Emily Elizabeth Continues Her Turks & Caicos Beach Destruction, John Daly's Open Cig, Plus The Cosmic Cliffs

I really screwed up Tuesday morning

• M.J.V in Westfield, IN writes:

Joe, 

No Intimidator to end screencaps today? Are you feeling ok?

The real reason I am emailing- will you post or link to Gauntlet League rules please? I know it is early, but was hoping to set up a league or two, and want to have plenty of time.

Yes, I know that MJ is joking about me leaving out Dale at the bottom of Tuesday's post and I felt bad about it, but there's no going back. All I can do is learn from my mistakes and strive to make Screencaps better than ever. It's time to get my head straight and give 110%.

Trust me, it was on my mind all day. Now, I know what you're thinking: Why didn't you just go back into the post and add a Dale photo?

For me, that's like taking a breakfast ball or a mulligan. I made my bed when I hit 'Publish' and going back would be cheating those who saw the post .008 seconds after I hit 'Publish' who didn't see the updated post. I can't sit here and cheat the fine folks who are HAMMERING refresh on their phones to get the latest Screencaps column.

I'll do better. I promise.

As for The Gauntlet, the best new NFL game to play with your friends, here are the rules as sent to me by Tim L. in Texas a year ago Monday:

Each player is assigned 100 points to buy 4 teams in the auction. Returning champ starts the auction by nominating any team he wants. Then bidding begins. So, he'll say, "I'll take the Saints for 15 points." Then anyone else can outbid him until a final price is reached for the Saints. Then 2nd player nominates a team and so on until all 32 teams are taken. 

Typically, the very top teams go for around 60 points, and the bottom teams go for 1-5 points. The main thing to keep in mind is you have to keep at least 1 point in reserve for each team you have left to buy. So, you can spend 97 points on the TB TomBradys if you like, but then you only have 3 points for 3 teams left. By the way, I predict TB doesn't finish this season as their starter. He may or may not be effective. Nonetheless, his season ends with a trip to IR-osteporosis.

Last rule is tiebreakers. 36-39 collective wins for your 4 teams is the normal range for the league winner. It does always come down to the last week between the top couple players. If 2 end up with same amount of wins, we tiebreak by whoever has the one team with the most wins. If my top team had 13 wins and yours had 12, I win. If that's still a tie, it goes to 2nd team with most wins. If that's still a tie, it goes to 3rd team with most wins. If that's still a tie, it goes to pistols at dawn. 

Indiana basketball coach Mike Woodson might need to give a speech to the TNML community

The Indianapolis Star ran a story Tuesday on IU coach Mike Woodson and how serious he is with his lawn. It turns out Mike's daughter is the recipient of photos Mike takes of his prized yard, which won 'Yard of the Month' in his neighborhood.

This is a lesson that no matter how many college and NBA games you've won, no matter how much money you've made, no matter your position in society, there's always that chance to take pride in your property and community.

Cheers to Mike.

Now I need to reach out to see if he'll give a talk to the Indy Thursday Night Mowing League membership. Maybe Dakich can help us out on that one.

Veteran services

• Mark in Indiana writes:

Joe,

My father recently passed away and was a Marine Corps veteran.  We requested and received a veteran service.  It included a 21-gun salute and the ceremony of the flag folding and presentation. 

In thinking about it, I would recommend that every American try to attend a veteran service once a year.  It reminds us of what service to our country is about and how you should respect those who served for us. 

I wish there was a way that services like these could be published so that across America we could take our children; grandchildren and even parents with us to share such a great ceremony.  I myself would like to see a service for those that served in Special Forces. 

It should remind us to respect those that served for us and to respect each other as Americans.

While I haven't been to a veteran service since my grandfather died and received a 21-gun salute from his buddies at the American Legion that brought me to tears, I completely understand the magnitude of what Mark is saying.

It turns out that my cousin's husband, an Army veteran, is a member of the Dayton National Cemetery Honor Squad and he's been helping provide rifle service for a number of years since his retirement. According to a May report on the Honor Squad, before it was formed in 2015, about 10% of veteran services at the cemetery received full military honors including rifle salutes.

Now all veteran services receive full honors.

Those honors include a three-round rifle volley; the three shells are then presented to the family. Taps is played by a team from the Department of Defense. A flag is folded and presented to the next of kin and a member of the Honor Squad addresses the family and explains the military honors and provides comfort.

Speaking of doing good...let's go up the road from where I grew up for this one

• I was on Facebook last night checking in on family and I came across this message out of Arcanum, Ohio where the high school principal is acting on the requests for real-life lessons for students who want to receive assistance.

It turns out that the principal is an old high school classmate of mine and he's also Team TNML. Now I just need Jason to add mowing and basic landscaping to the training exercises.

But this is one helluva start for these kids and the community. We have retirees with so much to share and communities that can use the help. Now it's just a matter of bringing the sides together and helping children.

Well done by everyone involved.

LeBron & bees

• Paul B. writes:

LeBron, let me ask you a question? Who is in "charge" of America right now? Biden and the Democrats. Are you saying they aren't doing enough to get Britt Britt home? If Trump was president she would have been home tout sweet. If they would have even held her at all.

So are you saying Biden isn't doing his job? How about the rest of the democratic party in office right now? They can't get anything done to get her home? Maybe you should fly to Russia with a cannabis filled vape pen and not come back. That would make you happy since you don't know if you'd even want to come back to America if you were in her shoes. Let me tell you that she is dying to come home and she wouldn't reject it if Trump or any other Republican got her out of there.

Are you saying you would? Give me a break FFS. You are right though, America doesn't have her back. At least the Americans that have control at the moment. Good gravy. I'm all fired up now.

Secondly, I know there has to be some bee experts out there in Screencaps land and TNML land. I had a bee problem a few years ago. A ball of bees were in my Bougainvillea tree (thank goodness for spell check) and I was told by several people, just leave them alone and they will go somewhere else. I had an uneasy feeling about it and I thought to myself "yeah they will go right under my house". Yes, I live in a double-wide but it's nice. It's porch living at it's finest.

Joe knows all about that when he comes down here to beautiful SWFLA, but I digress. Lo and behold the stupid bees did exactly what I thought they would do and went under my dang house. We eventually got them removed but every year they come back. Every year I call the guy to come back to the house and he tells me "I don't see any bees they are just scout bees doing bee things."

Every year I say "okay great", and then a month later a swarm of bees comes under the dang house because of the stupid scout bees and interrupt my TNML and sting me. This year I didn't let the guy go without spraying whatever he sprays to keep them away for a year. So, my long winded TLDR story leads to what can I purchase to spray on my own at the end of May every year so I don't have to call Anthony the Bee Man every freaking year and go through this? Someone has to know in our wonderful community.

Someone help out Paul! 

The last time I mentioned bees there were at least a dozen emails in the inbox before I could grab lunch. This community knows plenty about bees. This problem is about to be solved before Paul can fire up the grill for a late dinner.

North Dakota golf update

• My friends in northern North Dakota -- I'm talking they can definitely see Canada from the bridge going over a river that runs through their golf course -- finally checked in this summer with a golf update.

Dillon L. writes:

Hey Joe, I'm a little late to the random hometown photos... but here's some more from Crosby, ND. 

We've been getting a bunch of golf in lately. We competed in a Ryder Cup-style match play tournament with Ray, ND called the Northwest Cup.  It was fun (especially since we won) competing against our town rivals from 45 minutes away.  The group of guys played 18 holes at our men's night playing scramble and best ball. The next day was Ray's men's night where we played alternate shot and individual match play.  Both nights ended with great food including a grill your own steak.  

This past Saturday got a little out of hand at one of our golf tournaments.  Bets were being thrown around to jump off the bridge afterwards.  We did get the cart girl to jump in (which would have been a much better video) but being the gentlemen that we are we put the phones away of course. 

Even with my beer goggles on I did manage to snap a picture of the sunset around 10:15 after putting my cart away.  We are so far north there's only one other town just west of us with a later sunset than us in the continental U.S. 

Cheers to the rest of the summer. 

That's the perfect way to end today's post. I love when I hear from the North Dakota crew in that far-off land where they live amongst the farm fields.

Let's get out there and attack the day. Football is nearly here. The summer of fake social media outrages will soon be over and we'll be arguing over which four teams deserve to play for a national title.

Go give 110%.

Email: joekinsey@gmail.com   

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Emily Elizabeth visiting Turks & Caicos / Instagram Story @emmilyelizabethh