I don’t care what any of you think…

“Why is the robot having sex with Kurt Russell?” 

Christi asked.

For the record, the robot in the illustration for our shirt was NOT having sex with Kurt Russell. The robot was stretching out Kurt Russell’s leg. Mr Russell needed to be limber for the Rooney Run. 

Obviously.

Every April, the owners of the PBKC have a charity 5K. For the past 2 years, LTA has made a t-shirt to celebrate our participation in the Rooney Run. For the first 2 runs, I waited until the last minute and didn’t spend much time on the shirts. This felt like a missed opportunity.

For whatever reason, our company does not attract jocks so much as dorks. I am sure that is my fault. But let’s not make a big deal out of it.

Due to our lack of jockedness, no matter how many years we do this charity 5K, I have accepted that we will never crush anyone’s soul with our brutal physical dominance. 

I fully understand it is a charity event, so soul crushing, not the purpose. Not necessarily. Yada yada.

But just a tiny smidge of crushed soul, is that so wrong to desire? Not a whole soul, just a crumb or two for the sake of wholesome team morale.

So that’s why I cared about this year’s shirt. We will not succeed in the actual purpose of the event, the running fast part. But with a little planning maybe we could still come out ahead in another area.

Does it make me a bad person that I wanted a t-shirt design that was so empirically better than everyone else’s that there is maybe a wee bit of a whiff of souls being crushed. Not physically, but aesthetically.

Is that so wrong?

So I was looking to create a t-shirt design that would be true to our dork core AND woefully more cool than anyone else’s. Luckily, I don’t know if you know 5K shirt designs, but the bar is not set that high.

lazy...

All this is a long way to say: 

LTA has a shirt.

Great shirt? Or greatest shirt ever?!

The 1981 movie Escape From New York, about a far future (1997) dystopia where America is a totalitarian state and Manhattan has been turned into a prison, should that be your first go to reference for charity event swag? Mr. T and the robot from the 1965 show Lost in Space, are these characters that the kids today see as dripping with contemporary rizz?

Listen, I made some design choices and I don’t care what you think. 

The shirt kicks ass.

It's got a muppet dabbing!

(Sometimes it's ok to just indulge me on these things.)

Really, how much are you going to complain about a free shirt?

As always, LTA is paying the admission fee for anyone who wants to do the 5K on April 19th. So if you have any interest in hanging out and walking for a good cause you can sign up at this link.

https://www.rooneysgolffoundation.org/5krunwalk

Normally we only make enough shirts for the 4 or 5 people who are participating in the 5K. This year though, since I wanted to get a shirt screen printed on a high quality tri-blend fabric, I have to order at least 20 of them.

SO…

If anyone wants a piece of this glorious LTA merch, even if you can’t make the 5K, let me know in the comments below or send me a text with your shirt size.

And if you're curious what the shirt will look like, it will look something like this, but on gray shirt.

Squares are in!

Here are the numbers you are rooting for:

Sam_Armstrong	Chefs [0], Eagles [3] / Chefs [4], Eagles [3] / Chefs [1], Eagles [3]
Kelsea_Jones	Chefs [2], Eagles [3] / Chefs [3], Eagles [5] / Chefs [4], Eagles [8]
Kaitlynn_Pinto	Chefs [6], Eagles [3] / Chefs [0], Eagles [6] / Chefs [6], Eagles [9]
Shawn_Bearsby	Chefs [8], Eagles [3] / Chefs [5], Eagles [3] / Chefs [1], Eagles [8]
Sopha_So	Chefs [3], Eagles [3] /  Chefs [7], Eagles [5] / Chefs [2], Eagles [7] / Chefs [9], Eagles [6] / Chefs [0], Eagles [8]
Shelby_Hubbs	Chefs [9], Eagles [3] / Chefs [0], Eagles [7] / Chefs [8], Eagles [1], / Chefs [7], Eagles [2]
Andrea_Rosenbrier	Chefs [7], Eagles [3] / Chefs [8], Eagles [7] / Chefs [1], Eagles [2]
Vicki_Rafferty	Chefs [0], Eagles [4] / Chefs [5], Eagles [7] /Chefs [3], Eagles [2]
Leah_Jones	Chefs [4], Eagles [4] / Chefs [5], Eagles [5] / Chefs [2], Eagles [9]
Trinity_Peterson	Chefs [1], Eagles [4] / Chefs [7], Eagles [7] / Chefs [2], Eagles [2]
Paula_Mendez	Chefs [2], Eagles [4] / Chefs [5], Eagles [4] / Chefs [1], Eagles [0]
Bill_Lengvarsky	Chefs [6], Eagles [4] / Chefs [0], Eagles [0] / Chefs [5], Eagles [1]
Zeke_Sanders	Chefs [8], Eagles [4] / Chefs [2], Eagles [1] /  Chefs [0], Eagles [2]
Kevin_Holsomback	Chefs [3], Eagles [4] / Chefs [1], Eagles [5] / Chefs [2], Eagles [8]
Reveca_Herrera	Chefs [9], Eagles [4] / Chefs [4], Eagles [7] / Chefs [7], Eagles [6] / Chefs [6], Eagles [1]
Misty_Cortes	Chefs [7], Eagles [4] / Chefs [2], Eagles [5] / Chefs [3], Eagles [0]
Bridget_Mackrey	Chefs [0], Eagles [5] / Chefs [3], Eagles [7] / Chefs [1], Eagles [1]
Gracie_Faulk	Chefs [4], Eagles [5] / Chefs [3], Eagles [1] / Chefs [4], Eagles [9]
Lauren_Valdes	Chefs [6], Eagles [5] / Chefs [6], Eagles [6] /  Chefs [5], Eagles [8] / Chefs [4], Eagles [1]
Mike_Bolling	Chefs [8], Eagles [5] / Chefs [2], Eagles [6] / Chefs [0], Eagles [9]
Michael_Meza	Chefs [9], Eagles [5] / Chefs [1], Eagles [7] / Chefs [8], Eagles [8]
Lauren_Christian	Chefs [6], Eagles [7] / Chefs [2], Eagles [0] / Chefs [4], Eagles [2] / Chefs [8], Eagles [9]
Rick_Hood	Chefs [9], Eagles [7] / Chefs [4], Eagles [6] / Chefs [8], Eagles [2]
Sabrina_Sanders	Chefs [4], Eagles [0] / Chefs [5], Eagles [0] / Chefs [3], Eagles [8] / Chefs [6], Eagles [2]
Cameron_Horton	Chefs [6], Eagles [0] / Chefs [1], Eagles [6] / Chefs [6], Eagles [8]
Jordan_Norfolk	Chefs [8], Eagles [0], Chefs [0], Eagles [1] / Chefs [7], Eagles [9]
Matt_Rodriguez	Chefs [8], Eagles [6] / Chefs [3], Eagles [6] / Chefs [5], Eagles [6]
Jamie_Madding	Chefs [7], Eagles [8] / Chefs [9], Eagles [1] / Chefs [5], Eagles [2] / Chefs [1], Eagles [9] / Chefs [3], Eagles [9]
Other	Chefs [9], Eagles [0], Chefs [7], Eagles [0], Chefs [9], Eagles [8], Chefs [7], Eagles [1], Chefs [9], Eagles [2], Chefs [5], Eagles [9], Chefs [9], Eagles [9], Chefs [7], Eagles [9]

Here's how it works:

I wanted to write a longer, rambling post explaining more.

But the game will be starting shortly.

(And I should probably get next week's schedule out.)

Good luck!

An Egregious Breach of Protocol

GUILTY!!! Everyone in this picture...

People who have been with LTA long enough, know exactly what I ask for every Christmas. It’s very simple.

I ask that people not to divert time or money from more important things to get me a present. I ask that people realize that the help LTA gets throughout the year is possibly more than I deserve. I ask people to believe that any effort expended in second guessing what more I need in my life is a misallocation of resources.  

So people know better than to get me a Christmas present.

Usually.

This year there was a flagrant disregard for my clearly stated desires.

And, let me tell you…

It was awesome!

I wanted to use the first blog post of the year to thank everyone who allowed their image to be captured and helped produce one of the greatest gifts of recent memory, the one of a kind, hand crafted, LTA Probability Management edition of the game Guess Who.

Perfect in so many ways...

If for nothing else, it will be a cherished time capsule. As the years sneak by, LTA does change a little here or there. For whatever reason, we are blessed with extremely low turnover. Nonetheless, people do occasionally move on. New faces pop up. 

But this game is now a permanent snapshot of who we were in 2024. I hope you have some idea of what joy I will get when I rediscover it in my closet when I am 70, when I think back to this best of times and the people I got to spend it with. Sorry if that’s sappy. But it will be a wonderful memory.

And what really surprised me about the game itself was how fun it actually was. I’m a bit of a board game snob and I didn’t think that I would enjoy something so simple. But having all of you as part of the game made it quite different.

The way the game works you have to figure out whose character your opponent has by asking yes or no questions. Is your character wearing glasses? Does your character have dark hair? Generic things.

But with the LTA edition it becomes a little more interesting.

New questions unlocked...

With a game made up of people that we know so well, the questions don't have to be boring.

Obviously some questions are too specific to be useful. If it only applies to 1 person you won't get enough information: Does this person retire frequently but still end up on payroll for some reason?

And questions that apply to too many people are also useless: Is this person valued for everything they bring to LTA every single day they show up?

But there are definitely questions that hit the sweet spot of applying to just enough people but not too many: Is this person likely to miss copious amount of work thanks to Orlando? Is this person likely to have deposited 30% of their profit sharing bonus at the Hard Rock?

So long story short, Christi and I had a blast playing.

Thank you so much for making this Christmas memorable!

(Please don’t let it happen again.)

ALSO, while we’re here…

Every year I forget to put together the LTA Super Bowl squares until around the 5th inning of the game. This year though, I promise to have our squares done before the tip off. Everyone can get 3 squares and we’ll still have some squares left. So anyone who wants a bonus square please say so in the comments below.

First come first serve.