hannah and caroline and us
(part rebecca)


imagine my surprise when i opened my inbox this morning and found a voluntary contribution to the series that seems destined to take this website by storm in 2009, "hannah and caroline and us".

without further ado, i present to you the first in what (i will cross my fingers) i hope to be a recurring role around these parts from one "auntie" rebecca.

(editor's note - for context, imagine i had asked rebecca how she met sarah, me and our girls.)

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And then there were three more!


So I remember Sarah from the beginning

I remember playing with Barbies

Setting up elaborate houses with books

The van

Taking me to concerts when she didn’t really have to

We didn’t always want to do the same things

I was probably mean, and I don’t remember her being mean back

But I am sure she was :)


And I’ve realized that Sarah and I aren’t anything alike in ways that people see

Except we are sisters and I love her and we get each other and accept it and she loves me and accepts me too ( I hope we are like Mom and Aunt Joan, that is what I want and foresee)

And she is an amazing person

And amazing people deserve amazing things…


And then there was Kevin

Yep, I remember when they met

At the wedding

15th street diner tale

I liked him alright

And then they got married

And I remember that wedding, it seemed right. I loved that wedding and how I saw them being happy forever. They were happy, and if they weren’t, I would have seen it.

I went from liking him to loving him… I accepted him as part of the family


And I remember Hannah

When she came it was amazing

Sarah and Kevin, despite any issues they might have had

They had a baby and they both loved her and each other, it was obvious

And good thing Hannah was beautiful, bc/ I wasn’t so much crazy about babies then

But she was different

And no matter how obstinate she is, she is amazing


And Caroline

It was different for me as far as meeting her.

She was so different than the rest of us

In a good way, in a Kevin way.

I can’t wait to get to know her more

And see this family be happy, and grow

I really hope they are happy forever

They do piss me off, they are ALWAYS late

And difficult (so am I)

But I know they could always be happy together if they want

And can experience

What most of us here, as far as a "normal" family, haven’t experienced

hey, look! it's alabama basketball.


all that needs to be said about the sad state of alabama's basketball program, in my opinion, is that i haven't uttered a word about it here and rarely given it a second thought since march of 2007. march of 2007??? can that be right? it feels right, but that's almost two years ago! goodness. then again, it's been two years since ronald steele's been healthy, so you connect the dots. i found it pretty interesting this morning when i found the post from march of 2007 where i subconsciously waved good-bye to alabama basketball here on HACAM. that i can stand by almost every word of it close to 24 months removed from it's original posting is awesome and tragic. so, please don't read this as me being too lazy to write anything original as it concerns mark gottfried's "resignation" yesterday. just enjoy the trip down memory lane and soak in that yesterday was, in fact, a good day.

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from march 2007:

reasons why alabama sucked this year...

1) ronald steele was hurt. you have to start here. the following reasons will cover the majority of the season's ills, but if your preseason all-american guard is no better than 75 percent all year, you have a major problem.

2) alabama runs one play. alabama runs the "ucla high-post offense", which means both big men find space at the free throw line where the ball is dumped into one of them. as this happens, one wing player, usually alonzo gee, dives into the lane for a pass and the other wing waits for the defense to drop down and holds his spot for a possible three. alabama ran this play to perfection countless times in it's run to number four. the play stopped working in the second half of the notre dame loss and the season was lost after that. yes, mark gottried, other coaches watch tape and make adjustments. you do not. alabama's other "plays" consisted of dropping the ball into richard hendrix and letting him bull his way to the goal and dribbling around the perimeter before yakking up a three. these are not plays. this is just basketball. easy to defend if you've ever played seven year-old recreation ball.

3) mark gottfried waited to find depth until the season was lost. who is justin tubbs? mikhail torrence? demetrius jemison? yamene coleman? alabama's bench. you are not in the minority if you do not know these bench players. mark gottfried was not introduced to them until february.

4) mark gottfried cannot coach defense, and evidently, neither can any of his other coaches. if you've watched one alabama basketball game, you've watched them all. no other sec team gives up more wide open looks from three as does alabama. which brings us to number 5...

5) mark gottfried cannot coach effort. every team plays the 2-3 zone, just like alabama. every team plays man-to-man, just like alabama. other teams just play hard. and therein lies the difference between every other sec team and alabama. why did alabama squeak out victories at home and get blown out on the road? because talent can win games at home. effort wins games on the road, and alabama didn't play hard. whether it was the "star theory" i alluded to earlier in the season that caused this or something else, the fact remains that if you watched an alabama game, any alabama game, you wondered why the other team always looked like they were playing harder than the tide. this was absolutely excruciating to watch, game in and game out, if you wanted alabama to live up to it's potential. which brings us to our final point...

6) alabama was the biggest underachiever in college basketball this year. nationally, alabama had a preseason first-team all-american in ronald steele. they had a preseason top ten ranking. and they had many "experts" hailing them as final four contenders. that's all well and good and it makes this season even harder to swallow, but let's keep the final point local. the subjective criteria will be this. in the sec, with my eye judging the league's talent, how many nba-level players does each sec roster contain? we'll start at the top.

florida - (4) espn projected this week that florida's frontline (noah, horford, and brewer) would be lottery picks in june. their point guard, taurean green, could also play in the nba. so, they are stacked. they should be good. and they are. they are the anti-alabama.

alabama - (4) steele, davidson, hendrix and gee. florida? potential number one or two seed. threat to win the title. alabama? nit bound. ouch.

tennesse - (2) lofton and maybe one of their young big men.

kentucky - (2) morris and crawford.

lsu - (1) big baby.

miss. st. - (1) jamont gordon.

vandy - (1?) maybe derrick byers.

for every other team in the league (arkansas, auburn, ole miss, georgia, south carolina), it would be a stretch for me to think that they would place a current player on an nba roster in the next three years. and compared to every other team in the league, save florida, alabama is absolutely loaded. so, take away an injured steele. that still leaves mark gottfried with three blue-chip cards to play with. but, he didn't know how. he just knew how to clap his hands like mike dubose and throw his jacket on his floor. those were his go-to, inspirational antics. and so alabama will take their talent and lose to some mediocre team in the nit. i will not be watching when it happens. i will be watching real teams with real coaches play in the real tournament.

mark gottfried, as has been addressed, can recruit his butt off. think of the talent on the elite 8 team from a few years ago. think of gerald wallace. kennedy winston. rod grizzard. ron steele. richard hendrix.then again, maybe i should be happy with that. incredible talent. consistently in the top 25 and in the tournament, but no real chance to win a national title. because when you get into the tournament, the guy on the other bench is always going to outcoach your coach.

maybe i should be happy with the ceiling being set at the sweet 16, but i am not.

neither should alabama.

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incredible, huh? everything is still spot-on. every problem is still the same. some of the names have changed, but the circumstances have not. and that's why, when ronald steele (the last thread of hope that gottfried's career at alabama was holding onto) quit, it was time for gottfried to go.

look at the bright side, though. for one day in a slow news week, alabama basketball was relevant again. they made sportscenter. people were talking about a program that most people had erased from their memory. and sometime in the near future when bama names their new coach, whether it be anthony grant or mike anderson or tubby smith or john calipari (what? if we can get saban, we can get calipari.), alabama will be relevant on that day too. and alabama fans can sip from the same "hope" cup that they sipped from when nick saban arrived. the results only have to be half as good as the football program has realized for the change to be considered a success.

to mark gottfried? "thanks" for bringing exciting players to tuscaloosa. "no thanks" to you for not being able to develop them.

good luck.

"..., i think."


don't we all?

i found it odd and and somewhat fascinating this week, that in the 12 years that tommy gray was at clearbranch, and six of those years i was serving on a staff right down from the road from the church that would be king, i never once heard him preach. i always heard good things. the words "dynamic" and "passionate" were tossed around more often than any other that come to mind. to that end, i was fairly eager to get a taste of his sermon this morning and see just what all the fuss was about. his church had boomed over the last ten years and he had been given a ton of credit for it, as well he should have. my expectations were high.

stupid expectations.

don't get me wrong. nothing was really wrong with the message this morning. tommy clearbranch seemed to mean every word that he said. he shared some very genuine and personal stories and related them to his grand point. he talked with plenty of spark and emphasized some of his main ideas well enough that he garnered some "amens" from our congregation. that, in and of itself, is saying something i suppose. but i left pretty disappointed. more focus was placed on the negative than the positive. maybe that's what we, as a church, deserve. who's to say? yes. who is to say? we were given a shaky stat about how 95 percent of "christians" would say that they had never led another person to conversion. wait, what? and, who, again, is keeping track of this? i would like to, no, i need to meet the person in charge of looking into other's hearts and confirming this being true or not. or, wait, is this one of those times where we are just supposed to take people at their word. hmm. that's a novel idea. anyway, to say that the "95 percent" thing didn't sit well with me doesn't really matter. the pastor shared some personal and tragic experiences that he's had with cancer in his life, telling us that if had the cure, he would share it with the world so that no more would have to suffer at the hands of the terrible disease. alas, he did not have the cure for cancer. but he had something better. the gospel. and so do we. the correlation? if we have the answer for everlasting life and a more fulfilling and selfless experience before we pass on to that everlasting life, why wouldn't we share it?

as many times as i have thrown out the sinking ship analogy towards our church's current situation, i was amused that we heard the tried and true story of john harper, the evangelical minister that found his way onto the titanic in 1912. as the ship went down, he proclaimed the good news until the water took him away and is now considered one of the heroes of our faith. i wondered what we, as a church, should take from this story. should we take inspiration from it and allow it to strengthen our own resolve when sharing our respective personal experiences with god? or should we hear that huffman is sinking and we better start preaching to whomever will listen now because it's only a matter of time before the water takes us away too? maybe a little of both.

but the operative phrase, in my opinion, that rev. clearbranch used over the course of his twenty minutes was simple. twice when he came back to the lectern from the center of the pulpit as he was finishing a thought, he concluded the thought by saying "..., i think."

i thought, yep. that's about right.

how rigid is our faith anyway? how inflexible are we? after previewing his message with the idea of the natural church development program being about church "health" and not "growth", there wasn't a whole lot of practical application towards us being healthy again. unless, to be healthy, we are just to get off our ass and tell our stories, our witnesses, to anyone that will listen and hope that a few think well enough of us that they come to our church.

but where does that leave those in our community or, hell, our families, who have no interest in those stories motivating them to be a part of our church, our community of faith? what if they have some faith in some thing, but it isn't exactly the "one" thing that we subscribe to? do we rule them out? what if they have heard enough stories and are more interested in seeing the long term effects of how "christians" and non-christians choose to live out their lives versus being persuaded by some great or not-great oratory only backed up with false pretense.

here's where tommy clearbranch lost me and you can tell me if you think i am shallow or not. it was early on. after having been a district superintendent for just over half a year, he commented that "he" would be responsible for closing churches, specifically three this year, throwing out the date of feb. 22 to us on which, i assume, will be his first "turn off the lights" service of 2009. "he" will be closing three churches? "he" will? maybe it was just a figure of speech. it was definitely said with sadness, but the way it was presented felt weird to me. ds's don't close churches. churches close churches. it's the same idea as me "firing" an employee. i don't fire anyone. an employee fires themself. i've never made a cashier steal. i've never asked a stocker to be habitually late. i've never slashed a guy's tires and stolen his cell phone forcing them to no-call and no-show. maybe, as their boss, i am the one that has to make them aware that they are no longer on the schedule, and maybe this was the same take the pastor was making this morning, just without the context. the delivery of it, though, was poorly executed to the congregation he was standing in front of.

not that anyone asked me.

not that anyone cares what i think.

nor should they.

"i think". absolutely! go get 'em, tiger. think away and be paid handsomely to preach to those in your district on how best to serve the kingdom of god. i respect that. i really do. it's part of the methodist system that i have signed up for. but i think too. and so does he. and so does she. and the rest of them. and i totally disagree with you, on a fundamental level, on how my church should evangelize and reach out to our community. now that we've gotten that out of the way, what now? is it ok to disagree?

how do we move forward and towards health then?

i have an idea. i think...

don't we all?

"...a willingness to serve something greater than ourselves."


well, so far as inaugural addresses go and are worth, i guess that that one was pretty good. in his first just under twenty minutes after the elect was taken away from president-elect obama, our new commander-in-chief delivered more of what is now starting to be seen as his same. which is to say, he continued to play his "change" and "hope" cards while narrowing his focus somewhat to the new and more accountable, across the board, america that it will take for the country to right itself out of the economic "crisis" we have found ourselves in. in just over eighteen minutes, there was, thankfully, less rhetoric than i was bracing for. sure, the topic and scope was as broad as you'd expect from a new president's first address to his country he now leads, but i didn't get the feeling he was spewing things for the sake of "this is what presidents should say". of course, i am also wearing obama and hope tinted glasses, so maybe i saw what i wanted to. i am pretty accomplished in that maneuver. anyway, there will be much ruminating and analysis of this, his first day and speech, by others much more versed and educated in such things than i. i will say that i am happy that there is a new president in town. i will say that i wish him the best in his efforts to realize such a grand vision.

and i will now narrow my own focus.

if there was one talking point or line that jumped out at me, it was his point/question, and i am paraphrasing,..."the question is not whether government is too big or too small, but does it work?" he went on to say that if certain programs had outlived their tangible usefulness to the health of the country (my words, not his), that those programs would end. no doubt it jumped out at me because it so closely parallels many issues facing the church and our church at huffman. the question shouldn't be is our budget for 2009 too big or too small, but does it work? does the way that we have mapped out using our still significant financial resources jive with what our church hopes to accomplish? and, of course, it speaks to the question that i've been railing on here for ages. does our church know what it wants to accomplish? the easy answer seems to be "no.", although the means to answering that question run through very complicated tunnels. but it's a fair question to this end. if we had a goal in mind, would losing a percentage of the previous year's pledges be nearly as important as what we are going to do with the money and energy afforded through our members and visitors that we currently assume we'll have at our disposal? why moan and groan about having less than we had less year? well, again, the easy answer is because we don't have a bigger picture that we are comfortable enough to focus on and, therefore, do not have something on the tip of our tongues that is more worthwhile to talk about. in turn, we'll focus on the negative and describe our current situation as "dark" or "troubling" instead of finding a way to spin forward, regardless, toward our ultimate goal.

i always am somewhat invigorated after having an instant message chat with my bud, chris perry. reason being, we always tend toward a conversation concerning what any church, his, mine or ours would be in an ideal environment. ideally, the laity of every church would be laying the groundwork for the church's future, thus allowing the senior pastor and other staff to merely play roles, if you will, in that congregation's future. they could still steer the ship based on their own experience and opinion, but they would have to face far less time setting the direction. that would be on us. we, the laity, choose where we go. here's how you, the staff, can help us get there. right?

unfortunately, that's not how humc or most churches are set up. most churches are, predominantly, pastor-driven rather than lay driven. and if a church has fallen victim to that idea, what this means is that every time there is a change in power, the transition is only peaceful in name. we wave good-bye to the outgoing guy or girl, welcome in the new one with open arms, but we never really acknowledge that we just went through a figurative heart-transplant. out with the old went his ideas and his direction and his way of doing things. as chris said this morning, it will take the church a full two years to recover from the surgery departure and be healed enough to grasp the new pastor's ideas and direction and way of doing things. nevermind that each of the individual lay members also have their own personal opinion of the best way to do things. internally, we begin to rip away at the sum of our parts and, eventually, the ideal system that chris and andy and kiker and i wax romantic about all the time falls apart.

who knows how much time, how many years, it would take to alter the dna of a classic-case pastor driven church. but make no mistake, for the system to have a chance to work, it must change.

we have to be willing to set the direction ourselves. we have to be able to ask the question, "does this work?" and, if it doesn't? end the program. find common ground. move forward. find our own willingness to serve something greater than ourselves and hope that others might come along for the ride. hope that others see the method behind our madness and be interested in being a part of it.

and if they are not? we must stay focused on the goal at hand.

what was that again?

hannah and caroline and us
(part kiker)
((part one))


i've teased and resolved for 2009 that i would be subjecting you to other voices here on HACAM. today, we bring you the first in the brand, spankin' new series, "hannah and caroline and us". it only makes sense that we'd kick it off with one of the few people on this earth that i'd take a bullet for and that i am pretty sure would do the same for my girls. you've heard about him in posts and heard from him in the comments. let me now properly let you peek into the mind of my only friend that has permanently lost his first name.

(editor's note - i first thought i'd wait and post the entire interview at one time. after thinking it over, we'll give it to you in parts, so that you won't diss that latter half because your eyes are sore. please forgive kiker's proper use of capitalization.)

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kiker, would you firstly explain to the masses (and by masses, i mean the six people that will take the time to read this entire interview) how the cosmos has come to connect you to hannah and caroline o'kelley.

Great question Kevin, let me give the audience a little history here... Kevin and I crossed paths way back in the bowels of the AmSouth Bank branch in Center Point... Now, I had just left the office to take a job in beautiful downtown Birmingham but occasionally made a pass back by the branch to visit the old suffering co-workers. Eventually, time came for Kevin to leave the branch and spread his wings, so I suckered...er,...got him to come work downtown with me in the AP (ed. - accounts payable) department. It was good times....anyway....He would eventually come to his senses, leave the life-sucking corporate world for the youth pastor position at what I would come to call my second church, HUMC. (ed. - we'll get back to the second church thing in a bit.)

So, one thing people will learn about my relationship with the O'Kelley clan is that I am a trusty mover. First move was to bring Kevin from Moody, where he lived in a little apartment by his mother's house that she shared with a guy I'll loving refer to as R.B. (ed. - ahhh, ted rock.) So we move Kevin. We move him to Ascot Place. Good old Ascot Place.... I can still see it... The "Up All Night Diner" print with James Dean hanging on the wall, the fridge with pizza, (ed. - salad) dressing, and a two liter... It truly was a bachelor's paradise.... OK... So, back to the story... I get a call one day from Kev that he was thinking about kicking up a softball team, sounded fun... so I jumped in. And many, many seasons later... well that's another story entirely. (probably another interview) So one day soon after the wedding of an "Atlantian" (ed. - hicks) we know in which Kevin was a groomsman, I jokingly ask him.. "So did you hook up with any hot bridesmaids?", I mean it's a standard question guys ask, right? To my surprise, he answered with a "Well, as a matter of fact..." Apparently, he had caught sight of a bridesmaid by the name of Sarah Crump... Life would never be the same... in a good way. So... Kevin and Sarah marry. The wedding was great. I was honored to be asked to be a groomsman. I can still remember the fist punch I gave him as I met him at the alter. Seeing my friend that happy was great, he deserved it... Fast forward... to the following Christmas Eve, I will never forget it... I was walking out to my truck to go home for the holidays, great mood, I was truly in the spirit, when out of nowhere the harsh world socked me right in the nose. Someone had stolen my truck right out of the lot... Holy crap, was I ever in a balls mood after that. I was the black cloud... So, Christmas day I get the call that the expectant Mrs. O'Kelley had delivered a girl. So me and my cloud loaded up and drove over to see the new addition. Almost immediately it all changed.... When I walked into the room and saw my friend and how happy he was, how proud he was, and how beautiful that little baby girl was.... none of the trivial stuff mattered anymore, the truck, hell with it... it wasn't that great of a truck anyway... This would prove not be the last time one little Miss Hannah O'Kelley would brighten the day. Over the months and years, I still get the "run to me hugs" that make a guy with boys sometimes long for the little girl he never had. Hannah ruled the castle and had her dad in the palm of her hand. Time passed and Hannah grew into the little shot of energy we love now and then along came Caroline. While I haven't had the chance to bond so much with Caroline yet, I know that there will be "run to me hugs " in the future... and thats worth waiting for. The past few years (and i'm writing this assuming HAC will be older when they read this)... I've had the chance, no... I'll call it honor to come into the O'Kelley home at Christmas time and be Hannah and Caroline's "House Santa", its one of my favorite visits... seeing the reaction Hannah has when I walk through the door is incredible, and the magic in her eyes as she looks at "Santa Kiker"... It makes it all worth while. Hopefully, in the coming years, I will be able to keep doing the role, as Caroline grows she'll have that same excitement when SK comes to make a house call. There are very few people on this Earth that you know you can count on. I consider myself a lucky person to have had the stars align the way they have and be associated with Kevin, Sarah, Hannah, and Caroline. Yes, Kevin is one of the very few people that I would take a bullet for, have his back no matter what the situation. He has been there for me in some of the darkest times a guy can go through. His family is like my family... Hannah, Caroline, ... Uncle Kiker will always have your back. No matter what. OK, so that about sums up the history there. Through my friendship with Kevin, I've been fortunate enough to come to know and love Sarah, Hannah, and Caroline.

(to be cont'd)

you never bring me flowers anymore


have you ever heard a story in church that you could have sworn you heard somewhere before? yeah. me either.

the most difficult thing about the derek lowe signing for me is that the braves will still be paying him 15 million dollars in four years when he's 39. i don't want to make it out like 39 is old. i hope i am still chewing up the infield dirt at new covenant or some other crappy softball field when i am 39. i just don't know if i trust the braves made the most fiscally responsible decision yesterday. for this year? yeah, absolutely. gimme some of that. but...,"we" just gave lowe 5 million less than we offered burnett. desperate times call for desperate measures. and desperate measures usually call for choices whose results will not stand the test of time. we'll see.

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so, the church voted to maintain the relationship with our alternative worship service sunday night, which i think is, ultimately, a good choice. there are two things here that are important for us to note, though, moving forward.

if you were to have come by the church on a tuesday night about two months ago and saw two white guys running around on a basketball court with nine black guys, would we start referring to this group as our black ministry? if the answer is "no", then maybe we, as a church, should start to think about some other term for the group that is represented in the basement of our church come 11:00 on sunday mornings. i know this is an oversimplification, but the thing that separates "them" from "us" is not their race, but their opting for spanish as their primary language over english. am i wrong? if "them" and "us" have any chance of ever becoming a "we" on more than a sponsorship level, i hope that we can begin honest conversation to this point sooner rather than later. if we are calling it a hispanic ministry/mission/whatever just because it's easy or we don't know any better, well, that's just lazy.

second, there's this notion being perpetuated that ruben's group is somehow outclassing "us" in the game of making christians, whatever that means. i think this, too, could be potentially harmful in that, in my opinion, we are comparing apples to oranges. first of all, where is this idea coming from? if it is consensus that we are terrible at communicating with each other, how are we so sure that this number that grows exponentially every time it's tossed about with regards to that service's attendance and professions of faith is truly accurate? who is officiating this "game"? who is in charge of authenticating the state of another person's soul? and most importantly, who the crap cares??? is this what we do church for? to champion how many or poo-poo how few "disciples" we have or have not made? is that really the point? i understand that is part of the equation. i've read and totally understand the commission laid forth in front of us, but how much of that plays into what our mission as a church really is.

what was our mission again?

and while we're asking questions no one has the answer to, should i be voting or not?

i better stop. inside jokes are for losers, right? and it wasn't that funny anyway.

here's the deal, guys and girls. these are not, in spite of anything you may hear differently, dark times for our church. they are just different. is it just me, or have we been stirred for one reason or another in the last few months in ways we haven't been in years? if we haven't changed the direction of the ship yet, we are at least acknowledging that the navigator may have misplaced the correct map. and we, we as a group, are left to figure out which direction we must now proceed. what is so dark about that? people learning to speak to each other again. people trying to make eye contact with those they don't agree with. a church aflurry with "what's going to happen next?". this is a bad thing again, why? i don't know. you'll have to tell me. and then i'll argue with you.

you don't bring me flowers anymore, but that's ok. the flowers, most of the time, were just a compensating and thoughtless gesture anyway. a romantic metaphor for what used to be and what seemed comfortable a long time ago.

captain's log...14 days in, the crew remains optimistic.

um...crap.


well, knowshon and stafford did their part.

tebow?

did not.

don't let the door hit you on the way out


while you were celebrating with the rest of the universe in the glory that is the metaphorical representation of jesus christ, himself, in one tim tebow, i've been sowing the seeds of hate towards one of my former favorite major league baseball players of all time.

screw you, john smoltz. and good riddance.

andy and i have been going back and forth on this since thursday. let it be known that this has been the most disastrous braves offseason in the history of my connection with the team as a fan. every single targeted player, with one exception, the braves have eyed this winter has either shunned them or had their organization/agent set the price tag so high for them that the braves could not reach it, even standing on their tippy-toes. jake peavy? the padres ended up wanting too much. braves gm frank wren stood firm and was unwilling to completely compromise the future of his franchise for one elite starting pitcher. as difficult as this decision was to swallow, i stood by the team and waited for the next shoe to drop. a.j. burnett? oft-injured, but electrifying when healthy, turned down the braves best offer for millions more to play for the new york yankees. awesome. raffy furcal? the beloved shortshop for many years in atlanta that would provide an answer in the leadoff spot that the braves have lacked since he left? depending on who's telling the story, furcal had agreed to come to atlanta and then had a last minute change of heart, heading back to l.a. screw him too. the one exception? javier freaking vazquez. the pitcher whose own manager begrudgingly started him in the postseason last fall and let it be known in the media that vazquez was not a "big game pitcher". how did javy respond? he lost the playoff game. perfect.

the braves now seem to be turning their attention and checkbook to some unknown japanese pitcher with a pretty cool name that is no more than a third or fourth starter in america. they are also going to offer many millions of dollars next week to 35 year-old derek lowe who is a good two to three years past his prime. the braves hope him to be their opening day starting pitcher and hold that role 'til tim hudson comes back in august. call me underwhelmed.

then came the bad news.

then came wednesday night when news leaked that john smoltz had signed an offer sheet with the boston red sox, a team i rooted for during their fairytale run in 2004. since then, their continued self-loathing and big market spending cloaked under the veil of sabr-metrics cast them just this side of the yankees in my book. i don't care if their second baseman is scrappy or a little better than marcus giles used to be. i don't care that "youk" is blessing team usa (along with chipper and mccann) with his talented presence in the world baseball classic. i do care that big papi is now on the downhill side of his production. i do care that jacoby ellsbury is now overrated. i do care that jon lester is due for a down year. i do care that dice-k is a wonderful illustration of how to throw 100 pitches in five innings. i do care that jason bay will always be a pirate. and i do hope andy understands that when his pirate-ass curses the red sox's postseason chances until he decides to leave or is shipped out, pun intended. and I AM jealous that every single one of these players plays for the red sox and not the braves. i would take them all.

but not john smoltz. alongside chipper, he's been the face of my braves for as a long as i've been passionately aware and a fan of the team. the facts of the negotiations are these. the red sox offered him 5.5 million, guaranteed, with incentives that could take him up to ten. the braves? around 2 guaranteed, incentives up to twelve. in the words of frank wren, "we were willing to pay john as much or more than the red sox to pitch. we just weren't willing to pay him as much as the red sox were to not pitch."

and therein lies the crux. smoltz is currently hurt and rehabbing a surgically repaired shoulder. again. he's always hurt. as impressive as his 200 plus wins and 150 plus saves are, who knows what kind of numbers he'd have put over over his 21 years as a brave if he could have stayed healthy. and yet, every time one of his injuries ripped the heart out of his own team, the braves have been there to support him and pay him. that did not change this offseason. but the braves, you see, are not the red sox. they are not the yankees or mets. they have a budget. they must stick to it. and to that end, andy, i totally understand why they couldn't just "throw in" another three million dollars. why would they? they had offered him 12 if smoltz could stay healthy and pitch at an all-star level. what does it say about smoltz and the product your team is getting that he didn't feel like those escalators were reachable?

i don't know. it's not andy's fault. he doesn't run the team that smoltz is leaving "us" for. he just fancies them. it's just so hard when a loved one goes away. when you and what you can offer them is not as good what someone else can. for smoltz to have made 10 million dollars this year with the braves, he would have had to work harder, sacrificed and risked more. to make 10 million with the red sox, he just has to show up and pitch for a couple of months. great. go. enjoy yourself. and don't let the door hit you on your way out.

but that attitude is what pains me about every single person that has left huffman united methodist church over the last however many years. from pastors to members to friends to family. when the going got tough, they got going. because it was easier to leave and plug in somewhere else where you didn't have to work as hard but the perks were just the same. hell, even the folks that have given me shit about what i've written about the church on the blog are at least still at the church. they've decided in their own way that they aren't going to go take the guaranteed attendance at trussville or clearbranch and the perks that come along with those attendance and membership numbers. i may not agree with everything they say. i may not feel like they understand me as much as they think they do, but that they are in the same boat as me still? i respect that. i really do, and i will let that be my guide as i focus on a direction, my direction, in the church this coming year.

john smoltz put his mouth where the easy effort money was, and now he is no longer one of my favorite players. i don't think he really gives a crap.

here's hoping in 2009, humc can begin to stem the tide of those leaving out of convenience with an eye towards reversing the trend completely. maybe we can even pick up some scrappy second basemen that don't mind working a little harder than everyone else along the way. andy? kiker?

hannah and caroline and me

(part twenty-two)

why does this picture look like i am chilling out, strumming (or clicking) along to some gay-ass dave matthews band song while my five year-old daughther is magnificently shredding away to the latest and greatest riff biohazard ever played?

has time passed me by this quickly??? hannah is already more kick-ass than me??? wtf?!?!

what's too bad is that this really is a fairly accurate representation of what i look(ed) like when i play guitar. i always feel like i am wearing my strap too high, much like how gay-ass dave matthews wears his, but that was the only way i could ever make my fingers feel comfortable on the frets. sonnuvagun, i tried, but wearing the strap any lower would make my wrist lock up like i had carpel tunnel or something. the more i think about it, it sounds like i may be the gay-ass one. dammit! seems unfair considering how much i love "the rock" that swagging like a rock star wouldn't just come naturally. oh well.

i do love this picture, though (thanks, kathy). the weeds christmas party presented me and hannah, both, our virgin experiences with the juggernaut that is guitar hero. i totally see how it could ruin your life. you'd have to arm me, personally, with enough expansion packs that i wouldn't want to kill myself after hearing "bulls on parade" for the hundredth time, but i get it.

because it was my first time, i still have no idea how efficient i was with my clicking or if i did well enough to beat out little eddie van halen ripping next to me, but it was fun regardless.

back to the original point...as much as there is a side of me that cringes at the thought of hannah already being cooler than me, there is a bigger side that overflows with pride. the same side that sees, even at this very young and very impressionable age, her subconsciously soaking in all of her influences and then producing a product, a personality, that is all her own, all very....hannah. i may never produce a boy that can run or hit or shoot a ball like i used to, but if my little girl can melt your face with an ax in her hands, you know what?

i'll take that shit every day of the week. and twice on the day that uncle kiker introduces her to "master of puppets".

for a lack of better words


being home sick doesn't have many advantages. especially when i am home alone. the alone part, i am sure, plays better for the other parties involved in the house. i am atrocious when i am sick. i can't see past my own nose. i don't want to hear about your bad days or your tummy aches. it's all about me. each time i get out and away from a cold or stomach virus or sore back or whatever else has made me horrible to be with, i make a wish that i will be better the next time around. so far, that wish has fallen on deaf ears. i think i am getting worse. if there is one silver lining to take away from my short day at work due to sickness, it is that i get to bang out my list of resolutions for the year that will be 2009. as always, things will evolve over the course of the year and i will look back and wish i could add or subtract something, but for now, for this moment in time, these are some things that i hope to do or make better over the next twelve months.

1) be a serviceable lay leader - i know what you're thinking. serviceable? not exactly setting the bar very high, are we? and to an extent, i would agree with that sentiment. on the other hand, there will be all sorts of variables that come along with this position that are entirely out of my control, but the way my performance will ultimately be judged will have a lot to do with those variables. hence, the "serviceable" notion. resolution number one is also convenient because it covers the god angle that i started the list with last year. i don't suppose that i could even be halfway-serviceable if i weren't making the effort to keep my opinion of the Big Fella's grand plan in the forefront of my mind. so, that i will do and we'll see how the chips fall as we get a little farther into it. in theory, my role is loosely defined as to empower, encourage and support the laity of the church in accomplishing their goals as those goals concern the mission of our church. but what if our church doesn't have a mission? what if, like i mentioned a couple posts ago, i feel like we need to start trimming off ministries (that could still mean very much to the one or five person/people that are keeping the ministry afloat) and finding our church's rendezvous point? does this mean i shouldn't cast a critical eye towards the church in the same way i have the last three years? or should i just not cast it here for "the world to see"? all good questions. all something i am going to have to prayerfully figure out with some help from my friends. either way, i hope, come twelve months from now, i will feel good about my new role at huffman umc and i hope that i've served myself more than well with honest effort.

2) don't die - how i forgot to put this on my list last year is beyond me. i must have been feeling particularly spry on january 1, 2008. whatever the case was, i cannot tempt the fates for two consecutive years. not in a year when i hope to...

3) buy a motorcycle - this one may seem a little ridiculous to some, but believe me. it sounds no more ridiculous to you than it would have to me this time last year. so, where did it come from? well, my brother went and got a bike as soon as was legally allowed a driver's license back in the summer. and i have to tell you, it was the most magnificent thing i had ever laid eyes on. i don't know why. i can't really explain it. but as soon as he sent me the text with the picture of it, i have been pining ever since. nevermind that fact that he's already been in a wreck in which ligaments were ripped away from bone, among other horrifying things. i am certain i would not be so unlucky. because i don't have wrecks. brian's a walking accident ready to happen. always has been. i feel like my polar opposition to him in this regard totally works in my favor. so does having an uncle with a harley in his garage that now is aware of my want and will be "ready to ride" as soon as i obtain this resolution. after all, a car payment is coming off the books this year anyway. what are we going to do with all that extra money? i will cross my fingers that some may go towards a new, bike-ier payment.

4) speaking of my brother... - it didn't take long this christmas to feel like something was missing around the house, and it wasn't hard to figure out what it was. having brian home and healthy last year for christmas was the best christmas present one could ask for outside of xm radio, and i missed him terribly this year. i resolve to realign the universe in christmas of 2009 and find a way for us to be together again. if we find another opportunity or two over the course of the rest of the year, i could live with that too. maybe we could even ride bikes together. that would be "rad"! get it? rad? i've already got the lingo down. now, i just need the road rash.

5) don't get fat - that i've let this one slide down this far on the list is just asking for trouble and if you see me in a year with a swollen face and gut, you can remind me of that. i don't think it's that i've gotten cocky or too sure that it can't happen to me. i am just certain that if i ever felt myself leaning that way, i would just choose not to eat for a week or kiss a baby in the daycare with a stomach virus so that i may proceed with my annual to semi-annual throw-up-athon. really, until my back gives out and i can't find a way to exercise, this one is not gonna happen. that's not cocky. it's just a fact. but, it's gotta be on the list. don't wanna take things that are this important for granted.

6) handle hannah's transition to kindergarten with dignity and respect - again, this isn't as much about hannah as it is about me and my self-loathing. i am behind most of my friends in that they have already seen a child off to big school, but this will be my year. i am fairly terrified at the idea of hannah joining that club, but it's mainly due to the "christ. i am old." factor. hannah will be a champ. she's more than likely going to have lexie to help her through the transition and she's already a high-schooler in her own mind anyway. me, though? i like to think of her always being available to me to pick her up and dangle her and kiss her and be silly with her in public, but i know some of that will begin to go away when she enters the public and vicious arena of kids not thinking that shit is cool anymore. i won't lose her completely this year, but i am going to lose part of her. that makes me sad.

7) handle alabama's growing pains in 2009 with dignity and respect - ok. so, now that last season is behind us, it's time to be realistic about the team's prospects next year. they will be replacing a senior quarterback (admittedly, one i've always hated), a senior-laden line and a junior on that line that was the best college football player in the country. further evidence of this fact was presented last friday night. they lose their defensive captain, but i don't worry about that as much since rolo will be around one more year. they may be an underdog in the first game of the season for the second consecutive year and could very well lose to a pretty good virginia tech team that is bringing back just about everybody. our hopes will lay heavy on an unproven quarterback and even heavier on a star wide-receiver that is bound to see more and more double-teaming unless reuben randle makes his way to t-town. alabama could lose three games, easy, next year, and after having the bar raised this year, three losses is not going to sit well. if and when that happens, i resolve not to post something ridiculous about how god-awful they are and how i wish nick saban would go back to being a poor nfl coach.

8) be more intentional about finding time for friends - it's a shame about the ribs last year. it really was. but what was more of a shame was that it took the football season before andy, kiker and i could find time to hook up on any sort of regular basis. chris perry joked with me about never seeing him, and he's right. he's not that far away. taylor and i promise that we won't let 5 months pass between every time we hook up for good conversation and/or ping-pong. i get it. i know we are all really "busy" and that we all, well most of us, have kids now and they take a lot of time. good friends don't come along that often. and it doesn't always take a life-long one moving to atlanta and leaving your chapter in his life behind forever to make you think about it. good friends become good friends because you get something from them. and they from you. and when you don't have it, you miss it and you become a less happy person. if being around friends makes me a happier person, that doesn't mean that spending all my time around my family makes me unhappy, per se. it's just different. the relationships speak to different parts of who we are. not only should i try and spend more time with my friends, but i'll include in this one encouraging sarah to find more with hers. i can keep the girls without making an ass out myself. i know i can.

9) introduce other voices to HACAM - i've been threatening this for a while, but this year, i want to make it happen, for real. whether it be through guest-posters or maybe an interview series that i've been knocking around in my head, i would like the girls and for you to see a different voice and a different set of opinions here every once and a while. i think it's time to alter the dynamic and the feel of the site. we wouldn't want things to get stale. hey, speaking of stale...

10) don't let the church consume me - ten will make a nice round number this year, so i'll bookend the list with a reminder to myself of where i've been and what i have let happen before. i don't know how many times i've said it, but it's true. i had no idea how much time i gave the church and "the church" until i got away from being a paid staff person. i never knew how wonderful it was to have time with the family or time to be bored until i found my way to working 45-50 hours a week in retail. how silly is that? being at huffman wasn't a full-time job. it was more than that. it became a metaphor for who i wanted to be. in a way, i let it define me. and in a way, i was and am ok with that. but now that i know who i am, i can't let it swallow me whole again. throwing myself back into a "leader"ship role will require more time. i know that. but, it can't become an obsession. obsessions are unhealthy. i will try and keep it a passion and nothing more, so that i can live with the result of the effort without it destroying me if i fail. dramatic? maybe. honest? definitely.

so, there we have it. a laundry list of things i believe will make my life a better place. here's hoping that, by proxy, they may improve yours too if you'll have anything to do with me. you are certainly welcome and willing, as always, to point out my shortcomings and flaws, just so long as you are looking in the mirror while you're yelling.

good luck to all my fellow list-makers. may your years be ones that you are proud of.

the final word


two factors in last night's wake-up call that alabama isn't quite ready for prime time just yet.

the first?

"I don't think we gave them their due respect coming into the game." - glen coffee

i'm sorry. what? you had almost a month to prepare for an undefeated team, and you didn't respect that they could give you a game? why the hell not? for a team that prided itself on focusing on the opponent in front of them and not the big picture all year, this was a disappointing surprise. alabama dominated the first quarter this year. last night, the defense gave up 21 points (ultimately, enough to lose the game) before they woke up and decided to play. by then, it was too late. jpw proved one final time that his skill-set in combination with alabama's tattered line and one too few playmakers at receiver was too much to overcome. that alabama came out at less than 100 percent falls on the coach. not that i think saban let up preparing for this game, but somehow he allowed his players to. that's too bad.

the second?

andre smith. i spoke yesterday of the difficulty alabama had running the ball against tulane in the one other game smith was out. in that match-up, alabama rushed for 100 yards less than their 196.5 average per game over the course of the season. last night? they mustered 31. 31 yards that included jpw being sacked 8 times for minus 31 yards. losing big andre's replacement in the first quarter only complicated things further, forcing the line to play out of position and out of their element for the greater part of the game. the guys that were left played hard, but alabama's depth was exposed and every fan was reminded why most predicted next year the one that alabama would make "the leap" due to the fact that you usually need quality depth to do so. (auburn and georgia fans are nodding their heads in approval)

so, after running the table in the regular season, the tide heads into the offseason with the taste of two straight losses in their collective mouth, both unique in the lessons that can be taken from either. there's a part of me that thinks that nick saban wouldn't have it any other way. does it ruin the season? of course not. alabama will still be top twelve, at worst, in the season ending polls. they will probably remain there when getting ready to face a super-solid virginia tech team in the kickoff classic next august. come february, we'll celebrate another solid to really good recruiting class and start fantasizing about which quarterback will be leading the troops into battle now that the jpw era has mercifully found it's end.

without having ever seen him throw a pass, my vote is for star jackson. a playmaker at quarterback. can you imagine, alabama fans? i can, and i will.

the two losses sucked, but it was a good and fun season.

roll tide.

new year, same layout


you would think that over the last twelve months, blogger may have tossed around an idea or two for a new and exciting template, but it looks like that's not the case. i guess that's not a terrible thing. i was looking for something simple in a nice, huffman green, but nothing jumped out at me. i guess i may just end up fiddling with the color scheme on this template if the mood strikes me hard enough. maybe not. if you tune in one day and see the crimson gone, replaced by forest green, you'll know well enough i was bored on that day. otherwise, the changes the site sees will remain more subtle and still will be seen through the crimson tint that you grew to love or hate in 2008.

make no mistake, though. if the underlying theme of HACAM last year was alabama football's hopeful and anticipated leap back into big dog territory, this year will be huffman united methodist church. unless the church office somehow "forgets" to send me reminder cards for all the meetings in which my presence will be recommended, i will be more plugged into the lifeblood of the church than i have been in three and a half years. for some, that will be an awkward and unwanted transition. for others, it will be just what the doctor ordered. for all involved, it will not be boring. i can promise you that. boring has been tried. it's not working for us.

in an effort to lift our spirits, i am sure, it was published a few months back in our weekly church mailout that humc had been in a state of consistent decline since 1992. that's a little staggering, a lot depressing, but not too surprising seeing as how we're pretty much in line with the vast majority of churches as it concerns that statistic.

what do you mean? it's not just us that sucks at "making disciples"?

absolutely not.

so, what are we good at?

well, we are decent to pretty good at the "growing disciples" part of our church's mantra. once we get folks involved, there are still plenty of vibrant and healthy ministries that huffman does and does well. through those ministries, a christian or even non-christian can be fed in any number of positive and healthy ways. i know and understand we've been commissioned to make disciples, but maybe we've been attacking the idea to do so from antiquated angles.

so, where is the disconnect?

well, that one's easy to say, not so easy to do. shawshank told us to "get busy livin', or get busy dyin'". it's as simple as that. we've been declining in numbers for 16 years. for the last 5 to 8, we've been borderline irrelevant because we are so far into survival mode (getting busy dying, if you will) that we can't stop to focus on what being a church really means.

but, we keep losing members and members continue to pass away?

yes, and? the folks that have left on their own? did someone force them to leave? was the environment in our church so nasty that they just couldn't take it anymore? or had they been looking for a reason to go anyway. or were they not strong enough to go down with the ship that they were just as responsible for putting holes in as those of us that are left behind. whatever the reason, it doesn't matter.

we need to keep moving forward.

if we can't do thirty ministries well anymore, screw it. let's change our way of thinking and do five really, really well. we still have plenty of people and resources to do five ministries well, right? maybe ten? so, let's stop pretending it's 1992 and move forward as if we were starting from scratch in 2008. what if we showed up this coming sunday morning like we were a brand new church plant that just so happened to be blessed with 150-200 in worship and a now healthy full-time daycare from the get-go? how amazing would that be??? what could we do if we focused on what a massive budget we have afforded to us instead of however many thousands of dollars we are down from last year. who gives a crap?

it's all a matter of perception, folks. and i perceive that i don't give a pickle about 1992 anymore. i care enough that it's a part of our history, but it is no longer a part of our future. anyone that is still thinking in those terms as it relates to this church is wasting their time.

and that, in a nutshell, is our jumping off point for this year. i (and a few highly paid and highly athletic friends) brought alabama football back from the dead. it's time to bring huffman back too.

what is the worst that can happen? what, we lose our building and have to meet at donald and tanya's house? would that really be so bad? i mean, shoot, they have a pool, right?

but that is not going to happen. not this year. so, let's not worry about it. let's show up sunday with an eye towards changing the definition of our church. and the perception. let's show up like someone just handed us the keys to our first house and it has absolutely made our life to move in.

if you miss someone that used to be with us, shit, go get 'em back. and if they don't want to come, tell them good luck and tell them that you have a new house to decorate. tell them that they are missing out because something new is about to happen in the middle of old huffman. and tell 'em like you believe it. because you believe it.

there will be hiccups and headaches in 2009. there's a good chance i will be indirectly responsible for most of them (or at least, you'll hear i was). who cares.

new year, same layout (same church).

new attitude.

is huffman united methodist church a building?

or is it an idea?

let's be the latter.

a preemptive excuse
(if i were in to that sort of thing)


for a guy that was rumored three years ago to have been quarterway considering duke because of everything he had going on between his ears, man, the andre smith thing seems pretty freaking stupid. i am telling you nothing new, but these are the facts. he's the best lineman in the country, confirmed by the outland sitting in his trophy case. there are those (and by those, i mean me) around the country that consider him the best college football player in the nation, irregardless of position. if he skips his senior year and declares for the nfl draft, the pathetic detroit lions would be incredibly short-sighted if they did not take him, lock him up for ten years and build their franchise around him. if that were to happen, come the draft he's guaranteed 55 million dollars, no less. and what's worse? all of those millions of dollars would happen with or without an agent. he could pull a daunte culpepper and negotiate his own deal because there would be nothing to negotiate. "i am the best player in this draft. pay me lots of money, please." "um, yessir, mr. smith."

but for some god-forsaken reason, andre is taking and/or maybe even placing phone calls from and to agents, therefore nullifying his eligibility to play in any more college football games. ruling him out of alabama's first sugar bowl in fifteen years. making himself look like a buffoon and leaving his teammates in the lurch.

enter mike johnson.

who's mike johnson?

exactly.

this is all i know. through thirteen games, alabama has averaged 196 yards rushing behind their line anchored behind the best left-tackle to come through tuscaloosa since chris samuels. their one game without him this year? against the mighty tulane green wave defense? 99.

i haven't seen utah play this year. the game tonight will tell if their defense is any more formidable than tulane's. but they are undefeated. you would think that means they are at least decent. and if alabama can't run the ball and has to depend on jp wilson, well, that scares me.

without andre smith, there is no "julio jones effect" on this year's team. i don't hate the big guy now. i still love him. but, damn, his choice to talk to an agent was retarded. period. and i hope it doesn't lead to this storybook season being spoiled by a sugar bowl loss to a crappy mountain west team.