March is a wonderful month for basketball. But this weekend starts NBA playoff basketball.
Post season play is the best because the stakes and intensity both ratchet up. Storylines are made as teams vie to become the next champion.
Are you watching anything this weekend?
This week I’m bringing you a poignant music video from Jon Keith. The artistry in this really struck me and was one I had to immediately rewatch.
Hope that you enjoy. What has been a bright spot for you lately?
Today we’re kicking off a series highlighting some bright spots found in every day life. Hopeful, impressive, or beautiful: I’m not trying to put too tight of a definition on it. Just looking to share something that will make you feel something. I’d love to hear what you think should be featured. Comment below or email me at Jeff@junctionpointnetwork.com.
Today’s bright spot is maybe a bit on the nose.
This is a picture I took a few weeks back. I was struck by the view of a sunset here three years before and came back on the same date years later to try and capture it. I’m at the beginning stages of a photography journey so I’ve got a lot to learn but had a lot of fun trying.
Sometimes I get frustrated when it doesn’t work as well or as easily as I’d like. But sometimes I remember it’s really good to just soak in the beautiful moment. Have you had any beautiful moments worth sharing lately?
I’ve heard the icebreaker question “who would you want to play you in a movie?” many times. I’ve never really sat down and put serious thought as to what my answer would be. It’s difficult to see my story being one worthy of being told, even when I try to live my life in a way that acknowledges that everyone I meet has a story worth telling.
Continue reading “Maybe in the Sequel”Today we’re going to take a look at a great podcast that if you love the medium that you either are listening to or should be. Video shows are increasingly popular, with many people viewing those as the default when they think of the word podcast. I won’t get on my RSS soapbox today but I will say that I prefer a great audio experience over everything.
Continue reading “Listening In 3/12/26”When I was in elementary school I had somehow come to the conclusion that I didn’t like pizza. I was a pretty picky eater and honestly haven’t fully grown out of that.
It turns out that to overcome something you don’t like can just be something that you love. A good partner puts up with stuff that they don’t like to be with the person that they love. Back then, I loved reading. I would absolutely devour books and was constantly begging to go to our local library to get new ones. When the book fair came to school, it was a magical experience for me. When I read, I specifically remember telling people about how I stopped even seeing the words on the page, just images flooding in.
I picked up a lot of new words in my pursuits, somehow earning the nickname The Human Dictionary. It doesn’t sound that bad right now but it stung third grade me. It became clear to my younger self that being well read wasn’t something cool. Even the prizes I got for absorbing volumes of books didn’t even do it for me; personal pan pizzas from Pizza Hut. I didn’t even like pizza! Present me laughs at that. Past mom enjoyed the benefits of my labor.
In 1993, Pizza Hut decided to capitalize on the success of my favorite TV show, X-Men The Animated Series. They were handing out free comics to people who made a purchase at the store. I begged, this time for going to Pizza Hut. She agreed but on one condition, I had to eat the pizza that we ordered. I solemnly agreed. It was in this awkward agreement that I discovered another love, pizza. How had I spent my life avoiding this amazing food? It was lunacy.
I’ve picked up reading again over the last year or so. First with the book The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. Most recently and most impactful, the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. I recently finished book 7 of that series and while I wait for book 8 in May, I started author Matt Dinniman’s ‘Operation Bounce House’ to tide me over. It feels good to reignite an old passion. Wish I was earning pizza points though.
What old hobbies have you rediscovered? What book are you reading right now?
I have never been a huge TV guy. At least now until I met my wife. Give me a two hour piece of cinema over something episodic any day.
Life changes, especially after marriage. Here are five shows that I’m into currently.
This is one that I watch on my own but I bet my wife will eventually get into it. Silo is considered too dark and too slow by some online but the pacing is part of the enjoyment for me. I found the show on Apple TV while searching around the app after finishing the first season of another show later on this list. I haven’t read the books yet (although I have them downloaded onto my tablet ready to go), because I love the reveals of the show. It’s intriguing, tense, and thought-provoking sci-fi.
The Rookie is not the kind of program that will change how you look at life. The writers are often using silly ways to get out of situations. But it is fun. It’s popcorn watching that my wife and I can always easily be in the mood for. I was interested because of Captain Mal, Nathan Fillion. She was brought in by a clip from the show hitting her social feed.
Man, what a breath of fresh air was this show and yet how frustrating the long wait was for season 2. If you haven’t seen the show, employees at Lumon get a chip implanted in their brain that severs their work self and off of work self so they never know what is happening on the other side of each. As viewers we’re kept mostly in the dark but slowly get more pieces of the puzzle. It’s great. Aubree and I did a podcast on it for Junction Point during season 2.
Another Apple TV product and it’s the one that caused me and a lot of others to sign up in the first place. The first season especially is incredible TV, making you laugh and cry. I am a little skeptical of this fourth season after a bit of a rocky ending to season 3, but I’m staying curious.
The last entry on the list is yet another Apple TV product. I have never seen Breaking Bad, the show that Pluribus creator Vince Gilligan became a massive success with. I have heard only good about it but the premise made me feel like I’d only end up depressed watching it. Pluribus fits in my sci-fi wheelhouse, with the main character Carol running into some out of this world challenges that I think should be experienced watching the pilot before hearing about. I wasn’t as strong on parts later in the season but the subsequent seasons have a lot of interesting avenues to go down.
What are you watching lately?
My biggest struggle when sitting down to pen these posts is the beginning. It’s hard to hit the right tone while the tone is still being worked out. I don’t really plan any of this out aside from an overall idea I hope to get across. I hope I am moderately successful at that but I don’t know. The thing I want to make sure you to know today is that MJ was a good dog.
I was barely an adult it felt like when I first got MJ. Yeah, I was twenty-six, living in a house that I had recently purchased, planning a wedding, and working full-time. But I didn’t have any clue what I was doing. I was somehow more clueless than I am today. But a former partner wanted a dog inside the house and I did not. So we compromised and got an inside dog.
Mary Jane was MJ’s full name and she was a mix of Blue Heeler and Walker. A herding and a hound dog mixed. She had a lot of spunk. I remember reading only after I got her that Heelers were very smart, smart enough to be one of the only breeds to outwardly backtalk their owner. I found out that was definitely fact a few months later when I told her it was time for bed and she stared me dead in the eyes and peed on the couch. Power move.
I had many moments early on I wasn’t sure that I could handle her. She slept in a crate in her first year and would howl for hours non-stop. She took to shaking and throwing her body around so fiercely in her kennel while I was at work that she would literally undo the bolts holding it tight. She was animated and overly enthusiastic about greeting people when meeting them. She almost swiped a corn dog out of a guy’s hand the time I took her to a local festival. I couldn’t leave her mortal enemy, the dreaded paper product out anywhere near her or it would suffer the same fate as its fallen bretheren.
But man, she was something. She was great with kids, even though I don’t have any. She loved everyone she met, doling out high fives like they were going out of style. Even without a great teacher, she learned to “sing” along by growl howling along and even to dance, doing pirouettes when she’d stand on her back legs and I’d hold her paw or just sway back and forth when I’d ask her to dance. She was a great companion, literally lapping up tears as I recovered from my divorce, begging for walks I think sometimes just to keep me moving. She would bark at the door if someone came but never kept it up, just let us know someone was there. MJ would gives hugs on command and there were many days I needed them. She was very protective and full of love towards my wife, Aubreé.
I got her when she was only three weeks old. I was young and dumb and she was a fuzzy potato. I didn’t take her on enough walks. I didn’t use my best tone when she got in trouble for tearing up paper or nabbing a piece of food. I didn’t give her enough time with free space to run. I never gave her a kid to love on her own while she was here. I was with her for more than sixteen years. She was a good dog every single one of her days here.
She had a stroke in February this year and did not act or move the same for about a week. We had the appointment set up with the vet. But the day before the appointment, on my birthday, I came home to her happy and wagging and full of life. She pushed on to live mostly normally until the beginning of this month when she had another stroke. She basically couldn’t move. It was time. I didn’t think I’d get sixteen years with her. But I am thankful. Rest in peace, Emsy.
My first memory of playing sports is a third-grade basketball game where I blocked a classmate from behind. He was taking every shot. I didn’t know the rules—I just knew he was supposed to pass the ball to our team. And I was on that team. Later, my father talked about liking two college teams because of how their coaches coached the right way. I never got behind the more local IU but rooted for Duke because of that for a long time. It wasn’t long after that conversation that my father passed away. I found myself in a new city and new school with no idea of how to talk with guys my age.
Sports was the language that helped a young and hurting boy make connections. Exuberance, pain, unity, anger; I could express all of these things while competing in sports. I also could feel those things while watching along with professional athletes while living vicariously through their accomplishments. Seasons felt like stories, complete with heroes, heartbreak, and high stakes. It wasn’t therapy—but it was the closest thing I had.
My relationship with sports is different now. I don’t need them the same way. I basically only watch disc golf and basketball. I watched the Bucs win the Superbowl. I didn’t cheer because it felt like being a bandwagon fan for my own team. The Braves and Avalanche both won titles around the same time but I wasn’t invested anymore.
The Pacers still hold a special place in my heart. I am not as invested with the wins and loses as I used to be. But I think I’ve been through too many heartbreaks and near misses to ever let them go. The 2024-25 team carried a lot of promise after pushing the champion Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals. It took them a while to get going after lingering injuries slowed them but in January they hit their stride. The postseason felt like magic. Haliburton had the offense humming, the defense was physical, and the team was full of guys that never quit. They had improbable comebacks in every round of the playoffs while defeated teams they were considered underdogs against.
Even in the first game of the Finals, the magic continued, with Haliburton hitting yet another game winning shot. This Pacers team felt like they were destined to bring the trophy to Indiana. Fans reflected on past losses to the Bulls, Knicks, and Lakers . And injuries to star players to stop the team from reaching its potential. The awful malice in the palace in Detroit that depleted a team with the best record in the league.
It felt like it was our time. I heard the Morpheus line in my head from the Matrix, “He’s beginning to believe.” Narratives fall in line as teams fail or succeed spectacularly. It felt like this story was the one of the underdog losing for far too long before finally reaching the goal.
By the time Indy pushed the series to game 7, even with an injured star player, I was fully in. Indy looked good to start the game. It didn’t take long for that all to change. Hali’s injury in that first quarter shut down the chance of the storybook postseason having the storybook ending. I couldn’t and still can’t get over how unfair that felt. To try so hard and get so far and in the end?
This one hurt. It wasn’t just the loss of a title so close at hand. It was all the years of heartbreak, the missed opportunities, the bounces that went the other way. It was watching a young man who devoted his efforts into a game that he loves only to have his body let him down in front of millions. It was watching the game that I love, the one I lost due to my knee failing me years before. It was seeing a team that had multiple victories in this run that defied stats and probabilities.
Sometimes sports can be the Cinderella story that defies the odds or of a player finally reaching the mountaintop. But often the real story is messy and beautiful and painful just like real life. Not all losses are as devastating or all wins as euphoric so that they overshadow everything else. This Pacers team ha great accomplishments with memorable moments that will be forever true even if this still hurts. I don’t need sports to fit it and express things any longer. I can just say that this loss hurts. But I’ll be okay. It is only basketball.
I love a good twist ending. I am usually pretty good at seeing what’s coming before it hits. So when the writers pull off something unexpected, it’s a fun surprise.
Today I’m going to highlight five favorite movies with a twist reveal and I hope you let me know your list as well.
Any list I make like this has to include this movie. It is a modern classic whose reveal shouldn’t pack quite the punch that it does except for how expertly it’s paced and acted. The movie has lost some shine after Kevin Spacey’s allegations so I don’t blame you for staying away if you can’t separate the art from the artist. I’m not sure I have even seen this since that news broke but I have multiple memories of showing this film to someone else for the first time and seeing their reaction once the twist hit.
This one may not be on everyone’s top five but this one is one of the most rewatchable for me. Gyllenhaal gives a charming performance in what fits another type of movie list for me, Groundhog Day movies. This one is a lot of fun and should be watched if you get the chance.
Probably my favorite movie on the list even if it’s not my favorite twist. In fact, I’ve seen pretty convincing arguements in different directions on the validity of the twist in general. But sometimes the fun is in not knowing.
The most unheralded movie in this batch but one that was a total surprise for me. And an awesome one. This was one of those throw away movies on a boring night that a friend and I watched and I’ve thought about it ever since. Seriously, go watch this one.
I saw this movie in bits and pieces for the longest time, not being able to see it all at once. The central twist here is so integral to the plot and so laid bare early on but the concept here is one that has always stuck with me. Haven’t you ever had that moment where you’re sure that it must be televised somewhere? Like, this has to be a joke, right? Awesomely executed.
