"i wish i knew how to quit you."
(why i just can't hate barry)



an interesting development in the land of baseball happened yesterday when the fan-voted all-star game starters were announced. the league's pariah, one barry bonds, leapfrogged the cubs alfonso soriano and made it into the line-up as the nl's third most popular outfielder. the fact that bonds is included in the game is really interesting on a lot of different levels.

one, barry is the 500 lb. gorilla in the league. everyone in the mainstream sports media is so convinced that barry has cheated the integrity of the game that they haven't been able to write a kind word about him for months. ever since he announced that he'd return to the giants this year, thus ensuring that he would break hank aaron's home run record if he stayed healthy, sportswriters have been ripping him apart. wishing that he would injure himself. quit. anything that would prevent him from "tarnishing" baseball's legacy by breaking the one record that most defines the sport. and there is a part of me that understands this treatment. in every sport i have played, i have just assumed that my opponents were playing fair, "doing it the right way" if you will. i didn't even "get" or start to wrap my head around the fact that people cheated until i was 22 or 23. it didn't even cross my mind. so, had someone told me that joe q. pitcher was doctoring his balls while i was in high school so that his curve would have a better chance of making me swing and miss, i'd have been pissed. the feelings toward barry are in this same vein times a million. so, i "get" it now, but do i care?

two, the all-star game is being played at barry's home park in san francisco. the game will be called by joe buck and tim mccarver, two of barry's biggest detractors since hints of his cheating started to surface. i will record the game (since i'll be playing a double-header of softball that night), if for no other reason than, to listen to the pair try and convince the nation that barry breaking aaron's record is a bad thing while his hometown fans cheer wildly the entire time. it will be classic television. just wait for his first at-bat and listen to buck painfully talk nice about barry's still out of this world on-base percentage. i can't wait. the hate will be obvious. i promise you. but if the folks in san fran. don't hate barry, why should i?

three, barry is a freaking rock star, and who doesn't want to watch a rock star in what could be his last concert before a national audience? honestly? you don't? yes, you do. why don't you? if it's because you don't like baseball anyway, fine, i'll give you that. but if you do, and you choose to turn the channel because you don't want to participate in the greatness that is a barry bonds at bat due to all the rumors, innuendo and circumstantial evidence, then you, my friend, are a moron. just watch and you'll see one of the best pitchers (probably sabathia or haren or beckett) on the planet nibble away in the first inning as they pitch to him because he's still the greatest hitter in the game as a 42 year-old. i love rock stars. and i love rock music, even if the means to writing that song or playing that show included hard drugs. if this in my stance on music, then why should it be different with sports?

the fact is, for me, it isn't. sure, i'll admit, i get swept away at times when all of the talking heads on espn are exploding with vitriolic statements aimed at punching holes in barry's armor. i think to myself, "yeah, screw that guy. him and his cheating, swollen-headed magnificence. screw him." but that's just silly. i love watching barry. for all the wrong reasons i guess. but i love watching him, and i will be happy the day he breaks the record. i really will. god bless hank aaron, but i never saw him in person. i never embraced him as one of my favorites. i don't have any loyalty to him. i don't have anything against him, but barry i'll remember and celebrate that i got to see him hit a home run in person off john smoltz. that's just the way it is.

and for all the negativity, barry, himself, insists he never knowingly took anything that would unnaturally enhance his body or performance. and if barry says it, well, it's good enough for me (wink, wink).

things that i will buy if i am lucky enough to make it into the lottery
(hannah and me, part twenty-seven)


as some of you may know, the nba draft is tonight. i have taken all the formal steps to put my name in the hat. i have not signed with an agent, therefore if i do not agree with the basketball philosophy of the team that picks me, i may opt for another year of development with my humc basketball team in the competitive 19 and up division of the birmingham baptist association's basketball league. i cannot remember how many scouts were at the last game of our season in february when i took our shorthanded team on my back and carried them to a near upset of the second best team in the league. the legend of that game has grown significantly (in my mind) and while i have no delusions of unseating oden or durant as one of the top two picks, i would love to play close to home and would have no qualms about playing in atlanta (they have the third pick). if they want to take me 11th, that's cool too. i keep hearing about my lack of "upside", and it's starting to annoy me. sure, i am 30 and most of the other prospects are 10 years younger, but who cares!!! i, today, pronounce 30 the new 20, and offer my services to any team worthy of my skills.


moving on, the most important part of draft night is prioritizing my outlandish material wants depending on my draft slot. here are some highlights as to what new additions casa and family o'kelley can look forward to after i sign on the dotted line.


1) an exact replica of this pool...

this was the pool that we spent most of our time in this weekend. the entire left-hand side of it is no deeper than a foot and a half and hannah had a blast playing, floating and following around older girls. we need this pool.

2) this woman...

before you go thinking anything weird, let me explain. i begged, pleaded with hannah all weekend to come into the ocean with me. for me, personally, i would rather be in the ocean and waves than the pool. it feels more relaxing. when the waves are choppy, you actually have to "work out" just to stay afloat. so i love the ocean. so far, though, hannah is not into it at all. we were able to coax her in to the water only one time the entire trip and you can guess now what the bribe included. mommy told her that if she went into the water with daddy, we could go up to the room and paint her fingernails and toenails (if kimberly is reading this, i know you are laughing). and it worked!!! granted, she kicked, screamed and cried the entire time, but it was worth it to me. so, knowing how well that bribe worked for me and for hannah, i will just buy (or hire) a full time manicurist/pedicurist and keep her on hand at all times for those special moments when hannah's feeling ornery. (also, thanks to google images for not spitting out an asian man/woman when i typed in 'manicurist' and keeping me from having to explain away being racist.)

3) a huge bed...

since hannah and we are satisfied with our beds at home, this king-size bed will be purchased solely to put away until we take a vacation that calls for hannah to sleep with us because marie and rebecca and emma and joseph are taking up all the other beds. one of our lasting memories from the trip will be hannah's refusal to sleep in her section of the bed and burrowing into the sides of her mommy and daddy. kicking her legs. slapping our faces. stealing the cover, etc. maybe putting her in the middle was an error on our parts. maybe. but damn, we gave her plenty of room. nevermind, though, with the new, huge bed, room will no longer be an issue.

4) otterpops. lots and lots of otterpops.

this one's easy and doesn't necessarily relate only to our trip, but hannah loves popsicles. and loved them on the trip. so, my final crazy purchase will be every otterpop i can get my hand on.

if you notice a trend with my outlandish, material wants, you are very keen indeed. i mentioned a couple days ago that it wouldn't take long for the marvelous memories of our very first, real family vacation to rise above the bad ones. i love thinking back and remembering sarah smiling, hannah cracking us up, hannah trying crab claws like a big girl, hannah and emma making rebecca laugh her big, glorious laugh, all-you-can-eating fried shrimp with joseph and talking my way out of walking on the beach (i hate long walks on the beach, whatareyougonnado?).

when you become a parent, though, everything comes back to your kid. sure, i'd buy sarah a new camry and some new sunglasses after coming to terms with my nba team, but i think we would both want to spoil the baby girl first and foremost.

you all can say you knew me back when. when i wasn't an nba superstar. because tonight's the night. oden. durant. o'kelley. it's got a nice ring to it.

sarah, will you hit the snooze button, please?

how do you spell vacation?
(S-E-I-Z-U-R-E)
((hannah and me, part twenty-six))


it's a phone call a parent never wants to receive. one that i surely wasn't aware of how much i didn't want to receive it until i became a parent. a phone call alerting you to your child being in danger. a phone call that comes out of nowhere. a phone call telling you that you need to come...fast.

it's a phone call that i didn't ask for, that no parent does, but i got anyway thursday morning. i dropped off hannah at school that morning and all was fine. normal. routine in every way. we talked about the beach. we talked about it so much that she didn't want to go to school and i didn't want to go to work. i left her thinking the next time i would see her would be around 3:00 and we'd head home to pack up the truck and go. well, it wasn't. at about 10:15, my phone rang and i was busy with a customer so i didn't pick it up. about two minutes later, the same number rang again and i answered the call. on the other end was a frantic interim children's place director telling me that hannah had suffered a seizure on the playground...

WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i was told that she was ok. that she had stopped shaking. that her eyes were no longer in the back of her head. that at this point, she was just without color and scared. and i was out the door.

i have no idea what i told jason and muffley as i headed out of the store and toward hannah. i remember calling heath and telling him i was leaving the store. i remember trying to get in touch with sarah and failing, and i remember trying to process the information i had just received without throwing up all over myself. the two previous times hannah had been rushed to children's were under sarah's watch. one of the times i was in freaking huntsville. this time, it was sarah that was stuck an hour away and nowhere near reachable. it would've helped had i tried calling tuscaloosa instead of the uab numbers i was blowing up, but like i mentioned, my mind was all over the place.

i made it to the church to find hannah in the warm arms of her favorite teacher, ms. malinda. at first glance at both of their faces, i couldn't tell who was more scared. hannah immediately came to me and i got the full story of the events on the playground from malinda and donna and proceeded to take hannah to the doctor. never having done this before and not being able to get in touch with sarah, i called marie and she pointed me toward's children's hospital. i got confirmation from hannah's pediatrician that this was the right call and we were off. the tribute is pretty fast when i push the pedal down hard. all the while, hannah was coming back to her usual self. she knew something weird had happened. she knew that this wasn't how the day was supposed to go. more than anything else, she really just wanted to know if we could go to the beach.

we made it to an empty children's emergency room and almost immediately went back. by this time, it was about 10:50 and hannah was fine. she was checked by a resident and the doctor in charge and given a clean bill of health. she had not been sick prior to whatever happened on the playground. she regained use of her faculties almost immediately. thus, they decided that no further testing would be needed that morning. i was surprised to learn that, evidently, kids hannah's age are allowed one "freebie", however weird that sounds, when it comes to seizures. they told me that it could very easily be a stand-alone event. we are just to watch her. not leave her alone in the bath. not leave her unattended on the monkey bars or anything else high. things that we shouldn't do anyway but that we may have taken for granted had thursday morning not happened.

poor hannah, her little three year-old mind was completely one track. she asked the doctors four separate times, "so, we can't go to the beach?" they assured her and me that we could and we went. for the most part, we had a wonderful time. hannah had a blast and was a very helpful big cousin. she is going to be a marvelous big sister. this morning, as i reflect once again on last thursday morning, it makes me even more disappointed that the last twelve hours of our trip were rendered uncomfortable and awkward due to hurt feelings of some sort.

those last twelve hours are easiest to taste, now, one day removed. for the greater part, though, we had a marvelous time. and those marvelous memories will rise to the surface soon.

the beach was fine. more importantly, hannah is fine. i am crossing my fingers for her that the events of thursday morning are, indeed, stand-alone. i am thankful that somehow, i took care of her that morning in a way that made her mom proud.

it's a phone call that no parent ever wants. a phone call that alerts you that your child is in danger. a phone call that, as a parent, i am sure to have again.

but i don't want it. you're the best, baby girl.

vacation?


so, for the first time since our honeymoon, sarah and i edit: and hannah (and marie and joseph and rebecca and emma) will be taking an extended trip that does not involve a wedding or visiting family. holy cow!!! to say that my head is already at the beach is an understatement, and i told the guys at softball last night that i am certain the trip will be the fastest five days of my life.

obviously, i'll be away from TWALBTMLE for a while, but i think it's a good time to let the last few posts settle.

i'll see you next week with all the tales of hannah and me from the beach that you can stand!!!

D-R-A-M-A-T-I-C
(the anatomy of "the serious voice")


in my head, i've teased and thought about this "children's place post" so much that i think i've burned myself out on it. so, when it comes, it'll come. you'll see it. you won't hear about it anymore. on to my monday morning quarterbacking of yesterday's service...

as i've said before, i've been cleansing my palate for months now, ever since rick announced his impending departure, so that i could start recommitting and reinvesting myself into my church. on father's day, with the official arrival of a new minister, i would step down from the balcony and start stirring the pot. in a literal and figurative way, step down from the balcony sarah and i (and joseph) did yesterday. it was a weird feeling to be quite honest. i don't think we bumped anybody out of their normal seats, but moving from the almost empty balcony to the half-filled lower section was not without anxiety. would people read anything into the move? would anyone even notice? would i feel out of place? to be honest, i don't really know how noticed sarah and i are anymore. there, of course, was a part of me that hoped people would see us and wonder where we've been, but i doubt that was the case. i have kept myself on the periphery of things for so long now that my guess is i've fallen curse to "out of sight, out of mind." no difference, though. that won't be the case for long. i did not feel out of place, which helped my mood. it was nice to be able to hear other folks singing along with us during the hymns and doxology. it was nice that we weren't the only stop the offering plate would have to make on our pew. it was nice to have more than one person to shake hands with during the christian greetings portion of the service. and so, the literal move went fairly smoothly. the figurative one? well, that'll take more time to figure out.

on to the service. the one that would introduce our new "leader". the one that would carry us into the next era of our church. first impressions are everything. for everything that rick lacked, he made a good first impression with his first service. sarah and i talked about how one could literally feel the congregation breathe a huge sigh of relief during rick's first service and know that there would be a chance to heal after charles lee dug a hole for us and threw us in. i'll cover the first impression that was chris denson's first service by looking at the pros and cons. let's start with the cons. like everything post-yesterday, i am going to make an intentional effort to end positive even if there are crappy things to mention.

the cons:

* why is it that we can't get through a whole service anymore without a technical glitch? joe crump, noted techno-wizard and old guy, struggled through the ENTIRE introduction of the denson family with either a faulty microphone, a faulty soundguy, or a little bit of both. granted, chris denson had nothing to do with this, whatsoever, but it makes the church look stupid. not a good start.

* joe crump, also known in some circles as "the only guy that could suck the joy out of the fact that we have a god that loves us so much he sent his son to die for us", tells the congregation and the new pastor that he hopes that rev. denson can be successful in "sustaining the vitality" of the church. WTF? did i miss something? obviously, no one has given joe crump a copy of my last post. being optimistic is one thing. being unaware or not true to your church's situation is another. of course, he might have been talking about sustaining vitality kind of like an emergency room doctor might want to sustain the vitality of a person that had spent the last half-hour underwater but miraculously started breathing again when they got him to the hospital. "ok!!! we've got a pulse, people!!! let's sustain that vitality!" i mean, i guess our church does still have a pulse, right?

* during his sermon, dude cried. those that know me know that i am not a big fan of tears. so, he starts the story with how we are raised by imperfect people and i anticipate him spinning it towards a perfect god, yada, yada, yada. nope. he starts talking about his dad painting a picture for him and feeding the homeless (or the "untouchables"), both of which are awesome, but a little hokey for a first sermon. at least for me. and then he choked up and told his dad thanks. not a huge point against him, but the crying stuck out to me.

* the last con. and this one's kind of a biggie. dude sang. yes, he sang. and he has a beautiful voice. but he sang several, if not all (i kind of tuned out), the verses of he touched me. i got the point. "listen to the words. listen to god." but in the same way rick did not realize that "song of my heart" may have resonated in a negative way due to the poor memories of heartsong, i am not sure rev. denson understood that charles lee left us all feeling like we could use a little less singing and show, and a little more memorizing his sermon. the only thing i kept waiting for during the solo was for the guy to go into the choir loft, sit down at the piano and begin swaying side to side like stevie wonder. thankfully, that didn't happen, but the moment was lacking, again, in awareness, and you could feel how uncomfortable the congregation was at the time. maybe that was the point. if so, though, it was an ill-advised point.

now that i am through drinking my hater-ade, the pros:

* there was only ONE joke. just one. and it was kind of crappy. but that's awesome. you are not funny. and that is just fine. the era of stand-up routine followed by the "serious voice" is over. just a message. a very...

* scripturally-driven and centered message. one of the things that rick suffered from was starting with scripture and then losing himself in all sorts of tangential stories and bad jokes. this meant he had to use "the serious voice" to remind us that we were actually talking about god and kind of lost his audience along the way. at least for one sunday, rev. chris denson's delivery was different. he gave us some context help with the passage and preached on the passage. it was kind of foreign-feeling, but it worked ok.

* speaking of his delivery, it was, in a word, dramatic. where rick usually closed with "the serious voice" yesterday was all "serious voice". beginning to end. dramatic pauses. squinted eyes. eye contact with as many folks as possible. all of it. the new pastor has a very big voice and a good presence (and great hair!!!...a plus in any walk of life) in the pulpit and used both of those to his advantage. what i felt in D-R-A-M-A, though, i was able to forgive for the most part, because i felt like he meant what he was saying. even when he was crying about his dad, i still got the feeling he meant it. maybe he's just a crier. maybe he likes fried green tomatoes and doesn't care who knows, but i did get the impression he was genuine in almost every word and phrase he used yesterday. that, also, could be a huge and positive change from my (and others) perception of the previous two administrations.

if i were grading, i'd give yesterday's first impression a "B-". there was room for improvement but it definitely could have been worse.

there were rumors circulating yesterday that he's never been in a church with a daycare and humc will be his biggest church. both of those things bode poorly for the situation he's inheriting. but it will be several weeks before we know if he's in over his head or not.

i did leave yesterday feeling pretty good about, at the very least, yesterday. the guy seems interested in the challenge. that will help.

and so, i am back on board. for any of you that may read my thoughts here and consider huffman home, i encourage you to leap with me, one last time, into the idea that we can still have a home in huffman ten to fifteen years from now. no one is more cynical than i am. i'll admit that. but i am trying to remember what made me love huffman in the first place. i am going to try and be a part of a movement that will allow hannah to create those same memories here. not clearbranch. or trussville. or somewhere that doesn't seem to suck as bad as we do and have. this isn't a call to arms. it's just a request.

to those of you that i've been lucky enough to be in your lives and share humc with in some capacity, i am going to start annoying you soon.

and asking for your help.

i hope you consider it.

more on the church


sarah stumbled upon this (set date range from 2000 to 2006, click 'find church by name', type huffman and press enter) yesterday evening as she was trolling around the internet and happened to wonder if the folks in our techno-ministry had updated huffman's site in the recent past. we were both surprised to see that someone was at least on the ball enough to update the staff page removing rick and donna and adding rev. denson and lindsey hull, our new part-time children's director. as sarah continued to peruse the site, most of it terribly dated (unless youth choir has re-started at 530 on sunday evening and i had not heard), she clicked on the conference link and followed her interest to the link i provide you above.

i am going to do my best to post my long awaited, long-hyped children's place entry tomorrow before i go in and close the store. but before i did so, i thought it might be of interest to those of you that pay relatively frequent attention to this site (and by product of your interest, you being privy to my internal skepticism about my church's future) to point you in the direction of some cold, hard facts and not just my opinion on the matter.

it does not, in any way, shape or form, take a statistics geek to analyze our charts. 400 fewer members in our fold by the end of 2006 as compared to the end of 2000. 200 fewer in combined worship. and keep in mind that the years in question contain the end of not one, not two, but three alternative worship services "designed" to attract un-churched or de-churched persons. drops in professions of faith and baptisms are seen next, but both of those numbers were pretty weak even back in 2000. the first four charts are bad. real bad. but the most defining chart is the last one. our apportionments. most of you readers are aware of this, but apportionments are the portion of each united methodist church's budget that are pledged towards the conference whole. in other words, apportionments are a church's tithe toward the sum of our conference's parts, god's church and god's kingdom. only once in the six years charted did we even meet half of our pledge and in 2003 (charles lee's only full year), we didn't even reach 15 percent of our goal. as i look at this and reflect on the figures, am i the only one that feels uneasy? we do not, as a church, tone down our stewardship campaign and efforts when it's time to get ready for the next year's budget. but how can we expect our congregation to fully buy in (financially) to what we at huffman are doing if we cannot fully buy in (financially) to what our conference and god's greater kingdom has in store for our monetary gifts? we tell our congregation that what we give of ourselves god will return several fold. we tell our congregation that we should consider god first with our finances because he considers us first in all walks of life. we tell our members to not be afraid to tithe "your ten percent", because god will provide. but we, as a church, are not committed to this idea. if we, on the whole, are not convicted, then why should we be as individuals?

is there a direct link between the failure to meet our apportionment and our congregation fading away at an alarming rate? maybe not directly, but what i see is this. rather than recommitting as a church and saying, "ok. we are going to come at this from another direction. we will give god his first and work from there. we are trusting ourselves to fix this and it is not working. it is time to, literally, give this over to god and ask him for the wisdom to save our church.", we have developed a bunker mentality. instead we are saying, "shit. we are dying off way faster than we are reaching new people. so, let's see how long we can drag this out. we'll cut full-time staff to part-time. we will not readjust our apportionment because we can't afford to. and we will all sit indian-style with our fingers crossed and hope something happens."

that's just not how it works, folks. for all my gloom and doom, if you are inclined to trust the context of scripture, we see that god trusts and puts faith in persons and groups that trust and put faith in him. huffman is not holding up our end of the deal. and we are paying for it.

i am glad i happened upon some numbers that say that in a way that doesn't just come across as me whining.

out with a predictable and awkwardly scheduled whimper


i have yet to devote an entire post to the overall importance of the children's place to the future of huffman united methodist church. while that continues to brew, though, i will point out that our would be/could be fatal flaw reared it's head yet again on rick owen's last sunday.

this morning was "vacation bible school sunday" in name, but in action, it was moreso a glorified sendoff to a friendly pastor that ended up doing very little in his four years served to turn the downward momentum of humc. as mentioned, rick was and is incredibly likeable, which will always play in your favor if you are trying to cover up the fact that funerals over the last four years outnumbered new members (a big chunk of those new members coming via our hispanic congregation that we can't really talk to because they don't speak english) by 25 percent. being likable and funny in the pulpit may mask the fact that we are no closer to reaching our "community" than we were this time six years ago when we brought in charles lee. it may hide that our newly hired (part-time, of course) children's director had no idea (!!!) that vbs was a massive undertaking. but rick being likable will get a sunday school class named in his honor. it will get him a check from the church he is leaving to help with his "moving into your new house" expenses. it will also get the well-past-having-a-clue chair of our staff-parish relations committee to encourage folks to shake rick and pat and donna's hand before going to the fellowship hall to celebrate the "future" of our church because some of our congregation "may not care about vacation bible school".

and there you have it, folks. the telling quote of the day. does it make sense to schedule a reception honoring those leaving your fold in conflict with a pot luck lunch that lifts up children and families that still remain? of course it doesn't, but we stopped making sense a long time ago. in the world of huffman umc, it makes more sense to put on a happy face and tell a pastor (who chose to leave), his wife and a longtime member (that herself was pushed out the door) good bye and good luck, because, goshdarnit, some people might not care about vacation bible school.

and those peope will carry huffman's coffin when we end up folding into wilson'schapel/huffman/st.john's umc in ten years if we continue down this path. i am skeptical that things will ever be better than this. that we can turn our fortunes. but this is the bed we have made. can we all of a sudden change who we are? i doubt that we can. too many people have either left, stopped caring, or resigned themselves to the same thoughts that flood my mind every time i step into our church. we are not a place that we invite friends to. we are too depressing. too old. too boring. too content.

next sunday, a new chapter begins. will it be our last? next sunday, rev. chris denson will begin to understand that he has been sold and sent to a church of distinguished reputation that is now a house of cards. next sunday, i will take my bucket to the deck and start scooping. time will tell if we have the strength the patch the gaping holes.

time will tell if we can make everyone care about vacation bible school. and the children's place. and what terrible stewards of this church we have become.

yeah, but can he shoot?


an interesting story broke this week when projected number two pick in the upcoming nba draft, kevin durant, couldn't benchpress 185 pounds one time. espn.com's insider used this information to sell his point that greg oden should deserve the number one pick even more now. it all seemed kind of silly to me, but it made me happy that tons of folks picked up the "story" and had the same reaction that i did. something along the lines of, "yeah, but he can still shoot, right?" i mean, anyone who paid even a little attention to the ncaa season saw that the most dominant player in college basketball this year was kevin durant, not greg oden. i know. i know. greg oden's wrist was hurt. he's big. he's a center. he has more "upside". and that all may be true. but i know this, if i was starting my own nba team next year and had the number one pick, i would be taking kevin durant. the silliness and the attention paid to the fact that kevin durant can't benchpress 185 got me thinking about how little "tangibles" mean when it comes to sports and life itself sometimes.

there are countless examples (mike mamula, tony mandarich, robert gallery, sebastian telfair, kwame brown, todd van poppel, rick ankiel, among many, many others) in every sport i follow of workout warriors that wow scouts and teams with their sheer physical "tools", but suck when it comes to translating those "tools" to their respective game. i understand that combines and scouting are essential to the process of pro sports in the same way that school is essential to some careers. i wouldn't want medical advice from someone that had decided medical school wasn't necessary in their career development and i wouldn't want to to be a passenger on a flight manned by a pilot that was in the process of teaching him or herself how to fly. but most careers and jobs are not that school specific. and no sports are.

in football, basketball and baseball, does it help to be strong and fast? absolutely. the cream of the crop in most sports are the players that can combine superior physical talent with an abnormal football, basketball or baseball i.q. but can you be good or even great without the superior talent? i don't know. ask ben wallace. terrell owens. joe montana. george brett. dale murphy. bruce bowen. steve largent. rickey henderson. mike piazza. i could go on and on with a list of guys (sorry, girls) that weren't considered the most supreme talent, but went on to all-star to all-pro to hall of fame careers.

in jobs outside of sports, does it help to be "educated"? definitely. sometimes, you have to have that piece of paper to get in the door. but then i think of the field that i am in now, retail, and how little it has to do with education and how much it has to do with people and life experience. and how if i was starting a retail establishment today, my first pick wouldn't be my step-brother who just finished up at dartmouth. it would probably be my brother in florida or my 30 year-old co-worker at psp that has done a lot of drugs. i would pick them because they know how the world works and they know how to make something out of completely nothing. they've seen the bottom of the barrel and decided to scratch and claw their way out of the muck instead of just giving up. are either of my examples "there" yet? i and they would probably say no, but saying that would only add to my point. they would understand that life is a process of ups and downs and that the "tangibles" of life (education, etc.) mean very little when life throws you a curve or a big fucking rock, depending on how bad your situation was/is.

i don't know if this post has much of a flow to it. i think i was just looking for a reason to talk about brian. it's not like portland will rue the day they didn't pick greg oden. he's going to be an all-star even if he's not as good as kevin durant. and some firm in new york isn't going to rue the day they didn't go to a rehab community in florida instead of dartmouth to handpick their next great employee.

i guess my idea can be summed up so. in the nba, any story that doesn't focus on someone's ability to play the game is pretty trivial. in life, any story about a person that doesn't focus on where that person came from to get wherever the hell it is they are today is also missing the point. i like that, for some reason, my life is surrounded with people that society (not to mention their own families) would rather sweep under a rug. and i like that i can speak for them and stand up for them not because they have asked me to or because it improves my resume, but because i think those people are the ones that matter most in the grand scheme of things.

that, and maybe because i am one of those people.

writing through lebron colored glasses
(hannah and me, part twenty-five)


i knew that i wanted to sit down and write this morning, but i didn't really have anything gnawing on my creative nerve. truly, the only thing i can think of this morning is lebron james and how happy i am that i didn't turn the tv off the three separate times i told sarah "cleveland just lost the game" and go to bed. but i do know that it's been a while since i went "hannah and me" on y'all's ass, so i'll just talk about her for a few minutes.

hannah is going through a "phase". i hope it's a phase. i really do, because there are many times in the last month or so when her hard-headedness has left me wanting to find a brick wall to drive my head through. i have been hesitant about talking about it here, though, because i can already feel the eye-rolling and hear the snickering from the parents that may read this and have already dealt with a three year-old and i can't stand the thought of them saying something like "oh, they are just three.", or "you are getting what you deserve.", or "they are acting just like you at that age." all of those things may be true to some degree, but damn if that doesn't simplify things a little too much, right? i have never been a huge fan of painting with a broad brush or generalizing to the "n"th degree. it just makes everything seem too "ecclesiastes" for me. 'there's nothing new under the sun'. 'your own opinions are just variations of opinions of people that came before you.' bullshit. bullshit. bullshit. everything than hannah is doing right now, every way that she is reacting to me and sarah, every button of mine that she is pushing has EVERYTHING to do with me. and her mom. and the teachers she's around at school. and her classmates. and people at church. and she, in a very natural and reactionary way, is developing into her own little person that, oftentimes, is not happy with the direction her world is taking. and when hannah ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

all of this, the newfound attitude and aptitude for displaying said attitude has made me question and account for my role in what is going on. am i doing what's best for her? am i making the right decisions? am i treating other people in a way that she'll see and want to treat other people? most of the time, i think the answer is yes. sometimes it's not. tuesday night at softball (church league, mind you), some dickhead was flapping his lips all game. i mean, all game. and he sucked. so, finally, as he was on third base talking shit and prancing around and off the bag like an idiot, i told kiker that if he left third base again to throw the ball at his head and maybe we, as a team, could teach him an important life lesson. that lesson? don't be a dick. the dick and i (who i am sure came across as a dick too) jawed back and forth. he wouldn't shake my hand after the game and i imagined this scenario in my head this morning while i worked out...i imagined walking up to the fields next week with hannah and coming across the guy and him making a comment or asking me if i was going to raise my daughter to act like i did in the softball game last week. and my immediate imaginary response to his imaginary question was, "if by raise you mean crack on douchebags when she grows up? then yes. yes i am." i then imagined hannah telling maine about softball asking her what a douchebag was. ugh.

clearly, i have some work to do. as a person and most definitely a parent. i mean, i will definitely raise hannah and caroline to be aware of douchebags and be able to call them out in a very clever and articulate way, but i have to be careful in how i raise her to define a douchebag. i can't go painting with a broad brush.

hannah's "phase" has an awful lot to do with me. i know that. she is stubborn because her mommy is stubborn and, dude, i am fucking stubborn. but she is also very, very sweet. quick to hug. quick to smile. quick to talk to complete strangers and quick to make most people around her fall in love with her. i hope there's a little some of me in all that too. and i hope that as she grows out of this phase and into the next, i can help her sweet to rise and her sour to sink.

love you, baby girl.

p.s. - amare may have the tattoo, but lebron is black (basketball) jesus.

one of my babies looks to be screwed


my current list of babies:

michael vick
tim hudson
lebron james
ichiro (slipping)
jeff francoeur (rising)

like one of my favorite tv personalities might say..."that's it. that's the list." there are other athletes (peyton, manny, barry, nash, wade, among others) that i root for or, for that matter, might even make my appointment television list, but the above five guys are the ones that illuminate or haunt my dreams (dependant on whether i've eaten something heavy before i go to bed) on any given night. ichiro is only slipping because i never see him any more. being on the west coast, he never gets play on espn and i don't have the extra innings package, so the only time i will even get a chance to see ichiro live this year is the all-star game. honestly, i think i am still in love only with the idea of ichiro as much as the player himself. i can't really call myself a fan if i never see him play, right? as for frenchy, he's the closest thing atlanta (who's starting to teeter towards sucking right now thanks to the freaking injury bug burrowing under the club's skin) has seen to my childhood hero, dale murphy. huge arm. loopy and powerful swing. really fun to watch. could rise even higher on the list by the end of the season if he can somehow keep the braves in the race for the postseason.

the number one guy on my list is mike vick. and comparing mike vick to the rest of the list is almost unfair as far as his general importance to my lust of sports go. mike is dennis miller to the rest of the list's chris farley. and that's not to take anything away from chris farley. he's funny and all. especially when he's yelling or throwing himself into tables or overdosing, but dennis miller actually tells jokes. he says stuff that you have to chew on, make the connection, laugh about and then enjoy that you got it for a few days after the joke, itself, was told. mike vick is like that. nfl guys have always had a hard and frustrating time with putting mike in a box. "he isn't a dropback quarterback." "he doesn't complete enough passes." blah, blah, blah. at least once in every game, he has a "moment" that you just can't help but give him your total attention. most of the time it's when he's breaking free of the pocket and threatens to show every defender how much faster and athletic he is than them. on occasion, it's when he unleashes the national weapon that is his arm and tries to throw a pass through one of his receivers. but there is always that "moment" that, if you watch the game, you will think about and dwell on it's "i am so glad i saw that in real time" quotient for days after the fact.

well, unfortunately for me, him, and all of us, mike is about to have a different moment. seems that mike likes to raise dogs to fight and kill each other. this story is everywhere, and it won't seem to go away. it won't go away, because most of the story seems to be true and raising dogs to fight and kill each other happens to be illegal. as for the whole dogfighting thing, i think it's pretty crappy, but no more than other kinds of animal cruelty which seem to be overlooked. i''ll point you toward aol fanhouse and this article without going into too much detail, since i agree with pretty much every word. as for mike being involved, well, i can't really say that i am shocked or amazed or disappointed or whatever. it almost sounds like something that i would expect him to be involved in. on field and off, mike embraces his inner gangster, which to me, makes him that much more interesting. whether or not mike is charged or convicted of anything doesn't really matter at this point. if you cuss around the new nfl commissioner, you're gonna get suspended.

i am going to cross my fingers that i don't lose him for the whole season. or longer. i am going to send the commissioner an e-mail and ask him to understand what mike means to me and atlanta and the league and judge him lightly. and i don't expect it to change a thing.

oh, dear, sweet mike vick. is a sports life without you a life worth living? if the falcons lose with a crappy ex-georgia three-year back-up at quarterback or joey harrington, would they even make a sound? the world may soon find out.

and i will be sad.

five years and counting


it feels like i am supposed to be thinking something like, "man, may 25, 2002 feels like it was just yesterday." but it doesn't. in most ways, five years ago feels like five years ago. in most ways, five years ago feels like a lifetime ago. so much has changed since my and sarah's wedding day. so many peaks. so many valleys. so much different. not a lot the same.

just a few highlights (or lowlights in some cases) of the last five years...in the last five years i experienced the best of times as the student director of huffman united methodist church. great attendance. great experiences. young people learning to understand the idea of being a christian and being of the world all at the same time. me learning the same. in the last five years, also, i resigned myself to the thought that my church and myself would be better off without me and i gave up my staff position at the church i love. looking back, i may be better off, but the church and the youth group is not (of course, i am biased in this thought.). shortly after leaving huffman, i moved part-time to huntsville and became partly responsible for a failed church plant. in the last five years, i became a father...to a girl. unbelievably, we are both living to recount the experience thus far and may even be the better for it...both of us. in the last five years, i learned what it meant to be a husband and chose to be one. a real one, not just on paper. in the last five years, i've lost friends and i've gained friends. i've lost a pet and regained a pet. bought a car. bought a house. cut some loose ends. have left some hanging. bought less music. started a blog. in the last five years, i feel like i've learned more about how humans behave and react to one another than i ever would have thought possible. in the last five years, i feel like i've figured it out.

now, that's not all to say that i've figured it all out. just it. i am just comfortable and confident in my own skin for the first time in my life. and i am loving it. but i will say this, if i come as far in the next five years as i have in these last five, i might just have to change my name to neo and start breaking shit with my mind. i am just saying.

comfort and confidence is a happy place and an enlightening feeling. but i must be careful not to rest with the feeling. i told sarah on our anniversary that the biggest difference that i think she's made in my life is that, over the last five years, i feel like i have stopped taking the easiest option every time i am presented with a choice. taking the longcut to where i am now may not have always been the one that made sense to "most people" or even myself, but it brought me to a very dangerous place.

a place that tells me it's just about time to stir the pot again. but not because stirring the pot is the cool thing to do. because stirring the pot is the right thing to do.

happy anniversary, sarah. and thanks.

getting ready for the "next step"
(um...why did he put that in italics?)


i've haven't strayed onto the topic of huffman united methodist for a while now. the fact that i haven't been to a worship service there in several weeks isn't the whole reason i don't guess, although i am sure that it plays a role. i can't cite "out of sight, out of mind", because the church has most definitely been on my mind what with the upheaval in the children's place (humc's "ministry" of a daycare that hannah attends). it's more that, because i haven't been around on sunday mornings, i have tried to focus on good thoughts rather than negative ones. this tactic has worked to some degree. only for a short time after reading the weekly mail-out bulletin do i feel ire towards the church, and then i have moved on to hannah or sarah or sports or something more worth my time and effort.

but then i read rick's latest column. in it, he describes in short the life-raft of a position that the conference created for him to get the hell out of huffman and he tells the congregation in name that we will be welcoming rev. chris denson and his family to our fold come father's day. those two items are fine and good, but what i focused on and can't shake just yet is that he mentions that under our new pastor's leadership, huffman is ready to take the "next step". the words, "next step", are italicized. you can misspell words by accident. you can splice a comma by accident (i assure you). you can be thinking something in your head and your fingers type something else by accident (this also, i know). but you do not italicize by accident. rick was trying to make a special point with this move, and it's up to us, his readers, to understand and analyze this non-accident.

personally, it scares the hell out of me for huffman all over again. to me, there are only two ways you can take it. the first? he knew it was cliche'. he knew that the "next step" or taking said step is the go-to transitional phrase that every pastor must choose when he/she is leaving one church and handing the reigns over to someone else. this comment is the lame-duck's way of saying "the right thing" and allowing the congregation he's giving the finger to or being pulled away from a glimmer of hope as he/she exits. "don't worry, church X. rev. whatshisname is a wonderful man, an excellent preacher and you are ready to take the next step in your ministry with him." so, in scenario one we see rick understanding that he is using the old, tried and tired cliche', but being ok with being unoriginal and using it anyway. in scenario one, italicizing "next step" is lame, but it's understood.

scenario two is worse, but more likely. the second way we can take his comment is as a backhanded way of telling the church that we are screwed. we are to recognize that, cliche' or not, rick fully understood and wanted to use the phrase, the "next step", and in his mind, he knew what that really meant. for all intents and purposes, huffman's next step, you see, is to die. for years we have been able to play the "we are an aging church" card and still feel optimistic about the future of our church. but that time has come and gone. huffman is no longer aging. we have, in fact, aged. we have a goodly number of baby boomers in our midst. we have even more above or well-above retirement-aged persons. we have very few generation x'ers. we have very few youth and children. and what is worse about these vary vague demographics is that we, as a collective, seem ok with that. yesterday morning, a graduating class of seniors (the vast majority of which are no longer active with the youth group) were told 'that they'll always have a place at humc' and that 'we hope that you'll consider coming back to us after college'. the notion of never leaving was not even discussed. hell, like i said, most of them had already gone. but the why's and whatnot's of those individual young persons are not the issue here. the issue is this. rick knows what i know. that one of the conference's flagship churches of less than twenty years ago is borderline, if not altogether, irrelevant. he was just too chicken to say it. instead, he italicized "next step" as to not step on anyone's toes on the way out the door. bravo, rick. bravo.

huffman's been littered with "next steps" and missteps over the last several years. a retirement-age bishop yanking john rutland away from a congregation still brimming with potential and replacing him with the divisive and incompetent charles lee was one. cutting charles lee off at the knees (probably a good move), the church pushed him out and brought still-brimming-with-potential pastor rick "i want to know the song of your heart" (probably an ironic and bad omen from the get-go. there was still a bad taste in the mouth of the older members at huffman from our first failed non-traditional worship service named, you guessed it, heartsong.) on. unfortunately, shortly after rick came, the 500 lb. gorilla in the corner that is the children's place (look for more on the daycare in a future post soon) lost their capable and kind director. replacing her with an incapable administrator with a hard heart and no ties to the church was another misstep. the congregation and the staff failing miserably with two more (r.i.p. gracelink and manna mondays) non-traditional worship services were not fatal, but mere kicks to the groin of a church already on the ground. the final misstep to this point? our pastor cutting his own losses while his reputation (deserved or undeserved is for another debate) is still intact and floating on his life-raft into the uncharted waters of "new opportunity".

either way you slice it, huffman's next step is not a sight for sore eyes.

hope does remain, though. in the form of a daycare that is our only root into our community. a daycare that has also seen it's better days but may remain the only ministry at our church currently brimming with potential. does rev. chris denson understand this? not a chance. and we, as a collective, will be fighting for our lives to help him try and get it. there are those on our own staff that wish it would close it's doors yesterday. but hope does remain. in the kids and teachers that walk our halls during the week but do not sniff the sanctuary on the weekend.

whatever the next step is, huffman, we have to hold the children's place hand and let it lead us into the unknown. if you are not comfortable with this idea, i hear that trussville and clearbranch openly accept and embrace people that have rationalized themselves away from what once was a good and happy place.

fuck next step. the time to fight for our church is now.

how's the weather, fair?


bethlehem shoals from freedarko (anyone that's interested in mixing philosophy with the nba should take a look) posted an entry yesterday that included a comment that made me perk up and take a personal inventory. in observing the nba's current cinderellas (golden state) in their current series versus the jazz, shoals came to this conclusion. "i only like the warriors when they're winning." only if you've kept up with freedarko as the warriors completed the biggest nba playoff upset ever could you feel the total weight of the statement. shoals had gone so far as to compare the runamokedness of the warriors' game to jazz (the music, not the team) only a week or so ago. he was completely in love. as was most of the nba nation. and why not? they were only taking every model of what the perfect playoff basketball team was and eating it alive kicking and screaming. their coach was called a mad scientist. their players called castoffs, and that was only when people were being polite. but their brand of playground-times-ten basketball confused the "best team in the nba" and sent their mvp home to collect his mvp trophy at an embarrassing news conference instead of prior to a playoff game.

but the sheen on the new car that is/was the warriors has started to fade in the second round. you see, there was a reason they had to play themselves into the playoffs on the final day of the regular season. there were reasons why they were a .500 team. "the best team in the nba" just couldn't figure out those reasons. probably because their "mvp" sucks, but that's been documented on every sports site. i guess it makes sense that shoals and others are falling out of love with the warriors. it's the same feeling that people get when george mason type teams start to advance in the ncaa tournament. it's exciting at first, but then you realize that they suck and you hope they lose before they start completely ruining your bracket.

what this got me thinking of, though, was how often i am guilty of being a fairweather fan. which teams do i swear allegiance to even when times are tough? even with my "live or die" teams (alabama football and basketball, braves, falcons), i have turned my back on them. when the braves started going downhill last season (their first bad year in 15 years!!! how ridiculously not loyal am i???), i stopped watching games and had no interest in trying to find a way over to atlanta to catch a game in person. hell, the braves are a half game out of first today and when i heard that john smoltz hurt himself when i got home from work last night, i almost decided to mail the rest of the year in as a loss. don't even get me started about alabama sports. i hate those teams more often than i love them. that's painfully obvious from which emotion inspires me to write about them. trust me. this blog's archives document it clearly.

the more i thought about it, the more i came to my own epiphany, thanks in part to the guy from freedarko coming to his. i am completely, totally, 100 percent over the top a fairweather fan. i've become (or maybe always have been) what i have claimed to hate the most. the type of sports fan that claim "they lived through the dale murphy years" (like me.) or "wish that nick saban becomes the new bear" when they only know of the bear's legend (like me.). the kind of fan that will sport a red sox shirt one day and a mariners shirt the next depending on which athlete he is currently dreaming about at night (like me.). the kind of fan that adopts dwayne wade and the heat so they don't have to root for the mavericks (like me.). the kind of fan that falls in love with peyton only after he's gone from really good to hall-of-famer because the falcons kind of suck (like me.). i am "that guy". i know this. i might as well own it, right?

maybe that's my own way of putting sports into their proper perspective. jumping from team to team. bandwagon to bandwagon. could i live without sports? i wouldn't want to, but i probably could. and so, until the alabama high school athletic association proclaims every day a "day of worship" and bans all sports completely, i will choose this, my new and enlightened path. the braves and alabama football and alabama basketball and the falcons will still be my favorite teams, but i will claim my right as a fairweather fan to hop on any bandwagon, big or small, of my choosing at any time.

their are four things that i hope my legacy in life does not judge me as fairweather: a husband, father, christian and friend. after that, all bets are off.

as for sports?

let's go suns!!!

the world is flat
(oh, shit. no, sorry, it's round.)


i've mentioned a few times how much i like (or love...madly) the show, lost. i came to the party one season late, but after my first-season cram session, i was hooked. and it is now my tv drug of choice. heroes and the office are close seconds at this point, but even with those two shows, i could handle watching a taped episode of the former on tuesday nights when nothing else comes on or downloading an office on itunes just so long as we watch it before the next week's new episode airs. this is not the case with lost. if i didn't share my wednesday nights with jack, kate, sawyer and "the others", i'd be, well...you know, lost (sorry, you know i had to do that.). you could've counted me among the number of frustrated fans after the season's first six episodes. i shared the same wonders and questions as many of the show's devotees. what was going on? why are you adding new characters on the beach three seasons in? do you know what you are doing? does the show know where it's going? does it know how it's going to end? when are we going to start getting answers?

well, the show has hit a major stride over the past several episodes and several things have happened to re-energize my want to see the show through 'til the very end.

1) an end date was reached between abc and the producers. may, 2010. 48 more episodes. a hugely important question is answered with this decision. for any fan that worried that the show would be dragged out and on 'til every cent was drained from the money-maker that is the show, that worry can now be put to bed. we have now seen more episodes than there are to be seen. the producers have said in interviews they know how it's going to end. now, we as fans can just sit back and enjoy the way it all comes together.

2) jeff jensen. i am sure there are hundreds of fan sites that i am unaware of and i could find all sorts of interesting information and theories on these sites, but my resident expert is "doc" jensen of entertainment weekly (ew.com). he is just as much (or probably much more) a fan of the show as i am and he has the time/paycheck to devote all sorts of time and energy to dissecting the show, positing theories, writing a preview column before every first run episode, a commentary on the episode the following day and single-handedly making lost more of an event for me than just a show. i don't watch wednesday night's show without reading jeff jensen's column. and i don't feel like i have a complete grasp on the show i just watched until i read what his take on it was the day after. i highly recommend adding "doc" into your weekly diet if you take the show as seriously as i do.

3) the "answers" are coming. maybe not in the way that you or i would like, but starting with this weeks episode, the show took a completely different turn for me. jensen makes a point in his most recent column that i couldn't agree with any more than i do. prior to this week's show, i think fans were divided into two camps as far as the avenue they wanted the answers in the show to come from. one camp wanted everything to be explained in a very scientific/factual/thiscouldallreallyhappen sort of way. the other camp didn't mind if lost explained it's questions through sci-fi colored glasses. i don't know if i fell squarely into either one of these camps, but after this week, it is 100 percent obvious that there will be a science fiction angle to the show. and that is completely fine with me. actually it's perfect. more than perfect. x-files was one of my favorite shows ever and one of the reasons i was able to completely embrace it was that i knew that as real as scully and mulder and the fbi seemed, they existed in a "reality" where aliens and other monsters existed. the show was an escape. and that was part of the fun. up until this week on lost, i was unable to bearhug the show completely because i didn't know if i was watching an updated version of fantasy island or an updated version of lord of the flies. and now i know. it's both. and that's awesome. because once you enter the realm of science-fiction, all bets are off. from this point forward, i'll believe anything you show me because i don't have to convince myself that "it could really happen." is ben the devil? who knows. is the smoke monster post-modern god? maybe. is the island purgatory? who cares. whatever happens from this point forward, i am buckled in and ready for the ride.

i hate that there are only two shows left 'til january of 2008, but i know they are going to kick ass. if you've jumped off the lost boat or haven't bought your ticket yet, it's not too late. the best show on television would love to have you. and don't give me the "i wouldn't know what was going on." excuse. you can borrow season one from me. i am sure jacob sutton has season two. season three will come out in a couple months. i'll print your dog tags.

the lost army needs you.