november 16th
(the day the music died)


"They're coming to take me away, ha-haaa!!
They're coming to take me away, ho-ho, hee-hee, ha-haaa
To the funny farm. Where life is beautiful all the time and I'll be happy to see those nice young men in their clean white coats and they're coming to take me away, ha-haaa!!!!!"

i will not be making any pre-thanksgiving holiday rants this year about christmas coming too early. why? because i am part of the "machine." the retail machine that cranks out their christmas items earlier and earlier every year. never mind the fact that if people didn't buy the items as soon as they hit the shelves that we wouldn't be having this conversation. it's easier to paint the "machine" as the bad guy in this story, but who feeds the machine? oh yeah. us. anyway, so you'll have to cry a river to someone else this year about not taking time out for thanksgiving or whatever else and not getting too excited about christmas. i'll be busy decorating my store with rawhide shaped like santa claus.

what i will rant about, though, is the christmas music. i'll be honest. i was prepared for local station 96.5 to crank out the holiday tunes sooner than they did this year. but yesterday was the day. at 12:00 noon it happened. one minute i was listening to "american pie", the next it was the god-awful rendition of "o, holy night" by the equally god-awful (just my personal taste, people) josh groban. the musical a-bomb (or the mcrib) hit me like a ton of bricks. i felt my stomach tighten into a knot. i felt my forehead start glistening with sweat. this was it. the beginning of the end. the beginning of the month and a half long march towards december 26th. the day i can be rid of josh groban and have my don mclean back. and my pink. and kelly clarkson. and the beach boys. and blink 182. and matchbox 20. and all the other random, craptacular music we usually get to enjoy on 96.5 or 94.5.

it will not be the "machine" or the mass consumerism of the holidays that will kill my mood. it will be the music. and what's worse is that it's not christmas music, in general, that i don't like. it's that the stations that i will listen to only cycle through 75 or 100 songs for the next 45 days. why is that? i have several christmas albums littered with good and fun songs. are we that into routine as a society that we can only handle the same bing crosby and alabama songs every year? is that what makes our christmas-time? i kind of doubt it. sure, i mean i know it probably tickles our fancy the first time each year we hear mannheim steamroller, but the 50th? i just want to kill somebody.

and back to the whole "machine" killing christmas thing for a second. (disclaimer: i've done a complete 180 on this over the last couple of years.) are we so shallow that we can't do two things at once? we can't, really (???), be thankful for what god has blessed us with this coming week but still have an eye towards the kick-ass month of parties, presents and, oh yeah, the celebration of the birth of jesus (and hannah) that is december? my guess is that we probably can, but it's in our nature to find a spur to put in our boot so we can walk around being pissed off at something. before you say anything, this entire post is as close to the pot calling the kettle black as i'll ever publish. i, for one, love being pissed off. being pissed off makes me happy, if that makes any sense at all. but this year? not this year, not when it comes to christmas starting too early, whatever that even means.

i'll pick up raging against the machine soon enough, but tonight? bring me dressing. bring me presents. bring me that sweet, sweet baby jesus. all at the same time.

but you can keep your paul mccartney and his "wonderful christmastime". songs like these are why god cries.

if you've seen one unicorn, you've seen them all


in my land of make-believe, my self-worth is highly exaggerated. i'd like to tell myself that if i left my store that i couldn't be replaced in two hours like i replaced the last guy. i'd like to believe that if i left my church, my loss would be felt in the same way we mourn (or celebrate) when our senior pastor is appointed elsewhere. i consider sometimes that if i went away my friends and teammates would not have the same outlets and opportunities to play softball and basketball and flag-football as i present to them by them knowing me. all of these thoughts are completely ridiculous. i am as expendable as the next guy in every lot of my life, the exception, maybe, being my importance to my wife and children and my closest friends.

please don't get me wrong. i am not feeling sorry for myself. i think my perspective is continuing to evolve from the circumstances surrounding october 27th. three separate conversations at church this morning have thrown my thoughts and my mood into a whirling-dervish of ups and downs and in-betweens. the first involved a sunday school class discussion going back and forth between being future-forward and positive vs. admonishing the neglect of our church toward it's last 15 years. one conversation made me realize that i was still too close to some forests to be able to see the trees. and the third ended with an implication that i may want to look for an opportunity above and beyond being the general manager of a pet store.

all three conversations were worth their own journal entry and may still give birth to a later post, but i'll focus on the latter one today. the comment that i can't shake from my brain was very sincere and innocent. maybe they knew of my being robbed and thought that i was looking for a way out of being employed in huffman. maybe they knew how much i loved, on the whole, working for a church and figured retail was below me. maybe there were other motives that i wasn't picking up on, but why would i not want to be exactly where i am today? primarily accountable for a reputable business in the middle of the community where i grew up. employed two minutes away from the church and daycare that my daughters spend the majority of their weeks. responsible for hiring, firing and molding a staff made up of young people that, whether they know it or not, are being ministered to by me. in contact with upwards of 200 or more customers every day that live, speak, breathe and talk about what is important to them (and their pet) in the community that my church hopes to serve. until this morning, i wondered if i were to draw up my ideal situation of livelihood as it concerns my family and spiritual journey if i could come up with anything better than where i am now.

maybe i could. maybe i couldn't. maybe i am rationalizing to make myself feel better. maybe i am living more in my land of make-believe than i would like to imagine.

but i like my land of make-believe. and i bet you like yours too. it's what keeps us going. energized. afoot with the thought that no matter how puny and insignificant in the grand plan and history of the universe we might be, we, too, can make a difference. that we can own the crazy-ass hand that life will always deal us, roll with the punches and stick to what we think god thinks is important. it's tough sledding some days, some mornings. the reality of another person's perception of who you are, who you might be and what you may want to change is a hard pill to swallow. but it goes down eventually and comes out, we hope, as continuing education in the school of life. i wasn't slighted this morning. it just tasted that way. and i appreciate that someone felt i was worth having the conversation with in the first place.

here's to unicorns.

boooooooooo!!!!!!!!


this is only relevant to those of you that are watching the alabama-miss. st. game right now, but this disaster is exhibit a (well...probably b, c or d) as to why star jackson can't get to tuscaloosa soon enough.

burn, piano island, burn


so, for the second time is as many years, the end-ish of a year also marks the end of one of my favorite all-time bands, the blood brothers. it was october of 2006 when i waxed as poetic as i could about what i didn't know at the time would be the brothers' final album. the album couldn't have been a better and more consistent listen from the first track to the last. the last song on the record is called 'the giant swan'. i now wonder if they were prophesying it being their swan song. maybe they weren't at the time. maybe they were. who knows.

two years ago it was bearvsshark that called it quits. if i were to put together a list of my favorite bands of the last ten years (the period in my life that is more defined by music than any other span), it would go like this. 3. bearvsshark 2. brand new. 1. blood brothers. through attrition, brand new is the only one that remains. as weird and disconnected as brand new's frontman can be, it wouldn't suprise me in the slightest if i heard tomorrow or ten years from now that brand new was calling it a day.

i don't know if my ramblings here on in person ever turned anyone other than andy on to the blood brothers. their sound is and was far from accessible. you absolutely could not and can not decipher most of their lyrics without the liner notes in front of you. if you don't like loud, you won't like the blood brothers. if you don't like using your imagination to paint your own picture on top of the musical canvas that they lay out for you, you won't like the blood brothers. they had a unique ability to write a pop song and layer in with so much noise and frenzy that it didn't hit you until about the fifth time through that you were listening the the hardcore equivalent to justin timberlake. alright...alright. that may be stretching it a little, but this is my own little last ditch effort, my own eulogy written in the hopes that you'll consider spinning a blood brothers album sometime before you die or sometime before you lose all your angst, whichever comes first.

so, farewell blood brothers. farewell and good day. may your creative juices continue to spill forth and somehow make their way into my ears. and if they do not, thank you for the good times you have given me and the good music you left for me to enjoy.

love, indeed, rhymes with hideous car wreck.

turning 31
(hannah and caroline and me)
((part four))


caroline is asleep upstairs. it's 7:55 a.m. right now.

technically, i've already started my first official daddy/daughter day at home with her, but it doesn't feel like it yet. after i finish here, i'll go wake her up and we'll start our day. we need to go to the store for a few minutes to talk with kathy. sometime around midday, we'll go have lunch with mommy and visit with the folks in her office. we may do a little more visiting after that. we'll just have to wait and see. i am happy right now at the thought of hanging out with her. i know mommy is sad that she had to go back to work yesterday, but things are going to be just fine i think. it's probably good that i am posting now, when she is so calm and peaceful and not at the end of the day when i can't get her to stop screaming. maybe that won't happen. maybe...

since my last post, the week has been pretty busy. putting last saturday behind me has been difficult in a lot of ways. if i let my mind wander, it immediately takes me back to that morning. to that guy. and to that gun. leave it to my resident eternal pessimist, kiker, to e-mail me monday morning and tell me that the softball team could have been preparing for a funeral instead of a game this week. truth be told, that thought was pulled from the middle of a really sweet note, but my reaction was, "shit. you are right." people get held up all the time. mugged. even worse. and the easiest way to deal with it happening so much is to not pay attention to it. but i can't help but have a new and enlightened respect for someone that's gone through an experience similar to mine. even if their's was also non-violent, it's as vulnerable as a human being can feel if they aren't already facing something life-threatening.

31 isn't supposed to be a very important or noteworthy birthday. nothing big happens. no surprise parties to celebrate entering a new decade of life. i don't feel older. less agile. less aware. less relevant. 31 is supposed to be a birthday that's celebrated within the family and acknowledged by friends, but you don't scrapbook turning 31 as much as you just affirm it as a means to some end. for me, turning 31 was different than it should've been, probably for all the wrong reasons. i felt very lucky to have my wife. my daughters. my friends that, bar none, when i told them about saturday, made sure that i was ok first and foremost. i should feel lucky for all of those things everyday, but i don't. or didn't. most days, i take them for granted.

you know what's the biggest shame? this time next week, i may be taking all of my treasures for granted again. i am going to try not to, but there's a chance it will happen. things will be busy at work. i'll have my head too deep into what's going on at the church. i'll be pissed off. and i'll take it out on the people that i shouldn't. this past tuesday, though? the nondescript birthday-of-a-day that i turned 31? on that day, i did not. take my treasures for granted that is. and my birthday wish was that on most days, i could maintain that focus.

that is my birthday wish and my prayer this morning. i am glad that caroline allowed me to start today like this. with some time to myself. with some time to write a reminder to be calm later today when she gets fussy. with some time to soak in how lucky i am to have a day like this.

i am coming upstairs to wake you up, (baby) baby girl. don't be too pissed.

HOLY FUCK!!!
(it's a gun!)



it's not as much a lack of time that has dictated me not posting this week as much as it's been a lack of inspiration. i guess that's kind of sad considering i have any number of good and beautiful things to write about here in my house. but, for whatever reason, my motivation has been missing. nothing like a little armed robbery to change all that, huh...

i wish i was kidding. i really do. obviously, what happened yesterday morning falls underneath the category of "things you don't believe can happen to you until they do". and they did. i was walking out to my car yesterday morning around 10:00 a.m. just like i always walk out to my car when i am taking the daily deposit to the bank. my head was down. i was in my own little world, contemplating things that i would try and accomplish when i got back to the store. behind me, i heard footsteps on the pavement that sounded like someone was running across the parking lot (little did i know...). out of curiosity, i turned to see who was in such a hurry. as i turned, i made eye contact with a black man dressed in black jeans, a long-sleeve black shirt and a black mask. the man was no more than twenty feet away from me, heading in my direction. as we made eye contact, i noticed the man was carrying some sort of revolver. i noticed the gun because as i turned and noticed the dude, the fucker cocked his weapon. out of everything that happened in that fifteen seconds or so, i will never forget the sound of him cocking that gun. instantly, my body instinctively froze. i turned my head down and the guy got right up on me, pointed the gun in the direction of my face and upper torso and screamed, "GIMME THE BAG! GIMME THE BAG! GIMME THE BAG!" i said back to him, "ok, ok, ok." i lifted the bag up with my left hand. dude grabbed the bag and took off on foot running in between sal's and o'reilly's. i wondered if i should chase after him. follow him on foot while i was calling '911' and try and give the police some direction. but as i tried to take a step, i realized that every muscle in my body had been scared stiff, literally. it was like everything in me cramped all at once. it took me taking a couple steps to loosen up and have my wits about me enough to call the cops. i did. reported the robbery. went back into the store. told the employees what had happened. called my boss. helped an officer fill out his report. and that was it. the event was over. the rest of the day was spent remembering what happened, retelling the story over and over and trying not to think about all of the things that could've happened. it was my boss that scared me the most when he said to me that it was probably a good thing i turned and caught his attention. otherwise, maybe his plan would have been to knock me out cold and take the bag off the ground or use the gun for something even worse. thankfully, neither of those things happened and i walked away not much more than stunned.

the scariest part of the aftermath was the realization that it was the easiest sum of money the guy had ever made in fifteen seconds. and the thought that if it was that easy, that he or one of his buddies would be back for more. we'll hope that doesn't happens, but we will never really know for sure. the knee-jerk reactions will lead us to change our routine. to make intentional decisions and moves that might keep anyone that is watching us off-balance. but short of hiring a hired security person (which we can't afford) to take our deposit to the bank everyday, we will never be 100 percent safe. clearly, we never were. in one of my conversations yesterday i mentioned that during my time in the store, i had played through all sorts of scenarios that included armed gunmen coming into the store to rob us, but never once had i worried about my safety walking to my car.

i will now.

so, what now? now, i have to calm down. now i have to beat back down my "inner racist" and remind myself that yesterday's trauma had nothing to do with color and everything to do with a sense of hopelessness that lead a young man to feel like robbing someone at gunpoint was his best option of taking care of himself or his family. i have to try not to hold it against "my community" and spin the positives of me being ok into action pointed towards finding ways to fill needs around the church. find ways to do my part, however little that may be, in curing a culture and neighborhood that is sick with desperation.

yesterday, i wished that the douchebag was hit by a dumptruck fleeing the scene of the crime. today, i am sorry that he felt like he had to do it, and i am thankful that i wasn't hurt in the process.

for the length of time that his eyes and his gun haunt my dreams, though, i'll ask for forgiveness in not wanting to treat the dude to lunch if we are ever properly introduced.

UNDER-WHELMING!!!

(clap, clap, clap-clap-clap)

it's what i get, really. i should've learned by now. and it works both ways. if i set myself up for something to be super-great, it will usually end up mediocre. if i spend way too much time dreading that something is going to be horrible, i am usually rewarded with the experience in question being less than loathsome. but, i haven't learned. and i let myself put too much stock into yesterday morning. in my head, i wanted our sunday school's meeting with the pastor to be more than it possibly could have been. sunday school is already short. we didn't have enough time to have a discussion. what we were given was a very gracious and humble pastor in our presence. what we were given were three or four anecdotes that were intended to give us an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny nugget of insight into the grand plan of huffman that we don't have a blueprint for yet. and i left. disappointed. again.

but i wasn't really disappointed in chris, more in myself for setting myself up for failure again. it bothers me when i make the same mistake over and over again. it seems to be an instinctual mistake. something that's wired into me. maybe it's like that for everybody. who knows. if it is, it could explain why we, as a church, continue to trip over our own feet over and over again. we don't mean to. we just can't help it. but, i can't believe that. i believe that i've conditioned myself into a bad habit. i don't smoke. i don't do drugs. my vice is to worry. what are you gonna do?

so, sure, i was underwhelmed by the experience. i think we all were. it's the first time since sarah and i rejoined the class that we've had perfect attendance. when chris walked in, it was like the principal had just interrupted class and we all piped down. we weren't talking about him, but i am sure it seemed that way. it's probably been that way with every class. well, most classes. hannah and her pre-school class probably didn't really give a shit unless he was giving out candy. i digress. we all were looking for something. and there is a small part of me that is sad that the very small, very time-constrained meeting with our senior pastor didn't foster more of a positive response. but, again, that's probably just a product of misplaced expectations.

"from the depths of despair (o, lord)", it seems as if the meeting might have fostered something more important. "hear my (our) cry (o, lord)", it seems that our class may be sending forth a collective prayer. what, in the moment, may have seemed like a letdown looks like it now could become something more. i will choose my words wisely, and i will try to govern my enthusiasm. but i think that, yesterday, our class may have turned a corner. not because of our special visit, but in spite of it. and that, my friends, gets a tired christian excited.

only god knows what we, as a collective sunday school and church, are capable of. for the first time in a long time, though, i can claim confidence as part of my artillery. when i am confident, i play a better shortstop. when i am confident, i play a better speaker. when i am confident, i play a better husband, father and friend. i have to believe the same can be said for playing a christian too.

attention, good folks of humc:

come december 2nd, things begin to change.

hannah and caroline and me
(part three)


really??? this time next week caroline will be two months old? that's kind of hard to believe, but not in the "man, time really flies" kind of way. i don't feel like the last two months have dashed by. i know sarah does. the calendar had not flipped over to october before she was stressing out about having to go back to work. and i understand that. every time i have two days off, i feel like i could never go back to work and be completely happy. that idea, in and of itself, i know is ridiculous. usually around midday of the second of any two consecutive days i have off i will find myself bored and pacing around the house looking for someone to annoy or some cat to wake up. but i couldn't imagine having a couple months off with a brand new baby girl, each day filled with not much more than taking a walk and snuggling and feeding the baby and napping, and then coming to grips with the idea of not having that anymore. coming to grips with taking that sweet baby girl to daycare and "only seeing her at night and on the weekend." it's a sad thought, but it's part of our reality. i've mentioned here that sarah and i, both, are the kind of people that need more than their kids for stimulation. i think sarah'll soon enough realize how much she likes work and helping people and it won't seem like too much of a burden. and that time at home with the baby girl and the baby, baby girl will seem even more precious. and rare. and priceless.

these first two months in the life of caroline lilla o'kelly have treated our family well. we've seen each other a lot. we've gotten on each other's nerves. we've done fun things together. we've visited with family. we're getting back into church. we're finding new friends. not giving up on old ones. we are wondering when our back yard will start to not feel weird. we've discovered the best tv show since arrested development. we laugh together. as of last week, we feed the baby together. mind you, things could be a lot worse.

and so we turn the page. we will begin to write the next chapter. the one that's titled, "caroline goes to school". it will be different, but different isn't a bad thing. it's just...different.

that next chapter will include the resurrection of the halloween carnival. it will include a new basketball season. it will include sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top and dressing. it will include my old ass turning 31. it will include christmas, which should be a new and exciting ballgame this year since we will be scaling back our commitments. i can see it also including my sunday school class deciding what direction we really want to go in. do we want to embed ourselves into every committee and ministry of our old, tired church and try to "corrupt" from within? or do we just turn the bastard on it's head and go in a new direction? i don't want to try and be the northeast birmingham annex of ginghamsburg united methodist church, but, hell, i am not above stealing anyone's good ideas. this sunday could be a turning point. the pastor comes to our sunday school class. for 45 minutes, we'll either scare him to death or excite him because he's just learned he has 15+ good soldiers to add to his army. we'll see. one thing i do know. i am certain that our class is ready to be much more than "all talk." i'll let you know what happens.

if this current chapter ends with alabama kicking tennessee's ass saturday, that'd be cool too.

5:45 a.m. will never be quite the same


5:45. that's what time my phone would wake me up on mornings during the week that i would open the store. it would give me enough time to talk myself out of bed, stumble down the stairs, feed KAMmie, get myself ready, wake hannah, get her ready and then head out the door to take hannah to school and daddy to work.

yesterday, i lost a very sweet friend. between the time i fed her thursday morning and the time sarah and i went out to feed her yesterday morning, KAMmie fell victim to a horrible, one-in-a-billion type accident and died. i intentionally steer clear from the phrase "passed away", because there was nothing peaceful about the accident. make no mistake, KAMmie's latter half of her life was taken from her through no fault of her own, through no fault of anyone, only through the fact that, on some days, life deals you a shitty-ass hand.

KAMmie was a charming, very smart puppy. she was great with hannah. she was great with anyone that would spare a second or two to pat her on the head. i thank KAM (katie, amy and meg) for presenting her to me as a birthday present almost six years ago. i thank donna for playing foster parent to her for a year and letting me have the last 14 months back with her. i thank sarah for ever and always enduring that i never taught her to not jump and loving her just the same. and i thank KAMmie for being the definition of man's best friend. i wasn't always fair to her as a dog owner. there were many days, including our last together, that the only time i would see her was at 5:45 or whenever i went out to feed her. yet, she certainly wasn't neglected. she had dogs in four or five neighboring fences that would keep her busy and entertained as they ran along their respective fences for hours on end. my retired neighbor seemed to think of her as his own as it was common for me to look out the back window and see them playing around. when i first moved into the townhouse, this made me jealous in a silly way. as time passed, it just made me happy for KAMmie. on days i needed her, though, she was there for me. happy to either walk or fetch or watch me cut grass and then sit on the porch with me. she could not be any better about sleeping inside once the weather got cold. for having no real training, there could not have been a more well-behaved dog.

today, i won't try to make any sense out of her not being here and available to our family. there is just no sense to be made. it's sad. and tragic. and doesn't make any sense. it throws us off our routine. it grounds us. reminds us of the fragility of life in general. i never had a two-way conversation with KAMmie and i won't go so far as to say we've lost a member of our family. but i cared for her deeply. and in her own way, she cared for me too. i will never forget her. and i will never set my alarm for 5:45 again.

today, i miss my dog. if i happen to run into her again in the next life, that would make me happy.

refine is a good word


if only we were as aware before the service as we were at the end, maybe this week's world communion sunday service would have felt like less of a trainwreck. from chris' knowing admission that translating an entire worship service "takes time" to feedback i've received from the very few people i've talked to about the service, consensus seems to be that the way the whole thing went down sunday morning was a little like forcing a a square peg through a round hole. it'll probably go, but something's going to end up broken. the common breaking point sunday morning seemed to be the congregation's patience. you could feel the restlessness like it was leaning against you. i could see eyes rolling. i could feel my own doing the same. my sister-in-law and brother-in-law looked liked they were being held against their will. all that being said, it was almost admirable, the way the congregation waited the proceeding out as to not offend anyone by getting out while the getting was good. first, let's take a look at what went wrong...

1) so, in all of the preparation for this mash-up of a service, not one person wondered aloud, "so, if we translate every part of the service, we'll be here twice as long, right?" i mean, no one? it didn't cross anyone's mind??? that seemed to be the case. as chris, more or less, apologized for the length and thanked us for our patience, he, more or less, admitted that this was the case. and that...that is poor planning. that is the lack of awareness that i speak about. that is the type of mistake that i told julie that we couldn't afford to make. that is what makes us laughable at times. and not ha-ha laughable but "i would rather laugh than cry" laughable. just sad. so, we ran late. just under an hour late, which in the grand scheme of all of our lives is not that much time. the painful part was not being alerted to the possibility of it beforehand. but that was out of the question, because our worship leaders didn't realize it until it was already happening. and that's too bad.

2) when putting together worship services that were out of the ordinary while i served on a couple different church staffs, we tended to practice them. a lot. we didn't practice a lot just to put people out or have an alternative to a regular sunday night program or to waste time. everyone needed to be on the same page. when common ground in huntsville joined forces for a home and home worship event with another huntsville church plant, it was a great idea for our worship teams to play and lead worship together, but had we decided that we could have just gotten together on sunday morning, pull something out of our ass and do our thing, it would have sounded like crap. this past sunday, figuratively, sounded like crap a lot of the time. not the individual elements necessarily (although, wow, could we get just one more verse of that offertory?), but the fact that our translator was never sure what he was supposed to translate, the offertory team used most of the offertory time to set up and then they sang or the technical difficulties that delayed the start of the service and were present throughout. practice doesn't always make perfect, but it does help make a person feel like the worship leaders were given their part before the morning of the service.

3) i have never spoken to a group with the help of a translator, and sarah tells me that it can be quite awkward and unnerving, so i will give julie the benefit of that doubt, but wow. i wasn't sure if she was so loud and animated for the sake of our guests or because she was nervous. to me, though, the entire experience was like listening to twenty minutes of a crying caroline having a conversation with nails on a chalkboard.

4) i don't know if i mentioned this, but the service was really, really long.

what went right?

1) frank. that's it. that's the list. our translator extraordinaire. frank stole the show and hopefully gave everyone something posititve to remember the experience by. it did me. he was at the beck and call of both of our pastors and handled every one of their requests beautifully. he was humble. charming. and very respectful of his place in the service. good job, frank.

like i mentioned earlier, this is not to say that the individual elements of the service were all bad. the hispanic music team did a fine job with the offertory. to quote my brother-in-law, the connection of the two parables was "soft", but the message was fine and relevant to the day as a whole. communion was had and was good, even if the memory of my "body" falling on the ground before i ate it paled in comparison to jack's "blood" being ripped from him so that a couple folks could drink directly from the cup. mmmmmm....backwash. this is to say that something championed as a wonderful day of togetherness and overcoming obstacles should have been more intentional about being put together so there would be fewer obstacles to overcome.

i mentioned in sunday school prior to the service that i have been struggling with feeling a connectedness to our hispanic "ministry", and i don't know if that changed sunday. it's not like it was that congregation's fault that we weren't prepared. and i do think i now have a man-crush on frank. but if we are to make a difference in this community, whether it's with hispanics or blacks or whites or purples that are not currently connected to us, we have to be better than we were sunday during worship. we have to be more thoughtful. more polished. and more aware that our room for error decreases with every misstep.

we have to be aware enough to not set ourselves up for failure and announce that we will be expecting 500(!?!?!...really???) people to our building the sunday before halloween (after taking two years off, the random figure we came up with to set our bar was 500?) . we have to refine before we screw up and not after.

sunday, in theory, was a good day. and in practice, there were positives to build on. there could have been more, though.

WATCH PUSHING DAISIES!!!

it's ok. i blame myself. maybe i just started my campaign too late. did i watch the little piece of heaven that was arrested development from the start? yes. yes, i did. but did i start imploring everyone i know to begin watching the greatest comedy in the history of television from the very start? no, because i was an idiot. because i loved the show and no one else was talking about it, it felt like my own little secret. i used the same retarded logic that some music elitists (myself, at times, included) subscribe to when they find an indie band on some obscure label that rocks their world. it would make sense for them to share the musical goodness with all their friends. encourage them to go buy the cd in the hopes that the indie band will make enough money to make another record. but, that's not how we do it. we keep the band to ourselves and then wonder why we never hear from them again (r.i.p. - bearvsshark, mu330, link 80, any band on asianman records, etc.). and that's how i was with arrested development. finally, it become too much and i wanted to talk about it with folks. how funny it was. how laugh-a-minute it could be. but i ran into a problem. people had kind of heard of it, but no one had seen it. if they had, it was only the commercials that ran very randomly on fox. and then it went away...because of me.

but not this time. not with pushing daisies. i start my solicitation today, two days removed from the series premiere. please, PLEASE give this show a chance. why, do you ask? what is it? it's a fairy tale. it's edward scissorhands. it's romantic. and sad. and clever. visually, it's quirky and beautiful. it's playful. it's smart. it's all of these things, all at the same time. and quite to my surprise, it was the best hour of television, lost excluded, that i have ever seen. i had this feeling of joy and anticipation from the very first scene and it lasted throughout the entire episode. in short, the story is this. our hero is ned. and ned has a unique gift/curse. he has the ability to touch a dead person/thing and bring it magically back to life. he discovers the gift as a child and, through practice and loss, learns the rules of his gift the hard way. the hard way, it turns out, is that the second touch to someone/something once dead will return it to the next life. as an adult, he learns that his childhood sweetheart has tragically met her end. he goes to the funeral home with the intent of learning how and why she dies, but when he wakes her, his heart takes over and our ned cannot convince himself to touch her a second time (which ned usually does after learning how the deceased met their end so that he and his partner may then collect whatever reward may be waiting for such information).

and that decision, the decision to let a girl named chuck be "alive again" raises the romantic question that i assume will be the lifeblood of the series. what would you do if you could not touch the love of your life? could you do it? could i do it? for the sake of the heart and the life of this show, for the sake of this post, i am going to say yes.

i guarantee you this. if you watch the first episode of this show (i am sure you can find it online), you will come away feeling that you can. that if you saw that one person, that one love of your life and nature always placed an invisible wall between you and your chuck, it wouldn't matter. you could still see their smile. hear their voice. share their company. and that would be enough.

you should watch pushing daisies.

"i am not superstitious, but i am a little stitious"
(the week that was)


working ten days in a row has made it harder than i would like to sit down and focus on a post lately, but i finally reached the end of my tunnel and can celebrate with a couple days off today and tomorrow. the marathon actually went by much faster than i was preparing myself for, which helps me make sense of the reality of how little i remember about the last six days. let's look back.

monday (night) - most of the day, monday, was spent looking forward to getting home from work and watching heroes. the episode was not great just because it spent all hour setting up about eight different storylines for the upcoming season, but it did a pretty good job of catching the viewer up with the primaries from last year and making sure we knew what they were up to. i've read that the season will be split up into two "volumes", and the weekly hours will be a little more focused. we'll see how that works. it won't matter. this show won me over last year, so unless it really starts to suck, i am in it for the season.

tuesday - a brutal day at work. there are days at the store where the chief focus is on store maintenance and the customers. and then there are days like tuesday. truck days. where i lift amounts of pet food and supplies that can be measured in tons (i am not kidding). these days leave little to be desired, and i was happy as a lark to get away and head home for a bit before my softball game. the game was fun. i killed the ball and went 5 for 5 on the night and drove home satisfied after our third straight win. when i got home, sarah and i found our first possible "hidden gem" of the new tv season in a show called reaper on the cw network. it's a black comedy about a 21 year-old guy whose soul was sold to the devil and satan, himself, shows up on the day that he's legally old enough to drink to collect his due. dude's job will be to capture escaped-from-hell souls and deliver them to portals around his hometown. the concept is funny enough to be interesting. and through one show, the devil is the most level-headed guy in the room (naturally). i am interested to see how many sermons i can find in each episode. that is, until the show is canned because no one watches the cw network.

wednesday - the eye of the work-hurricane that was tuesday and thursday, wednesday wasn't too bad. i came home and we took off for our first wednesday night church dinner in for-ev-er. it felt really weird to go have dinner at church and not sit at a table surrounded by youth and college-age. but it was fine. we skipped the program, because the folks in our sunday school class are bad influences. came home and watched bionic woman. dude. that show kicked ass. i want to be bionic. but i'd rather not have to suffer through losing limbs in a terrible carwreck. is there some sort of compromise?

thursday - sarah and i watched journeyman before i left for work. pretty cool. tommy from trainspotting didn't shoot any heroin, which is a drag, but the show was pretty good. we'll watch again next week. work sucked. truck (big truck) came really late and i let it stress me out more than i should have. came home and watched grey's anatomy with sarah and laughed a couple times. the show is about as whiny as it can be with humor tucked here and there. but there is a charm to it that makes me not mind watching.

friday - didn't eat all day and then had the best mexican dinner i've ever had in my life. got "the itis" (no one gets that unless you watch boondocks...oh well). then watched the highlight of the week. the office. oh. my. god. so funny. i am already halfway through my second viewing of the hour long premiere. i could waste your time and tell you every part that made me laugh out loud. i'll just hope that you watched it yourself and leave you with these three words. "support the rabid."

saturday - i must have been sleepwalking through yesterday, because for some reason, i have no idea what happened. i know alabama probably took care of business against a crappy florida st. team. and i am pretty sure that john parker wilson chose this week to play up to his limitless potential in front of a national tv audience. i know jesus and his florida teammates hosted auburn while i was at work. i hate that i missed it, but i am sure that jesus just added to his legend and set up the game of the year between undefeated lsu and undefeated florida. man, i love tebow. he can do no wrong. wait. what? what did you just say? auburn did what? don't fuck with me, man. don't. fuck. with me. brandon cox played how do you say? pretty good? wtf? alabama lost? dude, i am going to punch you in the face if you keep jerking my chain. john parker wilson throws like a girl??? well, shit, i knew that, but i figured that wouldn't matter against the most offensively challenged group of four-star recruits i've ever seen. jesus. h. christ.

update: yesterday sucked.

today - was scolded along with the rest of the congregation today for being apathetic towards signing up for the lunch next week hosted by the hispanic part of our congregation. granted, it was a pretty weak-ass scolding, but still. the way i look at it is that if you want to get some people upset enough to do something, you need to piss in their face. attack their manhood. don't sugarcoat it with words like "disappointed". if you would rather us have lunch with people we can't have a conversation with more than you would rather us get our ass in gear saving the daycare, just say it. we won't share a language, but if sharing "being human" is more important to the greater good than getting people fired up about a halloween carnival "for the community" that is not on halloween, just spit it out. lay it down, dude. "we are humc. next week, we eat here. today, you fucking sign up. if you do not, we will transfer your membership to clearbranch." and shit, dude, nobody wants that.

what's that? am i going to the lunch? i feel like i should, but that's probably because i was "charged" to like i was an eight year-old. we'll see.

etc. - kicked it with sarah, hannah and caroline.

te quiero, diary.

a hiro returns


no, not jesus.

at least, not yet. last i heard he's got his hands full with an in-mourning saban nation. speaking of that, do john parker wilson's fourth quarter drives overshadow the fact that he's just not that good? the zone asked the question last night, which quarterback would you rather have right now...wilson or brandon cox? the fact that i even thought about it for a second on top of how pitiful i think brandon cox is really answers my question for me, doesn't it? i mean, i tried. i really did. i tried to think of a jp led offense through next year, tossing it around to melvin ray and julio jones and not thinking about the future that could be in star jackson. but i just couldn't keep it up. of games i've watched most of this year, i would easily trade wilson for young qb's like stafford, usf's grothe, kodi burns, erik ainge and most definitely tebow. not brandon cox. but last night, i thought about it. damn. i don't want to be too much of a hater. i still think if bama can beat florida st. that they could pull off nine, maybe even ten, wins. but i have zero confidence in bama's quarterback unless he's in a situation so tense that it makes him forget that he's supposed to feel pressure. under those terms, after the last two weeks, i'll take him.

moving on, fall tv is back. it returned last night with a superb family guy. just funny as all hell. you could tell that the writers absolutely love star wars and all of their pokes were made with love. but it was great. i am already ready for the rerun. tonight, hiro, claire, the petrellis and the rest of the heroes return and kick the fall season off, proper-like. and thus, it's that time of year when sarah and i have to decide what's going to be appointment television and what's not. the list seems a little shorter in my head this year and considering that the baseball playoffs will start next week (without the braves), that's probably a good thing. going into the season, here's what looks to make the cut.

heroes
30 rock
the office
grey's anatomy...thursday will be the biggest couch night.
sunday night football ('til late season schedule starts to suck)
monday night football (see above note)
baseball playoffs
lost...come january
family guy

when time allows:

pti
around the horn
daily show
colbert

new shows we are going to try:

journeyman (in the dreaded studio 60 slot. this will be cancelled by mid-october. the idea for the show and the fact that the star was in trainspotting gives this one a leg up on other new shows.)
pushing daisies
bionic woman
cavemen...maybe. i don't know yet.

and that's it. sounds like a lot of tv. and it is. my name is earl and scrubs fell off the list last year due to lack of time. with two baby girls vying for attention during the evening, this list will likely be shortened as well.

let me know if i am missing out on a hidden gem or something else amazing. who knows. once some of the new shows start getting axed, i might have some time.

fear the community...

(part two?)

this.

this is what started it all. it was my fourth day and fourth post after entering the blog nation. it's crazy how far blog nation has come since then, almost two years ago. in october of 2005, blogspot was a blip on the radar. livejournal was still in. facebook had yet to sell out. now? now, if you aren't blogging, it seems like you are in the minority. although, that's not really true. in the sports world that i live half the time, though, blogs are everywhere. and it's incredible. having access to opinion all over the country, all over the world from fans of their own local teams and interests creates the most thorough spread of information "the fan" has ever seen. rather than depending on one local sports columnist and paper and the occasional story on sportscenter, you can have full access to almost any team, hell any subject (sports or otherwise) as quickly as google can pull it up. and that's pretty quick. but i digress.

the above post was the one that lit a fire under myself and others at my church because i dared to criticize the church for cancelling it's annual halloween event due to "lack of volunteers". it still irks me to this day. it irks me for all the wrong reasons. and it isn't any easier to swallow. the year before, huffman methodist, baptist and our lady of lourdes had unprecedented turnout to each of our events. we staged them on the same day. and morning after stories led us to feel like all people in the community that came to one carnival came to all three. and it was awesome. we ran out of candy. the church was packed. we championed it the next day in worship. and one year later, we let it scare us out of doing it again.

but that all changes this year. for whatever reason, the chris led staff has decided to put on the event again. and i think that is great! i think it is so great that i went to the organizational meeting monday night. i wanted to make sure that i backed up whatever criticism i had levied the last couple of years with just as much support this year. i wanted to make sure our sunday school class was represented (it was. tanya beat me there.). i wanted to volunteer the softball team for a booth. or to cook. or for whatever. i wanted to make sure that the folks there knew that i wanted to help.

and then the meeting started.

and i was reminded (again) of why it's taken me so long to work up the motivation to work with huffman again. the meeting was small. but everything that is right with huffman was represented. and unfortunately, everything that is wrong was there too. the 2004 carnival was brought up as both a good thing and a bad thing. too many people. not enough candy. not enough volunteers. (and this is bad why?) the decision had been made prior to the meeting to have our event on sunday, the 28th, which is fine i guess. it's just not halloween. the day that people usually dress up like someone else and go out looking for something to do. why? availability of volunteers. lack of set-up time. sunday was just more convenient. and all of that makes perfect sense to me. i get it. i really do. but it's still not on halloween. it's from 5-8 on sunday. if it was from 5-8 on on wednesday, we could encourage all of our daycare kids to go through the carnival before they went home. we would already have traffic in our parking lot right next to a sign that said HALLOWEEN CARNIVAL....HERE....TONIGHT....ON HALLOWEEN!!!. that alone would pique enough passer-by's interest to at least consider checking us out, right? also, a decision was made to have a dance, or monster mash, for the older youth that may come on the 28th. this did drastically alter the planned target age of 2-12 for the carnival, but what the hell, right? we are doing the carnival primarily inside, which makes sense again (what if it rains?), but again will knock the potential guest number down to a certain degree. and i guess that's what worries me the most. if we were going to do this...if we were going to try and come back from a two year absence, two years for the community to come to grips with the idea that we don't do a halloween carnival anymore, wouldn't we want to take intentional steps and intentional care to make sure every decision we made for the event put the community's interest ahead of our own? even if the final date and strategy meant some folks would have to get away from work an hour early...even if it meant we as a church and a staff were inconvenienced for one (extra) day out of the year, shouldn't we do that? are we doing it for "them"? or are we doing it for "us"?

and therein lies the question that huffman faces with every decision it now makes. for right or for wrong. for better or for worse. this is where we are. every decision that i, personally, make outside of myself and my family is uncomfortable to a point. i have to change things. refigure my schedule. hannah has to go to gymnastics and sarah is tied up? well, i want to watch mnf, but tonight, it'll have to wait up for me. kathy or heath want to schedule a vacation? well, it sucks that i'll have to work however many straight days, but that's just the way it goes. everyone deserves a vacation. church should work the same way. selfishly, it's going to be easier for us to make the safe choice. to decide on a date for something like the carnival that sounds better for us because the majority of our work force can be there, because we are already off on sunday. it's more accomodating. but what would make the bigger impact? what would make the bigger statement? what if, even with limited time and helpers, we could put the same product out on the day that is actually called halloween and not three days early? that(!!!) is what i wish we could strive for.

and maybe we will. one day.

all that said, i am very happy that we are doing the carnival again, and i am going to do my best moving forward to be as excited for the event and those that come on a sunday evening as those that might have been there on wednesday night. i might even dress up. and those that know me know how big that would be, right? i am still working on this whole spinning things positive idea. it's tough when it feels like i am diametrically opposed to almost every consensus the church seems to reach. but i am willing to listen to my own advice. i am willing to do things and be part of something that i believe in even if all the moving parts aren't placed exactly where i would put them.

if you aren't doing anything on sunday the 28th and would like to help, we could use you. if you read this and have kids and don't mind dressing them up twice or taking them out twice in four days, come see us.

the "halloween" carnival is back, baby!!!

"when jesus does cool shit, it’s called a miracle, but when tebow does cool shit it’s called hot-dogging. double standard. i consider jesus one of the biggest hot-doggers of all time. 'watch me walk on water because i’m the son of god.'" - commenter on every day should be saturday


yesterday was absolutely the perfect storm for me to enjoy a day of college football, even while being ravaged by a bitch of a cold. let's review...

the day began with brandon cox single-handedly ushering in the kodi burns era at auburn and i was able to breathe a huge sigh of relief. i know you are already sick of hearing about it, but my prediction back in my college preview that cox would crash and burn is one that i will relive for the duration of the season. enjoy!!! for brief moments this week, i reconsidered my hatred for cox. he's been through a lot. it's his last year. why hate him so? but, seriously, it only took a couple series for me to be reminded of just how awful the guy is. and i absolutely freaking love that the auburn "fans" in attendance yesterday fully endorsed my hate by welcoming his replacement with the loudest cheers of the entire game. just beautiful. so, welcome, kodi burns. i am happy to meet you and your era. i can now recommence with my support of auburn (my sigh of relief) in all games minus the iron bowl because my hostility towards one brandon cox will no longer get in the way. before we get off this game, though, classy move by you, miss. st., to celebrate with your coach by giving him a gatorade bath after defeating a 1-2 team. if the starkville bulldogs ever beat someone that's actually good, someone could very well die.

the day continued with my way-too-young-for-me man crush, tim tebow, owning tennessee. i mean, owning. it was really kind of funny listening to the announcers call the game yesterday. you could tell that they were trying very hard to not overpraise the man-child, but every time they would temper a comment, tebow would do something ridiculous. it was awesome. i know this isn't the best tennessee team (which bodes well for alabama). and i know that lsu stands in the way. and i know that some team is going to have to knock off usc. same for oklahoma. but if florida and west virginia could somehow play for the national championship, it would be the single, most exciting college football game in the history of the world. i am sure of it.

then came the alabama game. the first ten minutes just went too good, didn't they? there was just too much time left for arkansas to make a run, pun intended, and make a run they did. "humanity advanced" was every bit the best player on the field and it was a pity cramps kept him from making alabama's defense from looking even more pathetic than he did. john parker wilson? he and his flutterballs are going to be the death of me. i told heath that it was the ugliest 350 yard game i could ever remember watching. he went from being pretty good. to bad. to vandy game bad. to brandon cox bad. and then a funny thing happened. he went all clutch on us and led the drive that will define his and matt caddell's career (at least for one week). and for one week, i will try and forget about two years from now and visions of star jackson and savor the game that was as accurately defined as a rollercoaster ride as a game could be.

the nightcap was almost as fun and every bit as dramatic as the bama game. kentucky ousted jesus brohm's team as pretenders (not jesus...he, of course, was awesome.) and andre woodson went ahead and made it official that he would be a first round draft pick. good job, kentucky. and good for you.

so, there you have it. had the head cold not got in the way, i would have had the sweetest night of rest that i've had in sometime. even while tossing and turning, though, i couldn't resist looking forward to a week of sports-talk that will go back and forth between bama's "gutsy" bounceback win and auburn having lost their season to a true freshman's learning curve.

should be fun.

calling all racists
(sanctification is tough)


having given it some thought recently, i think i have a little better understanding of the quote that was attributed to dave chappelle after he walked away from his uber-popular comedy central show. the quote in question was thrown around in several articles documenting the comedian calling it quits. in so many words, chappelle said that a white member of his live, studio audience "laughed too hard" at a joke that he, himself, wrote. a switch in his head was flipped for whatever reason, and he decided that it wasn't worth the toil and the trouble to continue putting on the show.

my enlightenment to the notion of a white guy "laughing too hard" being too heavy a burden for a black comedian to carry has arrived in the last couple weeks. during that time, i've been watching season one of the boondocks. based on his comic strip of the same name, the boondocks is an animated tv show created by aaron mcgruder. in it we see the world of two black brothers, 10 year-old huey and 8 year-old riley, that live with their granddad who has moved them into an upper-class white neighborhood. racial tension, stereotypes and hijinks ensue, naturally. we see the action through the eyes of huey, a left-leaning, intellectual idealist (remember, he's ten) that lives in a world (and culture) that has not evolved in a way that he is proud of. although accepting and proud of his roots, he hangs his head in shame as he sees "his people" perpetuate conventions and patterns that "the white man" can use to keep "them" down. along the way of the show, the word "nigga" is thrown around like south park threw around "shit" in their infamous exercise in desensitization. hearing the "n" word thrown around like it carries no more weight than any other word is freeing, funny and kind of scary all at the same time. and letting the humor of this and other images like a pimp named slickback ("you've got to say the whole thing, like 'a tribe called quest'!!!") rise to my surface has called my inner racist into question. i enjoy the show. and i laugh out loud a couple times during every episode. but am i laughing at, as i think chappelle worried, "the stupid, funny black people" or am i taking the show and it's banter for what i believe the creator intends? that being a social commentary bent on breaking down stereotypes through levity and affecting positive change. to be honest with you, i really don't know.

nature has not born me with racist leanings, but i am sure my nurture has contributed to some degree. both of my grandfathers fell into the category of "blacks are pretty worthless". my grandmothers were and are more grown up about it. i've had several step-fathers that could take or leave black folks as fellow human beings. it just depended on their (the step-fathers) mood and what they (the black people) could do for them. and living in the south, i've run into more than my share of out and out rednecks that wished for blacks to somehow find their way off this island we call the united states. i have hoped that, as i've grown up, i have learned from all of the ignorance around me and spun those negatives into positives within the make-up of who i am today. but i will admit here, there are days in the store in the middle of huffman when something is stolen or a bad attitude is in full display that i can feel some primal part of me refusing to believe anything more than the act or the action is or was because "they are black." ludicrous and, again, ignorant considering that, when i remove myself from the heated situation and biased setting (considering 90 percent of our customers are non-white), i know "white" collar crime does far more damage to this country than petty crime and bad attitude that is more a reflection on life itself being shitty and having nothing to do with white and black.

i worry about this question, this "am i a racist?" question currently because humc is staging a deliberate march toward re-inviting the "community" back into our walls. and by community, i mean, of course, non-white people. i worry because i don't know if we are approaching the goal in the right way. i worry if we know what the goal truly is. if it's to create a loving and attractive atmosphere to all people of all races regardless of color, then sign me up. but if it's to obtain "non-whites" as if they were an objective because they live around the church and we are worried about our ever-shortening lifespan, then we will fail. are we, as a very white church, even comfortable enough to own our inner racists, break down the misinformed formulas in our heads and create the colorblind atmosphere that jesus has always intended? to that question, too, i answer "i don't know."

obviously, i don't want to be a white guy that "laughs too hard" at dave chappelle, the boondocks or anyone whose fortunes are not as blessed as mine. and on most days, i don't think i am. god help me on the days i am not so sure.

the only nfl preview that matters
(to me)


"the nfl is our national pastime. it is our church. it is cocaine, and we are darryl strawberry."

what a great, great line courtesy of mjd in this morning's debriefing. great, because it is so true. in the land of sports, one league reigns supreme and that league is the nfl. if you are a sports fan and you watch espn, you are well aware of this. and don't get me wrong. i love, even luff, college football. i love that alabama destroyed western carolina high. i love that michigan lost. i love that brandon cox started earlier in the season than i thought at making me look like a prophet. i love the sec. i can't wait 'til saturday when i will be traveling with the tide to their true season-opener against vandy. i love that i'll be back home in time to see the auburn game, notre dame starting a true freshman at quarterback and the lsu/va. tech game. i love all of that and will love every bit of the college football season. but i am with mjd. the nfl is the straw that will stir my drink beginning tomorrow night and ending with a super bowl party at my or one of my friends' house. this is true for all sorts of reasons, and many of those reasons include my fantasy team, but i won't bore you any more with that. i'll just say that i pulled off a trade, ended up with peyton (pictured above) and all is well with my world. i cannot wait to get home tomorrow night to watch the colts and the reggie bush's. tomorrow will be a good day.

there are times when i feel alone, though, with my nfl love. i have my fantasy league, and all of the guys in the league are big enough sports guys that we will have fun competing, but if we were to all get together, it would be alabama or college football that would rule the conversation. deep down, i think kiker is more excited about his college fantasy team than his nfl one. andy's more of a college football guy. i am pulling heath over to the dark side i think, but it's going to be a slow process. being alone, though, is ok. that just means i can enjoy the fruits of my hours in front of the tv or the computer with myself. i can deal with that. hell, i'll probably enjoy it more that way than talking nfl with a friend kind enough to humor me and just throws out a michael vick reference here or there to make me feel like he's paying attention.

off the nfl page for a second, things at home are going pretty well too. my attitude is improving a little bit each passing day. hannah was finally ruled shigella-free and went back to kindergarten this morning. it was only three hours, but it was three hours that were very stress-less and that proved easy to get a workout in. sarah is still feeling pretty good about her and caroline's nursing habits. and caroline, herself, is a very calm baby (knock on wood). she sleeps (sometimes loudly)a lot. is happy to eat when she's awake. takes a pacifier well. most of the time, she has a very calming presence. when she's fussing, hannah has taken to mocking her, which is really funny until she passes "that point" that she becomes annoying. caroline and the family made it out to her first postpartum softball game last night. it was a doozy of a game against a really good team and daddy got the barry bonds treatment and was walked with the game on the line. i was pissed, but it was kind of cool too that i had performed well enough during the game for them to fear me. i like that.

church...wow. church has kind of become an afterthought, i guess naturally, the last few weeks. we are talking about going to the wednesday night kickoff tonight, which could be ok. i am not excited about it, but we probably should try and include that in our new routine. i tell you what. i've said this out loud to a couple folks, but not being on a church staff means that waiting on "something to happen" feels like waiting for paint to dry. things are moving dreadfully slowly, thus far, as it concerns my finding a new place other than sunday school to be involved. some of this may be on my end. after coming away from my and julie's conversation somewhat uninspired, i think my motivation has taken a hit. i'll have to make intentional efforts to do something about that moving toward the end of the year. i'll keep you posted.

moving away from the diary portion of the post, i'll end this "preview" the same way i ended the college one. with a few tidbits of sarcasm:

- who will win the super bowl this year? i hope the colts, but really, who cares? i am fairly sure that most of my readers don't give a shit about the nfl, but dammit, we will still use the super bowl as an excuse to hang out and die slowly with some kiker burgers, am i right andy? kiker?

- will michael vick ever play in the nfl again? too soon for that call. if the judge surprises everyone and only gives mike a year in the slammer, then maybe. if it's more than two seasons, then the next time i see mike vick in person again may be running around the bjcc in a steeldogs uni.

- is tiki barber a dick? for those of you that don't know, tiki barber is a retired running back, formerly of the new york giants, that retired with gas left in the tank. since retiring, he has ripped his old quarterback, eli manning (pictured above), called out his coach and ripped his teammates some more. for as much i throw the word around here, if you ever wanted definition 1a of "douchebag", this is it.

- are the falcons still my favorite team? great question and i'll be honest. i think the answer is no. not this year. and i hate that. it just goes to solidify my own realization that i am, in fact, a fairweather fan. and the falcons will be in my top two, but they will fall behind peyton and the colts this year. r.i.p., falcons, until jesus brohm comes next year to raise you from the dead.

- will you stop talking about sports anytime soon? this one's for my brother, brian, who is now peeking at the site. and the short answer is no, but all my posts, sports entries included, will always include something for everyone i hope.

enjoy the weekend. remember the name, star jackson. brandon cox for president. war saban.