Gheorghemas Day Three: Three Beauts

On the third day of Gheorghemas, Big Gheorge gave to me....

Three beauties, my kids. He also threw me a curve ball w/the following formatting - go ahead, let me have it. I'm here for it. Did this in Word and brought it over here, unsuccessfully. Feel free editors, to do your thing. 

Haven’t talked about the kiddos here absent my son when he was on his swim path. As of July, we’ve three teens in the house, two gals – Grace & Mikayla at 15 & 13; and our boy Declan, 17. Interesting times!

The girls, well, have a hate/hate relationship. Or at least the eldest does. The day we brought Grace’s new sister home, her world and disposition changed within about two minutes. She was precocious, really funny, emotive. She’s still pretty funny but it’s of the dry, cynical kind. Emotive has been replaced with stoic. Gracey was a pseudo preemie – about a month early and weighing about 3 ½ lbs. Teeny little thing who has always been smaller than her peers, and by 8 or 9, slighter than her sis. 

She followed her brother into the pool at the age of 7’ish. She was decent, slightly above average and pretty tough, gritty and very disciplined. Missing practice wasn’t/isn’t an option for her. From the age of 12 into her 14^th year, her progress lagged as compared to her peers. Very little growth physically, so as she watched her mates develop while improving consistently meet after meet, she’d only experience marginal gains, and only rarely. Experiencing stalls in swim is not only common, but a certainty. Stalls like this one, well, that’ll get you down. Throw in the fact that her younger sis shined and shined early, double whammy. It was a tough time for her and us.

To her credit, she gutted it out for too many miserable months before eventually emerging from the drought of all droughts. A bit of a growth spurt, added strength from the dry land sessions, and that grit I mentioned helped her realize an amazing frosh season where she qualified for Districts and then Regionals (which was a stretch to do so) and States (never said it out loud, but based on her times, it was very, very, very unlikely). She not only made it, she qualified for the 500 B Finals (Top 16) as the 13^th seed and finished with the 7^th fastest time. In betting parlance, the odds on this would have been 40 or 50 to 1.  Add a 4^th consecutive State title AND “Rookie of the Year” and you get a giddy Grace. One of my favorite pics...several years ago while attending ND vs VaTech, hence the orange pom pom.

Her sis, a bit different. Naturally sweet, kind, big smile. Similar to her brother, she had the physical attributes that would come in handy. Unlike her brother and until recently, she could give 2 F’s whether she went to practice.  A few years back, she’d sometimes cry on her way to practice at which point we said, “okay, you’re done”. I won’t lie, that really bothered me. What’s the line from The Bronx Tale – “there’s nothing worse than wasted talent”?  A natural and with the swim bod to go with it – legs up to her neck, tall and lean, big feet, long arms. Given her social proclivities, she missed it. Hanging with her peeps is what lured her to practice as it was. The alternative for her was to pick up something else whether an instrument or another sport, and until that time, her mom would assign her chores while her friends were in the pool. Fancy that. She saw the light and returned. 

As I figured, she quickly excelled, and so did her desire to race, to compete, to bring home hardware. With multiple top 20 times in the state across various events, including 5^th in the 200M breast (top 100 in US), ambivalence be gone but maintaining that sweetness. Here she is outpacing her fam during a hike in Acadia...

The D-man. You might remember his exploits from a very young age. He was swimming with the big kids year-round at 8. One of 4, 8-year old boys that year to qualify for FL’s Age Group Champs (FLAGS). Between the ages of 9-12, he took home the high-point award once and if memory serves, was never outside the top 5. At thirteen his thirst began to wane. Bored, tired, burned out plus the added high school workload which he took seriously – the writing was on the wall. 

Fast forward to the end of his freshman high school season where his squad took home the State Championship. He missed qualifying by 1 spot for each of his two events. He took a small break, considered packing it in, but committed to one more year of club & high school swim. He had a couple of club team goals but what he really wanted was to make and contribute to a second consecutive State title for his boys’ team team. He did just that, qualifying for A Finals in both 50 Free and 100 fly. He knew that was going to be his last race (fly). We were pretty sure, but not 100%. Seeded 8^th out of 8 in the heat, winning or placing wasn’t in the cards – a 3^rd place would have required a big drop, seconds vs fractions of a second. He finished 5^th while breaking his high school record. He also swam the fly leg on one relay, and free in another where his team took the top spot in each, as well as that State Title. Given how his and their season ended, we thought he might reconsider. 

Not only did he not reconsider, he did an about face and began working out with the football team the following summer before his junior year. He practically moved into the gym and not thinking it was possible, started eating more. A lot more. Between his first day as a sophomore and first day as a junior, he gained roughly 40 pounds. He added another 30 for his senior year – 240 L B’s. 

He played sparingly as a junior – special teams and occasionally as a blocking back or tight end. But he worked his ass off throughout the season and through the following spring and summer. He moved about position wise, kind of a utility guy but mostly as a tight end and H-Back/fullback, but solely as a blocker. Up until his last three games, he was in on 60-70% of the snaps depending on the package they were running. For the last four games of their season, including two playoff games, he started at right guard and was selected as captain for 2 of those games. Their season ended in the 2^nd round of playoffs a couple of weeks ago. He’s had a couple of small schools reach out, but he’s ready to be a college kid without the commitments. And I’m here for it. A pic of the Captains as they head out to midfield prior to their first playoff game. He's 65. (0 going to Okla; 3 to Ga Southern - studs)

It’s still early days for these three, but could not be prouder of who they are as people. 

Kind contributors in school, at home and socially. Love these little effers.  

Gheorghemas Day Two: Megagheorghasbord

On the second day of Gheorghemas, Big Gheorghe gave to me...

Two Types of Stories
and a Bald Guy with Two Pupp-ies

This most festive of periods is an opportunity for us to turn inward, towards family and friends and away from, as George Will called it today, "a sickening moral slum of an administration" and all it's wrought. (Look at me quoting George Will. That was *not* on our Bingo card.) 

And while that's tempting, before we look on the bright side of life, we're gonna shine leaven it with some bullshit. Forthwith, the rants of the season.

By dint of my position as a leader of one of the DMV's largest youth soccer clubs, I had the occasion today to participate in an event our Club hosted celebrating a very cool organization that helps kids from underserved communities have access to organized soccer programs. I won't mention the organization by name, 'cause they wouldn't want to be associated with the next thing I'm going to say.

The World Cup draw takes place at the Kennedy Center in D.C. on Friday. Because of that, there are a number of FIFA officials in and around the region, and two of them attended the event at our Club. Ostensibly, part of FIFA's mission is to spread the game around the world, and the fellas I met today were lovely and gracious.

Unfortunately, where FIFA spreads the game, corruption and graft usually follow. Since our nation's leadership has become synonymous with those evils, it's natural that FIFA's greed-feathered flock has come together with it. To wit, the world's soccer governing body plans to award a first of it's kind FIFA Peace Prize during the draw ceremony. 

Per FIFA, the new award will be presented each year to a person who has "taken exceptional and extraordinary actions for peace" and "united people across the world." The notoriously thirsty President* of our country will be in attendance at the ceremony, and FIFA President Gianni Infantino has repeatedly sucked up to him in shameless ways. Y'all, Trump's getting the prize. 

Consider this G:TB's official renunciation of Gianni Infantino and FIFA's leadership**. I only wish he would've been at our event today so I could offer that sentiment in person.

** To be clear, I'm still a sucker for the World Cup, and I'll watch as much of it as I can. I just won't give one red cent to FIFA to do it.

Onward to our next topic.

Rutger Bregman is a Dutch historian and loud critic of the corruption of the modern world economy. His online presence is worth seeking out - he's smart, clear in his thinking, and unsparing in his commentary. Too unsparing for the BBC, it seems. 

During a recent radio address he gave as part of Radio 4's annual Reith Lectures series, Bregman said, "Our elites live-streamed the fire and monetised the smoke. Immorality and unseriousness: those are the two defining traits of our leaders today. And they’re not accidental flaws, but the logical outcome of what I call the survival of the shameless. Today, it’s not the most capable who rise, but the least scrupulous.”

All worth noting, but the BBC cut out a sentence from Bregman's lecture out of what must only be a fear of consequence. The remarks included Bregman's assertion that Donald Trump is "the most openly corrupt president in American history”. Only the listeners didn't hear that part. 

And finally, one more grievance before we get to the good stuff.

Garrett Graff is a terrific writer. I'm working on his oral history of The Manhattan Project, "The Devil Reached Towards the Sky", courtesy of the OBX Dave Book Club. His blog, Doomsday Scenario, is a well reported, and more than frequently depressing summation of current events. 

He recently posted a piece on the checks and balances implied in our system, and how they're failing us at the moment. The nut sentence: "Once you elect or appoint someone who has no moral core — who then appoints people with no moral core and fires those who do — nothing else in the system of checks-and-balances turns out to matter." 

I mean, if you put it that way.

Okay, you've made it this far. Now you get some treats!

FIFA may combine football with fraud, but kids who get to meet their heroes don't care one bit about that. Check out USWNT captain Lindsey Heaps with an overwhelmed admirer after this week's friendly against Italy:

This is what it’s all about ❤️ 🎥 @uswnt.ussoccer.com

[image or embed]

— The Women's Game (@womensgamemib.bsky.social) December 2, 2025 at 9:28 AM

Legendary playwright, author, and screenwriter Tom Stoppard passed away last week. Amidst the outpouring of plaudits for his work, a single letter to the editor stood out and outlined one of the untold ways art has real-world impacts.

The letter, written to the Times of London by Michael Baum (Professor emeritus of surgery; visiting professor of medical humanities, University College London), explained how Stoppard's play Arcadia inspired a cancer research breakthrough:

Someday, hopefully far into the future, I'd appreciate if one of you could pen a similar message to the Loudoun Times-Mirror about G:TB's impact on humanity.

And finally, hope y'all enjoy some comedy with your farce. Deep into a thoroughly-reported ESPN story about Lane Kiffin's departure from Ole Miss for LSU, comes this:

Bodacious Ignatius, it turns out, is more than just a pretty name. The 8th-grader can play some hardball - apparently he's a pretty decent little second-baseman. So while this is the first time you will have heard of him, we're betting it's not the last.

Gheorghemas, Day 1: LFG

We ain't got time to waste (or time to bleed), let's get the world's best faux holiday (as voted on by readers of Nuns' Life) started:

On the first day of Gheorghemas

Big Gheorghe Gave to Me

A bald guy with two pupp-ies

Paddlemaster and His Two Bears

(Much) earlier today in Gopeng, Malaysia, the opening ceremonies for the 2025 International Rafting Federation (IRF) World brought together more than 75 competitors from 20 countries. Teams in four categories (Youth, Junior, Open, and Masters (40+) will compete over the next week in four different disciplines (Sprint, Head to Head, Slalom, and Downriver) to crown champions. And among the competitors are three FOG:TB from Truckee, CA.

Our guy (and my distant cousin) Christopher Old made a living as a whitewater rafting guide on the Gauley River in West Virginia, the Biobio River in Chile, and at a couple of rivers in Northern California for the first decade or more after we graduated from William & Mary. He met his wife on one of his trips in Chile, and they've raised three outdoorsy kids in the Sierras.

Turns out he didn't give up his affinity for fast water, as he was named to the U.S. Men's Master's team for the World Championships. To boot, his teenaged twins took their place on each of the Boys' and Girls' Junior boats. It's a family affair on the Kampar River this week, and a hell of a cool story for the extended Gheorghieverse. 

Keep your dial right here for race results and photos over the coming week.

Post-Turkey Post-Punk

Our closest local friends, non-Marls edition, have a kid named Rory who goes to the University of Pittsburgh. They were a theater kid in high school and love to perform. Pretty good recipe for a lead singer, as it turns out. Rory's band, Straight Decline, just released an EP entitled Mid-Semester Crisis. Here's the first single, "There Are No Mathematical Jokes, Only Mathematical Punchlines (Calculus Song)". If you like Midwestern Emo, you'll enjoy.

And here they are performing a live set at The New Low in Pittsburgh:

A Very Gheorghie Thanksgiving

The Teej is in Curacao, not feeling blue, so it's on us to keep one of the Gheorghiest traditions alive. 

Happy Thanksgiving, friends. As the years pass, I'm increasingly thankful for all y'all and our little interweb cubicle.

Strange Bedfellows

It's not often that the local news is a purveyor of punk rock history, but I suppose stranger things have happened. Hell, just look around.

Last night on DC's NBC affiliate, reporter Mark Segraves gave us this story about the forthcoming release of two long-lost Bad Brains live shows from The Bayou in the early 80s.

I did not see that coming, but it's a uniquely local story about one of the pioneering bands of the punk era, and it's got some amazing footage of Bad Brains frontman jumping from the balcony of that late, legendary venue. 

Fully expect Mr. KQ to jump into the comments and let us know he was at one of the shows that comprise the new release, which will drop Friday on National Record Store Day. Get some.