his cars.
If he faced his problems earlier, if he stopped drinking he easily could have afforded repairs for the brakes, other engine problems, or simply buy a car that isn’t an excuse to avoid his personal problems.
A reflection of what was wrong with him.
He drank to cover up his problems. He drank to not deal with his shit. He drank to escape.
He was yet another addict in the chain of generational trauma. Of family dysfunction.
To my grandparents credit, they stopped drinking and smoking cigarettes late in life after my addict aunt caught aids.
I don’t know if anyone went to therapy, I suspect not.
I suspect not because of what I know about addiction, codependency, trauma, grief, and generational trauma.
This ends with me.
Maybe I am so comfortable working at a cannabis company because of this. Hm.
That night.
That last van was a death wish. It had a couple different engine problems which caused it a constant screech, and the brakes barely worked.
He drove home from the bar in Sodo, next to the Home Depot where he worked in the flooring department.
On his last drink.
The accident happened on top of Beacon hill, which is a couple miles from our house.
He died instantly from a broken spine.
Maybe he could have survived if he had maintained the brakes on his van. Perhaps he could have survived if he had a seatbelt made past the 1980s design on his van. But he didn’t. He chose these risks on top of driving drunk. He put himself and us, his family because he chose to run away from his problems.
Until he embodied being a living problem. As said in modern therapy terms, he was a danger to himself and others.
Another driver was disabled due to the accident crash. There was a third car involved, but I guess they were okay. More on this later.
Seattle Police came to our house, knocked on the door and told my mother what had happened.
My dad was in a car accident crash and died.
Later fragments
The morning after, my Aunts on my mom’s side came over. It was that day that I was old enough to understand, and know first hand… What it feels like to have your father die suddenly. My grandfather on my moms side died in his 40s from heart disease when my aunts were teenagers and my mom was young.
It was comforting to hear from my late Aunt Ann that they knew what it felt like to be where we were. That we would get through this hard time. And though I’m not religious, it was comforting for my Uncle Gene to lead everyone there in prayer, asking for grace from God. (I wish I could have told this story at her funeral last year.)
I was told to call my friends to tell them what happened. I managed but was traumatized for a long time after. I was only able to heal in therapy about ten years later.
After those calls, my brother and I decided to go to a friend’s house for a few days.
I felt like a stranger at Dad’s funeral. It was a decent-sized crowd at the act theater where it was hosted. (Grandma had connections in the Art community through her corporate job at Safeco Insurance). I wasn’t that sad because he had died. I barely knew the man, and he was emotionally unavailable or distant from my brother and me. I was sad for others there that I knew were sad about his passing. Because of their Alcohol addiction and many personal problems, he never dealt with them.
The consequences
As a result of dads blood alcohol level being at or just under the state legal limit at that time, he was deemed at fault for the crash.
The driver who was disabled because of the crash, sued my mother. Which led to an 8-year-long lawsuit for everything we had.
For eight years, I didn’t know what would happen. Even though my mother dealt with the majority of the shit involved, for that entire period, I didn’t know if we would become homeless or be forced to move to another state just so our family had a place to live. There wasn’t much I could do to help since I was in high school and then going to college.
I had no idea what this person looked like. I don’t know their name. All I knew was that he was a threat to my family and our survival due to spite. Yes, my dad was at fault for him being in a wheelchair and breaking bones. The injured guy did recover, and didn’t have any worse injuries. However, to sue the family for everything and spend years chasing it is messed up.
The lawsuit ended because the bastard died of a heart attack, which was in 2011. That was when I was finally able to start grieving. It took several more years and several therapists before I could process that grief.
I obsessively read all I could with the limited information and the internet to teach myself about being a man and psychology. But since I struggled to find a consistent therapist, progress was slow. Or there wasn’t any. I was stuck in a swamp and needed help. Eventually, I got it.
One story I learned about my dad is that he once went to therapy in the 80s. But, he acted strangely and later on said that he made up what he said to the therapist he saw, which made me so mad when I heard about it.
More on my experience with therapy in this post below.
It took until 2020, to try dozens of different medicines for ADD, Depression, adding many supplements, reading lots of self help articles and books, psychedelic mushrooms used therapeutically, cannabis, and not giving up on therapy to get to where I am today.
I still have healing to do. Im not perfect, and I make mistakes.
I only feel down regarding dad this time of the year. I think of him as examples of who I don’t want to be.
I take care of myself; I am mindful of my mental health. My biggest life goal is to end this chain of dysfunction.
Therapy tips and helpful information
Attached by Amir Levine & Rachel Heller
No more Mr Nice Guy by Robert Glover, The body keeps the score by Bessel A. van der kolk
The dreamer and the fantasy relationship by Natalie Lue
The six pillars of self esteem by Dr. Nathaniel Branden
Complex PTSD by Pete Walker
Dating Greatly by Brene Brown
Man’s search for meaning by Viktor Frankl
Codependent no more by Melony Beattie
Healing from a narcissistic relationship by Margalis Fjelstad
Late bloomers by Rich Karlgaard.
All of the above are on audible. Most of these I’ve read twice.
The image above is previous weeks fantasy football score
This post’s title is a play on the movie Any Given Sunday. This movie is alright if you like American Football. This speech delivered by Al Pacino, who stars in the movie is pretty good.
The picture above is week 6 of our works fantasy football score between a coworker and me.
I was ahead in points 107.92 to 86.26 and won because the running back he has waiting to play, Jamaal Williams, is on the NFL injured list. He has one other player who is not playing -Tight End Darren Waller- whose team is on a Bye or a week off this week. These are choices… In this case, my intention was not to do anything by my co-worker. He was asked to participate in the fantasy football league because we needed at least 10 people. So, he was there for the draft and set his roster back in September before the NFL season. He is 1-4 after 5 games, and I am 4-1 after 5. His registration is decent, and he had a good chance of winning against me this week, but he did not because he joined because my coworkers and I were more invested in playing Fantasy Football this NFL season.
If he had changed J. Williams and Waller for another player, he might have beaten me. I ended up squeaking by with the win. That gap in points at those roster spots was small enough to hit.
What is Fantasy Football?
Kinda, lol.
From Sports Illustrated:
“
Fantasy football … That thing everyone talks about around the water cooler. Well, fantasy football is a game that allows you to be the owner, GM and coach of your very own football team. Competing against your friends, you draft a team made up of NFL players and based on their on-field performance in a given week, you score points. For example, if you have Lamar Jackson on your team and he throws a touchdown, your team scores points. Add up all the points and the team with the most at the end of the NFL week is the winner. Not too complicated, right? Well, maybe, maybe not.
In addition to drafts at the start of the season, there are also auction leagues. This is another league type that will be further explained later. As the game has grown, the complexity has grown along with it. But at the end of the day, your team competes in a league typically composed of 10 or 12 teams. Each week, you go head-to-head against a different team.
If a player is struggling, you can release him, just like in the NFL. You can trade with other teams. And if no one has a player on their team, they are available to be added to your roster from the waiver wire.
Just like the NFL, your league has a postseason as well. The fantasy playoffs are usually played from Weeks 14-16. In the final week, a champion is crowned! You can play for fun, you can play for money. Either way, that’s fantasy football!”
It’s a way to connect with people. I am connecting with people at work who like the NFL or want to be part of a group activity. I like stats, things that require attention to detail; I grew up in the Moneyball era of baseball, and I love fantasy sports-themed manager games such as the Out of the Park Baseball Series and Front Office Football 7 (Between these two PC game series, I have probably have played about 6000 hours over the past 13 years… When I had problems finding consistent work), so this is right up my alley. And I get to play against other people around work. A needed boon for my social life and deepening relationships with others at work. I wouldn’t be surprised if this resulted in friendships later on.
Suppose you have a competitive streak like I do. In that case, you can have an edge on your league mates by reading NFL news, watching videos on Youtube by long-time Fantasy Football channels, reading blogs dedicated to the different styles of leagues, or subscribing to services such as ESPN+ to get expert takes.
Nobody really is an expert in this. The stats estimate each player’s value, or what they feel based on observation, past experience playing this game, or making decisions based on team and player news; in a nutshell, it’s gambling. Some Fantasy leagues are gambling, others for the fun of it. As the season continues, however, you start to get an idea if players can succeed after enough stats have accumulated. So, if a star player goes against a poor defense or a poor defender, you can assume they will produce points.
Naturally, I did research before our league draft was held.
How are points scored?
“In a standard league, the eight players on a team’s active roster earn points based on the statistics they generate in actual NFL games. These fantasy points are added together for a weekly team score. Statistics from bench players do NOT earn fantasy points. The winner of an fantasy football game is the team with more points earned for the week (two weeks for playoff games). In the event that both you and your opponent accumulate the same number of points, a tie will be awarded. No playoff game can end in a tie (see the Playoffs page for more information).
Offense: Quarterbacks (QB), Running Backs (RB), Wide Receivers (WR), Tight Ends (TE) 6 pts per rushing or receiving TD 6 pts for player returning kick/punt for TD 6 pts for player returning or recovering a fumble for TD 4 pts per passing TD 2 pts per rushing or receiving 2 pt conversion (note: teams do not receive points for yardage gained during the conversion) 2 pts per passing 2 pt conversion 1 pt per 10 yards rushing or receiving 1 pt per 25 yards passing
Bonus Points 2 pts per rushing or receiving TD of 40 yards or more 2 pts per passing TD of 40 yards or more (note: the player must score a touchdown to score the points)
Penalty Points -2 pts per intercepted pass -2 pts per fumble lost
Kickers (K) 5 pts per 50+ yard FG made 4 pts per 40-49 yard FG made 3 pts per FG made, 39 yards or less 2 pts per rushing, passing, or receiving 2 pt conversion 1 pt per Extra Point made Penalty Points -2 pts per missed FG (0-39 yds) -1 pt per missed FG (40-49 yds) (note: a missed FG includes any attempt that is blocked, deflected, etc.)
Defensive/Special Teams (D)
3 pts per defensive or special teams TD 2 pts per interception 2 pts per fumble recovery (Note: includes a fumble by the opposing team out of the end zone) 2 pts per blocked punt, PAT, or FG (Note: a deflected kick of any kind does not receive points) 2 pts per safety 1 pt per sack”
Each play in an NFL game by players who meet these requirements are given points based on the above criteria.
An example of having a bad week. I did have players on the bench who performed well, but this is the result. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do.Some weeks are like this. 🤡
Who is my team?
Starting Fantasy Football lineup:
Quarterback (QB): Patrick Mahomes. Kansas City Chiefs. 5th overall at his position, but can be the best in the NFL when he’s on.
Running back 1(RB): Joe Mixon. Cincinnati Bengals. 14th overall in points at this position.
Running back 2: Raheem Mostert. Miami Dolphins. 27th overall at his position. I picked him up on waivers September 21st. Been solid since.
Wide Reciever 1(WR): Justin Jefferson. Minnesota Vikings. 5th overall at position, and was the 5th overall pick in the first round in our initial draft.
Wide Receiver 2: Amon-Ra St. Brown. Detroit Lions. 28th overall at his position, but has been injured a few games this year. When healthy is one of the top 10.
Tight End (TE): Hayden Hurst. Cincinnati Bengals. While a waiver pickup, and my backup or Flex Tight End, and 11th in points, Hurst is my starting player this week because starter George Kittle is on Bye (or off week). One of the better waiver pickups I’ve made thanks to information by ESPN.
Flex spot 1: Allen Lazard. Green Bay Packers. 36th overall at Wide Receiver. Before the season when I chose him during the draft, I thought that he would be higher up based on being on a team with legendary QB Aaron Rogers. He has been solid, but not a top end player I expected. Oh well.
Flex spot 2: Khalil Herbert. Chicago Bears. 20th at position. Picked up on waivers on Monday…. Started him today, and he didn’t do well.
Defense (DEF): Buffalo Bills. Each fantasy team chooses one NFL team defense to have as a starter. 3rd overall at position.
Kicker (K): Daniel Carlson. Las Vegas Raiders. 5th at position, been great all year.
Fantasy Football Bench:
Bench 1: George Kittle. Tight End. San Francisco 49ers. 12th overall in points, usually my starting TE. Is on a BYE week.
Bench 2: Garret Wilson. Wide Receiver. New York Jets. 32nd overall at position, a rookie player, but is looking good lately.
Bench 3: Romeo Doubs. Wide Receiver. Green Bay Packers. 40th overall at position. Got him on waivers, but I’m not sure with his team offense being strangely inconsistent this year.
Bench 4: Alec Pierce. Wide Receiver. Indianapolis Colts. 49th at position. Another wavier add.
Bench 5: Pat Freiermuth. Tight End. Pittsburgh Steelers. 9th at position. On Bye, a great waiver add.
Bench 6: Isiah Pacheco. Running Back. Kansas City Chiefs. 66th at position. Waiver add. From what I’ve read, he could be a good late season pickup as The Chiefs like him as their top RB.
Bench 7: George Pickens. Wide Reciever. Pittsburgh Steelers. 51 at position. Wavier add. But looking to be the top Wide receiver on the Steelers.
Injury reserve: Jameson Williams. Wide Receiver. Detroit Lions. Has been injured all year with an ACL injury, but is looking to be back in in December. Was the 12th overall pick in the 2022 NFL draft by the Lions, and was known as a really good WR in college, so hes a gamble pick for December.
Team name
The team name that I chose is a reference to the anime One Piece. It currently has 1,039 episodes and has been published as a manga or comic in Japan since July 1997. It’s an epic fantasy set in an ocean punk world, and the story is maybe 70-80 complete. Only the author knows.
The name is specifically the devil fruit of the main character Monkey D Luffy. Gomu gomu no mi, or Gum Gum fruit in English is a magical fruit that gives the person who eats it in that story a specific magical power. In Luffys case, he becomes a rubber man with the properties of rubber.
Luffy eating the gum gum fruit, and my team logo.
My teams current overall record is 6-2 on week 9. Which is 2nd place in my division, and tired for 2nd best record in the league. That might change after today as I am in a close match with a team who has a record of 5-3 with a good roster. We will know after the 520pm game.
Update: it is 511pm and my opponent is ahead 140.42 to 140.2, and we both have a star player left to play. If I don’t score at least 0.43 points than my coworker, I will lose by the smallest margin this season. I am wishing that my Star player, Patrick Mahomes and his team The Kansas City Chiefs defense can stop Derrick Henry of the Tennessee Titans. It could go either way, as Henry is the focus of the Titans Offense.
Conclusion
This will be the first part of two posts, maybe 3?, about this Fantasy Football Season at work. I haven’t written much in the past few months due to my health, and had to prioritize that, so we will see how many and how often I post. I am hoping for at least 1 post a week for now. Finding time while working a full time job, and dealing with long covid, the smokey weather, and self care has been tough. The forest fire smoke has been gone for a couple weeks, its finally cold, and I am starting to feel healthier again.
I made a private family matter, public. I’ve felt bad about blogging by oversharing.
I forgot to consider how that would feel to read by someone involved. That isn’t right, and I would be upset.
I made a mistake, and need to apologize.
I’m sorry.
That should have been private. I won’t do that again.
Life sure is tough right now, huh? 🙂
I wish there was something I could do to help.
This situation is triggering…
It’s got me thinking about the past. How I could’ve handled situations better.
Remembering past breakups, thinking about if I could have said things better. Been a better man who could communicate. How could I been better as a man. Thinking how I could have been mature.
Work is amazing. It’s consistent, everyone is great to work with, I like my job though it’s repetitive. I feel like I belong. I’m becoming comfortable being social. I’m grateful to have this.
Social life
Work being a rock allows me to cope with my lack of social life… It’s time. I’ll be looking for an in person group on meetup.com Time to go out and safely socialize.
Well, this isn’t true. I did go out to see comedian Ron Funches live at the Neptune theater in Seattle last Saturday. That is the first time I’ve ever gone out to see a standup comedian at a theater…. Never thought of doing that before, and the show was hilarious. It was Ron Funches and 3 comedians I forgot the names to (sorry!😬)… The opening comics were funny too, it was interesting to see the contrast of comedic styles between them.
So, keep moving forward… You are progressing in life. There is hope and good things in your life. You’re doing great handling everything. Its been a long week.
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