New Seattle Seahawks Writer with Rant Sports

After a bit of a pause from NFL writing, I've joined RantSports.com as a Seattle Seahawks writer.  A bigger and more professional outfit than my last job.  I've joined a team of hundreds of writers covering MMA to golf and everything in between.

Just reading their Blogger Bible tells you how serious they are about all elements of writing and promotion.  It's great to have the support.  But I'd better type with work gloves on.

During the offseason, I'm committed to four articles a week.  Once the season starts, I'll be doing at least seven.  My fingers may start looking like pencils.

But like anything, the more you do it the better you get.  Once I'm accustomed to their protocols and methods, I'll produce faster.  Once my head is back in the NFL all the time, ideas will come easier.  It's just a matter of me working late and swift.

My first article on Marshawn Lynch is already out.  A piece I wrote on why the Seahawks feel more stable than the 49ers will be out shortly.  Read everything I do here.

Also, I'm writing as Eighty Six again.  At Bright Hub, I've switched back to the pen name as well.  Don't forget, you can still find David Klenda's work around the web, including at The Penalty Flag.

I'm looking into various other bits of freelance work, but none seem as fun as writing about football.

With some luck and sweat, I'll be able to afford that 86 logo tatoo.

My Love for San Cristobal 5 Packs

Let me tell you about this thing while it is still fresh on my palate.

I just had a great midnight walk with my dog and a San Cristobal Monumento Nicaraguan Double Corona.  Just my style.  Dark and rich.  Notes of dark cocoa, leather and wood.  Full in flavor but smooth with just enough bite to let you know you who was the boss.

After a nice long toast, it burned very even.  The taste was totally devoid of resin or bitterness right down to the end.  I hated to let it go.  But even the finest cigars must one day revert to ash.

This wasn't my first one of these.  I bought a five pack of these from Thompson.  More on that later.

The first one I had was within a day or so of the package's arrival.  On that occasion, I reminded myself that 7 1/4 by 49 gauge isn't exactly my favorite size.  I prefer a greater width to length ratio.  5x50 and 6x60 I like better.  4 1/2 by 49 burns better for me.

My first San Cristobal tasted nice but was a little hot and strong for me.  I'd have liked it in a gordo vitola more, I was thinking.  Yet, sometimes you need to step at least a bit out of your usual form.

I don't remember the second quite so much, either in a good way or in a bad one.  I smoked it a few weeks after receiving it.

But this time, after three months in the humidor, it was awesome.  As I said, nice burning and flavorful throughout.  No melancholy about the gauge.  Perhaps a little sadness about only having two more.

But back to the deal.  Thompson's 5 Pack Fever.  My new favorite way to buy.  Cigars International has its own Build Your Own Mega-Sampler, which is just as good.

Pick four 5 packs from their selections and get them all for about $3 each.  I search online for a coupon code for Thompson and get 10% plus free shipping, which makes Thompson cheaper by a couple bucks.  But it comes down to what cigars you want.

After looking at both sites, I decided Thompson's selections were better for me.  I grabbed the San Cristobals, the Brick House Mighty Maduro Gordo, the Padron 2000 Robusto and the AVO Maduro Robusto.  The Padrons don't seem to be available as a 5 pack anymore, which is a shame.  The lure of $3 Padrons is what made me pull the trigger at Thompson.

Here's are quick reviews of the others, which I like as much as the San Cristobals, if not more:

Brick House: a big damn maduro.  Just what I like.  A gentle draw with big dark flavors.  Not the most complex, but a nice burner.

Padron: all the intensity and impact of an expensive Padron in a cheaper frame.  Quality build.  Reliable ignition.  Very tasty and complex. Like buying a sandwich from a 5 star dinner restaurant.

AVO: Smooth and balanced like everything they make, but denser than expected.  A firm draw with a heavy flavor.  Pleasantly reminiscent of my favorite La Gloria Cubana Serie N.

One last note about the deal.  5 packs are the perfect size for products you don't already know and love.  If you're blasé about the cigars, you aren't stuck with twenty.  If you adore the first one, you have four more, rather than one or none with most samplers.  In my 100 count humidor, I want variety.  20 or more of the same thing gets boring no matter what it is.

These four 5 packs have been my favorite cigar purchase ever.

Get some.

From the Top of One Mountain

It's done and we love it.  Thoroughly worth the time, money and effort.  Hearing my little son say "wee!" as I push him on the swing or watching my older son pretend he's a pirate as he looks through the telescope justifies it all.

If it survives the first big windstorm, I'll be particularly proud of the roof.  The rest of the structure is refurbished Rainbow, but the roof is all my design from 1x8 planks.  Don't ask My Gorgeous Illustrator what kind of gorilla work it took to put it up there.  She'll insist I should have got some help.

The time spent sanding and bolting was a good respite from writing.  I completed some work for Bright Hub,  performed some slam and started some NFL writing for Rant Sports, but mostly I've been on pause.  I started the Marcel mystery story, revisited the Aguardo micro-apocalypse and even thought to resuscitate David Priest.  I vowed to finish a creative project before my birthday.  I need to get to it.

Also, I want to look into working with Scripted.com.  They seem to be a good source for freelance income.

But as I've said: one mountain at a time.  I just need to pick the mountain.

And like I've written in a recent Bright Hub article about choosing a major: love or money?  Do I go after something that pays good money per hour or write something creative I'm very proud of?  I might make money off the creative work, but I will make money off the other.

What's a fellow to do?

I just need to think about it.  And I need to recall the energy I used when I was writing four NFL articles a week and some Bright Hub work.  Somehow the foolish need for sleep has been conquering all.

So where's the next mountain?

One Mountain at a Time

I meant it when I said that blog-a-day schedule wasn't going to happen anymore.

Often I give myself too many goals.  I have high expectations for myself.  I think I am tireless, indestructible and destined to succeed at everything I commit myself to.  I'm almost right.

A few months ago I realized that soon I would have another baby and would be turning 40.  I decided it must be time to achieve all those things I had not yet achieved.

I had to make good money writing online.  Not just enough for cigars or a cart of groceries.  I wanted a mortgage payment.  I figured if The Penalty Flag wasn't going to do it, I could focus on my own blog.

I needed to finish another creative writing project before our baby was born.  I pondered finally finishing a novel.  First, it was completing the David Priest narrative.  Then I thought the Marcel mystery series would be more successful.  Finally I decided to return to the micro-apocalypse featuring the orphan Aguardo.

And of course I wanted to look myself in the mirror on the morning of my fortieth birthday and see a guy physically and financially fit.

And compete two times a month in Spokane Poetry Slam hoping to qualify for the local finals.

The whole time excelling at my full time job while being an attentive father and husband.  And teach one kid to swim and the other to read and both of them to just be awesome.

On top of that, My Gorgeous Illustrator and I felt it was time to get the kids some playground equipment for the backyard.  Realizing everything you can get for under $1000 at your big store of choice is crap built from balsa 2x4s that will break within a couple of years (or a day if an adult swings on it) I made the brilliant decision to build something myself.  Either from scratch or from a kit, but I was selecting the lumber.

I visited our local Rainbow dealership and I found the perfect compromise:

An apartment complex had replaced this weathered unit with a new one.  The local dealer took down the old unit and was wondering what to do with it when I wandered onto the lot.  They sold this to me cheap.  All I had to do was spend a few dozen hours with a belt sander and rebuild it.

And all the other stuff previously mentioned.

After spending a couple hours a day trying to make that look like this:

and a full day at work, writing after midnight was out of the question.

Then I realized I was trying to climb too many mountains at once.

Think about climbing a couple thousand feet up Mount Rainier one morning until you saw Mount McKinley and thought: "I'll climb that one, too."  Then after an afternoon climbing McKinley, you saw Kilimanjaro in the distance.  After traveling all evening, you climbed a bit up Kilimanjaro and figured you should try Fuji, K2 and Everest while you had your ropes and crampons with you.  Returning home after a full day of climbing, you found yourself at sea level having truly accomplished nothing.

That's what I've been doing.

So, one mountain at a time.  First summit: put swings, a slide and monkey bars in the back yard in time for summer.  Then get to writing, one project at a time.  Focus.  While writing Cathartes Aura and the Apocalypse Zoo I really wasn't doing much else other than working.  I was able to concentrate on the project and make clear, steady progress.

Let's do it again.

After many hours of sanding and a couple days of great help from my dad:

And then:

Getting there.  When I reach the top, I'm stamping the thing with a big flapping 86 the Poet flag and getting back to writing.

Stay tuned for fiction, more Bright Hub, a return to football writing and possibly more journalism.

But only one mountain at a time.

Almost the Oatmeal

Got to the Spokane Poetry Slam at the Lantern Tap House last Sunday.  The only other time I competed was six months ago.  It's good to be among writers.  It's less and less weird to be around people who know me as "Eighty Six".

Last time I felt I did great.  I delivered with strength from memory and only paused to remember once.  I entertained the crowd.  The judges, however, were not amazed.  I was one-tenth of a point from last place.  Now, at a Slam judges are chosen voluntarily from the audience.  Often they need to be pushed.  The sport prefers judges without much poetry experience or preconceived anything.

So you never take the numbers too seriously.

This time I finished two-tenths of a point out of third.  I did stumble a bit on my second piece.  Ironically, it was the one I thought I knew best: "She Scratch the Record".  My first piece was new and I was worried about that.

So a stumble kept me out of third.  Had I finished #3, I would have bumped the Slam points leader Chris Cook into fourth, scored one point myself and won third place prize.  First place was $50.  For second and third: a box of oatmeal.  Peaches & Cream and Apple Cinnamon, respectively.  My wife and kiddos eat Apple Cinnamon all the time. My sons would have probably preferred the oatmeal over $50, which is inedible.

Don't worry about us.  We still have oatmeal in the pantry.  Nobody's starving because I got excited and hurdled a couple of lines and had to back-track.

Yet, I would have liked the point.  I have a realistic chance of finishing in the top eight and therefore getting a shot at the finals in May.  A top four finish there would give me a chance to represent Spokane at the National Poetry Slam.  I just have to finish up strong.

Travis Naught took second.  Never anything wrong with finishing behind him.  Always funny, sharp and in touch with himself.

And Katie Laughlin just crushed it.  Both of her pieces successfully established a core metaphor and carried it through, with a balance of smart and sexy the way the crowd likes it.  Halfway through her second reading I though "yeah, she can beat me" before catching the second meaning.

Well, close but no oatmeal.

PS: Writing on the blog daily is nuts.  I can do it, but I'll write little else.  More important to me is finishing the Marcel story by July and finding another place to write about football.  I'll still be putting stuff here, but that rigid schedule I mentioned two weeks ago is out the window.