Poets Day US

There is a group of guys that I know pretty well who have decided to raise a child, but not in the typical way of raising a child and mostly because it is not a normal child. The one thing that they all agree on is how the child is going to grow and that they will work together as a village to make sure the child is nurtured, cared for and given the best opportunities to succeed. To just add a quick disclaimer I am one of those guys and the child, well it is a rugby club, the Cary Claymores - sponsorship opportunities available :) A quick history of the Claymores from my personal experience with them. Back a couple of years ago I heard of a rugby training clinic being held at the NC State rugby field. I thought I would pop over to have a look as rugby attracts kiwis a bit like blondes to Benjamins :) I met up with a guy we will call Matt (mainly because that is his name) who had recently started the Cary Claymores and had maybe 10-15 kids showing up to play touch rugby and work so...

It is the most wonderful time of the year right now - some seem to think that the most wonderful time of the year is at the end of December when people celebrate (or don't depending on their beliefs) fat red men breaking into their houses and Coca-Cola ads. However, as is often the case, the people are wrong. The most wonderful time of the year is the end of February and March. It is the time of some of the best salt water fishing in New Zealand, the snow is slowly starting to melt up in those states that are close to Canada, pollen is about to destroy my sinuses and Super Rugby is back on ESPN3 (just wish the 6 Nations was easier to watch). Some of you may be wondering what rugby has got to do with anything I write about - in which case welcome to your first Poets Day blog :) A few months ago All Black Ardie Savea was fortunate enough to have his photo taken with the kids and I when we were in Chicago to watch the All Blacks play, it was probably the highlight of the year for...

It is not often that I start one of my posts with a disclaimer this week I will, sort of. This weeks posts has been fermenting/stagnating in my mind for a while, it was based on a comment I made to The English Major Aug/Sept last year and is no way related to the current going ons in the world. Although it seems pretty damn pertinent for some odd reason - maybe these posts are a bit like The Simpsons - 2 dimensional and a bit hit or miss :) I am sure most of y'all recall the short tale by Hans Christian Anderson (and no he is not the lead singer in Aqua for you Millennials) about the Emperor who was so fond of new clothes he spent all his money buying new outfits - I used to date a girl like that. A couple of con-artists turned up and convinced him they could weave him the most amazing outfit, so amazing in fact that only a person as suitable (oh that was bad) as him would be able to see the patterns and colors, stupid people were not worthy of appreciating the beauty of his n...

So this weeks I was going to write something completely different - a post that originally came to mind around August/September last year and one that seems particularly relevant now however a man in a hood changed all that on Sunday so you will have to wait on that one, sorry to The English Major. Instead this week we look at the greatest coach in all professional sports and the person who has benefited from his genius. The man in the hoodie, the grumpy professor, the cheat (according to some/many) and the ball slinger that has benefited from his genius. There can be no denying the greatness of the New England Patriots over the last 16 years. As much as I used to hate the team (due to a personal dislike of an individual) I have to admire and respect what they have done, and based on that I am a fan of the New England Patriots, it is hard not to be. They have been in 7 SuperBowls, won 5 and lost 2 (both to the NY Giants) with Tom Brady now the winningest quarterback in Super Bowl hi...

Time to make a resolution Ok, so I may be a month late and a few sandwiches short of a picnic, but January is an odd month on a good day. What with the hangover from Christmas and New Years then a bout of the cold followed by a work trip to Hawaii (yes it was work damn it) and a day in San Francisco on the way back the month was not as productive as it should have been - apart from the work bit which I guess makes my bosses Jean Claude (the famous fight pilot and lover extraordinaire) and Mr Cloud happy - somewhat important I guess as I haven't won Powerball yet and selling my body on the back streets of North Hills, Raleigh is not going that well for me. So here we go 2017, bring it :) As some of all y'all might know I finished the Austin TriRock Olympic distance triathlon in September 2016 and raised almost $3000 for Make-A-Wish. Not long after I brilliantly tore my hamstring (and I really tore it up) and I that has been quite the painful experience - not something I r...

There is this very large prison colony off the West Coast of New Zealand, some of y’all might know of it as Australia, we know it as the thieving mongrel colony. There is an intense amount of dislike between New Zealand and Penal Colony Dingoland, especially when it comes to sport. Probably the apex of this happened in the gentleman’s sport of cricket when the Australian captain and his brother lowered the standards for bad sportsmanship with the Underarm delivery in 1981. They are the people we love to hate, the ones we love to beat, the ones that haven’t yet supported gay marriage and their race policy towards the Aboriginals has been, quite frankly, horrendous – and let’s not mention the snakes, spiders, deadly jellyfish and dingoes eating babies. They are quite frankly a giant bag of dicks, and we have fought side by side with them forever and we always will. The ANZAC spirit (Australia New Zealand Army Corps) is a legacy that will never pass and as much as we love to hate them, ...

No time to talk. Sometimes I have a brilliant idea of what I want to pontificate on and then the whiteboard downstairs in the foyer messes it all up by announcing that today is the day that *Saturday Night Fever first appeared in theatres back in 1977 and all preconceived ideas jump out the window and I am stuck with ‘that’ song in my head. Music loud and women warm, I’ve been kicked around since I was born Then I realize that there is a whole group/gang/gaggle/clusterfuck of people that probably don’t even know what Saturday Night Fever is and what it did for a weird Scientologist who doesn’t want to come out of the closet, never mind the cultural significance of bell bottom pants and disco in general. Those of us who were around at the time sincerely want to forget the dress code but still, guiltily, enjoy the music.  And now it’s all right. It’s OK. And you make look the other way. We can try to understand The New York Times’ effect on man Some of you...