NC Road Warrior

Husband. Father. AA Executive Platinum. Marriott Platinum. New Jersey by birth, North Carolina for life. All opinions my own.

[Drum Corps Junkie @DCIJunkie]

Jim Ott Best Brass Performance Award

Carolina Crown

This is their 9th all time!

[New York Yankees @Yankees]

Lot of legends in this photo:

[Bronx Bomber Ball @BronxBomberBall]

Yankees Baseball, catch the fever (credit @nateconnormlb)

[Greg Lukianoff @glukianoff]

I’ve always found people who bristle at “American exceptionalism” kind of… weird. Not because I lack self-awareness — I’ve spent my career cataloging every way this country fails to live up to its own rules. But that’s exactly why I love it so damn much. We built a system designed to be shamed by its own founding documents, and it still delivered one of the most spectacular, world-altering runs in human history. A genuine force for human flourishing.

I also found the argument against American exceptionalism to be historically illiterate. Here’s a sample of what we were first at:

• The first large-scale democratic republic in human history — not a city-state, not a monarchy with a parliament bolted on, but a bold continental experiment in self-rule, popular sovereignty, and ordered liberty.

• A written Constitution (1789) with separation of powers and checks & balances — still the oldest national constitution in force anywhere.

• The Bill of Rights (1791): the first time a nation wrote “the government cannot touch these” into supreme law and actually meant it. A dare the world copied — from later rights charters to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

• Public land-grant universities and mass higher education (Morrill Act), opening college to ordinary people no aristocracy would have let near the gates. (but don’t get me started about what happened after we started. Massively federally funding it.)

• Kitty Hawk, 1903 — first controlled powered flight.

• The Moon, 1969 — still the only ones who’ve been there.

• The world’s largest economy since ~1890, powering unprecedented prosperity through grit and genius.

• The assembly line, skyscraper, transistor, personal computer, ARPANET — the backbone of the modern world.

• Telephone, phonograph, GPS — connecting and powering daily life.

• Surgical anesthesia, polio vaccine — saving and transforming millions of lives.

• Jazz, blues, rock ‘n’ roll — brand new American art forms that conquered the globe.

• Hollywood’s dreams, blue jeans, bourbon, and a culture so open a kid like me could devour sushi, burritos, stuffed cabbage, and tabouli in the same week and rightfully think of it all as American.

That’s the part that fills me with genuine love and pride: not just the power or the wins, but the appetite for freedom, creativity, and reinvention. The audacity to say “We the People” and keep trying to live up to it.

What do you love most about this truly exceptional country? 🇺🇸

[NC Road Warrior @nc_road_warrior]

@RyanGarciaESM When do we fire the whole training and medical staff?

[NC Road Warrior @nc_road_warrior]

@AmericanAir Supposedly looking for a crew…but what an abysmal performance by your CLT catering ops tonight. They should NEVER cause a time out.

[NC Road Warrior @nc_road_warrior]

Hey @AmericanAir what’s going on with AA2411? Still sitting here almost 30 min after an already hour long delay. Pilots have said both weight/balance paperwork and catering - both of which have now had 100+ minutes since this plane landed from BNA originally.

[NC Road Warrior @nc_road_warrior]

@AmericanAir I hate to say, but that wasn’t it. Catering messed up, and by the time they got it right, our pilots timed out.

[Grunt Baseball @Gruntbaseball]

Please switch seats

[NC Road Warrior @nc_road_warrior]

@bigcontentguy @elsathora Only if you’re connecting. That walk could be more than a mile. Literally. Exit isn’t too bad.

[NC Road Warrior @nc_road_warrior]

@BillSpaulding Taxes. More taxes coming. Rainy most of the year.

[NC Road Warrior @nc_road_warrior]

@thenewarea51 @OnDisasters @BlancolirioYT And yes, human error - which unfortunately will always be part of human built systems. Great human performance by the Delta pilots though too.

[NC Road Warrior @nc_road_warrior]

@thenewarea51 @OnDisasters The full audio is clear. ATC cleared American for takeoff AFTER they told them to line up and wait. Controller miss. @BlancolirioYT has the full deep dive, as he always does.

[NC Road Warrior @nc_road_warrior]

@FixingEducation Overlay that with NAEP results.

[NC Road Warrior @nc_road_warrior]

@FBSaunders @GovRonDeSantis @FloridaGOP And then @GovRonDeSantis should be the one to moderate the debate.

[NC Road Warrior @nc_road_warrior]

This team is gonna rope me in and then fall apart in the knockout rounds aren’t they?

[NC Road Warrior @nc_road_warrior]

I’ll take own goals from the opposition any day of the week. LFG USA!

[NC Road Warrior @nc_road_warrior]

Dan & Shay crushing that national anthem! Wow. Amazing vocals!

[NC Road Warrior @nc_road_warrior]

@NUCLRGOLF If there is a foursome that can play in 3.5 hours, why can’t everyone? Especially those of us high handicappers who can still play at that pace?

[NC Road Warrior @nc_road_warrior]

@acaseofthegolf1 Well at least he parred 18.