BagOfNothing.com

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Both of my children are now officially high schoolers. BoyGeeding officially started his freshman year yesterday.

Their school does an excellent job of fostering respect and encouraging students to support one another, and there is no worry about bullying or hazing. That said, the football team encouraged freshmen to hug their moms as they got out of the car. I had zero problem with this.

As for DaughterGeeding, it was the first time she drove herself to school.

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Meet the teacher was earlier in the week. Now that Texas requires the Ten Commandments in every classroom (for the most part), and knowing how conservative the school is, I was curious to see how each teacher would display them in their classroom. Surprisingly, not one classroom I visited had them displayed, and I doubt any parent would complain. Heck, I bet I was the only parent who had this in mind. However, I did notice the Rhetoric teacher had this frame artwork on display. I’m sure it’s been hanging in his classroom for many years, but I found a bit of humor in it, all things considered.

The way our school does Meet the Teacher is by simulating our child’s class schedule, spending about 10-15 minutes in each class and being dismissed by the bell. In one classroom, the teacher said something that I wanted to know more about, so I decided to do some quick research on my phone. As I was reading, all of a sudden I heard the teacher say, “Isn’t that right, Mr. Geeding?” My heart fell straight into my stomach. I felt so bad; I just embarrassed my son, who is about to start his high school experience, in front of his classmates and their parents. But as I looked up, I quickly realized he was speaking to my son, and not to me. Whew! However, that experience has taught me to be more mindful and respectful.

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This reminds me of those old Southwest Airlines “Wanna Get Away?” commercials.

WATCH: O’Fallon’s (IL) new gym scoreboard falls during installation😳

(via @GSV_Acct)https://t.co/cupPmO61QF pic.twitter.com/9U6otulbZQ

— Rivals High School (@RivalsHS) August 12, 2026

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This graphic, accompanying an Axios article on the start and end of school across the nation, caught my attention. It stated one reason that the Northeast starts late is to protect summer tourism by maintaining a seasonal youth workforce at beaches and camps.

Here are a handful of stats from the article and one of its sources, MDR Education, A Dun & Bradstreet Division.

• District calendars show nearly half of all schools will open by Aug. 16. Four in five will open before Sept. 1.
• Nearly all public schools in the Deep South open before Aug. 16. Almost none in New England do.
• Districts largely set their own calendars, but some states mandate start dates. In Minnesota, for example, districts generally cannot begin the school year before Labor Day, with limited exceptions.
• Early Opening Window: The largest share of schools open before August 16, representing 42,835 schools in the current-year state data.
• Middle Opening Window: 32,442 schools open between August 16 and August 31, making this the second-largest opening window.
• Late Opening Window: 13,991 schools open after August 31, with late openings most concentrated by count in New York, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Washington.
• Early Closing Window: The most common closing window is before June 1, accounting for 50,636 schools.
• Late Closing Window: 11,536 schools close after June 15, with late closings most concentrated by count in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Washington, and Virginia.

What are the Texas-specific stats? I’m glad you asked.

Texas School Open Dates

• Before Aug 16: 6,948
• Aug 16 to 31: 1,108
• After Aug 31: 1

Texas School Close Dates

• Before June 1: 7,626
• June 1 to June 15: 352
• After June 15: 79

That one school caught my attention, so I had to see what I could find. I believe it’s Sweet Home ISD in Sweet Home, Texas, a small community in Lavaca County between Hallettsville and Yoakum. According to Wikipedia:

The district has one campus, Sweet Home Elementary, which serves students in grades pre-kindergarten through eight. Students in grades nine through twelve are eligible attend either Yoakum High School (Yoakum ISD) or Hallettsville High School (Hallettsville ISD), with most opting for Yoakum.

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I still can’t get over this story.

Venomous snake found in Arkansas high school football player’s helmet

It was a two-foot-long cottonmouth, and the kid wore the helmet for about an hour. An hour! How does the snake not get agitated after an hour of the player running around doing football drills?

I haven’t seen any reports on when they think the snake got in the helmet. Did it crawl in there while in the locker room? Did the student take the helmet off during practice and lay it somewhere?

Heck, I had a hard time spotting it inside the helmet the first time I saw the story.

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Sportico once again named the Dallas Cowboys the most valuable franchise in sports, valuing them at $15.5 billion.

Jody Dean couldn’t have put it better, especially the first part.

The average fan looks at this and says “Imagine what they’d be worth if they actually won a Super Bowl”. What the average fan misses is that Jerry’s definition of “winning” has evolved.

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Agreed. Even though he played for a rival, I always respected and admired Darrell Green. It also helped to know he grew up in Texas.

NFL needs to bring back the fastest man competition pic.twitter.com/FwIcfgt03R

— Footballism (@FootbaIIism) August 11, 2026

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CNN Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward has started an interesting new series about the wives of dictators. I think it’s only available on Instagram, and it’s named “First Ladies of Fear.” The first feature is on Madame Mao.

View this post on Instagram

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I still can’t get a ticket to see The Odyssey in 70mm. Even the 2:30 am showings are sold out. That got me thinking about the handful of IMAX 70mm projectionists qualified to operate the very specialized equipment. They must be sick and tired of that movie. Unlike other projectors, they can’t just be set and forgot it.

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Little wonder why locals refer to this data center as “The Dungeon.”

What a view!

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This small business located outside Naval Air Station Pensacola made the Blue Angels’ ceremonial flight suits for 43 years. Not anymore.

According to sam.gov, the Navy has awarded a new $1.69 million five-year contract to a company in Virginia to take over that role.

“The Sewing Box” on North Navy Boulevard says they’ve now lost their biggest customer. Owner Candy Whitehurst says she’s nothing short of heartbroken after outfitting the team for decades.

“I would have never ever thought that my Blues would treat me like this,” Whitehurst said. “Not in a million years.”

WEAR: “How many Blues uniforms do you think you’ve made over the years?”

Whitehurst: “It’s so many I can’t even really tell you.”

WEAR: “Thousands?”

Whitehurst: “Yes, thousands.”

I’m guessing it’s a mom-and-pop type shop since their website is very 1999. Heck, they even use an iStockphoto.

Stars and Stripes provides some additional information.

• The value of the deal with Aquila is more than double the nearly $700,000 paid out since 2008 to the Sewing Box, according to data on USAspending.gov.
• The shop was awarded additional sole-source contracts since, one for $99,250 in 2024 and another for $126,750 in 2025.
• In 2018, the Navy sought an $81,600 sole-source contract with the Sewing Box, stating that it had to go with the company, which had made the flight suits since 1976, because it owned the design and the Blue Angels could not send it to other vendors.
  • The 2018 justification also cited the Sewing Box’s proximity to the team, saying a local vendor was needed to accommodate the flyers’ demanding show schedule and occasional on-site measurements.
• The Blue Angels had been the largest customer of the shop, which had produced, custom-fitted and tailored thousands of flight suits since the 1970s, Whitehurst said.
• Aquila isn’t new to working with the Blue Angels. Since 2024, it has outfitted the squadron with flight gloves, compression garments and other athletic apparel, company co-founder Todd Kelsey told WEAR on Tuesday.

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Don Nelson was such a likable guy, and talk about living a full life. One of my favorite Nelson moments was when he bowed up to Karl Malone in January of 2000. If you don’t remember why this moment occurred, it’s because he always stood up for his players when they were getting bullied. The player in this case was Shawn Bradley, who is now sadly paralyzed.

RIP DON NELSON!
The 5x NBA Champion and 3x Coach of the Year was once suspended for bumping a ref while confronting Karl Malone

📼 @NBACobwebs pic.twitter.com/G8TKHHWaTo

— Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) August 9, 2026

As for the aftermath:

Friendly reminder that a 20-year-old Malone got a 13-year-old pregnant. That child played in the NFL for the Bills and Eagles, and was last signed by the Dallas Cowboys

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Bo Jackson was in the dugout when Robin Ventura charged the mound, and Nolan Ryan beat the heck living daylight out of him. Here, he gives you a bit of the backstory and what it was like to be a part of it.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/W9ezYlHl9Ak

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As most of y’all know, my last vehicle was a Nissan Leaf. There’s a post on Reddit about a Leaf in the UK that was converted into a hearse. To fit a coffin, the passenger seat had to be removed, and I can’t get over what it must be like for the driver to have a body directly across from you.

Sidenote: For some reason, I always want to be a “t” in the word “hearse.” I do it verbally all the time. It’s probably because I’m so used to hearing the nearby city of Hurst.

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For those of you who care if your professional football player loves Jesus.

The article first highlights Patrick Mahomes and mentions his father, who now wears an ankle monitor and was an elementary school student in my children’s grandmother’s classroom.

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The Brady Bunch Stars Celebrity Bowling 🎳♥️ pic.twitter.com/HzZ1DQ43gq

— Retro Toys and Cartoons (@toys_retro) August 7, 2026

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One of the closest friends I made in college, and who I somewhat regularly keep in touch with, is from Spokane, Washington. Hearing about the recent wildfires, I thought I’d check in on him. Sadly, he lost his home, and this is all that’s left.

I’m trying to imagine not only what it’s like to lose all your possessions, but also to see your neighbors the day before and realize you may never see many of them again. Insurance will be a pain, and understandably not many will be patient enough or have the funds to rebuild.

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I watch a lot of Jeopardy! and think Ken Jennings has done a fantastic job of succeeding the iconic Alex Trebek, who many thought was simply unreplaceable. He’s been the host for six years now, and was the first celebrity Jeopardy! contestant when he went on a crazy winning streak. Of course, that only came to be because the show decided to lift its rule of capping winning streaks at five.

But get this: his first win, the one that started that legendary winning streak, almost never happened because of his Final Jeopardy! answer.

In his first episode, the Final Jeopardy! answer was, “She’s the first female track and field athlete to win medals in five different events at a single Olympics.”

Jennings responded, “Who is Jones?”, using only the last name of Marion Jones (who was not stripped of her medals until 2007).

Host Alex Trebek said, “We will accept that; in terms of female athletes, there aren’t that many.”

And then he won 73 straight games.

And for the heck of it, another legendary Jeopardy! moment. Cliff’s opponent reminds me of Marcia Clark. I wish they didn’t cut off the first part with Woody and Norm in the audience and Woody talks about his excitement of seeing that giant blue ball from the intro explode.

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I posted this less than three weeks ago:

And here are some headlines from yesterday:

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This man was not happy with the Pitigliano travel guide he bought and promptly left a review on Amazon.

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Here’s one of the oddest questions my trivia team had to answer this week: Name all six Matthew McConaughey romantic comedies since the year 2000. We got all but one.

In case you are wondering:

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I think the History Channel does a good job of getting certain celebrities to host its shows, especially when you consider their backgrounds and some of their acting roles. For example, consider Dolph Lundgren, who hosts History’s Greatest Machines and has an engineering background. He was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to MIT in 1983 and earned a master’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Sydney.

Other examples:

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AI-powered Alpha Schools to expand in North Texas

The high-end, AI-powered private school Alpha Schools plans to grow from a dozen to roughly 50 campuses in the 2026 school year, its founder tells Axios.

Why it matters: While traditional schools navigate how to adopt AI, Alpha Schools has created an AI-dependent classroom model that the company claims reduces screen time and increases human interaction.

• • Tuition costs $45,000 to $75,000 a year.

Zoom in: This school year, Alpha plans to open campuses in 27 markets, including Highland Park, Carrollton and Southlake.

• • Some openings were previously announced and delayed, largely because of real estate issues, says MacKenzie Price, co-founder and CEO of Alpha Schools.
  • Alpha currently has two locations in North Texas — Plano and Fort Worth.

How it works: Students spend no more than two hours a day on AI software to learn core subjects, Price says.

• • They spend the rest of the day developing life skills in workshops. (For example, students have organized a music festival for a nonprofit.)
  • Instead of licensed teachers conducting lessons, Alpha Schools hires “guides” whose jobs are to motivate and coach students. They’re paid at least $100,000 a year.

Curious, I looked up one of their job descriptions.

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The public hates Flock cameras.

20,000 People Are Publicly Vouching For a Man Accused of Cutting Down Flock Cameras – Thousands fabricate online alibis for Wesley Jackson, charged with destroying Flock Safety cameras.

Thousands of strangers are lining up to provide alibis for someone most of them have never met. When WDTV posted about the arrest of Wesley N. Jackson, a 20-year-old from Gerrardstown, West Virginia, the Facebook comment section turned into something between a character witness parade and performance art. Unverified claims poured in — users insisting Jackson was volunteering, rescuing animals, anywhere but near the Flock Safety cameras he allegedly destroyed around Morgantown on or about June 26.

Check out FlockHopper to see if any are in your area. There are five of them in my small hometown of Mineral Wells.

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As Dak Prescott walked off the practice field, he thought a fan had given him a normal hat. It wasn’t until later he realized it wasn’t.

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— Fort Worth Star-Telegram (@star-telegram.com) August 6, 2026 at 9:30 PM

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today i learned prosthetics are allowed at all levels in both women and men’s baseball.

which is pretty effing awesome.

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— John Bull (@garius.bsky.social) August 6, 2026 at 12:35 AM

I wasn’t one of those familiar with Gary Hansard, the Irish Oscar-winning songwriter who recently died at the age of fifty-six. But I couldn’t help but notice tribute after tribute from the common to the famous. However, I finally recognized him for his prominent role in the Disney+ special Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming with Dave Letterman. And then it hit me that he’s the one who has put together the Christmas Eve Busk in Dublin for the last 15 years, which Bono always attends to help the homeless. Here’s an Instagram story of Hansard talking about how it came to be.

For those who know me well, yesterday was already a sentimentally heavy day for me. To add to it, I kept seeing stuff about Hansard’s funeral in Ireland. What really pulled at my heartstrings was his brother honoring him by song. He starts off with a few words thanking those near and far, and then he wonderfully sings a song I wasn’t familiar with but now love, I Can See God.  If you’re the sentimental type or the type who seeks spiritual growth, I’m not overselling it when I say it’s worth your time to watch (and listen to) this performance. But then again, maybe I’m a sucker for the Irish accent, with a strong and powerful voice, and knowing that he had a son too young to attend.

And she thanked her late husband “for the life we shared searching for beauty and truth side by side” adding that the beauty had been found “in our son Christy”.

She said Christy was too young to be at the funeral and too young to grasp the enormity of what had happened in recent days but said the “bright spirit he inherited from Glen is with us”.

I couldn’t find much information on the song itself, but I found this nice write-up to this TikTok video with a performance by the original artist.

Today, thousands of people discovered a song they had never heard before.

When Gary Hansard stood at his brother Glen Hansard’s funeral and sang “I Can See God”, it became one of those rare moments where music seemed to stop time. The performance has touched hearts around the world, with so many people asking the same question: “What is that song?”

The answer is a beautiful one.

“I Can See God” was written by Glen and Gary’s uncle, Paul Hansard, and originally recorded by the family band Papa Hobo. Gary, who delivered the unforgettable performance at today’s service, is also a member of the band – you’ll spot him in the black leather jacket in this video.

There’s something especially moving about that. At a moment of unimaginable loss, it wasn’t just a beautiful song – it was a family’s song. A nephew singing the words written by his uncle as a farewell to his brother. It was a reminder of just how deeply music runs through the Hansard family, and how songs have clearly always been part of their story.

It’s a timeless piece that has quietly existed for years, only now finding the audience it has always deserved. Sometimes it takes a single heartfelt performance to remind us that the most powerful music isn’t always the most famous.

Watching this now, it’s hard not to hope that “I Can See God” might receive an official release or be reissued in Glen’s memory – perhaps even as a charity single supporting a cause close to his heart. It would be a fitting way for this extraordinary song to continue bringing comfort long after today.

If you’ve arrived here after hearing Gary sing it today, this is where its story began.

The funeral had other wonderful musical tributes, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Eddie Vedder teamed up with Hansard’s Once co-star and former partner to perform a moving rendition of Hansard’s track, “The Song of Good Hope,” backed by members of The Frames.

I was also blown away by how the funeral ended. It was perfect. Everyone sang Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young” as his wicker coffin was raised and carried on shoulders and led everyone outside. Below is a clip, but here’s the full 13-minute video.

 

Glen Hansard’s coffin being carried out of the cathedral to a mass singalong of Forever Young at the end of his beautiful funeral today. Impossible to watch this with a dry eye. 🖤 pic.twitter.com/ZDYCFlvWL6

— Ian Willoughby (@Ian_Willoughby) August 4, 2026

If you are wondering about the wicker coffin, the family had a private cremation service after the funeral.

Lastly, here’s his coffin being carried through the streets of Dublin with his music playing.