Illinois Dynasty Begins

Now that I've gotten some game time under my belt, I started my Illinois dynasty with head coach Al Beef. Week 1 was a nice tune-up against an FCS team. 

First TD in Road to Glory - College Football 25

There are three main modes of College Football 25: Dynasty, Road to Glory and Ultimate Team. 

Dynasty is the one I care about most, but the learning curve is kind of steep. So I didn't want to start there. Got some good Ultimate Team progress in, and then I started a Road to Glory for a WR. 

I built a deep threat WR coming out of Peoria, IL...thinking that I might want to get recruited to Illinois. But then I saw my offers and Illinois did offer me, but I was going to be #2 on the depth chart. (Not bad for a WR, but at Arizona State I would be #1. And the NIL opportunities was high for ASU, medium for ILL.) Plus, I figured maybe Jimbob was a party school kind of guy. 

So I get to campus and the first week of practice was rough. But helpful. 

I get into the game and coach is pounding the hell out of the ball. Buddy, I didn't remember that you hate passing as part of your recruitment pitch. 

Anyways, it's 3rd and goal in a tight game. Coach dials up inside slant. From practice I remembered that it was helpful to give a first step outside before cutting inside. So that's what I did. 

First week was a solid win. Ended up like 6 catches for 67 yards. In week 2, I went 6 catches for 112 but in a 30-32 loss. 

Game is super fun. 

sports youtube is great

Hey look, I don't know when you like to watch videos.  But when you do, here are some good sports ones.

greatest moment of all time in every sport

most viewed college football plays

wild nfl plays

Jomboy never misses

new site

Over the years, I've used a couple different methods to keep track of all my creative projects. 

I've had various lists on this site, and I've had various websites: one on blogger, one on wix. I liked having the sites, but the last one I had wasn't particularly satisfying. 

I suppose partly inspired by my previous hoagie central post, I made a new site. 

davefymbo.com

Dave Fymbo: Creative Director + Author + Human

Two things I'm particularly proud of are new subpages I made. 

The first is the Devastating Lobster Productions page. Collected all of our short films and videos in one spot. 

And the second is my travel photography page. I had a photography collection before, but I'm much happier with the new one, both in content and organization. 

And now that this site is live, it will be easy to add more pieces to it.

At Peace

When the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 after an 86-year drought, Bill Simmons wrote a book called Now I Can Die in Peace. I was never a baseball guy, but the concept stuck with me. 

At now at age 40, I can look at the life I've built and say that I feel at peace. 

To recap, here's where I'm at:

married to the love of my life
granted the opportunity to be a dad to two wonderful boys
made a successful advertising career and achieved my lifelong goal of becoming Creative Director
made great friends in college and have been able to hang on to them
traveled the world including Hawaii, Italy, Greece, Jamaica, Argentina
saw the Chiefs win multiple Super Bowls and the Avalanche lift the Cup
saw Derren Brown in person and go on stage as part of the finale

seen all my favorite bands in person

made my soul happy by creating books, movies, music, podcasts and a cookbook

So what does this mean?

Two things. 

1. I've built a great life and I want to keep enjoying it. But tomorrow is not promised. If my time is up before I expect, I want everyone to know (including myself) that I'm at peace. 

2. I've built a great life and I want to keep enjoying it. While I'm sure that I will embark on new hobbies, visit new places, achieve new milestones...what I really want to focus on is savoring the life that I've created and not take any of it for granted.

Work Trip to Cleveland

In mid-May I took a quick 2 night work trip to Cleveland. Good food and good work. 

Chiefs Rushing Stats vs Playoff Rushing Stats

Here are the all-time rushing leaders for the Chiefs. You'll notice that the top three went back to back. Starting in 2001, the Priest Holmes era led to the Larry Johnson era, which led to the Jamaal Charles era. (The Charles era led to the Patrick Mahomes era and I gotta say having an all-star QB is better than an all-star RB.)

So no shortage of good Chiefs running backs in my lifetime. The Chiefs chart looks pretty different from say the Lions chart, who has one elite off the charts RB but no one else above 6000 yards and the only players since the 90s with 3000 yards other than Barry Sanders is Kevin Jones with 3067. 

But what's wild about the Chiefs chart is how different the playoff leaderboard looks like:

Priest Holmes appeared in 1 playoff game and is 10th on the list of all-time playoff rushes. 

176 yards in the No Punt game. 

Creative Director

Early on in my advertising career, I made it my goal to be a Creative Director. 

From the starting position of Associate Copywriter or Associate Art Director, you have to move up 4 levels to become a Creative Director. There are two levels above Creative Director (Group Creative Director that manage several Creative Directors, and an Executive Creative Director that leads the entire department.) So I wasn't aiming at the highest possible position. I set my sights on the position that would give me the chance to lead my own team of creatives and have control over the work. If you've ever seen Mad Men, Don Draper was a Creative Director.

The other thing to know, is its not simply a stick around long enough and you'll make it there thing. Depending on the agency, there's one Creative Director for every 5-7 young creatives. So for every 5 people at the lower levels, only one gets to grow up and be a CD. There are lots of people that have the experience but stay on as a pure writer or art director, at the senior level for many years. There are lots of people that end up leaving.

I started my career in January 2006. 

I got my third promotion, up to Associate Creative Director (always called ACD) in November 2016. I was turning 33 that month. 

Just one promotion away from Creative Director. Right around then I made it my goal to get to Creative Director by 40. 

By November 2018, I was unemployed. The agency that gave me the ACD title was falling apart and letting go of lots of people. 

I was able to get another job in February of 2019...but not at the ACD level. I was back to being a senior copywriter. Pretty humbling. 

It took me over two years to get back to ACD, June 2021. I was five months away from turning 38. Creative Director by 40 seemed unlikely. 

My 40th birthday arrived in November 2023. At least part of the reason I was pretty mopey was the fact that I didn't reach my goal of becoming a Creative Director by 40. 

But I did think of a loophole. It's not that different to move the goalposts to Creative Director at 40. That would buy me another year. 

Plus, I did the whole acceptance thing of realizing that whether it happens at 40 or 41 or 42, that I'm on track to make it happen and it doesn't really matter what age I am, it will still be achieving my life-long career goal, etc. You know, the healthy way of processing feelings, blah blah blah. 

But really I had 364 more days where I would be 40.

This month, my managers made the call. 

As of today, I am now a Creative Director.

There are two ways to summarize my entire career in a few lines of text:

Way #1

Associate Copywriter - January 2006

Copywriter - December 2007

Senior Copywriter - July 2014

ACD - November 2016

Creative Director - May 2024

Way #2

Associate Copywriter - January 2006

Copywriter - December 2007

Senior Copywriter - July 2014

ACD - November 2016

Senior Copywriter - February 2019

ACD - June 2021

Creative Director - May 2024

Way #1 is every new level I've achieved. The four times I advanced up the ladder. 

But Way #2 is the truth. It includes a comeback attempt that turned into a redemption arc. 

The fact that I got here at 40 is a little icing on the cake. But really it's getting here at all that is the fulfilling part. 

I now have my own team of creatives to lead and the power to really guide the work to the highest level I can make it. Hopefully this is just the beginning of Act Two in a successful career. 

Since 2019...

Since 2019, only one team in professional sports is more than .200 away from .500. 

It's the Chiefs and they're .276 above. 

My teams are #1 in NFL, #4 in NHL. Same teams that had the #1 overall pick in 2013. Wild stuff.

analyzing my own music

11 songs

33 mins, 20 secs

Lyrical Content

5 out of 11 songs mention dreams

5 out of 11 mention songs/tracks

4 out of 11 contain meta references to the song itself

3 out of 11 are about relationships

5 out of 11 songs have some sort of twist endings

Structure of Songs

[verse]

[chorus]

[verse]

[chorus]

[bridge]

[chorus]

[verse]

[chorus]

[verse]

[chorus]

[bridge]
[bridge 2]

[bridge]

[verse]

[chorus]

[verse]

[chorus]

[bridge]

[verse]

[chorus]

[verse]

[chorus]

[chorus]

[bridge]

[chorus]

[verse]

[chorus]

[verse]

[outro]

[verse]

[chorus]

[verse]

[chorus]

[outro]

[chorus]

[verse]

[chorus]

[verse]

[chorus]

[outro]

[bridge as intro]

[chorus]

[verse]

[chorus]

[bridge]

[outro]

[verse]

[chorus]

[verse]

[chorus]

[bridge]

[chorus]

[verse]

[chorus]

[verse]

[bridge]

[chorus]

[outro]

[verse]

[chorus]

[verse]

[chorus]

[reprise of 2nd verse]

[bridge]

[revised chorus]

Chronological Order of Creation

the surface

no tomorrow night

my spark

feel your fire

photoshop

now boarding

hit the gas

not another party song

the antidote

midnight skies

toasts to ghosts

Notes

The first two songs were made when I was still exploring genres, playing around. 

"my spark" was a turning point where I could see that this is the sound I want the whole album to have. 

"feel your fire" and "now boarding" were two songs that I had made before my spark but in different genres. So I re-created both of them to fit alongside "my spark."

In this re-creation process, I gave "now boarding" a new twist ending. That was the other big turning point. I felt like this was a missing piece, that I wanted the songs to not all be so basic. Once I realized this, the last four songs I made, all had some sort of twist to them. 

A White Whale Update

Loyal readers might remember this post from 2019: White Whales.

In that post, I recorded for posterity the three white whales I've spent my life searching for. 

One was a tv show called Blade Warriors. I got closure on that in 2013. 

Another was a book in the vein of Where's Waldo. I got closure on that in 2019. 

But there was one more. A pop punk band with violin that I saw play one show in 2002. 

It would be a pretty great ending to the entire saga if I said I found the band. 

But I didn't. 

Sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands. 

I went ahead and released my own album of pop punk music with violin.

That's the sound of marking the search for these white whales complete.

A Bonkers Playoff Game

This link starts with 3 minutes left in the game.

At this point, Predators are up 3-1. The Canucks have pulled their goalie. Sure looks like Predators are about to tie the series at 2-2. 

In a 6 on 5 situation, Boeser on the Canucks scores. Makes it a 3-2 game. 

With under two minutes left the Predator gain the puck in the offensive zone, no goalie. Their shot on the empty net, hits the post. 

Then with under 10 seconds left, Boeser scores again. Ties the game. It's a hat trick. He's got all his team's goals in a 3-3 game headed to overtime. 

And then that happens in overtime. Wow.

March Madness Recap

Let's start with the bracket contest. Niraj won our group of 11 valid entries, with an impressive 1420, nailing all three games of the final weekend.

Niraj's 1420 finished better than 99.2% of the country. Pretty good. Brit finished in 2nd once again, who I'm convinced has the record for most 2nd place finishes. 

I somehow finished in 3rd (of legit entries, not counting Niraj's for fun entry) because I was the only other one that had UConn reaching the final game. 

My work had a bracket contest with 31 entries. 9 had UConn winning it all. The winner in that league had a 1430, 2nd place had 1400. I finished in 17th place with a 650. 

Even though I can only enter one in our friend contest, I did end up making 14 brackets, trying to cover all the things I thought possible. Even with getting 14x the chances, I only had one that beat Niraj's entry.

Just shows how valuable it is to get the Champion right.

Meanwhile in Calcutta, I botched everything. It's true that Kirat took the Champion first overall...but even if I had the first pick, I was going to take Houston. 

I thought the clear top 3 was Houston, UConn and Purdue. I thought it would be too unlikely for UConn to repeat and I thought Houston's experience last year would serve them better than Purdue's lack of experience. Basically, I bungled getting the 2nd pick and fell backwards into NC State. My Calcutta game is weak. 

And Mark and I did a bonus sweet 16 point-spread bracket and I bungled not taking UConn first overall in that one too. Bad job by me.

Community Magic

I made a quick video for no other reason than it makes me happy. 

Copyrighted content so linking to it directly, not on youtube.

Bracket Update

The bracket is down to Niraj and Brit. Will Niraj get his 2nd bracket title? Will Brit get her first?

There are 8 remaining scenarios:

UConn over Purdue            Niraj 1420, Brit 950

UConn over NC State         Niraj 1260, Brit 790

Alabama over Purdue         Brit 950, Niraj 940

Alabama over NC State      Brit 790, Niraj 780

NC State over UConn         Niraj 940, Brit 790

NC State over Alabama       Brit 790, Niraj 780

Purdue over UConn             Brit 1270, Niraj 1100

Purdue over Alabama          Brit 1270, Niraj 940

Brit's got 5, Niraj's got 3...but UConn has looked so good, I'd be feeling pretty good about being in Niraj's shoes. 

For some reason, the ESPN Forecast doesn't agree and thinks Brit is in the driver's seat.