Sirius Channel 13 | Don't Blink

Can we be nearing the end of April already? Well, let’s not get too ahead of ourselves, we still have a handful of days left. But tonight’s blog post does mark the final Thursday Rundown of the month so I guess May will be here sooner than we know it. Here are tonight’s five topics…

Earth Girl – On Monday, Sloan received some serious Earth Day inspiration at school. I say this because by the time I picked her up in the afternoon, she was chomping at the bit to do something for the environment. When we arrived at our house, she took the initiative to roam our neighborhood and pick up random garbage. Her heart was definitely in the right place but I wasn’t too thrilled with my first grader picking up cigarette butts and other random “surprises” that people had discarded. Despite some of my hesitations, Sloan did help to beautify our street by filling a bag with trash.

Sloan holding the bag of trash she picked up on Earth Day.

Megan Leavey – On Sunday afternoon, Sidney and I picked one of the current Netflix Top 10 movies to watch. We settled upon “Megan Leavey,” a film from 2017 that tells the story of a struggling young woman in an uninspiring small town who ends up enlisting in the Marines. After going through basic training, she finds her calling as a K9 handler. Megan’s role requires her to train her dog to find explosives in a high stress combat situations. Once troubled, Megan’s job gives her purpose and she is sent to Iraq to assist with crucial missions. I found the movie interesting, emotional, and heroic. If you have the chance to watch it, I recommend the film.

I enjoyed “Megan Leavey.”

Road Trip 10-Year Anniversary – Time sure flies. We are in the midst of the four-day stretch in which my dad and I drove across the country 10 years ago. We rented a U-Haul and trekked to South Carolina where I would start my job at Coastal Carolina University a few days later. On the particular evening of April 25, 2024, we called it a day in Council Bluffs, Iowa. We stopped in better cities over the course of the road trip but every town that we spent the night in now holds a special spot in our hearts.

Although Council Bluffs wasn’t my favorite town we stayed the night in, it now holds a special place in my heart.

National DNA Day – Today is National DNA Day and I can’t get enough of all the true crime stories that highlight how cold cases are now getting solved due to genealogy companies. Just a couple days ago, Sid and I watched a Dateline where a man was arrested for two murders that took place 40 years ago. The guy was living in an extremely remote Canadian community where he never would have been found if not for distant family members submitting their DNA to genealogy companies. Several years ago, I signed up for ancestry.com and it might have been one of the best decisions I ever made. There isn’t a week that goes by where I don’t receive a notification that I have a new match.

My DNA test got really specific on what areas of Italy my DNA is from.

Channel 13 – I think I need to make an adjustment to my top SiriusXM channel list. For the past two weeks, we have listened non-stop to the limited time Taylor Swift station that is appropriately located on Channel 13. The first week entailed my Swiftie-obsessed daughter belting out the lyrics to all of Taylor’s hits. This second week has taken the form of a listening session as my wife and Sloan learn Swift’s new music from her Tortured Poets Department album. By now I have grown pretty tired of Channel 13 but I guess I could be listening to worse.