O Christmas Tree

Here's a picture of our tree and the girls. I went to a tree place and looked at a price tag. The first one I looked at... Well first some background. We just moved down from Michigan. Where trees grow on trees. Where I refused to pay more than like $25 for a tree. I would talk to people and ask if they knew anyone. I would drive down dirt roads looking for people selling them. The last couple of years I bought them from a really old guy who lived off in nowhereville. I'd always buy the ones that had been cut a few days so they were cheaper. So anyways back to the story...The first one I looked at had a price tag that said 155.00. I figured it was a mistake because I thought I'd seen some at Lowe's for 15.00. So I moved on to the next one. It was over 100 as well. The cheapest scraggly one I saw there was more than $60! So I went to Lowe's. The one I ended up buying was $40. Which seemed like a steal after the first place. Now that I think about it the first place was probably a front for Lowe's so that people wouldn't mind paying $40. You win this time Lowe's.

A nice welcome home

When we left Myrtle Beach it was 66 degrees. When we got home it was in the 20s and I still had to run. It was way slippery. But I was able to do an ok pace. The wind was pretty cold. This is what it looked like this morning.

Myrtle Beach Thanksgiving

Ok I promised pictures from the beach. I guess I should follow through. The girls and their cousings got their hair and makeup done for birthdays. Luckily I missed out on that.

We all went putt putting after that. It's becoming a Laura birthday tradition, at least when we're in a warm weather place for the birthday.

And of course we went to the beach. The girls loved playing with their cousins and in the water.

One last one just so you can laugh at me. This is my bucket of crab legs.

Notre Dame Football

It sounds like Weis will be back. South Bend TV is reporting it. I'm also hearing it from a few other places. I bet he hires Romeo Crennel to run the defense. Woohoo. I'm so excited. Another season of mediocrity or worse.

Will you lend me some money?

Ok. I've had enough. I've been patient. I've always said give him time, let him get his players. This is too much. Last week they almost lost to Navy. This week they lost to Syracuse. How bad is Syracuse? They lost to Akron. This is only their third win of the year. They are bad enough that they already fired their coach but he's there for the rest of the year. So here's the deal. I'm done giving time. I don't care who your players are you have to beat Syracuse. So now I'm ready to fire Charlie. But here's the problem. Notre Dame signed him to a ridiculous 10 year 40 million dollar contract. So it's going to take at least 10 million to fire him. Someone call Regis and see if he's willing to pitch in.

The day after the election

I know I know. I'm supposed to be ticked off and hoarding food in my bunker and all that stuff. But I'm not. Instead I'm choosing to be hopeful. I tried to stay up last night and listen to Obama's speach but I didn't last much longer than McCain's. I remember thinking how bad I felt for the Palin's, they have to go back to Alaska. I also found it weird that I heard the announcement on Comedy Central. Maybe someday I'll grow up and watch the real news. So here's what I'm hoping for. I'm hoping that the nation rallies behind Obama like they did behind Reagan. I'm hoping that some of the things we were told about Obama are things that were misrepresented or are from his past and he's matured past them. I'm hoping that all of us learn from all of this and both Republicans and Democrats will really start doing things that are in the best interest of our nation and not our friends or our voting districts. I'm hoping Obama picks some people for his staff that know a lot and aren't just friends of his. This is what I'd love to see in the future. I'd love to see someone humble run for office. A guy (or gal) who isn't afraid to admit he doesn't know it all but will surround himself with the right people. I'd love to see him pick those people ahead of time and run as a group. Be willing to say that these are the people that are going to help me make decisions. To admit he doesn't know everything about finances and so here's a guy like Steve Forbes to run with me. Or I don't know everything about foreign affairs and so here's so and so to run with me. I think it would be good to know who a president is going to pick before we elect him. Anyways. There's some ramblings. I have enough faith not to be worried about it. So I really am hopeful.

IU Football

I had the chance to go to an IU football game this last Saturday. High School football killed most of my opportunities to go to college games so I was ready. It was my first time to Bloomington. Another stadium to check off the list. This was great. We had incredible seats. Here's the view.

We also had passes to a suite. Which we only used to get free food. On the way to the suite Coach Hep's widow walked by. In the suite there was chicken, steamed vegetables, lasagna, garlic bread, cookies, brownies, and drinks. I had the chicken and the zucchini/peppers/onions. I also had a cookie and a brownie. It was pretty good. But I had to go pay for the traditional brat afterwards. Maybe it was because I waited until after the 3rd quarter but it ranked very low on the list. The bread was crusty and the brat was chewy.

Central Michigan won the game. After the game we went over to Assembly Hall and walked right down to the floor and sat in the courtside seats until the usher came and kicked us out. I'm going back down there Friday for a basketball game. That should be great.

So here's my observations.

1. I'm not used to a stadium with that many empty seats.

2. The drive down to Bloomington is beautiful.

3. Getting in and out of the stadium is very easy, but some of that may have to do with the empty seats.

4. The seats were incredible and passes to a suite kicks major butt.

Politics

I have grown tired of politics and try to avoid the subject. You won't hear me blog about it much but I thought of something the other day. One of the things that bugs me the most is that it seems you have to be a millionaire to get elected. That's dumb because the guy that is representing us never knew what it was like to be us. Most of them even inherited their money. But as I was hearing someone complain about Palin getting a $150,000 wardrobe I was struck by something. The reason they had to buy her the wardrobe is because she isn't rich. There's actually a chance that someone who isn't a millionaire might become president. How weird would it be to have a normal person be president?

The end of the road

The weak points of our football team were exposed again in a big way this last Friday. Our special teams stink and we cannot put a team away. The game started out scary. Our starting quarterback was injured on the first play from scrimmage. Our backup came in and switched to an option offense and he ran the team down the field and scored on our first possession. We held on defense but ended up backed up against our own endzone. We then fumbled on the 3. It didn't take long to give up a score from there. We were able to score again and were up 14-7. Things were looking good but we blew a chance to go into halftime up 21-7 but threw an interception in the endzone and instead went in 14-7. In the second half things just kind of continued on that weird pace. We had opportunities to score but didn't. We put our starting qb in but he had his worst game of the year. The score was tied late in the third quarter when our long snapper put the snap on the ground. Our punter picked it up and tried to run for the first down getting close but falling short. We gave the ball up with incredibly great field position and they took advantage and tied it. We put together a decent drive in the 4th and ended up in that dreaded position where punting is a waste but you can't make a field goal. So we went for it and failed. The score was still tied when we gave up the ball with 3:28 left to play. Our best defensive player got hurt and they took advantage of a backup db. Eventually they scored with 51 seconds left. They missed the extra point so it was 20-14. We were able to move the ball down the field and were on the 18 with 30 seconds left. We spiked the ball on first down to stop the clock. Something that we shouldn't have had to do with the whole clock stoppage to move the chains but I'm just a volunteer assistant. Second down was a waste. Third down should have been a completion down around the 5 but our tight end dropped it. And fourth down was an incomplete pass. Game over, season over.

Final Regular Season Game

To end the regular season, we played a team who's only win came on a forfeit. The other team played an ineligible player. We gave up way too many yards. 282 rushing yards. But we had 462 and 8 touchdowns. We did that with 39 plays. That's an average of more than 11 yards per snap. But we were supposed to win this game and win it big. We did win 53-16. It was nice to have some players back. Next week sectionals start. We have to go back to the team we beat in week 5. It was close last time and will not be an easy game this time.

Another week another game

This was a fun one for me. The starting quarterback for the team we were playing comes to our church. He's a really nice kid who is the top qb in our county. He's 5th in the state in passing yards. Unfortunately his defense is awful. They've won one game the past two years. We had our problems on defense in this game as well. Our leading tackler was suspended a game for cussing in class. Between injuries and suspensions we had 5 defensive starters out by the end of the game. It was a shootout. We had a wide receiver end up with 129 yards and 4 touchdowns, a running back with 256 yards, and the freshman I keep talking about had 73 yards and a touchdown before he got hurt. The final score ended up being 40-35.

This one is for mom

She's wanting something posted and would prefer it wasn't football. So I'll tell you about my busy day off yesterday. I started with a breakfast meeting in Indy at 8:30. Which is way too early for me on a day off. I was late because I couldn't find the restaurant. But I finally made it. I came home and mowed the lawn and then it was time for practice. Practice went ok but we found out that our leading tackler was suspended for cussing in class. After practice I ate supper and took the girls to Laura's soccer practice. After practice I took the girls to Crazy J's. We split a couple scoops of Cookies and Cream and walked across the street to play at the park. Steph was at choir practice. We then went home and I made the girls run sprints in the backyard. They need to get in shape and get faster. I need to get in shape. I ran with them. Then I put them to bed and watched football and baseball and fell asleep on the couch. So there you go.

The rest of the catchup

We had to go play the best team of our conference. It started poorly. If you remember, the starting qb got hurt the week before. He was going to play but the backup was going to play in this game as well. Well the backup missed the bus. He got a ride and showed up late but it set a bad tone that we weren't able to change. The first series was quickly ended by an interception. The defense held but after the punt we had bad field position. That was quickly made worse by our qb trying to scramble. He got taken down at the 1. We punted and the punt was returned for a td. That was the end. We fell apart and got killed. Our qb played scared, missing all kinds of passes and it didn't take long for the rest of the team to give up. We had a running clock in the second half and still lost 49-0. The thing that really ticked me off was listening to the guys in the locker room talk about how the team that had just beaten us wasn't that big, fast, and good. Well then what does that say about us? Thank goodness we'll start getting some players back soon. The final two more regular season games before sectionals start should be easy wins. We're now 4-3.

Quick catch up

Ok this will be brief and I'm sorry for that but I need to catch you up in a hurry. We were having some huge problems with our kicking game. We started kicking towards the sidelines and were putting some out of bounds. This means we gave the other team the ball on the 35. Which was better than what was happening when we actually kicked to them. We were ahead at halftime 19-14. After halftime the head coach asked a couple of assistants, not including me, whether to kick to them or kick out of bounds. Both assistants said to kick to them. They returned that opening kick for a touchdown and the 2 point conversion gave us the final score of 22-19. In the third quarter our starting qb went down and that killed any hope we had of a comeback. That left us at 4-2.

OK Burrill here you go

Week 5 had us going to a big rival. This is a team that our group of seniors have never beaten. One of the three teams we weren't supposed to have a chance to beat. The first half was a slugfest during which our offensive line totally forgot how to play football. We went into the half fortunate to be up 3-0. The head coach took the line outside and talked with them while the defensive coordinator staged a meltdown in the locker room. We came out in the second half and played much better. Our punter saved us twice though. One snap went over his head and after he chased it down, he did a running kick that ended up gaining 38 yards. Later when we were up 10-7, there was another bad snap that he pulled down and ran for a 30 yard gain and a first down. We ended up scoring on that drive and going up 17-7. Then in the 4th quarter our punter/place kicker/kicker/wide receiver/cornerback intercepted a pass and returned it for a touchdown to go up 24-7 with 1:45 left. And then we did what we do against good teams, let them back in. It only took 30 seconds for the home team to score making it 24-14. They then kicked onsides, recovered, and scored again using 22 seconds. They missed the extra point so it was 24-20 and there was 52.9 seconds left. We fell on the last onsides kick and we were able to run the clock out after that. So we are now 4-1. Our next game is against a team that is relatively new to our conference. They joined in 2000 and have won evertime we've played outscoring us 348-28.

700 billion. That's a lot of cheeseburgers

700 billion dollars. I can't really wrap my mind around the idea of that much money. Is it really going to solve anything or just postpone the problem? I don't see how it fits into capitalism and free market ideas. Read this article and tell me what you think.

Football week 4

Week 4 was much better than week 3. No overtime or chance of overtime. It was a 40-0 victory. The freshman I've been talking about got 6 carries. One was a 64 yard touchdown. Another was a 30 yard touchdown. He had a 47 yarder called back because one of the wide receivers wasn't set when the ball was snapped. He lost yards on a couple of carries so he only finished with 89 yards. The game started with the defense holding and we took over on downs. Then the second offensive play was a 40 yard td pass. The next defensive series ended in a close interception and it was pretty much over after that. The first quarter ended 20-0. So now we're 3-1 and the team we lost in overtime to is now 4th in the state. Another test this week though. It should be fun.

Merge

This is what the field looked like during practice Thursday. I'm not sure what kind of traffic they are expecting.

Football week 3

Ohhh man. Week 3 brought #7 ranked Western to town. The talk was all about how Western had dominated this series for the last 10 years and about their huge defensive lineman who was being recruited by some Div. 1 teams. I just wanted to see how we'd play against some decent competition. On the opening kickoff our starting middle linebacker got injured. He was done for the game. Other than that the game started well and the guys figured out that the weren't playing against professionals. Earlier in the week one of the starting offensive tackles told us that he was done for the season. Some lousy excuse like being expelled. The new tackle looked like he was about to pee his pants but by halftime he was convinced that he was playing against jr. high girls. Right before halftime our defense made a mistake and left the slot man wide open. The quarterback saw it and threw quickly to his side but either it was a bad pass or the slot man wasn't ready and the corner intercepted it and returned it 85 yards for a touchdown. The score at halftime was 14-7. We had an unexpected lead and the boys were feeling good. Nobody scored in the third and with 6:11 left in the 4th we scored to go up 21-7. We were feeling good. Too good. We went conservative. I hate going conservative. Western scored with 3:54 to play. We tried to run the clock and punted with 1:41 to play. Western scored on a big screen to tie the game and we lost in overtime. Up 14 with 4 minutes left and left with heartache. It was sickening. The good thing though is that the guys know they can play with anybody. This is a team that last year was 6-5 and the year before was 5-7 and in 05/06 was 1-9. So it's a huge confidence boost for them.

Football week 2

Ok I know I should've posted this earlier but here's how the game went. Horrible. I've never seen anything like it. We had 26 penalties for 202 yards. The other team had 6 penalties. Here's the crazy part. We still won 33-6. We rotate two tailbacks and one of them really was playing well. He broke his leg sometime during the game. He scored a touchdown after that but he's done for our season. This means we'll be seeing some of the freshman that has been impressive. He probably would've started if he hadn't skipped practice Wednesday. This week we'll finally be tested. Top 10 ranked Western is coming. Yikes. I hope we play better than last week.

A Day in the Life

People ask me all the time, "What do you do during the week?". So we filmed an average day at the office.

Orange Strawberry Shake

I had one of the best milkshakes I've ever had Saturday night. It was at a place downtown called Crazy J's. He told me about it my first time there but I wimped out. It's something he thought up a few years ago. So I tried it. I'm hooked on the orange strawberry milkshake. I'll probably have another one this weekend.

Football

We had our first game last Friday night. I loved it. It was hot and humid but other than that it was a beautiful night complete with a nice sunset. The team played pretty well. It's hard to tell though because the other team stunk. We won 41-0. This Friday should be another easy win and then the third game will be a real test. I went to the JV game last night. We have a young guy who wasn't able to play yet because he missed too many practices. I saw him for the first time last night. He's really really good. He plays tailback and returns kicks. He's fast and has great vision. I'm looking forward to watching him play against varsity players. I'll try to keep you updated.

Lucas Oil Stadium

We were able to tour the new stadium last Saturday. We went with my parents and some friends from church. The stadium is huge. It's very nice. I love the window in the north end. We were able to go down on the sidelines and walk around the uprights and stuff. It has that cool field turf. I'm still trying to get the rubber out of my shoes. During the tour we went through the visitors locker room. I sat down in one of the lockers and took out one of my business cards and slid the card between two of the lockers. So now a part of me is staying in the stadium. I know, I'm a dork. But I'm cool with that.

Waterspouts

We're in South Haven celebrating our 10th anniversary. It's been a good relaxing time. We've hung out at the beach and walked through the shops and even had supper with Charlie and Kim. Yesterday while we were hanging out on the beach we saw two waterspouts. One was bigger than the other and it looked like it made it all the way to shore. I really think it passed within two miles of us. It may have been even closer than that. Most of the people left the beach a little afraid. Steph and I sat on our towels and watched it until the rain was awful. We then moved toward the car but we watched it until we couldn't see it anymore because of the trees. We didn't take the camera down there and I left my phone in the car so I have to show you links to other people's pictures. Here's a good one. I really like this one too. It was pretty cool.

Command and Conquer

Sheesh I'm reminded of Tobin everywhere I look now. He introduced me to command and conquer back in the day. I played it online with Jim, another friend, this last week. We used to play it with friends back at Cedarville. I'm hearing from more and more of those guys all of a sudden. Facebook sure can be cool sometimes. This fall I'm going to try and have lunch with Dan up at Grace. It's fun seeing old friends.

I'm bad

Last night I skipped a meeting to go to a concert with a family from church. They have two sr. high daughters. You'd think if I skipped a church committee meeting that I'd skip for some worship concert right? Well it was Rush. I thought of Tobin the entire time. I also cracked up at the people in their 50's acting like jr. highers. The concert was good. They are excellent musicians. I had not heard most of the songs before. I think my favorite that I had not heard before was The Main Monkey Business. It was great for free. I love free.

1st Football Drill

I went to my first day of lineman drills today. Not many of the players showed up so it was hard to do much. I picked up some of the zone blocking schemes. I think I'm going to enjoy this. I think I actually could be a help before the year is up as well. The hard thing about coaching is that it's hard to watch more than one guy at a time. I wish I could be there for every practice. I know I'll be there every Thursday and for every game. We'll see how it goes. I'll keep you updated.

Update

Ok so it's been a month. I'm sorry I've been a little busy. We had the Philly trip, a booth at the fair and we're in the middle of VBS. Here's what has been up. It's been fun to be in contact with some old friends. I got an e-mail from Jonathan a friend from college. I've been talking about getting together with Rob, Ben, and Phil. Those guys are all friends from Danville. We've had some people from Michigan come visit. It was great seeing James and Ben and Lori. So here's what is new. I'm now an assistant football coach at Taylor. It's a volunteer position and they understand that I cannot be at most practices. I get share a life challenge after practice every Thursday. I told the coach that I'd use the Bible and he was ok with that. I also get to pray before and after each game. I'll hopefully be telling you more about that in the future. I know you want more and some pictures but you'll have to wait. Hopefully this tides you over.

I've gone green!

Ok maybe it isn't all the way green. The weather was great today. I walked to and from work today. It was great. It takes a half an hour to do the walk. I may have to do that more often.

Dining by the fire

I've spent the afternoon reorganizing the house. We were using the fireplace room for all the boxes we had not unpacked yet. Steph unpacked most of them and I moved the rest to the basement. We then moved the table and chairs in. Now we have a dining room. I need to figure out how to move the chandelier in there now. Unless I decide to put a ceiling fan in.

My nightmare has come true

When I was younger I had to care for my family's yard. Really all that meant was I mowed and ran the weed eater. I hated it. I wanted to go play basketball. So I swore that I would never be someone who cared about my yard. I was always trying to talk my dad into buying a more expensive nicer mower. He never really did. Now as I was thinking about buying a mower we were talking on the phone and he said to "spend a little more and get one that mulches". Of course I just wanted the cheapest thing I could find. Back then I wanted to just rip all the grass out and install astro turf. Well I'm still all for the astro turf but it's expensive and my wife thinks it's ugly. So I'm stuck trying to make what I have look good. Unfortunately the people who lived here before us put in a bunch of lava rocks. The bed of rocks just collects leaves and small sticks. I spent the morning picking sticks. It looks like I never even started. Here is a picture to show you how many sticks I picked up this morning.

Look past the big pile and the cute kid and you can see the lava rocks and the ton of sticks that are still in it. There has to be a better way to get them out of there.

Storms

We have had a few good storms. One of the schools even had to cancel graduation halfway through because of a tornado warning. The rescheduled for this last Friday and we had a tornado watch and a storm come through again. We kind of live on a hill now so we're not really worried about flooding. We do have a small problem in the basement. Our house still has an old coal shoot. Some smart guy in the past put the down spout right next to it. I need to either reroute the downspout or seal the coal shoot better. I'll probably try to do both. I'll try to take some pictures of the house sometime soon so you can see it. I should have pictures from a recent 5k as well.

Ah High Speed at home

That's right for the first time ever I have broadband internet at home. The bummer is that means I have cable for the first time too. I miss Directv. It's easier to use. We had more channels. But cable is cheaper. Maybe I'll get used to it. The good news is that cable doesn't require a contract so I can go back if I need NFL Network that bad.

We've moved all the boxes into the house. Now we're trying to unpack them and put everything in order. Hopefully we'll get there. I've replaced one of the toilets and the wax seal and seat on the other. I think the shower downstairs might be one of my next projects. I'm thinking about putting one of those corner showers in down there. That bathroom needs a new sink and vanity as well. The bathroom upstairs needs a vanity too.

Sold

We've started moving in to our new house. Closing was very disappointing for me. We signed all kinds of papers promising thousands and thousands of dollars and all I walked away with was a pen. That pen is now sitting on my bookshelf. Maybe I'll use it when I pay it off. We're were told we'd get the keys on Monday morning from their realtor. Steph picked up the keys and started showing the house to her friends. But they still had stuff in the house. Steph and the friends started stripping the wallpaper in the kitchen when she got a phone call from our realtor telling her she needed to get out of the house before the guy who used to own the house got there and showed how bad his temper was. It was way confusing but we were nice and left until later that evening. I was bummed when I got there. The sign was gone. I was looking forward to seeing it say sold. We've stayed there the past couple of nights but we're still trying to move in. The neighborhood is nice and quiet so far.

I know what I want for Christmas

This thing looks awesome! Follow the link to an article about the coolest digital camera thing in a while. Follow the link in the article to the picture of London and do some zooming. He says in the video that it will be pretty affordable.

Jailhouse Rock

I went to jail yesterday. I got to preach to the inmates. It was very much like the movies. A big metal door opens automatically and you walk into a little room. Then the door automatically shuts behind you. When it shuts all the way, with that loud movie bang/clang, the next door opens and you're in the jail. Then you check in at the security thing and leave your car keys and anything else you have on you. After we were checked in we headed to a classroom that was remotely unlocked when we got to the door. We had two groups. The first one really seemed to interact better with me. Each group had about 25 guys. One of the guys named Micah sang a song that he wrote. It was pretty incredible. I'm hoping to get a copy of it and have someone sing it in church. I guess I'd say that my first time to jail was ok. I'm really hoping I never end up living there.

OK ok I can't handle being not cool

Ok here's what's been up. I've been too busy campaigning for Hillary to put up posts. I saw her speak in Kokomo. It was great. She pointed out a ton of insightful things. Like here in this picture she was actually saying, "Look at this guy. He has a huge head!"

She also told us that she was going to cut the gas tax for us and charge it to the gas companies! How great is that? Oh wait a minute. What will the gas companies do? Charge us extra to pay for the tax? Nuts. That's a great promise.

My office

Sorry it took so long but here are a couple of pictures of my office.


This is my pretty sweet Sealy Posturpedic Leather Chair. The black one that is.


These are my bookshelves. Some of my books are still in storage. But I really don't have very many.

This is my laptop and the all the way awesome docking station. Thank you BBC.

Something strange is going on here...

Ok so we've only lived in Kokomo for what like a week? Just the other night, Wednesday night, there was a huge explosion that shook the house. We heard sirens soon after. The police and fire departments never found anything. woooweeewooo. If you buy the story that the machine is feeding, then it was a sonic boom made by a F-16 in training. The the next night, Friday morning at 5:30, there's a massive earthquake that shakes the house again. We live in the middle of Indiana. Ok you conspiracy theorists...Give me an explanation.

We have a house

That's right. After 3 tries we finally have an accepted offer. Now we're buying a house that's a short walk from the main town park. It's a street over from the country club golf course. Too bad I'll probably never be a member. There's talk they may go public. The house has a nice backyard and is close to the church. Steph thinks it's cute. I think it's kind of ugly. I'll let you make the call. Click here to see it.

Home is where you hang your hat

I'm not really sure what that means but we may be getting closer to finding a home. We put an offer on another home. I'm not going to give you the info yet. Maybe I'm superstitious. Maybe I'm trying not to get attached to it yet. I think that's it. It's an offer that's kind of low so we might not get it. So I'm trying not to get too familiar with it. I feel like we shared too much info with too many people last time. We'll find out tomorrow. Sure is different from last time.

Another update

Ok. I'm in Kokomo. Steph and the girls will be here tonight. We're renting a house and looking for one to buy. Hopefully that will be soon. I start at the church this Sunday. Last night some of the youth group guys came over and we played Halo. It was a good time. Today I'll be working on unpacking some and trying to figure some things out. I think I'll get my new computer today. The church bought me a laptop and a docking station for it. I'm pumped. Hopefully next week I'll put some pictures of my office up.

Update

Ok here's the update. We just found out that we didn't get the house we put the bid on. This puts us a little behind. We're going to have to rent something while we find a house. We're looking at stuff now and hopefully we'll find something soon. I've finished my time at Chip Hills and now I've got a couple of weeks to get down to Kokomo and start there. I'm packing my office up today. Steph and her mom seem to have a good start on the house. I've got a truck reserved for Monday. I'll try to keep you updated.

Butler!

Oh man. Butler almost did it. We went to some friends for Easter dinner so I missed most of the game but I came home and it was tied with very little time left. Then the game went into overtime. But CBS kept switching to the Davidson Georgetown game. I'm blaming CBS for Butler losing. Man I like watching that team play. Notre Dame lost too. Now who am I going to root for?

Stress

Oh man I'm trying not to be frustrated but yesterday I read through our bid on the house to see if there was a way I could get out of it. The rumor is that it could take longer than the 10 days that we were originally told. The reasoning is that they dropped the price last Wednesday or Thursday. Our bid went in last Tuesday. They might wait the 10 days from when the price dropped. I wanted out of the bid so I wouldn't have to wait any longer. By the way when we made the bid we were told the asking price was 98,000. Now that they've dropped the price it's listed at 98,375. Colossians 3:1,2 tell me to set my focus on what is above. Verse 5 tells me that if I obsess over what's here I'm committing idolatry. Great now I'm going to live inside of an idol. Ok so don't obsess and it's just a house again. Who cares. It's just a house. There's thousands of them. I just want to know which one I'm going to live in.

It's March Madness!

It's that time of year again. I'm pumped. I've made a bracket challenge for readers of my blog. It's free. Sign up and pick. Just click this link. The password is weaveswrites. Sign up. You don't have to know a bunch, it's just for fun. Oh and make sure you cheer for Butler.

Usually I'd be complaining about somebody that was left out, Arizona State, or how a team was seeded wrong. But I'm just glad there is a tournament, take that BCS. Now I need to plan my menu for Thursday... Got any ideas?

This walrus is great!

I don't often put these types of videos here but this one was great.

We have to live somewhere

Ok I put an offer on a house. I know it's very fast. I'm just as nervous as you are about it. Ok, more nervous. We only looked at 9 houses. This one stood out far above the rest. I must have looked at 1000 online and this was one of my favorites right away. It has 4 bedrooms all decent sized and upstairs. It has nice sized living areas downstairs. It's on a busy road and has a small yard but is a newer house and is in the right price range. I'll let you know what happens and put some pictures up later.

Edit: Here's the link. http://indianamls.com/property_residential.php?mls_no=77043123

Just when I thought I saw the top

We just paid the last of my student loans. We've paid off our car. We're getting closer on Steph's student loans. Just when all of this was starting to look good, we're going to buy a house. I know that's a good thing but... How great would it be to have no debt? We'll keep working towards that day.

Chippewa Hills Baptist Church

Where do I begin? I love this place. I love these people. But when God calls, I go. I really believe God has called so we head to Kokomo. But more about that later. We had some good times here. Great fishing trips, good times golfing, incredible times with the youth group. I could go on forever. I cried like a little girl as I read my letter of resignation. We'll miss these people. Thank God we get to spend eternity with them. I'll be telling them about the blog so you may see some of them around.

A lighter note

NBA All Star Weekend went great. The dunk contest was better than it has been for years. The All Star Game was close and both teams actually wanted to win. And Stephanie pointed out that the halftime show put any recent Super Bowl halftimes to shame. She was right. The jazz/blues stuff was really impressive. Great job New Orleans and NBA.

The Dark Day

Amazing stuff today. I'm preparing to reuse a series of lessons I did a while ago about light and as I'm going over it I'm watching one of the darkest days sports has ever seen. The main one in everyone's eye is Roger Clemens testifying at a congressional hearing. One of baseballs most famous pitchers has been accussed of cheating. I honestly don't know whether or not to believe him. I want to believe him. I've been a Pettitte fan for a while and I definitely want to believe him. The same day that baseball is on trial; Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL, is meeting with Senator Arlen Specter. Specter wants to know if the NFL was all the way honest about the extent of the Patriots cheating scandal. As if that isn't enough, today Indiana University released the letter stating the violations that their basketball coaches committed. Their coaches, including their head coach who was already in trouble for cheating, broke rules in their recruiting of players. I love sports. For me it is sad to watch the darkest sports day that I can remember.

Basketball

Last night I watched Butler and Valpo. I've been rooting for Butler for a few years. I've been to a few games there and Hinkle is a great place to watch a game. Plus their last coach coached at my high school. He's now at Iowa. It was a crazy game. Valpo was ahead until the very end when Butler pulled it out. Go Bulldogs.

In the pros the rumors are that the Suns are going to trade Marion for Shaq. What?!? Why would a team that is built on running trade for Shaq? If I'm the Heat I make this trade in a heartbeat. If I'm any other team in the NBA I'm on the phone with the Suns. I can make an offer that comes close to Shaq. Craziness.

Jalepeno stomach

Man what a great game yesterday. It had everything you want in a game. It was close. I had a couple of comebacks. It had a last minute lead change. The underdog won. Great stuff. Now unfortunately I'm paying for the stuffed jalepenos. I mean really paying. My stomach hates me and is trying to turn itself inside out. Good thing these things only happen once a year. I won't have stuffed Jalepenos again until... Well there is March Madness next month.

More Patriots love

Here's a game for all you football fans.

Give 'em the boot

Alright conspiracy theorists, I've got one for you. Maybe I'm giving the Patriots too much credit but I think the boot was a planned decoy. No I don't think they were trying to fool the Giants because nobody was really fooled. Instead I believe that the Patriots intended to derail the sports media. Whether it was intended or not, it's worked beautifully. How many questions have you heard about Rodney Harrison's suspension for HGH? What about Vince Wolfork's fourth fine for dirty play? Anybody heard a questions recently about spygate? Hmm maybe Randy Moss's restraining order? What better way to deal with all of those questions than to just avoid them altogether by putting the focus on a boot.

Love of Boston week

I figured this week since the patriots were in the Super Bowl again I would show them as much love as I could this week. I'll be giving you some media to help fuel your love as well. The song and video comes from Ryan Parker. He writes all kinds of funny sports songs. His site is ryanparkersongs.com

Vote for anybody else

Here's the best political analysis you'll see around. I couldn't vote for Romney because...

"When we say I saw the Patriots win the World Series, it doesn't necessarily mean you were there."

I know the statement is a little old but my hatred of the Patriots and their fans who believe that Brady could pitch a no hitter in the World Series will most certainly carry over to the ballot box.

(Oh and dad check out the 5th paragraph of this http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/04/20070423-6.html)

I love the Detroit Lions

The Lions fell apart halfway through this season. They started well and then blew up. So what do you do to fix a mess like that? You fire Mike Martz. I don't really care if you fire Martz or not. I kind of like him but you can make him your scapegoat. Here's what is crazy to me. They promoted Jim Colletto to offensive coordinator. Colletto was the O-line coach this last year. Marinelli said "Jim is an excellent football coach. He knows what it takes to win in this league and I am confident that he will do a tremendous job leading our offense." Jeff Backus says "I'm looking forward to playing in his offense". This is the Jeff Backus who was in the top 5 in sacks allowed this year. Kitna was sacked 51 times. More than any QB this year. This is the new leader of the Lions offense? Man I love that team.

Ok now you're going too far

People that know me well know that I'm incredibly careful on the music sharing ideas. I'm against stealing of any kind and I carry that over to music. So I won't copy music from other people and when I lend out a cd I always tell people not to copy it. I'm annoying on it because I'm trying to set an example to youth group kids. I take some pride in having an iPod full of legal music. Or what I thought was legal music. This article tells me I'm wrong. To tell you the truth it has me a little angry. The RIAA is suing a guy who bought each of his cds and then put them on his computer. So you're telling me I'm supposed to go back over and buy each of the songs I have already paid for on cd from iTunes to put them on my iPod or computer? That's not happening. RIAA I've been on your side in the past. I've defended you to young people. I've encouraged others to buy music. Here is my message to you "Quit being dumb". You're stabbing yourself in the foot on this one. If you win this case I'll be forced to stop buying cds. I listen to most of my music at work off of my computer or from my iPod while running or in the car.