Hey guys, hope you’re all doing well. As promised, here is a St. Patrick’s Day post for all of you, and it’s one that I’m happy to write, given some of the cool things I’ve been doing recently. However, I want to address the elephant in the room first, and that would be my future plans for this blog. I mentioned in the previous post that I was questioning whether or not my idea of following a strict schedule of two posts a month was something that was both necessary and something that I felt like doing. My answer to both of those questions is no, and I’ll say why now.

I think it really comes down to the fact that I have way higher priorities in my life right now, and I have for quite some time. I’ve alluded to them before, mainly just my personal life, my job, my education, etc. This was always meant to be a thing I did on the side, to improve my writing abilities and to also have a platform where I can talk about some of my experiences for fun. Trying to stick by a rigid routine for something which was never meant to be taken too seriously has not and is still not cutting it for me, so from now on, there will be no schedule to these posts. They will come out whenever I feel like publishing one, whether that’s a couple times in a month or not at all for a couple of months. I don’t want to force something that isn’t there, and sometimes my willingness to write just isn’t there. I usually wait until I feel ready to make another one to begin with, so I’m going to stick by that from now on and not change it from this point forward. It’s better for me this way, and I think it would also do me a favor by making these posts feel more special to me when I do decide to write one.

Alright, with that out of the way, I’d like to talk about what’s been on my mind recently. Nothing too crazy, mainly a hobby I have and a couple of significant world events. You know, the usual. Let’s begin.

Out goes Justin Trudeau, in comes Mark Carney. What’s next?

I’m sure most of you have heard in the news recently that Canada has a new Prime Minister. Yes, after a decade of scandals, the softening of the Canadian spirit and rampant inflation, Justin Trudeau is finally gone. His tenure as Prime Minister will likely go down as one of the worst in Canadian history, and the damage that he has done to this country may never be fully undone. In a time of unprecedented attacks on our sovereignty by the United States and a very rough economic spell, the Liberal Party decided the best course of action was to make Mark Carney the next Prime Minister until he inevitably calls an election before the end of the year.

So, what do I think of this move? Well, I don’t like Carney. I think he’s boring, I don’t think he has Canada’s best interests at heart when you take a look at his past and the fact that he was good buddies with Trudeau while he was still in office, and I think that if he actually secures a mandate at the next election, it will both screw Canada even further and cause the Conservatives to go into a tailspin of epic proportions. Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative Party once had a 25 or more point lead in several polls before Trudeau announced he would resign, and the Liberals have now erased that gap and have even taken the lead in many of those same polls. I’m sure that when the party leaders eventually have their debates that these numbers will skew back towards the Conservatives, but the fact that we’re potentially not too far away from voting in yet another Liberal government tells me one thing: Canadian voters, especially those in the eastern provinces, are really, really dumb.

Why would you vote in the same party that caused this country to become a laughingstock across the world and the economy to tank? Why, after SNC-Lavalin, the Indian diplomatic crises, and the WE Charity scandal, would you vote for the Liberals again? I’m not saying that Poilievre and the Conservatives are necessarily much better, because they do have their own issues. But come on, really? Please don’t do this, guys. Vote for something else, or we’re all going to be in even bigger trouble. I know the Lord will always provide and that things will always happen according to his will, but I can still pray and hope for a new kind of government and not more of the same garbage we’ve bore witness to over the last several years. Hopefully by the end of the year we’re back to being a country filled with hope and not the same anxiety-riddled one we’ve been for far too long.

March Madness is almost here!

Yep, for the second year in a row, I’ll be following this tournament. Unlike last year, however, I actually did some in-depth research that I didn’t last year. Last year, when I picked the UConn Huskies to repeat as champions, I picked them purely because they were the top seeded team in the entire tournament, and because they were basically running it back from the previous year. They won convincingly, never really struggling in any of their games. I highlighted in my post talking about last year’s March Madness that I gained a new appreciation for college sports and how soulful they are compared to some of the major league variations of said sports. I would definitely say that college basketball is currently superior to the NBA by a pretty wide margin, but that’s a discussion for another time.

So, what was this “in-depth research” I did? Well, I took a gander at various teams’ offensive rankings, defensive rankings, and which conferences they played in. I also looked a lot at KenPom, a stats website created by one guy named Ken Pomeroy who I would say really knows his stuff. If you want solid, simple breakdowns on which teams are actually good and those who aren’t so good, KenPom is a great way to find out, and it also serves as a sort of cheat sheet to making a solid March Madness bracket. Since 2009, outside of two instances in 2011 and 2014, the team that ultimately wins March Madness has been a team that is ranked in the top 3 overall by KenPom’s parameters, with UConn being ranked #1 overall in the previous two years.

Given this information, plus some quick browsing on Twitter (I still refuse to call it X), I finished making my bracket late last night, and this year I have the Florida Gators taking down the Duke Blue Devils in the finals. I also have Houston, who I picked to lose to UConn in the finals last year, and Michigan State making the final four, but losing to Duke and Florida respectively. Duke and Florida are ranked #1 and #2 by KenPom, and while this tournament is infamous for crazy upsets and unexpected outcomes, I feel pretty confident that one of these two teams will make the finals, and I feel even more confident in Florida being the one to ultimately win it all. If Cooper Flagg, Duke’s best player and the likely #1 pick in the upcoming NBA draft was fully healthy, I probably would’ve picked Duke instead, but I didn’t. Maybe he’ll make me regret that, he’s really freaking good.

Why the recent tornado outbreak in the US really unsettles me.

Over this last weekend, a major tornado outbreak took place across the southern US, mainly in the states of Mississippi, Alabama and Missouri. In the lead-up to when it all started late Friday night, there was a lot of speculation online and amongst established meteorologists and storm chasers that an event similar to the 2011 Super Outbreak or the 2020 Easter Outbreak could happen, which scared a lot of people. As someone who’s always been fascinated (and a little terrified) of severe weather, especially tornadoes, I was pretty on edge about the whole thing. While I thought the referencing of 2011 was just another example of people going full doomer mode, I still saw the potential for this outbreak to indeed be a very bad one, and one that would probably cause unbelievable devastation in certain areas. For the whole weekend, I prayed off and on and kept up with what was happening via Twitter and a couple of channels on YouTube who were doing live coverage and helping to get the message out about how serious this was.

Now that it’s all over, I think it’s fair to say that while it was bad, the talk of this outbreak potentially being on the same level as 2011 or 2020 was definitely an overestimation by many, which is a great thing. While it is very tragic that over 40 people lost their lives and that this even happened in the first place, the potential for it to have been far worse was thankfully avoided. Any time where a potential natural disaster turns out to not be as severe as initially anticipated is both a testament to God’s grace and the hard work that many put in to prevent extra deaths from occurring. I want to specifically shout out Ryan Hall and Reed Timmer on YouTube, both have done great work over the years when it comes to warning people about tornadoes ahead of time, being on the ground to assist those in need, and in Timmer’s case, helping conduct important research on the nature of tornadoes and why they even happen in the first place. A job well done to both of them and their crews.

That being said, the fact that there was an outbreak of this magnitude this early in the year is startling. Typically, tornado season doesn’t truly kick in until April and May, where we usually see the most powerful tornadoes and the most active days for supercells to form. At the time I am writing this, the National Weather Service has confirmed that at least 3 EF4 tornadoes occurred during this last weekend, with the one that directly hit the small town of Diaz, Arkansas potentially being a candidate for the first official EF5 tornado we’ve seen since the 2013 EF5 that hit Moore, Oklahoma. While there have been arguments made that other tornadoes since then have been deserving of an EF5 rating (Mayfield in 2021 comes to mind), this is not meant to be a post debating whether a tornado is an EF5 or not, neither is it meant to trash the current system for rating tornadoes. I am simply highlighting the fact that multiple violent tornadoes have already occurred in 2025, and quite frankly I think it’s really early for that to be happening. Call me superstitious all you want, but I can’t help but look at this as a warning of sorts. If the US is already experiencing tornadoes that are this severe in March, what might happen in the coming months? I pray and hope that little to nothing happens, but that’s really all I can do.

Alright, that should just about do it. This ended up being a bit longer than I expected, but who cares. I always have a plethora of thoughts bouncing around in this thick skull of mine, and I’m glad that I have the freedom to discuss them like this. I’ve probably said that a bunch of times now, but it still holds true. My next post will be at some point in the future. Like I said, it might be in a few days, maybe in a few weeks. I’m not sure when, but I know that when it’s time, it’ll happen.

God bless, and I’ll see y’all later.