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.

Golf on Christmas Day

Yesterday I wanted to play golf and Steph was going to let me but we forgot to call ahead and find out if I was allowed to walk on a course that was closed for Christmas Day. I was pretty frustrated about that and finally just decided to go running on the beach and to drive by a course on the way there and check it out. I put on my running stuff, grabbed my golf stuff, and headed to Myrtle Beach National. I wanted to play the Kings North course. When I got there I saw about 10 cars in the parking lot but didn't see anybody. I finally saw a guy at the driving range and asked him. He said "grab a bag and go". So I did and yes that means I didn't pay anybody. But first I had to change out of my running clothes. So I drove to a secluded part of the parking lot (if there is such a thing as a secluded part of a parking lot). I changed my clothes there. I wonder how many people have been naked in the parking lot of Myrtle Beach National. I walked the back 9 first. I was worried about time. I shouldn't have been because I flew through the course. I played really well. It's a beautiful course. There is a lot of water and a lot of bunkers. There were a few other people around but for the most part it was very quiet. The greens were awesome. I was making putts all over the place. I forgot my camera on the back 9 so almost all of the pictures are from the front. This island green is on the back 9. My first shot went over the green and I was sure it was in the water so I hit a provisional. I decided to go down a club and it was short of course. When I crossed the bridge to the green I saw my ball sitting on the cart path. It must've hit the rail and come back because the path went all the way to the water.

I duffed my chip and ended up bogeying the hole. If you look closely you can see that the bunkers make an SC. So as I played the back 9 I ended up using 4 mulligans. Not on out of bounds shots just on duffs. I ended up shooting a 44 with those mulligans. On the front 9 there is a par 5 called the gambler. It has an autograph in the cement from Kenny Rogers and his golf cleats in cement. So it's a long par 5 with a short cut for the gamblers. The short cut is an island fairway. So I did what I imagine most golfers do. I started singing to myself and taking aim at the island fairway. I played a slice and ended up perfect. From there I had a shot over water to the green. I was about 165 yards out. I grabbed my 6 iron and hit it over the green and into the water. Took my penalty and drop and saved a bogey. I should've aimed farther safe instead of hitting towards the pin. The bunkers would've saved me farther right. Without any mulligans and counting my penalty stroke I scored a 43 on the front 9. I played great, for me, on a course that's listed among the top 100 in the U.S. I took one of my new sleeves of balls and came back with one of the balls. That's amazing.

Thank you Arnold Palmer for creating a great course and then not being there on Christmas Day.

We wish you a Merry...

These are some beach drawings Steph did.

And this is one Laura did all by herself.

Snow at the beach

This afternoon we took the girls to the beach to make a snowman.

The girls got a little cold so we did my favorite. Put them in pajama pants in public. I hate pajamas in public. But I like warm girls.

Here's some beautiful girls on a beautiful day at a beautiful beach.

The International

This morning my father-in-law and I headed over to the International down in Murrels Inlet. It was a good time. I beat him for the first time. If I could learn to putt I could score a little better. Maybe tomorrow I'll putt better. Everything was great until the 8th hole. Things backed up and the guys behind us got mad that we had not hit the ball yet. There was a guy on the green and he had had to wait for the foursome in front of him. I actually was able to blow those guys off and not let them ruin my hole. That's probably a first. I forgot my camera and my cell phone so here's a picture I stole from their website.

The picture is from the 9th hole where I just missed my par putt.

Hall of Fame

We stopped at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. It was great until a school showed up. They were loud and threatened to carry us away. Wait. Whining like this should not be allowed when talking about a collection of tough guys. So this school showed up and we scowled and growled and were tempted to eat their fingers off. There, that's better. The Hall hasn't changed much since the first time I went in 1993. They changed the room with the busts because they had too. It was too full. They've changed some exhibits some as rules have been broken. In 1993 we went to see Walter Payton inducted. Here's a picture of the class from that year. That class included, from top to bottom, Dan Fouts, Walter Payton, Larry Little, Bill Walsh, and Chuck Noll. I took some pictures of the Lions too for my Michigan friends.

And here's the jersey from one of the games that was the most fun to watch.

Peyton was 20 for 25 for 314 yards and 6 touchdowns. He threw more tds than ints. That was a fun game.
It was fun. I'd heard that they changed the gameday video thing to include the Super Bowl from the previous year so I was excited. But it was still the Steeler and Super Bowl XL. The Hall of Fame is worth visiting but it's probably going to need some renovations soon.

Christmas at the Beach

It's been almost two weeks since I've made a post. I know I know. I'll make it up to you by keeping you up to date on vacation. I'll have pictures of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I'll give you pictures of the golf course and beach. You think those will help while you suffer through the snow? It'll help me. I'm hoping to golf twice. I'm hoping to see the ocean a couple of times. I really like the ocean for some reason. I even like it when it's way too cold to get in. Well I'll try to keep you updated while we're there.

O Christmas Tree

I finally went out to buy a Christmas tree. I'm a little cheap and was dreading paying $30-50 for a tree. I saw a place where I could buy an already cut one for $25. I still don't like paying $25 for something I'm going to throw away in a month anyways but I went in hopes of having my family still love me. When I got there the old man was helping someone else so I walked through looking at his trees. When he got to me I told him I needed something this high and I raised my hand as far as I could. He led me over to those size trees and said something like "I've had this one here cut for a week and a half and nobody wants it. I'll sell it to you for $10." I didn't need to even look at the tree. He'd said the magic words. He showed it to me and it was pretty ugly. But I didn't care it was $10. I loaded it in the truck and headed home. We decorated that night and it really isn't that ugly anymore. So here's our tree. Merry Christmas.

National Debt

When it comes to voting some things are very important to me. The spiritual beliefs of a candidate are important to me. Abortion is an important issue to me. So this year I find myself with 2 candidates that really fit my criteria. Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul. I could find myself voting for each of them. I find one big difference though. Paul wants to seriously cut spending and Huckabee talks a good game but spends. I believe that this will keep Paul from ever being a serious candidate. Cutting spending isn't a popular idea among politicians. But who cares if it's popular, it needs to be done. I went over to the Treasury Department home page. They have some cool features that no doubt cost tons of money to put together. But anyways you can look up the national debt and search by day to find out what it was. I looked at the month of November for 2007. November 1st the national debt, according to the Treasury Department, was $9,080,228,573,291.65. It's great they have it to the penny. November 30th the debt was $9,149,341,364,936.71. It's funny how the number doesn't look that different. But it's a growth of 69 billion 112 million 791 thousand 6 hundred 45 and 6 cents. In one month! Not how much we spent but how much farther we went in debt. If you break it down it's only 2 billion 303 million and some change a day. It's only $1,599,883 a minute. Now I'll admit I have no idea how much it costs to run a government. But anytime you are going that far in debt you have a problem. The best way to cut debt is to stop spending more than you are taking in. So our government has four choices. 1. Raise taxes (doesn't sound too appealing to me.) 2. Cut spending (I hate the waste.) 3. A mixture of both (this is probably the most logical but is definitely unelectable.) 4. Keep ignoring it and hoping it will go away. I'll quickly admit I know very little about this stuff. However, a guy who has a plan to fix it sounds appealing to me.

Geology

My favorite class at Cedarville was Geology taught by John Whitmore. This article in the New York Times talks about him and other young earth creation geologists. I enjoyed learning in the classroom but really enjoyed hunting for fossils and glacial erratics. He had a contest to see who could find the largest glacial erratic in the Cedarville area. I loved driving around with friends and running into peoples yards to measure and take pictures of big rocks. Big fun.

Check out this Spice store

I'm doing one of my first advertisements ever. My mom's new store is up and running. Check it out. If you buy spices maybe you'll be interested. Please check out the site even if you don't buy spices because it will get her hit count up and help her out. I took some of the pictures of spices. I'm no Burrill Strong that's for sure. The site looks pretty good. The Hawaiin Black Lava Salt is really good. I'm going to use some of the white peppercorn today to grind up fresh for Thanksgiving dinner. So check out Cherry Valley Spice Company.

Stephanie's first Notre Dame game

We got to go to Stephanie's first Notre Dame game last Saturday. Justin came through and picked up tickets for me again. We didn't do any James Bond stuff like last year but we met and he gave me a tour of the Law School. Watching his kids run through the courtroom was big fun. After that we went and got lunch. If you go to Notre Dame make sure you eat before you go in the stadium. Student groups have many booths set up selling food on campus and they have very good food. I went with the traditional brat but Steph got a steak sandwich that made me very jealous. She said it was great.After lunch we became a part of the human tunnel that greets the players as they go from mass to the stadium. Last year when I did this I got a high five from Brady Quinn. This year we just watched them go by. Steph was amazed by how many people were there to watch them walk by.

When you finish watching the players walk by you should head over to watch the band play. It's fun to watch and there's a good crowd for it. This week they were playing songs from the original Mario Bros. I made a little video of the band playing a portion of the 1812 overture.

Our seats were pretty good. We were in the 19th row on the north side of the stadium. The student section started on the other side of the aisle. Getting to see all of the traditions was cool. It even was cold and rainy just like the old days when we had season tickets.

I even took a picture of the big guy. I'm hoping he can turn it around next year. Maybe recruit someone who knows how to pick up a blitzer or something.

Notre Dame won. They were ahead by enough at the end that they put Zibby in at QB. This didn't make the Duke defenders happy. Putting a safety in at QB is seen by some as rubbing it in. I think Charlie learned that move from Bill.
I don't know if I've ever seen a team that excited to get their second win. We had a good time. Steph's first ND game was a success.

Happy Thanksgiving

We're celebrating with family at my parents. They have High Speed Internet so I'll do a couple of posts. I hope you have a good time watching football, eating, playing games, and spending time with your family.

Rank Claire Markwardt up there with Derek Redmond

Derek Redmond has been a favorite sports hero of mine for some time. I even have preached sermons and youth group lessons using him as an example. I came across this article and video on ESPN's site. Claire broke her leg and still finished the race. I won't ruin it for you with details but please read the article. It's a very good story. Oh and the video isn't as scary as they make it sound. It's worth watching.

Oh boy here we go...

I'm the last to know this I guess. Some of you are already putting odds on which way I will go on this one and I'm just finding out. Laura wants to get her ears pierced. Stink it all. I've decided that I'm really not a fan of my girls growing up. I tried to convince her that it will hurt. She doesn't care. Heh. Now I'm becoming my dad and trying to convince them that they don't really want the things they want. I'll keep thinking about and probably post the pictures when I finally give in.

Roethlisberger burger

On Monday nights we've been trying to eat something from the city that is hosting Monday Night Football. We've had buffalo wings, Coke floats, and stuff like that. Last week we had Roethliburgers. Pretty stinking good. We changed the recipe some and here's what we came up with. First a big burger patty. Melt provolone and sharp chedder on it. Put barbeque sauce under it. Put bacon and ranch over it. All of that inside of the bun. It was much better than I thought it would be. Try it.

The Great Turtle Race

No I'm not talking about myself. Sometimes I feel as slow as a turtle though. The name of the race on Mackinac Island is The Great Turtle Race. Apparently the island resembles a turtle. I've been training for this race for a while now and I just didn't feel myself getting faster so I was worried. My original goal was to finish in less than 50 minutes. As I trained I found myself thinking I could not come close to that. We went and met Dan and had a good time with the girls playing in the water park and eating at Mama Mia's. We got upgraded to a room with a private balcony overlooking the lake. But really what is there to look at? Ferries and a big hotel on an island. But it was nice anyways. The next morning we woke up and I had a light breakfast including a waffle and a piece of cinnamon toast. Then Dan and I went to catch a ferry. It was raining and chilly but the rain slowed down while we were on the ride over. It really turned out to be a good day for running. We met up with James over on the island and stretched a little. I get nervous before a race like this and end up going to the bathroom about 10 times before the race starts. When the race started we took off up the hill and I was going an ok pace. After the first mile I looked down at my ipod and noticed that I was on a 8:40 pace. That's kind of fast for me. It scared me and I slowed down. My second mile was 9:09 and I started thinking that I felt pretty ok. Maybe I should go faster. The third mile was 8:35. That was flying for me. So it scared me again. I slowed down. At that time a girl passed me. She was going the pace I wanted to go and since I'm not good at pacing myself I just followed her. She had a blondish pony tail so I told myself over and over to follow the blond ponytail. The fourth mile was 8:58. We came out of the woods there and ran along side the lake. Thankfully the wind was behind us. It would've been awful to finish into the wind. The fifth mile was 8:53. Blond ponytail started slowing just a tad after the completion of the fifth mile. I found out later that she had slipped in the mud earlier and fallen. I passed her when she slowed down. The last .7 mile was at a 8:34 pace. I finished 5th in my age group with a total of 50:03. 4 seconds off of my original goal. I'm happy since I didn't think I had a chance of being close. There were 16 guys in my age group and about 400 overall entered that race. I finished 106th overall. Here are the results. Stephanie and the girls made it about 5 minutes after I finished. Afterwards we showered, lunched, shopped, ate fudge and then left.

I'll post some pictures later.

Running update

Yesterday was 10 miles. I'm feeling good about the race next Saturday. I'm not sure if I'll get the time I want but I think I'll have fun. Since I got the Nike + thingy I've run most of my runs with it. I have a few runs that I didn't have it so those don't count towards my totals. I got the Nike + in January but only got to use it once. January and February were a combined 14 miles. My total for the year so far is 327 miles. That sure sounds like a long ways. That's like running from my house to Cleveland.

Bleacher butt!

For a few years now I've wanted to try and accomplish a college football double header. I've heard of guys attending two div. 1 games the same day before. But they always leave the one game early and arrive at the other game late. I wanted to be the first I know that attended all of 2 div. 1 games the same day. Dan was pumped about it as well and so we found a day that had Michigan playing at noon and Michigan State playing at 7. Interesting to probably only me was that Michigan was playing Purdue and State was playing Indiana. Friday night we had a Capture the Flag event at church and after that I headed down to meet Dan in Dexter. I got there about 1 in the morning and slept hard. We woke up and ran 3 miles and then headed to the stadium. The following pictures are proof that we were there before kickoff and stayed until the game was over. By the way, staying for the end of that game may have been the hardest part of the day. Michigan had the game well in hand but Purdue kept playing. Scoring a touchdown and even recovering an onside kick. I thought it would never end.

After the game we ran to the car and headed back to Dan's house to change into warmer clothes and get my car. We then headed up to Lansing thinking we had plenty of time. Steph and I have friends that live in Lansing so we met up with Lindy at a coffee shop. We didn't get to spend much time with her but it was neat to see her and to see her doing well. We headed towards the stadium after that. I inherited the lead and couldn't find a place to park. I was starting to get worried about time when we finally found a lot forever away that had shuttle buses. We got to our seats with 16 minutes to spare. Below is the proof.

I got home around 1 again so a nap Sunday was very important. It was very fun. As you can see from the pictures the onions and peppers were a great addition in Ann Arbor. East Lansing didn't have those but their buns were superior.

A Win!

Notre Dame won! The offense didn't do anything but it's still a win. I had to go old school for the game because it wasn't on t.v. here. When I was in high school I'd listen to some of the games on the radio with my headphones on in bed. Saturday I listened to the game on the radio with the headphones on in bed. It was great. The only bad thing was that the play by play guy kept interrupting the game to let me know that the greatest upset ever occurred when 44 point underdog Stanford beat USC. He even missed plays to tell me this. I seriously lost count of how many times he reminded me. I wonder if he's either a Stanford grad or if he had money on the game.

Migraine

My headache was so bad yesterday that I vomited twice and had to put my hands over my eyes because the light coming from around the blinds and through my eyelids was too bright. Excedrin migraine helped some and I'm feeling some better today but not 100% yet.

Cedarville's Mt. Rushmore

This year I celebrate 10 years from when I was supposed to graduate from Cedarville College. Some people will head down to Cedarville and have a reunion but I doubt I'll do that. Instead I'd like to acknowledge the guys who lived in my unit my freshman year. Almost all of us were freshmen and we didn't have an RA in our unit. So pretty much we had a great year. I want to thank each of these guys for the impact they had on my life. I'm convinced that my life has been influenced for the better by each of these men. So I've hunted down e-mail addresses for each of them and told them that this tribute is here.

Tom was a guy that loved God, his family, turkey hunting, and having fun with the rest of us. I remember Tom as participating in some of our better water fights in the bathroom and as being able to have serious talks as well. Tom goofs when it's time to goof and is serious at the right time as well. I'm still trying to learn that.

Here is where I found Tom

Dan and Tom were roommates. He invited me to his house during Christmas break of our freshman year and I fell in love with New York City at that time. I've been back a bunch of times since then and even got engaged in Central Park. I remember Dan as a guy who wanted to learn more about God and about how to teach others about Him. Dan also introduced me to the game of Canasta. He taught me the importance of taking time to spend with the guys even if it's only time enough for one hand.

Here is where I found Dan

Stew was my roommate freshman year. Matt was a guy who always knew he was going to succeed. He was a guy who was fit and made me want to be that way as well. Matt was a guy who loved friends and loved hanging out with them. I won't be surprised when Matt is governor of Indiana. I learned from Matt to set my sights high.

Here is where I found Stew



Mattman opened my eyes to many new forms of music. I actually listened to They Might Be Giants as I wrote this about Mattman. Really what Mattman taught me was the value of things that are different. People, music, art... things that are different aren't to be looked on with disdain but are to be appreciated and enjoyed.

Here is Mattman

Tobin and Mattman were roommates. Two guys that were totally different than anything I knew before then. They were a ton of fun. Tobin is a guy who helped me learn the value of traditions. Tobin is a fiercely loyal guy. He taught me the value of hanging on to family and friends. I haven't been the best with that lesson, but I'm trying. Tobin was the constant through college. He was always there for me and with me and I truly enjoyed every minute of it.

Here is Tobin

Here is where I found Josh

Josh is a guy I should've tried to get to know more. He had a love for music and especially worship music. I grow to appreciate worship music more each year and I really appreciate the people that can lead us into worship. Josh always seemed to want to lead people into worship.

Here is where I found Dave

Dave and Josh were roommates. Dave taught me a lot about trust. Dave trusted us and I took advantage of that far too many times. Sorry Dave. Dave was the only one of us that wasn't a freshman but he goofed with us all the same. He was a lot of fun.

Forget the echoes...Wake up the offense

I went to the Michigan Notre Dame game Saturday. I wore my jersey. I knew it was going to end up like that. Seriously, I was predicting an outcome that was close to what happened. At one point in the game Notre Dame had more than -50 yards rushing. They just cannot seem to block. A blitz absolutely confuses them. I don't see it getting any better soon. So I'll endure a rebuilding year. For some reason I'm not ready to give up on Charlie. I'm not ready to give up on Jimmy. I'll keep wearing my jersey and watching the games. I'm a fan. Maybe a dumb one, but I'm a fan.

Anticipation

I think you can find last Sunday's sermon here. I've been listening to Saddleback's Daily Drivetime and he had a great one on the rapture so this wasn't an original thought. I wonder if I've had an all the way original thought...