🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩
Blues🎶
Free Agent🧠
Getting The Job🤝
THE DAILY UPDATE
Three Things I’m Grateful For Today:
- A new job.
- Sleeping past when there’s a “4” on the clock.
- Watching my baseball team practice yesterday. Our infield, especially, looked sharp.
Pursuit of Wordle Godhood: Today’s result: Four. That changed from nuthin’ to sumthin’ very quickly.
Wordle 1,042 4/6
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟨🟩
⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Pursuit of Connections Godhood: Today’s result: Five. Ok, Purple Guy … that was a stretch
Connections
Puzzle #320
🟨🟦🟨🟨
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟪🟪🟪🟪
The song in my head when I woke up: “Run-Around,” by Blues Traveler
Favorite line from the song in my head when I woke up: And when you’re feeling open I’ll still be here/But not without a certain degree of fear
Commute Tunes: No commute today. But my drive to and from baseball practice was done to some classic rock.
- Panama, Van Halen
- She Talks to Angels, The Black Crowes
- La Grange, ZZ Top
- Jumpin’ Jack Flash ,The Rolling Stones
- Take It On the Run, REO Speedwagon
- Old Time Rock & Roll, Bob Segar & The Silver Bullet Band
- Won’t Get Fooled Again, The Who
- Blaze of Glory, Bon Jovi
- Bad Moon Rising, Credence Clearwater Revival
- Rag Doll, Aerosmith
- Night Moves, Bob Segar & The Silver Bullet Band
Something I’m looking forward to today: Date night celebration with Wifey Poo
Something I’m looking forward to in the next seven days: Boy The Younger’s choir concert next Thursday.
Something I’m grateful for from yesterday: Getting the phone call I was hoping for early in the day.
What I’m writing: Yesterday’s Two Crappy Pages involved a story for a Johnny Boy Marketing client about a master’s student whose independent project involved getting three drones to sync and do a slow-exposure light painting.
What I’ve written: ‘The Olympics for Climate Change:’ Aman Shaikh (MEM ‘24) traveled to Dubai to experience COP28. Now he’s focused on finding a way to mitigate climate change.
Today’s Stoic Though of the Day: “The one who is harmed is the one who abides in deceit and ignorance.” — Marcus Aurelius
John’s translation of Today’s STD: “So you remember a time I said something different from what I am saying today, believed something different from what I believe today, acted in a way that is different from how I act today? That’s because I am a free agent, and I am always open to learning, to being corrected and enlightened. I live from one day to the next. Point out a legit flaw in my beliefs or actions and I won’t think you’re criticizing me. I’ll think you are giving be a better alternative. And I will adapt. Those who stay stuck in their initial beliefs are politicians or the uber-religious. Be better than that.”
I got the job. As of May 13, I’ll be the new senior writer for RGA — the Reinsurance Group of America. There is a lot to be said about why I was looking for a new position, why I accepted a new position, and why I’m excited about the new opportunity, but most of that is for another day.
The most important thing to say right now is how excited I am. Insurance and reinsurance aren’t the most sexy topics in the world, but no matter the topic, if you find the people, you’ll find the stories. I am more than thrilled to have the word “writer” in my title. In general, I don’t give a rip about titles, but this one explains exactly who I am more than any other title I’ve ever had. I’m getting closer and closer to being a senior, and I am most definitely a writer. Always have been. Always will be.
I consider what I do with words a gift from God. I am by no means the best writer, and I don’t really know if I’m even a good writer, by whatever definition you might apply, but I do know that I am happy when I’m writing, I love writing, I do writing for a job, for a side gig and for a hobby, and it’s nice that someone will pay me enough to support my family well to do that.
At this point in my career, that’s really all I care about. It’s nice to not have to deal with social media management, to pretend I give a rip what influencers do on Insta or TikTok, to not have to be a one-person show for a company that won’t hire the marketing staff to match its operational size.
It’s nice to just … write.
Would you please help a brutha out? I’ve created a weekly eNewsletter called News-B-Nuts in which I’ll be sending out news nuggets and witty commentary to subscribers. If you can, would you support this endeavor for just $5 a month via Patreon?