"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.

the only college football preview that matters

(to me)

college football season kicks off this weekend, you say? is that so? you would think that something as big and fantastic as the introduction to the best four months of the year would receive more hype. something like a cable-sports channel devoting of full day's worth of scheduling around the projections and prognostications of persons no more qualified than me about what will happen on the way to usc winning the national championship. yeah, you're right. that did happen.

quite honestly, i am a little surprised at how indifferent i feel about the weekend. sure, having a real, live college football game on last night, sarah and i agreed, "just felt right". having quality games on tomorrow afternoon and night do get me excited a little. but i am not frenzied. i am probably still more nervous about the braves game tonight and this weekend's series with the mets as i am anything else sports related. why is this?

my best guess is that alabama doesn't really start their season 'til next week. i know. i know. they have their (pre)season-opener against western carolina tomorrow night, but this will be nothing more than a ceremony that will mean nothing more than setting a depth-chart for fans for the rest of the season. the only exception to the notion that this game is meaningless is for those lucky 90 some-odd thousand that will be there in person. preseason or not, a night game at bryant-denny is a night game at bryant-denny. and only in person will you be able to feel how awesome it is to have nick saban roaming the sidelines. i may be able to feel the electricity coming from the stadium around kick-off all the way here in birmingham, but let's face it. that alabama is without prince hall, keith brown, the starting nose-tackle, among others and i still will be disappointed if the game doesn't end in a forty point margin tells me that i should wait and get my rile up next week for the vandy game.

my second-best guess is that hannah has sucked the life out of me. i am not kidding. i feel like i've been walking around with a blank expression on my face for days. and that's a shame. i will look back on this week, maybe as soon as sunday when i go back to work, and wish i had enjoyed having so much time with her and the rest of the family more. sarah and i agree, though, that we are both better off working for a living and not being so wealthy that we could stay at home with each other all of the time for several reasons. one, hannah and caroline would become spoiled, socially handcuffed children and nobody wants that. two, we would kill each other. i feel like i am acting out bill cosby's himself routine in real life. all i am telling hannah is what she can't do. stop this. quit that. it's ridiculous. she is not a bad kid. she isn't even acting out this week. she's just here. and in the way of the ideal week i had in my head that never would have played out anyway even if the shigella didn't keep her out of school all week.

i am trying to take a deep breath and enjoy the last couple days home (not that i haven't, to some degree, enjoyed all of them. this has been a very special week.) i have with the girls. i feel like i've been "good" with regards to taking care of them, but my attitude has probably not always been the best. it's funny. in my mind, after coming home from work and picking hannah up from school, i wonder and wish for more time with her. i am sure it'll be the same with caroline. it's definitely that way with sarah. but, maybe, we aren't meant to be together in the same room with the same three people all the time. maybe without the time away from those that we love the most, we wouldn't really appreciate them as much as we should and eventually do. it's an interesting thought. one worth debating i guess. one that i'll ponder when i wake up sunday and start cursing under my breath at the thought of going back to work.

so, i may not be all go-go gadget college football just yet, but i am sure that'll come. before it does, a couple of predictions for the upcoming season.

- if you believe "the experts" and that usc and their crap-tacular system quarterback is going to go undefeated and win the title this year, i have some land in west virginia to sell you. oh, and on that land will reside the real national champion. quick, name me one guy on usc not named booty. or mcknight. or gable. or turner. your turn. go.

- if you believe darren mcfadden will win the heisman, you don't know dick (and by dick, i mean the quarterback that will lose the heisman for the best player in the country.).

- if you believe lsu is as good as miss. st.'s quarterback made them look last night, tune is next week when they beat va. tech 7-0, touchdown courtesy of the coolest player in the country, trindon holliday.

- if you believe alabama will go any better than 7-5, please send me what you are smoking. or shooting up. or snorting. no, really. whatever it is, send it to me. i want to live in the same make-believe world as you.

- if you believe brandon cox is good enough to win any of auburn's four big road games, well, what can i say? enjoy the delusion. i wish alabama had an oft-injured, really old quarterback that can't throw very hard or run very fast. that would be awesome.

- finally, if you don't believe that the only thing that matters is whether julio jones comes to alabama and brings his five star buddies with him, then you can't see the forest for the trees.

enjoy the weekend. roll saban.

to catch a thief

("how dare you accuse me of stealing?")

((uh...because you stole?))







there is a line we draw in our mind. a line that is formed/molded/defined in any number of ways. those ways include our upbringing. literal black and white laws of our school, city, county, state and country. the bible. what we see on tv. the music we listen to. the friends we hold dear. etc. etc. etc. on one side of that line is right. on the other side of that line is wrong. every one of us, each and every individual on this planet that is as unique as a snowflake, have different translations of right and wrong. each of us have priorities unique to our own person that allow us to rationalize things some would see as wrong as ok. and that brings us to last thursday.

bending the rules is a time-honored tradition in every aspect of life. the idea of "if you aren't bending the rules, you aren't trying hard enough" has almost become cliche'. old hat. a given. acceptable as the norm. but why? i understand that society has (and must) evolved. i understand that with that evolution, there has and will be "rules" that need to be updated, changed even, to fit the current time and culture. but with those changes, some things will always stay the same. one of those things is stealing. if something is not yours, no matter what you think "the world owes me", you cannot take it. it is not right or acceptable to sell stolen merchandise to fellow co-workers to make a profit for yourself. it is not cool to haggle male customers (let's play like the "hypothetical" person i have in my head is female) for their extra change in exchange for your fake phone number. it is not passable to claim two dependents on your federal tax return and reap the financial benefits while you are a hard-working, single-mother of none. and it's not fair for "someone" to bring merchandise taken from a psp and return it at my store for a full-price refund when you didn't pay for it in the first place. because the last straw was the one that i had some personal control over, it just so happened to break my proverbial camel's back.

"how dare you accuse me of stealing, kevin?????"

"you know me!!! how dare you accuse me of stealing????"

i didn't really accuse anyone of stealing. i just called into question that the product returned was a) returned in it's original plastic, plastic that is not used in any psp merchandising, b) the "person" in question did not have "her" receipt and c) "she" had just left "her" store a half-hour earlier/claimed that "she" didn't want to drive back to "her" store to return it/had the product in "her" possession in the plastic for a over a month and thursday was the day "she" "needed" to return it/...at our store. long story short, my boss got involved, the "person" in question was confronted with it and was asked to provide proof of purchase and made "her" way to our store to go apeshit on me.

it's funny how the back and forth ultimately went. i, calmly, asked "her" to explain why "she" was upset. "she", in a ferocious, obscenity laced tirade that even made me proud, could not calmly explain anything. "she" was upset that i had made it an "issue". i mean, why wouldn't i trust "her"? if someone's right/wrong governor was so fucked in their head that they thought it was fine to steal from the government, in my mind, stealing from your employer surely was acceptable too. the hissy-fit ended with "her" telling me that "if i lose my job over this, kevin, i swear to god. it's me and you. it's me and you." now, the "it's me and you" and it's intent is, obviously, debatable. from my end, i didn't get the impression that "she" was talking about going out to lunch and talking things through. but i've seen boyz 'n the hood enough times that it worried me about walking through any narrowly lit alleys for a while.

and then caroline came later that night. and this little dramatic episode felt a lot less important. i told my boss before i drove home thursday that i wasn't sorry for what had happened. i didn't want any apologies for having been berated with language that might have made more of an impact if i weren't an expert in their use. what i was sorry for was that "she", at least as of thursday afternoon, was the one that thought "she" had been done wrong. that "her" life situation was in poor enough shape that stealing had become a natural and acceptable means to an end. if "she" had needed 73 bucks that day, i would have written her a check. but instead she made a bed that slept "her" looking for a new job.

work last thursday was pretty easy for me. i just did my job. i followed the rules. enforced a couple that needed to be enforced. but at issue here is not that an employee stole and got caught. it's that they thought stealing was ok. it's that their right/wrong line in their head had been kicked by the mule that is life and they now stared at the world cross-eyed.

i don't believe that we are born bad. i believe that we are born into a world that needs us to make choices. i believe that we are bred by a god that allows us to make those choices. some would call that a fallen world. i call it grace. and by grace, i don't think stealing is ok. or other "bad" things. and i thank god for that. in that same breath, though, i wonder what my role is to the cross-eyed.

i don't really understand how i came to where i am today, therefore i am unfit in many ways to lead. and so i choose to lead, not by command, but by example and hope that, also by grace, god's will leads my actions. the world is not fallen, people, but there are parts of it that are broken.

here's to fixing them.

hannah and caroline and me
(part two)

this is just a tease. in a couple days, hannah's website will become hannah and caroline's website. all of the hospital and coming home pictures will be up for your enjoyment. you can just follow the link from this page on the right. under "to pass the time", click on my muse(s).

hannah and caroline and me
(part one)


whew!!! what a week! the fall softball season started with a whimper. the braves began what looks to be their slide out of playoff contention even though they rid themselves of the cancer that was bob wickman. i had my physical person threatened by an about-to-be ex-employee of pet supplies "plus" and, let's see, what else...oh, yeah...we had a baby!!!

that's right, folks! caroline lilla o'kelley (20 and 1/2 inches long, 7 lb. 9 oz.) joined this world on august 23rd at 10:26 p.m. thursday was pretty much going according to normal (outside of the physical threatening part) up until sarah got home from tuscaloosa suffering from "back" pains. turns out those back pains were, in fact, labor pains. hannah and i ate a quick dinner, took a quicker bath and we were off. we made it to the hospital around 800. sarah got her drugs and things calmed down around 915. the nurse checked sarah around 945 and things ramped up again when the nurse looked at me and said, "we are going to have a baby in a few minutes." i jumped into action as the dad, which entailed not much more than rubbing sarah's forehead and pulling her left leg back when instructed by the nurse. the whole birthing process went really fast as sarah pushed for all of 15 minutes and caroline was here. as kiker so eloquently put it, "with the second one, the tracks are already greased." ahhh, kiker. it was fun that it happened fast enough that hannah was still hanging around with maine in the waiting room. she and grandmother got to come in and meet the new addition before they went home for the evening. shortly after the initial meet and greet, the weekend took a turn for the somewhat unexpected.

as hannah tried to fight off sleep on the car ride home, she threw up. then, when she woke up friday morning, she threw up again. we are no doctors, but this told us something must be wrong. so, i went home and cleaned up, picked up puny hannah and we came back to the hospital. after some short notice help from amy, i took hannah to the doctor along with a poop sample (yes, you read that right. amy and i fished hannah poop out of the toilet to take it to the doctor for them to test and make sure that she didn't have a disease that i only heard of two weeks ago and still have no idea what is. thankfully, we found out this morning she doesn't have the "shigella". she just had a stomach virus...edit - as of monday afternoon, hannah is now POSITIVE for shigella and out of school for a week. amy, i am going to need you back here around wed. for another stool sample gathering. :(), we came back to the hospital, finished the day one visits and came home for the night. sarah and caroline stayed at the hospital alone, which kind of made a daddy sad, but things are going to be different the second time around. it's only taken two days for that to become very apparent.

day two and this morning were very smooth and calm. hannah turned the corner and became herself again. sarah began breast feeding and already feels better about this go-around as compared to her and hannah's experience. several people have commented that caroline favors me, which i don't really know if that's the case of if they are just trying to make me feel better. hannah still looks so much like her mommy that i am now certain that all of my dna got beat up by sarah's mean, bully dna. caroline, on the other hand, came out with product on her big, head full of hair self which led to several "you and caroline have the same haircut" type jokes. no matter. i'll take what i can get.

and so, the adventure has begun. caroline has been, thus far, very respectful of my priorities. her timing will not interfere with the fantasy draft tomorrow night or week two of softball. what a good girl she is. hannah and i are going to be spending a lot of time together the next few weeks, what with mommy's driving restrictions and the whole thing about her being the baby's only source of nutrition. this should work out fine for me. i'll let you know when hannah starts getting sick of the daddy/daughter time. as for sarah and me, i have no idea when we will ever see each other or talk again. there seems to be so much to do and take care of. sure, we are in the same room, but so are (now) two other girls that very much need attention. this is going to take some getting used to. i can feel it. but it's just another challenge. a mental one for sure. but a physical one too, and those were always my preferred choice anyway. i think we'll be fine.

so, here we are. o'kelley, party of four, reporting for duty. let's light this candle!!!

sarah and i.
are.
alabama football.


it's funny that he put it this way, but when sarah's dad listened to his daughter telling him about her mom being in the hospital and feeling shorthanded for the coming weekend, his response was, "i am coming. you can add me to the depth chart." perfectly appropriate timing considering we are less than two weeks away from the first college football saturday of the fall. football analogy aside, it spoke, in a very profound way, to the way that our support system seems to be strengthening at the same time our family (sarah, hannah, caroline and me) does the same. this is, most likely, not a coincidence.

when sarah and i met and began our courtship, our family compared and contrasted in similar ways. we both came from divorced families. we both were raised in strong, single (at least in spirit) mom households. we had brothers on/recovering from drugs. we had both lost touch and contact for some period with our fathers. done the same with god and church. we were caring people and giving of our time. but we couldn't seem to translate that care and concern fully to the significant other that we happened to be around. and then we ran into each other.

and something, very naturally, clicked.

we married, but my baggage, at the very least, would keep us far away from our relationship "peaking too early." we were strong in ways. not so strong in others. we knew of mistakes of our parents that we didn't want to make again, but that would not prevent us from making up some of our own. we had hannah. we stayed busy. we enjoyed some days. and we didn't others. i couldn't get over how many jackasses there were at my church. i left the church. sarah supported me. i went to huntsville.

and then it clicked for real. it took almost four years for us to learn how to be married. and now it all makes sense. the bad seems silly. the past seems like, merely, a means to a greater end. and we now move forward. stronger than ever.

along the way, as our health increased, other things improved. sarah's dad, who had already peeked his head back into the door, knocked the door down and introduced himself as her father again. my friendships with andy and kiker became defined by real life and not just by sports. my other friendships found new meaning. young persons that i befriended while they were in high school became true friends that i could call on short notice and they would be happy to pick up hannah from school and take care of her. relationships with youth council members evolved into adult and meaningful conversations over mexican food. we randomly visited with my mother and nothing bad happened. things change, but things never change. these are only small (in number) examples of my and our cup beginning to overflow. and this doesn't even include the fact that i am beginning to look forward to church again.

great things have a tendency to lose their shine from time to time. just ask alabama football. but if something was great from the beginning and the legacy's foundation was laid true, there will always be potential for a new coat of wax. a new look. a sparkplug here. a five-star recruit there. an anniversary and second child everywhere. it's just a matter of putting things back in perspective.

the good things along the way of my life didn't "just happen", but i kept getting in my own way and couldn't appreciate what was happening. and that doesn't mean that everything is perfect now. but the potential for greatness is very much in our grasp. with increasing depth and air in our lungs come the fourth quarter, who knows what we as a family may end up accomplishing. who knows what may be healed or created along the way. who knows will take care of itself.

i read a column this week talking about a major league player that, in his first season, felt like he had to prove his worth in every single game, but this year he was realizing that he and his team were defined by their year, not 1/162 of it. what a wonderful moment that must have been for him. and i can relate. i can look back and see where i tried too hard some days and not hard enough on others. and i can remember the severe peaks and valleys that came with my defining myself by those individual days. i don't know if it's an age thing or a state of mind thing, but i don't do that any more, and i am a lot less stressed, which is a good thing. my and sarah's marriage, if health and circumstances treat us well, will not be defined in any one year. it will hopefully be defined by fifty or more and i count myself blessed to realize that at 30 and not 60. in the same way, my church will not be defined by the success of our effort over the next five years, but that definition and legacy is already written in it's over hundred-year history. that is also good to swallow.

some day in the future, sarah and i will talk about how awesome it was way back when alabama won the national championship in the 2009/10 season. it will be fun to combine those memories with those of '92 and the seventies that we read about and the bear that grumbled over the coolest pregame montage in football. it will be fun to catalog the parallels of our life and the school that helped shape ten-plus years of sarah's life/taught me why "fan" was short for fanatic. it will be easy to remember, with flippancy, the bad times of both. our foundation has been laid true. and we may have to slap on a fresh coat of vacation from time to time. but our life will be well worth cheering for. and the folks we hold near and dear to us will help tell our story.

"i am always for the animal...never for the person."

listen. i am coming to a conclusion that may sound mean-spirited, but the longer i work in a pet store, the more confident i am in my theory. i feel comfortable sharing this with you because i share the same boat as those that i am about to call out, but experiences like the one i had last night only drive my point home. that point? people that live with an animal inside their house will eventually go crazy. some have already crossed the divide into lunacy-ville. but make no mistake, people, if you have a pet inside your home, you (and i) are traveling down that road.

you don't have to invest too much time in The Word to happen across the creation story, days four and five. these happen to be the "days" that god creates "huge whales, flying birds, cattle, reptiles and wild animals - all kinds" including us humans. he also proclaimed that we, humans that is, either hold dominion over or are responsible for (depending on which translation you subscribe to) all the animals on the earth. as people go, you can probably place yourself, as it concerns your feelings towards animals, into one of these two camps. you are either in the "dominion over" camp and can rationalize everything from eating meat to hunting for sport or you can fall into the "responsible for" camp and can rationalize everything from eating meat (as long as the meat doesn't come from a slaughterhouse or mcdonald's) to never visiting a zoo because it seems "inhumane" for an animal to be held in captivity. as goes any either/or subject, the evolution of society has seen the "dominion over" camps and the "responsible for" camps develop their own specialized, extremist sects. the extremists in the "dominion over" camp go so far as to disembowel weak pit bulls like mel gibson in braveheart because the owner just bet his bmw that his rich, nfl-quarterback cousin bought him and came out on the losing end. the extremists in the "responsible for" camp can be defined in the lady that came in the store last night.

the lady seemed nice enough when she came in. she was wearing her sunglasses at night, which added cool points in my book and i didn't think of her as a troublemaker until several minutes later. several minutes later, i overheard her bitching to tiffany about the "health" of our cockatiel. and in some of her points, she was correct. the bird is sick. it is listless. it does seem lethargic. all of those things are true. but the lady started getting hostile in her accusations that we were going out of our way to harm the bird. she alleged that in her previous trip into the store she noticed that the bird had been fed hamster food (which could have happened on accident, but i don't believe did). she alleged that all the young people responsible for the birds and small animals well-being were idiots. and she told me that in cases such as these, she "was always for the animal, never for the person." and she lost me. i could go into detail about the rest of our conversation, but in those details i would lose my point. the short version is that i, in some way, convinced her that we were all doing the best that we could to educate ourselves in the way of cockatiel care and we would go out of our way to do the same with the rest of the animals. she seemed ok with my assertion and left. my point, though, is that she had already punched her ticket to crazy town.

and why? probably because she, like many others, have fallen victim to the notion that animals can become "part of the family" when the truth of the matter is that the notion of "family" as humans define it is lost on a pet. do my cats appreciate my giving them food and water? they seem to. but would they care any less if it was someone else giving them food? no, i think not. and this is even more of a truism when it comes to some of the other "pets" that we sell. hamsters? gerbils? birds? snakes? spiders? i have a hard time believing that past their instinctual needs of survival they place any great weight on their relationship with those that tend to those needs (dogs may, to some degree, be the exception in this argument. if a thief came into my house, my cats would either hide under the couch or purr and rub against the robber's leg. my dog, KAMmie would probably bravely and ignorantly get in the way because she likes me.). in fact, even with pets that have been in a loving home for years upon years, i am willing to bet, if such a thing could be proven, that most of their waking life is spent inside their cage/aquarium/house worrying about the next time the "hand of god" will reach into their prison and lay "crickets from heaven" at their feet. and because of this combined with being around persons that take pets a little too seriously on a daily basis, i tend to be disappointed in those persons more than i am a champion for them.

that said, i am an enabler. i now exploit these very primal and very human desires to feel like you are taking care of something for money. i encourage crazy cockatiel women that their own would be better off with bird "candy" and other things in the store with high profit margins. after all, that is my job, right?

i just feel like there is something almost inherently flawed in the idea of of keeping an animal in your house and developing a parent/child relationship with it. i think you can start to lose sight of the intended relationship between man and animal as god intended it. i think you can place too much weight on the plight of a cockatiel versus the importance of talking in a civil manner to a fellow human being. i think you can shelter yourself off from the world and forget that being "responsible for" an animal does not give you the right to call out people who have not gone quite as crazy as you just yet.

but who am i to judge? like i said, i am in this boat. i have cats and who knows what weight i would put into my relationship with them if something tragic happened and my real family was taken away from me. right now, though, i am thankful that i still maintain a perspective that allows me to differentiate between the role i play in hannah's life and that of my cats and dog. i am thankful that i am not in a place that i think it would ever be a good idea to put my dog in a t-shirt. i am thankful that i am certain KAMmie enjoys her sticks in the backyard just as much as a $30 tire rope. and i am thankful that i am nowhere near the crazy cockatiel lady last night that is always for the animal and never the person. god, help me never reach that place. and if i do reach that place, that crazy place, please give kiker or andy the peace of mind to shoot me and put me out of my misery.

hannah and me, part twenty-nine

"a picture is worth a thousand words." - chinese proverb

i surely won't add a thousand of my own. but it's hard to believe that this may be the last pre-caroline chapter in the series. i don't even know what i want to write about, necessarily. i just thought it would be nice for hannah to know that i was thinking of her. thinking of times like the one pictured above that i always seem to take for granted. i remember this particular nap in georgia vividly. you know what i remember? being uncomfortable and hot. pretty sad, huh?

it wasn't until i saw this picture that i thought about hannah being perfectly content. happy to take an exhausted nap on top of her daddy. meow in one hand, daddy in the other. it was a good, long nap and it served it's purpose. she was recharged for the rest of the day and the ride home afterward. and that's really what it's all about, isn't it? trying as hard as you can to make your child perfectly content. trying to balance that effort with her childish wants of candy and barbie movies and more candy and everything her way all the time. it's during those childish times that i tend to lose sight of the greater good. my benefit to her in times of better and in times of worse. my need to be for her full-time the kind of father and relationship that i lost when i was eight. i get frustrated. i get moody. i get short-sighted. and i hate that.

i think i am getting better, though. i haven't really been ashamed of myself, with regards to my actions around her, in a long time. maybe being aware of wanting to change really can translate to actual change. maybe. it's this kind of attitude that i am going to share with hannah soon and thank her for the lessons. because of her and her patience and grace, caroline will be the better for it. hannah will be the better for it. and we as a family will be better for it.

soon enough, the name of this series will change. hannah and me will be retired. hannah and caroline and me will be introduced. that sounds like fun. hannah, you are the most wonderful muse a man could ever ask for and your daddy loves you for inspiring me to couple something that i enjoy with what i hope, someday, is something you will see as a fun and special gift.

sleep tight, baby girl. you'll always have a spot on daddy's chest.

dale murphy is concerned for our children

i am a day late referencing this story due to working yesterday morning, but i wanted to comment on it anyway. it provides an interesting conflict, for me anyway, between the unconditional love of a childhood hero vs. the unconditional respect i have for the new home run king. the story came out yesterday that dale murphy, my all-time favorite baseball player, thinks that barry bonds is a "terrible example for our kids." He is also quoted as saying that he knows, "without a doubt", that barry used performance enhancing drugs. and this enlightens me to something i never knew about dale murphy. dale murphy used to stick needles filled with horse testosterone into barry bonds butt.

right? i mean, he said without a doubt, which means he has what we have wanted all along with this whole steroids/barry bonds mess. empirical, first hand evidence of barry bonds juicing. and the only way he could have such evidence that would lead him to making such a claim is if he was holding one of barry's butt cheeks in one hand, telling him that "this may sting a little" (or a lot depending on the quality of the horse testosterone), sticking the needle in the other cheek and then emptying the syringe. thank you, dale murphy, for closing the book on this oh-so-frustrating story.

obviously, i am giving good 'ole dale a hard time. i mean, he is mormon, so the real story here is which one of his wives came to him and told him that it was time for him to throw his two cents in. the older, fat one that usually cooks dinner. the middle-aged, soft-spoken one that takes all the kids to school. or the trophy-wife one that is just pissed off that the older, fat one got dale in bed before she did. listen, it's hard for me to swallow all of barry's accomplishments as "natural", whatever that even means. but the more i hear people like bob costas bash the guy, the more i sympathize with him. the more i want to cheer him on. the more i want him to set the record so far out there that even arod can't catch him. the more i want to give him a big hug and tell him that this too shall pass. and i appreciate dale for his concern for hannah and caroline and all the other children in the world that he is certain will try steroids because he "knows" barry did, but i have a message for dale. shut the fuck up!

we are not all experts on everything. when did it become so unacceptable to just say i don't know? when some reporter approached dale about barry, shouldn't the response have been something like, "well, he looks bigger to me than we he first came up, but if we are going strictly on putting on weight as you get older, someone must be injecting me with hgh...in. my. belly. hahahahahahaha!!!", and let that be it? but no, he had to act offended at the thought of someone not hank aaron, someone not as mormon as he is having the record and just couldn't deal with it. or maybe he had some other motive. who knows. and i mean, i get it. i do. when someone asks me a question at the store about fish that i don't know, it would make me sound better if i made up some bullshit about ph and nitrate and blah, blah, blah. but i don't. if i don't know for sure, i ask someone else and hope that the customer respects my want to be honest over my want to be "right."

i guess i shouldn't complain too loudly. i like to know what athletes are thinking just like the rest of us. and i've often wondered about how cool it would be to talk baseball and hitting with dale murphy, but, most of the time, i just come away disappointed because i realize that they don't have any special insight into anything other than the sport they are really good at. and this is another example of that. i guess if i ever talk to dale, i'll ask him about baseball or about how he keeps his wives from killing each other.

i just won't ask him about barry. he may take hannah and caroline away from me and throw him in his barry-free basement never for me to see them again.