New Slides

I'm learning to do new slides for the announcements at church. They're not perfect, but I'm getting there.

The second slide is our promo slide for the current sermon series from Colossians. It uses an ancient Christian image of Jesus from the catacombs, which happens to be the first known Christian image of Jesus with a beard.

My Thumbs!

My thumbs are going to fall off.

We had volleyball practice this morning at the church up the road. I've not played volleyball in 10 years or more and now my hands hurt real bad.

Owwwwwwwwwooooooeeeeeeohhhhhhh.

How could a game invented for senior citizens hurt this bad?

Miitens

Oh my, that's cute!

You know how when you go bowling on the Wii the Mii characters have floating spheres for hands? Well, here's instructions for making baby mittens that look like Mii hands!

Click the link, if for no other reason than its cuteness factor!

Random Thoughts 1/29/09

• 20th Century Fox will be making the next Narnia film, Voyage of the Dawn Treader. They'll be cutting costs, rewriting scripts, moving production, and generally trying not to kill it like they did Eragon, but at least it's going to be made. Look for it a year from Christmas (2010).
• We've finally hooked up HD television at home which enabled me to watch the KU basketball game (and Cole Aldrich's bloody, broken(?) nose) in glorious high definition. With DirecTV I have something like a hundred high definition channels but the most stunning to me so far is ESPNews. It's the most wonderful information overload I've experienced yet, with three or four things to watch/read at any given moment. Hmmm… mesmorizing.
• Here's the High School Jayhawk Musical, starring Conner Teahan as Zac Efron and the women's volleyball team as… whoever. Good grief.
  
• Herm Edwards, God bless 'im, was hired by ESPN to not make any sense exclusively on their channel. If you've never heard a Herm Edwards press conference, it's something like listening to an enthusiastic five-year-old explain something they like but don't quite understand. President Bush unfortunately had the same likable but confusing trait, though the former President won't be doing political commentary on FOX News (I hope).
• I'm starting a new sermon series next Sunday on Colossians. I'll be trying to cry less this Sunday (it seemed like a lot this last week, didn't it? Awwww-kward).
  
• We're having a Super Bowl watch party at the church this year. We'll have the game on the big screen and lots of food and soda. We'll also have a room with board games and maybe a Wii or something. It should be a lot of fun!
• Will Cardinals offensive coordinator Todd Haley be the next Chiefs head coach?
  

Deleting Mr. Anderson from the Matrix

I went through the church website this week, page by page, noting all the places we needed to scrub away any evidence of Jay-rod's ministry here.

Like kings of old chiseling out the names of their predecessors or defacing statues so the previous king would be remembered no more, we have purged any evidence of our former minister from our history.

[…]

Is that a bit much? Too bitter? Too melodramatic? Okay, maybe we just took down a couple of references to him and replaced his name on the contacts list. Either way, it was tough to delete his name or throw away his business cards or empty out his office.

We miss Jay-rod already, but life goes on I suppose.

You Can Have Him

The Detroit Lions, one of the perpetually worst teams in the NFL, had the worst defense in the league last year. They allowed the most points and had the fewest interceptions; ranked 32nd out of 32 teams.

Naturally the worst defensive team hired a new defensive coordinator…

…wait for it…

…from the 2nd worst defensive team, the Chiefs.

The woeful Lions hired Gunther Cunningham, the yellow-bespectacled author of the record-setting-ly bad Chiefs defense. Gunther would have been hard pressed to keep his job in KC but Detroit actually hired him away with a year left on his contract. My prediction: the Lions offense is still horrible next year!

It's good to see the decision making ability in Detroit is never going to change, regardless of which business we're talking about. Way to go, Lions!

Random Thoughts 1/26/09

• Here's a cool iPhone app. Take pictures of your Rubik's cube and the phone tells you how to solve it in a few moves. Cool. What's your favorite iPhone app?
• Remember, it's not all about him. It's about hope and change and blah, blah, blah… This is NOT a cult of personality. Repeat, this is NOT a cult of personality (no matter what it looks like).
  
• My dearest, closest friend moved away today. That's sad. Thank the Lord that I'm at a place in life where I'm surrounded by many loving, caring friends.
• We had 185 in church yesterday on a cold, wintery day in January. That's pretty good for us.
• Do you need the soundtrack to the game World of Goo? Yeah, me too.
• "It seems the era of Hope is to be inaugurated with a slaughter of the innocents." Excellent article.
• This is a cold, cold, cold winter. We've had more single-digit, freezing weather than I can remember (and I thought last year was bad at times). That silly global warming climate change is snowing on me again.
  
• Here's five things you can do with Google besides the usual searching of websites. I use Google for the weather (I like having forecasts from multiple sources) and it's the only place I get movie times anymore.
• Want to hear a pretty song? How about Tripod and Eddie Perfect singing a Christian song a cappella? I had two thoughts on this: first, I was surprised that these somewhat profane artists were singing a Christian song. Second, I'm surprised that an overtly Christian song would get much traction with a secular audience. 40 years ago Elvis or Johnny Cash could sing a Gospel song and it'd be well received, but today?
  

Oscar Madness (as usual)

The Oscar nominations are out.

That means it's time to remind ourselves that the most prestigious awards in cinema are selected largely by the most self-indulgent disconnected saps on the planet.

That's not to say that all Oscar nominations are off the mark. To the contrary most nominations and many winners, even for films that I personally find reprehensible, are usually well made in a technical sense. Many films have won Oscars for skillfully dragging the audience through the sewers… but at least it was admittedly "skillful." I may not consent to go along but I will concede when something is well done.

And, like the emperor's new clothes, some movies are just stupid but everyone's afraid to say so.

Nevertheless, I'm annually disappointed with the list. The Academy inexplicably favors some films and famously snubs other films, while sometimes doing both at the same time. This year the Batman movie, The Dark Knight, received 8 nominations but is not nominated for Best Picture. Go figure.

Here's what I liked or found interesting in this year's nominees:

• The five-hour communist love film, Che, received 0 nominations. Ha!
• Heath Ledger's name has been penciled in for best supporting actor since mid-summer last year. Everybody else is "just honored to have been nominated."
• I saw and absolutely loved all three animated feature films, Wall-E, Bolt, and Kung-fu Panda. We already own two of them.
  
• Wall-E has six nominations. Go Pixar!
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button has been nominated for 13 awards. The record for wins is 11 (Ben-Hur, Titanic, Lord of the Rings).
• Check out Oscar trivia and stats here.
  

Gaslighting

I think there's a conspiracy to slowly drive me insane.

Each week I take notes in the bulletin. I make announcements based on those notes and during the week I blog from those notes.

In theory.

In reality, almost every single week I lose that bulletin before Monday morning. I intend to insert it safely inside my Bible where sermon outlines from years past have safely resided. But somehow, on Monday or Tuesday when I need that one particular bulletin with all of my chicken scratches on it, it has vanished into thin air.

Week after week after week…

I'm slowly losing it.

I Can Believe Someone Sprayed You With Something

You've. Got. To. Be. Kidding.

Some nuts are convinced that contrails in the sky are actually government planes spraying chemicals on the population to conduct secret experiments.

Seriously. They call them "chemtrails."

Click here to watch the documentary-sounding crazy talk. People actually believe this, the hopeless fools! Airplanes have been leaving contrails and vapor trails forever. Have you seen aircraft pictures from World War 2? This is a case of colossal ignorance meeting backwardness and paranoia.

BTW, has Bush stolen that Iraqi oil yet? Or stolen billions of dollars for his cronies? Or taken over the world? Or done anything that the nutjobs were warning us about? If anyone wants to engage me in a passionate debate, start talking "stupid" and I'll pounce like a duck on a june bug.

[I'm more a Proverbs 26:5 guy than Proverbs 26:4, but I suppose that's the risk we run.]

43rd, 44th?

President Obama said today that "forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath."

Wait a second.

This is the 44th presidential administration. But Grover Cleveland served two separate times in the late 1800's, counting as two separate administrations. So actually, President Obama is only the 43rd American to take the oath of office, to begin the 44th administration and the 56th term in office.

So unless one of the living former Presidents somehow becomes the next President after Obama, the next guy will be the 44th American to take the presidential oath.

Now I feel a little better about my favorite number.

Frozen Gore

Perfect. Al Gore in ice!

Nothing says global warming climate change like a five-ton block of ice carved in the shape of a shivering former VP.

The Homicidal Hamster

She's a fuzzy femme fatale, a vermin vixen, a rogue rodent serial killer.

Somehow, our original female hamster has been the lone survivor of multiple cages full of hamsters. We already knew she had a predilection for eating her young. Today I found her innocently running on her hamster wheel with the skeletal remains of her two roommates buried in the corner.

What?!

Did she kill them and eat them? Did she hoard the food and let them starve to death? Is she that hard to live with? The male hamster cage has multiple fat and happy boy hamsters. But the female cage/nursery has a disturbing tendency to return to population: 1.

We decided that since we're down to four hamsters we'll breed the original pair again. So the oldest male goes back into the cage with the black widow.

Good luck buddy. Sleep with one eye open. Don't turn your back on her.

Random Inaugural Thoughts 1/19/09

• Barack Obama will be the 44th President. John Kerry was almost the 44th president. If Dole had won in '96 the 44th president would have come in 2000 or 2004 at the latest.
• Forty-four has always been my favorite number; it was my jersey number in football and basketball through Jr. High and Highschool. It's too bad the 44th president won't be one I voted for but that's okay. It's just great to see the oft-neglected number get some love.
• There's precious few 44's in sports history. The 23's and 32's make fun of it at parties.
• The Arizona Cardinals are in the Super Bowl. Wow, that's hard to process. But now that they're there, I'd rather the Cardinals win their first Super Bowl than the Steelers win their sixth.
• Great article on global warming cooling here. We need to pray for global warming before we freeze to death. It also wouldn't hurt to read up on ice ages, or glacial periods, and the fact that we're still seeing some of the colder weather ever experienced on the planet.
  
• If this is KU's "down year," then I'm okay with that. I know that means almost no chance at a Final Four and probably no Big 12 championship this year (KU has won two-thirds of the championships and half of the Big 12 tournaments) but if you lower your expectations, there's still a lot for Jayhawk fans to enjoy.
• The Wikipedia page for this year's Jayhawks team has lots of info. Check it out.
• I used an Eric Clapton song in church yesterday. I'm guessing this doesn't happen frequently, at least not in the type of churhes I go to.
  

This Is Why I Can't Work Around My Family

I'm making a pathetic attempt to work at home due to a number of factors.

The older boys are doing school at the same time and these are the voices filling our home that keep me from getting any work done:

• Tanner: "Some bricks have holes in them! …I don't know why."
  
• Mom: "Brennan, spell your name in English on your papers from now on!" He was writing "Brennan Conner Altic" in alien code letters from the Bionicle toy series.
• Tanner: "Dad, is this how you spell thorn?"
• Brennan: "My back hurts when I scratch it." Don't scratch it then, son.
• Tanner reading: "I'm cold. I'm white. I fall from the sky. What am I? A snowflake, a seal, or a glass of milk? Hmmm… a seal!"
• Brennan: "Mom, is Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota?" Yes, son. "Yay!!!" Obviously this is cause for celebration.
  
• Graham: "I wanna shrink! I wanna shrink!" shrink = drink "Shanks, Mom."
• Mom: "Eli, stop playing in the bathroom. If you need a drink, get a drink in the kitchen… with a cup."

It's everything I can do to ignore all of this.

Under the Weather

I had managed to avoid getting sick, when my family was down with the flu for weeks last month. That said, the last 36 hours has kicked my behind.

I'm thankful, however, for technology. With my laptop, internet access, and the phone I've been able to keep up a cycle of working and sleeping throughout the day and night. I've studied, planned, counseled, and even had a meeting without ever leaving home (or changing out of my pajamas!).

I think I'm getting better and I'll have to go into the office tonight to do a few things, but it's a blessing to have these tools and this kind of flexibility. I'm truly blessed.

The Cable Guy

I met the single worst technician/repair/cable guy ever.

I stayed home all afternoon for the DirecTV guy to install our upgraded dish. We've been waiting for this appointment for weeks (the holiday season is their busy time of year).

When the guy showed up he immediately began to whine and complain. He hated the pitch of my roof and the type of shingles it had. The weather was cold (about 5º F) and he had to drive a long way paying for his own gas. He openly dreaded getting into our attic (which actually isn't that big of deal) and he had told me he felt pressured by the other three appointments he needed to do today.

But the deal breaker was when I mentioned our crawl space under the house. He sighed and huffed and puffed, shaking his head. I knew at that point there was no way he was going to do the job. Sure enough, he continued to whine and complain about the equipment, the limitations of the product I was buying, and how hard it is to install properly. Finally he peeked under our house and jumped up saying, "I can't do this. I'm too big. I don't do crawl spaces."

Seriously.

Then he went on to tell me how he didn't have the right equipment with him today because he'd lost his equipment in a house fire in '98. 1998. Eleven years ago! You've got to be kidding! This is what you do for a living and you haven't replaced your tools in eleven years!?! Stop chain-smoking and shrinking from challenges and you might be able to afford more tools.

He called his supervisor and also complained to me that customers are uninformed about what they need to do to make his job easier. In the end, he gave me DirecTV's 1-800 number and drove away, without installing a single thing!

I think it all comes down to this guy not wanting to climb a ladder or crawl under my house. Maybe he's in the wrong line of work.

The New Carl Peterson

The highly regarded Scott Pioli is the new man in charge for Kansas City Chiefs. He's certainly the rising star amongst NFL front office personnel (and he's Bill Parcels' son-in-law).

Pioli will be forced to make a decision about the Chief's QB and Head Coach, not to mention the record-setting bad defense. It'll be a challenge for sure. But most fans are confident because Pioli's name is NOT Carl Peterson.

That said, some have described Pioli as the next "King Carl" – controlling, propaganda-spewing, exclusive interview giving, hard-nosed negotiator. As far as I'm concerned, if it's the Carl Peterson of the 90's I'm okay with it. It's it's the year-sixteen of a five-year-plan Carl Peterson then I'll pass.

Overall, landing Pioli seems to be a huge coup for the Chiefs.

How Can They Tell That I'm Irish?

I've always joked that I can understand interracial marriage because I married an Irish girl. The fact that I have German and English heritage has absolutely no impact whatsoever on my family's daily life, but… have you ever paid attention on St. Patrick's day? It's like a cult, I'm telling you! And my mother-in-law is their leader.

I should probably save this for March but here's a brief list of Irish history and humor:

• The Simpsons go to a St. Patrick's Day parade: "…such a pleasant St. Patrick's day until the Irish showed up."
• Here's some actual history on St. Patrick, the Christian missionary.
• This is really neat (and funny): An authentic 1910 recording of a Vaudeville song: How can they tell that I'm Irish?
• Conan O'Brien goes to Ireland, part 1 and part 2.
• Perhaps the most interesting history book I've ever read even though I received it unexpectedly as a gift: How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill.
• Facts: There are more people who claim Irish heritage in New York City than in Dublin. There are more than 80 million Irish people living in other countries (about half in the U.S.) but less than 6 million in Ireland itself.
  

Disclaimer: I may not be Irish, but some of my best friends are Irish.

Timely Word of the Day

I was reading late last night and came across the word "abattoir." From the context I knew it had to mean some kind of slaughterhouse but I wasn't sure. Lo and behold, when I checked my email this morning, my word of the day, sent to me at the very same hour last night, was "abattoir."

Abattoir (noun)

Pronunciation: ['æ-bê-twah(r)]

Definition: Slaughterhouse.

Usage: This word is used almost exclusively for its literal meaning: "Fred lost his job at the abattoir after attempting to defend the life of a doomed sheep."

Suggested Usage: However, the word is ready and able for metaphorical duty where a more sophisticated term for "slaughterhouse" is called for: "I felt like a heifer in an abattoir during the lay-offs." Here is one for news reporters: "The expressway became an automotive abattoir yesterday when 23 cars piled up in the fog."

Etymology: French abattre "to cut or shoot down" based on a- "to, from" + battre "to beat." The prefix derives from Latin ad- "(up) to" and is akin to English "at". The French stem is related to English "beat," "bat," "batter," and Russian bit' "beat."

I just love words.

Job Security?

We had a missionary guest speaker at church yesterday. For a lot of churches, a missionary means a long slide show and quite possibly a sub-par public speaking ability. And whenever you have a guest speaker that can't preach his way out of a wet paper bag, that means job security for the preacher (assuming he can preach in the first place). Right?

Well, throw that out the window when you invite a representative from a Bible College. We had a talented and experienced representative from Ozark Christian College, where apparently even the janitor could step in for Billy Graham, and he spoke for well over two hours combined (two sermons and an hour of Sunday School) with skill and precision.

I really didn't expect anything less from Ozark, but I did get some ribbing for foolishly letting the congregation hear what "a good sermon" sounds like. Hardy, har, har.

I do want to say thanks to brother Hedger and Ozark Christian College for the great work they do and I look forward to the next time they send someone to speak here.

Maybe they'll send the janitor.

Random Thoughts 1/12/09

• Tony Dungy has retired from the Colts. He's been one of my favorite professional sports coaches, but now he's going to do other things, including spending time with his favorite charities. Good luck and Godspeed, coach.
• What does the Battle of Algiers (and the propaganda movie loosely based upon it) tell us about the conflicts today, such as the recent combat in Gaza? Read here for insight.
• Why should we sell to the Japanese one of our most powerful weapons, the F-22A Raptor? It turns out that it might make sense both economically and diplomatically.
• Apple is always filing lots of bizarre computer patents. A really interesting one is to set a camera behind the computer screen, so that you can look directly into the screen while using your webcam. Cool idea, and very intuitive, if it works.
• Fred Barnes gives 10 things George Bush did right. There's probably more.
  
• The NFC Championship game will be hosted in Arizona. […] How messed up is that? The Super Bowl will feature either the 9-7 Cardinals or the 9-6-1 Eagles. Wow.
• For the first time in three Christmas shopping seasons, the Wii didn't sell for two or three times it's retail price (about $250) on eBay. Average eBay prices this Christmas for a Wii was between $284 and $318. The Wii Fit ($80 retail) on the other hand ran for about $150-160 all season.
  

Respecting the Office

After learning that the Obama family bought a Wii for Christmas, I'm beginning to soften towards them. President-elect Obama also made a second mention last week of changing the college football bowl system to a playoff system. See, he can't be all bad.

For my part, I'm going to pray for the President. He's everyone's president now, even if he wasn't everyone's candidate. I also love our country enough to want things to go well for him. I was fit to be tied that Americans were wishing ill toward our troops in combat because of their seething hatred for President Bush. That was wrong and I won't be part of it.

I'm also going to try to refer to him as President Obama or some other appropriate title. I hated how people refused to show respect to George Bush, calling him "Bushie," "Bush Jr.," "George," "That Idiot," etc. Grow up, hater. The only hitch here is that the new President, like Hillary or Elvis, has become mononymous, so calling him "Obama" is not necessarily disrespectful.

But around here, he'll be the President or President Obama.

Hear It From Sarah

Here's a portion of Sarah Palin's recent interview where she responds to how the media treated her and her family during the campaign. Very interesting.

Palin, i.e. a genuinely conservative regular person, was not the reason McCain lost. McCain, for many, represented a compromise – a less liberal but not too conservative politician – a moderate.

But who votes for moderates? The convictions of a conservative will naturally resist appeasement and waffling. If you lack these convictions about what must be done, then what's the difference between a moderate and a liberal candidate, especially if you believe in government as a solution? If you're not voting on conservative principles, you may as well vote for whoever is going to make you feel better .

When a truly conservative campaign is run, it wins, because most people are at least somewhat conservative and understand responsibility and sacrifice even if they don't like it. But if neither side wants to take the hard road, but instead you're offering two different levels of concessions, then selfish people will make selfish decisions.

Palin as a runningmate probably delivered some voters who cared about conservative values. But with McCain talking about global warming and bailouts and completely unable to explain conservative principles to the public, the GOP ticket was doomed.

Palin didn't hurt the ticket. McCain's inability to communicate conservative principles did.

Taking Chance

If you missed it a few years ago, you need to read this true, tear-jerking, short story of a Marine officer who accompanies the casket of a fallen Marine cross-country to his hometown.

The story itself is quite moving. The HBO movie starring Kevin Bacon looks to be similarly touching and true to its source material.

[Thanks for the tip, then and now, to Blackfive.com]

Random Thoughts 1/8/09

• The Rain Forest Cafe in Oak Park Mall is being closed. That's too bad because my kids liked the themed restaurant with its animatronic jungle creatures and occasional thunder storms. But at least the tropical fish will all be transported to the T-Rex dinosaur here in KCK. Story here.
• The Kansas City Kansan is no longer a print newspaper. It'll try to survive as a news blog, but that's a hard thing to do and still pay any employees. Good luck. Here's their revamped site. I wonder how long the KC Star will hold out?
  
• Are you ready for analog TV to go away? I've been a DirecTV customer for years so it doesn't matter to me, but if you're watching TV via antenna February 17 is going to be a bad day for you. Remember that digital signal television is NOT the same as high definition (though HD is becoming more and more common).
• Top 10 Pro-Abortion moments of 2008. Shocking. Informative. Sad.
• My congressman, Dennis Moore (D), may not run for Congress again in 2010 to run for governor. Please, Please, Please! I'd love to vote for Brownback (or almost anyone else) over Moore. I've already got three election cycles worth of experience voting for whichever name is listed opposite of Moore. (Thanks for the tip, StayRedKansas)
• Do you sneeze when you walk out a dark room into the bright sunlight? I do. Not everytime but… oh, nevermind.
• Pray for Shannon. Pregnancy doesn't seem to suit her well the last few times around. We just have to make it another month or so.
• How does a Wii game titled, "Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball" not sound completely awesome? That's gotta work, right? Shouldn't it? Maybe? It comes out the 1st of Feb.
  

Chiefs Draft Analysis 2009

By season's end, some two-thirds of the Chiefs' roster had been with the team less than one year. Good grief.

Here's the 2008 Draft Class (all of whom are still with the team for now):
1a. Glenn Dorsey, DT, LSU (6-1, 300)
Started 16 games. Seriously underperformed with only one sack.
1b. Branden Albert, OL, Virginia (6-5, 315)
Started 15 games.
2. Brandon Flowers, CB, Virginia Tech (5-9, 190)
Started 13 games with two interceptions, including one returned 91 yards for a TD.
3a. Jamaal Charles, RB, Texas (5-11, 200)
Started a few games; one TD with over 600 combined yards.
3b. Brad Cottam, TE, Tennessee (6-7, 270)
Started seven games; limited production behind Gonzalez.
3c. DaJuan Morgan, S, NC State (6-0, 205)
Appeared in most games this season without contributing.
4. Will Franklin, WR, Missouri (6-0, 210)
Started one game, played special teams.
5. Brandon Carr, CB, Grand Valley State (6-0, 210)
Started every game as a rookie and recorded 2 interceptions.
6a. Barry Richardson, OT, Clemson (6-6, 320)
Appeared in 6 games.
6b. Kevin Robinson, WR, Utah State (5-11, 200)
PUP list, then returned kicks for half the season. 2 fumbles, 0 TDs.
7a. Brian Johnston, DE, Gardner-Webb (6-4, 270)
Appeared in 9 games.
7b. Mike Merritt, TE, Central Florida (6-4, 265)
PUP list and did not play in a single game.

Here's the 2007 Class (5 of 7 still with team):
1. Dwayne Bowe, WR, LSU (6-2, 217)
Started 31 out of his first 32 games. Had 86 receptions for 1022 yards and 7 TDs. Far and away the best of his draft class.
2. Turk McBride, DT/DE, Tennessee (6-4, 276)
Played in all 16 games as a rookie, starting one and became a starter until he got hurt. Still only has one sack.
3. Tank Tyler, DT, North Carolina State (6-2, 306)
Played in 15 games, starting one as a rookie. Started 16 games in his second year but has still not recorded a single sack.
5a. Kolby Smith, RB, Louisville (5-11, 215)
After a decent year in 2007, Smith only played in 7 games and underperformed at 2.9 yards per carry.
5b. Justin Medlock, K, UCLA (6-0, 201)
Carl's UCLA homer struggled and was cut after one game. Out of football.
6. Herb Taylor, T, TCU (6-3, 295)
Taylor only appeared in three games his rookie year, started one game his second year.
7. Michael Allan, TE, Whitworth (WA) (6-6, 251)
Cut after one game, re-signed to '07 practice squad, and cut again before second season.

The 2006 Class - 5 players remaining out of 7 (though realistically only Hali, and safeties Pollard and Page have any realistic job security):
1. Tamba Hali, DE, Penn State (6-3, 275)
Started every game in his first three seasons but struggled without Jared Allen. Only three sacks this year.
2. Bernard Pollard, SS, Purdue (6-2, 223)
Played every game as a rookie and became a regular starter in his second and third years. Knocked out Tom Brady.
3. Brodie Croyle, QB, Alabama (6-3, 204)
Handed the starting job for the second year in a row and failed to either win or stay healthy.
5. Marcus Maxey, CB, Miami (Fla.) (6-2, 197)
Cut, re-signed and cut again before his second season.
6a. Tre' Stallings, G, Mississippi (6-3, 315)
Eli Manning's left tackle in college. Cut before his second season, re-signed, appeared in one game and cut again before third season.
6b. Jeff Webb, WR, San Diego State (6-2, 211)
Dropped off the radar in his third year with only 5 catches in as many games.
7. Jarrad Page, SS, UCLA (6-0, 225)
The surprise of his draft class, Page started every game in his second and third year. He has had ten interceptions in three seasons with the Chiefs.

2005 Draft - 2 players remaining: Derrick Johnson (1st) and Dustin Colquitt (3rd).
2004 Draft - 0 players remaining.
2003 Draft - 1 player remaining: Larry Johnson (1st) - with an $8 million plus salary cap hit whether he stays or leaves, we might as well see him to the door. Punk.
2002 Draft - 0 players remaining.
2001 Draft - 0 players remaining.
2000 Draft - 0 player remaining.

Chiefs draft history here.

Bad News for Global Warmers

This has been the best short article on science in the new year:

"The year 2008 marked the tenth consecutive year of no global warming. This is not widely reported or known. In fact the Earth has been cooling for the last 6 years."

"Too often we witness climate alarmism being promoted while solid science is ignored, misrepresented, or downplayed. This makes great fodder for scary movies, scary news articles, and scary documentaries, but it is still bad science."

Read the rest here.

I Can Quit Whenever I Want…

I bought Mario Kart for the Wii for Tanner and his brothers and I can't stop playing.

I'm not even that big of a fan of the series. I've played previous iterations of Mario Kart (there have been eight versions, not counting knock-offs) but I've never been hooked quite like this. Every night for a couple of hours before bed, I'm busy setting new times and unlocking new tracks and characters and karts. Every morning, I show off my accomplishments to the boys who are eager to see what I've done.

In the last two weeks, I've unlocked every track and character with just a few karts left to go. I've also enjoyed playing online; in fact it was Mario Kart that finally pushed me to replace my wireless router. If you want to play with us here are our friend codes:

Jared: 3824-2570-1339
Brennan: 1290-2263-1418
Tanner: 3437-7099-6335

YouTubing

Here are a few (like maybe 1%) of the Youtube videos I've enjoyed in the last year:

• If a cat gets you when you're not looking, it'll be the Ninja Cat.
• For the next time I shoot blue rock.
• For the next time I shoot rubberbands.
• This is what separates us from the animals. WARNING: This is really disgusting.
• Cutest examination of your own mortality, it's Kiwi!
• Best use of a treadmill by dorks in music video.
• Most impressive rhythmic gymnastics routine I've seen.
• Worst female gymnast (?) ever. And here. And here.

Thanks to Mom, Cecil, Annie, Gordie and Sue, Dustin, Shannon, and all the others that send these videos (and all the others) to me.

Where Babies Come From

I was teasing my mischievous and ornery boys, "I'm going to take you boys back to Wal-Mart and get a refund!" To that remark I received a chorus, "We didn't come from Wal-Mart!"

Tanner (7) then added, "If I was from Wal-Mart I would remember living there." And Elijah (4) said, "We came from Momma's tummy!"

Then Tanner explained, "You put money in her mouth and then a baby comes out."

[…]

Oh. Is that how that works? I didn't realize Mom was a vending machine.

Fantasy Playoffs

This year, in my main fantasy football league, I went 11-6. That set me up as the second best team (of four) in the playoffs. In our league we play a 17-game regular season and then re-draft for the playoffs. We can keep keepers off our regular season roster and then we draft to fill out a 10-man roster that will accumulate points through the playoffs.

We have to have 2 QBs, 2 Kickers, and 6 "Flex," i.e. backs or receivers. My playoff team is as follows:

QB Peyton Manning, IND
QB Jake Delhomme, CAR
RB Brian Westbrook, PHI*
RB Michael Turner, ATL
RB Chris Johnson, TEN
WR Derrick Mason, BAL*
WR Roddy White, ATL
TE Dallas Clark, IND*
K Rob Bironas, TEN*
K John Kasay, CAR*

*keepers from my regular season team

Most of my 11-6 team were players on mediocre teams and thus not eligible for the playoffs but I'm happy with the playoff team I have now. The team with the most points after the Super Bowl wins.

So this weekend I'm banking on the Falcons, Colts, Ravens, and Eagles. I'll be rooting against their opponents and the Steelers and Giants. Something like a Colts/Falcons Super Bowl would work great for me but so would a Panthers/Titans finale!


Update 11pm: So much for that. I've never lost 4/10 of my squad on the first night. Ouch.

Good Preacher, Sermon

This morning I heard one of the nicest compliments a preacher can hear.

An individual, who has been a preacher himself, told me that I was the only preacher he's heard who NEVER took a Bible passage out of context to suit my own purposes.

That's high praise for a preacher's integrity, as it's something that you could easily do on accident. If a police officer got out of a ticket because of his position, you can usually see that as a minor offense that doesn't necessarily reflect on his integrity (unless he abuses this over and over again).

But misusing a scripture as you're passionately trying to make an argument is an error much easier to commit. I'm sure I probably have made that mistake more than once but for a careful, intelligent listener to offer that praise… I'm flattered beyond words.

A preacher often hears nice compliments and platitudes – my all-time favorite is, "good preacher, sermon" – but this one really humbled me.

Thank you.

Jet Lag

I pulled two all-nighters in a row and now I'm all discombobulated. Graham was sick Tuesday night throwing up so I stayed awake until 4am. Then I stayed up until about 5:30am Wednesday night/Thursday morning for the lock-in at church. Both days I had the luxury of sleeping in 'til midday, but now my internal clock is out of whack.

I'm getting up early tomorrow, with a meeting at 8am. So we'll see if that doesn't shock my system back into reality.