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Draftermath 2026!

The NFL Draft has come and gone, and it’s time for life in Pittsburgh to return to normal. (You know… at least until they shut down the Parkway East outbound for a month this summer. But that’s a topic for another day.) As a lover of New Football Toys, I certainly have some thoughts on the guys the Steelers drafted, but this year I get the added pleasure of reflecting on it as an attendee and a local who got to see my home town soak in the rays of the football spotlight for a weekend.

From the standpoint of an attendee… it was nice to experience, but I found that little goes a long way.

The biggest positive — not to do free PR for the NFL — was that the vibes were far more mellow than for a typical NFL Sunday. It really was more of a general celebration of football where yes, there happened to be a whole lot more Steeler fans than anyone else but it largely didn’t matter. Almost no shit-talking between fanbases; fairly little public intoxication. I will say, there was this weird dynamic where being THAT deep in the minority, the fans of other teams seemed like they were happier when they were able to “Where’s Waldo?” a fellow fan of their team. Steeler fans? Omnipresent. All we had was the joy of the occasional deep cut jersey. (The Chris Fuamatu Ma’afala won that one for me.)

We also got great weather for two of the three days, and public transportation really came through as an unsung hero. One of the local companies paid to underwrite free shuttle service from all four compass directions, and the east lot in Monroeville was minutes from where I live. Doesn’t get much easier than that. More generally, it was nice to get Pittsburgh out from under the shadow of Steel Industry Fetishism. I was watching one pre-draft show on Wednesday where they had B-roll from both the Church Brew Works and Phipps Conservatory. (There were limits to that, though: when they came back from the clip package, it was time for the obligatory delivery of Primanti’s to the set. FRIES ON THE SANDWICH!)

The negatives largely fell under the realities of a large corporate event. Large crowds and the fact that anything inside the Green Zone cost an arm and a leg. Anything that was an official attraction was packed to the gills, ESPECIALLY the draft itself. Full disclosure: I never got into the official viewing area and ended up watching Night 1 from inside Acrisure Stadium. So, in essence, my draft experience amounted to watching on a really BIG TV. With $17 beers and $50 T-shirts.

I will also say that watching it live actually made me appreciate how (comparatively) well the draft is packaged for TV. One may think Mel Kiper is annoying, but I promise you that listening to an unwanted playing of “Sweet Caroline” by a cover band is actually worse. And maybe the experience in the cattle pens was different, but at least at Acrisure, we didn’t get the clip packages of the guys as they were selected, which I found myself missing.

I originally planned to attend all three days, but once I was actually in the thick of it… I found that one day was really all I needed. Again, don’t read that as a negative. I just felt like running it back wouldn’t have added any more to the experience. I got to boo Roger Goodell, I got to see the Steelers make a pick. Other than maybe watching Day 2 from the cattle pens, I didn’t see another trip adding much, and my legs vetoed the requisite 5 hours of standing. So… sports bar it was for Day 2, and then Day 3 was “doing other stuff and jumping back in when the Steelers were getting close to picking”.

As far as the Steeler content, I’m not going to go too deep into wingspan and hip-flippery and try to pass myself off as an expert. Just some of the impressions I had while watching.

First things first, I’m in the firm minority that I didn’t see the Makai Lemon thing as THAT big a “failure”. Yes, the optics look bad with the dueling phone calls and Omar Khan pretending Iheanachor was their first choice until the video came out, but it does seem like a thing that’s easy to second guess in hindsight. It took two 4ths for the Eagles to move up. Without advance knowledge of how it would eventually turn out, how hard would you REALLY have pushed for the Steelers to send two 4ths (or more) to move up ONE spot? It’s also worth mentioning that Lemon was also only the third receiver taken while six offensive linemen had already been selected, so maybe o-Line was always the right call. I guess we’ll know at the end of their rookie contracts.

Max Iheanachor (T, Arizona State)

The pick is growing on me. My initial reaction was “didn’t we just do this with Broderick Jones”? Toolsy guy who hasn’t been playing the position very long; has some ceiling but will need coaching to reach it. Sound familiar? But I was talked down from the ledge the more I read: most mocks had him SOMEWHERE in the 1st; they just didn’t have him going to the Steelers because (some combination of) the Steelers didn’t bring him in for a visit, and they generally expected the board to break differently. (In particular, a lot of people saw Fano and/or Ioane falling further.) End of the day, we needed a lineman, we got a lineman.

Germie Bernard (WR, Alabama)

No problem with this choice at all. Continuing the theme, we needed a slot guy, we got a slot guy. Doesn’t have that deep threat aspect, but good at doing the dirty work in the middle of the field. In the moment, I thought maybe we should’ve moved back into the end of the first round and gone after Cooper from Indiana, but (continuing the theme) Bernard feels like the right pick for where we were at that point.

(Lacking anywhere else to place this observation, I also liked K.C. Concepcion quite a bit. I know he had issues with drops in college, but that kid could separate.)

Not to beat the Lemon horse too much, but if you treat the first two picks as a combo platter, I actually do feel like Iheanachor/Bernard makes a better combined pair than Lemon/Sir-Lineman-Not-Appearing-In-This-Film.

Drew Allar (QB, Penn State)

As John Lennon might have said, “Drew Allar is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.”

My initial thought is the Steelers were either smoke-screening about how much they love Will Howard, or they got played by Aaron Rodgers and he’s not coming back. Almost has to be one or the other, doesn’t it? It just doesn’t seem like Rodgers backed up by two rookies makes a lick of sense: Rodgers is a compete-now move, so… that means Rudolph as a veteran backup, right? And I don’t see them carrying four QBs.

I’ll admit I’m not especially sold on Allar, but I think the “original sin” is letting Rodgers hold us hostage in the first place. I would’ve rather seen come up with a real plan to address the position and told Rodgers to enjoy life as a full-time ayahuasca spokesperson. But once you accept waiting for Rodgers as a sunk cost, if you’re going to take a flyer on a quarterback, might as well be the one with the big arm. At least it’s a 3rd, and not a 1st like Pickett was?

Also, I suspected we’d take a QB, but I’ll admit I thought it would be Nussmeier because of the family connections.

Daylen Everette (CB, Georgia)

Sounds like it’s a bet on tools (size and speed) over technique. There’s no expectation that he’s being brought in to start, so… fine, I guess? (The experts feel like he was a bit of an overdraft, but I’m not going to pretend I know enough to say one way or the other.)

Gennings Dunker (T, Iowa)

Ginger with a mullet? Competes in hay-bale throwing contests? Wears SIX-SEVEN (you know… for the Young People…) Steeler Nation is going to lose their minds when he makes the inevitable “welcome to tahn” appearance at Primanti’s. On-field, sounds like he might move inside to guard for an earlier path to playing time. The only rain-cloud is that it feels like a little bit of an insurance policy in case Itchy doesn’t pan out.

Kaden Wetjen (KR/PR, Iowa)

This feels like some sort of Moneyball–qua-NFL exercise: is kick returning an explicit skill beyond just being fast or having a nose for open space or having the bravery to run full speed at a wall of defenders who are running full speed at you? If it IS, we got the guy who was literally the best at it in the nation, and maybe that’ll be some sort of competitive advantage. If not, we got a small not-exceptionally-fast gadget player when there were more intriguing players still on the board. (And a guy who, ohbytheway, was out on the golf course when he got the call because he didn’t expect to get drafted this high.) Full disclosure: I’m willing to admit I liked Skyler Bell from UConn in this slot.

Feel free to rub my nose in it the first time Wetjen takes one to the house. If he’s that much of a difference-maker, being wrong will be well worth it.

Riley Nowakowski (TE/FB, Indiana)

Utility pick. We needed a FB/TE hybrid to replace Ironhead Jr., Nowakowski seems to have that similar toolbox.

Gabe Rubio (DT, Notre Dame)

No strong impression, beyond “we can’t use ALL our picks on offense, can we?”

Robert Spears-Jennings (S, Oklahoma)

Conventional wisdom suggests we might have gotten a bit of a bargain here. Good physical tools and a hitter. Disappeared a bit his senior year, but was more highly regarded as a junior. No harm in throwing him onto special teams and seeing what he turns into.

Eli Heidenreich (RB, Navy)

I wouldn’t go all the way to “conspiracy” but this always felt a little inevitable. Local kid? Navy man? Just surprised they didn’t have Michael Keaton stick around to welcome him to the stage.

As far as Xs and Os, I’m never sure how to evaluate players from the service academies: there’s no reason they CAN’T be good athletes, but it’s not really their primary job the way it is at other schools. They’re being trained for… you know… Other Stuff… and football is a side hustle for them. In terms of fit, a Kenneth Gainwell replacement would be a nice outcome if it happens. Or maybe I’m just wishcasting along with everyone else.

Perchance To Dream

Every once in a while, the universe throws you a little reminder that the descent into global suckitude is not inevitable, and we can still choose a different path.

This weekend, we got a two-fer.

On Friday, night the Artemis 2 mission safely returned to earth. I have to admit: what started out as “just dropping in to see what was happening” turned into my whole Friday night. Yes… even the part where it was just grainy footage of boats circling the capsule, waiting for it to cool down. I don’t exactly know why… we’ve been sending people back and forth to the International Space Station for decades, and I didn’t watch ANY of those landings. But something about this one drew me in.

I suppose some of the appeal is that the moon captures the imagination in a way bumming around in orbit doesn’t. I was born in 1970, so I missed Apollo 11 entirely, and was way too young to take in the other moon landings, so this felt like the next closest thing to being there at the time. At a broader level, I appreciated the reminder that science can still accomplish amazing things, even under an administration that seems openly hostile toward science. (Speaking of which: the interview with the Trump toadie running NASA briefly derailed the good vibes, but things bounced back quickly.) Certainly the crew and their collective story was appealing. But the underrated star of the show was the little chat scroll on the side of the screen — thousands of people from all over the world, watching together, with almost NO negativity or shit-talking. As much as we’re doing to burn up our goodwill around the world, people who are probably Sick Of America’s Shit(tm) at the moment still wanted our astronauts to get home safe. As cheesy as it sounds, something about that felt comforting.

(Well… comforting aside from the momentary heart attack — I didn’t realize they had to cut the drogue parachutes loose to deploy the mains, so there was a short moment where the drogues broke free and the capsule fell out of frame, and I thought we were about to witness an unfolding catastrophe. COULDA USED A HEADS-UP, OTHERWISE-REASSURING NASA DUDE.)

And then, on Sunday, the universe gave us a second positive sign, from Hungary.

For those of you who don’t know, Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban has been looming as a Ghost Of Christmas Future for Trump’s plans for America. Orban has been in power for 16 years, and has basically been implementing a lot of the same Project 2025 shit Trump is trying to pull here. Courts just as packed with partisan judges, media just as captured by regime-friendly oligarchs, just as hostile toward LGBTQ people, just as cozy with Putin. You can argue Orban’s vision for Hungary is the blueprint Trump has been trying to emulate. (And OK… elephant in the room… they’re BOTH copying off Putin’s paper as well.)

Which makes it all the more gratifying that Orban’s Fidesz party got absolutely dog-walked in the Hungarian elections. The opposition party, Tizsa, took 138 out of 199 seats in Hungary’s legislature — good enough for a 2/3 supermajority that should give them the power to undo a lot of Orban’s rat-fuckery. The win was so decisive that there wasn’t even much of a point of trying to contest it in court: since Orban had stacked the courts with partisan judges, there was concern Tizsa would win, but the margin would be narrow enough that Fidesz would try to throw it to the courts and hope to be declared the winners that way. (Sound familiar?)

Nope. It was a thorough ass-kicking. So much so that Orban’s already conceded defeat.

Now, to pump the brakes a LITTLE, Tisza is considered a center-right party, so the American analogue would be Trump/MAGA Republicans losing, but NeverTrump Republicans being placed back in charge. So some aspects of the victory will be more muted than others. But there’s already been positive signs that they’re going to distance from Putin and re-build their ties with the EU, including unblocking Hungarian support for Ukraine.

And again, pulling out to the 10,000 foot level… it’s an aspirational sign for what we can do here in America in 2026 and 2028 if we stay motivated, find the right candidates to get behind, and do the work. Hungary’s system has been just as thoroughly gamed as the one Trump is trying to create here, and it still CRUMBLED in the face of enough people coming together and saying “this needs to fucking stop“. There’s no denying we’re going through some frustrating times, hope’s not a substitute for doing the work, but Hungary reminded us that “too far gone” doesn’t have to be the state of affairs.

The Most F1-derful Time Of The Year

The world may be collapsing, but it’s STILL almost time to go racing in 2026.

Spring. The time of renewal. Yes, we’ve also got the crack of the bat and pop of a fastball emanating from Florida and Arizona on this side of the pond, but today we focus on the sight of uncomfortably-fashionable European metrosexuals driving rocket sleds really fast. That’s right, it’s Formula 1’s 2026 season, it starts this weekend in Australia, and it’s likely to be one of the most interesting seasons in recent history.

New Car, Who Dis?

The big reason for excitement this year is that FIA (the governing body for F1) has announced New Sporting Regulations, which in less Fancy-Man terms means the teams have to build a new car from the ground up. So a lot of the pecking order that had built up over the past few years is thrown out the window and everyone gets a fresh start… if they get the car right. We could go into the deep weeds but the main change is that they’re trying to make the sport more eco-friendly by shifting the balance between traditional combustion power and electrical power. (It may surprise the casual fan or non-fan to learn this but F1 cars are actually hybrids… though definitely NOT your neighbor’s Prius.) FIA is shifting things from “mostly traditional combustion with a small electrical component” to a 50-50 split between combustion and electric power. Glass-half-full, it’s going to force drivers to manage their battery consumption more which may make driver skill more prominent in the equation; glass-half-empty, there were several drivers in spring testing who felt like they spent TOO much time managing power, such that they couldn’t really RACE effectively.

There are certainly other changes — cars are going to be a little smaller and lighter; there are changes to the aerodynamics — but the power specs are the big thing that’s going to dictate how this season goes.

The early returns from pre-season testing are mixed. The hierarchy at the top remains, insofar as the Big 4 of the previous cycle — McLaren, Red Bull, Mercedes, and Ferrari — are largely STILL the top four. But the order is a little jumbled, as McLaren (the 2025 team champions) seem to be the slowest of the lead pack while Ferrari and Mercedes seem like they’re poised to be far more competitive, if not possible front-runners. Meanwhile, further down the grid, Alpine seems surprisingly competitive after being nowhere for most of last year, while Williams (2025’s best-of-the-rest) missed the first testing session because their car was too heavy. And Aston Martin… hoooo boy. Don’t even know where to begin with that. Put a pin in it for now.

New TEAM, Who Dis?

The other big change is that we have a new team making its debut — Cadillac makes it 11 teams and 22 cars on the grid, after more than a decade at 10 and 20. It’s worth mentioning that Cadillac’s first attempt to join F1 (as Andretti Racing at that point) was rejected a few years earlier: either they didn’t think Andretti’s business plan was strong enough, or the existing teams didn’t want to cut the profits pie into 11 slices instead of 10. So they went back and reswizzled their plan, pushed GM/Cadillac to the lead of the partnership, and got approved.

Cadillac’s team is a bit polarizing insofar as they’re really leaning into their identity as An American Team(tm). Some of it is good harmless fun — Keanu Reeves doing a Matrix-esque hype video, Finnish driver Valtteri Bottas embracing a bit of a Euro-redneck persona on social media — but some of it plays a little tone-deaf when the list of countries we’re bombing grows longer by the day. Also, more within the sport itself, there’s been a simmering frustration that American dollars and American fans are being prioritized over F1’s traditional fanbase, and Cadillac’s entry is seen as another slap in that collective face.

For their drivers, Cadillac went with the theme of “Experienced Wingmen To Previous World Champions”. The aforementioned Bottas was Lewis Hamilton’s teammate for several of L. Ham’s Mercedes championships, while Sergio Perez (aka “Checo”) was Max Verstappen’s teammate at Red Bull more recently. The thinking seems to be if you’re developing the car from scratch, get experienced guys who can give you good feedback rather than young drivers who may still be learning themselves. Though they do have former IndyCar driver Colton Herta in the pipeline as project for the future.

New Champion, Who Dis?

I swear we’ll move on to a new theme for our subheads, but the other excitement is that we have a new defending drivers’ champion and outstanding Muppet candidate… Lando Norris of McLaren. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen had won four years in a row, but had a rough first half of 2025 and JUST missed out on a fifth. Red Bull spent the first half of the season in the weeds and ended up firing team principal Christian Horner. Shortly thereafter, Max went on a tear for the ages in the second half, cutting a margin of 100-plus points in August to a final margin of two. Given Max’s late-season momentum, there’s a real sense that if the season was one race longer, Max would’ve completed the comeback and had the Steeler-esque “one for the thumb”… a sentiment also reflected in the fact that Verstappen still won the Driver of the Year award (voted by peers) over Norris.

For the record, McLaren dominated in the constructors’ championship… had it sewn up by summer break. I just didn’t think there’s much to say about it since that car got chucked after the season. Though it does speak to having a solid driver pair: there was a point where Norris’ teammate Oscar Piastri actually led in the driver standings.

In Contrast, A (Mostly) Stable Driver Lineup

Last year was a year of upheaval in terms of drivers. There were SIX rookie drivers (out of 20) and only two teams (McLaren and Aston Martin) returned their same driver pair from 2024. This year… much quieter: other than the Cadillac boys, we just have one rookie and one additional seat change. 18-year-old Arvid Lindblad moves up from F2 to race for VCARB (Visa CashApp Racing Bulls); Isack Hadjar (one of last year’s six rookies) moves up from VCARB to Red Bull, with Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda the guy left without a chair when the music stopped.

(This is where I pause to explain to novices and non-fans that Red Bull and VCARB are supposedly “independent” teams, though they are both owned by the same parent corporation, they swap drivers between the two teams rather freely, and there have been times where VCARB cars have made strategy decisions to the benefit of Red Bull’s cars. But hey… Cadillac’s the problem, right?)

What To Expect From 2026

I guess I’ll finish this with a quick tour of the paddock. Introduce (or re-introduce) the players, highlight the key issues, scribble down some thoughts… MAYBE a little bit of prediction, though the new cars make that a bit of a moving target. In reverse order of last year’s standings:

  • Cadillac (Valtteri Bottas / Sergio Perez): setting aside people’s feelings about ‘Murrica, they’re in the honeymoon phase, so they’re largely easy to root for. Bottas has always been a fun presence; a lot of people felt Perez got a raw deal when he got run out of Red Bull. Lowest-of-low expectations as a new team, so even a couple points finishes would be worthy of breaking out the party hats.
  • Alpine (Pierre Gasly/Franco Colapinto): largely sucked last year, though Gasly snuck into the points here and there. But to be fair, they were also one of the teams that basically punted on 2025 to get ready for 2026. Early spring testing looked decent, though below the Big 4. Worth mentioning that they’re run (unofficially) by “advisor” Flavio Briatore, who straddles the line between “colorful” and “asshole”. Among other things, he’s got a short leash for delivering results, so if you’re looking for a “Team Most Likely To Fire Drivers Mid-Season”, here’s where you put your money.
  • Audi (Nico Hulkenberg/Gabrielle Bortoletto): A bit of a question mark because Audi is new to the grid, though unlike Cadillac they bought up an existing team’s infrastructure. They’re also building their own engine for the first time. Hulkenberg is (in baseball terms) an innings-eater — high floor, low ceiling veteran; won’t make dumb mistakes, but also unlikely to win unless Audi’s engineers work a miracle. Bortoletto was one of the six rookies and had some moments where he looked decent. Maybe he can build on it.
  • Haas (Oliver Bearman/Esteban Ocon): they’re technically the “other” American team, though they don’t push it as hard in their marketing. Seemed like they got better as 2025 went on. Bearman (also one of the rookies) seemed like he was really putting it together as the year went on. Ocon is… we’ll go with “mercurial”. Sometimes he does surprisingly well; other times he does dumb shit and is pretty forgettable.
  • Aston Martin (Fernando Alonso): Right now, they’re shaping up as a disaster. Apparently the car has vibrations so bad that the drivers are complaining of physical pain, and there’s talk they may not even run a full race in Melbourne to give themselves more time to get things right. And this is despite hiring Adrian Newey, who’s supposed to be a Car Whisperer, as their chief engineer. Alonso is the oldest driver on the grid, so hopefully the car doesn’t drive him into retirement; Stroll is… Christ, his dad owns the team. Though, OK, I’ll be nice and point out he seems to drive good in wet weather, I suppose.
  • Racing Bulls (Liam Lawson/Arvid Lindblad): Lindblad is not just the only rookie this year, but he’s even at the young end of normal rookie age range. I think he may have been the youngest to ever win a race in F2. Lawson started last year at Red Bull and then got demoted to Racing Bulls (bUt We SwEaR tHeY’rE iNdEpEnDeNt), so he’s still working on his redemption arc. Lawson was also TECHNICALLY one of the 2025 rookies, though he had 8 races spread over 2023 and 2024.
  • Williams (Carlos Sainz/Alex Albon): Probably last year’s feel good story. Williams is one of the more storied F1 teams that fell on hard times, and had pretty much sucked within recent memory. But a new team principal (James Vowles) and an infusion of investment cash may have them at least headed the right direction. Best of the midfield last year, and Sainz in particular really seemed to be putting together after a slow start. Though again, they missed the first round of testing because their car was too heavy.
  • Ferrari (Charles Leclerc/Lewis Hamilton): it’s Ferrari. Expectations of greatness; excuses not tolerated. But… they’ve been toward the back of the big four recently. When it’s not the car, it’s the strategy choices. Leclerc feels like a guy who could be a champion if he gets the right car under him; until McLaren got their car right, Leclerc seemed like the next most likely challenger to Verstappen’s title. Hamilton is one of the sport’s GOATs, but he seemed to be regretting his life choices mightily last season. Hopefully this season will at least be the Ferrari experience he hoped to have when he left Mercedes.
  • Red Bull (Max Verstappen/Isack Hadjar): I don’t especially LIKE Max Verstappen, but the man does amazing things with a car, and he was THIS close to one of the greatest comebacks of all time in 2025. I can respect greatness when I see it. He’s unquestionably going to be in the title mix this year too. Hadjar was probably the best of last year’s rookies, and it earned him a bump from Racing Bulls to Red Bull. If they can get both cars doing well, maybe they’re back in play for the constructors’ championship too.
  • Mercedes (George Russell/Kimi Antonelli): Could be a team to watch. Promising spring testing, Russell has been sneaky-good for a while now, and Antonelli may have the highest ceiling of last year’s rookies. He had a rough patch in the middle of the season that stomped on his overall points, but when he was on, he was the one rookie out there who felt like he could legitimately win a race.
  • McLaren (Lando Norris/Oscar Piastri): you’ve got the defending champion, a “second” driver who spent a good chunk of the season beating him, and a team that doesn’t want to pick favorites between the two. It’ll be a fascinating year for the dynamics within the team. I just don’t know where they’ll stand overall, since early testing suggests their car is at the low end of the Big 4.

I feel like I could keep going, but since we’re about 12 hours from qualifying and 36 hours from racing, maybe it’s best to just call it for now and check back in once we have some real results. (Or… maybe the next day after I get some sleep because staying up until 1am local for an Australia race is always a bit brutal.) Happy Race Day in advance, and we’ll see you on the other side.

The Accidental Resolutionist

I’m never quite sure how I feel about New Year’s resolutions.

On one hand, Grounded-In-Logic Me is not much of a believer in the idea that your life will somehow change because of an arbitrary date on the calendar. If we’re being honest, New Year’s Day was just the day that days started getting noticeably longer after the winter solstice. In short, folks decided to party once they were convinced the sun wasn’t burning out. SILLY PEASANTS! So calibrating your life to something so arbitrary feels kinda silly.

On the other hand, what I have noticed in recent years is that when you’ve got two weeks off work and life slows down for a bit, you have more time to sit around and take stock of how your life is going. So while I refuse to give any DIRECT credit to the calendar, I suppose the new year can drive change, though it’s one of those “correlation is not causation” things where the removal from routine is the more valuable thing. Last year, for instance, I got back to the gym — not because the calendar said “January” but because not being at work for almost two weeks made me hyper-aware of how much of a slug I was being. (And OK… the fact that my yearly physical happened in December and I got a scolding from my doctor around the same time might have helped… to-MAY-to, to-MAH-to.)

So while swearing up and down that I “don’t do resolutions”, here’s some things I’ll be working on in 2025… big, small, silly, serious. I’ll probably start with the big/serious stuff and work toward the smaller items toward the end.

Empty That Nest!

My first goal, and in some ways, the one that’s going to drive a lot of the others, is to get unstuck on the process of selling my house. To back up a little bit, I became an empty-nester in April 2024, and I’ve decided that I don’t really have an appetite for owning a house of mostly empty rooms… especially with it being an older house that requires a lot of upkeep. (Also, neither of my kids wants to stay in Pittsburgh and one has already left, so it’s not like I’d be keeping “McDonald Manor” for either of them to inherit.) I’ve already started to work on de-cluttering and getting it ready to sell, but I’ll admit I hit a bit of a wall in the September/October timeframe. I could blame work, football season, or any number of things, but the net effect is I haven’t kept the forward momentum like I’d hoped. So 2025 will be the year to get things rolling again, and hopefully (this shit had better not take another full year) drive it to completion.

Fitness Journey 2: Fitness Boogaloo

The good news is I dropped 45 or 50 pounds in 2024 (depending on whose scale I choose to believe) so some of this is simply maintaining the progress I’ve already made. But it does feel like I’ve kind of plateaued in recent weeks and I want to get my weight down even more. I feel like 200-220 is the sweet spot here: I don’t think I’ll ever be the 185 that the ideal weight chart claims I should be, but 200-220 would be realistic while also being about as light as I’ve been for most of my adult life. Except for that stomach bug back in the 90s where I was puking for three days straight; I think I dropped into the 190s for that.

Maybe it’s changing my workouts. Maybe it’s refining what I eat — I count calories, but don’t track specific nutrients or anything like that. Perhaps it’s even adding running back to the mix (I was running regularly in the 2015-17 timeframe), though that was always a little rough on the knees, which I can’t imagine has improved with more years on the odometer.

Or maybe things will start moving forward again once football season ends and I quit going out for beer and wings once a week. Could be that too.

The Write Stuff

This isn’t the first or last time I’ve been on this particular kick, but I need to channel my writing into something more… productive, substantial, choose your adjective. I’ve spent a lot of time on the Q&A site Quora over the years, which I guess scratches the itch (and on pure word-count, it might add up to a book or two), but a) it’s all a bit jumbly and unfocused, and b) that place becomes more and more of a shitshow by the day. So, for the moment, the plan is to whip this site into better shape and write more consistently; at least I’ll be at the helm of my own ship, rather than just drifting with the currents of random strangers’ questions. (Though I might still duck my head into Quora just to mine it for ideas to bring over here.)

Not Storming The US Capitol And Attempting To Disrupt The Peaceful Transfer Of Power

Didn’t think we needed to spell this one out, but… it’s the times we live in, I guess….

There’s a few other “big” things on the list, but some of those are more private. Among other reasons, some of them intersect with other people, and while I don’t mind putting my own business in the street, I’m always a little leery of airing OTHER people’s business in public. Quoth Austin Powers: “that sort of thing’s not my bag, baby”. So let’s just table those for now, with the idea I may come back to them down the road.

Meanwhile, let’s turn to the more fun/lighthearted stuff…. the reindeer games, if you will.

Hit The Road, Jack

Now that I’m an empty-nester, I feel like travel is one of those things I’ve neglected over the years. I did a fair amount of travel as an IT consultant in my 30s, but that was almost entirely for work, and I rarely got to really experience the places I was visiting as a traveler. I do pretty well on those “how many states have you visited?” quizzes, but “airport, job-site, hotel, lather, rinse, repeat” is no way to see the world.

I have standing invitations to visit various friends and family in different cities, I haven’t been out of the country since 2001, and… I think I’d like to get moving (figuratively and literally) on some of that. I still think the house stuff takes priority and drives the agenda a bit, but once I put that in the rear-view mirror, I wouldn’t mind seeing a bit more of the world.

(There’s also a simple logistical issue that my home state of PA is switching to RealID in 2025, and the same documents you need for that are the ones you need for renewing your passport. Some of the paperwork shuffling HAS to happen as a matter of necessity even if the travel doesn’t come together right away.)

A Little Night Music

I always feel guilty I’m not doing more with music. I am an owner of guitars, though “play” is probably an ambitious verb choice. During the election season, I bought a pair of drum sticks and a drumming pad to burn off nervous energy, and there’s an electronic drum set that’s currently in limbo: it belongs to my son, but he doesn’t really have room for it in his new place (and I’d have to ship it across the country as well). Now that I’ve accumulated an entire band’s worth of instruments, I ought to at least bang out “Hot Cross Buns” every once in a while or something.

Shall We Play A Game?

Let’s talk video games for a minute. I’m not going to ever renounce gaming as a hobby (though some Gamers(tm) make my skin crawl), but I’ve got a serious case of the Backlog Blues. I buy games — in my partial defense, I usually wait for stuff to go on sale, so I’m at least being semi-responsible on the money side — but then I never really get around to playing them. Sometimes it’s pursuing other activities, but sometimes it’s just playing the same few treadmill-y games rather than experiencing something new. I don’t know that I need to change how much I play, but I do feel like I need to… for lack of a less pretentious way of putting it… play with more intent when I pick up a controller. Have a sense of how long I’m going to play for or what in-game goal I’m going to try and reach so I’m not just chasing flashing lights and beeping noises. And then move on to something else when I hit that goal, so I’m not just spinning my mental wheels.

Anyhow, I feel like that’s a pretty good list to get started with. For someone who doesn’t do resolutions, it seems I’ve managed to stumble into a few of them by accident anyway. So… let’s get to it.