Four Blackham Boys and a 15k

Grayson has been running many half marathons with his buddies ... this weekend, he proposed a 15k to his sons. Cal was out of town in St. George, and Colton in Oregon, but Landon, Keaton and Coop said okay.  So early Saturday (April 11) they headed out. The race started at 8:00, and they were done by 9:30.

At home, before the race, I asked, who among the four would win. Landon laughed and said "not me" and Keaton shook his head. Gray had already stated he expected the boys to beat him. Coop smiled and said "I guess it will be me then ..." and it was.

Some of the shots captured by the race camera ...

I peeked in via Life360 ...

Coop at enough of a clip that the app thought he was in a car.

Keaton and Gray had Strava tracking them ... always fun to see the route mapped out and get the stats. 

Post-race picture with their medals.

... and a little refueling after the race.

Coop Concerts

I asked Coop to write up his thoughts about the two concerts he went to this year.  He did!

This year, I decided to step a little bit out of my comfort-zone and try to get out of the house a bit more. It was a lot of baby steps with things like getting gas on my own, a grocery trip on my own, and going out to eat. But by far the biggest and funnest thing I did this year that I doubt I would have done in years past were the concerts I went to. While I definitely wouldn’t have gone if Landon hadn’t chauffeured me both times, I still think it was a reasonably big step for me, and it has me thinking of potential concerts to go in the future.

The first concert was for Two Door Cinema Club in May. I had first started listening to them in November 2023 when I first heard “I Can Talk,” on a random NBA2K soundtrack, and not long after I heard their most popular song “What You Know” and I started listening to them a lot, and a few months later I bought concert tickets for them.

They were performing at The Union downtown, and Landon and I got there pretty early since it was general admission so we could get closer to the stage. Then Landon made a bet with me that he said he does at any concert he goes to with friends, where you try to guess 3 songs that the band are going to play, and whoever's list of songs get performed first wins, and we decided that the loser pays for the merch. Clearly I didn’t totally understand the bet, and I just chose their 3 most popular songs: “What You Know,” “Undercover Martyn,” and “Sun.” Those were the final three songs they ended the concert with, so needless to say I lost. But the merch was pretty cool, with my shirt having a colorful silhouette of a cat and a palm tree on the back, and I also got a free TDCC themed foam finger.

After buying the merch, we got a really good spot that was really close to the stage, and we stood around for about an hour before the opener Day Wave came out. I listened to a little bit of their stuff before the concert, because I wanted to maximize my enjoyment for the concert, but I didn’t feel it that much and I left it at that. But I’m really glad to say that they were really good, and they impressed both Landon and me, with Landon even trying to Shazam a song, but he couldn’t because it was too loud. So my first impression of the concert experience was really good, and it was with a band that I didn’t listen to that much! I liked them so much that in the days after the concert I re-listened to them, and I ended up saving a few of their songs that I still listen to today (Promises, Where Do You Go, Nothing At All).

After Day Wave finished performing, it was about another 30 minutes of standing around waiting for TDCC. We had been standing for a few hours already, and that wouldn’t end anytime soon. Another thing I remember from this night was that there was a big NBA Western Conference Finals game happening at the same time that we had to miss, and the service was so bad in the building that we didn’t find out what happened until the concert was over and we left the building a few hours later (Luka Doncic hit a game-winning three-pointer over Rudy Gobert to give the Mavs a 2-0 lead).

Then TDCC came out, and it was awesome from beginning to end. The songs they performed in order seemed to scale with the songs popularity, so the atmosphere just got more hype as the night went on, and this is definitely not a complaint by any means, but it felt like it was never gonna end. I didn’t really know what to expect in terms of the length of the concert and how many songs they would perform, because I’ve heard about bad concerts where the headliner only performs for a few songs, but everybody definitely got their money's worth.

It’s been 7 months since the concert, so I might forget a few songs, but all in all they performed 9/10 songs from Tourist History (Cigarettes In The Theatre, Come Back Home, Undercover Martyn, Do You Want It All?, This Is The Life, Something Good Can Work, I Can Talk, What You Know, Eat That Up It’s Good For You), 5/11 songs from Beacon (Next Year, Handshake, Sun, Sleep Alone, The World Is Watching) just one from Gameshow (Are We Ready?), 2 from False Alarm (Talk, Satellite), a few from Keep On Smiling (Everybody’s Cool, Lucky, High, Wonderful Life), as well as their most recent single Happy Customers, Changing Of The Seasons, and an unreleased song called Costume Party. So if my memory is correct, they performed 24 songs. I think my favorite moment of the concert was when they played Costume Party. I hadn’t listened to it before that night, but it was catchy and simple enough that I was still able to sing along, and the song seemed to mean a lot to the band members, because I believe it was their first song they made together. I also ended up listening to Come Back Home a lot more after the concert when I didn’t listen to it much before.

They ended the concert with their most popular songs “Undercover Martyn” and “What You Know,” and it was the perfect way to end the night. Landon seemed to be disappointed that they didn’t do an encore, because that seemed to be the expectation from concerts that he had been to, but alas it was officially over. He parked a little ways away from the venue and we were pretty quick on our way out and on the road, and I spent the ride home playing some of my favorite songs that they didn’t perform: “Satisfaction Guaranteed,” “So Many People,” “Not in this Town,” “Impatience is a Virtue,” “You’re Not Stubborn,” “Fever,” “Ordinary.”

Then in September came the Glass Animals concert. I had known of a few of their songs in the past few years, like “Heat Waves,” but that’s because basically everybody knows that song, and “Tokyo Drifting,” because it featured one of my favorite rappers, Denzel Curry. But it was in January where one of my Spotify Mixes played a song from them called “Life Itself,” and that really sparked my Glass Animals fandom. I listened to them a lot more in the coming months and started listening to their albums when they dropped their first single in four years “Creatures in Heaven,” and subsequently announced their next album and upcoming tour, and I got tickets quickly after that.

Much like the TDCC concert, this one was happening during a major sports event that I would have to miss, this time being the NFL season opener between the Chiefs and Ravens, and this one was also a thriller that came down to the final play.

This concert was at Utah First Credit Union Amphitheatre (formerly USANA). This was a different atmosphere than The Union because it was much bigger, and it was also outdoors. I could have gotten cheaper tickets if I chose to get lawn seats, but that required getting there earlier and we wouldn’t know how good our view of the show would be until we got there, so I was fine spending more for the assigned seats.

We made the three-song bet for this concert too, this time with no stakes because only I got a t-shirt this time, and he wanted to make it a bit more extreme this time with the loser getting a Glass-Animals themed tattoo, which I wasn’t willing to do. My three songs were: “Life Itself,” “Creatures in Heaven,” and “Tokyo Drifting.” While his songs were: “Youth,” “Wonderful Nothing,” and “I Don’t Wanna Talk.”

We got seated a little bit before the opener Eyedress started performing. I was surprised by how big they appeared to be on Spotify, with 18 million monthly listeners, just a few million short of Glass Animals, and their top 4 songs exceeded 100 million streams. But it didn’t really feel like they were that big because most of the seats were still empty while they were performing. And I tried listening to some of their stuff before the concert, but it wasn’t really for me, so I was hoping it would be similar to Day Wave where seeing them live would change my opinion about them, but I was thoroughly unimpressed. There was one song from them I liked more than the rest, and I found it on their Spotify, but it sounded nothing like how it sounded live, so I didn’t save anything from them.

After Eyedress concluded, it was more waiting around as staff members made preparations, and one of them placed a pineapple on stage, which has basically become a symbol for Glass Animals because of a lyric from my favorite song from them “Pork Soda” (Pineapples are in my head). They kept a spotlight on the pineapple until they came onto stage and it would come into play later.

The first song they performed was “Life Itself,” which was a great way to start the concert since that song is a big reason why I became fans of them in the first place, and it put me up 1-0 in the bet. But they followed that right up with “Wonderful Nothing,” which evened it up at 1-1. Then they played “Space Ghost Coast to Coast,” and a really cool part from this concert that stood out from the TDCC one were the special effects and special screens for every song, and for this song, the screen transitioned between retro polygons, with the main one I noticed being Squirtle from Pokemon. The next one was “A Tear in Space (Airlock),” which was their second single leading to the album, and that’s when I think Landon started to like them a lot more too. They played “Youth,” which put him up 1-2, but it was evened out when they played “Creatures in Heaven not too long after. When they played “Gooey,” the lead singer walked around the venue and made his way to the lawn seats and performed in front of them, which was a cool way of getting them a closer, more personal moment of the concert. The other songs that they played that I don’t have much to add for were “Lost in the Ocean,” “Show Pony,” “How I Learned to Love the Bomb,” and “Take a Slice.”

After they performed “Take a Slice,” there was a short pause, and since our bet was at 2-2 it created a moment of tension wondering if our song would be the next one. The audio started to build up, and it was the beginning of “Tokyo Drifting,” so I won the bet and won my grand prize of nothing at all. This song featured Denzel Curry, so I wondered how they would handle that with the feature not being there, but it was pretty cool because a holographic face of him singing the verse showed up on the side screens during it. And after that, the lead singer picked up the pineapple and placed it on top of his head, and I knew they were going to perform “Pork Soda” after that, and I was pretty hyped up. That was my favorite song from them leading up to the concert, and I had no idea if they were going to play it, and the performance of it was really awesome, and it felt like it was going to be the last song of the concert. The lead singer Dave Bayley shouted out everybody from the band during the outro of the song, and they went backstage.

But then I realized that this was the encore Landon was talking about, because even after they were done, everybody stayed and applauded and chanted. But I feel like I should have expected that because there was no way they weren’t going to perform “Heat Waves.” And after a few minutes, they came back out and concluded with their two biggest songs “The Other Side of Paradise,” and obviously “Heat Waves.”

These were both really awesome concerts, and I’m super glad I finally took the chance to do something like this. I think I probably preferred the TDCC concert a bit more, because it felt so much louder and the crowd seemed to be much more into it, but that could probably be attributed to being so close to the stage and being in an enclosed space. But both these concerts had their moments, and my experience with them definitely opens doors to going to more in the future.

Contemporary Cooper Cut

This will be backdated to May 2024

Aunt Olivia is the main Blackham hair stylist ... she often makes house calls, and other times the boys will try to visit her at the salon. Landon needed a cut, and set up an appointment, and he and Coop went out for a new do. Landon's trim was pretty standard, but Coop got a different style. 

He'd been letting his hair grown longer, utilizing various headbands and hats to keep it controlled when working or exercising. With this new look, long on the top, close crop on the sides and back, he could actually pull it back into a pony (or man bun, which was really only the day he came home). 

Writing in retrospect (okay, it's actually December 2025) this hairstyle has stuck. Coop always insists on NO cutting of the long portion (so it is getting quite long!), and he does just wear it down at times. Most of the time, the long portion is back in a ponytail. With more hair, he's gotten a bit more interested in various shampoos and conditioners, as well as a variety of hair ties. This has head to less hat wearing (the older Blackham boys, especially Cal & Keaton almost live in caps!)

Whenever there is a new style, you're never sure if it will stick. 

This has stuck! 

 

5k - Coop and Gray

 

Gray had run a race or two with work buddies, and had more planned. I encouraged him to find something a little more local and get Coop out. Cooper has been getting in a lot of running on the treadmill in the basement gym. He'd done a few 5ks before and was definitely in shape. Gray found a race in Sandy. It was a trail run, so a little more challenging than a standard 5k.  But on Saturday, April 13, Grayson and Cooper headed out to hit the trail.  They both took 1st place in their age divisions.

Because they had both placed, they stuck around for their awards and pictures. 

Interesting to see all the stats!

Not sure how long the Google album will stay active  ... it was nice that there was a photographer there to get some shots before, during and after. I snagged the ones I wanted to keep, you can see the rest HERE. 

New Job for Cooperman

Cooper graduated last year and probably should have moved on from his custodial work at the local elementary school to a job with more working hours ... but until he got his driver's license, things were limited. He got his license October 2022, but the school year had started and it was easy just to fall back into that routine. It was close and easy and flexible and he stuck with it through the summer, and got a few more hours than during the school year. He and I had our eyes open for different work and he'd put in a couple applications, but nothing had panned out yet. As the summer ended the focus on finding new employment was top priority. 

The dream job would be fairly close (while Coop is driving, he's still a bit road-shy ... takes after his mom). A set schedule was desired, and as Cooper was available during the day, he hoped to avoid evenings and weekends (especially Sundays, Monday/Thursday nights, as football season was ready to start up - he's a fantasy football fanatic). He was willing/wanting to work full-time. Coop had just started listening to audiobooks at his current job, and Mom LOVED that, so had fingers crossed that they might be able to find employment that would allow that option. Coop's hair is a little unruly, so if he was able to wear a cap, that would be helpful. Something active ... Cooper likes to get his steps in. Dealing with customers and confrontation wasn't really something he felt he was up to handling ... I know, it's hard when you have such a long wishlist, and I figured we wouldn't be able to get it all.

There's a neighborhood Facebook group that I'm a part of, so I placed a post on it, wondering if someone who knew us, knew Cooper, might be a little more willing to hire or have connections that could help us out. And it happened! A fellow in the neighborhood (who I didn't really know personally) reached out saying they might have a position in their warehouse. Coop and I drove out the day before the interview, a bit further than I'd originally hoped, but we took 9800 (single lane road) down to just before the freeway and found the building, so Coop would know exactly how long the trip would take and where to go for his interview. Coop said the interview itself was pretty casual, he took in a resume even though that hadn't been required. Just chatting with a few people, taking a little tour of the warehouse and discussing duties ... and he was offered the job on the spot, accepted, and started the following Monday.

The warehouse hours are 7:00-4:00, and the employees can have a flexible shift within those hours. In fact, some employees work a little over eight hours (7-4, no clock out for lunch) and then just work a half day Friday. Full-time, 40 hour work week. There are paid holidays, and vacation/sick days included. It's packing products in boxes, for Amazon, Walmart and Costco, not too demanding or stressful (as I've heard the actual Amazon warehouse can be, I hadn't even put that one on the list for Coop to apply to). There seems to be a "family feel" ... lunches brought in on birthdays, first/last days ... Cooper's first day WAS his birthday! They brought in lunch!  Okay ... so the starting pay was a bit lower that we'd hoped (comparatively to what he had been earning, what Colton had been getting at Home Depot when he worked there) but that would go up with a little time and good performance. With every other box checked, $$ was really not as big a deal as everything else this opportunity offered. 

I was a little worried about how Coop would adapt to working full time. He's had SUCH flexibility the last few years with his schooling online. He'd been able to sleep in, or catch a nap as needed. I know it would sure be a transition for ME! He's been doing great though, getting up, packing a lunch, heading out. He doesn't have a lot of experience driving in the dark, but for the first few weeks it would still be light in the mornings for his commute. I'll still stress out on the first snowy day!

Starting on this new adventure also makes us reflect on the job he has finished up. He did a write-up for school, which I turned into a blog post  (you can see it HERE). When Coop turned 18, he had to switch to an "adult" status and got a new ID. I know I took a picture of it (it was a great picture of him), and the key Cooper was entrusted with, but I can't find it. I also remember snagging some screenshots of an assignment for his work study class ... but I can't find where I saved those either. Cooper got a nice letter of recommendation from his supervisor and a resume update (assignments for that class). It was the perfect first job ... now on to bigger and better and full-time employment. 

Cooper - Class of 2022

ConGRADulations to Cooper! There was a time or two when he was struggling with school when I wondered if he might just get his GED instead of finishing up traditional high school. We'd already gone a non-traditional route, with Mountain Heights Academy, a local, but online school. 

A few years earlier, after trying a couple days at Bingham High School, Coop decided that traditional school wasn't for him. This is something that had come up for years. He'd wanted to be home schooled (we'd had a few days of it here and there) in elementary. We'd switched from year-round at Columbia (every off track time was last starting again) to traditional at Terra Linda, and Coop had met some great friends there. He went with those buddies (on permit) to Elkridge, but the school struggles started up again, hitting hard 8th and 9th grade. We managed to get the permit to Bingham, went in and scouted out all his classes ... but it was not to be. And that was okay. I'd had some online options on the back burner, and Mountain Heights started a bit after the in-person schools, so Coop was still able to take a week off, and then start on time.

Mountain Heights Academy was a perfect fit for Cooper. Every class had the year planned out, schedules were flexible - with weekly assignments due on Friday each week. Students could do their work when/where they wanted ... a little from each class each day, or as Cooper tended to do, he'd do everything for one class on Monday and be done with that, then do another class on Tuesday, etc. He could sleep in, he and I could get some pickleball in during the day. I'd watch some of the school lectures, take notes, then go over assignments with him. His math teacher gave him personal tutoring (as I'm NO help there) as needed. When it was time for the ACT, he went in to the main offices (here in WJ) and scored higher than his brothers to date. He graduated with a cumulative GPA of 3.93.  

Cooper started Mountain Heights Academy as a sophomore, Fall of 2019 ... BEFORE Covid hit. Mountain Heights had started back in 2009, so they had 10 years of online education under their belt already. It was interesting to see how well they were set up, much better than all the traditional schools switching to online education during the pandemic (not really a fair comparison due to the circumstances, but we felt lucky that Cooper's school had everything so organized and was so on top of things). Even before the pandemic hit, I remember a snow day giving Colton the day off, and Cooper sighed "just a regular school day for me!"

When graduation time came ... it was set for Wednesday, June 1, 2022, downtown at the Capitol Theater. There were 154 graduating seniors. Unlike the Jordan District schools, where you "rent" a gown, this was an actual purchase (and I think cost less!) ... and I went ahead and ordered one, even though Coop said he wasn't planning on attending the ceremony. Which ... was okay with me, as I really struggle with ceremony and crowds and downtown. It was livestreamed, and I tuned in for part of it. 

I loved that the school came over personally to place a "congratulations graduate" sign in the yard! Graduations were back in effect ... the year before, when Covid concerns were so prevalent, graduations were cancelled and "drive by" parades were done instead. 

Just out of curiosity, I looked up the size of the graduating classes for the other boys - Landon's was 759, Callahan's was 914, Keaton's was 895. Still waiting to see what Colton's will be (probably in the 500s). Couldn't find the actual numbers for the other schools in 2022 - but this document had some interesting stats. 

(Posted in May2024 and backdated to it's chronological spot. With Colton's graduation upon us ... I realized I never did an official post for Cooper! Blogging, and life, got away from me a bit in 2022 when I had a seizure and ended up in the ER early in the year. Can that be my excuse? Updating now, and will backdate to June 2022 ...)

Cooper - Puffed Up on a Plane

Whereas #1, #3 and #5 have all had allergy issues with NUTS, that isn't something we thought #4 struggled with. But ... maybe he just hasn't ever eaten nuts. He "doesn't like" peanut butter, but I don't know that he's ever even had it. Same goes for walnuts, cashews, pecans, etc. We aren't a very nutty family (I mean, we are ... just not edibley).   

When Cooper went with Gray and Keaton to Seattle, they flew first class and had some nice warm cookies given to them on the plane. We don't know what was in the cookies, but ALLERGY ALERT!  Itchy eyes, puffed up face. I was really surprised the airline didn't have something as simple as Benadryl as a safety precaution. I think an epi-pen is required equipment in the first aid kit for airplanes (and rightfully so!) It didn't get to that extent (where epinephrine was needed), but poor Coop was super miserable. As they got off the plane, he had a little trouble staying upright. He said he almost passed out.

As with the other boys, the nut-allergies don't seem to be life threatening. They don't close off the airway, at least not completely. Given some time (and some Benadryl) the boys get back to normal. Cooper had to sleep off his allergy attack so then he could enjoy the rest of his Seattle vacation.

Kudos to Cooper for taking a picture to memorialize this moment (even if it's not something we really want to remember)... and no more nuts! 

Cooper has had a few skin reactions (Itchy Bumps) over the years. Sometimes having issues with the neighbor's dog, but other times being okay. Very inconsistent. Dang allergies!

Cooper - Literacy Narrative

A couple years ago, Keaton had an assignment for his English 1010 class ... a "Writing Self-Portrait". Cooper decided to take English 1010 as a concurrent class his senior year (not as interested in college credit as he was only having to take a semester rather than a full year). Even though Cooper's class was through Dixie College, and Keaton's had been through SLCC, Cooper had an almost identical assignment. A "Personal Literacy Narrative". The best thing about "personal" assignments for school, as that the end result is often blog-worthy. You can find Keaton's Writing Reflection on the Westra blog (along with other poetry/writing from that side of the family) and Cooper's is featured below (and the original GoogleDoc in MLA format here).

Writing about Writing

School is starting up again, which is already bad enough, but I also have a college-level class of my least favorite subject, English. And I know that you may be thinking why I would take a difficult class of my least favorite subject. To that, I say that the only one semester long class enticed me more than the difficulty shied me away. English class, especially the topic of reading and writing, has always been the worst part about school, and I don’t think a college class is going to change the way I feel about it.

To my non-surprise, in the starting weeks there is already a pretty big writing assignment to work on: a literacy narrative. I gloss over the requirements.

“Four pages, one-thousand words, double spaced with MLA format. This isn’t anything new.” I whisper to myself. To me, this was relatively familiar territory. Just the year prior at the end of the school year, I did a personal narrative in my English class (First Job). Generally, the most difficult task is figuring out what I want to write about. I figured I could just tweak the narrative I'd done last year. I proceed to scroll through more of the requirements. I was met with Step 1: Choosing a topic. As I read through some suggestions that we could write about, my heart sank.

• “Any early memory about writing, reading, speaking, or another form of literacy that you recall vividly.”
• “The origins of your current attitudes about writing, reading, speaking, or doing something.”
• “A literacy task that you found (or still find) especially difficult or challenging.”

I knew “literacy” was in the name of the assignment, but I didn’t realize that the subject had to relate to it. My opinions and past experiences of writing were already overwhelmly negative, but to write… about myself writing, I don’t think it can get worse than that.

After I read the topic suggestions and realized that what I was initially going to write about wouldn’t fit those requirements, I kind of mentally shut down. But this was something I needed to face, and if the first assignment in this class was all it needed to make me feel this way, it didn’t speak well for how I would perform in this class.

When I come up blank in English class, somebody I could look to for guidance is my mom. Ironically enough, my mom absolutely loves reading and writing, and that was something that didn’t pass on from her to me. She doesn’t go a day without reading, she will read hundreds of books a year. She reads multiple books at a time, and whenever she is walking around the house, she has an earbud with an audiobook playing at all times. On top of that, once she is done reading a book, she will recap her book and write up a book review… for fun. That is something that is just unfathomable to me. Nonetheless, she has always been a great help to me in assignments like this, and she probably knew more about my experiences with reading and writing than I did.

My mom and I sat across the granite countertop as we brainstormed my past literary experiences. One thing that we were both aware of was despite my loathing of the subject, I was still pretty good at it and received good grades in English throughout the years. Generally, I think there is a strong correlation between someone's least favorite subject and their worst subject, but that wasn’t the case for me. Aside from some struggles with reading comprehension, I was pretty good in English class, and a really good writer. In the 5th grade, when our teacher required us to get a minimum score of 24 on our assignments in Utah Compose, I went above and beyond multiple times with scores of 27, 28, and even a perfect 30 once. Unfortunately, even with good grades and praise from my teachers, when the next writing assignment came by, I dreaded starting it.

My mom tried coming up with some positive experiences I had with either reading or writing, because they can’t all be negative. Right?

“What about the book Hatchet? I remember you really enjoying it, and you even read the sequels to it,” my mom inquired. It is true that I really enjoyed Hatchet by Gary Paulsen when I first read it. Even before I read it, it really stood out to me on the bookshelf at my home, with its bright green cover fading from light to dark, and a silhouette of a hatchet to top it off. I first read it in 5th grade as a class-wide assignment. We read the book with dark green tissue paper covering the light, dimming our surroundings and immersing ourselves in the forest the main character was in. And when I read ahead at home, I unintentionally immersed myself into it by being in a dimly lit room and sitting on a dark forest-green chair. Later on in school, we had to do a writing assignment on a book of our choice, and I decided to re-read Hatchet and write about it. Hatchet, to this day, is the only book that I have re-read and read the sequels to.

“Yeah, it is probably my favorite book I have ever read. But there is one big issue -- I don’t even remember the main character’s name,” I reply... If I can’t name the main character in what I think is my favorite book, then to consider that any other book had an impact on me is slim to none. Despite my mom’s best efforts, I would only read and write when it was required.

“Do you remember the custom bookmarks you made for the books you read?” questioned my mom. “Maybe they made reading those books more enjoyable.”

“I remember making them, but I think I enjoyed designing and coloring in the bookmarks more than I enjoyed reading the books that they were for, “ I answered. Back in elementary school, when I started reading a new book, sometimes I would make a bookmark that I can use solely for this specific book. I remember doing it with some of the books from the I Survived series, My Zombie Goldfish, as well as Hatchet. But that was just artistic, and none of the experience had to do with me enjoying reading.

My mom felt prompted to dig up some of my previous works of writing after we talked. Among all of the writing I had done, the most notable were some journal entries from when I was very young, and letters I sent to my brother when he was on a mission from 5th - 7th grade. Looking back at what I had written, I was a completely different writer than I am today. It seems unfair to compare my writing from when I was a child to how I write English assignments, but they were just so unfamiliar to me. My writing was very expressive with using all caps and exclamation points, and of course there were the spelling errors. Even when I was younger, these were all involuntary, and it was my mom trying to urge me to write. In 2019, she had me write up a trip to Seattle, as well as a summary of what happened when I won the fantasy football league I was in. It may always take my mom’s push to start writing, but the absence of a letter grade at the end of it made it that more tolerable.

I have made my feelings about reading and writing pretty clear throughout this. I didn’t get to everything that irks me, like my struggles with the SRI test, the absolute absurdity of metaphors in novels, as well as the made-up symbolism; but the picture is there. In comparison to all the other main classes you take in school (math, science, social studies), English is much different. In those classes, there is always a definitive answer, but in English, everything is subjective, and every person could have a different perspective. So combining that with something personal is really intimidating to me.

During the process of writing this narrative, I came to realize that I took the term “Literacy Narrative” too literally, and I could have written about any experience that I learned from. But, I was in far too deep, and changing topics probably would have resulted in another mental blockage. However, I was still able to find out something that I have always just brushed past. Whenever I heard the terms “reading” or “writing,” I automatically associated those words with school, English class, books, and essays. I always looked upon it with a pessimistic view instead of looking on the bright side. Without reading, I wouldn’t be able to look up stats in NBA and NFL games, I wouldn’t be able to read the cards in games that I play with my family, I wouldn’t be able to read the subtitles when I watch anime. Without writing, I wouldn’t be able to text my friends and family. I have never really enjoyed reading or writing, and I don’t think this is going to change. But with this assignment, I think I will be more aware that I am fortunate to have these skills, and thankful that I have them.

********************************************************

I drove myself a bit crazy looking for this picture ... it wasn't here on the Blackham Blog, but I was sure I'd done a post about it and could see this photo in my mind. I'd used it on a post on my JenBsJourney blog (Books the Boys are Reading). I was able to find a few more of Cooper's bookmarks to take a picture of and preserve here. 

Cooper's Personal Narrative - First Job

This will be backdated to 2021

An English assignment Cooper's junior year was to write a Personal Narrative - telling a story with a message, using dialogue, sensory details, etc.  At least with a PERSONAL narrative, you are telling your own story, so it should be easier to write ... right? I thought his completed assignment was very blogworthy, as it tells about the time, his first job, etc.  Link to the GoogleDoc (here) and included below. 

Employment Experiences During Covid

I hear the jingle of my phone, alerting me that I have gotten a text message.

“I won’t be able to come in today, can someone cover my route?” This was sent in our work group chat, where we sweepers are able to notify the supervisor if we are unable to come in to work, and allows subs to cover a route if necessary.

“Yeah, I’ll be able to split your route with someone,” I reply. Even though I am no longer a sub and have my own designated route I do everyday, it hasn’t been that uncommon for me to do someone else's route in addition to mine if needed. So now I get ready for my work day: I take a shower, get dressed and prepared, get a ride to the school, and then I punch my code in to get my shift started. I get to the custodian closet and pull out my cart and start up another day of disinfecting touch-surfaces and throwing garbage out. I don’t really have much on my mind while I’m working, aside from the music blasting through my earbuds, so I think back to when I first got my job back in 2020; a time where many people were getting laid off, not hired.

When I say that people were getting laid off, this was the time when Covid-19 had finally made its dreadful impact. In the months prior, I was aware of this “Coronavirus” spread, but I didn’t think too much of it. I remember seeing things like the U.S. potentially opting out of the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo if it spread more, as well as graphs predicting how many cases there could be in the next few months. All of what I was seeing made it seem like Covid was going to be so drastic, but I thought to myself “There’s no way it’s going to be that bad, is it?” Well…

I could pinpoint the last semi-ordinary day before everything changed, and that’s because it was connected to an interest of mine. On March 11, 2020, tip-off for the Utah Jazz and Oklahoma City Thunder game had been delayed for unknown reasons. This happened a few days after Rudy Gobert mockingly touched the mics at a press conference, and he was listed as sick on the injury report. Then, an announcer in the arena stated that the game had been cancelled, as Rudy Gobert had tested positive for Covid. Shortly after, NBA commissioner Adam Silver made the decision to suspend the NBA season for at least a month.

While the NBA may be unrelated to the functioning parts of a society in most ways, the impact that was made after the season was suspended was drastic. In the next couple days, there were shortages of supplies in the stores, schools moved online, and non-essential businesses were shut down. But in a time where millions of people were unemployed for the first time, this was the time period in which I got my first job.

I was hanging out with my friends one day, and we felt our stomachs rumbling. So we hopped into Parker’s car and drove to the nearest McDonalds to order 24 cookies, just ordinary friend things. While we were in the drive thru, Parker and McKay were talking about their job. This was new information to me, so I was curious where they were working.

“You guys have a job? Where are you working?” I inquired.

“McKay and I work as sweepers at Terra Linda.”

“How long have the two of you been working there?”

“McKay has been working for a few months, and I’ve been working there since the 8th grade.”

It seemed to be as simple as a job could possibly be. Judging by the fact that Parker had worked  there since he was 14 seemed to indicate that this job wouldn’t need any experience. And the shifts were only 1-2 hours a day, so it would be a perfect job to have while in school.  It was August at the time, and I was going to be turning 17 by the end of the month without getting my drivers license or my first job, so this was as good an opportunity as I could get to cross one of those off my list.

“Would it be easy to get a job there?”

“Yeah, all you need to do is go to the Jordan School District website and fill out an application there.”

After a fun day with them, I got dropped off at my house, went through the door and immediately sat down in front of my computer and typed in the address to the Jordan School District's website. I filled out the application and had it submitted. All that was left was the waiting game. Parker couldn’t remember how long it took for him, but McKay said it took a few months before he was notified about his application. I wanted to get working right away, so this was the most stressful part of this whole experience. I wasn’t sure how the whole Covid situation would affect things … if they would need more workers as cleaning was more of an issue now, or if schools would move online again, and there wouldn’t be a need for junior custodians.

On September 4, just a few weeks after I sent in my application, I got a message from John, the supervisor, saying that he wanted to meet with me. It wasn’t necessarily an “interview,” it was more a quick rundown of what to expect from the job. After that, the only thing left before starting my first job was sweeper training.

My sweeper training happened on September 22, and the purpose of this was to show the basics of all of the routes we may be doing; light duty, vacuums; and bathrooms. After all of that, I was finally able to start working. I started as a sub, just filling in when needed, but it wasn’t long before I got my own route and was working every day.

I take off the straps off of my vacuum, then empty the contents from an hour worth of vacuuming into the trash. I get to the main office and punch in my code a second time so I could end my shift. It is very strange how an experience shared by millions of others could have wildly different outcomes and impacts. What so many people will remember about this time period is how unemployment was high, but what I will remember from 2020 is that it’s when I got my first job.

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Cooper ended up showcasing his work as part of a project for history as well ...

You can see the full project on the Westra Way blog. 

Red Zone and Football Fantasies

This will be backdated to January 2020

Cooper loves his football. A couple years ago, Grayson was at the AT&T Store and he got talked into switching to DirectTV. We were with Comcast for Internet, and we had kept cable tv ... for sports. NBA of course, but Cooper liked football too. With this DT change, Gray got HBO included, which he liked. So a dish was added to the roof and we figured out the new channels. One thing that was included free that first year was "Red Zone" ... which is a football featurette. With "Sunday Ticket" you could access all the games, but Red Zone would follow ALL the games and show all the exciting stuff, when teams were "in the red zone" and scoring. Coop fell in love with this new way of watching. The ploy worked ... the second year we paid the price to get Red Zone again. As the 2019 season was set to start, our special promo pricing was over and the DirectTV bill inflated so much, we dropped them and went back to Comcast. I was SO worried about the whole "Red Zone" thing though. Apparently there are two Red Zone programs. One by DirectTV, which is exclusive to DirectTV, and one run by the NFL. We could get the NFL RedZone, but that's not what Coop had become accustomed to. I held my breath that first week ... and Coop said the new program was acceptable.

Now I don't understand Fantasy Football at all - but I guess that's one reason why the Red Zone carried so much appeal. It's the scoring and power plays that affect Fantasy Football? So Red Zone lets the guys see all the action at once (seriously, often multiple games being shown at the same time, split screens). Cooper had done some Fantasy Football in previous years with friends, but I guess during the Seattle Trip last fall, Kolby invited Coop to play in a league he had going. What I didn't know (Cooper didn't know either) was that there was an entry fee ($50, which Kolby fronted for him). This went toward cash prizes at the end. 

Cooper won the whole thing. $300 for first place. I emailed Kolby a couple times to get a little background info so that I could understand, and Kolby was great and getting back to me and explaining some things (although most I still didn't really understand). I'd try to get Coop to tell me a little about what was going on, and he had some nail-biting moments during the final weeks, wondering if he'd get eliminated. But he didn't.   I asked him to do a write up of his Fantasy Football experience, and here it is ...

2019 Fantasy Football Season:

Back in September, I joined my third fantasy-football league, but it was a lot different than the previous two times I had done fantasy. This time, I was playing with Uncle Kolby and a lot of his friends in a 12 person league, instead of my own friends making up only a 6 person league. And there was also a cash prize for the winner and the two runner-ups.

I remember when we initially started the draft, and I knew it was going to be much harder than the previous two leagues I was in, since there are double the people. That meant getting a good, balanced team was going to be really difficult since the spacing between every draft pick is much bigger, and the players I may have wanted were probably off the board by the time it was my draft pick. At the end of the draft, I was pretty happy with my team: Michael Thomas, Julio Jones, Josh Jacobs, Deshaun Watson, Phillip Lindsay, Melvin Gordon III, Marvin Jones, Rashad Penny, Rams Def/ST, Hunter Henry, Harrison Butker, and a few other irrelevant picks that didn’t matter. Even though this was my starting team, it changed a ton throughout the season.

I tend to remember this season in two parts, and that is the first 6 games, and then the rest of them. In the first six games of the season, I went 3-3, which was okay, but not compared to some of the other teams going 5-1. It was a pattern for the first 6 games as I won, and then I lost continuously for these games until I was 3-3. My favorite game in that span was against Pbody&RichardSherman, where it was an extremely high scoring game, as well as an extremely close game, of 157.64-156.56 where I won. Both of our scores were at least 50 more points than the prediction for that week. And I remember that week for the sole reason that my kicker got me into the lead late Saturday night, and I took out Jarvis Landry who was playing the next night out of the game, because I was worried he may fumble and lose two points to lose me the game (even though he scored 9 points, I didn’t regret it).

After the sixth game is where it all started. For the next seven games of the fantasy regular season, I went 7-0 and went into the playoffs with a first-round bye and a 10-3 record. Even in the previous two leagues I played in, when players went inactive and didn’t update their lineups, I never had a dominant run like this. Fantasy Football almost never relies on your skill like real football does, but I still felt awesome winning every game. In this stretch of games, my personal favorite when I was up against Kolby. I was the second seed in the league at that point, and I’m pretty sure Kolby was dead last, and even then, winning against him felt awesome because of the angry texts he sent me and that I could brag. Another matchup that was great was the final game of the regular season against the #1 seed. It was a battle of the top two seeds, and the winner would become the #1 seed. Despite being the two highest scorers of the season, the ending score was a pitiful 82.28-77.30, and we both scored the least amount of points out of everyone that week. But the important thing was that I scored a little bit more than him, and I got the #1 seed for the playoffs, and knocked him out to where he no longer had a bye.

It was the first round of the playoffs, but that didn’t matter as I had a first-round bye and was going on to the semi-finals no matter what. But the funny thing is that when I knocked the former #1 seed out of a bye, that cost them their season, and they lost in the first round of the playoffs. In the semi-finals, I was really worried because I was going against the fifth seed who was the hottest team because they had the best fantasy player in the league, Lamar Jackson. Since both the 5th and 6th seed one their matchups the week prior, I initially thought that since I was the first seed, I was going to match up against the weakest seed like they do in the real NFL playoffs. But I was going against the winner of the 4th and 5th seed matchup. I thought I was screwed going against him, and I had good reason. Lamar Jackson played first on a Thursday night, and to no one’s surprise, he racked up 40 points, and just with one player’s performance, he was now heavily favored to win. Nothing seemed to change during Sunday’s day full of football. But Sunday night, Austin Hooper got a few points, and Julio Jones got 13 receptions for 134 yards and 2 TD’s, getting an insane 31 points, getting me into the game. I was down 12 points, and my fantasy MVP, Michael Thomas, was all I had left. And fortunately, he didn’t disappoint as he got 12 receptions for 128 yards and a TD. It was his performance and an ultimate choke from his RB Marlon Mack that won me the game and put me in the championship.

After all of that madness, I was in the championship against the Cinderella story 6th seed. But I really don’t have a lot to tell about this match as I won in a blowout 159.06-90.86. In the championship, I got a new personal high of points in a match, and literally everybody in my lineup for that week got 10 points or more, including the Colts Defence/ST who got a monstrous 30 points for me. And like I said, my team changed a ton, as my final team was: Deshaun Watson, Michael Thomas, Julio Jones, Philip Lindsay, Deandre Washington, Breshad Perriman, Austin Hooper, Harrison Butker, Colts Defense/ST, Chiefs Defense/ST, Denver Defense/ST, Jarvis Landry, Juju Smith Schuster, Carlos Hyder, and Lesean McCoy. And in the championship, there were 3 players in my lineup that I had never used previously in the season, but they still all showed out, and I got the 1st place prize of $300.

I happened to see a "Fantasy Football Champ" t-shirt on Groupon, that I bought him. I'll have to see if he'll agree to a picture when he's wearing it. 

Seattle Trip for Two

During the summer, Kolby brought up the idea of Gray bringing Cooper out to and having Cooper and Kolby (the two football fans) hit a SeaHawks game. So, that happened. The Seattle trip ended up overlapping with the other Blackhams (Maga/Livi, Ana's and Clay's family ... and Keaton) going to Disneyland at the end of September/start of October. The football game ended up being a great one, with lots of action and a close finish with a SeaHawks win.

Gray didn't attend the game ...

He dropped the guys off and then went off exploring on his own.

Eating out is always a big part of any vacation ...

Here's a little recap that Cooper wrote up ...

Yesterday was really fun, we didn’t go to Lunchbox or Din Tai Fung, but there was a place we went to that I will probably want to go to every time we go to Seattle from here on out. We went to Ciudad and it was just really good. There was really good steak, pork, flatbread, and I even tried cauliflower and octopus, so there’s that. And then there was the game. It kind of sucks that I didn’t have my Fitbit for it, because I think I would have easily surpassed ten thousand with the walk up and down to the stadium. And I the game was so good, I don’t think I could have chosen a better one to go to. Hawks won 30-29, after the opposing kicker shanked a field goal he very often gets. During the game, Kolby was yelling his head off, which was really funny, I definitely was not as vocal as he was. I also got a cup I can keep at the game, and Kolby got me a really nice hoodie. However getting home sucked, it probably took us like 30 minutes just to get on the freeway, but it was worth it.

... and then the guys headed home. Cooper even got to experience first class flight, as their seats got bumped up on way. Coop and Gray had a good time, and thanks to Kolby & Co for hosting them!  Kolby also got Cooper into a fantasy football league (there was a $50 entry fee, with cash prizes at the end, Coop didn't know that going in ... but learned that a little later on, and there will be more on that in another post!) 

Business Office Specialist

A new class offered in the schools is "Business Office Specialist" ... it's a course featuring Microsoft Office, Excel and Powerpoint. All good stuff to know. The kids learn, then take a test. If they pass, they get a certificate which is good for a resume, showing possible employers the individual has proficiency in said computer skills.  I know I use Excel all the time. 

Coop took the class in 9th grade. It was taught by his favorite teacher Mrs. Rees, and he had a couple buddies in the class too. He was SO stressed about taking the test though. He did take and pass the test for Excel and was happy about that. Not enough to show his face in the picture, but still. 

Coop ended up being the TA for Mrs. Rees the following semester. In his spare time, he continued working on his skills, and took and passed the test for Word, and then for PowerPoint. 

I guess I need to get a couple more frames. 

Cooper Goes to the Capital

One of the 8th grade activites all our boys have done, is the "Job Shadow" experience. Landon, Cal and Keaton all went and spent the day with Grayson in the office and at various construction sites. It was Cooper's turn this year, but the job shadow day fell on a Wednesday, when Gray had multiple meetings and had to be into the office uber early.

What to do?
Instead of Cooper having a long and boring day with Dad ... Maga took Cooper to work with her. The State Capital is more exciting anyway, right? There was quite a bit of buzz going on for the upcoming Presidential visit (in just a few days). Maga introduced Cooper around, showed him the sites ... and of course a bit of what the work is day to day.

So that Cooper wouldn't have to stay until the end of the workday, and so Pam could actually get some work done, I arranged for Landon to come up the capital and grab Coop around 1:00.

Now Cooper just needs to do his writeup about the experience.