Major Announcement: Sean 2020

I'm concerned about the present state and future of our country. Too much division and not enough working together to find some common ground. I think I can help bring the country together. Therefore, I am proud to announce that I am forming an exploratory committee for the a 2020 Presidential bid. You’re probably thinking, Sean, why would I vote for you to be President of the United States? My response is that I created a comprehensive platform back in 2012, and I still stand by this today. (Well, except for the NHL lockout part since there currently isn’t a lockout, but as President, I pledge that I will ensure that there is no lockout or strike when the current agreement between the players and owners ends.)

You’re probably also thinking, we’re a divided country, so how are you going to bring us together? I have several ideas. The first is to force Tom Brady to retire from the New England Patriots after this Sunday’s Super Bowl. I realize that I may lose significant votes in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, and Maine, but I feel like I can win them back with this argument. The rest of the country is tired of seeing the Patriots appear in the Super Bowl, so forcing Brady to leave that team is an automatic win. For Patriots fans, don’t you want to see how the team plays without Brady but with Bill Belichick still as coach? This has been a hypothetical discussion for years. Now we can see it happen. Plus, can Brady win as QB for another team without Belichick? The country can really get behind this.

We can also bond on criticizing the Academy Awards for making the absurd decision not to nominate Won't You Be My Neighbor for Best Documentary. Instead, the Academy gave a nomination to Free Solo, even though we saw that movie 30 years ago when it was called Return of the Jedi.

I'm still not sure what we can do about this injustice. Maybe sanctions? Maybe it's just teaching the country about the legacy and importance of Mister Rogers.

You probably wonder why I'm announcing my candidacy now. It's still many months before the primaries and the Iowa caucus begin. (Something else we can agree on...caucus is a funny word!) Well, one year ago last week, I had surgery on my dislocated wrist. Many people thought I would never become a PGA golfer, compete in a tennis Grand Slam event, or pitch in a MLB game. Well, I proved everyone wrong. I mean, I haven't done any of these things (yet), but my wrist is as healthy as it's going to be, so I'm just waiting for the call.

This is the difficult part. I need volunteers to serve on my exploratory committee. Your important job will be to poll the country and see if I have a chance to compete. I also don’t have Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz money, so if you could contribute a few million dollars, that would be great.

I’m thinking that being on this committee will not be a very time-consuming endeavor!


The Brady-Belichick picture is from USA Today.

Learning Geography

After yesterday’s debacle where I wrote a blog post only to discover that I wrote a similar post on the exact same subject 9 years ago, I’m doubling down today. I listed to a local sports talk radio show today, and there was a discussion about the Senior Bowl where college seniors are essentially auditioning to be drafted by an NFL team. They mentioned some of the players on the North and South rosters and something didn’t seem right. I thought this sounded familiar, and sure enough, I wrote about my confusion about geography with this nearly 10 years ago to the day. Well, I’m expanding on this topic today!

Take a look at this map.

The locations in red represent colleges and universities for players on the "North" team. This includes players like Memphis running back Tony Pollard (please be related to former Steelers RB Frank Pollard!) and University of Southern California* linebacker Cameron Smith. Meanwhile, the blue locations are for players on the "South" roster such as Buffalo and Washington State quarterbacks Tyree Jackson and Gardner Minshew II, respectively.

You would think that the NCAA, an organization "dedicated to the well-being and lifelong success of college athletes" would do a little better with making sure that students learned simple geography!

Join me tomorrow where I recap episodes of NBC's Hit Me, Baby, One More Time!




* Southern is in the name of the school!

Found In My Basement: 1980s Pirates

It’s a long story, but we had a leak in our home over the summer, and as a result, we need to replace our hardwood floor. My home currently looks like a scene from the TV show Dexter without the blood. Anyway, before the floor people arrived, we needed to move the smaller items. This included so many books and toys. As part of this process, I also came across my scrapbook from growing up and wanted to share this page today.

Autographed pictures from Pittsburgh Pirate greats! Or at least Pittsburgh Pirate goods! I have no idea how I acquired these pictures. It's likely that my dad took my brother and me to some type of appearance featuring John Smiley and Jim Gott. I wonder if they discussed writing "Best Wishes" on all of the pictures before the appearance. Bill Madlock must have been in such a charitable mood that he autographed the picture twice. My favorite of this group is probably catcher Junior Ortiz. It's not autographed or even in color. Was he just somewhere passing them out like ads for a new club opening?


Please click here for more Found in My Basement blog posts.

Update: My first Found In My Basement blog post was published on August 16, 2010. Why am I mentioning this today? It's because I included this exact same picture in that blog post. Apparently, I've run out of blog ideas and am recycling content from several months before the first episode of Game of Thrones aired!

Dallas (2019 Hockey Road Trip)

I strongly considered having "Sean Does Dallas" as the title of this blog post, but I went with the less controversial title instead. Over the weekend, I visited Dallas as part of my annual hockey road trip. Here are some pictures:

When I checked into my flight, I realized that I purchased a "Basic Economy" ticket. This means that I got to take one personal item on the flight or pay $25 or $30 each way for a bag, even if it's a carry-on bag. Yes, I managed to fit everything I needed for the weekend and the flights into a backpack.

I'm going out of order, but besides the hockey game, the one thing that I had to do in Dallas was see The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. The trees are much taller now, but this picture is from the sixth floor of the building formerly know as the Texas School Book Depository, just several feet away from where Lee Harvey Oswald shot President John F. Kennedy. Despite the assassination occurring 55 years ago, this museum seems to be the top tourist attraction in Dallas. I'm sure that city and corporate officials want the focus to be on arts, sports, and other things, but I get a sense that the assassination is always going to be a significant part of Dallas. (As an anecdote, I asked the waitress and hostess at a restaurant what's one thing we had to see in Dallas, and they both replied, separately, the JFK Museum.) Anyway, I highly recommend visiting the museum.

Oh, I didn't expect to see the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette available at the gift shop.

I also didn't expect to see this T-shirt available a few blocks away from the museum. I noticed the don't take pictures sign about a minute after taking this picture.

The reason for going to Dallas during a cold January weekend was to see the Dallas Stars, making it the 24th game/arena my friend and I have seen together over the past decade.

I really like the Dallas Stars green and even the giant star that comes down onto the ice during the pregame ceremonies. It's not as good as the sabretooth Nashville Predator, but it's a close second (until I see the San Jose Shark in person).

I couldn't get a great picture, but it's nice to see someone appreciate Dallas Stars legend Jaromir Jagr.

One neat feature of the American Airlines Arena is that there is no room for the visiting back-up goalie on the bench. Therefore, he needs to sit way over here.

There's no reason why the North Stars moved to Dallas and why they keep the retired numbers of the Minnesota players.

You'll notice that this was not my picture. I really, really, really, really wanted to take a picture of and with the Stars' mascot Victor E. Green (better known as Texas Youppi!), but it didn't happen. Maybe if I got a picture with Victor, the Stars would have won. Instead, the St. Louis Blues won 3-1 with Vladimir Tarasenko scoring two goals. In the two Blues games we've attended, Tarasenko scored 5 goals. Coincidence?

For breakfast at the hotel, a Texas waffle! (Not pictured: This waffle covered with chocolate chips, whipped cream, and syrup. I make sure to eat healthy on vacations!)

We also saw the Allen Americans face off against the Wichita Thunder in an ECHL minor league hockey game. If you're holding a baby in a front row seat and feel the need to bang on the glass, you got to do what you got to do.



Even though the team is called the Americans, this seems like some Communist propaganda celebration after goals. By the way, I hope that Zachary Pochiro makes it to the NHL, so I can say that I saw him score 4 goals in a game for the Americans! I also feel like the Americans should have pictures of Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys throughout the arena.

Deep Ellum appears to be the cool, trendy area. We drove through on Sunday morning, and I felt the need to take a picture of this odd robot statue dude who likes to hold pigeons.

Finally, I arrived back to Dulles Airport to this. Actually, Dulles was closed, so we got diverted to Philadelphia and sat on the plane, refueled, and were able to fly back when Dulles reopened. I got home about 3.5 hours later than expected, but at least I made it home on the same day.

And this was Monday morning back in Virginia. Time to shovel.


Victor E. Green picture courtesy of Getty Images. (Not pictured or mentioned was a visit to the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum. If you're in Dallas for an extended period of time, check it out.)

2019 State Of The Ramblings

Sean’s Ramblings turned 14 yesterday making this the oldest, continuous non-subject specific blog on the planet.* What I mean by this is that there are probably other blogs that have been operational longer, but they are about one particular subject (sports teams, a genre of books, etc.). This is just a personal blog about whatever I feel like writing about on a given day where I make little to no money. Whether this is the first time you’ve visited my blog or, like Kevin Pittsnogle’s mom (no one is going to get this reference), you've read this for years, thanks for checking out Sean’s Ramblings!

A quick update about the last year. I started 2018 with the intention of writing more posts than in 2017. Then, I promptly dislocated my wrist and had a cast for 5-6 weeks making typing (and everything else) much more difficult. A sincere thank you to Christine for writing a guest post about her experiences living in South Korea right before the beginning of the Pyeongchang Olympics and to Shannon, Josh, and John and Rachael for agreeing to interviews in early 2018. They provided fantastic content while I was on the disabled list.

Overall, I accomplished my goal of writing more posts in 2018 than 2017. Hooray for me and for you in that you got to read more of my posts! With that written, I find it more and more difficult to write as often as I’d like with three kids. While I’d love to make a goal this year to write more than last year, I’m not sure that’s possible. Instead, I may try to write longer, more meaningful posts. This sounds good in theory, so we’ll see if this actually happens.

I also want this year to be the year that I become an “official” blogger. Whether this means I’m successful in my quest to be a blogger for the new Loudoun United soccer team or that I get to cover some type of event such as a grand opening, an awards ceremony, or a press pass for a sporting event, 2019 is the year this will finally happen!

Thanks again for all of your support, and I hope to continue to provide you with some fun and thought provoking (well, probably not thought provoking) content in 2019.


You can click here to see my previous State of the Ramblings posts. In addition, please like/follow me on Instagram and Facebook too!



* This statement may or may not be true, but if you can find an older, continuous non-subject specific blog on Earth, please let me know.

Sean On Pittsburgh Sports

The biggest story in Pittsburgh sports clearly involves the son of now former Riverhounds assistant coach Mark Pulisic. If you haven’t heard, Chelsea signed his son Christian Pulisic from Borussia Dortmund for approximately $73 million. Not too shabby.

(I'll miss seeing Pulisic in black and gold though.)

Oh, did something else happen in Pittsburgh sports? Perhaps you want to read all about the Penguins scoring 7 goals (chili goal! chili goal! chili goal! chili goal! chili goal!) in a 7-2 win over the New York Rangers on Wednesday, extending the team's winning streak to 7 games.

Oh, not what you're looking for? Fine. The Steelers finished 9-6-1 and failed to reach the playoffs. The team had a turnover differential of -11, good for 28th out of 32 NFL teams. If the team had an awful but slightly better turnover differential, they would have reached the playoffs, and Pittsburgh sports fans would be talking about a playoff match-up this weekend instead of this mess.

I don't really want to get into this, but I will. Ben Roethlisberger is the best QB in franchise history, but he also tends to call out teammates on his radio show and threw way too many interceptions this season. He is a good teammate or not a good teammate. Mike Tomlin is still in the top tier of NFL coaches or his team lacks discipline and his players have tuned him out. The defense was inconsistent and gave up too many second half touchdowns. Chris Boswell had an awful season. Unfair penalties. The Le'Veon Bell saga. Ugh, make this all stop. Again, if the team made the playoffs, most of this stuff would have gone away. Winning hides a lot of things.

Now, to top it all off, there's Antonio Brown. Basically, Antonio Brown may or may not have had an injured knee, but he failed to show up to his MRI. He may have been unable to play on Sunday due to an injury or he was suspended. Regardless, he didn't play and now it sounds like he's asked to be traded. Except that Coach Mike Tomlin says that he hasn't asked for a trade.

Here's my two cents. Brown can be difficult and he's a diva. He also remains one of the best wide receivers in the NFL. Brown had 104 catches for nearly 1,300 yards, and an amazing 15 touchdowns in 15 games. He's probably a bad teammate, yet, he's so productive. The Steelers would be worse without him. Plus, you can't discount the money. As ESPN's Bill Barnwell tweeted, "If you’re reading that the cap isn’t an issue with an Antonio Brown trade, just ask this: has a team ever eaten 10% of the cap in dead money to trade a Pro Bowl player in the prime of his career?"

While I may dispute the prime of his career part of this Tweet, the rest is accurate. You can't give up 10% of your salary cap to one player not on your roster. Brown isn't going anywhere. With the season over, let's let cooler heads prevail. Brown and the Steelers organization will take some time away from each other and realize that they both need each other.

Again, just make this all stop!

In the meantime, can we have a little joy in our lives? Antonio Brown was (spoiler) good on The Masked Singer, FOX's new show Wednesday night. Yes, really!







By the way, Robin Thicke was an excellent judge on the show. I may need to have a separate blog post just about The Masked Singer. (The terrific Emily Yahr wrote a terrific piece about it.)


The Christian Pulisic picture is from Sports Illustrated.