Richard Freeborn

Fiction and Non-Fiction

Category: Uncategorized (Page 1 of 5)

Bracketology

March 24, 2025 / / 0 Comments

I’m not usually a follower of March Madness until the Final Four, and only then if it involves a team I’m interested in.

This year is different as I joined two March Madness pools. One for the men, and one for the women. While I haven’t watched every game, I’ve certainly kept myself aware of the results. If you’ve done these pools before, I’m sure you’re familiar with going through the match-offs and predicting the winners of each game all the way through to the championship final, and predicting the eventual winner.

My knowledge of basketball is, at best, limited. When I first moved to the US and lived in southern Connecticut it was about the time Geno Auriemma and the UConn women were beginning their dominance. The UConn – Tennessee rivalry was always in the news. For the men, Duke, maybe Duke, and quite probably Duke. I’m sure there were other teams in the mix, like UConn in 2004 when both the men’s and women’s teams were National Champions – a feat they repeated in 2014 if Wikipedia is to be believed.

The surprise this year, to me anyway, has been the preponderance of SEC teams as top seeds. I always consider the SEC as a football conference, yet here we have Alabama, Auburn, Florida, and Tennessee in the top six NCAA rankings, with another ten SEC teams in the final 64.

As I live in SEC country, they took the edge in the matchups although I didn’t have the courage to pick against Duke until the Elite Eight when the play Alabama. We’ll see just how good I am on April 6 and 7 where I have UConn to win the Women’s Championship game and Auburn to win the men’s.

A Punch in the Mouth

February 10, 2025 /

I was going to write this week’s blog on a separate subject, then changed my mind after watching the Super Bowl last night which reminded me of Mike Tyson’s comment which is the title of this blog.

Firstly, congratulations to the Philadelphia Eagles on an emphatic victory.

I had mixed feelings about even watching the game. The teams I follow or have an affinity for, either didn’t make the playoffs, or were eliminated early on. That said, there was a part of me that leaned slightly toward the Kansas City Chiefs, mainly because whatever Patrick Mahomes has done is constantly compared to the achievements of Tom Brady. Three Super Bowl wins in three years would definitely set Mahomes apart from Brady, and the Chiefs from those other teams with extensive winning records – Lombardi’s Packers, the 70’s Steelers, the 90’s Cowboys, and the Patriots.

The first sets of plays in the first quarter brought to mind Mike Tyson’s comment. Tyson’s comment came in response to a question about his opponent having a plan. Tyson replied. “Everyone has a plan until I punch them in the mouth.”

That was how I felt about the Chiefs. The Chiefs had a plan for the game. The plan worked until the Eagles punched them in the mouth. And then the Eagles kept doing it.

While I doubt any of us writing or reading this blog have been, or will be, appearing in a Super Bowl, we all suffer setbacks during our lives. Some are minor. Others more serious, akin to Tyson’s punch in the mouth, set us back on our heels, or put us on the floor. I believe it’s how we react to these situations that define who we are. If you can pick yourself up, dust yourself up, make another plan, and move forward again then you improve the chances of getting what you’re striving for.

I’m sure there will be some long and hard conversations in Kansas City over the next few months, but don’t be surprised if they’re back in the Super Bowl next year in San Francisco.

It’s Important

November 4, 2024 /

I’m sure I’m like most of you. I’m done with the US Election. We’ve had months, although it seems like years, of nothing but personal and negative attacks from both sides whenever you turn on the television, or look at any media. I don’t live in a swing state and I can only imagine how much worse it is there.

As I write this, tomorrow is election day. I’m no clearer in my mind on which of the major candidates to vote for. I’m not a one-issue voter, and it might be easier if I were. Both have some good policy ideas. Both are deficient in areas I consider important.

I did consider not voting this year, but to paraphrase my father. If you don’t vote, you can’t complain about the result. And I do like to complain about our politicians and Government!

Regardless of who you support, or regard as the lesser of several evils, please make sure to go out and vote tomorrow.

Rethinking Plans

September 10, 2024 /

This week was supposed to be a vacation week, and in some ways it still is.
I had planned maintenance work around the house and two or three rounds of golf. Or maybe only one if I play as badly as I have done the past few times I’ve been out.
All that changed over the weekend. It has been wet and miserable here, and everything was damp. And, as I learned to my cost while walking the dog, slippery.
My right foot skidded on a curb. My left ankle rolled and there I was lying on the ground with the dog looking at me, and wondering why I was down at her level.
The ankle hurt, and swelled up nicely, and a day later, still swollen but with some beautiful colored bruising, I was at the Urgent Care for an examination and x-rays. I left with a support boot, a referral to the orthopedic doctor, and a suspected broken bone.
Over the last two or three days, it hasn’t felt broken, but any walking without the boot quickly becomes uncomfortable.
Hence the rethinking of plans.
There’ll be no golf this week, but I should get to some of the small maintenance items I’ve been avoiding for a while. I think I’d have preferred the golf!

Road Trip

June 24, 2024 /

Last week I made a business trip to visit a client in Seattle.

No big thing, you’d think. A direct flight from Atlanta into Seattle and back again with hotel and meetings in between.

There was a time when I made a trip like this two or three times a month – sometimes leaving on Sunday and not getting home until late Friday. It’s a pretty rootless existence but you get used to it – the packing, assessing who in the terminal you don’t want as your seat mate, and consoling with other travelers when the inevitable flight delays occur.

I mention this because last week was the first business trip I’ve taken since 2019, and packing for business is very different from packing for vacation. In some senses, business packing is easier. Even with business casual there’s a more limited set of clothes to pack, and unlike vacation where I pack three or four times as many books as I can reasonably read, I cut right back for business trips. However, let’s not forget the Kindle, Apple, and Kobo libraries on my iPad, so maybe I’m not cutting back as much as I thought.

I had some issues with my boarding pass not showing my Pre-Check status on the outbound leg, but overall it couldn’t have gone much better. The flights were on time, the Seattle weather was unexpectedly clear, dry, and warm, and the client was a pleasure to work with.

Overall this was a good re-introduction to traveling for business. I know it won’t always be like this. On-time flights, an aisle seat both ways, and writing over two thousand words in my downtime is a win I’m happy to take.

First Night Nerves

April 30, 2024 /

This week, I started a new project. It was different from many others I’ve worked on over the past few years.

It isn’t the work, as that’s similar to many other projects I’ve worked on over the years. What is different is that this time, most of the people I’m working with are as new to me as I am to them. And being the new kid in town, is still a bit scary.

On one level, I know that in a couple of months, I will know have built relationships with the team, learned how the various systems work, where to find documentation and why we are using both Confluence and SharePoint, and the rules for putting documents in one or the other, or both!

I’ve done this many times before, and may well do it again in the future, so there’s no real fear there, It’s those usual first night nerves

An Empty Nest

April 22, 2024 /

Last month, I wrote a piece about the persistence of the birds who built a nest on the fan blades in our courtyard Ingenious Persistence – Richard Freeborn

We have watched the parents in their daily feeding cycles coming to and fro to the nest, and counted three chicks. We held our breath during a storm earlier this month, as it was a wild storm that led to the death of the chicks last year. This storm was nowhere near as bad and the chicks continued cheeping, chirping, and demanding more food.

At one point I thought we were down to two babies, and then this past weekend, they changed from scrawny spike-haired chicks too real birds. And there were four of them not three.

On Sunday morning we spotted one of them venturing out of the nest and onto the fan blade. There was a flurry of movement in our house as the cat and the dogs were bundled inside and all doors closed.

This was not a popular decision, especially with our cat, Roon, who despite closing in on 16 years still considers himself to be the rambunctious wild-child he was in his youth (don’t we all!).

Almost like that was a trigger, the first bird fluttered out of the nest and onto the ground. The others soon followed, settling on branches, guttering, or the top of the brick wall.

They spent maybe fifteen or twenty minutes getting the feel for their wings, making practice flights across the courtyard, and from the gutter to the ridge line of the roof.

And then they were gone. Off into the line of trees that follow the creek behind the house, and indistinguishable from all the other birds flocking and foraging for the afternoon.

There was a feeling of disappointment that they were gone, but also a sense of wonder. Days and weeks of nurturing and in twenty minutes they are gone and off to a life of their own.

I wonder if there’s a lesson there for humans?

Rapid Response

April 1, 2024 /

Our homeowners association is in the process of having community owned street lamps replaced so they can be managed by the City and our local power company.

This afternoon, despite all the paint lines and marking flags, the contractors managed to hit a gas line, and I’ve never seen workers move so fast!

I called the gas company and reported the leak, and by the time I got off the phone, the fire department had two units in place and closed the road into our part of the sub-division. It wasn’t long after that the gas company arrived – four trucks and vans and lots of equipment. Within an hour or so, the leak was fixed. Work resumed on replacing the street lamp, and the fire department went off to do other things. Most of the gas company trucks remained, I’m guessing just in case there was another leak.

I often complain about utility and emergency service responses, but this time, they did a great job, and kept us all informed.

There are six more lamps to replace, and hopefully those last ones will go smoothly.

Ingenious Persistence

March 18, 2024 /

About this time last year, we returned from a trip to discover a pair of birds had nested on the blades of a fan on our patio. The nest was well established and one of the birds looked very comfortable, presumably keeping eggs warm.

I never managed to identify the birds, but the eggs hatched and we had three babies poking their heads up and cheeping urgently.

Unfortunately, we then had three days of rain, thunder, and high winds. The parents couldn’t get to the nest, and the chicks died. I also learned that sudden and loud noises can kill birds that young. And we had loud noises. My neighbor is still trying to fix electrical and plumbing issues after a lightning strike!

When it was clear the chicks were dead, and the parents weren’t returning, I removed the fan blade, and laid the birds to rest on an east facing slope.

This February, as we prepared to make a trip, I decided we didn’t need a repeat of last year, secured bird repellent spikes to the fan blades, and off we went.

We had been back about a week when I noticed a pair of birds ducking in and out under the roof toward the fan. Waste of your time, I told them smugly. And then I looked, really looked at the fan blades.

You guessed it. I had left about a six inch gap between the fan housing and the start of the spikes, and that was enough for the birds – I think they are finches – to build their new home. I don’t think they’ve laid eggs yet, but I am going to keep my fingers crossed we don’t have a repeat of last year’s rain and thunder.

Next year? I’m still working on that plan.

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