Sunday, December 31, 2006

the list


the last day of the year. why not spend the remaining hours contemplating my year in music. i thought i'd wait 'til next week to post the order and explanations, but after finishing andy's list, i was inspired to go ahead with mine.

first, the disclaimer. i mentioned with last year's list that my purchases were fewer than in year's past. well, there were even fewer this year. 24 all told, including a christmas gift. that's two per month, which still sounds pretty high, but it's not when compared to three or four years ago when i could buy four to five cd's a month. why the continued dropoff? well, after returning home in april from (part-time) huntsville, my commute for the next four months was about a minute and a half. ergo, not enough time in the car. ergo, not much motivation to buy music for the car. also, wjox 690 has recently expanded into the fm universe. this may not mean much to some of you, but what it means to me is that i have access to sports talk 24-7 now. previously, am jox would power down at 6 pm on the weekdays and through the weekend, so unless you were driving circles around their studio during the down times, you couldn't really pick up the signal. having sports "always on" in my car has also whiddled at my need for new music every time i crank the tribute up. due to these circumstances, i am trimming the yearly top ten down so not to water down the list. a "top ten" out of 24 wouldn't be very exclusive. this year, it'll be...

my top five records of 2006!!!!!

5) the arctic monkeys - whatever people say i am, that's what i'm not - snotty, brit punk/rock at it's finest. when oasis ruled the world ten years ago, i told myself that i'd never be into a british band that was "the next big thing" or set to "take over rock". well, i was wrong. these guys are all about twenty years old, but the music is way more mature than their age. the insight from the story-esque songs also doesn't seem to fit into what must be very limited life experience. nevertheless, it all fits and flows. every song has a definining melody. a guitar lick that will stick in your head for days. good stuff. fun stuff. the first album i bought this year with twelve months of staying power.

4) my chemical romance - the black parade - i've been surprised to see this album popping up on year end end lists everywhere. but not too surprised. only because it's that good. mcr have always had the theatrical element as part of their definition. this album, though, owns the theatrics and puts it in the forefront of what may end up being the generation behind me's tommy. a rock opera from the word go. these guys are really good rock musicians, and now they understand what they want their band to be. queen. could be worse, right jacob?

and thus begins the biggest cop-out since i've been doing these lists.

1a) blood brothers - young machetes - that's right. 1a. which means there is going to be a 1b and 1c. i just can't find anything to separate my top three. all three albums i listen to without skipping a track. all three albums a little different. all three my favorite of 2006. there isn't much i can say about this album that i didn't already back in october, so i won't repeat myself. bottom line is that this album has only grown on me since then. i listen to it every time i work out. the only notion that i'll disagree with andy on is that it's not pop. it's not justin timberlake pop. or even brandtson pop. it's blood brothers pop. and that, in my mind, is what all pop should be be made of.

1b) park - building a better _____ - my next two have more in common with andy's list than i was first willing to acknowledge. while andy's list is full of singer/songwriters, park and brand new are very much the brainchildren of dominant frontmen. it won't be long before ladd mitchell and jesse lacey are known outside of their bands. i hope not too soon, though, for i like them both very much in their current incarnations. park's last album kicked serious ass. a lot of emotional/suicidal/depressed rock in a package that was hard not to classify as "emo". they stepped away from the screaming on this record and put together a beautiful effort. as romantic and inspiring in places as their last album was a downer, i could sit and sing lines from this album all day. i love ladd's voice and his sense of melody is one of the most impressive i've ever heard. if you haven't heard park, give this album a try before their last couple and work backwards. or save the others for a rainy day. this one has a couple sad songs, but building a better _______ always points toward the light at the end of the tunnel.

1c) brand new - the devil and god are raging inside me - it is no accident that the two albums i most looked forward to going into 2006, blood bros. and brand new, ended up as co-number ones. they are two of my favorite bands. and like any good band, they don't make the same record twice. i almost let myself be sucked into the online negativity towards this album. it's not deja entendu. it's so "different". but the different is what, ultimately, makes this great. much less accessible than their first two albums, this album finds jesse and company struggling with their inner spiritual side. maybe this album's theme also hits me at a time in my life when i, too, am struggling with where god is pointing me next. whatever the case may be, i love this album. i will love it for a long, long time. and i think when it comes down to it, this may be the soundtrack to whatever direction i head in 2007. the music has reminded some of radiohead, but i don't buy that. not yet. they may be headed in that direction, but they aren't radiohead crazy yet, and i hope they never are. most of the songs tend to be soft introspections that explode into discovery or silence depending on the mood of the songwriter. that explosion is one that the listener can anticipate with every listen, but one that you could travel down a different path to every time considering the many layers that most songs contain. great album. great last purchase of 2006. will stay in the rotation for well into 2007.

just missed...

pearl jam, gatsby's american dream, saves the day, angels and airwaves, the lemonheads

songs of the year:

hide and seek - park
nausea shreds yr head, giant swan - blood brothers
the black parade - mcr
luca, archers, jesus christ - brand new
london bridge - fergie (what???)

Thursday, December 28, 2006

you don't realize how pleasant your "busy" christmas day was until you spend the next day throwing up
(i hate vomit)


christmas has come and gone. hannah is now three years old. we are only a few days away now from the year 2007 and all the jokes about how people are screwing up the dates on their checks because they "can't believe it's 2007!!!". honestly, how many years 'til the window on that particular conversation starter closes? five? maybe ten at the most? with the advent of the checkcard followed by it's complete integration into society, only old people write checks now anyway. when they are gone, we'll have to come up with something new.

so, what will my lasting memory of this year's christmas day be? if you are asking me six months from now, the answer may in fact be different. if you are asking me today, the answer would be vomit. let me explain.

christmas day went pretty much like the last three have gone for us. up close to dawn. family christmas. santa. family presents. the whole bit. off to marie's house for french toast and breakfast casserole and more presents. then off to sandy's (my stepmother) niece's house to visit with my dad, sandy, ken and angel for a bit. open more presents. say our good-bye's. hear crappy excuses as to why dad and sandy won't be at their granddaughter's birthday party. head home. hannah naps. we clean. hannah wakes up. head to marie's again for turkey and dressing (so good....so. good.). then back to our house for hannah's party. the party is nice. everyone has a good time. i give away my playstation 2. the house is empty. day complete. was it a busy day? sure. but every family's christmas day is busy, right? only if you are unlucky.

then comes the vomit. i wake up around 12:45 the next morning and don't feel right. i know what's coming. i just don't want to admit it. after coming out of the bathroom for the first of many, many times, i lay down. an hour later, the marathon session of losing all that lies within me begins and doesn't end until late in the a.m. hours. sarah cycles about two hours behind me most of the day and we spend one of the more miserable and memorably pathetic days together we have ever spent. both sick. neither capable of taking care of the other. both resigned to "get through it" as soon as possible. not really sure when that end is actually going to come.

i think that if i believed in a literal hell, a place of eternal damnation and suffering, i believe now that all you would do there is throw-up. what worse way can you think to spend eternity? spewing from every orifice. muscles you never realized that you had cramping at the same time. head pounding from dehydration. body alternating between adrenaline charged sweat to fear charged cold. a feeling of helplessness so strong that you wonder to yourself if death may be the better way to go at that very moment when things are at their worst.

all in all, the 26th was a long day. i don't know if there really was a lesson to be found in it. i know i did my share of griping about our "schedule", just like i always do. was this god's way of telling me to shut up? maybe (if your idea of god is that he's mean as shit). i know that i felt like i could've been more proactive in making the day as a whole feel less stressful. was the vomit god telling me that i needed the day off from work to "recharge". maybe (if your idea of god is that he is a sneaky little bastard). i guess, now that i feel human again, i will choose to look at it like this. it could've been worse. the vomit could've come the day before. it could've ruined weeks worth of anticipation about what our christmas with hannah would be like, but it didn't. it came the day after. on the 26th. nothing big was going on on the 26th.

so, here we are on the 28th, and things seem to be ok. hannah gets to open more presents tomorrow. probably her last for this year. mommy and daddy are back at work. all bodily systems are operating normally. alabama lost another football game. what's not to love?

Thursday, December 21, 2006

santa kiker
(hannah and me, part seventeen)


so, this is it. the true meaning of my christmas. feel free to argue with me about this. i will just make you feel selfish and wrong. i promise. because this is it. i've had my opportunity to rail against "christmas-time". what i don't like about the season. the worst that it brings out in people. i've had (or read) others tell me what they think christmas should be/is about. baby jesus. a time for family. a time for renewal. a time to let bygones be bygones. a time to focus on someone other than yourself. a time for visa checkcards. and xbox 360's. a time for candles. and ties. the nativity story. the nativity story? rocky 6??? a time for this. a time for that. a time for love. a time for hate. i swear it's not too late. and maybe it is. some of these things. or all of them. or maybe it's this.

so, there's this guy i know. happens to be one of the very few people in this world that i'd take a bullet for. this guy has this crazy idea. he's going to buy a santa suit. he's going to wear this santa suit. and not just for his kids. but for a lot of kids. he's going to make house calls for goodness sake. he's going to spend his weekends at food giant making sure that kids he has never seen and may never see again have a chance to tell santa what they want for christmas. okay, so he's also going to have to give that same chance to 45 year old women with not enough teeth and not enough clothes that think it would be really cute and fun to sit on santa's lap. it's a dirty job. you have to take the good with the bad.

in my eyes, this act, this idea is a beautiful metaphor for what christmas-time should be about. instead of railing against the commercialism of the holiday, this guy is owning it. instead of just being upset that some people are too stingy and selfish to "understand" the "true meaning" of christmas, this guy is doing something about it. and he's making kids happy. and he's making cynical parents warm with the idea of of their kids being happy. it's his idea. it's his ministry. there are people all over the world that play the role of santa. suit and all. some are paid. some are not. these people are very special. kids can't get the idea of jesus as the ultimate "giver". hell, sometimes i can't. but they can get santa. this jolly guy in red that shows up and gives them something out of the kindness of his heart and doesn't ask for anything in return. now, this is the part of the story where some might think or say that santa doesn't come to every house. and i get that. i know i am lucky. i know my family is blessed. but i didn't say santa was the true meaning of christmas. i said this guy, this idea would be my true meaning of christmas.

and so tonight, hannah, santa kiker will come see you. you may be stoked. you may completely freak out. we'll see. i keep thinking, though, that this may be one of your first true memories that you hold onto. i hope so. it would be a good one.

i know i will hold onto it. merry christmas, kiker. merry christmas, indeed.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

ghetto from the get-go
(wal-mart is not your friend)


i wish i could take credit for the post title. it's awesome. but i can't. that came out of sarah's mouth as we were leaving our friendly neighborhood wal-mart last night. why? because it is freaking true. i mean, let's be serious. depending on how highly you rate the "convenience" factor of wal-mart - having everything under the sun in one place -, is there anything to like about it? way too many people. all the time. way too big of a space for a person to genuinely feel comfortable. we, honestly, decided against walking over to look at bikes for hannah last night because the bikes are three fucking miles away from the food section. i got tired just thinking about it. way too big. did i mention the "way too many people" part? it doesn't matter if you go early in the morning. late at night. middle of the night. there are always way too many people there to make sense. it would be different if they were giving away money. food. gold. free you, me and dupree dvd's. something that would draw people in masses to this human wasteland. but they aren't. so, i don't get it. going at christmas-time is even more of a joke, because we have been conditioned to believe that wal-mart will have what we need at the price we want it. they probably don't, or don't anymore because some crazy-ass savage got it after midnight on black friday, but we go anyway, bound to be disappointed. wal-mart is not your friend. not mine. and you know what's worse? i will probably go back sometime soon to get that bike for hannah. someone...FREE ME FROM THIS MACHINE!

speaking of things that irritate me during christmas-time:

* magic 96. some of us really like the christmas music. i do. but i am having a hard time with all the sappy "my neighbor isn't going to have a real christmas" stories they keep playing ad naseum. first of all, you are exploiting this person that feels like they need to call you by playing their story and emotion on air. secondly, you are helping them by doing what again? a $250 checkcard? really??? wow. how gracious you truly are! and what will happen when these people cannot afford food in january? another gift card? or a cold message that it's not december anymore. ugh. let's teach people to "fish".

* the hyper-sensitivity towards the idea of "family". i am guilty of this. shouldn't we focus our attention more on those we love and those that love us back unconditionally than the folks that just so happen to be related to us? i say yes even though i am not sure i am man enough to put that idea into practice this year.

* combo gifts. if you are reading this and know someone (hint, hint) born on or around christmas, remember that you get gifts on your birthday. you get gifts on christmas. so should the person in question.

* buying gifts because it's christmas. "have you started your shopping yet?" has become one of the most annoying things i hear over and over this time of year. particularly because the response tends to be something like, "no, but i'll get it done soon." this implies that you are not going to buy something thoughtful as much as you are getting something out of obligation. don't do that. if you don't feel compelled to put thought into a gift, just send a card. it will come across as more meaningful. i promise.

* christmas lights. i can deal with them a little better now that hannah enjoys them, but i don't like them in general. i don't get the point. it just seems very showy and unnecessary. i love christmas trees. my christmas tree. with ornaments for my family. christmas lights seem silly.

i am sure that sarah and folks at work think i am a scrooge. but i am not. i do like christmas. even more now with hannah. i like buying stuff for people i love and as rehearsed as it is, christmas is a wonderful excuse to do that. i just don't get off on it i guess. i think i am more in love with the feeling that i have recently, that every day is the same. that every day is a gift. and too often we get caught up in ranking days and the impact that those days "should" have on us.

i can't wait 'til christmas. 'til hannah's birthday. the day all the "stuff" goes away and we can enjoy each other. that's all a holiday should be, right? a day to enjoy each other.

Friday, December 08, 2006

alabama-centric

edit: this post, less than 12 hours removed from it being published, is now irrelevant. all except the bottom part about mark gottfried sucking. i stick to that until i am swayed otherwise.

there is no telling how many hundreds upon thousands of bloggers, journalists, what-have-you will comment on this today, but i haven't said much about alabama football all season (not that i've had much reason to), so i'll weigh in with my two cents. i will admit to feeling a little conflicted about the hiring of rich rodriguez. i am sure most rational bama fans may share this feeling with me. now, don't get me wrong. from the word go, once the initial list of names was published, i have been on record rooting for coach rich to be the guy. his offense at west virginia is fun to watch. he has taken that program from mediocrity to bcs-worthy in a very short period of time. he is passionate. he reaks of the "discipline" that oh-so-many alabama fans have been yipping and yelling that mike shula was incapable of doling out. long story short, there isn't one thing to be unhappy with regarding the thought of rich rodriguez being a perfect remedy for what ails ALABAMA FOOTBALL (cue elephant whinny)....

except for the whole, "i am not not leaving west virginia" schtick that he has been playing the last couple of weeks. it doesn't take me or any joe bama fan long to remember the franchione debacle. good to great coach turning bama around bolts for what we know now was his dream job. franchione leaves without telling his players good-bye. sayonara. good riddance. enter mike price. exit mike price. enter mike shula. gag me with a spoon. it sucked. the whole thing sucked. and i can imagine that the way joe bama fan felt back then is exactly what joe west virginia fan is thinking today. "how could he do this?" "he said he was staying." "this is his home." "traitor." "son of a bitch." "wtf." the list goes on and on. and therein lies the reason for my confliction. yes, it is great that bama got a good to great coach. but at what cost? the players he leaves behind may forgive him, but they will not forget this betrayal. they will not forget him being in their living rooms, gushing over his recently signed contract extension, promising his recruits that he will be at west virginia until his grandkids graduate mountaineers.

thankfully, west virginia is a long way away from tuscaloosa. the ill feelings that people have for him up north shouldn't affect the image of the shiny new 2 million dollar coach walking into the homes of high school seniors down in dixie.

i do hate it for the people of wvu. i know what you are thinking this morning. it's not hard to understand how the incredible pay raise, the lure of the sec, the chance to be the next bear could lure your native son away. it's just hard, period. sorry. and thanks for the coach.

etc...if alabama basketball has top five talent (and they do), and their coach cannot defend the three, what do you have? a four or five seed that will have to pull a major upset (think last year and ucla) just to get out of the first weekend of the ncaa tourney. if alabama has two first round picks (and they do), and their coach is going to allow the taller one to audition for the nba by taking jumpers and three point shots instead of playing to his strengths, what do you have? see above. if alabama has a chance pull off a special season (and they do), they need to decide before january what kind of team they are. last night was waaaaaaaaayyyyy too familiar, and i already can't stand mark gottfried as a bench coach. a coach that is constantly outcoached. we got beat by a bunch of white boys shooting threes....again. just like last year.

roll tide?

Monday, December 04, 2006

you're so vain
(you probably think this blog is about you)


but it's not.
i mean, it could be.
but, there's a good chance it's not.
unless you are white.
or black.
or stupid.
or eat too much.
or asian.
or a cundiff.
or something else.
or blonde.
maybe even brunette.
this is not about you.
it could be.
and you may know it.
you may not.
but don't worry.
it's not about you.
unless you deserve it.
and you probably do.
and if you do, well...
that's your own fault.
i don't want it to be about you.
i want it to be about me.
which it is.
and isn't.
but know this.
you better take your shoes off.
even if this isn't about you.
this is holy ground.
so says jesus.
or some guy in the bible.
wow.
you're so vain.
but so am i.

so, i've been a bachelor this weekend. the baby girl and the baby's momma have been out of town. i've never been such a slacker as i got to be this weekend. i watched a lot of football. i mean, a lot of football. some basketball. i watched mission impossible 3 and fell in love with tom cruise all over again. how can you not love a guy that, when running full out, runs so straight up. the only other person that runs that straight up is sprinter michael johnson. all tom needs is the gold shoes. that would be hot. what else did i watch? i watched some bcs selection show. thankfully, i don't have to rant about michigan. i watched some zone and was reminded that no one in their right mind would ever want to coach at alabama. yesterday morning, i watched as a "hunter" killed a hippopotamus with a bow and arrow. really quite disturbing actually. i love "hunters". i wish they would shoot each other. now, that would be good television. you should have seen this guy. he was crying over the top of his hippo he was so overjoyed. the zambian villagers were looking at him like, "man, this guy is really a douchebag, but can we have some of that meat?" i spent some quality time on the computer and ate four times. i worked out to make myself feel better about eating four times and lounging on the couch for two days straight and last but not least, i went to a memorial service.

even though she was nervous, donna did a great job with the service. it was good to see tara and ted for the first time in a while, even though the circumstances for bringing us together were really quite tragic. i will miss lou ann. for tara mainly. being married to someone that speaks to their mom at least once every day makes me very sad that tara will not have that chance. her dad will be there. and he will be awesome. it's just not very fair. i was happy to be there for tara and proud for the young woman she has grown up to be. a lot more confident than when we first met, huh tara? i guess that's what seven years can do for you. that and good friends and better family and an above average youth director. right? right? see, i told you this was about me. :)

and so, today, i enter back into the real world of dog poop, silly bird questions, crickets, feeder mice, daughters and wives. i get off the couch and back to "grind". "the grind" should be like this for everyone. not one ounce of me dreads getting back to work today. things could be worse i suppose.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

the most awkward backdrop to the end of a sermon i have ever seen
(the show must go on)


a day earlier, i commented to my father-in-law that the last thing a person wants during a football game is perspective. that moment after a play when a player doesn't get up. laying there motionless on the ground, something has gone awry that prevents his body and mind to tag-team up and take him back to the huddle. all of a sudden, the spectator is ripped away from his painted face. the obscenities he has yelled in the direction of the field or the television seem really, really trivial and shallow. the fun (for the moment) is gone, and you are slapped in the face with the reality that people can and do get hurt playing a game. a game that, for you, is entertainment. a game that allows a person to take a step away from a busy and stressful and lonely and broken world and yell and scream for a team that you may or may not have a good reason to be invested in. i hate those moments. the last thing you want during a football game is perspective.

fast forward to last sunday morning and toward the end of rick's sermon. a choir member falls out of her chair and onto the floor of the choir loft. the congregation notices the scene moments (although it felt like an hour) before the pastor does and he continues his message. finally, someone (or the murmur from the crowd in front of him) gets his attention and he turns around to check on the fallen choir member. from what i am told, rick is told that janice is ok. she just got hot. or lightheaded. she just needs to lay down. from my seat in the balcony, i do not get this memo. from my seat in the balcony, i wonder what in the world we are waiting on with regards to taking care of our fellow worship leader. rick stops, prays, and then comes the part that i have struggled with for three days. he finishes his sermon.

i am sure it was truncated and amended from his outline. but he finished. if you have any idea of the content of the end of the sermon post-janice falling, then you are a more focused person than i. then we sang a closing hymn? and then we ended the service with a benediction and a final verse as the cross, acolytes, and pastor exited all the while janice is still laying in the choir loft. there has been no announcement that she is ok. i guess it was understood. surely, the service would not have continued to it's routine end if she wasn't. but is that even the point? to me, my family, others in the balcony, and those throughout the church without firsthand knowledge of the goings on in the choir loft, we are left with the impression...the perception...that finishing out the service was more important than the immediate well-being of the choir member laying on the wooden floor at the front of the church.

i've gone back and forth with this. and i know rick was in a tough spot. it's his role to make sure that the congregation stays calm. that he doesn't act in a way that would cause people to panic when, in his heart, he knows there is no reason to. but as much as i understand the decision he made, i still haven't been able to agree with it.

perhaps it played in his favor that it wasn't sarah in the loft that passed out. that janice didn't have someone racing up the aisle that would have, to a greater degree, added to the confusion and awkwardness that was already thick enough that you could feel it sunday morning.

the last thing you want during a football game is perspective. to the contrary, personally, the first thing i look for in and at church is perspective. an environment where perception and reality meet because they are one and the same. that notion is still very much an idealism at huffman (probably every church), but it is something we must strive for. we are there for each other, right? from our pulpit, on many an occasion, we have minimized the importance of worship on sunday morning if it doesn't mean anything the rest of the week. shouldn't that idea ring true even if the "show" is interrupted. right or wrong, shouldn't we have just prayed for janice and for us and said, janice is going to be fine, but for the sake of being sure, we are going to end it here today?

who knows what i would have done had i been in rick's shoes. in the heat of the moment, i don't know. i know what my gut told me at the time what we should've done, but i don't know if i could've acted on those instincts.

i hope so.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

happy thanksgiving, everyone
(family is something i am not an expert on)


i just got off the phone with my mom. i have been avoiding her for a month now. why? i have no idea. well, i have an idea, i just don't have a good reason i don't suppose. why not? because when it comes down to it, my mom probably cares for me (i mean, genuinely cares) more than anyone in this world. maybe just as much as sarah and hannah. maybe a couple of others. who knows. but she is right up there in the "i care for kevin" department. you would think that i would want to hold a person like that close. make sure that we talk often. make sure she knows that, on some level, i still care for her as much as she does for me. for the last few years, though, i haven't. my mom has problems. don't we all? for years now she has been locked into a state of mind that i will never be able to understand. depression. it's a tough pill to swallow. for the person that's depressed. maybe just as much for the folks around that person that don't get it. because of this state of mind, my method for resolving my mental fatigue in having to deal with her situation has been to withdraw from her. almost completely. we speak every so often. and when we do, it's fine. better than that. it's nice. but most of the time, all i can think about is her bad choice in men, her struggle to maintain her sanity, and most of all her transformation away from the incredibly strong single-mom that she is and was in my best memories of her. i will not see her or talk to her tomorrow. on thanksgiving.

then there's my dad. his new family is another one that i don't get for the most part. i think my dad cares for me in the same way my mother does. he just doesn't know how to show it anymore. i have a stepbrother that i care deeply about, but as we grow older, it's becoming obvious that we share less and less in common. i think my step-mother likes me most of the time, but to say that we are close would be a drastic overstatement. the rest of that family is indifferent in a very nice way to how i relate to them, and that will, most likely, be the case for as long as we are "family". i will not see or talk to any of these people tomorrow. on thanksgiving.

and then there's brian. my dear brother. who's in florida rehabbing. from drugs. from an unfortunate lot in life. from all sorts of things. from what i hear and heard personally several months ago, he's continually doing "better". we always wanted him to get better. fact was, he was always fine. he just did drugs because they loved him more than he felt like his family did and does. i'll continue to take the "no news is good news" approach with brian. for all we went through and shared together, good and bad, it's a shame i won't talk to him tomorrow. on thanksgiving.

sarah's family. i will see them and talk to them tomorrow. and i'll be totally happy. with them, there isn't anything bad to speak of. they seem to like me and i'll continue to try and not give them good reason not to. i can't wait for tomorrow. my wife. my girl. my family-in-law that treats me like one of their own without my asking. it's really quite cathartic. it's really, really nice.

thanksgiving. the calendar has a very mischievous way of slapping "normal" in your face several times a year. "normal" would be nice. but then again, "normal" would have led me away from the family that i will share turkey and dressing with tomorrow. so, fuck "normal".

this isn't self-pity. it's only the truth. and the truth hurts sometimes. but the truth also helps to define who i am at this very moment. and in this moment, i could not be more content.

happy thanksgiving.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

michael vick is a rock star
(why i am not so sure that's a good thing)


it finally happened. i can check this one thing off my list. i got to see one of my most serious man-crushes, michael freakin' vick, in person sunday afternoon. the game set-up to be the kind of dream game that any michael vick or falcons fan would love to see. the lowly cleveland browns were coming to town. other than having a really good tight end, about the best thing you could say about the browns as a football team going into sunday was that they "played hard", they "were a scrappy team", or that they still have some of the most kick-ass uniforms in all of sports.

we got to the dome in plenty of time to see mike make his pre-game entrance. even with less than 10,000 fans in the stadium an hour before kick-off, his applause was different than that directed towards other players coming out as he made his way to perform his passing drills. he looked cool, of course. socks weren't pulled up. chin-strap only half-buckled. just cool. i couldn't take my eyes off of him. i was in awe. nothing i saw in pre-game, though, prepared me for the announcements of the starting line-up when the stadium filled up.

it's tradition for the home team to introduce the offensive starting 11 and let them make their entrance one by one, and the falcons were no different. first the offensive line. then the non-descript wide receivers (who, by the way, could not catch a fucking ball sunday...except for you roddy white. you did uab proud.), and then finally the stars.

first, the tight end..."ALGE CRUMPLER".....the crowd roared.

then, at running back..."WARRICK DUNN"....the crowd roars even louder for mighty, little warrick dunn.

and finally, at quarterback..."MICHAEL (FREAKIN') VICK...i cannot describe to you in words the roar of the crowd following the introduction of their elvis. and vick totally plays to the crowd. all the other players jog out onto the field, maybe waving their arms encouraging the crowd to "get loud", but they all jog out and meet their teammates. not mike. mike walks slowly out of the tunnel. head down. socks still down. chin-strap still only half-buckled. there is absolutely no fucking question he is the coolest cat in the city of atlanta at this very moment. mike walks out slowly. the crowd is eating it up and yelling like this may be their last chance ever to yell. mike stops about ten yards out of the tunnel and raises his arms slowly. the roar, then and there, made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. it was insane! and awesome!

a funny thing happened after the game kicked off. michael freakin' vick sucked. i mean, he played really, really bad. 16-40 bad. two interceptions bad. a fumble that appropriately ended the game bad. sure, his wideouts, other than uab, couldn't catch a ball even if the football was velcro and they were wearing two of those velcro-catching mitts like i had back in the day. but, this game was on mike. he had a couple of those michael vick moments where he tears down the field and he is the fastest guy on the field by far and you just know he's going to score, but make no mistake, michael vick lost this game pretty much single-handedly.

as sarah and i made our way back to marta and to our car, i heard voice after voice comment on how bad vick was. how the falcons need to trade him now when they can get something back for him. how he's never going to be consistent enough to take the falcons to a super bowl. all of that may be premature. it may not.

as a rock star, michael vick is an animal. he's david lee roth. axl rose. michael jackson during the thriller years. he's the aforementioned elvis. the only thing about those guys, though, is that the older they got, the more you kind of realized that they all kind of sucked.

michael vick is still my man. i hope to see him again in person soon. and as a rock star, he is an animal. as a super bowl caliber quarterback, well...

the jury is still out.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

why andy doesn't write anymore
(appointment surfing)

one of my dearest friends in the world, andy rickles, has not updated his online blog/journal/diary/whathaveyou in working on three months. why is that, i wonder. has he run out of things to say? has the "man" made him weary of expressing his innermost thoughts and ponderings online for fear that the "concerned" might make a stink? has, god forbid, andy had his hands chewed off by an overaggressive or just plain hungry raccoon and therefore lost the ability to type on his own? let's hope not. deep down, i believe the answer may just be that andy has been busy, but his lack of updates make me sad anyway.

why? because andy's journal is part of my everyday online surfing routine. i have noticed that my internet wandering is just about as broad in scope as my musical tastes, which is to say not very. every day or evening that i have some extra time to spend online, i go through pretty much the same routine as far as what i try to accomplish and what sites i try to visit before i call an end to my computer time. check my e-mail. respond to e-mail. write new e-mail. check my journal. check espn.com. check my fantasy site. check si.com. check dan shanoff's blog (you can never have too much opinion on sports, in my opinion.) check ew.com. check my various music websites. look at hannah's website. check andy's journal. check chris perry's journal.

and that's about it. now, certainly, there are other random sites that i will visit depending on what's going on in my day or the world in general. i am a big fan of rottentomatoes. i will check the weather from time to time. check cnn. or msnbc. for a long time, i tried to keep up with folks from huffman's journals to keep up with their away from church lives, but that seems to have almost played itself out. most have transferred their attention to myspace. or facebook. or college. or somewhere else. and i don't have the time or energy to dive into that pool. but for the most part, though, all of my time is focused on the content of the sites in the above paragraph.

it's kind of funny. i don't think i realized until recently how narrow my view of the world wide web was. and honestly, i suppose i don't have enough time to try and find just a lot more that may or may not improve my surfing experience. on a given off day or day that i may be closing the store, i can spend hours on espn alone.

and that brings me back to andy. his journal is one that i look forward to because he is, for one, my dog. but it's also insightful and pointed in the way he feels his life reflects god to others. most of the time, he would write about something that he and i wouldn't necessarily talk about in our own face to face conversations. and that was the fun part. a peek into his soul. i think that's what a good journal is anyway. i read some and think, "yeah, that was a good point, but that's something i can hear you saying anyway." give me something new. something you may be a little anxious for your world to know about you.

this isn't me calling andy out. both of our schedules are busy. and we don't get to do dreamland nearly enough. i guess it was a little easier to bridge the gaps between ribs when i got an occasional taste of the conversation we might have through his journal. hell, i wish i could write everyday, but family and work sometimes have to take priority. probably, more than anything else, this post is a commentary on me feeling like something's been missing from my life for a couple months and me just this morning realizing what it might have been.

as red from shawshank said to himself about his own andy..."i guess i just miss my friend."

Friday, November 03, 2006

the fall season finale?
(what the crap does that mean?)


i read on jacob sutton's journal that this was going to happen, but i didn't want to believe it. that lost was going to air six episodes, then take a huge break, then come back for a run after the new year, but this sucks. i've been happy with four of the five new ones so far, and it really feels like the show is picking up some serious smoke monster. so, what is going to happen on the "MOST...IMPORTANT...LOST...EVER"? Probably nothing huge, but i'll watch and be disappointed next week that i have to wait for months to not have any of the questions answered that i want answered. please, why do i watch this show??? oh, and by the way, do we really need to be introduced to the "new couple"? aren't there enough characters that we don't spend any time with already? oh well.

so, i made it to my 100th post. it took one year and ten days. not too bad. it's been a good year. i want to go back and read all my nonsense again soon, but it all still feels very fresh on my mind as it is. i remember just like it was yesterday the shit storm after my venting about the church not having a halloween carnival. it's sad that, this year, it's a non-issue. it's a thing of the past. something we used to do. RIP box maze. may the happier colors in the newly painted GQ spawn something equally magnificent someday. no, really. i mean it. honestly.

i think i need to fiddle with my journal. change up the color scheme. keep it interesting. for me at the very least. i do like my look, but maybe it's time for a change.

my birthday was a very good day. saw a lot of people that i wanted to see. heard from a lot more. i am happy to report that the sky has yet to fall on my weary shoulders. maybe my shoulders are just getting stronger.

thanksgiving is just around the corner. oh...my...god. i can already taste the dressing. the coca-cola salad. the dressing. the sweet potatoes (with marshmellows on top?). the dressing. oh, sweet november. please move as quickly as did october. i need to start conditioning my body. i am out of practice. one meal a day will not expand my stomach to the extent that it needs to be pulled and stretched to make room for the dressing.

i think it's time to start playing again.

i think i really like heroes.

i think i am going to color a card for both michael vick and lebron james, send them their cards, and hope that they call me.

i think that 30 rock may take lost's slot in my viewing week. i now will need a wednesday show. i haven't been able to give it much of a chance.

i think that i will miss studio 60 after it is yanked.

i think cookie cakes are the bomb.

i think the dick from last thanksgiving really gets on my nerves (cue soundclip in my head from rocky V).

i think it's time for a metaphor. this sunday, perhaps?

then i'll cut the grass for the last time this season.

sweet.

Monday, October 30, 2006

99
(happy birthday to me?)


so, i didn't make it. not even to my amended goal. my 100th post will have to come later this week. either thursday or friday when i close the store and have some time to spend online in the morning. and so, this morning, i make number 99.

i woke up this morning and i was 30. i have been building this up in my head for months now. the big 3-0. 30. thirty. not in my twenties. 30. i woke up this morning and you know how i felt?

... awake. not sore. not creaky. not old. not like i had one foot in the grave. no headache. almost fully recovered from my cold of the last ten days. i felt...pretty. damn. good??? that's not what it's like, is it? turning 30, that is. of all my birthdays, i should feel older today. but i don't. i feel really, really good. now granted, we didn't play softball last week. so, i have had two weeks to recover from our epic doubleheader now. if my birthday was last monday, i think i would've felt 30. in a couple weeks when we get started playing basketball again, when i run up and down a basketball court for the first time in nine months, i am going to feel 30. but not today.

today, i woke up and my body wouldn't let me go back to sleep. today, i walked downstairs and my precious, beautiful little girl was coloring a birthday card for me. today, i've already heard voices of people wishing my day well. i've read an e-mail already doing the same. today, i am going to have lunch with a couple of old friends. tonight, thanks to my wonderful, doctor (thus, ending the suspense from last monday's entry) of a wife, i get to have dinner with a bunch of folks from my "sunday school class" and their families. tonight, i will eat, drink, and be merry. and monday night football will play in the background as the theme music. that couldn't be any more me!!!

no, today looks like it is going to be a good day. maybe even a great one. one that will go by way too fast in order for the world to prove that tomorrow can find a way to take the luster off of any good today. but today, i am going to enjoy being 30. and maybe, just maybe, i'll even try and own it the way some of my closest friends already have. no, today i do not have to defend any dissertations or take any big tests, but just by waking up this morning, i've earned, in a way, a pretty serious badge of honor.

me:

"hi there. this is my wife, dr. sarah o'kelley."

sarah:

"hi there. this is my husband, kevin. he's 30."

damn straight.

Monday, October 23, 2006

98
(sarah's big day)


i guess this day is probably the culmination of every day you've had since i met you. for until today, every day we have known each other has, in a way, been leading to this hour. defending your dissertation. as i sit in your office and type, i can't help but think back on everything that has led you and us to this day. this, your last day as a "student".

as romantic as our story began, our since is the stuff that every relationship has been and ever will be, but with our own twist. we have had ups, downs, big ups and big downs. as romantic as this day will most likely be for you, my guess is that our future will hold much of the same. ups, downs, big ups and big downs.

i think that i don't tell you enough how proud i am of you. it's so much easier to tell others. and that's not very fair. it's too easy to take you for granted, but i think that is one of our ups. on most days, though, contrary to what may or may not come out of my mouth, i do not take you for granted. the love, patience, stability, caring and understanding you have brought to my life, in my eyes, is the stuff of legend. and i thank you for that.

i think that we are the greatest parents hannah could ever ask for. and that is one of our big ups. it shows in the way she kisses everyone. it shows in how horrible we are at applying discipline. it shows in that it wouldn't make sense for it to be any other way. she is stubborn like the both of us. she looks like you. she makes your faces. she makes you crazy. and me too. but she is ours. and the better for it i am sure.

i think, as i've said before, that i am "the luckiest" when it comes to being a part of your family. your family that is so different than mine, but also very much like it. maybe one day we can write a book on how, in spite of having every last one of the stars of functionality aligned against us, we made it work. that might be fun.

i think that, no matter the vote of your committee, that i will be supportive of you as you begin your next chapter. one that i will be happy and anxious to be a part of. one that who knows how it may read with the both of us having free time on our hands. one that will be interesting and new in every way.

i know that i love you. i know that you are finishing up your presentation right now and are about to convince the doctors in the room with you that you are fit to be in their club. i'll make sure that, since she won't remember, hannah knows how hard you worked for this and her and us, all at the same time. it's too bad that the doctors in the room can't take that into account too. not that you need any more help.

i can't wait to hear how it went.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

on this, my 97th post...
(hannah and me, part sixteen)


...i begin to look back on my life as an online journalist (i use that term more than loosely for i am doing no research, fact-checking or follow-up as part of this little webpage). i don't think that i am necessarily a "blogger", if you will. i think a true weblog has a central theme that it comments on and sticks to that theme with more frequency than i post here. i don't really have a central theme. i am all over the place. i do try and relate most of my entries to how they might affect hannah or my family or my friends, but i still think that is a little too broad for this to be a "blog". i think from time to time that this is closer to a diary than anything else. maybe all "blogs" or journals kind of are. but i never kept a diary, and i don't know the rules that define them other than they have to have a lock and a kitty on the front, so that probably doesn't apply here either. i think from this point forward i will consider myself an unsolicited opinionist. for not one of my subjects, muses or inspirations have ever asked for me to take them into consideration. after reading my wrath, some have probably asked otherwise, but oh well. so, i continue to opine unsolicitly...

one of my goals when started this journal was to try and make 100 posts in my first year. i don't know if that is realistic now. i would have to make three more by next tuesday, and who knows if i will find enough time, motivation or venom to make that deadline. maybe by my birthday, though. that would be a reachable goal. we'll see.

for this, my 97th post, i will finish with talking about my daughter. one of the things that is striking to me, comparing her now, almost a 3 year-old, to just a few short months ago is how much more social she is. i know for a fact that she does not get this from me. the older i get, the less social i become. i am sure this regression started at a very early age for me. but for hannah, nowadays, we can talk up seeing kiker, or a visit with heath, or seeing meg at church, or anyone that she remembers and recognizes and it's almost as if she makes it a point to make their day by giving out hugs and high-fives. she doesn't mind playing with strange kids as long as the kids share. she won't wince (as much) when an old person at church wants to squeeze her cheeks. she'll even try on clothes for other kids' grandparents in target if she's asked. i think it is a very special gift to be able to make the person you are connecting with feel like the most important person in the room, and i think she has it. people have told me that she gets this from me, but i don't think so. with me, i have to try. i am a complete introvert that has to work sometimes to come out of my shell. i don't get the feeling that hannah will be that way, and i think she will be the better for it. she already rules her daycare class, and i can't imagine it will be long before she starts captaining a team or running for student council. she makes a daddy very proud.

for hannah and me, this will be a glass half-full day.

Friday, October 13, 2006

a tale of two alice in wonderland's
(andy, this album fucking rocks)


yesterday afternoon, hannah and i made a trip to best buy. my most anticipated album of the year had been released tuesday, and up until last evening, i had not had a chance to make it to the new, easily accessible best buy. the best buy that is not all the way on 280. the best buy that will make my finding music a lot less time consuming. we traveled to best buy with the prime objective being to pick up the new blood brothers record, young machetes. i thought it might be fun to get something for hannah too. her dora "cd" was due back at blockbuster last night, so i started asking her if she might be interested in a new movie. of course, she was. so, before picking up my cd, we went to the disney/kid's movie section and started looking around. hannah was in heaven. all around her were movie boxes that caught her attention and she tried to talk me into buying anything from a curious george movie to dora to diego to little einstein's to winnie the pooh to several disney movies we already have at home thanks to maine. so, i decided that i would pick out a couple and let her choose. i picked her up and started making up my mind when she said, "what's that?". that was alice in wonderland, the head-trippy disney movie that i knew she had not seen yet. i told her the name and she was immediately excited, probably because the first two words in the title sound a lot like one of her aunt's names, allison. so, we picked alice in wonderland, no problem. i got blood brothers, and we were off to the house for hannah to take her first trip down the rabbit hole.

i didn't realize 'til this morning that i was in for a trip myself. i spun through young machetes twice while working out, and it hit me that one of the things that i really like about the blood brothers is that they make no sense. at least on the surface. a trip down blood brothers lane is just like falling down a rabbit hole into a david lynch movie. i am sure they are ranting and venting about something topical and relevant, but it is entirely up to you, the listener, to decipher what the hell they are talking about. it will not be spelled out for you. and i love that. streams of lateral associations of tangential ideas screamed, sung, and talked to you over the top of music that is ripping, spastic and dancy all at the same time. i have waited for this album for months now, and it is a joy to know that i am not disappointed in the slightest. i won't waste too much time on it here today, but you'll hear more about it later. because unless brand new or some band unexpectedly pulls a rabbit through the looking glass, this will be my album of the year.

a side note while i'm on the subject of escapism: there are plenty of lost bloggers out there that will spend much more time on dissecting the series, show by show, so i don't know if i'll comment on each episode. but, after last week's roaring return, this week reminded me of how frustrating watching this show can be. sure, it was good. i am glad i watched it. but nothing really happened. i know, we got to see what happened to sayid and his crew on their ill-fated rescue attempt, but did we really need an episode of sun flashbacks to understand that she's been a liar since she was a kid? i mean, even if she was, doesn't every kid bite their own arm and then blame it on their brother or sister? just because she blamed the maid for breaking the ballerina doesn't necessarily excuse everything she's lied to jin about, does it? oh well, the episode wasn't horrible, but here's hoping next week puts the peddle back to the metal of finding out what happened after the hatch exploded.

Monday, October 09, 2006

okay, here's the thing...


it's not that i feel like when i turn 30, i feel like i need to "grow up" or "act my age" or "be responsible" or something like that. sure, i have bouts of immaturity and selfishness. i am more than willing to own up to that. but due to circumstances that were beyond my control, i felt like i "grew up" around the age of 16. it wasn't pretty and i didn't ask for it. it just happened. did i have bouts of being 18 and stupid still? sure. did i do things and make decisions at 21 that i wouldn't make now? of course. and maybe, those things and decisions had to do with how old i was. or maybe they had to do with the fact that life is just a series of lessons based on life experience. some people gain that experience younger than others. some people never learn those lessons until it's too late. i know 30 year-olds that still strike me as teenagers. 25/35/45/etc. year-olds that will never understand the world as i see it because we don't share and won't share the same experiences. so, yes, i am turning 30 and that sounds like when i am supposed be "all growed up", but that's not the part of this coming birthday that bothers me.

for about twelve years now, i guess, i've had what i call deathdreams. moments where my mortality flashes through my mind whether i want it to or not and throws me into a sense of panic. as i've gotten older, i've gotten to the point where i can control my deathdreams to a certain extent. at their worst, these flashes would scare me to the pont of calling 911 because i felt like my life was coming to it's premature end. nowadays, i can have a deathdream and fight it off. think about something else. baseball. a funny movie. something. and they'll go away. but they are starting to come more frequently.

and i think that's what it is that i am obsessing over. 30 doesn't sound "old", per se', but it does say that almost half of my life is now traveling behind me in the rearview mirror. what does that mean? well, i guess it just depends on if i am having a glass half-empty or half-full kind of day. mortality is a touchy subject. no one wants to die. we all want to know and feel like things will be ok when the last breath of air leaves our lungs. and on those half-full days, i know they will. i like those days better. the ones that remind me that i'll be reunited with friends i miss. family i haven't seen in ages. for eternity. forever. but the half-empty days are the ones that kill me. the days where i question too much. wonder if what i believe is true or just something i tell myself to get to the next day. hopefully a half-full day. the bad days are the ones that i need to lean on my well-adjusted, intelligent family and friends. sarah and kiker and andy and chris and my dad are all really smart. they believe the way i do. that life ending here doesn't mean it's ending. it just means you don't have any more half-empty days. ever.

right? i like that my faith has grown to the point where i can fight off my deathdreams with vigor. i hope that i can pass on some of that strength to sarah and hannah and others in my life that will deal with their own deathdreams and questions.

but i do hope you will pardon me on my half-empty days. the days that are coming with more frequency when i think about turning 30. the days where i am not so sure. the days that i am very scared and don't feel very confident in my abilities to be the person you can count on to lift you up.

on those days, i may need you to lift me up.

and i am ok with that.

Friday, October 06, 2006

closing in on 30
(less than one month to go)


"some shows you watch. some shows you talk about." i have heard this more than once, but i read it again thursday in a commentary on ew.com about lost. i am still digesting just how much i enjoyed the season premiere wednesday night, but i keep thinking about how totally appropriate this quote is as it applies to this show. i watch a lot of shows and enjoy them at the time. sportscenter. earl. office. others. but lost is different. after watching the show and sleeping on it, all i wanted to do was talk about it. the amazing opening sequence that introduced us, the viewers, to othersville. the new character, juliet, who i am already on record as saying she is going to hook up sometime in the future with jack after kate and sawyer end up with each other. the way the show could make me totally forget until it was over that 75 percent of the original cast and the aftermath of the hatch explosion weren't even touched on in the new season's first episode. i also said out loud that the premiere was great and frustrating as only lost can be. absolutely nothing was resolved. even more questions were raised. but stuff was going on the whole time. and it was great. i can't wait 'til next wed.

alabama is really mediocre and i am finding myself more and more drawn to florida, tim tebow and percy harvin. go gators??? wow. who knew i'd ever feel that way.

i am starting to get nervous about turning 30. i really am. most of my closest friends have already been there and done that, so hopefully i can lean on them for help through this, my anxiety. i don't know what i am nervous about. 30 is just i number. i know this. but it feels like a new chapter is about to begin. something is about to change. i have an idea of what it is, but i don't know how in the world it's going to unfold. we'll see, though. it's weird to think back on my life at 30. i remember so little for having been alive 30 years, but the memories i do have seem to be the kind that i'll carry with me when i am 60 too if i am lucky enough to get that far. i guess those are the best kind of memories.

i can already feel more posts about turning 30 coming, so i'll save some of my ruminating for later. when i feel more anxious. maybe i'll be so sick of obsessing about turning 30 and typing 30 that the actual day will come and go and everything will seem ok. i don't want to be too annoying with it, but it is my journal i guess.

Thursday, September 28, 2006

are you holding up my end of the bargain?


question inspired by the lemonheads. good lyric. great to have you back rockin', evan dando.

my song of the moment seems to be by the killers. i kind of hate the killers. maybe not quite hate, but close. you see, i fell head over heels in love with 'mr. brightside' last year and on the heels of that one song plus tons of reviews lauding the arrival of the next best thing in music, i bought the cd and then thought the cd as a whole sucked. a couple good songs here. another there. but as a listening experience, from beginning to end, it left me wanting way, way more. and so i swore off them. i passed the cd off to sarah and didn't really want to hear from them again. but they've done it to me again. their new single, 'when you were young', is amazing. i mean, i love it. i am not sure if it's the song, or the song in combination with the video, but it's got a hold on me something fierce. i will turn to mtv2 every so often and the one and only reason for doing so is the hope of hearing that song that is stuck in my head right now. so, what do i do? do i listen to the reviews again? to the killers? claming that they are channeling bruce springsteen with this record? that they are losing the mascara and bringing the rock? i don't know. i just don't know. but, that song...

in an update from my last post, there was an interesting development to the "dog chained to our dumpster" ending. well, a week ago tuesday, heath and i showed up to work to find, yes, a dog chained to the dumpster in the back. it was a big-ish dog, probably still a puppy, that wouldn't let us get near him. tail constantly tucked between it's legs and snarling at us, we came to the conclusion that the dog had been abused and, finally, left for dead or for some sap with a heart for animals to pick up and give a better home. we called animal control, and the dog was taken away. well, this week, we get a call from a lady asking us if a dog had been chained behind our store last tuesday? "why, yes ma'am. there was." evidently the dog had been stolen from this lady's house and brought to our store (and then a note was left for the owner, attached to her door, telling her about it). why? hell if we know? but it made us ask a couple different questions. if the owner mistreats the dog, why would she want it back? maybe it wasn't the owner that had mistreated the dog. why would someone steal this dog? did it bark too much? was the violation in response to something else? too many unanswered questions to come to a peaceful conclusion. before the call asking about the dog, i was going to use the incident to rail on the fall of humanity or something else dramatic, but now, my metaphor seems confused or, at the very least, incomplete. so, i will wait for another example to rear it's head and inspire me to talk about how crappy humans can be sometime. i am sure it won't be long.

you don't really know what badass looks like until your two and a half year-old picks up a play gun at cici's and starts firing away. "pyow, pyow", indeed. sure, we could be upset or discouraged that one of the life lessons hannah has brought home from school includes making her finger into a gun and saying, "pyow, pyow". we could, but it's just too damn cute.

i'll have to get some feedback from some of my fellow lost obsessees on this, but i am trying to decide if i am going to invest myself in the new nbc show, heroes. do i really want to jump into another show with tons of characters, deep mythology, and neverending plots? i just don't know. speaking of the best show on tv, the fall season officially kicks off this coming wednesday. along with lost, my appointment television for this fall looks like it will be heroes, studio 60, 30 rock, earl, office, and family guy. you'll be notified of any other worthy additions.

since i mentioned it last, i have won two straight fantasy match-ups and have the highest points per game average (bench included) in the league. knowing how to manage a draft is already paying dividends. 2-1, baby!!!

Friday, September 22, 2006

if you were me, your teeth would be more crooked


it's funny when a person makes a comment that starts with "if i were you, ...". you never really know what is going to come after that comma, do you? whatever it is, though, it's not likely that the statement is going to cast you in a positive light. "if i were you, i'd drop the attitude." "if i were you, i would have looked in the mirror before i left home." "if i were you, i'd think twice before i ate that second doughnut." you don't ever hear someone say, "if i were you, boy, would my day be better." or "if i were you, i wouldn't be such a dick." it's kind of weird how "if i were you, ..." works.

i was in the office at the store the other day and observed a man laying into one of my employees because their fish had passed away. now, keep in mind, he is laying into the guy that will be responsible for ordering his replacement fish. also, keep in mind that the guy bought the fish only two hours ago and brought the dead fish back in the SAME FUCKING BAG that he took them out of the store in. now, i am no jack hanna, but even i, with confidence, could explain to the man that the combination of heat and lack of oxygen probably brought the fish to their peril. our fish guy, or muffley as you blog subscribers may know him, tries to explain this very simple concept to this very upset man. muffley fails to win him over and the man exclaims, "if i were you (here it comes), i'd march into that office and find someone that can make me happy." wow. little did dude know that it was my ass that was sitting in the office.

for one, i am not a "fish guy" if you will. i don't like them. they creep me out. their dying for any number of reasons does not and will not shake the foundations of my faith. so, after hearing brian do his best to "make me (angry guy) happy", i wasn't going to offer too much empathy to angry guy's plight. second of all, i can be kind of territorial, as has been evidenced in this journal on many an occasion. so, no matter how bad muffley can annoy me, he's my muffley and he's on my team, customer be damned.

so, i talk to the guy and he respectfully disagrees with my confirming muffley's take on his fish dying, but i offer him his money back or more fish. he takes the more fish option and leaves to probably kill more fish in his car.

there are two morals to this post.

one) stupid people shouldn't buy/own fish. too much maintenance. too much room for error. so, don't waste your time or energy if you are, indeed, retarded or just mean.

two) "if i were you, ...", unless used for good, should never come out of a person's mouth. because if i were you, i wouldn't eat as much, or exercise more, or brush my teeth before blessing you out, or not own a fish tank, but i am not going to say that to your face, because it would only make your day that much worse, right? let's think about these kinds of things, people! really!

more hilarity from people that shouldn't own pets will ensue, i am sure, later. next episode? why you shouldn't leave your obviously abused dog chained to a pet supplies "plus" dumpster with no intent to ever come back and get him.

Monday, September 18, 2006

socks?
(hannah and me part fifteen)


yesterday, the birmingham based part of sarah's family and i traveled to cartersville, georgia to meet up with that group plus sarah's uncle richard, who was in visiting from colorado. it was a nice day and visit for all of them and i was glad to be there as well. i still got in plenty of football watching (have i ever brought this up? i think i would like to have michael vick's baby.) i also got some up close and personal time with my niece, emma catherine, which was very fun. it's hard to believe hannah was ever that small. not so hard to believe that hannah could and can be that ornery, although given how tired the baby, baby girl was, she really handled her part of the day well. all in all, as the meat or peanut butter and jelly to the sandwich that is my current three day weekend, it was a good day.

the highlight of the day came on the way home. not because the day had drawn to a close necessarily, but because of the events that were to unfold after a stop at mcdonald's. hannah was tired, but she was also hungry, so we decided to stop for some chicken, fries and sauce before we got out of town. as part of the pitch to hannah, we also reminded her that a toy would be in order for any big girl that could finish her chicken mcnuggets kid's meal. skeptical as i always am when hannah has anything offered to her along with fries that the other thing will be eaten, hannah proved me wrong and mowed through her chicken like she hadn't eaten in days. she also took care of some fries and sucked down some hi-c, all of this in order to get to what she had been promised before arriving at the little known fast food establishment.

what she didn't know was that i already knew her reward, and her reward sucked worse than getting a chip stuck in your permanent retainer. what was the "girl toy" she was so lucky to have included in her bag? a pair of socks......i am not kidding. a god-forsaken (probably not literally) pair of socks. my eyes almost welled up with sadness and fear. she had been so good all day. handled being tired. handled pooping in her panties. been helpful with emma. handled being hungry. and this is her thank you??? no fucking way, dude. she's going to have a come-apart and i am going to be right behind her.

"i want my toy."

oh, god. here it comes. the come-apart. joseph hands her her "toy" and she begins unwrapping them. what? no crying? no fussing? no come-apart? but, why? because i can't remember if it was marie or joseph that said it, but one said something about her new puppets. and then someone else mentioned (maybe even hannah) something about her gloves. that her new gloves made her look like the princesses she's been watching and adoring in her disney movies. and she was utterly content. more than content. happy. and so were we. sarah, marie, joseph and i all laughed (the good, gutteral, feel-good laugh) at the situation playing out so much better than we had prepared ourselves for. what a bright and creative little girl. how nice it must be to be grounded in imagination and instead of feeling disappointed at the sight of socks, you see beautiful elbow length gloves that would match your wonderful dress you will wear to the ball in your dreams.

grounded in imagination. what a wonderful lesson. thank you, hannah, for making my day. for the laugh. for wanting to comfort your tired tears when we got home. i love you so much. i'll pick you up soon.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

1333 pinebrook lane
(the anatomy of a good memory)


what makes or romanticizes an event or sequence of events into the kind of thought that eventually becomes a good memory? is it time? is it the immediate impact of said event on one's life? the eventual impact? is it all of the above?

for some reason, my old house in huffman on pinebrook lane has found it's way into my dreams (day and night) of late. more specifically, the memory of a particular day years ago that makes me happy to think about even now. the day in my head was a beautiful day, much like today. it was a little hot, but not too hot. and it was a day filled with things that were very much stereotypical "boy".

i woke up and went outside to ride my bike. and i rode it everywhere. up and down the street. around the neighborhood just above our street. everywhere. and then i fell. hard. pinebrook lane had/has hills that any young boy riding a bike would die for and most of the time i would go down them with no hands. well, i was going down no-handed and hit a rock or hole that threw me off balance. i was able to grab the handlebars before i went straight down but i only was able to steer myself into the curb where i proceeded to flip over into the yard three houses down from my own. i remember my wind being knocked out of me and laying flat on my back fearful of what i might have broken. after realizing that i was relatively ok, i sat up, my thoughts turning to who might have seen my calamity. not one person. at least no one was outside in their yard to see me.

i breathed a sigh of relief and walked over to my bike, now laying across the curb with no hint of ever having suffered a crash. i was still a little too shocked to hop on and ride home, so i walked toward my house with visions of otterpops dancing in my head. no sooner do i begin walking past my neighbor's house does my neighbor and his younger brother come out the front door.

"you up for football?"

uh, yeah.

i go grab my step-brother, and we collect as many of the kids on our street as we can just like we do every saturday (so, i am guessing my memory is on a saturday), and we play for what seems like hours. with half-time and everything. i don't remember who won or lost (which probably means i lost), but i remember it being so much fun.

i don't know what sort of impact this day had on me. i don't really know if everything in my memory even happened in one day. considering i can't even remember one day from my fourth grade year, i don't trust my memory most of the time. i do know that my day becomes that much sweeter every time i think about it, so i do think time plays a role. in the same way that my sports accomplishments, life accomplishments, job accomplishments, etc. seem more impressive (to me) the further i remove myself from them, i suppose this memory works in the same vein.

whatever the reason behind this thought/memory/dream is, i won't complain, and i am really not looking for outside opinion or insight. just thinking out loud. or typing rather.

Monday, September 11, 2006

sports
(not the huey lewis and the news kind)


the first time i brought this up was on june 4th of this year. i just went back and checked. including that sunday and yesterday, that makes three times i have been privy to one of huffman's worship leaders calling out the congregation on their lack of spirit. now, keep in mind that i am working at least one out of every three sundays and averaging a couple a month. this means that i am not present for every sunday morning service. this leads me to a disconcerting question. are these comments like cockroaches? if i see (hear) one or three, does that mean there are hundreds or thousands of them lurking in the dark? of course there are. but instead of the problem (could it be uninspiring hymn selection? could it be that bill gaither's time has come and gone? could it be something else? surely not.), we address the solution. "sing louder." "not like this, but like this." "don't you get the words and the sentiment we are lifting up here?" i guess not, dude. i am sure it's on me/us.

moving on. speaking of uninspiring (and i know i sung this tune last season too), how about alabama football? one-score victories over hawaii and vandy. nice. i tell you what, alabama fan. i am starting to agree with some of the pundits. it's not like mike shula was a stellar offensive coordinator in the nfl. it's not as if we are waiting on his genius to blossom. it's like this. alabama needs to hire an offensive mind or give dave rader a shot at proving his. according to those in the know, rader is coordinator in name only. see if he can mix it up. breathe some fresh air into the limp body that is alabama's offense. otherwise, get used to the idea of a 7-5 season and a trip (if they are lucky) to the poulan weedeater bowl.

welcome back, michael vick. one of my first blogs (to continue the reminiscing theme) talked about how i would love to be michael vick for a day. well, after watching him orchestrate a butt-whipping on everyone's super bowl pick from the nfc, the carolina panthers, yesterday, my man-crush stands assured of lasting another season. welcome back, indeed.

the braves suck. and my boy tim hudson is a big part of the problem. dammit.

rain in the forecast for tuesdays suck. actual rain on tuesdays sucks harder.

for the sake of my fantasy football addiction, i think i will offer up a nugget of wisdom/despair/frustration from time to time over the course of the fantasy season. i drafted better than anyone in my league. i truly believe this. and out of ten teams in my league, i will finish week one with (at worst) one of the top three point totals. yet, because kiker is the only (or one of two) team with a chance to outscore me and i am playing him this week, i may find myself 0-1 tomorrow morning. that's ok. i'll keep my head up. i like my chances over the course of the season.

long live the asianmen.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

a dining room table
(hannah and me part fourteen)


it's been a long time since i've had a dining room table that was used for, how do you say, dining? not since my first, single stint at ascot place really, and that's been several years. come to think of it, i don't know if i ever really ate at my table at ascot place, but it was used on a regular basis. we had a dining room table at the parsonage, but it was just for show. we used it a couple times for special occasions (birthdays, youth steak dinners, supper club), but mostly it collected dust and kitty hair. there was no dining room table to speak of during the second go-round at ascot place or my time in huntsville. in both instances, respective coffee tables served as the table we surrounded and dined upon while doing something much more sacred than have a family meal time, watch tv.

and now we have a dining room table. a kick-ass one at that. one that i actually vouched for and liked a lot. it's bar height and big and pretty, and the chairs have the little underrail for you to kick your feet up on while sitting in them. it's great. aside from the asthetics, though, it's going to mean a change in our habit. soon enough, our mealtimes will move from the living room floor to the dining room table (you can actually see the top of it now). and what will that mean? we'll have to talk to each other. ask about each other's day. constantly worry that hannah doesn't fall out of the barstool height chairs to the ceramic tile floor below and bust her baby girl head (a chance we were willing to take for the table). it will be different, but my guess is that it'll be good.

my only real memories of the dining room table at ascot place consist of my conversations with chris and andy. not the meat of the conversations, really, but where they led. when we started our small group, i was content working for amsouth, pondering the idea of wanting to write for a living, and, all in all, pretty satisfied. what came out of those conversations, though, was life-altering, and i am not being at all dramatic. it was during those conversations that i decided to give student ministry a go. it was around that dining room table that i decided to work for and with God, instead of amsouth. it was around that table that my life took a different path. a path that brings me to where i am today. where i am today being a good and happy and more than satisfied place. what wouldn't have happened without that table? what people would not be in my life? where wouldn't i have traveled? what insight into my life would i be without? without that table, who, exactly, would i be?

i guess the real lesson doesn't have as much to do with a dining room table as it does talking out loud about god with friends or family and then letting god work in your life. but i do believe that table was the catalyst for many good and blessed things in my life.

and so i fast forward to now. if so many good and positive things could come from that table, what good and positive things will come from this one? only time will tell i guess, but i am eager to find out.

Friday, September 01, 2006

the world according to muffley
(what it must be like to be an expert on everything)


i knew something was familiar about him the day that i "met" him. where did i know his face from? that voice. it's different from something familiar that i remember, but still kind of the same. oh well, maybe it's nothing. maybe our paths just crossed. maybe i just ran into him somewhere and he made an impression. well, all it took was the subject of soccer coming up and him asking me if i had a tattoo on my shoulder and it clicked. this wasn't a stranger. this was brian muffley. the same brian muffley i coached as a twelve year old playing soccer. he was my goalie. he looked the same then as he does now. seven years later. still kinda pudgy. still eats too many snacks. still probably stinks at soccer, but this was him. nothing had changed...well, one thing changed. he had learned everything there was to be learned...

...in seven years...

...as a 19 year old...

...and the knowledge suited him poorly.

all of us have had "conversations with muffley". or experiences with someone like him. "mr. i know everything". "mr. if it means i can butt in on your conversation i promise i have been there or done that". and it annoys the crap out of me. dude, you're 19 and lived in huffman, roebuck, birmingham, alabama all your life. you don't know shit. hell, i am 29 and i don't know shit. i know more than you, but i still don't know shit. there is something at the core of this type of person that i don't understand. what is it that drives them to feel like they have to claim to know a little something (or a lot) about any subject that comes up? i mean, if you are overweight, please don't talk to me about diet tips or tell me that you work out and exercise "all the time". if you have never played sports above pee-wee level, it's ok if you don't know the in's and out's of the triangle offense. if you have a computer, that doesn't mean you know the difference between the processor and the power cord. if you have driven a car, you don't necessarily know how to change the oil or tires or brakes. if you had a sibling go to auburn, you don't have to be an auburn football fan. it's cool if you and your friends tailgate for a new episode of according to jim. it's your choice, dude. or dudette. what is it that drives a person to make themselves out to be something they are not?

i guess the easy and most obvious answer would be to be accepted. loved. thought of as cool. or bad-ass. whatever. there's got to be more to it. and i wish it would stop.

i don't know if anyone anywhere would consider me an expert at anything. and you know what? that's freakin' cool. the most open and honest response a person can ever give, in my eyes, is "i don't know." i love "i don't know". not because i don't want to know. but because most of the time that those three words come out of my mouth it is the truth.

the truth. what a novel concept. "who's the starting left tackle for hawaii tomorrow?" i have no idea. "what kind of dog shampoo is best for rat terriers?" um, the green one? "how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood." i don't know.

it's ok to say it. it's ok to be honest with me. it's ok to be honest with yourself. i like you better that way. most other people do too i would wager. it's makes you vulnerable like me and everyone else.

i would follow you if you greeted me with an "i don't know, but we can figure it out together." i can't follow an expert, though. i just don't relate.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

"it's been a while." -staind


first of all, how cool are you if you can get away with naming your band staind without the "e", act all mopey and disturbed, sell millions of records, make tons of cash, and then be nowhere close to the radar a few years later? staind cool is how cool. i bet that guy wishes he never was friends with fred durst. you know? the frontman for that also now forgotten but sold tons of records and made bunches of cash band limp bizkit? god, i loved me some limp bizkit. went to a limp bizkit concert with my cousin richy. loved it!!! it was the darkest, dankiest pit of a club i have ever been in, but they rocked the motherscratchin' house that night. oh, wes borland and your crazy make-up...

anywho...i digress.

second of all, we are moved. no, we are nowhere close to "settled". the boxes are not all "unpacked". and no, we do not yet have dining room chairs to go along with our dining room table. things could be worse. we could still be crammed into ascot place. but we aren't. we are free from those handcuffs dammit! the move went extraordinarily smooth (for us) this time around. no truck malfunctions. no bad weather. the sun even stayed behind the clouds for us for the first half of the day. sure, we tried to kill heath, but the doctors at the er assured him he was not having a heart attack, and so we move on. i feel like i am about to fall back into messenger mode, but the move would not have been so event free had it not been for some amazing friends and family. along with the aforementioned heath (who was entirely helpful before his body malfunctioned), who chickened out on us due to something he called "chest pains", there was the always there kiker. what would we do without kiker? well, we would have to pay three people for everything that kiker ends up doing for us on moving day. i don't know the official count, but kiker vila has moved me now, like, five or six times in as many years and has never complained. not once. he's the fucking man. there was andy. andy took time away from pissing off the good people of hopewell baptist church to come lend a serious hand and sense of humor. who knew so much laughing would ensue on the way to making our backs and forearms and fingertips so incredibly sore. there was joseph. pulled into duty yet again because of the unfortunate reality that his sisters move way too much. even sick and with something he called "homework" and a "back to school bash" on his mind, he put in a half day. there was my dad. i know. readers of this nonsense i call a blog just breathed a collective "what the fuck?", but it's true. dad and i seem to somehow not be able to escape the fact that we are related, no matter how hard we try. maybe we are trying to turn over a new leaf again. more on this later, but for the day, he was a trooper and in it 'til the bloody (or at least sweaty end). and then of course, there was marie. i have to say, if i had to be trapped in a life foxhole, i could be trapped with a much worse and less reliable life foxhole partner than marie. the children crump, hargraves and florence must and do know how lucky they are to have a mother as invested and loving as she. i am only lucky to play a role on the periphery of their family play. needless to say, the bitter or bloody or sweaty end to this, our move has not reared its head yet to marie. so thanks to amazing friends and amazing family, our moving day has come and gone and we are home.

wait a second. hannah is correcting me.

"not home, daddy. we are in our new house."

oh yeah.

Saturday, August 12, 2006

according to blogs, livejournals and the sort, we are all experts.


after revisiting the matrix trilogy a couple of weeks ago, i've come to this conclusion. there is no super-hero...ever...that ranks as high on the bad-ass-ometer as neo (my friend cookie will probably disagree). i had forgotten how goosebump inducing the second and third movies were to watch. to watch neo inside the matrix, bending the rules of that universe because he understood that, in that universe, there were only self-induced rules. rules that most plugged in to the matrix were happy to live by, but rules still that could be circumvented if one allowed his or her mind to drive around the speedbumps. what a wonderful metaphor for the world we live in today. if only i could manipulate this world like neo could manipulate the matrix...

if only i could fly, or be stronger or download kung-fu without putting in the years of training...

of course, that's why we have the movies. that's why we have blogs...

to continue the thought down matrix lane, here we are the trainmen and women. here we make the rules. but do we? a friend of mine wrote in his own blog this week about how we still need to understand the consequences of what we write. about how eyes that may happen across our worlds may not understand where we/i are coming from. and therefore we/i should temper our thoughts if we are unwilling to sleep in the bed of words that we make.

i suppose i agree with his sentiment, but still, i lay terribly unhappy with the thought. i can choose to let my thoughts go and share an honesty with those that read my thoughts that i might not be able to articulate out loud. but if i let my thoughts run without a governor, i have to worry about who i might upset, who i might offend, who may feel like i am talking about them. or i can choose to be so vague that when i look back a week removed from writing, even i don't remember what the hell i was talking about.

i don't like the vague idea. what's the point? i still harbor the idea that hannah may one day read my thoughts, and i want her to know what was going on without having to decipher my code to get the point. i've never been one, though, to intentionally try and hurt, anger, or confuse anyone either. i've wanted to, but even here, i guess i have already censored myself. that's too bad.

so i am not even the trainman here. and i am nowhere close to being neo. not in this "matrix" and definitely not in the real world. because i am chickenshit. that's too bad too.

what's worse? seeing the light and being too scared to walk towards it? or not seeing it at all?

i don't know.

Monday, August 07, 2006

far be it from me to be vitriolic...
(hannah and me...part thirteen)

ed. note - i wasn't at church on sunday, and for once, this has nothing to do with humc.

...but there is just too much sticking in my crawl at the moment not to be. firstly, and i am not going to drop any names here, but boy is it a lot easier to preach a sermon than live it. and this is something that i have struggled with, myself, and will continue to struggle with for the length of time that i continue leaving "messages" here or living messages in my daily life. not one time when i have stood in front of a group of students or a small church plant congregation or a handful of employees did i not struggle with the words coming out of my mouth matching up with the character i displayed outside of the "church" environment. sometimes they did. sometimes they do. sometimes they don't. but here's the part the rubs me the wrong way. you are not above accountability just because your feeling of being "called by god" has been affirmed by some denomination's board of ministry or equivalent. you are not above being called on the carpet when someone disagrees with you or your approach. you are not above being wrong. you are not a more credible commentator on society because your occuptation requires you to "preach" from a pulpit. you are not any more observant or worldly or wise. and if you believe or misunderstand otherwise, you need better friends. friends that will tell you when you are wrong or misguided. friends that will make you accountable. or a wife. or a child. you need to back up off this idea that your "sacrifice" is worth a lifetime of moral immunity. moving on...

hannah, apart from the ambiguous rant above, today has been a good day. your room is almost ready for you. yes, we'll have to do something about those shelves, but your carpet is clean, your room is a beautiful purple fit for a queen, and we are less than two weeks away from being in our new house. how fun.

hannah's been an interesting character the last month or so. her memory is striking and the way she is putting together sentences is just a tad scary. her mom found herself counting the words to one of her run-on's a few days ago and i wondered to myself when the last time was that i used eleven words in a sentence that i didn't type. she makes no qualms anymore (most of the time) about cleaning up. she loves to help with everything. instead of everything being completely instinctual and reactionary, you can literally see her understanding and processsing her actions now. it truly is amazing how far she's come as a little person while maintaining all her cuteness that she's had since christmas day 2003. it's weird to think back on my own first memories and know that the house we are about to move into will be the one she remembers as her first. i remember my first house and it's such a good memory. not for any sort of romantic reason such as my parents still being together. more that it's one of my first. first memories are very special i think. you don't have very many and they are all over the map. i can count on one hand how many true memories i have from the age of 4 through 8 or 9. that's a lot of years and days and time with not a lot of recall. but one that i will always carry is the picture in my head of my first house.

you and your future brother or sister (god-willing), hannah, were very much in mind when your mommy and i chose this house for your mental scrapbook. i hope you like the purple and your puppy and your big back yard. i hope you remember how much love filled the walls of your first house as soon as we stepped in it as a family.

it makes me sad to think of all the blowhards, the teachers, and the preachers that will fill your mind up with all sorts of garbage about the world and what you should or shoudn't do to fit in, how you come to understand right from wrong, how you deal with the fact that you were "born crappy" and in need of some sort of enlightenment. don't let them bother you too much, though. your mom and dad have a pretty good grasp on things. we'll make fun of all the noisemakers around our dinner table and figure out ways to make them take themselves less seriously.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

we're moving in less than three weeks!
but, wait!!! we haven't packed.


the worst part of moving is, naturally, the whole moving part. the entire process is just a labor (and this is coming from someone that hardly touched a box until it was ready to be lifted in our last move). the worst part may be the anticipation of putting things into boxes and the house being a wreck for a couple of weeks. ask anyone that knows a little about me and they will tell you i am not a big fan of messes. the anticipation of putting things in boxes combined with the thought of a two to three week mess may in fact be part of my headache today. i woke up and realized today was august 1st. our moving day is august 19. yikes!!! not one box is ready to go. i think i am even more anxious because my role in the move will be considerably larger this go-round. by move time last year, i was already in huntsville and sarah and marie did all the packing. this time, sarah might as well be in huntsville for as much as she has on her plate, and so i feel like it's my time to step up.

but step up how? i don't know how to do this. as many times as i have moved, i don't know if i've ever really packed. someone has always packed for me. that doesn't seem fair, but it's true. it's all about that first box i think. like conquering any fear, it's that first step that you have to take before you can move past it. getting hit by a baseball in the batter's box. the first rollercoaster with a loop. a first kiss. long division. eating tomatoes. it's all about that first step. you take it, you know you can do it. and so you do it. and so it's all about that first box. there are boxes behind me right now as i type. i could take one of the books off the desk and put it in a box.

but what would sarah say? that might be the wrong box. i might do it wrong. stack it wrong. that might be the one book that's supposed to go on top. or not in at all. maybe it's not our book. i could pack up something else. yeah, something else. like hannah's toys that are constantly making such a "mess" of the place. but we might not be packing that toy. or at least, not in this box. what do i do? i will wait. yeah, i will wait. for instruction. that will be good. for me. for now. it's only august 1st. we have three weeks. who needs to start now?

i think i'll go play ncaa.