A Good Day

What constitutes a good day?

A good day for me is one that involves rugby.

And Saturday proved to be full of it.

The boys and I started the day by watching The 16th Man, one of Espn's 30 on 30 documentaries about Nelson Mandela and the South African rugby team. The story recently was on the silver screen (called Invictus featuring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon).

It's an inspiring story of how a sports team helped unify a country.



We followed up the documentary with a trip over to the campus of the University of North Carolina to watch the UNC Men's rugby team play a game against alumni.

After the game, I took the boys and their two friends to a local field to play some two-on-two rugby with me playing "all-time offensive."

The weather was beautiful. The boys were hot and sweaty.

It was a good day.

And today every one is sore...

A Thankless Job

This post goes out to all the educators in the world.

It's a thankless job.

But some love it and do it with enthusiasm.

Despite the paltry salaries they earn.

Why do we not invest more in those who will inform, educate and guide the young minds of tomorrow?



I digress.



Anyway, my current elementary school-aged son (red shirt, peace sign) wanted to go to March Madness night where the staff played the fifth graders in a basketball game.

Again, I could digress on basketball right here but I won't.

But what impressed me the most was that my oldest son, and his best friend from across the street, really wanted to go to their old elementary school to see their 5th grade teacher play hoops (because baseball is really his thing).

And they did.

And they took this photo.

And I told their former teacher what a beautiful thing it was that he made such an impact on them last year that they wanted to return to see him in action.

It's easy to hate school. And your teacher.

Liking your teacher means liking to learn and for this I would like to say thank you to any or all of the public school teachers out there who care and connect with their students.

Well, just not like this.

Beer Connoisseur

Spotted this can in the grass by the skateboard park last Sunday during my early morning Church of Skatin' session with my boys.

I thought about what breakfast might taste like in this part of town.

I was reminded of the fact that before I was a craft beer magazine editor, I was a malt liquor connoisseur.

Malt liquor helped forged a friendship with my fellow music journalist and reluctant catcher, Dan Epstein.

Dan once commented that Colt 45, "still tastes good warm."


Not so sure about that one Dan.

And an old neighbor used to always put a can or two of the Colt in his beer cooler "just to see who was man enough to drink it."

Many, many moons ago, in a pre-jackass world, I wrote a malt liquor review for the silly skateboard mag known as Big Brother.

I figured in this day and age of bit torrents, I'd find a link slash pdf of the malt liquor review.

Alas, all I found when Googling malt liquor reviews and the magazine was a link to myself.