Bag of Randomness
Monday, August 24, 2026

I’m really enjoying HBO’s Lanterns. And as much as I’m enjoying all the Tom Osborne references over the past two weeks, I highly doubt the majority of their viewers understand them. But I do question some of their casting decisions, especially the sheriff.

Republicans have controlled Congress and the White House for a while. I’m still waiting for their healthcare fix.

I watched Ryan Gosling’s Drive for the first time over the weekend. As I usually do, I read the IMDB trivia and Wikipedia pages after a film. Apparently, Hugh Jackman was originally going to star. As good as Gosling was, Jackman would have been a much better choice for a gritty and seasoned stoic stunt car driver.

The soundtrack was surprisingly good.

Sorority rush videos are trending a lot. It’s no surprise that so many brands try to align themselves with the yearly ritual. It’s so pitifully sad seeing so many young women reek of low self-esteem and acceptance.

While researching how much the early U.S. government borrowed from France and how quickly it repaid it, I discovered several interesting things.

  • Our government has an Office of the Historian.

    The Office of the Historian is staffed by professional historians who are experts in the history of U.S. foreign policy and the institutional history of the Department of State. Our historians possess unparalleled research experience in State Department and other government records. The Office is directed by The Historian of the U.S. Department of State.

    • The current Historian of the U.S. Department of State is John Powers, though I can’t find much information about him from a quick Google search. However, here’s his LinkedIn profile. I was a little surprised that he doesn’t have a doctorate, but he does have a master’s from William and Mary and has held his current role for a little over two years. It seems like he’s only held government jobs, starting as an archivist at the National Archives and working his way up to the National Security Council.
  • I also found the Grateful American Foundation, a cool nonpartisan organization founded on Presidents’ Day 2014, that aims to restore enthusiasm for American history among kids and adults.

As to answer my initial inquiry, the early American government borrowed over $2 million from France during the Revolutionary War, starting in 1775. The debt was cleared by 1795 using domestic funds, new loans, and a private buyout by an American banker, taking roughly 17 to 18 years to repay in full from the start of the primary loans.

The private buyout by an American banker was new to me, but it did sound like a very American capitalist thing to do, lol. The banker was James Swan. Though successful in his business activities related to the millions of dollars owed by the United States to France, he actually died in poverty. On principles of loyalty, he spent 22 years—more than a quarter of his life—in the Paris Sainte-Pélagie Prison.

A lot of folks are rooting for this undrafted Cowboys rookie, the first Navajo to sign a contract to play in the NFL. Some folks were wondering about Jim Thorpe, but he was part of the Sac and Fox Nation.

Surely, Jim Thorpe has to be the greatest athlete in Oklahoma history. Briefly:

  • Won gold in the 1912 Olympics in both the pentathlon and decathlon. For the latter, someone stole his shoes just before he was due to compete; he found a mismatched pair of replacements, including one from a trash can, and won the gold medal wearing them. Actually, he set a world record of 8,412 points in the decathlon that stood for 36 years.
  • He played 12 seasons in professional football and was part of the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s inaugural class. As you walk into the entrance, you are greeted by his statue. He also served as the first president of the American Professional Football Association, which soon became the National Football League (NFL). And was the first president of the NFL.
  • Played six seasons of Major League Baseball for teams like the New York Giants and Cincinnati Reds.
  • He played professional basketball.
  • For a brief time in 1913, he was considering going into professional hockey for the Tecumseh Hockey Club in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The prior year, he was the Inter-Collegiate Ballroom Dancing Champion.

For anyone who’s a fan of the Traces of Texas X (Twitter) account, here’s a recent announcement.

An East Texas (Winnsboro ISD) school board president will keep his leadership position after fellow trustees declined to reorganize the board fewer than two weeks after he was arrested for allegedly failing to report the sexual abuse of a student.

LinkedIn says its “Seems like AI slop” feedback option has been used more than 1 million times since it launched on July 30.

 

Posted in Personal | Comments Off on Bag of Randomness
Monday, August 24, 2026

Bag of Randomness
Friday, August 21, 2026

Something else my kids’ school does that I found isn’t a unique tradition: the week of graduation, seniors walk the halls of all grade levels. But what might make it a bit more special for them is that their school is a single campus at one address. So all schools- grammar, middle, and high school- are all neighboring buildings. In case you are wondering why I said grammar, that’s the descriptor classical education schools use instead of elementary.

Possum Kingdom Lake before water.

Love it. I plan on eating my next cookie humming the Indiana Jones theme.

At some point, Jimmy, you gotta let this go. There’s not a person alive, even Gene Jones, who doesn’t believe your side of the story.

Earlier this week, a CBS News segment covered a 47-year-old pastor playing football at San Jose City College. Curious, I wanted to know more about the guy and his background. Playfully, the first thing I told myself was, “He’s got to be an Evangelical.”

He has his own website where you can purchase t-shirts and books he’s authored, and learn how to book him for speaking engagements. On top of that, he also offers coaching:

He’s also active on social media. It appears he started posting on X late last month. Here are three X posts that caught my attention.


I have just about zero doubt that during the midterms, Trump will have masked federal agents monitoring polling stations. That’s going to feel eerie, and sadly, some people won’t mind it. If masked federal agents aren’t there, you just know a lot of masked Trump supporters will.

He’s been showing off his White House renovations this week. I’m not sure if those columns are finished; I know he posted a photo of the floor around them getting an upgrade. But it wouldn’t surprise me one iota if he adds gold leaf to the top of them or the outside of the White House.

And it’s nauseating how many things he and his sycophants keep trying to slap his name on. The latest:

And yes, that tarp he placed on the front of the Kennedy Center when his name was removed is still there.

“The Odyssey” is still drawing crowds to Cinemark Dallas

Offhand, this doesn’t seem like sound military strategy.

The U.S. Army is planning to phase out a drone battalion tasked just last year with studying and taking on board lessons on drone warfare, including from the ongoing Ukraine war, an Army official confirmed to CBS News on Thursday.

And the ending of the segment didn’t instill confidence:

“In a sign of where things stand, in a mock drone battle between U.S. and Ukrainian forces last spring, sources say the Americans were soundly defeated.“

But hey, the top of the new White House ballroom will have a drone port.

It was a long shot, anyway, but sometimes you gotta go down trying and see what you can learn from the experience.

More evidence that my local NFL franchise will not win the Super Bowl this year. A hot dog fridge?

I meant to post this story earlier this month.

CBS Evening News finally cracked more than 4 million viewers for the first time since March, according to reporting by Status. However, the show reached the solid ratings while its main anchor, Tony Dokoupil, was on a two-week summer vacation.

Nebraska’s largest school district asks police to stop using electric shock gloves on students

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Omaha police agreed this week to stop carrying gloves that can deliver electric shocks to students in the halls of Nebraska’s largest public school district.

The decision affecting most Omaha middle and high schools came after The Associated Press first revealed Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s plan to give officers the gloves, which are known as G.L.O.V.E.s or Generated Low Output Voltage Emitters. The devices have also been used in recent years by some jails.

Omaha Superintendent Matthew Ray requested that police working in the schools, known as school resource officers, stop using the gloves. Omaha Police agreed.

Posted in Personal | Comments Off on Bag of Randomness
Friday, August 21, 2026

Public Service Announcement

For those of you who also like to read Barry’s LiberallyLean.com, you will temporarily need to go through WiseCounty.com or use this old link. Rumor has it that you can only complain about the current administration so much before they take you down (half-joking).

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

See ya tomorrow.

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Bag of Randomness
Monday, April 17, 2026

I recently posted about my children’s high school football team “encouraging” freshmen to kiss their mother before getting out of the car. Well, I guess that’s not as unique as I thought it was, because on Friday, Steve Hartman had a segment on an Oklahoma school that takes it up a level. The entire senior class gets involved, to the point that they push car doors in, keeping the freshman inside, until they kiss their mother or father.

And here’s another Steve Hartman segment I wanted to post because it made me literally laugh out loud, something I rarely do anymore. Seeing those two play is just darn cute. Ducks are my spirit animal, I think. How many species can walk, fly, and swim?!

Praise God the dog and duck are on the socials (LinkTree)!

There’s so much material I’m tempted to post, but I fear I’m getting duped by an AI image, video, or article.

DaughterGeeding recently had to get her blood drawn. Interestingly, the person who did it attended high school with my older brother. He noticed her last name and said, “Oh, Geeding, huh? I went to high school with a — Geeding in Mineral Wells.”

Mark Cuban’s pharmacy steps in after insurer denied a 26-year-old heart transplant survivor her anti-rejection drug

Adam Driver is going to be in the future X-Men movies. The man has already ruined one of my other favorite franchises; why must he ruin another? He’s a very talented actor, and from what I understand, a good human being, but he automatically ruins any movie he’s in. People tend to overrate the guy. He annoys me more than the 30-seconds I see Nicole Kidman introduce an AMC movie. They just suck the life force out of me.

Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath told legislators the state lost 75,000 students in one year.

  • “We cannot tell you the precise cause of this,” Morath said.
  • Bob Templeton with Strive Public Policy said the decline is not expected to stop soon. Templeton said the state could lose another 120,000 students next year and 400,000 students four to five years from now. He pointed to declining birth rates and an increase in families choosing homeschool or private school options. Some lawmakers questioned how vouchers could widen the gap.

Students surprise teachers by asking them to autograph their old high school photos.

The only thing that annoys me is when the teachers ask, “Where did you find this?” Sheesh, everything is online. Anytime I search for an old high school classmate, I’m usually directed to a website that hosts old high school yearbook pages.

This article about Stargate, one of the country’s largest data centers, being built outside Abilene states that the average rent is now higher than in Austin. It also states the Abilene City Council gave Stargate an 85% tax abatement.

This photo in the article also caught my attention. They are obviously not part of an HOA, lol. And personally, choosing red for a cross to display outside your home is a bad move. For one, a red cross typically distinguishes the rescue organization or military medics. But those crosses have the same width and height measurements. Red crosses that are longer vertically are only seen in horror movies or goth-type events.

The worst argument anyone can make with me regarding HOAs is: “What if your neighbor wanted to paint their house purple?” Dude, I’m the neighbor who wants to paint my house purple. And I’m the neighbor who wouldn’t care if my neighbor hung an absurdly ugly red cross on the front of their house. My job is to love my neighbor, not to deny them life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness like those socialist-nazi HOAs, and the people who support them.

All of that reminds me of this old news story about old houses that display swastikas. Most of the houses were built before WWII, and the Navajo and other tribes considered them good-luck symbols, which leads to a lot of modern-day confusion. I recall touring the Baker Hotel and seeing a bathroom with small floor tiles with that symbol. Something a lot of folks also don’t consider, Nazi Germany used a tilted version.

An interesting Sojourners article that I know most of my Evangelical friends won’t take seriously, since it references several seminaries or schools they claim teach “liberal theology.” Rather than giving anything they state the benefit of the doubt, they simply dismiss it, which is frustratingly sad.

Reckoning With the Youth Groups That Raised Us – We were meant to live for so much more. But we lost ourselves.

“IF YOU TRACE youth group history, most of these groups are about social control,” says Liz Moore, the assistant director for the Institute for Youth Ministry at Princeton Theological Seminary. “They’re deeply connected to how you live in your body. And I would say that that as a strategy did not pay off for young people in the long run.”

I noticed a new Texas Lottery commercial, played ad nauseam during the Cowboys preseason game, that solely features a very well-known Baylor alum the university likes to showcase. I wonder how the ultra-conservative school reconciles one of its own endorsing gambling. My close friends who are Baptist preachers are so firmly against gambling that they won’t accept any tithe or donation from gambling money, no matter the amount, even if it were in the millions.

Personally, I have no issue with any of it. I’m just curious to understand their perspective.

For those of us who labored installing a ceiling fan, it’s about to get a lot easier. I tried to embed the two-minute YouTube short, but for some reason, it ain’t working.

How THC shops are dealing with Texas’ new ban

Scott Pelley Wins Award for 60 Minutes Segment 2 Months After His Firing from the CBS News Show – The newsmagazine’s “The Bus on Route 62” report earned an Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Writing

Posted in Personal | Comments Off on Bag of Randomness
Monday, April 17, 2026