why, brackets, of course!!!
(if you are a subscriber to this blog and do not follow ncaa men's basketball, this week's posts may not be up your alley. sorry.)
(not really. you should be swept up in march madness just like the rest of us.)
over the next three days, i am going to try and make several, short posts concerning the tournament leading up to wednesday evening when i fill out my bracket. it will kind of be my way of thinking out loud to you, the reader, and myself in order to document the trivial process that is filling out a ncaa bracket. mind you, i take this matter very seriously. unlike a lot of people out there (hopefully, not YOU), i fill out one bracket. not multiple brackets with multiple results so that somehow, some way you can claim a winning entry. one bracket. selection sunday is now in the books. the brackets are set. the favorites are in place. here we go.
i'll start this little experiment this morning with my initial observations of the brackets, themselves, and the analysis (or outrage) of my boys on espn. i have yet to cull the blogosphere this morning to see what everyone else is talking about. my sole influences as of this morning come from the worldwide leader. and so, here's what's been on my mind since last evening...
* damn. is it just me, or does ohio st. have a really easy road to the elite 8? kansas was placed in the bracket as the overall number one, but they are going to have to go through a tough second round game against maybe kentucky and then a sweet sixteen matchup with virginia tech, a poor man's kansas. even though i'll be rooting for tennessee in the top half of the south, i don't see anyone giving ohio st. a decent game until they play texas a&m in the quarterfinals.
* speaking of number one's, north carolina got screwed. marquette is a really good 8 seed and possible second round game. and then kevin durant in the sweet sixteen. (dick vitale voice screams...) are you kidding me???
* kevin durant got screwed. i won't waste an entire post on him. you already know how good he is. and i want to think he could be this year's carmelo. but as of this morning, i have not convinced myself that he could beat north carolina.
* strongest region? east. by faaaaaaaaarrrrrrr. weakest? south.
* great first round games? notre dame/winthrop. kentucky/villanova. indiana/gonzaga. bc/texas tech. louisville/stanford.
* second round games i am salivating over? florida/'zona. usc/texas. unc/marquette.
* lowest seed i could see myself picking to make the final four? kevin durant.
* lowest seed i could see myself picking to make the sweet sixteen? 10. georgia tech or texas tech (what can i say? i am a sucker for bob knight.), although i know for a fact at least one 11 or 12 will make it.
* arkansas made it in??? really? syracuse isn't in??? really?
* i was listening to a radio guy driving in to work yesterday and he summed up my feelings on the first weekend quite nicely. the first two days are great for one reason. to see which little team knocks off a big team. or more appropriately, which big team chokes it away to a little team. after the first two days, though, i start rooting hard for the big teams. i don't want teams in the sweet sixteen that have no chance of winning the tourney. i don't care about feel-good stories. i want good games. with the best players. the biggest stars. don't give me george mason. uconn choked last year. i hate "cinderallas".
* and one nit note. from number 4 in the nation to a number 5 seed in the nit? roll tide.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Thursday, March 08, 2007
mercifully, the season comes to an end
(because if you are good enough to be ranked as high as number 4 in the country before christmas, the nit does not count)
reasons why alabama sucked this year...
1) ronald steele was hurt. you have to start here. the following reasons will cover the majority of the season's ills, but if your preseason all-american guard is no better than 75 percent all year, you have a major problem.
2) alabama runs one play. alabama runs the "ucla high-post offense", which means both big men find space at the free throw line where the ball is dumped into one of them. as this happens, one wing player, usually alonzo gee, dives into the lane for a pass and the other wing waits for the defense to drop down and holds his spot for a possible three. alabama ran this play to perfection countless times in it's run to number four. the play stopped working in the second half of the notre dame loss and the season was lost after that. yes, mark gottried, other coaches watch tape and make adjustments. you do not. alabama's other "plays" consisted of dropping the ball into richard hendrix and letting him bull his way to the goal and dribbling around the perimeter before yakking up a three. these are not plays. this is just basketball. easy to defend if you've ever played seven year-old recreation ball.
3) mark gottfried waited to find depth until the season was lost. who is justin tubbs? mikhail torrence? demetrius jemison? yamene coleman? alabama's bench. you are not in the minority if you do not know these bench players. mark gottfried was not introduced to them until february.
4) mark gottfried cannot coach defense, and evidently, neither can any of his other coaches. if you've watched one alabama basketball game, you've watched them all. no other sec team gives up more wide open looks from three as does alabama. which brings us to number 5...
5) mark gottfried cannot coach effort. every team plays the 2-3 zone, just like alabama. every team plays man-to-man, just like alabama. other teams just play hard. and therein lies the difference between every other sec team and alabama. why did alabama squeak out victories at home and get blown out on the road? because talent can win games at home. effort wins games on the road, and alabama didn't play hard. whether it was the "star theory" i alluded to earlier in the season that caused this or something else, the fact remains that if you watched an alabama game, any alabama game, you wondered why the other team always looked like they were playing harder than the tide. this was absolutely excruciating to watch, game in and game out, if you wanted alabama to live up to it's potential. which brings us to our final point...
6) alabama was the biggest underachiever in college basketball this year. nationally, alabama had a preseason first-team all-american in ronald steele. they had a preseason top ten ranking. and they had many "experts" hailing them as final four contenders. that's all well and good and it makes this season even harder to swallow, but let's keep the final point local. the subjective criteria will be this. in the sec, with my eye judging the league's talent, how many nba-level players does each sec roster contain? we'll start at the top.
florida - (4) espn projected this week that florida's frontline (noah, horford, and brewer) would be lottery picks in june. their point guard, taurean green, could also play in the nba. so, they are stacked. they should be good. and they are. they are the anti-alabama.
alabama - (4) steele, davidson, hendrix and gee. florida? potential number one or two seed. threat to win the title. alabama? nit bound. ouch.
tennesse - (2) lofton and maybe one of their young big men.
kentucky - (2) morris and crawford.
lsu - (1) big baby.
miss. st. - (1) jamont gordon.
vandy - (1?) maybe derrick byers.
for every other team in the league (arkansas, auburn, ole miss, georgia, south carolina), it would be a stretch for me to think that they would place a current player on an nba roster in the next three years. and compared to every other team in the league, save florida, alabama is absolutely loaded. so, take away an injured steele. that still leaves mark gottfried with three blue-chip cards to play with. but, he didn't know how. he just knew how to clap his hands like mike dubose and throw his jacket on his floor. those were his go-to, inspirational antics. and so alabama will take their talent and lose to some mediocre team in the nit. i will not be watching when it happens. i will be watching real teams with real coaches play in the real tournament.
mark gottfried, as has been addressed, can recruit his butt off. think of the talent on the elite 8 team from a few years ago. think of gerald wallace. kennedy winston. rod grizzard. ron steele. richard hendrix.
then again, maybe i should be happy with that. incredible talent. consistently in the top 25 and in the tournament, but no real chance to win a national title. because when you get into the tournament, the guy on the other bench is always going to outcoach your coach. maybe i should be happy with the ceiling being set at the sweet 16, but i am not.
neither should alabama.
(because if you are good enough to be ranked as high as number 4 in the country before christmas, the nit does not count)
reasons why alabama sucked this year...
1) ronald steele was hurt. you have to start here. the following reasons will cover the majority of the season's ills, but if your preseason all-american guard is no better than 75 percent all year, you have a major problem.
2) alabama runs one play. alabama runs the "ucla high-post offense", which means both big men find space at the free throw line where the ball is dumped into one of them. as this happens, one wing player, usually alonzo gee, dives into the lane for a pass and the other wing waits for the defense to drop down and holds his spot for a possible three. alabama ran this play to perfection countless times in it's run to number four. the play stopped working in the second half of the notre dame loss and the season was lost after that. yes, mark gottried, other coaches watch tape and make adjustments. you do not. alabama's other "plays" consisted of dropping the ball into richard hendrix and letting him bull his way to the goal and dribbling around the perimeter before yakking up a three. these are not plays. this is just basketball. easy to defend if you've ever played seven year-old recreation ball.
3) mark gottfried waited to find depth until the season was lost. who is justin tubbs? mikhail torrence? demetrius jemison? yamene coleman? alabama's bench. you are not in the minority if you do not know these bench players. mark gottfried was not introduced to them until february.
4) mark gottfried cannot coach defense, and evidently, neither can any of his other coaches. if you've watched one alabama basketball game, you've watched them all. no other sec team gives up more wide open looks from three as does alabama. which brings us to number 5...
5) mark gottfried cannot coach effort. every team plays the 2-3 zone, just like alabama. every team plays man-to-man, just like alabama. other teams just play hard. and therein lies the difference between every other sec team and alabama. why did alabama squeak out victories at home and get blown out on the road? because talent can win games at home. effort wins games on the road, and alabama didn't play hard. whether it was the "star theory" i alluded to earlier in the season that caused this or something else, the fact remains that if you watched an alabama game, any alabama game, you wondered why the other team always looked like they were playing harder than the tide. this was absolutely excruciating to watch, game in and game out, if you wanted alabama to live up to it's potential. which brings us to our final point...
6) alabama was the biggest underachiever in college basketball this year. nationally, alabama had a preseason first-team all-american in ronald steele. they had a preseason top ten ranking. and they had many "experts" hailing them as final four contenders. that's all well and good and it makes this season even harder to swallow, but let's keep the final point local. the subjective criteria will be this. in the sec, with my eye judging the league's talent, how many nba-level players does each sec roster contain? we'll start at the top.
florida - (4) espn projected this week that florida's frontline (noah, horford, and brewer) would be lottery picks in june. their point guard, taurean green, could also play in the nba. so, they are stacked. they should be good. and they are. they are the anti-alabama.
alabama - (4) steele, davidson, hendrix and gee. florida? potential number one or two seed. threat to win the title. alabama? nit bound. ouch.
tennesse - (2) lofton and maybe one of their young big men.
kentucky - (2) morris and crawford.
lsu - (1) big baby.
miss. st. - (1) jamont gordon.
vandy - (1?) maybe derrick byers.
for every other team in the league (arkansas, auburn, ole miss, georgia, south carolina), it would be a stretch for me to think that they would place a current player on an nba roster in the next three years. and compared to every other team in the league, save florida, alabama is absolutely loaded. so, take away an injured steele. that still leaves mark gottfried with three blue-chip cards to play with. but, he didn't know how. he just knew how to clap his hands like mike dubose and throw his jacket on his floor. those were his go-to, inspirational antics. and so alabama will take their talent and lose to some mediocre team in the nit. i will not be watching when it happens. i will be watching real teams with real coaches play in the real tournament.
mark gottfried, as has been addressed, can recruit his butt off. think of the talent on the elite 8 team from a few years ago. think of gerald wallace. kennedy winston. rod grizzard. ron steele. richard hendrix.
then again, maybe i should be happy with that. incredible talent. consistently in the top 25 and in the tournament, but no real chance to win a national title. because when you get into the tournament, the guy on the other bench is always going to outcoach your coach. maybe i should be happy with the ceiling being set at the sweet 16, but i am not.
neither should alabama.
Saturday, March 03, 2007
you had me at "for only $27.95, you can own 'the evidence that could change history'"
i've been tracking the "breaking news" this week of the "jesus family tomb". chris perry and i talked monday morning, and we told each other that we'd be interested to see how a few things played out. (one) how would the mainstream media handle the "news"? to be honest, i've been a little surprised at how little play, actually, i've seen the story get so far on broadcast television and cable news outlets. sure, there have been segments focused on the "discovery" here. full hours of anderson cooper there. but all in all, there hasn't been the sound and the fury that i was bracing for. at least not yet. (two) how would the "news" be received by christians in general? would we be dismissive? defensive? annoyed? apathetic? my bet is on the latter, but it is far too early to tell. christians are notorious for jumping on things way past their prime, so as soon as this "story" starts to go away, jesse jackson will come out and start badmouthing titanic and telling us that archaeology is fool's science. just wait, this will happen. right around easter. i am also waiting for someone to tell me that this "news" is another sign of the apocalypse or satan just trying to keep a christian brother down. if someone could actually go on bill o'reilly and say this, that would be awesome. (three) will james cameron be shot? this also, is yet to be determined, but too much blood over the course of history has already been spilled in the name of jesus to not go ahead and waste an extra bullet on this guy. right? of course, i am kidding, at least the part about shooting james cameron, but this guy has always seemed a little too smug and sure of himself for my taste. i am really only waiting to see if "the jesus family tomb" documentary is a set-up piece for the "how james cameron was shot by a crazy christian activist" documentary that will air on discovery during may sweeps. if this happens, don't look at me. i am just the messenger. but i would check ted nugent's house. that guy is crazy. i'll keep tracking the story, but i keep wondering to myself. if had had news "that would (really) change history", would i sell it? would the temptation to make an extra buck be too much? or would i just call keith olbermann and ask if i could break the news on countdown. i think countdown would be cooler. and waaaaaaayyyyyyyyy more credible.
in other news, it looks like rick owen is leaving huffman. i would tell you that i am surprised. shocked! flabbergasted! floored! but those would be lies. this is about as predictable as the braves blowing a first round playoff series (sorry andy. i've got some bill simmons coming out of me too.) it just makes too much sense not to leave when you're on top. to leave after hitting that last second shot to win the finals like jordan. to leave when the progress your church has made under your leadership is the stuff of legend. what? what do you mean "huffman is not on top."? oh, that's right. we are still sinking. "they say that the captain stays fast with the ship, through still and storm." not here, dude. here, the captain takes a pay raise, a new title, a new house and leaves while the gettin' is still good.
more on this soon. i can't wait for church in the morning.
i've been tracking the "breaking news" this week of the "jesus family tomb". chris perry and i talked monday morning, and we told each other that we'd be interested to see how a few things played out. (one) how would the mainstream media handle the "news"? to be honest, i've been a little surprised at how little play, actually, i've seen the story get so far on broadcast television and cable news outlets. sure, there have been segments focused on the "discovery" here. full hours of anderson cooper there. but all in all, there hasn't been the sound and the fury that i was bracing for. at least not yet. (two) how would the "news" be received by christians in general? would we be dismissive? defensive? annoyed? apathetic? my bet is on the latter, but it is far too early to tell. christians are notorious for jumping on things way past their prime, so as soon as this "story" starts to go away, jesse jackson will come out and start badmouthing titanic and telling us that archaeology is fool's science. just wait, this will happen. right around easter. i am also waiting for someone to tell me that this "news" is another sign of the apocalypse or satan just trying to keep a christian brother down. if someone could actually go on bill o'reilly and say this, that would be awesome. (three) will james cameron be shot? this also, is yet to be determined, but too much blood over the course of history has already been spilled in the name of jesus to not go ahead and waste an extra bullet on this guy. right? of course, i am kidding, at least the part about shooting james cameron, but this guy has always seemed a little too smug and sure of himself for my taste. i am really only waiting to see if "the jesus family tomb" documentary is a set-up piece for the "how james cameron was shot by a crazy christian activist" documentary that will air on discovery during may sweeps. if this happens, don't look at me. i am just the messenger. but i would check ted nugent's house. that guy is crazy. i'll keep tracking the story, but i keep wondering to myself. if had had news "that would (really) change history", would i sell it? would the temptation to make an extra buck be too much? or would i just call keith olbermann and ask if i could break the news on countdown. i think countdown would be cooler. and waaaaaaayyyyyyyyy more credible.
in other news, it looks like rick owen is leaving huffman. i would tell you that i am surprised. shocked! flabbergasted! floored! but those would be lies. this is about as predictable as the braves blowing a first round playoff series (sorry andy. i've got some bill simmons coming out of me too.) it just makes too much sense not to leave when you're on top. to leave after hitting that last second shot to win the finals like jordan. to leave when the progress your church has made under your leadership is the stuff of legend. what? what do you mean "huffman is not on top."? oh, that's right. we are still sinking. "they say that the captain stays fast with the ship, through still and storm." not here, dude. here, the captain takes a pay raise, a new title, a new house and leaves while the gettin' is still good.
more on this soon. i can't wait for church in the morning.
Monday, February 26, 2007
the morning after
in the immortal words of marty mcfly, last week was "heavy". an unexpected accident results in tragedy. thinking back, i can't really remember something akin to last week since the death of my mom's dad almost fifteen years ago. my granddaddy fell victim to a heart attack. he didn't have serious health problems and his passing was every bit as surprising as gerry's. i know i reacted to his death differently. i grieved differently. i remember thinking it was weird that i couldn't muster up a tear to save my life at his wake and funeral. as destroyed as my mother was and even my younger brother brian (who was much closer to him than i) to a lesser degree, i knew i was supposed to be upset. i was supposed to be crying. i just couldn't. not to say that i wasn't upset. i was. it just didn't rip me apart like i felt like it should have. maybe i internalized the whole thing. i don't know. the reason i bring this up was that last week and dealing with gerry's death felt very similar. when i heard the news from donna sunday morning, i told her that i was glad to have heard before i arrived, because i could get my crying out in the car on the way to church. but the tears never came. i wanted to cry along with rick and the choir members wiping away their bleeding mascara, but i suppose it just wasn't time to do that for me. when i shared the news with sarah, i could hear in her voice how upset she was, and i wondered why i couldn't be that obvious with my sense of loss. what was going on with me?
what was it about the death of peggy ferrara that made me boo-hoo like a little girl? in the grand scheme of things, if i were to rank the important people in my life, peggy would've have been on the list, but my granddaddy would've been higher. gerry would have been much higher. was it that she checked on me every time she walked past my office on the way to hers? was it that she claimed me as one of her own? i don't know. but i remember feeling like i couldn't turn it off at her memorial service. no matter how hard i tried to hold back my emotion, it just kept coming in waves. i remember the awkward look on my dad's face that day as i turned and saw him. he comforted me the only way he knew how, but i don't think he got it. i don't know if i get it.
last week was weird for me in that i kept waiting for the "wave" to hit me. i thought that writing about him last wednesday would be the tipping point, but it wasn't. it was cathartic, but no tears. what was going on with me? i still didn't understand. i still don't. did i internalize this too? swallow it up, unknowingly, only for it to hit me one day while listening to sports talk radio in the car and having to pull over because i am a blubbering fool (this has only happened to me once.).
i am not big on crying. a lot of people know this. it's not something macho like "real men don't cry" or anything like that. it's just that i like to be in control, and somewhere along the years i decided that crying meant you weren't in control. maybe you're not. maybe that's the point. i don't know. for as long as i can remember, i have only "lost control" in this regard one time. at peggy's funeral. i know i loved peggy, but not like i loved gerry. not like i loved granddaddy. maybe something hit me during that service and i gave myself permission to let 20 some-odd years worth of hurt out all at one time. who knows.
i felt better about all this last thursday at gerry's memorial service. because sometime during the beautiful service, the "wave" hit me. my eyes welled up. my throat started to close and my stomach started to cramp. if i hit the "go" button, i could've done the blubbering fool thing right then and there. but i didn't. i don't know why exactly. maybe i wanted to be strong for sarah who was already borderline blubbering fool herself. maybe it just wasn't time for me to let another few years worth of hurt out. maybe because if i had pressed the "go" button, it would've been about something more than him, and i didn't want it to be. gerry no longer being around caused the "wave" that i had been waiting for. i'll deal with the rest later. rest in peace, gerry.
it's time to move back to the more trivial.
maybe next time, i can tell you (again) about what a complete and utter failure as a basketball coach mark gottfried is.
or we can talk about "the jesus tomb".
or maybe talk about how i can't wait to see the new david fincher movie about a serial killer.
we'll see.
in the immortal words of marty mcfly, last week was "heavy". an unexpected accident results in tragedy. thinking back, i can't really remember something akin to last week since the death of my mom's dad almost fifteen years ago. my granddaddy fell victim to a heart attack. he didn't have serious health problems and his passing was every bit as surprising as gerry's. i know i reacted to his death differently. i grieved differently. i remember thinking it was weird that i couldn't muster up a tear to save my life at his wake and funeral. as destroyed as my mother was and even my younger brother brian (who was much closer to him than i) to a lesser degree, i knew i was supposed to be upset. i was supposed to be crying. i just couldn't. not to say that i wasn't upset. i was. it just didn't rip me apart like i felt like it should have. maybe i internalized the whole thing. i don't know. the reason i bring this up was that last week and dealing with gerry's death felt very similar. when i heard the news from donna sunday morning, i told her that i was glad to have heard before i arrived, because i could get my crying out in the car on the way to church. but the tears never came. i wanted to cry along with rick and the choir members wiping away their bleeding mascara, but i suppose it just wasn't time to do that for me. when i shared the news with sarah, i could hear in her voice how upset she was, and i wondered why i couldn't be that obvious with my sense of loss. what was going on with me?
what was it about the death of peggy ferrara that made me boo-hoo like a little girl? in the grand scheme of things, if i were to rank the important people in my life, peggy would've have been on the list, but my granddaddy would've been higher. gerry would have been much higher. was it that she checked on me every time she walked past my office on the way to hers? was it that she claimed me as one of her own? i don't know. but i remember feeling like i couldn't turn it off at her memorial service. no matter how hard i tried to hold back my emotion, it just kept coming in waves. i remember the awkward look on my dad's face that day as i turned and saw him. he comforted me the only way he knew how, but i don't think he got it. i don't know if i get it.
last week was weird for me in that i kept waiting for the "wave" to hit me. i thought that writing about him last wednesday would be the tipping point, but it wasn't. it was cathartic, but no tears. what was going on with me? i still didn't understand. i still don't. did i internalize this too? swallow it up, unknowingly, only for it to hit me one day while listening to sports talk radio in the car and having to pull over because i am a blubbering fool (this has only happened to me once.).
i am not big on crying. a lot of people know this. it's not something macho like "real men don't cry" or anything like that. it's just that i like to be in control, and somewhere along the years i decided that crying meant you weren't in control. maybe you're not. maybe that's the point. i don't know. for as long as i can remember, i have only "lost control" in this regard one time. at peggy's funeral. i know i loved peggy, but not like i loved gerry. not like i loved granddaddy. maybe something hit me during that service and i gave myself permission to let 20 some-odd years worth of hurt out all at one time. who knows.
i felt better about all this last thursday at gerry's memorial service. because sometime during the beautiful service, the "wave" hit me. my eyes welled up. my throat started to close and my stomach started to cramp. if i hit the "go" button, i could've done the blubbering fool thing right then and there. but i didn't. i don't know why exactly. maybe i wanted to be strong for sarah who was already borderline blubbering fool herself. maybe it just wasn't time for me to let another few years worth of hurt out. maybe because if i had pressed the "go" button, it would've been about something more than him, and i didn't want it to be. gerry no longer being around caused the "wave" that i had been waiting for. i'll deal with the rest later. rest in peace, gerry.
it's time to move back to the more trivial.
maybe next time, i can tell you (again) about what a complete and utter failure as a basketball coach mark gottfried is.
or we can talk about "the jesus tomb".
or maybe talk about how i can't wait to see the new david fincher movie about a serial killer.
we'll see.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
dear hannah,
you won't remember gerry hearin, but you'll hear about him from mommy and daddy
(hannah and me, part twenty-one)
everything about the death of gerry hearin screams tragedy. he and his wife, hoping to catch an alabama basketball game together, arrive too late. because game traffic on paul bryant has thinned out, traffic is moving at it's usual pace. gerry and june attempt to cross the street. june makes it. gerry doesn't. as a result of the terrible accident, gerry is no longer with us and june is without a husband, a daughter is without a father, grandkids are without their grandfather, and a church is without it's heart too soon. make no mistake, the heart of huffman united methodist church was gerry hearin. and on saturday night, that heart was ripped from our collective chest. everything about the death of gerry hearin screams tragedy, and everything about the accident makes you want to be mad and find someone to blame. so, why am i not mad today? why am i not looking for revenge? justice? because, folks, gerry wouldn't have it. gerry knew tragedy. he knew hard times. he had lived through more than his share of both. and he always swung back at the tragedy and hard times with a positive outlook that could only be described in two ways. superhuman. or gerry. there are many reasons that i will miss gerry. here are a few.
* he was a champion of me. selfishly i start here, because when i think of gerry, i think of this story first. the staff of huffman united methodist church during the charles lee era would attest (maybe not publicly) that charles lee was notoriously, how do you say, unpredictable when it came to his attitude upon arriving at staff meetings. i always thought that there were three sides of charles lee. his public face. the big, huggable, aw-shucks pastor of the people. the "i am only here to help you" persona that was as genuine as my hair is long. when he showed up in this mode, we knew it'd be a short and sweet meeting. he was having a good day or had other places he wanted to be, so we moved along quite swiftly. there was also disinterested charles lee. the charles lee that, had you been an outsider, you would have been amazed that this guy was the pastor of this church. would hardly say a word. would wear a look on his face that said "i would rather be having my nose-hairs pulled than be here." would hardly ever make eye contact with the staff members making their reports. this persona, too, would also indicate a short meeting. and then, there was charles lee, the dick. this was the charles lee that we, as a staff, were happy to wish good luck and good riddance to when he left huffman. he was mean. he was condescending. the church was a "failure" and it was the staff's fault. this charles lee knew best. shared his (sometimes completely idiotic) ideas and expected us to be (yes) men and women about it and knod approvingly. most of the time, charles lee, the dick, arriving would mean that it was going to be a long day at the office. intense. grating. redundant. these sessions would make us want to find tweezers for our own nose hair and start plucking. it would be less painful than these meetings. well, one day, toward the (unbeknownst to the staff at the time) end of his tenure, i stood up to charles lee, the dick. it was the first time this had happened in our meetings. i don't know if it had happened before. not surprisingly, i drew my analogy from sports and told charles that if he were to be the "coach" of our staff, he could not berate his "staff" when things were bad and not praise them when things were good. i told him that we were more than happy to be his supporters during the good times, but i didn't want to be his punching-bag on days when he was feeling heat. "the coach" gets to receive the trophies when we win, but he also has to accept his part of the blame when something doesn't work (among other things)...the table was silent. here i am, the youngest, by far, member of the staff, and i just stuck my neck out like never before. i was such an idiot. shortly after my speech, the meeting was dismissed. i knew i was in for it. i prayed that the dick wouldn't fire me and i walked, head down, toward my office. who was the first member of the staff to stop me before i walked up the stairs? gerry. he told me he was proud of me. he told me that i had only put into metaphor what everyone else was thinking. and he told me to not be afraid of the repercussions of my outburst. he and the staff would have my back. in just those few moments, i knew that i would be ok. sure, the conversation i had in charles lee's office was uncomfortable, but i always had gerry's words in the back of my head. if gerry was for me, who could be against me? over the lifespan of my time on staff at huffman, gerry was always one of my biggest fans and supporters and on more than one occasion gave me encouraging words when i made risky decisions that meant taking heat or more heat from parents. i have been honored to do many things in my life. to serve on staff with gerry hearin ranks very high on that list.
* he was a champion of my marriage. i could count on less than one hand (not including sarah's family, her friends, my friends, and my mom) the number of people that have come up to me, personally, and told me that they thought i was making a good and wonderful decision marrying sarah. gerry was one. he and june asked us every chance they got how we were doing. and every time they asked, we felt like they really wanted to know. i've mentioned before how i feel like making the person you are talking to feel like the most important person in the world (let alone the room) is a gift. if you were matching this gift to a face, it would be gerry's face.
* he was a champion of huffman united methodist church. back in the 80's, huffman was clearbranch. or north park. or (insert name of any church that every other church wants to be). we were the standard bearer. we were "the children's place". the place that every young family looking for a church home wanted to be. why? because of gerry, naturally. and other reasons i am sure. i know, from my personal experience, he had a damn fine children's director in the person of beloved pat whetstone. a great associate pastor. a great choir director. a great youth director. but the same goes for gerry as it did with charles lee. most of the credit goes to the man at the top. the man casting the vision. that man was gerry. great men have come and gone from huffman since gerry left, but none have been able to match his success. for better and (nowadays) for worse, we have not been able to escape his huge shadow. after his retirement, gerry could have done many things, but gerry came back to huffman. and served part-time on staff. and believed in the potential of huffman. and wanted huffman to be the best that it could be. he made huffman his home again. sadly, but very fittingly, he will be memorialized at huffman tomorrow afternoon.
* from the pulpit, he was a god. a legend. again, when it comes to my history at huffman, the standard-bearer. i wish i was old enough in the eighties to fully understand what a precious gift hearing gerry preach sunday after sunday truly was. after his retirement and coming back to huffman, his sermons became an event (at least in my mind). it was like seeing pedro pitch in person. or mike vick escaping the pocket. michael jordan in a playoff game. you stopped what you were doing and gave the man your undivided attention. i cannot stress how good he was at delivering a sermon. he didn't have to have a schtick. it wasn't a stand-up routine wrapped up with a calm voice and a nuget-y endpoint. he didn't have to be your grandfather (although you wished he was). he didn't have be play the "cute" card. he didn't have to play a role. he just spoke the message he felt God wanted him to deliver and that was good enough. why? because he was super-smart. super-intellectual. but he oozed life experience. and caring. and concern. and love. and because he was able to wrap all of those things together in a seamless package, you were hearing something you had never heard before. when he was "on his game" (and like the above athletes, he was more often than not) you left church feeling like you had just had a conversation with the Man himself. period.
* he was what a christian should be. those things that he oozed from pulpit? life experience, care, concern and love? it was easy for him. because that's who he was. all of those things. he loved his God. he loved Jesus. he understood his calling was to reciprocate God's favors to him back to the people he touched every day. did he have his flaws? i am sure he did. he was human. one thing that amazes me, though, is that i never felt like i saw one. i guess that's what you get when you run into a man that doesn't have to put a "nice face" on around people he doesn't like or get along with. you got the feeling that he just loved everybody.
i definitely got the feeling that he loved me, and i hate that i will never be able to tell him that. to personally tell him thank you for that day after staff. for giving me someone to look up to and strive to be like. for everything about him that will be remembered tonight, tomorrow, and for years to come.
hannah, you won't remember gerry. but your daddy loved him very much.
we'll miss you, gerry.
you won't remember gerry hearin, but you'll hear about him from mommy and daddy
(hannah and me, part twenty-one)
everything about the death of gerry hearin screams tragedy. he and his wife, hoping to catch an alabama basketball game together, arrive too late. because game traffic on paul bryant has thinned out, traffic is moving at it's usual pace. gerry and june attempt to cross the street. june makes it. gerry doesn't. as a result of the terrible accident, gerry is no longer with us and june is without a husband, a daughter is without a father, grandkids are without their grandfather, and a church is without it's heart too soon. make no mistake, the heart of huffman united methodist church was gerry hearin. and on saturday night, that heart was ripped from our collective chest. everything about the death of gerry hearin screams tragedy, and everything about the accident makes you want to be mad and find someone to blame. so, why am i not mad today? why am i not looking for revenge? justice? because, folks, gerry wouldn't have it. gerry knew tragedy. he knew hard times. he had lived through more than his share of both. and he always swung back at the tragedy and hard times with a positive outlook that could only be described in two ways. superhuman. or gerry. there are many reasons that i will miss gerry. here are a few.
* he was a champion of me. selfishly i start here, because when i think of gerry, i think of this story first. the staff of huffman united methodist church during the charles lee era would attest (maybe not publicly) that charles lee was notoriously, how do you say, unpredictable when it came to his attitude upon arriving at staff meetings. i always thought that there were three sides of charles lee. his public face. the big, huggable, aw-shucks pastor of the people. the "i am only here to help you" persona that was as genuine as my hair is long. when he showed up in this mode, we knew it'd be a short and sweet meeting. he was having a good day or had other places he wanted to be, so we moved along quite swiftly. there was also disinterested charles lee. the charles lee that, had you been an outsider, you would have been amazed that this guy was the pastor of this church. would hardly say a word. would wear a look on his face that said "i would rather be having my nose-hairs pulled than be here." would hardly ever make eye contact with the staff members making their reports. this persona, too, would also indicate a short meeting. and then, there was charles lee, the dick. this was the charles lee that we, as a staff, were happy to wish good luck and good riddance to when he left huffman. he was mean. he was condescending. the church was a "failure" and it was the staff's fault. this charles lee knew best. shared his (sometimes completely idiotic) ideas and expected us to be (yes) men and women about it and knod approvingly. most of the time, charles lee, the dick, arriving would mean that it was going to be a long day at the office. intense. grating. redundant. these sessions would make us want to find tweezers for our own nose hair and start plucking. it would be less painful than these meetings. well, one day, toward the (unbeknownst to the staff at the time) end of his tenure, i stood up to charles lee, the dick. it was the first time this had happened in our meetings. i don't know if it had happened before. not surprisingly, i drew my analogy from sports and told charles that if he were to be the "coach" of our staff, he could not berate his "staff" when things were bad and not praise them when things were good. i told him that we were more than happy to be his supporters during the good times, but i didn't want to be his punching-bag on days when he was feeling heat. "the coach" gets to receive the trophies when we win, but he also has to accept his part of the blame when something doesn't work (among other things)...the table was silent. here i am, the youngest, by far, member of the staff, and i just stuck my neck out like never before. i was such an idiot. shortly after my speech, the meeting was dismissed. i knew i was in for it. i prayed that the dick wouldn't fire me and i walked, head down, toward my office. who was the first member of the staff to stop me before i walked up the stairs? gerry. he told me he was proud of me. he told me that i had only put into metaphor what everyone else was thinking. and he told me to not be afraid of the repercussions of my outburst. he and the staff would have my back. in just those few moments, i knew that i would be ok. sure, the conversation i had in charles lee's office was uncomfortable, but i always had gerry's words in the back of my head. if gerry was for me, who could be against me? over the lifespan of my time on staff at huffman, gerry was always one of my biggest fans and supporters and on more than one occasion gave me encouraging words when i made risky decisions that meant taking heat or more heat from parents. i have been honored to do many things in my life. to serve on staff with gerry hearin ranks very high on that list.
* he was a champion of my marriage. i could count on less than one hand (not including sarah's family, her friends, my friends, and my mom) the number of people that have come up to me, personally, and told me that they thought i was making a good and wonderful decision marrying sarah. gerry was one. he and june asked us every chance they got how we were doing. and every time they asked, we felt like they really wanted to know. i've mentioned before how i feel like making the person you are talking to feel like the most important person in the world (let alone the room) is a gift. if you were matching this gift to a face, it would be gerry's face.
* he was a champion of huffman united methodist church. back in the 80's, huffman was clearbranch. or north park. or (insert name of any church that every other church wants to be). we were the standard bearer. we were "the children's place". the place that every young family looking for a church home wanted to be. why? because of gerry, naturally. and other reasons i am sure. i know, from my personal experience, he had a damn fine children's director in the person of beloved pat whetstone. a great associate pastor. a great choir director. a great youth director. but the same goes for gerry as it did with charles lee. most of the credit goes to the man at the top. the man casting the vision. that man was gerry. great men have come and gone from huffman since gerry left, but none have been able to match his success. for better and (nowadays) for worse, we have not been able to escape his huge shadow. after his retirement, gerry could have done many things, but gerry came back to huffman. and served part-time on staff. and believed in the potential of huffman. and wanted huffman to be the best that it could be. he made huffman his home again. sadly, but very fittingly, he will be memorialized at huffman tomorrow afternoon.
* from the pulpit, he was a god. a legend. again, when it comes to my history at huffman, the standard-bearer. i wish i was old enough in the eighties to fully understand what a precious gift hearing gerry preach sunday after sunday truly was. after his retirement and coming back to huffman, his sermons became an event (at least in my mind). it was like seeing pedro pitch in person. or mike vick escaping the pocket. michael jordan in a playoff game. you stopped what you were doing and gave the man your undivided attention. i cannot stress how good he was at delivering a sermon. he didn't have to have a schtick. it wasn't a stand-up routine wrapped up with a calm voice and a nuget-y endpoint. he didn't have to be your grandfather (although you wished he was). he didn't have be play the "cute" card. he didn't have to play a role. he just spoke the message he felt God wanted him to deliver and that was good enough. why? because he was super-smart. super-intellectual. but he oozed life experience. and caring. and concern. and love. and because he was able to wrap all of those things together in a seamless package, you were hearing something you had never heard before. when he was "on his game" (and like the above athletes, he was more often than not) you left church feeling like you had just had a conversation with the Man himself. period.
* he was what a christian should be. those things that he oozed from pulpit? life experience, care, concern and love? it was easy for him. because that's who he was. all of those things. he loved his God. he loved Jesus. he understood his calling was to reciprocate God's favors to him back to the people he touched every day. did he have his flaws? i am sure he did. he was human. one thing that amazes me, though, is that i never felt like i saw one. i guess that's what you get when you run into a man that doesn't have to put a "nice face" on around people he doesn't like or get along with. you got the feeling that he just loved everybody.
i definitely got the feeling that he loved me, and i hate that i will never be able to tell him that. to personally tell him thank you for that day after staff. for giving me someone to look up to and strive to be like. for everything about him that will be remembered tonight, tomorrow, and for years to come.
hannah, you won't remember gerry. but your daddy loved him very much.
we'll miss you, gerry.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
dwight howard is the man!!!
(from the depths of sin city does rise a new hero)
((ok, that's a little dramatic))
i know i am going to be jumping on the bandwagon here, but i can't help it. i have intentionally started my internet morning here to stay free from all the discourse and analysis and opinion on what had to be (HAD TO BE!!!) the coolest christian moment of 2007 so far. let me set it up...
(to my in-tune-with-sports subscribers, pardon me if some of this is retread.) dwight howard is one of my favorite players in the nba. he's a 7 foot man-child all-star center for the orlando magic. he's making the orlando magic matter again for the first time since shaq left town. he's a freaking beast. his body (also pardon the man love) is something to behold. there are two kinds of seven footers. one is the skinny, kevin garnett type that can play outside of the paint. the other is the yao ming type. the big, hulking space eater that spends most of their time in the paint or shooting short little ten-footers to extend the defense. dwight howard is different. he is a new breed. his physique his cut from stone. he is huge. i mean...huge. but he is lean at the same time. athletic. can run the floor. can shoot the j. can jump out of the gym. total package. one of the handful of guys in the nba that i'd pay just to see him in person. well, back to the story, dwight howard accepts an invite to participate in the dunk contest last night. immediately, he is at a disadvantage, because big men do not win this contest. for some reason, if you are tall, it is assumed you can dunk hard, so the judges seem to hold that against guys. isn't fair. just fact. dwight's going to change all that. he asks the commissioner of the league to raise the rim to 12 feet. 12 feet!!! he is denied. "would take too much time." sorry, can't do it. so, dwight has to be even more innovative. and he freaking comes through. to illustrate everything in his arsenal (height, reach, leap, athleticism), dwight pulls out the coolest dunk i've ever seen. he has a teammate toss the ball over the rim and dwight goes and gets it. he slaps the backboard with his left hand and throws the dunk down with his right. impressive at first. even moreso after a second look. in his left hand, howard was holding a sticker of himself. he had pasted it on the top of the backboard 12 feet, six inches above the earth. no. freaking. way. dude.
the dunk is lost on the judges. they are thinking to themselves, "good job, tall guy. way to touch the backboard. i guess we are to understand that you are tall. awesome. here's 42 points and a box of pop tarts as your going away prize. thanks, but no thanks." but they don't get it. the judges don't have replay (a huge flaw in the scoring system if you ask me). they just have to go on what they saw live. before their eyes. and they weren't impressed.
what their eyes didn't catch was the sticker, pasted on the backboard, with howard's picture and something scribbled in marker. the something scribbled? "all things through christ." "phil 4:13" how awesome is that? subtle, yet profound. an image that i will absolutely never forget. i can hope and pray that countless others fans of the nba and dwight howard also see the message and understand how effective this understated illustration of faith could be. it's too easy to be swallowed up by folks that are so aggressive in showing and sharing their faith that they might turn newcomers away. or oldcomers for that matter. it's too easy to read between the lines of a sunday morning sermon and see that the agenda is more personal politics than god. it's too easy to let the big "personalities" of faith convince you that if this guy is a leader of this "club", then i don't really want to join. and then there are moments like last night. small, almost silent moments when a very young man with a lot of power and money and influence gives credit where his faith leads him to understand the credit is due.
should dwight howard have won the dunk contest because of his "sticker dunk". no, but he should've at least advanced to the finals. might his sticker make more of an impact in the long run than any one public act a dunk champion of the last ten years has made? my guess is yes.
for me, a 30 year-old kid that knows he is about to go to a church service that will likely leave me wanting more, a 30 year-old that struggles every day to find answers to questions that are likely never to come, a 30 year old that feels, most of the time, that true christianity is borderline irrelevant, i can't thank dwight howard enough.
thanks for the moment of light, dwight. i needed it.
"phil 4:13".
(from the depths of sin city does rise a new hero)
((ok, that's a little dramatic))
i know i am going to be jumping on the bandwagon here, but i can't help it. i have intentionally started my internet morning here to stay free from all the discourse and analysis and opinion on what had to be (HAD TO BE!!!) the coolest christian moment of 2007 so far. let me set it up...
(to my in-tune-with-sports subscribers, pardon me if some of this is retread.) dwight howard is one of my favorite players in the nba. he's a 7 foot man-child all-star center for the orlando magic. he's making the orlando magic matter again for the first time since shaq left town. he's a freaking beast. his body (also pardon the man love) is something to behold. there are two kinds of seven footers. one is the skinny, kevin garnett type that can play outside of the paint. the other is the yao ming type. the big, hulking space eater that spends most of their time in the paint or shooting short little ten-footers to extend the defense. dwight howard is different. he is a new breed. his physique his cut from stone. he is huge. i mean...huge. but he is lean at the same time. athletic. can run the floor. can shoot the j. can jump out of the gym. total package. one of the handful of guys in the nba that i'd pay just to see him in person. well, back to the story, dwight howard accepts an invite to participate in the dunk contest last night. immediately, he is at a disadvantage, because big men do not win this contest. for some reason, if you are tall, it is assumed you can dunk hard, so the judges seem to hold that against guys. isn't fair. just fact. dwight's going to change all that. he asks the commissioner of the league to raise the rim to 12 feet. 12 feet!!! he is denied. "would take too much time." sorry, can't do it. so, dwight has to be even more innovative. and he freaking comes through. to illustrate everything in his arsenal (height, reach, leap, athleticism), dwight pulls out the coolest dunk i've ever seen. he has a teammate toss the ball over the rim and dwight goes and gets it. he slaps the backboard with his left hand and throws the dunk down with his right. impressive at first. even moreso after a second look. in his left hand, howard was holding a sticker of himself. he had pasted it on the top of the backboard 12 feet, six inches above the earth. no. freaking. way. dude.
the dunk is lost on the judges. they are thinking to themselves, "good job, tall guy. way to touch the backboard. i guess we are to understand that you are tall. awesome. here's 42 points and a box of pop tarts as your going away prize. thanks, but no thanks." but they don't get it. the judges don't have replay (a huge flaw in the scoring system if you ask me). they just have to go on what they saw live. before their eyes. and they weren't impressed.
what their eyes didn't catch was the sticker, pasted on the backboard, with howard's picture and something scribbled in marker. the something scribbled? "all things through christ." "phil 4:13" how awesome is that? subtle, yet profound. an image that i will absolutely never forget. i can hope and pray that countless others fans of the nba and dwight howard also see the message and understand how effective this understated illustration of faith could be. it's too easy to be swallowed up by folks that are so aggressive in showing and sharing their faith that they might turn newcomers away. or oldcomers for that matter. it's too easy to read between the lines of a sunday morning sermon and see that the agenda is more personal politics than god. it's too easy to let the big "personalities" of faith convince you that if this guy is a leader of this "club", then i don't really want to join. and then there are moments like last night. small, almost silent moments when a very young man with a lot of power and money and influence gives credit where his faith leads him to understand the credit is due.
should dwight howard have won the dunk contest because of his "sticker dunk". no, but he should've at least advanced to the finals. might his sticker make more of an impact in the long run than any one public act a dunk champion of the last ten years has made? my guess is yes.
for me, a 30 year-old kid that knows he is about to go to a church service that will likely leave me wanting more, a 30 year-old that struggles every day to find answers to questions that are likely never to come, a 30 year old that feels, most of the time, that true christianity is borderline irrelevant, i can't thank dwight howard enough.
thanks for the moment of light, dwight. i needed it.
"phil 4:13".
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
hannah makes everything better
(hannah and me, part twenty...naturally)
today was one of my "kevin can be an ass" kind of days. i woke up with a plan in my head as to how the day would play itself out. time on the computer. maybe blog. maybe just surf around. drink something with caffeine. let my body wake up. work out. lazy around 'til time to head into the store. nothing big. nothing out of the ordinary. but that was going to be my day. well, it took all the time to come downstairs and check my messages for all of that to change. sarah had left me a voice-mail telling me that hannah's valentine's day party (which we knew about and had prepared for) was something that parents were invited to (the part we didn't know about). nevermind that i had been to the church three times in the last two days and had left without this knowledge, but left without it i had. so, sarah is already up to her neck in work and asks if i can go and party with the baby girl. my initial reaction? hell no. my day was already planned!!! didn't you know that?!?!
"do you already have lunch plans?"
"well, no."
"so, what were going to do with your day?"
"...uh, work out."
"that's fine. i can just go and not work during lunch."
"fine. bye."
and so i hung up and was steaming. how dare something come up and throw off my completely boring plan for my day. it wasn't the party or hannah that i had an issue with. it was the daycare for not telling me about it. it was the not knowing earlier so i could have just started my pre-workout routine earlier and not feel rushed for time. it was, for lack of a better explanation, just me being a dick. i, at the very least, came to this realization and altered my plans. no time for the internet. i cleaned up in the work out room. got a mountain dew code red and headed upstairs.
then comes more good news. after my first series of reps were finished i glanced at my phone and saw that i missed a call while the music was up. i just assumed it was sarah calling to confirm the time of the party like i had asked her to do. well, it wasn't. it was one of hannah's teachers telling me that she had fallen this morning and bumped her face. those of you that know me know that this news was followed by a profanity-laced tirade barked to the walls and sending the workout-observing kitties back downstairs. how dare they let this happen to my little girl?!?! what are they doing??? the message ended by her telling me that hannah was ok and that she hoped to see me at the party.
oh...they would see me alright. the second and third parts of my workouts were as easy as they have been in weeks. my juices were (over)flowing at this point, and i all i wanted was to get to the school and ask the teachers why they weren't watching the class (at least hannah) more closely. oh...they would see me alright. (this is me being a dick, part two)
thankfully for everyone involved, the workout provided the release that my fury needed. by the time i was headed to the church, i was calm. i was just ready to check out hannah for any sort of symptoms that would lead me to believe we needed to take her to the doctor. and so i went in. and there was my little girl with her first real black eye. it was a pathetic little sight. her smiling from ear to ear because she had no idea i was coming to see her, but her right eye not opening quite as far as it usually does because of the swelling. i dropped to my knees. gave her a big hug. and asked her how she was. she was herself. happy. bubbly. ready to tell me all about how she fell down. hit her eye. got some ice that was very cold. and tell me that she was "ok daddy".
"are you sure you are ok?"
"daddy. i told you. i am O...K!!!"
"alright, alright."
i sat down with her and the rest of her class. only one other daddy made a short appearance and then left before we had lunch. i had tons of snotty, sweaty, clingy, disgusting other people's kids hanging all over me, but it was wonderful. it tickled hannah to see her friends using "that's my daddy" as a jungle gym, and we had a blast. one of her teachers prepared a feast for me and all the other parents that didn't show up. i felt bad that there was so much food but not so bad when she sent a plate of extras home for me and sarah. hannah and i shared mac and cheese, chicken wings, meatballs, deviled eggs and a cupcake. we shared some alone time while the cots were being put out. we shared a huge hug and kiss. and then i laid her down, gave her her kitty blanket, kissed her goodnight and i was gone.
it was never hannah that upset me this morning. it was never any one thing. i've always struggled with having one thing in my head and then having to adjust when that plan is changed for whatever reason. but after leaving her, being or feeling like a dick twice this morning seems that much more silly. hannah makes everything better. and she doesn't even have to try.
thanks for the valentine's day memory, baby girl. you're the best.
a quick update from the last post: remember colin cowherd, the espn talk radio host that called southerners "tornado bait" and backed it up by saying that we could choose where we live? sarah gave me this nugget of news yesterday. the bad weather that came through birmingham yesterday also came through new orleans and spun off a few tornadoes. the only fatality from those storms? an older woman living in a trailor she was given after katrina took her home. i guess she should've "chosen" somewhere else to live, huh colin? i hope you hear this and feel like a douchebag, douchebag.
(hannah and me, part twenty...naturally)
today was one of my "kevin can be an ass" kind of days. i woke up with a plan in my head as to how the day would play itself out. time on the computer. maybe blog. maybe just surf around. drink something with caffeine. let my body wake up. work out. lazy around 'til time to head into the store. nothing big. nothing out of the ordinary. but that was going to be my day. well, it took all the time to come downstairs and check my messages for all of that to change. sarah had left me a voice-mail telling me that hannah's valentine's day party (which we knew about and had prepared for) was something that parents were invited to (the part we didn't know about). nevermind that i had been to the church three times in the last two days and had left without this knowledge, but left without it i had. so, sarah is already up to her neck in work and asks if i can go and party with the baby girl. my initial reaction? hell no. my day was already planned!!! didn't you know that?!?!
"do you already have lunch plans?"
"well, no."
"so, what were going to do with your day?"
"...uh, work out."
"that's fine. i can just go and not work during lunch."
"fine. bye."
and so i hung up and was steaming. how dare something come up and throw off my completely boring plan for my day. it wasn't the party or hannah that i had an issue with. it was the daycare for not telling me about it. it was the not knowing earlier so i could have just started my pre-workout routine earlier and not feel rushed for time. it was, for lack of a better explanation, just me being a dick. i, at the very least, came to this realization and altered my plans. no time for the internet. i cleaned up in the work out room. got a mountain dew code red and headed upstairs.
then comes more good news. after my first series of reps were finished i glanced at my phone and saw that i missed a call while the music was up. i just assumed it was sarah calling to confirm the time of the party like i had asked her to do. well, it wasn't. it was one of hannah's teachers telling me that she had fallen this morning and bumped her face. those of you that know me know that this news was followed by a profanity-laced tirade barked to the walls and sending the workout-observing kitties back downstairs. how dare they let this happen to my little girl?!?! what are they doing??? the message ended by her telling me that hannah was ok and that she hoped to see me at the party.
oh...they would see me alright. the second and third parts of my workouts were as easy as they have been in weeks. my juices were (over)flowing at this point, and i all i wanted was to get to the school and ask the teachers why they weren't watching the class (at least hannah) more closely. oh...they would see me alright. (this is me being a dick, part two)
thankfully for everyone involved, the workout provided the release that my fury needed. by the time i was headed to the church, i was calm. i was just ready to check out hannah for any sort of symptoms that would lead me to believe we needed to take her to the doctor. and so i went in. and there was my little girl with her first real black eye. it was a pathetic little sight. her smiling from ear to ear because she had no idea i was coming to see her, but her right eye not opening quite as far as it usually does because of the swelling. i dropped to my knees. gave her a big hug. and asked her how she was. she was herself. happy. bubbly. ready to tell me all about how she fell down. hit her eye. got some ice that was very cold. and tell me that she was "ok daddy".
"are you sure you are ok?"
"daddy. i told you. i am O...K!!!"
"alright, alright."
i sat down with her and the rest of her class. only one other daddy made a short appearance and then left before we had lunch. i had tons of snotty, sweaty, clingy, disgusting other people's kids hanging all over me, but it was wonderful. it tickled hannah to see her friends using "that's my daddy" as a jungle gym, and we had a blast. one of her teachers prepared a feast for me and all the other parents that didn't show up. i felt bad that there was so much food but not so bad when she sent a plate of extras home for me and sarah. hannah and i shared mac and cheese, chicken wings, meatballs, deviled eggs and a cupcake. we shared some alone time while the cots were being put out. we shared a huge hug and kiss. and then i laid her down, gave her her kitty blanket, kissed her goodnight and i was gone.
it was never hannah that upset me this morning. it was never any one thing. i've always struggled with having one thing in my head and then having to adjust when that plan is changed for whatever reason. but after leaving her, being or feeling like a dick twice this morning seems that much more silly. hannah makes everything better. and she doesn't even have to try.
thanks for the valentine's day memory, baby girl. you're the best.
a quick update from the last post: remember colin cowherd, the espn talk radio host that called southerners "tornado bait" and backed it up by saying that we could choose where we live? sarah gave me this nugget of news yesterday. the bad weather that came through birmingham yesterday also came through new orleans and spun off a few tornadoes. the only fatality from those storms? an older woman living in a trailor she was given after katrina took her home. i guess she should've "chosen" somewhere else to live, huh colin? i hope you hear this and feel like a douchebag, douchebag.
Friday, February 09, 2007
i tend to "fixate" on things, and today, it's why i can't shake this "i am dizzy" feeling
(a deathdream kind of day)
my go-to prognosis for whenever anything is "off", physically, with my body is that i have a tumor. maybe it's a tumor that is causing me to feel dizzy this morning. i felt it earlier in the week too and it went away. maybe the tumor is growing. maybe it's the tumor pressing against a nerve in my neck or upper back that is the cause for this perpetual crick that i can't get rid of. i can't go to a doctor everytime i think i am dying. that would be too expensive. but, damn, i get tired of thinking that i have one foot in the grave every other week. my crooked teeth and receding hairline i can deal with. being the target of something more, how do you say, life-threatening? well, i just gave myself chillbumps again. i am going to stop. stupid grey's anatomy. joseph, i can't watch house. if i watched another medical drama, i would have to just check myself into an insane asylum.
aside from all that, i've been away from writing for almost two weeks. not away from the site. i check it obsessively, if for no other reason than i still like the new colors. but, i decided to let my last post marinate a little longer than usual. it was a pretty big one. but now, it's time to move on. time to move from announcing the baby to chronicling the journey of having our second child. and explaining it to hannah. wow. should be interesting.
since my last post, not a ton has gone on. a short review of the last ten days (in no particular order):
- super bowl party with the kikers and the rickles (all of them). fun was had. food was eaten. the result that our crowd was looking for was gained. i love peyton, but he can thank (in order) rex grossman, joseph addai and dominic rhodes for pulling the monkey off his back. not that peyton was bad. he managed the game well. but he didn't win it. he had help.
- signing day came and went, and what do you know, alabama did pretty good. some decent skill guys, some big guys, a quarterback to battle for the spot behind jp. on paper, things are looking up. nick saban rattled all sorts of cages on the recruiting trail and got killed for calling a group of people "coonasses". meanwhile, a nationally syndicated radio host (and saban Hater with a capital "h") got away with calling people in the south "tornado bait". his defense? people can't change their ethnicity, but they can choose where they live?!?! brilliant. so, you heard it southerners. if you are unhappy living in the south, just move to san diego. what? what do you mean that would be expensive? oh, that's right. espn's colin cowherd must have meant to say, "if you don't like where you live and you make a lot of money, you can choose where you live." idiot.
- i almost broke my right big toe walking down the stairs. i am not kidding. maybe the tumor is affecting my motor skills too.
- hannah and i kicked it without mommy (first time in a while), who was working late, last night. had dinner with marie and joseph, which was fun. good times. good times.
- played my last game of the basketball season and went off (sure we lost, but i went off. that's what's important.).
- last, but not least. lost returned!!! incredible episode that hopefully sets the stage for a kick-butt next fifteen weeks. speaking of haters, a lot of folks are turning away from lost it seems. i have to admit, it's frustrated me too. but this week reminded me that when done right, there cannot be a better hour-long show on television. you can bring me your 24. you can give me your house. your grey's anatomy. this is the standard-bearer. has to be.
well, thirty minutes later, my head isn't spinning quite as bad, but i still feel off. it's one of those days that i am looking forward to getting to work, so just in case i fall out, somebody will be around to call 911.
three cheers for fear. hip, hip. hooray. hip, hip. hooray. hip, hip. hooray.
(a deathdream kind of day)
my go-to prognosis for whenever anything is "off", physically, with my body is that i have a tumor. maybe it's a tumor that is causing me to feel dizzy this morning. i felt it earlier in the week too and it went away. maybe the tumor is growing. maybe it's the tumor pressing against a nerve in my neck or upper back that is the cause for this perpetual crick that i can't get rid of. i can't go to a doctor everytime i think i am dying. that would be too expensive. but, damn, i get tired of thinking that i have one foot in the grave every other week. my crooked teeth and receding hairline i can deal with. being the target of something more, how do you say, life-threatening? well, i just gave myself chillbumps again. i am going to stop. stupid grey's anatomy. joseph, i can't watch house. if i watched another medical drama, i would have to just check myself into an insane asylum.
aside from all that, i've been away from writing for almost two weeks. not away from the site. i check it obsessively, if for no other reason than i still like the new colors. but, i decided to let my last post marinate a little longer than usual. it was a pretty big one. but now, it's time to move on. time to move from announcing the baby to chronicling the journey of having our second child. and explaining it to hannah. wow. should be interesting.
since my last post, not a ton has gone on. a short review of the last ten days (in no particular order):
- super bowl party with the kikers and the rickles (all of them). fun was had. food was eaten. the result that our crowd was looking for was gained. i love peyton, but he can thank (in order) rex grossman, joseph addai and dominic rhodes for pulling the monkey off his back. not that peyton was bad. he managed the game well. but he didn't win it. he had help.
- signing day came and went, and what do you know, alabama did pretty good. some decent skill guys, some big guys, a quarterback to battle for the spot behind jp. on paper, things are looking up. nick saban rattled all sorts of cages on the recruiting trail and got killed for calling a group of people "coonasses". meanwhile, a nationally syndicated radio host (and saban Hater with a capital "h") got away with calling people in the south "tornado bait". his defense? people can't change their ethnicity, but they can choose where they live?!?! brilliant. so, you heard it southerners. if you are unhappy living in the south, just move to san diego. what? what do you mean that would be expensive? oh, that's right. espn's colin cowherd must have meant to say, "if you don't like where you live and you make a lot of money, you can choose where you live." idiot.
- i almost broke my right big toe walking down the stairs. i am not kidding. maybe the tumor is affecting my motor skills too.
- hannah and i kicked it without mommy (first time in a while), who was working late, last night. had dinner with marie and joseph, which was fun. good times. good times.
- played my last game of the basketball season and went off (sure we lost, but i went off. that's what's important.).
- last, but not least. lost returned!!! incredible episode that hopefully sets the stage for a kick-butt next fifteen weeks. speaking of haters, a lot of folks are turning away from lost it seems. i have to admit, it's frustrated me too. but this week reminded me that when done right, there cannot be a better hour-long show on television. you can bring me your 24. you can give me your house. your grey's anatomy. this is the standard-bearer. has to be.
well, thirty minutes later, my head isn't spinning quite as bad, but i still feel off. it's one of those days that i am looking forward to getting to work, so just in case i fall out, somebody will be around to call 911.
three cheers for fear. hip, hip. hooray. hip, hip. hooray. hip, hip. hooray.
Monday, January 29, 2007
guess who's coming to dinner?
(hannah and me, part nineteen)
to some of you, this may be news. to some of you, it is not. or, it's old news. either way i guess it's news. but the point is this. as i type this, somewhere is tuscaloosa, sarah is carrying our second child. she has been serving as such a vessel now for around ten weeks, and "the word" is starting to leak out. when she intially made me aware that there was something afoot (right before christmas), we mutually decided that it would be best to wait a few weeks before making people aware of the occasion. for a few reasons we decided this. one, it was just early. we had not heard a heartbeat. we didn't know for sure that there was only one. among others. as of a week ago friday, we now have seen the little peanut. and we have heard the heartbeat. and we know there's only one. and, so, now we invite all of our family and friends to place the little parasite on your prayer lists. i am having a hard time not wishing this time for a little boy. hearing kiker and andy talk of the impending little league season makes me want for a little boy to mold, but i know in my heart of hearts that my world is perfect now being the father of a beautiful little girl. would it not be even more perfect if there were two? we will find out what to prepare for soon enough. for the time being and the last few weeks, i have thought a lot about how my and sarah's life will be altered with another child added to the mix. the following is a somwhat premeditated, somewhat off the cuff list of things that i am thinking about as it relates to hannah's younger brother/sister...
1) i wonder what i'll do with the url address of this blog. this may seem a trivial place to begin this list, but these are the types of things i think of. hannah and me just rolls off the tongue. but if i don't include the new child somehow, jealousy will ensue and that could very well be the harbinger of hannah waking up years from now with her eyes glued shut. steps will have to be taken to avoid this.
2) will the new child like me? i've grown on hannah by this point, but i do wonder which child will end up being the "daddy's girl" or the "momma's boy" or the "boy that doesn't like football" or the "girl that hates her mommy". hannah hasn't yet shown a lean toward either of us, but when there is competition in her own house for attention, lines will be drawn and sides will be chosen. hopefully, i get the more athletic one and sarah gets the one that throws like a girl (or is a girl, or both).
3) i wonder what diapers are like. how quickly i have chosen to erase this part of hannah's history from my memory. diapers and pull-ups are freakin' disgusting. i mean, really?!?! who craps their pants??? granted, sarah will tell you (and be right) that she changed the lion's share of the diapers, but i remember them enough to know that i didn't like them. maybe this one will come out like a kitty. we'll just show him/her the toilet when we get home from the hospital and not have to worry about diapers at all.
4) i wonder how soon we'll stop asking each other if "we are ready to have have two children". we keep hearing how the biggest adjustment parents have to make is the leap from one to two kids. why? wouldn't the biggest leap be from zero to one? i mean, we've done it all before. it's like the song henry the 8th. second verse, same as the first, right? right?
5) i wonder what it'll feel like for sarah to be pregant on august 10th (due date is aug. 30th) when it's 96 outside and the heat index is like 110. man, that'll suck for her.
6) i wonder how i got to be this lucky and not have to be pregnant or have "times of the month". that is pretty awesome for me.
7) i wonder how weird it'll be to have to go the the "Y" to work out since my workout room will soon be a nursery. i haven't participated in communal workouts since high school, and they weren't very fun then. since in trussville people never really grow out of high school, this is, also, not going to be very fun.
8) i wonder if the new kid will be as cool as hannah. sing fiona apple and kanye west and the format in the car. pick up curse words from his/her dad. own her daycare class. ice-skate in the living room. have rhythm.
9) i wonder what the new one will call marie. it'll have to be maine, right?
10) i wonder if granddaddy and nana will come to this one's birthday parties. i wonder if they'll even be invited.
11) i wonder what it'll feel like to feel my heart grow for this one like it did for hannah. i can't wait for that.
12) i wonder if hannah will realize that babies aren't as durable or flexible or tolerant as kitties.
13) i can't wait for hannah to be a big sister.
hannah, what in the world are we going to do with you? this new arrival is not going to be nearly the culture shock to mommy and daddy as it will be to you. things will be different, but things will be the same. nothing can or will happen that will change you being our first. our baby girl. i'll love our little boy/girl just as much as you, but my string will always be wrapped around your finger. this is going to be fun. and we can't wait to share our new adventure with you.
"i'm henry the 8th, i am. henry the 8th, i am, i am. i got married to the widow next door. she's been married one time before...
second verse! same as the first!"
(hannah and me, part nineteen)
to some of you, this may be news. to some of you, it is not. or, it's old news. either way i guess it's news. but the point is this. as i type this, somewhere is tuscaloosa, sarah is carrying our second child. she has been serving as such a vessel now for around ten weeks, and "the word" is starting to leak out. when she intially made me aware that there was something afoot (right before christmas), we mutually decided that it would be best to wait a few weeks before making people aware of the occasion. for a few reasons we decided this. one, it was just early. we had not heard a heartbeat. we didn't know for sure that there was only one. among others. as of a week ago friday, we now have seen the little peanut. and we have heard the heartbeat. and we know there's only one. and, so, now we invite all of our family and friends to place the little parasite on your prayer lists. i am having a hard time not wishing this time for a little boy. hearing kiker and andy talk of the impending little league season makes me want for a little boy to mold, but i know in my heart of hearts that my world is perfect now being the father of a beautiful little girl. would it not be even more perfect if there were two? we will find out what to prepare for soon enough. for the time being and the last few weeks, i have thought a lot about how my and sarah's life will be altered with another child added to the mix. the following is a somwhat premeditated, somewhat off the cuff list of things that i am thinking about as it relates to hannah's younger brother/sister...
1) i wonder what i'll do with the url address of this blog. this may seem a trivial place to begin this list, but these are the types of things i think of. hannah and me just rolls off the tongue. but if i don't include the new child somehow, jealousy will ensue and that could very well be the harbinger of hannah waking up years from now with her eyes glued shut. steps will have to be taken to avoid this.
2) will the new child like me? i've grown on hannah by this point, but i do wonder which child will end up being the "daddy's girl" or the "momma's boy" or the "boy that doesn't like football" or the "girl that hates her mommy". hannah hasn't yet shown a lean toward either of us, but when there is competition in her own house for attention, lines will be drawn and sides will be chosen. hopefully, i get the more athletic one and sarah gets the one that throws like a girl (or is a girl, or both).
3) i wonder what diapers are like. how quickly i have chosen to erase this part of hannah's history from my memory. diapers and pull-ups are freakin' disgusting. i mean, really?!?! who craps their pants??? granted, sarah will tell you (and be right) that she changed the lion's share of the diapers, but i remember them enough to know that i didn't like them. maybe this one will come out like a kitty. we'll just show him/her the toilet when we get home from the hospital and not have to worry about diapers at all.
4) i wonder how soon we'll stop asking each other if "we are ready to have have two children". we keep hearing how the biggest adjustment parents have to make is the leap from one to two kids. why? wouldn't the biggest leap be from zero to one? i mean, we've done it all before. it's like the song henry the 8th. second verse, same as the first, right? right?
5) i wonder what it'll feel like for sarah to be pregant on august 10th (due date is aug. 30th) when it's 96 outside and the heat index is like 110. man, that'll suck for her.
6) i wonder how i got to be this lucky and not have to be pregnant or have "times of the month". that is pretty awesome for me.
7) i wonder how weird it'll be to have to go the the "Y" to work out since my workout room will soon be a nursery. i haven't participated in communal workouts since high school, and they weren't very fun then. since in trussville people never really grow out of high school, this is, also, not going to be very fun.
8) i wonder if the new kid will be as cool as hannah. sing fiona apple and kanye west and the format in the car. pick up curse words from his/her dad. own her daycare class. ice-skate in the living room. have rhythm.
9) i wonder what the new one will call marie. it'll have to be maine, right?
10) i wonder if granddaddy and nana will come to this one's birthday parties. i wonder if they'll even be invited.
11) i wonder what it'll feel like to feel my heart grow for this one like it did for hannah. i can't wait for that.
12) i wonder if hannah will realize that babies aren't as durable or flexible or tolerant as kitties.
13) i can't wait for hannah to be a big sister.
hannah, what in the world are we going to do with you? this new arrival is not going to be nearly the culture shock to mommy and daddy as it will be to you. things will be different, but things will be the same. nothing can or will happen that will change you being our first. our baby girl. i'll love our little boy/girl just as much as you, but my string will always be wrapped around your finger. this is going to be fun. and we can't wait to share our new adventure with you.
"i'm henry the 8th, i am. henry the 8th, i am, i am. i got married to the widow next door. she's been married one time before...
second verse! same as the first!"
Thursday, January 25, 2007
mark gottfried's "star theory" applied in general
it pains me to write about alabama basketball. it really does. writing anything usually brings me great pleasure, but talking about alabama basketball usually brings me great heartache. "why?", you may ask. aren't they in the top twenty? yes, yes they are. but that's all they'll ever be, because to reach the highest levels of basketball, your coach has to be able to coach, not just recruit. and believe me, mark gottfried can recruit. rod grizzard, gerald wallace, mo williams, kennedy winston, ronald steele and richard hendrix all have come through tuscaloosa during his tenure. all of them top 50 players in the nation. all of them lacking two things. a guy behind them threatening to take their playing time away. and a coach that can coach.
alabama got raped on the road again tuesday night by a good but not great auburn team. each of their four losses this year have been on the road to good but not great teams. in each loss, they have given up a minimum of 81 points. this tells even a casual fan that the defense is lacking. talk radio was aflutter yesterday with questions of "what is wrong?" with alabama. every game you watch, you hear about how "wonderfully talented" their starting five is. every game you watch, you see this "wonderfully talented" starting five playing very soft defense. the best theory i heard yesterday evolved into what i now will call mark gottfried's "star theory". he has been content over the last nine years to go after one stud guy per year in recruiting, and it's paid off. but if you look back at his classes over the last five years, you see one guy that has stuck around and played, and the others realizing that they will be sitting the bench and leaving for playing time elsewhere. i wrote about one of these cases this time last year. what this has left alabama with is zero depth and zero accountability. the "wonderfully talented" starting five knows that two true freshman and a crappy back up point guard are the only guys waiting to come in off the bench. would they give more effort? maybe, but at this point in all three of their careers, they aren't going to do anything to change the results of these sec road losses. and so alabama is stuck. no depth. no competition for playing time. no motivation to play harder on defense because you know you aren't coming out of the game. no accountability. and thus, alabama may be headed to the nit this year with a starting five "wonderfully talented" enough to make a run to the final four but one without spine.
i think we all can probably relate to the "star theory". we've all worked or known people that are in certain positions, whether it be at work, church or at the country club that take their positions of power for granted. they know that there aren't any "real" consequences for their performance not being as good as it could be if they gave their all. what happens to a church pastor that is losing numbers or young families if the "old money" is still keeping the budget where it needs to be to coast? not much. what happens to a store manager that feels like his job is safe even though his employees are begrudgingly doing the lion's share of the work? nothing. what happens if you are an incredibly incompetent children's minister at a baptist church in pinson that sucks up to the right people? you get a raise.
the "star theory" is tough to deal with. especially if you feel like you are giving your all and still being shit upon. whether that shit is not moving up the ladder as fast as you would like, or being frustrated when you see something that used to be great not living up to it's true potential or if you are a fan and don't have your team of choice playing hard when they are getting to travel the country and a free education for playing a game.
what we do with that frustration, though, will always help to define us. we could give up. become apathetic and miserable. convince ourselves that we are destined to be unhappy for the rest of our waking lives.
or we can fight. become more passionate and invested in that church you love. keep working harder than everyone else and know you will reap the rewards soon enough. keep rooting for alabama basketball so you can stand at the front of the line when they make those oh-so-special runs to the elite eight.
for the moment, i choose to fight.
it pains me to write about alabama basketball. it really does. writing anything usually brings me great pleasure, but talking about alabama basketball usually brings me great heartache. "why?", you may ask. aren't they in the top twenty? yes, yes they are. but that's all they'll ever be, because to reach the highest levels of basketball, your coach has to be able to coach, not just recruit. and believe me, mark gottfried can recruit. rod grizzard, gerald wallace, mo williams, kennedy winston, ronald steele and richard hendrix all have come through tuscaloosa during his tenure. all of them top 50 players in the nation. all of them lacking two things. a guy behind them threatening to take their playing time away. and a coach that can coach.
alabama got raped on the road again tuesday night by a good but not great auburn team. each of their four losses this year have been on the road to good but not great teams. in each loss, they have given up a minimum of 81 points. this tells even a casual fan that the defense is lacking. talk radio was aflutter yesterday with questions of "what is wrong?" with alabama. every game you watch, you hear about how "wonderfully talented" their starting five is. every game you watch, you see this "wonderfully talented" starting five playing very soft defense. the best theory i heard yesterday evolved into what i now will call mark gottfried's "star theory". he has been content over the last nine years to go after one stud guy per year in recruiting, and it's paid off. but if you look back at his classes over the last five years, you see one guy that has stuck around and played, and the others realizing that they will be sitting the bench and leaving for playing time elsewhere. i wrote about one of these cases this time last year. what this has left alabama with is zero depth and zero accountability. the "wonderfully talented" starting five knows that two true freshman and a crappy back up point guard are the only guys waiting to come in off the bench. would they give more effort? maybe, but at this point in all three of their careers, they aren't going to do anything to change the results of these sec road losses. and so alabama is stuck. no depth. no competition for playing time. no motivation to play harder on defense because you know you aren't coming out of the game. no accountability. and thus, alabama may be headed to the nit this year with a starting five "wonderfully talented" enough to make a run to the final four but one without spine.
i think we all can probably relate to the "star theory". we've all worked or known people that are in certain positions, whether it be at work, church or at the country club that take their positions of power for granted. they know that there aren't any "real" consequences for their performance not being as good as it could be if they gave their all. what happens to a church pastor that is losing numbers or young families if the "old money" is still keeping the budget where it needs to be to coast? not much. what happens to a store manager that feels like his job is safe even though his employees are begrudgingly doing the lion's share of the work? nothing. what happens if you are an incredibly incompetent children's minister at a baptist church in pinson that sucks up to the right people? you get a raise.
the "star theory" is tough to deal with. especially if you feel like you are giving your all and still being shit upon. whether that shit is not moving up the ladder as fast as you would like, or being frustrated when you see something that used to be great not living up to it's true potential or if you are a fan and don't have your team of choice playing hard when they are getting to travel the country and a free education for playing a game.
what we do with that frustration, though, will always help to define us. we could give up. become apathetic and miserable. convince ourselves that we are destined to be unhappy for the rest of our waking lives.
or we can fight. become more passionate and invested in that church you love. keep working harder than everyone else and know you will reap the rewards soon enough. keep rooting for alabama basketball so you can stand at the front of the line when they make those oh-so-special runs to the elite eight.
for the moment, i choose to fight.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
the children's place
(if by children you mean children of low to middle-income families that don't expect too much attention, too many state-of-the-present educational tools, 21st-century-looking classrooms or teacher-to-child ratios that fit within dhr standards)
(hannah and me, part eighteen)
i am something of a reactionary most of the time. i don't really see this as a fault as much as i do the product of not wanting to worry about any little thing all of the time. what could happen is something that i will think about, but never obsess over. could i die in a car wreck from not putting my seatbelt on when traveling across a parking lot? well, yes, i guess i could. most likely, it's not going to happen, so i don't worry about it. could i be less sore after a softball game, basketball game or football practice if i stretched beforehand? sure i could, but the sore isn't too inconvenient, so i usually don't. could i be taken over by the impulse to rob a bank on my way to work this afternoon? i most certainly could, but my lack of forethought in not having a ski mask packed away in my glove compartment and/or my lack of owning any weapon threatening enough to rob a bank with will save me from years of imprisonment. now there are exceptions to this rule, but that is a subject for another post when the exception proves relevant to being written about.
sarah is different. she is worried all the time. what could happen will keep her up at night. sometimes, such as in arguments over wearing a seatbelt in the parking lot, this drives me crazy. there are other times, though, that her worry makes sense. case in point. yesterday, i picked hannah up from daycare and her classroom was like a scene out of any movie you can think of where there is one parent/teacher/guardian repsonsible for too many children and are obviously in over their heads. right now, i am thinking of kindergarten cop. the teacher knew she was in trouble. she was serving as potty patrol for one kid. a jungle gym for another. and a handwasher for another. all at the same time. meanwhile, one of hannah's friends is tying something around hannah's neck. she isn't hurting hannah. so, i don't really think anything of it. i make a comment to kearra that she looks like she has her hands full. she tells me that she is currently watching 15 kids. by herself!!! i thought, "man, that sucks for you." and hannah and i headed home. not until i told the story to sarah last night did i think anything of it. the kids seemed ok. no one was bleeding. the worst case scenario didn't seem to be playing itself out. i am cool. well, of course, sarah freaks out. she gets online and sees that, according to dhr rules, hannah's class yesterday afternoon seems to be breaking 90 percent of them. turns out, according to a conversation sarah had with her teachers this morning, that the teacher-to-child ratio in her class is supposed to be 7 to 1. yikes.
so, what do we do? what do i do? the children's place (our church's daycare and hannah's daytime home since she was a baby) has struggled mightily in the last couple years. they don't have the budget to hire capable people, so turnover is always high. when they find a diamond in the rough, they don't have the money to keep them. and because they are always shorthanded, the dependable teachers are always left to cover for others by pulling shifts longer than they should. even people that love kids need a break and they all have a breaking point. i walked by the baby room last week and saw the interim director sitting in a rocking chair with her eyes closed. did it strike me as odd? kind of, but there weren't any babies screaming, so i am sure she just wanted to find a quiet place to get away for a minute.
the children's place, much like humc on the whole, has been floating by on reputation for years now. i know this. sarah knows this. any long time member of the church must have an idea. but the worst case scenario hasn't played out, so why worry about the slipping quality if you are still bringing in kids and money and parents that don't know any better. well, the answer is easy. with the children's place and the church. what's the old saying? "if you aren't moving forward, you are moving backwards." something like that. and people that care about not moving backwards, people that care about the well-being of their children are not so naive to believe that the worst case scenario will not, one day, play out. and so the aware and the enlightened parents will move on. many already have. there are only a couple kids, hannah's age, that are left at the children's place. most have seen the flaws and moved on to daycares that make them feel safe. places that make them feel that the worst case scenario has a far greater chance of not happening than happening.
we have stuck with the church and daycare out of loyalty and love. it is our home. these people. these pastors. these teachers are our family. but hannah's physical and spiritual well-being coming into question changes things, doesn't it?
i may be the yin to sarah's yang when it comes to worry, but in this case, hannah's case, i am on board with her. things have to change.
for the better.
(if by children you mean children of low to middle-income families that don't expect too much attention, too many state-of-the-present educational tools, 21st-century-looking classrooms or teacher-to-child ratios that fit within dhr standards)
(hannah and me, part eighteen)
i am something of a reactionary most of the time. i don't really see this as a fault as much as i do the product of not wanting to worry about any little thing all of the time. what could happen is something that i will think about, but never obsess over. could i die in a car wreck from not putting my seatbelt on when traveling across a parking lot? well, yes, i guess i could. most likely, it's not going to happen, so i don't worry about it. could i be less sore after a softball game, basketball game or football practice if i stretched beforehand? sure i could, but the sore isn't too inconvenient, so i usually don't. could i be taken over by the impulse to rob a bank on my way to work this afternoon? i most certainly could, but my lack of forethought in not having a ski mask packed away in my glove compartment and/or my lack of owning any weapon threatening enough to rob a bank with will save me from years of imprisonment. now there are exceptions to this rule, but that is a subject for another post when the exception proves relevant to being written about.
sarah is different. she is worried all the time. what could happen will keep her up at night. sometimes, such as in arguments over wearing a seatbelt in the parking lot, this drives me crazy. there are other times, though, that her worry makes sense. case in point. yesterday, i picked hannah up from daycare and her classroom was like a scene out of any movie you can think of where there is one parent/teacher/guardian repsonsible for too many children and are obviously in over their heads. right now, i am thinking of kindergarten cop. the teacher knew she was in trouble. she was serving as potty patrol for one kid. a jungle gym for another. and a handwasher for another. all at the same time. meanwhile, one of hannah's friends is tying something around hannah's neck. she isn't hurting hannah. so, i don't really think anything of it. i make a comment to kearra that she looks like she has her hands full. she tells me that she is currently watching 15 kids. by herself!!! i thought, "man, that sucks for you." and hannah and i headed home. not until i told the story to sarah last night did i think anything of it. the kids seemed ok. no one was bleeding. the worst case scenario didn't seem to be playing itself out. i am cool. well, of course, sarah freaks out. she gets online and sees that, according to dhr rules, hannah's class yesterday afternoon seems to be breaking 90 percent of them. turns out, according to a conversation sarah had with her teachers this morning, that the teacher-to-child ratio in her class is supposed to be 7 to 1. yikes.
so, what do we do? what do i do? the children's place (our church's daycare and hannah's daytime home since she was a baby) has struggled mightily in the last couple years. they don't have the budget to hire capable people, so turnover is always high. when they find a diamond in the rough, they don't have the money to keep them. and because they are always shorthanded, the dependable teachers are always left to cover for others by pulling shifts longer than they should. even people that love kids need a break and they all have a breaking point. i walked by the baby room last week and saw the interim director sitting in a rocking chair with her eyes closed. did it strike me as odd? kind of, but there weren't any babies screaming, so i am sure she just wanted to find a quiet place to get away for a minute.
the children's place, much like humc on the whole, has been floating by on reputation for years now. i know this. sarah knows this. any long time member of the church must have an idea. but the worst case scenario hasn't played out, so why worry about the slipping quality if you are still bringing in kids and money and parents that don't know any better. well, the answer is easy. with the children's place and the church. what's the old saying? "if you aren't moving forward, you are moving backwards." something like that. and people that care about not moving backwards, people that care about the well-being of their children are not so naive to believe that the worst case scenario will not, one day, play out. and so the aware and the enlightened parents will move on. many already have. there are only a couple kids, hannah's age, that are left at the children's place. most have seen the flaws and moved on to daycares that make them feel safe. places that make them feel that the worst case scenario has a far greater chance of not happening than happening.
we have stuck with the church and daycare out of loyalty and love. it is our home. these people. these pastors. these teachers are our family. but hannah's physical and spiritual well-being coming into question changes things, doesn't it?
i may be the yin to sarah's yang when it comes to worry, but in this case, hannah's case, i am on board with her. things have to change.
for the better.
Friday, January 12, 2007
can "h" stand for hispanic and huffman at the same time?
(now that it's not hearsay, here's what i say.)
my brother-in-law, joseph. most of you know him. i love him to death. he recently took a hiatus from my world of retail pet supplies to focus on being a senior in high school. fair enough. no one will hold that against him. joseph used to play a huge role in the youth department at huffman united methodist church. present at every event. vocal in every discussion. vital to the creative process of many a program. even after i went away, joseph stayed true to his church and his youth group. then something funny happened. his church and his youth group didn't stay true to him. joseph got a job. joseph got a girl. joseph got to get ready for college. schedule fills up. church attendance drops a tad. naturally, rumors start to fly. for some reason, unbeknownst to me, the rumors turn towards being mean and, naturally, rumor-liscious. two friends of mine happen upon the youth director at huffman not too long ago. the youth are practicing for their christmas program. the two wonder out loud to the youth director where joseph is. they are told something along the lines of. 'he is not around anymore.' 'he spends a lot of time with his girlfriend.' 'i've heard she's a wiccan.' ..............
wtf? did i hear that right? let's remove the content of the mudslinging from the discussion. but did you just tell me the youth director of a (my) church dragged an eighteen year-old's (and his girl's, mind you) name through the mud in order to redirect the attention away from the fact that joseph (who has been up until recently a prominent member of this group and church for the last five plus years) isn't there practicing?
hol-y. shit.
fast forward to yesterday. i get an e-mail from donna letting friends and folks know that her position as pastor of young adults has been eliminated. that there are rumors (rumors, granted.) circulating that the about to be vacated children's director position will not be filled either. this e-mail comes four days after the congregation is told that for the first time in three years the staff will be able to be given raises due to the budget surplus and (naturally) their outstanding performance. ouch, babe. if only i knew that the path to financial success would be to stay at huffman, keep pissing off parents, losing numbers, alienating veteran members, repainting the youth center, locking up early, dumping the youth choir, taking off my shoes and spreading rumor and innuendo, shoot, i would have treaded water there for as long as i could. screw chris and his money pit of a church plant. right, chris?
and so, here i sit. wondering what's left. my heart keeps telling me that huffman is worth my heartache. my worry. my silly rants. but moreso than ever, my mind is telling me something completely different. maybe the staff cuts are part of a larger picture. maybe more money and focus will now be poured into the hispanic community. it will be our effort to make "h" stand for huffman and hispanic at the same time. maybe that was charles lee's biggest gaffe. he didn't realize that "h" could never stand for black. that's just silly.
and so, here i sit. battling with the want to kick a youth director's ass for talking out of turn about my family to cover up his own ineptitude. battling with the pulpit relaying a message of hope when only three days later, the voice from behind the curtain tells a friend that she is no longer needed.
is this the kind of thing that i want hannah to be a part of? is this the kind of place you would wish upon your enemy? or are these merely growing pains. casualties of war to find some greater foothold in god's plan and kingdom.
maybe. maybe not. that god. sometimes He can be pretty mysterious...
oh, wait. nope. He's not. the only mysterious thing about god is that He and His plan are too big to fully understand. He is a god of love. a god that cares for his own. the two acts detailed above aren't examples of that love. i cannot believe that. i don't believe that. i never will.
and so i sit here and ponder. what's next? what should i do? just be mad? cut my losses and move on? try and swallow it and move along with the current? that just doesn't seem right. it seems like i'd be letting too many people down if i did.
i really don't know.
(now that it's not hearsay, here's what i say.)
my brother-in-law, joseph. most of you know him. i love him to death. he recently took a hiatus from my world of retail pet supplies to focus on being a senior in high school. fair enough. no one will hold that against him. joseph used to play a huge role in the youth department at huffman united methodist church. present at every event. vocal in every discussion. vital to the creative process of many a program. even after i went away, joseph stayed true to his church and his youth group. then something funny happened. his church and his youth group didn't stay true to him. joseph got a job. joseph got a girl. joseph got to get ready for college. schedule fills up. church attendance drops a tad. naturally, rumors start to fly. for some reason, unbeknownst to me, the rumors turn towards being mean and, naturally, rumor-liscious. two friends of mine happen upon the youth director at huffman not too long ago. the youth are practicing for their christmas program. the two wonder out loud to the youth director where joseph is. they are told something along the lines of. 'he is not around anymore.' 'he spends a lot of time with his girlfriend.' 'i've heard she's a wiccan.' ..............
wtf? did i hear that right? let's remove the content of the mudslinging from the discussion. but did you just tell me the youth director of a (my) church dragged an eighteen year-old's (and his girl's, mind you) name through the mud in order to redirect the attention away from the fact that joseph (who has been up until recently a prominent member of this group and church for the last five plus years) isn't there practicing?
hol-y. shit.
fast forward to yesterday. i get an e-mail from donna letting friends and folks know that her position as pastor of young adults has been eliminated. that there are rumors (rumors, granted.) circulating that the about to be vacated children's director position will not be filled either. this e-mail comes four days after the congregation is told that for the first time in three years the staff will be able to be given raises due to the budget surplus and (naturally) their outstanding performance. ouch, babe. if only i knew that the path to financial success would be to stay at huffman, keep pissing off parents, losing numbers, alienating veteran members, repainting the youth center, locking up early, dumping the youth choir, taking off my shoes and spreading rumor and innuendo, shoot, i would have treaded water there for as long as i could. screw chris and his money pit of a church plant. right, chris?
and so, here i sit. wondering what's left. my heart keeps telling me that huffman is worth my heartache. my worry. my silly rants. but moreso than ever, my mind is telling me something completely different. maybe the staff cuts are part of a larger picture. maybe more money and focus will now be poured into the hispanic community. it will be our effort to make "h" stand for huffman and hispanic at the same time. maybe that was charles lee's biggest gaffe. he didn't realize that "h" could never stand for black. that's just silly.
and so, here i sit. battling with the want to kick a youth director's ass for talking out of turn about my family to cover up his own ineptitude. battling with the pulpit relaying a message of hope when only three days later, the voice from behind the curtain tells a friend that she is no longer needed.
is this the kind of thing that i want hannah to be a part of? is this the kind of place you would wish upon your enemy? or are these merely growing pains. casualties of war to find some greater foothold in god's plan and kingdom.
maybe. maybe not. that god. sometimes He can be pretty mysterious...
oh, wait. nope. He's not. the only mysterious thing about god is that He and His plan are too big to fully understand. He is a god of love. a god that cares for his own. the two acts detailed above aren't examples of that love. i cannot believe that. i don't believe that. i never will.
and so i sit here and ponder. what's next? what should i do? just be mad? cut my losses and move on? try and swallow it and move along with the current? that just doesn't seem right. it seems like i'd be letting too many people down if i did.
i really don't know.
Monday, January 08, 2007
new year, new layout
if you are a regular visitor to this page, you've already noticed one big difference brought upon with the new year. that's right! the new layout. i think i am liking it more and more. i find myself clicking on the page just to check out the colors. i'll probably try fiddling around (pictures, links, more cursing) with posts from time to time this year to make it a more attractive visit. what can i say? as hannah gets older, she needs her stimulations to be more advanced. i am growing with her. i am not a "gadget" kind of guy. but by the time she gets old enough to read and understand my musings, she is going to think of this page in the same way i think of typewriters. very old. very boring. where are the lights? the bling? the techno-savvy elements that all the "kids" are into these days (these days probably being around the year 2015 when i am sure she will asking for one of those cool levitating skateboards from back to the future 2 for christmas). it's funny how "old school" and out of touch i am already afraid of becoming. i was afraid to hook up my computer that sarah got me for christmas because i didn't want to fuck it up. ipods? too much work. i'll stick to cd's. gps units? if it ain't on yahoo maps, i don't need to go there. those of you that know me well already know how big of a leap it is for me to carry my cell phone with me and answer it (from time to time). so, now that i think about it, brightening up the page every once and again will end up being a shallow effort that hannah ends up making fun of me for. that's ok. i know i'll at least have one thing. i'll be the only dad in her class that throws around the word "fuck" at the dinner table like it's going out of style. gratuitous cursing will never be "uncool", right? what do you mean it already is?
you don't know shit.
and now, on to a few belated new year's resolutions:
1) don't get fat. this is my number one every year, and up 'til now, i've been blessed in that i really don't have to try. i've got a pretty good metabolism working for me. i work out three times a week. i play a sport (softball, basketball, and now flag football) year-round. i never eat more than twice a day. twice a year it seems i catch some sort of vomit-inducing stomach virus where i lose ten pounds in eight hours. those are the positives. the negatives? my diet sucks. way too much fast food. way too much of something called trans-fat. don't even know what the hell that is. don't want to know. i just know it's bad. sooner than later, the diet thing is going to catch up with me. i can't make fat jokes if i, too, am fat. most of my "make sarah's eyes roll material" will be lost if i can't make fat jokes. so, again, number one is don't get fat.
2) don't die. let's not even wonder how this might affect the people around me. let's just focus on me. i've written about my deathdreams. best line i heard all year was from brand new. "i'm not scared of death. i'm a little bit scared of what comes after." i concur. i kind of "die" every night when i fall asleep. then i wake up, though. my mind is not at peace yet with the not waking up part. should be, but isn't. just being honest. so, right behind don't get fat is don't die.
3) be a better husband and father. i did ok with both of these last year. could be better. want to be better. don't let this being third on the list fool you. it's a really close third. you don't understand how much i don't want to be fat and die.
4) make you smile. whoever you are, if you are around me, i want to be a bright spot on your day and not a dark one.
5) decide on what i am going to do to with the whole church thing. am i going to commit or not? this definitely goes back to the heart vs. brain battle from the last post.
6) try and write more. writing makes me happy. i slacked off a little towards the end of the year. i should try harder.
7) buy good music. at least 25 purchases for the year. do not be "that guy" that resigns himself to the records he has in his collection already. keep buying new music. (soon to be bought: from 2006 - the format and the decemberists...2007 - the shins and fall out boy)
8) go back to an alabama football game. home schedule this year is too good not to.
9) keep bad mouthing alabama basketball. you lose to arkansas by 27 points, you deserve it.
10) fool myself into thinking the braves will be back in post-season this year in order to enjoy baseball.
11) go back to a falcons game. bobby petrino...meet michael vick. love him. use him. he is the most wonderful toy you will ever be able to play with.
12) take a vacation.
13) see lebron. and steve nash.
i think that's a pretty good start considering i had no idea what i was going to talk about when i started. to all of you that think new year's resolutions are pointless. get over yourself and make some. stick to it. feeling of accomplishment = good. apathy = bad.
here's wishing you all a healthy and hope-filled 2007.
if you are a regular visitor to this page, you've already noticed one big difference brought upon with the new year. that's right! the new layout. i think i am liking it more and more. i find myself clicking on the page just to check out the colors. i'll probably try fiddling around (pictures, links, more cursing) with posts from time to time this year to make it a more attractive visit. what can i say? as hannah gets older, she needs her stimulations to be more advanced. i am growing with her. i am not a "gadget" kind of guy. but by the time she gets old enough to read and understand my musings, she is going to think of this page in the same way i think of typewriters. very old. very boring. where are the lights? the bling? the techno-savvy elements that all the "kids" are into these days (these days probably being around the year 2015 when i am sure she will asking for one of those cool levitating skateboards from back to the future 2 for christmas). it's funny how "old school" and out of touch i am already afraid of becoming. i was afraid to hook up my computer that sarah got me for christmas because i didn't want to fuck it up. ipods? too much work. i'll stick to cd's. gps units? if it ain't on yahoo maps, i don't need to go there. those of you that know me well already know how big of a leap it is for me to carry my cell phone with me and answer it (from time to time). so, now that i think about it, brightening up the page every once and again will end up being a shallow effort that hannah ends up making fun of me for. that's ok. i know i'll at least have one thing. i'll be the only dad in her class that throws around the word "fuck" at the dinner table like it's going out of style. gratuitous cursing will never be "uncool", right? what do you mean it already is?
you don't know shit.
and now, on to a few belated new year's resolutions:
1) don't get fat. this is my number one every year, and up 'til now, i've been blessed in that i really don't have to try. i've got a pretty good metabolism working for me. i work out three times a week. i play a sport (softball, basketball, and now flag football) year-round. i never eat more than twice a day. twice a year it seems i catch some sort of vomit-inducing stomach virus where i lose ten pounds in eight hours. those are the positives. the negatives? my diet sucks. way too much fast food. way too much of something called trans-fat. don't even know what the hell that is. don't want to know. i just know it's bad. sooner than later, the diet thing is going to catch up with me. i can't make fat jokes if i, too, am fat. most of my "make sarah's eyes roll material" will be lost if i can't make fat jokes. so, again, number one is don't get fat.
2) don't die. let's not even wonder how this might affect the people around me. let's just focus on me. i've written about my deathdreams. best line i heard all year was from brand new. "i'm not scared of death. i'm a little bit scared of what comes after." i concur. i kind of "die" every night when i fall asleep. then i wake up, though. my mind is not at peace yet with the not waking up part. should be, but isn't. just being honest. so, right behind don't get fat is don't die.
3) be a better husband and father. i did ok with both of these last year. could be better. want to be better. don't let this being third on the list fool you. it's a really close third. you don't understand how much i don't want to be fat and die.
4) make you smile. whoever you are, if you are around me, i want to be a bright spot on your day and not a dark one.
5) decide on what i am going to do to with the whole church thing. am i going to commit or not? this definitely goes back to the heart vs. brain battle from the last post.
6) try and write more. writing makes me happy. i slacked off a little towards the end of the year. i should try harder.
7) buy good music. at least 25 purchases for the year. do not be "that guy" that resigns himself to the records he has in his collection already. keep buying new music. (soon to be bought: from 2006 - the format and the decemberists...2007 - the shins and fall out boy)
8) go back to an alabama football game. home schedule this year is too good not to.
9) keep bad mouthing alabama basketball. you lose to arkansas by 27 points, you deserve it.
10) fool myself into thinking the braves will be back in post-season this year in order to enjoy baseball.
11) go back to a falcons game. bobby petrino...meet michael vick. love him. use him. he is the most wonderful toy you will ever be able to play with.
12) take a vacation.
13) see lebron. and steve nash.
i think that's a pretty good start considering i had no idea what i was going to talk about when i started. to all of you that think new year's resolutions are pointless. get over yourself and make some. stick to it. feeling of accomplishment = good. apathy = bad.
here's wishing you all a healthy and hope-filled 2007.
Friday, January 05, 2007
"i'm not going to be the alabama coach."
(nick saban is the devil)
(a letter to a liar from a liar)
(if i seem a little taller, don't worry. i am just standing on my soapbox.)
i am having a hard time wrapping my head around all the nick saban bashing that seems to be happening outside of this state. i'll grant you that my take on this is seen through crimson and white glasses, but let's be serious. who here has never said one thing only to turn around and do something else? who here has not lied? who here is so morally beyond reproach that they can call into question someone's integrity without first questioning their own?
espn? come on now, guys. "the liar's club"? don shula? just because your son was horrible and you weren't good enough to win dan marino a super bowl doesn't mean you have to bash the guy that left the dolphins better off than he found it. sure, this was supposed to be the dolphins' "breakthrough year", but they didn't have a fucking quarterback!!! ronnie brown was hurt for half the season! settle down, old man, settle! sure, you went 17-0. that was 34 fucking years ago!!! you sucked for how long after that? give me a break.
let me give you a personal example of something that i, myself, went through. shortly after christmas last year, a key member of common ground church in huntsville quit our team. looking back, i now know that from that point forward my heart was no longer in huntsville with common ground. maybe it never truly was. maybe i was looking for an excuse to get back to birmingham because by going to huntsville i had found the reason that i never should've left. whatever it was, i knew where i would end up, at the very latest at the end of sarah's internship in august, would be birmingham. but here's where my analogy ties in with saban. that my heart wasn't in it did not change, in even the smallest fucking way, my commitment to common ground. i respected our effort. i respected chris too much to back away then.
"mr. o'kelley, there are rumors that you are going back to birmingham."
"i am not going back. our job here isn't done."
"mr. o'kelley, we have sources that tell us you have shown interest in managing a pet supplies "plus" back in huffman."
"i have no idea where that came from. i don't even like MY pets. why would i want to help run a pet store."
"so, you are staying with common ground and coldstone."
"I AM NOT GOING BACK TO BIRMINGHAM."
well, it turns out i came back to birmingham. my heart was here. it always was. but my commitment was in huntsville. does that mean i lied to myself? to others? maybe. maybe not. just depends on how you choose to report it. i don't think so. i think a person can be fully "committed" to some direction, to some job, to some idea and have their heart eventually pull them elsewhere. and i believe this is, in some way, what happened to nick saban. he was so fully "committed", in mind and body, to his team and his owner that he would not even entertain the thought of going to alabama. but his heart would.
we are all liars, people. to one degree or another. if you've ever told someone you'd call them and didn't follow up, that counts. if you cheated on a paper or test, that counts. if you told a girl you really liked titanic, that counts. if you ever told someone that you loved them and then chose to not see them for years, that definitely counts. whatever the degree, we are all in the same freakin' boat. to call nick saban out, to call anyone out without looking yourself in the mirror is quite, quite shallow.
i lie. all the time. i am not a premeditated liar anymore. sometimes, though, i just can't help it.
hannah, you are going to lie to your mommy and daddy maliciously and you are going to feel so bad about it. i know this because i've been there and done that. it's ok, we still love you. in advance.
nick saban is going to lie to me. and you, alabama fan. but i still love him. in advance.
opinion is great, because everyone has one. blogging is great, because in this world, my opinion is right.
i am of the opionion that if you are upset with nick saban or any other liar at this very moment, you should chill out. go get some ice cream. and know that the vast majority of liars are just people that have a battle being waged inside them between their head and their heart and are just trying to find their way through this world.
roll fucking tide.
(nick saban is the devil)
(a letter to a liar from a liar)
(if i seem a little taller, don't worry. i am just standing on my soapbox.)
i am having a hard time wrapping my head around all the nick saban bashing that seems to be happening outside of this state. i'll grant you that my take on this is seen through crimson and white glasses, but let's be serious. who here has never said one thing only to turn around and do something else? who here has not lied? who here is so morally beyond reproach that they can call into question someone's integrity without first questioning their own?
espn? come on now, guys. "the liar's club"? don shula? just because your son was horrible and you weren't good enough to win dan marino a super bowl doesn't mean you have to bash the guy that left the dolphins better off than he found it. sure, this was supposed to be the dolphins' "breakthrough year", but they didn't have a fucking quarterback!!! ronnie brown was hurt for half the season! settle down, old man, settle! sure, you went 17-0. that was 34 fucking years ago!!! you sucked for how long after that? give me a break.
let me give you a personal example of something that i, myself, went through. shortly after christmas last year, a key member of common ground church in huntsville quit our team. looking back, i now know that from that point forward my heart was no longer in huntsville with common ground. maybe it never truly was. maybe i was looking for an excuse to get back to birmingham because by going to huntsville i had found the reason that i never should've left. whatever it was, i knew where i would end up, at the very latest at the end of sarah's internship in august, would be birmingham. but here's where my analogy ties in with saban. that my heart wasn't in it did not change, in even the smallest fucking way, my commitment to common ground. i respected our effort. i respected chris too much to back away then.
"mr. o'kelley, there are rumors that you are going back to birmingham."
"i am not going back. our job here isn't done."
"mr. o'kelley, we have sources that tell us you have shown interest in managing a pet supplies "plus" back in huffman."
"i have no idea where that came from. i don't even like MY pets. why would i want to help run a pet store."
"so, you are staying with common ground and coldstone."
"I AM NOT GOING BACK TO BIRMINGHAM."
well, it turns out i came back to birmingham. my heart was here. it always was. but my commitment was in huntsville. does that mean i lied to myself? to others? maybe. maybe not. just depends on how you choose to report it. i don't think so. i think a person can be fully "committed" to some direction, to some job, to some idea and have their heart eventually pull them elsewhere. and i believe this is, in some way, what happened to nick saban. he was so fully "committed", in mind and body, to his team and his owner that he would not even entertain the thought of going to alabama. but his heart would.
we are all liars, people. to one degree or another. if you've ever told someone you'd call them and didn't follow up, that counts. if you cheated on a paper or test, that counts. if you told a girl you really liked titanic, that counts. if you ever told someone that you loved them and then chose to not see them for years, that definitely counts. whatever the degree, we are all in the same freakin' boat. to call nick saban out, to call anyone out without looking yourself in the mirror is quite, quite shallow.
i lie. all the time. i am not a premeditated liar anymore. sometimes, though, i just can't help it.
hannah, you are going to lie to your mommy and daddy maliciously and you are going to feel so bad about it. i know this because i've been there and done that. it's ok, we still love you. in advance.
nick saban is going to lie to me. and you, alabama fan. but i still love him. in advance.
opinion is great, because everyone has one. blogging is great, because in this world, my opinion is right.
i am of the opionion that if you are upset with nick saban or any other liar at this very moment, you should chill out. go get some ice cream. and know that the vast majority of liars are just people that have a battle being waged inside them between their head and their heart and are just trying to find their way through this world.
roll fucking tide.
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