Like A Dad

Smells Like Teen Spirit In Here

By Michael Cusden in Kids, Parenting, Toronto October 2, 2022

Can you believe it has been 10 years since I first started this blog? 10 years since I started documenting my life as a Dad. Well it’s time I checked in on myself and what better time than when my oldest child just turned 13!

Yep, if the title didn’t give it away, I now have an official eye rolling and always ready to eat all the groceries teen. To be fair he doesn’t so much roll his eyes as he just puts up with my attempts at humour.

It’s a new chapter, or dare I say, a new book of parenting that I am writing/living IRL as they say. We survived the terrible twos. The actually more terrible threes. Whatever was in between five and seven was a blur and then the pre-teen angst that seemed so cute and easy to manage. You know, when your kid thinks they have it so bad. That’s when I was eye rolling a bit.

But now. The unknown for us. I think I would have more success understanding the Metaverse at this point.

All I have to go on is remembering what life was like when I was 13. Fire up the microfiche machine.

Now I would definitely say our 13 year old has a lot of similarities to me at that age. Like me he’s super tall, super hungry and super helpful. But that only gets me so far when understanding how to be the parent of a teen in 2022.

Pre postseason look at my NBA predictions

By Michael Cusden in Toronto March 31, 2023

As the NBA season approaches the postseason, there are so many wild story lines happening. So, no better time to look back at my preseason predictions to see what I got right and wrong. Spoiler alert, I did not get much right.

But to be fair, few could have predicted the Sacramento Kings being awesome. Or Kevin Durant getting traded to Phoenix. The Wemby sweepstakes were not as obvious as anticipated. More teams seem to really care about the play in. And many things have aligned to make scoring at an all time high.

Will things return to the norm once we enter the playoffs? Or will the unexpected continue to happen?

Here is a review of my preseason predictions followed with how I am doing.

March Madness just isn’t the same

By Michael Cusden in Sports March 27, 2023

Watching college basketball in March is one of my favourite things to do. Every year (except for the first COVID year), the last few weeks of March and start of April are all about buzzer beaters, heartaches and watching a new batch of college kids shine or crumble under the pressures of the craziest sports tournament on the planet.

Just this past weekend I watched teams both steal and hand away games with under 10 minutes to go. While it’s hard to watch when a team messes up your bracket, it makes sense. These are essentially kids playing in front of millions of viewers. They are not professional athletes (yet) and with so few stars sticking around for more than a year, of course there will be meltdowns and brain farts.

But even with the unexpected teams moving on.

Despite the buzzer beaters and feel good stories.

To me, the tournament just isn’t the same. Maybe I am just getting old and after ## years of watching this tourney I am just getting crusty.

Revisiting my 2022-23 NBA Predictions

By Michael Cusden in Toronto January 30, 2023

Now that we are over half done the 2022-23 NBA season, I thought it was a good practice to revisit my early season predictions. It’s been an odd season so far, especially from the perspective of a Toronto Raptors fan. Boy was I off. Scoring is way up, no team looks like they are unbeatable and honestly I think the biggest key to winning the title will be health.

Here are my predictions for the season with a little commentary added on how it’s going as of January 30th.