Jack Mitchell

A suffering Atlanta sports fan in a city thats not Atlanta

[Ziggy_Sobotka @Ziggys_Duck]

True Detective 5: Natural Police

[The Random Recruiter @randomrecruiter]

This is what the average meeting at a Fortune 500 company sounds like.

[Ziggy_Sobotka @Ziggys_Duck]

OTD in 2002 Avon visited the pit.

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

The US Navy operates a 50,000 acre forest in Indiana whose entire job is keeping one wooden ship from 1797 afloat.

The ship is USS Constitution, still a commissioned warship with an active-duty crew. Cannonballs bounced off her in 1812 because the hull sandwiches a wall of live oak ribs between two layers of white oak planking, nearly 2 feet of solid wood so dense it barely floats. British 18-pounders hit it and dropped into the sea. A sailor yelled "her sides are made of iron" and the nickname stuck.

Here's the problem with owning a 229-year-old wooden ship: you can't buy the parts. Hull planks run up to 40 feet long and 7 inches thick, cut from single white oak trunks. A white oak takes over a century to grow that big. No lumberyard on earth stocks it.

So the Navy grows its own. Constitution Grove at Naval Support Activity Crane holds trees over 100 years old, reserved exclusively for this ship. Foresters there are managing oaks today that will become hull planking in the 2100s. The maintenance plan literally runs on tree time.

Every 20 years or so she enters dry dock and shipwrights swap out rotted timber. After two centuries of this, estimates put original 1797 wood at maybe 10 to 15 percent of the ship. The Navy keeps replacing her plank by plank because Congress mandated her preservation and because she's the only active US warship that has sunk an enemy vessel.

Every other asset in the Navy has a decommission date. This one has a tree farm.

[Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump]

Happy 4th of July to everyone, including the haters and losers!

[Barstool Sports @barstoolsports]

Happy 250th birthday to the greatest country that’s ever existed 🇺🇸

[Paul Anleitner @PaulAnleitner]

The Sandlot has the single greatest vision of American life ever put on film.

This scene is what it’s all about. 🇺🇸

[Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 @pmarca]

God bless America.

[Ron DeSantis @RonDeSantis]

Finalizing budget review/vetoes and I can report:

FY 26-27 will be the fourth straight year that Florida has reduced its budget.

Rainy day fund = full (and more than triple the size from 2019).

The budget represents 44% of the size of the budget of New York (the state closes to FL in population, with NY having between 3 and 4 million fewer residents).

[Jack Mitchell @Jamitchell2]

Congrats @BudCauley ! Long time coming and well deserved RTR

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

Stateside, a gas station. I drank a frozen blue beverage too quickly, and was struck down by a punishment this entire nation knows, and accepts, and has named.

The drink is called a slush. Ice, sweetness, and a blue that does not occur in nature. The day was hot. I was thirsty. I drank like a soldier at a river.

The pain arrived in my skull like a war horn.

Behind the eyes. Above everything. Total. I gripped the roof of my car. I may have made a sound.

"Brain freeze," said the cashier through the door, with no urgency whatsoever.

It has a NAME. The affliction is so common it has a household name, like a cousin.

"Tongue on the roof of your mouth," called a man at the pumps. He did not look over. He prescribed the remedy mid-pump, casually, the way one mentions weather.

I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth. The war horn faded. The healer nodded at his pump, finished, and was gone in a Chevrolet.

In my land, punishment follows crime by way of courts and seasons. Here, the sentence is instant. Drink with greed, and the ice strikes the mind directly. No trial. No appeal. Perfectly fair.

And here is what moves me. EVERYONE has felt it. The cashier. The healer. Children. Elders. An entire nation united by the same small lightning, all taught the same cure, all passing it on to strangers at gas stations, free of charge.

You cannot fully distrust a country once you know it shares one pain.

The freeze does not punish thirst. It punishes haste.

I finished the slush slowly, like a scholar. Blue tongue. Clear mind.

Then at the door I forgot everything, drank deeply, and was struck down again.

"Tongue, hon," said the cashier, without looking up.

Discipline is a journey.

[vids that go hard @vidsthatgohard]

USA to Paraguay

[Three Year Letterman @3YearLetterman]

Going from Europe to the Waffle House in Cleveland, GA is like going from the Stone Age to 2026

What an incredible cultural experience

[Jack Mac @JackMac]

450 million in net worth that lives in Monaco for tax reasons btw.

Seems he’s fine with hoarding his wealth.

[friendscallmeJay @Jaypotta]

Oh just Tedeschi Trucks Band covering Sturgill Simpson nbd

[Old Row Sports @OldRowSports]

“Because you never know when the last one is”

- Kyle Busch, last week

Wow

[Dante 🇺🇸 @DanteTheDon]

Was not ready for Eric Church to deliver the best commencement speech I’ve ever heard.

Six guitar strings. Six pillars of a life.

Faith. Family. Spouse. Ambition. Community. You.

Tune them when you’re whole, not just when you’re broken.

Watch the whole thing.

[Jack Mitchell @Jamitchell2]

@FlyTPA why can’t you walk to the terminals? The trains are efficient, but sometimes it’s nice to get the steps in

[Atlas Press @realAtlasPress]

Teddy Roosevelt, what to do when you're feeling weak