A 6 Pack to Celebrate the Return to Writing

For reasons which I'll get into below, I've decided to start blogging again.  Of all of the various posts I've penned for DMP, the six packs have always been my favorite.  They give me a chance to empty the notebook without the pressure of finding a quippy way to tie things together at the end.  So as I embark ona blogging restart, it felt very appropriate to crack open a six pack and dive in.

1. I'll start by tackling the big question of, "Why take the time to do something like this?"  In short, because I need something, and whatever that something is needs to be something that gets my blood flowing.  I'm in my mid-40s, my oldest kid goes to college next fall, my job is pretty terrible on a daily basis, and I feel this overwhelming suck of nothingness moving in.  I need something that is an intellectual challenge, something that is more interesting that Instagram Reels and playing dumb games on my phone, and as I sit here on November 12th writing feels like it can be that.  If it's not, I'll try something else but I need to fight off rotting.
2. On the other side of fighting off rotting, I've decided I'm going to run the 2026 Marine Corps Marathon.  If I'm being honest, it still scares the shit out of me, and I don't know if I'll get there.  I do know that I'm five weeks into training, and I can now move my ass 5 miles in less than an hour, so that's progress.  Once again, I'm not certain if distance running is going to fill my bucket, but I'm going to try.
   
   
   
3. Ok, let's get into fun shit.  My mid-life crisis isn't why people tuned into this channel.  After 5 brutal years of hate watching the Patriots, they are finally fun to watch again.  Let me be clear, this team has real flaws.  They don't run block well.  Their linebackers can either defend the run or the pass, but they can't do both.  One key injury could completely blow up either side of the ball because they have no depth.  However, they are young and fun, and don't know they aren't supposed to be good yet.  I do think they are gonna finish 13-4 and have the 1 seed in the AFC which would have been unfathomable before the season started coming off back to back 4 win seasons.  Anything that happens in the playoffs at that point is gravy.
   
   
   
4. Years of buying my son Patriots gear has paid off and he is now a mouthy 14 year old driving the Drake Maye for MVP bandwagon.  He watches every game with me, and those are just about the best three hours of my week.
5. As I get older, I've come to the realization that I need to drink less.  I'm not sure if I'll ever hit the mythical average of 1 drink per day that judgy physicians talk about, but as I trend lower I've become a connoisseur of NA products.  I'm definitely going to use the blog to talk about the good, the bad and the ugly in that shelf space because I find the growth of new products in NA really interesting.  
6. Finally, go see Predator: Badlands.  I'm not kidding.  I've seen maybe 8 or 10 movies over the past 4 months, and this is easily the most fun I've had in the theater.  (It's not as good as Sinners or One Battle After Another, but you don'e see a Predator sequel thinking it might win Best Picture...)  The action is great, the characters are interesting, and it's a standalone arc so you don't need to see the other six Predator movies to jump into the pool and swim.
   
   
   

So that's the brand new six pack.  I'm going to drop posts at 7:00pm Eastern Time to try and build a habit, and I'm going to get into a weekly rhythym of certain days get certain topics.  Tomorrow brings the return of Cheap Beer of the Week, where I attempt to do some half-assed math and try to figure out what even is a cheap price point in 2025.