Ron Mattocks's Blog

Comparing Fatherhood to a Hamburger

When I was young my family rarely went out save for Easter Sundays when after church we’d drive to the other side of the county to have lunch at a regional chain restaurant. For an eight year-old it was quite fancy, especially when compared to the only other eatery I had been exposed to, the one that served burger patties in a Styrophoam clam shell boxes and hadn’t yet introduced kid’s meals accompanied by little plastic toys. (Yes, I’m older than the Happy Meal.)
I sometimes think of this whe...

Still Tuning In To Kentucky Basketball with TuneIn

Since my last post, the University Kentucky has beat, in addition to the then #6 Texas Longhorns, Eastern Kentucky, Columbia, and #21 North Carolina to maintain their #1 on ranking in men's college basketball. For all these games I was nowhere near a TV (and I don't pay for cable), so guess what? That's right. I used my TuneIn app to listen to the game, and like my original experience I was able to listen to each of the games without an issue.

What was even more fun was the TuneIn feature that...

What's The Deal With Me And Kentucky Basketball? TuneIn

Fun fact: For a short (I emphasis short) period I attended Liberty University. Yes, that Liberty University, which, given the school’s history and depending on what side of the liberal-conservative fence you’re planted on, may or may not seem like an interesting choice for perusing my degree in—I think it was political science? Who knows anymore? It was 20-some years ago, but whatever the case, apparently that one semester was enough to qualify me for frequent (mail) flyer miles on...

Porn: A Personal History

I am by no means a porn fiend. I have no enslaving compulsions that keep me shackled in front of a computer screen pulsating with digital smut. In fact, my feelings about porn in general are on par with the same ambivalence I reserve for the release of another Fast and Furious movie, which is probably the reason why the whole idea of porn addiction baffles me.
I’m not denying that pornography has tragically ruined lives, marriages, and families. It's just that when I think of addiction I envi...

Gone Girl

I took a writing course at Rice where the instructor explained that real life couldn’t be strictly followed as the script for a novel. Real life, she contended, is “too messy” which is why the closest any writer can get is to say their novel is only based on true story.  Blog writing, of course, isn’t constrained by such conventions and is, in actuality, the ideal canvas for capturing all that messiness of real life.
If my life were a novel for instance, then Ashley and I would’ve m...

Why I HAVE to be a #HealthyDad

Father and son after a 5k. He crushed me. I’ll admit that consciously adhering to a healthy lifestyle as a young father in my late 20’s and early 30’s was not something I gave a lot of thought to. And why should I? At that point in my life I was an Infantry office in Army and in pique physical condition. Working out regularly was part of my job, and thus shoveling down piles of whatever like Michael Phelps in training for the Olympics added not a pound to my lean, mean, 185-pound frame....

6 Things I Want My Sons to Know About My Depression [TODAY Show]

As it did to so many, the news of Robin Williams’s death came as a great shock to me. How could a man with such talent and charisma who brought me to tears, both of joy and sadness, on so many occasions be gone so suddenly? Then details of his depression came to light, and I understood. The National Alliance on Mental Illness estimates that 6.7 of American adults live with major depression, and of those, 2.6 percent, or 6.1 million people, are afflicted by bipolar disorder. I understand, beca...

Why I Write

Remember this. It's going to come in handy for understanding the context of what is posted here in the coming months.

5 Things I Wish My Bosses Knew About Fatherhood [TODAY Show]

I consider myself fortunate to be working for an employer who understands the demands of fatherhood. This hasn’t always been the case. Through the course of my professional life, which has spanned the military, corporate America, freelance work, and small business, I’ve had bosses who discounted the value of fathers.
Such attitudes come from a general cluelessness shared by men who represented a different generation — everyone knows that fathers are much more involved these...

TODAY Show Parents: The Sugar Milk Hack

If you haven't already heard I've got a new writing gig at--wait for it--the TODAY Show via their website which just this week they renamed from Moms to Parents. I am thrilled and honored to be part of an all-star lineup of fellow dad bloggers that includes Doyin Richards, Jim Higley, Whit Honea, Carter Gaddis, and Adrian Kulp who in our inaugural week of posting shared their favorite dad hacks (#dadhack). As you will see, their clever tips are much more advisable than mine. Below i...