A spiritual re-wiring, of sorts

The "mountain-top spiritual high". If you've been a Christian for any length of time, you know what I'm talking about with that term. We've all been there, probably a number of times. You go off to that retreat, mission's trip, conference, whatever, and you come back all charged up and excited about your relationship with God. You resume (or increase the length of) your daily quiet times, and you make other significant changes. Everything is awesome, for like a week. Maybe two, even a month if you're lucky. And then before too long, life is largely the same as it was before whatever event touched off the "high". The reasons for this phenomenon are many, but I think one of the major causes is the fact that in these kind of insular events, it's easy to get very exciting and make decisions based on an emotional high that immediately fades when the real world hits. Decisions and plans of any kind made in the heat of an emotional high or low generally aren't the most lasting and life changing.

Like I said, I've been there, the most recent significant episode coming around my first trip to Thailand, back in February 2007. Now, don't get me wrong, God did some lasting work in my life on that trip, most notably kicking me out of a total spiritual malaise that I had been in for the better part of the year prior. However, the same scene I just described played out for the most part, and a few weeks later, all the big changes I had made in the wake of the trip had gone largely ignored.

After the experiences I had, and have (for the most part) relayed to all of you via this blog, on my most recent trip to Thailand, the cynic in me was pretty much expecting the same sequence to play out this time around. However, something very odd happened. This time, I came back and was almost immediately right back into the same old daily grind, with little initial evident application of the things that I had learned and seen on the trip. What I was doing, however, as you all got to see, was processing through what had happened and what it all meant. And so slowly and surely over the last weeks, some changes started to surface. A largely dormant daily quiet time re-emerged, without feeling forced or put on. More than that, I've started to find myself communicating with God outside of that early morning quiet time on a much more frequent basis. And I've seen the kind of expectation and belief in the power of prayer that I found in Thailand re-emerge. There are perhaps other things I could mention, but those are the highlights.

On Saturday, our Thailand team (minus Andrew) met with Kris (the member of the long term Thai team who is back stateside on home ministry) and Silk for dinner after a prayer gathering we had at our church for the Isaan - three different organizations that work (or are getting ready to work) among the Isaan, and supporters of those organizations were there, pretty cool. Kris was "grilling" us about our experiences, and one of her questions was, essentially, how has your life changed as a result of the trip? I was sharing essentially what I've written here, and I said that I felt like this time, there had been a kind of spiritual re-wiring done in me, rather than my typical temporary surface transformation. It was like it had just taken time for the effects of that re-wiring to work their way to the surface here in the States.

So, here's hoping that my instincts on this are accurate, and that there was something very different about what happened to me on a spiritual level on this trip, and what it will mean for me long term.

There's another very cool story that came out of Saturday's dinner, but for a couple reasons I'm holding off on posting it to the interweb, for now. I expect that to change shortly, however, so you can look for that at some point in the not-to-distant future.

Tobacco Road

As you might have noticed due to my lack of reports, my trip to Thailand de-railed some of my reading for quite awhile. I continued to do my weekly Sports Illustrated reading very faithfully (I do a lot of that on the bus), and I've been plugging through The Complete Sherlock Holmes (I'm about 15% of the way through volume 2) on my lunch breaks, but I didn't do any non-fiction book reading for the last week before I left for Thailand, and for one reason or another, I didn't crack open the next book until about 2 weeks ago. However, I'm back in the groove now, and I just finished Tobacco Road, by Alwyn Featherston. The book chronicles the history of college basketball on Tobacco Road, the region of North Carolina from which Duke, North Carolina, NC State, and Wake Forest hail. I picked this book up due to my Duke fan-dom and my interest in ACC basketball as a whole.

I found this book to be a worthwhile read, but I have to admit I was somewhat disappointed. The book is subtitled: "the history of the most heated backyard rivalries in college sports", and so I was expecting a more intimate look into the actual rivalries, with more emphasis on the emotional sides of things, and maybe some more behind the scenes things, like student body incidents. However, while the book certainly highlights some of the more explosive rivalry type moments, it really is just a history of the 4 basketball programs, their ups, downs, and the competition between them. Since I'm not very up on my college basketball history beyond the era when I started becoming aware of sports (late 80s), I still learned a lot from the book, but I was mainly just informed when I was hoping for a little bit more insight and entertainment.

Anyhow, it's on to the next book, which is A Few Seconds of Panic, by Stefan Fatsis. The sub-title of the book is rather enlightening as to what it's about: "A 5 foot 8, 170 poungd, 43 year old sportswriter plays in the NFL". The author was allowed to participate in training camp with the Denver Broncos as a kicker a few years ago, and the book chronicles his experiences and insights. A recent Sports Illustrated had a column from Fatsis where he gave some summary thoughts and insights from his experiences, and based on that, I will be highly disappointed if I don't find this book to be both highly entertaining and rather insightful.

More umpire excitement

Before I launch into this particular rant, I have to make a couple things clear. #1 - We won both games we played tonight. #2 - The umpire that has sparked this rant is a guy I have a "history" with this year. He's the guy who "didn't see a tag" when a baserunner ran straight through my glove so hard I thought I was going to drop the ball, if you remember that rant. #3 - Furthermore, as I understand it, this was the umpire that, at a game I had to miss, reversed his call on what should have been a game ending triple play. Our outfielder made a great shoetop grab, they doubled off the runner at 2nd and tripled off the runner at 3rd, only to have the umpire rule "no catch", after making the other out calls and as our guys were coming of the field. And finally, #4 - the ruling that was made in the situation that really got me boiling tonight was the correct call.

But seriously, the umpires association needs to put this guy out to pasture. He's got to be at least in his 60s, he can't move particularly well, which causes him to miss calls he could get right if he could get into position, and he's got a chip on his shoulder if you question him even a bit. All you should need to know about his skills as an umpire is what occured in #3. Whether it was right or wrong, you can't change your call on a catch/no catch after the play has already played out like that.

Anyhow, so here is what happened tonight. We dominated our first game, winning 19-2 in 5 innings. However, our opponent's came out strong in Game 2, and we were quickly down 9-2 after the first. As we batted in the 5th, we were down 17-5 and on the verge of being mercy ruled ourselves. Our bats came alive and we had scored 6 runs, and had a runner on first, when there was a slow ground ball to 2nd base. The second baseman picked it up and threw to the shortstop. Upon catching the ball at 2nd, the shortstop immediately took 2 pretty large strides directly down the baseline towards first, and collided (very hard, I might add) with our runner from first, who had been running very hard initially to try and beat out the play, about 6 feet or so in front of the bag. There was nothing dirty about it, it just happened. The rule is that in that instance, the runner from first has to slide or get out of the way, so interference was the correct call, the batter should also be out as the other team is awarded the double. The ump didn't make the call right away, and the other team argued (correctly). This is another contention I have with this particular ump, he either is (or very much appears to be because of how he hesitates on certain calls) influenced by the benches. Anyhow, after a few seconds, the umpire pointed over to me (as our coach) and asked me to come out. He tells me he's going to call the runner at first out on the interference. My only point of contention with the whole situation was that given how far the shortstop came down the line, there would have been some sort of contact even if our runner had slid (he would blown the shortstop up in the air and probably hurt himself in the process) or stopped, so I wanted to know at what point you can fault the fielder for the contact. And so I began to express that, at which point the umpire snapped at me and told me that was the rule. Seriously, man, if you don't want to discuss it (which is fine), just make the call and be done with it, and let me argue if I feel so inclined. Calling me out onto the field from the bench kind of implies that there's to be a discussion.

Anyhow, the right call was made, we won the game anyhow, no real harm here. But we keep having bad run-ins with this same guy, and this was the first of the 3 that didn't have a significant impact on the outcome of the game. And having this guy tonight seemed particularly bad, because we played on Tuesday night and the guy who I think is the best umpire that works our league games was working the game. He's one of the younger umps, he's probably in the best shape of any ump we have regularly and thus very mobile and active, he's personable, he's knowledgeable, he's decisive, and he's willing to acknowledge he;s not perfect. All in all, a very nice skill set for an umpire to have.

So, now I feel better for having gotten that off my chest, and you can all resume your daily lives.

Make it stop (again)

Most of the golf world was staring across the pond this weekend as Padraig Harrington won the British Open for the second year in a row. However, there was another golf story that took some headlines, that of 18 year old female "phenom" (the quotes for reasons which I will discuss later) Michelle Wie being disqualified from the weekend's LPGA event for failing to immediately sign her scorecard after her 2nd round. This was made even more noteworthy by the fact that Wie was actually in contention in the event, something that doesn't happen very often.

However, that isn't what has inspired my second post of the day: this is. For the 8th time in her career, Michelle Wie is going to be playing in a PGA tournament. It's the 14th time overall that Wie has played in a men's tournament. And all I can think is "Why?"

Look, I'm not here to bash Michelle Wie. To a large degree, she has been a victim of her own hype (a hype she has had very little to do with). And the reality is that she is 18, so it's not like she could be considered washed up or a never was. She only seems like she's be around forever because she was inexplicably thrust onto our consciousness at the age of 12, for no really reason other than that she could hit the ball really far.

However, here are the facts of the matter: Wie doesn't even have an LPGA tour card this season, and her best result playing an LPGA event the last 2 years was a 19th place. Thus far in 2008, she's played 6 events (she has one more sponsor's exemption so she'll play one more event). Her tally: 2 missed cuts, a 72nd, a 46th, and a 24th to go with last week's DQ. Wie has never made a cut on the PGA tour, and seems to be moving in the wrong direction in that regard, having missed the cut by 13 and 14 strokes in her last two PGA events. She has absolutely no business golfing in a men's event and talking a sponsor's exemption away from a guy who needs it to get out there and try and earn his keep on the tour. This isn't interesting or relevant - it's a sideshow. Back a few years ago when Annika Sorenstam, who was at that time the unquestioned best female golfer in the world, teed it up with the men, that had some intrigue, and Sorenstam conducted herself well and competed well, despite not making the cut. And even Sorenstam, who I personally believe could have made a cut or two given a few more tries, limited that little experiment to a one time deal.

Let me be clear, however. I don't blame the sponsors for this. Sponsors are not charities. They don't sponsor golf tournaments out of the good of their hearts, they do it to make money. It's not their job to distribute the exemptions to the "most deserving" players not otherwise in the field, and to expect them to do so is quixotic thinking. Sponsers are going to do what's in the best interest of their bottom line, and if that means inviting Wie to create a little extra buzz around the tournament, so be it. And it's working, by the way. This week's tournament would be a complete afterthought without Wie, since virtually all of the best golfers will be taking a week off after the British Open, and it will be one of the weakest fields on the PGA all year (and don't think it's a coincidence that Wie chose to play this one). Instead, there's a front page link on ESPN.com, and people like me are blogging about it. I won't be watching, however.

No, I put the blame for this continued sideshow on Wie and her handlers. The continued insistence on playing PGA events is just another in a long line of poor decisions that have been made in Wie's career, at least if you assume that the goal should be to maximize her golf abilities. Almost from day 1, Wie has consistently been thrust into the next level of competition before coming anywhere near mastery of the level she's on. For all her talent, which is unquestioned, Wie has to her credit one amatuer championship of note, and no professional titles. I'm all about testing yourself against the best competition you can find, but in a sport where the mental part of the game is as important as it is in golf, I think there's a point at which you have step back and learn how to compete and how to win, and Wie has clearly never done that. She was going to attract attention anyhow, but she's been handled in a manner that has thrust her into being the story everywhere she goes, and so since the age of 12 she's had to worry about dealing with all of that along with the normal pressure of trying to compete in and win a golf tournament.

Now, as I said, there's plenty of time for Wie. She's only 18, and right now isn't even really a full-time golfer as she attends Stanford. But please, please, let's leave the men's tournaments go, at least until she proves she can compete with the women.

Hi, my name is Scott, and I'm a brownie addict

It's true, and I can't deny it.

Some quick background - I believe that at some point in my Thai reflections I mentioned Silk, a Thai believer who will be joining the long term team in Ubon. In order to do that, the BIC missions office decided she had to come to have some education in the States, and she'll be studying and living in Mechanicsburg during that time. She arrived here two weeks ago this coming Wednesday, and those of who were on the teams from McBIC the last 2 years greeted her at the airport. The Sunday after her arrival (just one week ago yesterday), we had a big "Welcome to America" picnic for her at the home of her host "parents".

I signed up to bring some dessert. When I originally agreed to do this, I had designs on actually baking a cake from scratch. (Yes, I can do that and have done so on a number of occasions.) However, it became patently obvious to me that Saturday that my kitchen (along with a few other parts of the house) could wait no longer for a cleaning. So, I went after it and cleaned the kitchen up real good on Saturday morning right after I finished painting my shelves. Well, with a sparkling kitchen in place, a full fledged baking effort was out of the question for the near future (I'm getting better, but I still make a massive mess most times when I bake), so I headed off to Giant to grab sort some of mix. I settled on some brownies (Duncan Hines Chewy Fudge, if anyone is interested) and whipped them up on Sunday morning prior to the picnic.

These brownies were ridiculously good, and that wasn't only my opinion. I really wished that I could have taken credit for actually really baking them, but alas, I could not. Anyhow, needless to say, I took only an empty pan home that Sunday (I did have a few myself at the picnic, so don't worry), which was somewhat disappointing. Then, I had this epiphany - I usually buy a bag of cookies every week (bear in mind, I generally only have maybe 3-4 different kinds of snack foods in the house, if I buy a bunch of different things, most of them go bad before I finish them). Even factoring in the eggs and the vegetable oil, brownies were cheaper, much better, they only take about 5 minutes of my time to make, and there's much more food there than in a bag of cookies. (though I'm not sure that they last any longer, strange...) So, that night on my weekly grocery run, I bought another box of mix and whipped them up Monday evening. And they actually survived to the weekend (just barely).

Well, I thought that was a one and done thing, but then when I went to Giant last night, I heard them calling to me from the baking aisle. This week's batch is in the oven as we speak. If you live in the area and want a brownie, feel free to stop by, although I would advise you not to wait too long ;-)

Why Comcast Sucks

I've been without any kind of service from Comcast for over a year now, so knowing that, you might wonder what would inspire me to title a post as I have done today's. And, as you might expect, I'm about to tell you.

As you also might expect, ever since I kicked Comcast out of my house, I've been getting their propaganda on a regular basis trying to woo me back. I usually recognize it on sight, laugh, and pitch it out. Today's piece of propaganda intrigued me initially, however. It was in an envelope that was clearly identified as being from Comcast (which is not their usual M.O.) and on the outside were the words "Tell us your story..." I was intrigued by this not because of any desire to switch back to Comcast, but I thought that, over a year since I cancelled my last Comcast service, that this might be some sort of survey as to why I had kicked them out and not brought them back. And, if they were interested in knowing that, I was going to be willing to give them an answer.

Well, I was rather disappointed when I opened the envelope. The "story" they wanted me to tell them was how some other provider had wooed me away with a snazzy promotion, but that I had realized what I missed about Comcast and was ready to come back to them (with their snazzy promotion to do the wooing)

You know, that really shouldn't have spawned a blog entry, except for that that kind of language is consistent with the attitude I got from Comcast in virtually every dealing I had with them while a customer and as I cancelled them. They act like they don't have any real competitors and that I as a customer don't have any real choice. Which is incorrect, and not the best way to behave even if it were correct, because that's the best way to open yourself up to a real competitor. I bailed on Comcast's TV service first (despite the fact that they are the only way I could get the channel that carries 75% of the Phillies games) because I was fed up with getting an annual rate hike in the neighborhood of 5 dollars, being forced to have all kinds of channels I didn't want just so I could have DVR service, and having to pay a significant extra fee to get all of my programming on more than just one TV. I was, however, quite satisfied with their internet service, and would have been glad to keep it, except for the fact that, in their brilliance, when you cancel the TV, your internet rate goes up 20 bucks a month and your connection gets slower. So, a few months later, there went the Internet service. On both cancellation calls the operators were absolutely incredulous, in a way not particularly common to this sort of thing, and the tech who disconnected my TV boldly proclaimed he'd be back out here in few months. It's been more than 18 so far, and no signs of his return.

I have to say that there is very little you can do as a business to turn me off than take my business for granted, and Comcast, at least to the extent that I've dealt with them, seems to make that a matter of policy. I actually do enjoy my Dish Network service (and the notably smaller bill, despite getting all of my programming on 3 TVs rather than one) more than Comcast's, even despite the lack of Phillies games, but even if I should have some legitimate dis-satisfaction with them in the near future, I can guarantee you that Comcast won't be the first place I turn.

The game starts when?

According to ESPN, I should be watching the All-Star game on FOX right. It says it starts at 8. And yet, as I type this, it's 8:40 pm and Joe Buck and Tim McCarver (shudder) are just launching into their pre-game analysis that might lead us to the start of the game in the next 10-15 minutes. Maybe.

This situation illustrates a couple of my current biggest pet peeves in sports coverage. First of all, is the fact that, for most bigtime sporting events, it's very difficult to discern when you should start watching if you're only interested in watching the game or match, and not the overblown, drawn out pre-game melodrama. It's quite frustrating. And this leads me into my second pet-peeve, the fact that the networks and the pro sports leagues seem determined to make it so that no major sporting event (the Super Bowl seems to be the lone exception) ends before midnight on the East Coast. It's ridiculous. Look, I'm not unreasonable. I concede that stuff like this needs to start relatively late by East Coast standards to afford our West Coast brethren the opportunity to watch games. That being said, could we actually get a game like this started before 9 pm ET? It's rather insane. If you start a baseball game at 8 o'clock, that means that West Coasters are rolling home just in time to catching the early part of the game, and East Coasters have a fair chance of being able to turn off their TV before the AM hours while still seeing all of the game. And let's be realistic here - which is a larger issue: Millions of West Coast viewers missing the opening few minutes of the games, or millions of East Coasters nodding off before the end of the games? Given that the result is the important thing, it would seem fairly obvious to me that the later is the more significant issue.

Now, this is the All-Star game, so I don't really care that much. But the NBA Finals, the World Series, etc are different matters entirely. The All-Star game had it right with it's "scheduled" start time of 8 o'clock. Now, if we could just actually START the game at that time.

Oh happy day!

You all get a bonus today because I stumbled on a story I just had to comment on after I finished my first post: Packer out at CBS.

I don't know if I've ever mentioned it on this blog or not, but I can't stand Billy Packer. Perhaps he was different back when he started calling the Final Four, but till I came around and really started paying attention, it just consistently boggled my mind that this was the man who had occupied the highest job in college basketball broadcasting for 34 straight years. There are high profile analysts out there that I don't particularly like, but I at least get what they bring to the table. Dick Vitale is a classic example - I don't really like him on-air (though I greatly appreciate his genuine enthusiasm for the game, and the incredible things he does outside the game itself), but I get what he brings to the table as an analyst - he's capable of being entertaining, if not particularly eloquent or overly insightful. And generally, you're going to find that most anyone who occupies a chair on a noteworthy broadcasting crew has at least one of those three qualities, if not all 3.

Packer, at least in his present state, has never brought any of those things to the table from my perspective. When I read "Last Dance", Packer was (obviously) featured rather prominently, as he's been one of the more enduring figures around the Final Four, and there was a lot of praise of his ability to break down games and so forth. I just haven't seen it recently. Most of the time, what I find him doing is picking up on a couple of pieces of analysis, and then repeating them ad nausem throughout the game. The most egregious example of this from my perspective was in the 2006 title game between Florida and Ohio State. Packer repeatedly informed us just how tired OSU's Greg Oden was, and repeatedly lambasted Florida coach Billy Donovan (whose team basically led by around 10 for the entire game) because he wasn't doubling Oden on defense. Then there was this year's Final Four, where Packer declared the semi-final game between UNC and Kansas "over" with about 7 minutes to go in the first half. Now, it really looked that way (I think Kansas was up by about 25-30) and Kansas did win (but not before UNC had cut it all the way to 4 in the second half), but that's just something an analyst needs to be saying. Packer's continued inclusion on the #1 CBS team has been particularly difficult to swallow in recent years given that his partner Jim Nantz is, in my opinion, an absolutely brilliant play-by-play man who deserves better than to have to babysit Packer in the booth.

To be honest, I don't know how I feel about Packer's replacement, Clark Kellogg. He's never been my favorite analyst in the studio. However, I'm very glad to see that the cord has finally been cut on Packer, and now won't have the matter of "tradition" clouding the issue when they are evaluating who belongs in the chair next to Nantz every year on that first weekend in April.

A grocery store epiphany

My grocery store issues have been well documented on this blog, so I won't spend a lot of time rehashing them, but will just dive right into today's experience, and the epiphany that it led me to.

Today was a particularly difficult trip to the grocery store in terms of dealing with the spatially unaware and totally zoned out. However, I ran into one class of offender several times throughout the store - that being those people who were stopped (and not just momentarily, like getting or looking for an item) in places where you just can't stop for any length of time. Most noteworthy were the two ladies who had parked side by side on the left side of the one aisle and were yacking it up (now, they were plenty polite when I had to get something where they were standing, but still), and the woman who had stopped with her car pointing sideways right at the end of an aisle and was going over her list.

As I was going through my general mental grumbling regarding this situations, suddenly it hit me! I don't know about your grocery stores, but no matter how massive the grocery stores get around here, there is almost invariably no dead space anywhere in the store where you can stop and not be in the way. Any place you stop for more than a second or two, you're either blocking one of the racks or displays, or you're obstructing a walking area. So, my proposal is have "empty" space at one end of each aisle - just a nicely decorated wall or something like that, where people can pause and talk and collect themselves without inhibiting those still actively shopping.

Now, I'm sure you're all thinking what I've already thought - what percentage of people are actually going to make the effort to go to those areas if they exist? Well, it may be more than you think, but I'm not overly concerned about that. Why? Because even if people don't use them, it will make me feel better about the things going through my head when I encounter the loiterers if there's actually a place there are supposed to go to do that!

The newest addition

Hopefully this is the last "construction" I do around the house for quite a while.

Then:
Now:I have to say though, this sort of thing is the stuff I most love about being a home owner - if you don't like the way something is set up or laid out, you always have the option to change it! Let no one say I won't someday leave this house in much better shape than when I bought it. Of course, if these new shelves were what pushed you over the edge in that regard, your standards are ridiculously high!

Quick hit

I just have one quick little story today.

We were having fairly widespread issues with Outlook at work today, and people were having trouble accessing their e-mail.

If I wasn't having trouble, how did I know about it, you might ask. Well, it's simple, really. I got the e-mail that they sent out to everyone telling us what we could do if their e-mail wasn't working.

Classic.

Counting my blessings

It's sometimes easy for me, since there are certain aspects of my life that at 28 that are a bit different than I had pictured they would be, to focus on certain things that I don't have I that I would like to, while taking for granted just how blessed I am.

This evening, however, is just not one of those times. In fact, probably the exact opposite, because recent circumstances have me thinking about how I've been blessed so much beyond what I could even claim to "deserve". The Martina McBride song Blessed has really been in my head lately. Now, the specific situations of that song don't really necessarily apply to me, but the truth of the chorus "I have been blessed, and I feel like I've found my way, I thank God for all I've been given at the end of every day. I have been blessed with so much more than I deserve" is really hitting home for me tonight, for a couple of reasons.

First of all, last night my dad and my brother in law came up to "help" me put on two new storm doors and build some shelves in the back room of the basement. I put help in quotes because it would probably be much more accurate to say that I helped them do there work. My spirit is very willing, but these are primarily two man jobs, and I'm clearly the 3rd man in the equation in terms of know how. So, I give them a hand as much as I can, and I'll be painting the shelves myself this weekend. But that's really beside the point, because I was just again struck with how incredibly lucky I am with my family, that they would be willing to give up their evening to drive the hour up here and do this for me, and that that kind of love and support isn't anywhere near an isolated incident. So blessed.

The second thing that has me counting my blessings I'm not going to be able to go into a whole lot of detail about on the public medium of the world wide web, but it has to do with my job situation, and how incredibly it's turned in a positive direction in the last couple months, without me changing jobs or even doing anything particularly noteworthy to effect change. Just another incredible blessing that I really didn't do anything to bring about or deserve.

How to waste the positive impact of a 3 day weekend

The following is an excellent formula to follow if you want to have a productive, but overall enjoyable and relaxing 3 day weekend, and yet still start the week tired and groggy.

Day 1 - Spend most of the day at a family picnic, return at a reasonable hour, go to bed at a normal hour

Day 2 - Wake up at normal weekend hour, after about 8.5 hours of sleep. Spend most of the day working around the house, take a quick to nap recover, enjoy a relaxed evening, go to bed at a normal hour

Day 3 - Wake up at normal weekend hour, after about 8 hours of sleep. Go to church in the morning. Take an unplanned 2 hour nap while watching sports in the afternoon, go hang out with friends in the evening. Go to bed at normal weeknight hour. Lay in bed wide awake for 3 hours.

First day back to work - Wake up 20 minutes before normal 5:30 am alarm, after about 4 1/2 hours of sleep. Get up, shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, take dog out, catch bus, get to work, fight sleep for the first several hours.

So, there you have it. Feel free to copy this and share with friends!

How I spent my Saturday

Well, I got my camera back today, so I can show you the fruits of yesterday's labor. Of course, the fact that I didn't have my camera yesterday means I don't have suitable "before" shots to go with these "afters", but I think most of my readership has seen the before in person. Essentially I just flipped the room around, the idea being that it would wind up being more open, offer more flexibility in use, and be more accommodating to having a number of people over to watch a movie, a game, or do whatever. I think that goal was accomplished, and my remaining roommate said it looks bigger now, so I think it worked out pretty well.

I threw in the picture of Chaser for good measure. It's not so much an after picture, but he did had a rather rough day yesterday while I tore everything up and put it back together, and he's just now starting to find a level of comfort with his new surroundings, and particularly the new locations of his pillow and his crate.

Whenever my other roommate moves out of the back room, the contents of the desk and the cabinet by the desk will all be moved back into that room, which will become my office, of sorts. Perhaps one day I'll have a legitimate need of a home office. Then Chaser's crate will move back into that corner and that side of the room will be even more open.

More trials musings

I would have gotten to this entry sooner, but I decided to spend the better part of the middle day of my 3 day weekend rearranging my basement. This was not on a whim, I'd been planning it for a couple months, but for the first time since my main roommate moved out (which was one of the prerequisites because part of the plan involved getting his desk out of the basement), I had the combination of time and motivation required to complete the task. I don't have my digital camera right now (I handed it off to one of my teammates in Thailand and I still haven't bothered to get it back yet) or I'd favor you all with "after" pictures, but they'll come at some point.

Anyhow, it was inevitable given what Dara Torres is doing at age 41 and after a 6 year layoff that someone would start the drug whispers. To be honest, I almost made the suggestion in my entry last night, but I decided to be an optimist on this one (especially since swimming has for the most part avoided the spectre of drugs recently, probably because they made some significant adjustments in response to systemic cheating in East Germany in the 80s, and China in the early 90s) and let it go. But, it is a large and varied media, and someone was bound to say it, and that someone was ESPN's Pat Forde. Overall, I don't have a real problem with it, other than the fact that he couldn't even wait until the next day after her big accomplishment to put it out there. He's right, we're conditioned these days that when some athletic achievement seems too good to be true, it probably is. What I object to, however, is his classification of Torres alongside of Roger Clemens, Marion Jones, Rafeal Palmerio. That kind of grouping misses a very key point. Yes, like those two, Torres has been very vocal in declaring her innocence as those 3 have. However, there's a noteworthy distinction here - Torres has been willing to back up her claims with tests. As Forde acknowledges in his article, Torres (anticipating this kind of response) went to USADA and volunteered for a program that tests more aggressively for doping, via blood and urine tests, than Torres would ordinarily be subject to under the normal swimming testing procedures, and has thus been tested (cleanly) repeatedly. In this day of designer and undetectable drugs, that's not necessarily enough to vindicate her, but it does separate her from the notorious drug cheats whose names Forde so casually invokes. You know, maybe Torres is cheating, I certainly don't know. But I wish we could go back to the day when it took more than just an unlikely performance to start the whispers.

And then, last night I got to see the complete other side of the spectrum of the Dara Torres story, as I was watching the womens 1500m semi-final at the US Track and Field trials. The race featured 16 year old Jordan Hasay, who is heading to the world junior championships later this summer, but is running in the Olympic trials for the experience, with no real expectation of making the Olympic team. She wasn't even expected to advance to the final, but she finished 5th (top 6 advance) in her semi-final heat with a great finish, setting a national high school record in the process. But more than her achievement, it was her post-race interview that caught my attention. I'm sure you've noticed by now I tend to be fairly cynical when it comes to the big name athletes, so anytime I see someone, at any age, who is so clearly unspoiled by some of the uglier sides of athletic competition, I take note. Hasay's interview was full of the most genuine smiles and enthusiasm you'll ever see, totally unscripted, and full of "I'm just so happy, I did so great, I can't believe I made the finals". It was just a rare kind of treat in the midst of a cutthroat world of competition.

Exceptions to every rule

Remember how I talked about the finality/urgency of the Olympics a few days ago, and how athletes are often lucky to even get 2 chances to compete in the Olympics?

Well, there are obviously exceptions to every rule, and one of them is right up there with what Michael Phelps is looking to accomplish as the biggest story surrounding the US swim team heading into Beijing. I just watched Dara Torres, who is 41 years old, win the 100 meter freestyle at the US Olympic Trials, securing her 5th trip to the Olympics. That would be impressive enough in and of itself (she's the first swimmer to do that, and will be the oldest female swimmer in Olympic history), but then you have to factor in the remaining piece of the story - she did not make the team in 1992, and did not even compete in 2004. That's right, she's made 5 different teams spanning 7 Olympic years. Her Olympic debut was back in the 1984 Games in Los Angeles. That's just crazy - to have a career as a world class swimmer that spans 24+ years. And it's not like she just snuck onto the team in a relay or something like that, she won the 100 free (which is her second best event behind the 50 free, which she broke her own American record in last year at age 40) by defeating Natalie Coughlin, who is one of the best swimmers in the world, and the defending Olympic bronze medalist in the event. She's still an elite level swimmer, and an individual medal threat at the Beijing Games.

It's really incredible for me to be here writing this, because I remember how big a story it was when Torres returned as a competitor in the 2000 Games in Sydney, after missing the Atlanta Games, at what was then considered a rather old age of 33. And now, she's here 8 years later, doing it all over again. No matter how you slice it, this is just an incredible athletic accomplishment, whether she brings any hardware back from Beijing or not.

Someone, make it stop!!!

My preference for country music is not exactly a revelation on this site, and I shall always defend the genre against all comers. However, and I'm sure this is true for any genre of music, every so often there's a country song that comes out and tears up the charts that I just absolutely can't stand, for one reason or another. And I'm presently living in one of those moments.

Sugarland has been one of the hottest acts in country since they burst onto the scene as a vocal threesome back in 2005, and continued their momentum even after losing one of their members between their first and second album and continuing on as a duo (although, I'm qutioning how much longer they can maintain that distinction, since I'm pretty sure that the 2nd member hasn't actually sung on their last 2 singles...) And I really like Sugarland for the most part. Their last single, Stay, I thought was a pretty fresh and different look at an old country standard topic - the cheating husband/wife.

However, their current single, "All I Want to Do", which finds itself at #8 on the country charts, and rising, after only 6 weeks on, is driving me absolutely bananas. I obviously don't like every song that I hear on country radio, but I can usually at least recognize the merits of a song I don't like that happens to be popular. This song, however, defies just about everything that I like about country music. The lyrics will probably give you a good enough picture, but if you can do a quick search and hear the song somewhere, I'm sure it will drive it home. It is not clever, it is not funny, it is not well written, and it's not in anyway original. It belongs on a Disney Radio album, if even there. It's catchy, syrupy, pop fluff and nothing more, and I've thought that since the first time I heard it performed on the ACM awards back in April.

Here's a little tip: If you have to make "do" into a 15 syllable word not once, but twice, to fill out your chorus, the song doesn't belong on a country album. I just don't think that, beyond lead singer Jennifer Nettles' distinctive southern vocals, there is anything country about this song. And it offends me (to the extent that I can really be offended by something like this) that this song is beating out much better songs by lesser known artists for airtime.

I suppose mainly I'm just hoping that this doesn't represent a new tact that Sugarland plans to take musically - it is the first single of their upcoming album, so it's a valid concern. I get my fill of country-tinted pop from Rascal Flatts (and even they haven't gone this far yet, at least in my estimation), I don't need another big-time act rolling it out on a regular basis.

More on the Games

So, the other day I professed my love for the Olympics. The most obvious reason for that addicition is clear - non-stop sports coverage, and exposure to a lot sports I don't get to watch very often. However, I'm drawn to the Olympics for other reasons as well. Overall, I find it to be much more compelling than the American professional sports events that dominate my TV, my sports page, and the internet.

There are a few reasons why I find this to be true. The first one is the athletes themselves. While the days where the games were the exclusive domain of amatuers are long gone, the reality is that 99% of the athletes that will be competing in Beijing in August are not the overpaid, overyhyped, overexposed, celebrity athletes that we see all the time in the States. If you don't follow Olympic sports in between Olympics, and if you stay away from Olympic basketball and a couple other sports, the faces you're going to see are predominantly those that you've never seen before, and that you'll never see again after the Olympics, save a special few whose performances/stories come to define that particular games and live on. That distinction makes your average Olympic athlete infinitely more "human" than your average pro sports superstar. I may not be able to relate to having world class athletic ability, but I can definitely relate to kind of places a lot of these athletes come from, and where they are headed. As much as I, being "show me the sports" guy rail against all the various human interest pieces that dominate Olympic coverage these days, I have to admit, I generally find them pretty worthwhile.

The second reason is the finality and urgency around the Olympics. In American pro sports, there's "always" next year. While it's true that in certain cases, certain players or teams may not have a next year, there's that perpetual promise of a new year. The Olympics, on the other hand, come around only every 4 years, and in many sports, athletes are fortunate if they even get a 2nd shot at their Olympic dream. And what that dream is can be so diverse depending on who you are dealing with. I'm watching the track and the swimming trials this year, and there are athletes laying everything on the line just to make the team, knowing that they stand no realistic chance of any kind of actual Olympic glory - they just want to be able to say they made it. And you have, on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, someone like Michael Phelps, who is seeking to rewrite Olympic history, and yet still clearly sees his opportunity to be on the team as something never to be taken for granted. It's all so fleeting. Is there another venue in sports where you'd find a story like Derek Redmond back in 1992, a 400 meter runner from Britain, one of the medal favorites, who tore a hamstring less than halfway into his semi-final heat, and yet desperately tried to hobble his way to the finish line, just to say he finished the race. (If you don't remember this signature moment, he ultimately was unable to finish on his own and his father helped him across the finish line) I don't really think that there is.

And that leads me to the story of one of my Messiah classmates, Chris Boyles, who was the 2002 NCAA Division III decathalon champion, and who has continued his career in the decathalon, which led him to the US Olympic Trials over the weekend. Chris came in as a rather longshot to make the team anyhow, and his chances completely evaporated in the 2nd event of the competition, when he fouled on all 3 of his long jump attempts and received no score. He pressed on, however, until the high jump aggravated a ankle that was still tender from recent surgery an just made it too much to go on. It's really hard for me to imagine having 4 years of training and dedication just blow up in the space of a few minutes like that, and to be deprived of the opportunity to even continue to compete. That's just how fleeting it all is. And that's what makes the Games themselves so compelling and dramatic to me.