Internet Sports Guy

My complaint: Where I go off on AT&T U-Verse

2011-07-27T11:52:00.000-05:00

We had an AT&T Sales Agent, who went door-to-door in my neighborhood selling AT&T U-Verse service. We already had HDTV/Internet/Phone service through Comcast, so I was reluctant to talk to him. After talking with my wife for a time, she asked me to speak to him. He offered HDTV/Internet/Phone through AT&T U-Verse at the U450 level which includes a similar set of channels to what I currently had with Comcast at the U300 price, which is around $30 per month less expensive than the Comcast pricing. I talked to him further and he explained that we didn't have to sign a contract, just the work order, and that the price he quoted me was "locked in" and would never go up. When the rep filled out the work order, he checked the U300 service. I asked him about that and he said "it doesn't matter." I said, yes it does - if we are getting U450 service like he said, the order should say that. He changed the order, and I signed up and ordered the service.

After the installation was complete, the installer told my wife that we didn't have HD service. My wife told him that the sales agent told us that we would and he said, "oh, a salesman lied" very sarcastically. She showed him the order with the U450 service marked and he said "oh, it IS marked. Well, you have to take that up with the sales agent." My wife called him and he said, yeah they got it put in wrong and I will fix it.

I called AT&T today to see if he had put in a request to fix it. He had not. They also informed me that the rate he quoted was not valid for U450 service, that the best rate that they could give me was $26 per month higher, that what I signed was a 12-month contract (in which case, why are they not obligated to honor it?) and that even that rate was a 12-month promotion. I complained to that person's manager, and then they transferred me to another department, where they further reduced the bill to by $13, although after the promotions expire it will rise by $58. I told them that I felt that the agent did a bait-and-switch and they said that wasn't their policy but there was nothing that they could do because he was an independent agent and didn't work for AT&T (At this point I had not given them any info about the agent so I'm not sure how they knew this already). I told them that they could at least revoke his ability to sell AT&T services and make money off lying to people. The agent told me that because she was in South Carolina and the salesman was in Alabama she couldn't do anything. I said that was ridiculous because AT&T was a national organization and was not restricted in the way she described. She then said, "Do you have the salesman's name? I can give it to my supervisor." I gave to them, but I suspect that I was wasting my time.

My complaint is that not only was I lied to completely about what I received, but that AT&T acknowledged the lie, told me there was nothing they could do about it, and then basically is going to charge me much more to get what I was sold. I told them that I wouldn't have even signed up for the service at the price that they gave me, and they told me that they were sorry for the inconvenience. I have 30 days to terminate the service and go back to Comcast or I will have to pay a termination fee.

After all this I tried contacting the sales rep again. He hasn't responded.

I have filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.

Everybody Panic!

2011-04-14T11:00:00.000-05:00

Game 5 Review: No. 1 Alabama 31, No. 7 Florida 6

2010-10-03T00:02:00.001-05:00

Florida's Urban Meyer came to the Southeastern Conference in 2005 and quickly became the league's top coach, winning national championships in 2006 and 2008 and reestablishing Florida as the conference's gold standard. The torch, however, has officially been passed. Nick Saban took over the Alabama Crimson Tide in 2007, and challenged Florida in 2008 for the league title, only to fall short in the championship game to a fourth quarter rally by Tebow and the Gators. In 2009, the Tide and Saban prepared all year to take the championship away from Florida, and did so in convincing fashion. This season looked to be the rubber game. Could Alabama stay on top? Would Florida use its humiliating defeat last year as motivation to knock off the Tide?

Now we know that the answer wasn't nearly as dramatic as some expected. Alabama dominated the Gators from start to finish tonight, handing Florida its worst loss since the last time Urban Meyer led a team into Tuscaloosa five years ago.

My Seven Points for tonight's game:

1. Yards aren't as important as takeaways and points. The 2010 Bama defense won't be mistaken for its predecessor, or for any number of smothering defenses from Alabama's storied history. Florida had 279 yards of offense tonight, which, amazingly enough, was six yards more than Alabama. But the Tide's young defense seems to take it personally when opponents get close to the end zone. Alabama allowed Florida to move into the red zone three times tonight and forced a field goal and two turnovers. The Tide defense is plus 12 in turnovers for the year and has allowed an average of 9 points per game. Statistics are a meaningful measure of the strength of a defense, but the only stat that really matters in the end is the score.

2. The lessons from the Arkansas game appear to have been applied. Alabama looked lethargic in the first half last week and had to rally from ten points back to defeat the Razorbacks. This week, Alabama scored first and kept Florida off the scoreboard until near the end of the first half after taking a 24-0 lead. By the time the Gators kicked the field goal the game was already over. While the first half effort wasn't matched offensively in the second, defensively Alabama continued to force turnovers and keep the Gators out of the end zone. No opponent has scored a second half touchdown against the Tide all season.

3. Mark Ingram has a couple of school records he could break before the end of the year. Ingram broke Alabama's single-season rushing record last year. The two significant records he still could break this year are career rushing yards and career touchdowns. Ingram scored two touchdowns against Florida giving him a total of 35 in his career, which puts him second all-time behind Shaun Alexander (40). Ingram is a little farther away from the rushing record, trailing Alexander's 3,565 yards by 824. Assuming the Tide makes it back to the SEC Championship game, Ingram has to average around 92 yards per game to break the record.

4. Alabama and Florida will most likely meet again in the title game. After watching LSU barely make it past Tennessee today on a do-over play, it's clear that Alabama's only remaining competition in the West is Auburn. Florida has perhaps the weakest East since the SEC moved to divisional play in 1992, so it's very likely that the Gators will make it back to Atlanta in December. Florida is going to have to figure out its offensive personality to make that game competitive, but there's a lot of football to be played between now and then.

5. Has anyone mentioned that Greg McElroy hasn't lost a game as a starter since eighth grade? The most talked-about factoid this season is the fact that McElroy has never lost as a starter at Alabama or in high school, and that the last game he lost was nine years ago in eighth grade. It's hard for us to determine whether this is a truly significant stat or not. Surely McElroy has benefited from great defense at Alabama, a great coach, perhaps the best running back duo in college football, a record number of All-Americans on the 2009 team and many other advantages. On the other hand, McElroy's greatest contribution to the Alabama offense is that he makes good decisions, something that his predecessor (John Parker Wilson) cannot claim. McElroy isn't flashy. He doesn't get big stats. He's probably not going to be drafted into the NFL. McElroy is smart and he wins, and that is more than enough.

6. Can Ingram win the Heisman again if he doesn't lead the team in rushing? After the Arkansas game, the Heisman talk began to ramp up again for Mark Ingram. Although he did not carry the ball a lot against Florida, he did have two TDs, and certainly didn't hurt himself in the Heisman race, although he is likely second or third on most lists right now. But, due to the fact that Ingram missed the first two games with the knee injury, and that he shares the carries with Trent Richardson, Richardson continues to lead the Tide in rushing. If Ingram and Richardson finish out with similar yardage numbers, it's possible that Ingram won't even be the top ball carrier for Alabama. Depth like that is a luxury, and Ingram doesn't have anything left to prove, but it is amazing that the 2009 Heisman winner is sharing the load. There is no greater testimony to Ingram's humility and character.

7. For all the Boise State/TCU talk, there is really only one question for the BCS Championship Game. Alabama has been ranked #1 all season, and plays in the most powerful league in college football - the one that has won the national title four years in a row. It is clear at this point in the season that Alabama is the best team in the SEC. Assuming that Alabama doesn't stumble against an inferior team (and perhaps even if it does), the Tide is going to play in Glendale for the BCS Championship. The question is who they will face. Ohio State looked very beatable today against Illinois. Boise and TCU probably won't move any higher in the polls. Nebraska or Oklahoma will most likely rise out of the Big 12, but both have looked shaky at times. Right now, I think Oregon looks like the second-best team in the nation. Like Alabama, they still have several big games remaining on the schedule, but they may very well line up against the Tide in January.

Game 4 Review: No. 1 Alabama 24, No. 10 Arkansas 20

2010-09-25T21:40:00.001-05:00

A game that many expected to be Alabama's toughest test of the season turned into exactly that, as an inspired Arkansas team, led by Heisman Trophy candidate Ryan Mallett, gave the Tide all it wanted for 60 minutes. Alabama trailed 17-7 at halftime and fell behind by 13 in the second half before methodically grinding out a win over the Razorbacks. Mallett threw for 357 yards on 25 for 38 passing, but his three interceptions proved to be the difference in the game.

These are my Seven Points for Game 4:

1. This game played out somewhat like the Auburn game last year. Arkansas got on the board early. The crowd was really into the game. The Razorbacks were fired up and built a two-touchdown lead. However, when the fourth quarter came along, Alabama completely dominated Arkansas, scored the winning points, forced two turnovers, and played as if it was unrattled by the circumstances.

2. This game played out somewhat like the South Carolina game last year. Alabama has a lot of weapons on offense, but in the fourth quarter when the game was on the line, Mark Ingram got the ball. Ingram delivered, rushing for 157 yards and 2 TD on 24 carries. The last scoring drive for Alabama was all Ingram, in the wildcat and in the I-formation, showing the same grit and determination that won him the Heisman in 2009.

3. Robert Lester's second interception was the biggest play of the game. Lester, who has picked off four passes this year in four games,was out of position at times today, and made some freshman mistakes against an experienced, top-flight offense. But Lester's over-the-middle interception in the fourth quarter, after the Tide had settled for a field goal and trailed 17-20 with six minutes left in the game, completely deflated the Razorbacks and their fans. Lester returned the overthrown pass 33 yards to the Arkansas 12 and set up Ingram's go-ahead score.

4. Nick Saban's decision to go for it on fourth and inches showed the confidence he has in this offense. Alabama faced a fourth and inches on its own 44 with 54 seconds left in the game. Last week, in a similar situation, Mallett had led Arkansas to a win over Georgia, driving the Hogs down field in about 50 seconds to score the winning touchdown. The Tide tried to shift around to draw Arkansas offsides, then after a timeout showed that they were going to go for it when Arkansas expected a punt. Alabama had to call timeout again though when the correct personnel did not make it out on to the field. The conventional wisdom in that situation would have been to punt, but Alabama went for it anyway, with Greg McElroy sneaking forward for the first down, to salt the game away.

5. The Tide continues to play stronger in the second half. The first three games of the year were all pretty much blowouts - over by halftime. Alabama had not allowed an opponent to score in the second half until today. Although they did give up a field goal to the Razorbacks in the third quarter, the Tide outscored the Hogs 17-3 in the second half and limited the Arkansas offense to 120 yards in the final two quarters. Credit halftime adjustments by the coaching staff as well as an inexperienced defense that is basically learning on the job.

6. This might have been the worst defensive match-up Alabama will face all year. Arkansas's Mallett is a great pocket passer with good receivers, a great offensive line and a complex big-play offense. Alabama's defensive secondary is inexperienced and the defensive line has not been able to get much pressure on quarterbacks. Early on, the defense looked lost - unable to keep up with the receivers, fooled by the schemes - and Mallett picked them apart. As the game progressed however, the defense was able to adjust. By the fourth quarter, Mallett was the one who looked lost as 'Bama pressure forced two decisive interceptions.

7. These next few weeks will determine much about the rest of the season. Alabama comes home next week to face Florida, then will travel to South Carolina. This three-week stretch has tested the Tide already, but by the end of it we'll know whether Alabama is capable of winning the SEC again as well as returning to the BCS Championship Game. No other top 10 team faces a gauntlet of ranked teams like Alabama does. If the Tide can successfully navigate these next two games, and stay injury-free, it should have an excellent chance to repeat.

Game 3 Review: No. 1 Alabama 62, Duke 13

2010-09-18T18:48:00.003-05:00

Alabama's first road trip of the season was hardly a nailbiter. The Tide scored on its first four possessions, did not experience a third down or a punt until late in the game, and scored the most points it has since the 1991 game against Tulane. Greg McElroy and Mark Ingram finished their day early. The first team defense, however, displayed some areas of concern as Alabama heads into SEC play next week.

My Seven Points on Game 3:

1. Yeah, Mark Ingram's knee is okay. Knee surgery sure 2ain't what it used to be. Merely 19 days after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery, Ingram reminded everyone why he won the Heisman Trophy last year. Ingram had a mere nine carries for 151 yards and 2 TDs. He made a great cutback move on his second touchdown that made it clear he has returned with the full range of motion. The budding "running back controversy" that some fans tried to start this week died on the vine as Ingram ran all over the Blue Devils in very limited action.

2. Alabama's offense is starting to live up to the hype. Preseason speculation about the Tide and its returning weapons on offense was that the offense might be Alabama's best ever. It's hard to make an evaluation about that after game three, but the Tide has scored early and often in each of its three games. Alabama has had a 100-yard rusher in each game this season, and they have been three different players. Greg McElroy has completed over 70% of his passes and has only thrown one interception. Five different receivers have caught touchdown passes. Bama has a lot of looks and a lot of ways to beat you on offense.

3. Secondary play may not be the defense's biggest issue. The defensive secondary is young, and Bama has looked inexperienced and out of position at times. Against Duke, however, the problems seemed to be up front. The Blue Devils finished with over 300 yards of offense, and many times plays that should have been stopped in the offensive backfield made into the secondary. The defensive line and linebackers did not play very well overall today. Josh Snead didn't break the Tide's 36-game streak of not allowing a 100-yard rusher, but he came within hailing distance. The Tide tightened up a good bit in the second half, so its unclear if early problems were a lack of effort or if the large lead caused Duke to slack off. Either way, its an area of concern when the Tide faces better competition.

4. Again, the second half gave Alabama plenty of opportunity to get young players some time on the field. For the third straight week, Alabama has had the opportunity to put a number of second, third and fourth string players in meaningful game action. We shouldn't expect to see as much of that now that SEC play is starting for Alabama, but the chance to get the younger, less experienced men into the games may turn out to be critical as the season rolls along.

5. Wallace Wade Stadium doesn't really do the coach justice. We fully understand why Duke turned down lots of money to get Alabama into the on-campus stadium rather than selling the game to a large city. And while it's great that there is a stadium that honors the coach that established Alabama football as a national power, the 36,000-seat horseshoe that bears Wallace Wade's name looks more like a product of Wade's era than a modern football complex. After spending two weeks celebrating the expansion at Bryant-Denny, the contrast is pretty stark. One would hope that Coach Cutcliffe will be able to have enough success at Duke in years to come to do something about that.

6. The defense may not match up well against Arkansas. Arkansas has steadily improved each week, and after a confidence-building defeat of Georgia, the Razorbacks will be gearing up to ruin Alabama's season next week. We're not sold on Ryan Mallett as the "best quarterback in college football," but he can throw the long ball. The Hogs' receivers know how to catch the ball too. Alabama's secondary will be sorely tested in Fayetteville next week.

7. So far, the Tide looks like the best team in the country. Despite problems on defense, the Tide has still outscored its opponents 134-19 in three games. Alabama has taken the lead in each game and has never relinquished control. None of its opponents have scored in the second half. Each game has been completely in the bag at halftime. After watching other top teams struggle at times to put decent opponents away, the Tide appears to be unstoppable at its best. Alabama isn't perfect - there have been enough issues each week to give the coaches plenty to work on for the next game. The Tide, however, is a solid number one.

What Alabama Football Means to Me (or How I Learned to Hate Auburn)

2010-09-14T00:51:00.000-05:00

I was born in Tuscaloosa. My mother grew up there, and my dad's family was from the Tuscaloosa area as well, although he was an Air Force brat and moved around quite a bit in his early years. My entire family had at least a passing interest in Alabama football, but as a small child you can't really appreciate much about a 3+ hour football game. My father was a bi-vocational Southern Baptist pastor while I was growing up, and between his two jobs we were obliged to move around some as well. My parents both watched and enjoyed Alabama football games, which never seemed strange to me growing up. Now though, I find it pretty interesting.

See, my father isn't a sports nut by any means. He doesn't really enjoy any other sport than football. He doesn't watch the NFL. He will watch other SEC football teams, especially Auburn, mainly hoping that they lose. My mother likes to talk about the team with me, sometimes asking questions, sometime telling me things she's heard. She watches Alabama play, but she might get agitated when the games are close or if 'Bama isn't playing well. Sometimes she gets too nervous to watch. My parents both went to school at Alabama, but neither of them have been to a game in at least 15-20 years. So I'm not really sure why Alabama football became an important part of their lives or mine. Maybe it became a link back to Tuscaloosa when we moved away from family and friends. Maybe it was a way of latching on to a cultural identity. Maybe it was just a matter of cheering for their alma mater. In any event, my first football memory happened over 30 years ago.

When we moved away from Tuscaloosa the first time, we weren't gone for very long - just a couple of years. Then when I was about five, we moved away for good, right into the heart of enemy territory - Opelika, Alabama. My earliest football-related memory occurred around the holidays. My uncle Bill, who is five years older than me, played football with me in our front yard. The football was a small white plastic one, the kind that you see nowadays at high school pep rallies. It had red stripes and Alabama logos, and I remember pretending to be Alabama as we prepared to watch the Tide face Penn State in the Sugar Bowl.

During my early childhood, Alabama was one of the most dominant teams in the country. I was born a few months before Alabama won the 1973 national championship. Paul 'Bear' Bryant led the team to two more back-to-back championships in 1978 and 1979. The Tide won eight SEC titles in the 1970s. Bear Bryant became the winningest college football coach of all time in 1981. I remember getting a coke bottle with his picture on it and a cup with '315' on the side. Then it all came crashing down.

I guess I was aware of Auburn before the 1982 season, but my hatred for them started on one particular day. That day was November 27. I was nine years old and Auburn had never beaten Alabama in my lifetime. Then came "Bo Over the Top," a 22-23 loss, and Auburn fans tearing down the goalposts at Legion Field. Bear Bryant had already announced his retirement and then had to suffer the indignity of losing his final game to a team he had beaten 19 times in 25 years. I cried. Barely two months later, I was at school in Mrs. Owings class and Jennifer Oliver came up to me and told me that Bear Bryant had died. I laughed at her. Jennifer got upset and told the teacher that I laughed because Bear Bryant had died. Mrs. Owings reprimanded me, and I was stunned. I had laughed at Jennifer because I didn't believe her. It was crazy. How could the Bear be dead? I continued in disbelief until I got home and learned that it was all too true. I blamed Auburn football, Pat Dye, Bo Jackson, and every other Auburn fan I knew.

The decade of the 1980s was a difficult time to be an Alabama fan. We lived in Tallassee, Alabama, a small town 25 miles from Auburn, so I could more or less count on my fingers and toes every Alabama fan in my class. On top of that, it was the golden age of Auburn football. Pat Dye coached the Tigers to four SEC titles, and won four games in a row over the Tide. He also succeeded in getting the game moved from Birmingham to Auburn in 1989. It's easy to be a fan when your team is on top. It's harder when your team is terrible. Hardest of all, though? It's being a fan of a team that was once mighty and isn't any more. Those few Alabama fans at school that I knew took comfort in each other's support. It became so much a part of how I perceived my classmates, I can still tell you the team affiliation of people I haven't seen or spoken to in 20+ years. My Alabama pride was hardened in the crucible of those fall days. I wore my Alabama T-shirts to school the Monday after an Iron Bowl loss to show that I loved the Tide anyway, enduring the jibes and taunts of Auburn fans who did not acknowledge their inherent inferiority. The Crimson Tide's adversity had, in a small way, become my own.

By the time I graduated from high school, Alabama had righted the ship under Coach Gene Stallings, who won a national championship my freshman year at the University. But those formative years shaped me and my fandom. They inspired me to learn about the history of Alabama football, so that I could refute the arguments of bandwagon Auburn fans. They taught me to believe in upsets (1984) and miracles (1985). They showed me that I could live through a loss, even when it was hard. And they forged my identification with a group of college athletes I didn't know and would probably never meet. When I talked about Alabama playing well, I said that "we" did it. When facing another team's fans, I would tell them that they wouldn't beat "us." Although I would never play a snap of college football at Alabama (or anywhere else), I felt as much a part of the team as the players on the field.

I'm doing my best to raise my kids the same way.

College Football Week 2: Contenders and Pretenders

2010-09-11T23:53:00.003-05:00

Two weeks into the college football season, Saturday was a day of massive matchups and even more massive upsets. As always, there were clear winners and losers, as well as a team that lost without even playing. Once again, it's time for Contenders and Pretenders.

Contender - South Carolina (17-6 over Georgia). We praised the Gamecocks last week after their shellacking of Southern Miss, but reserved judgment on USC East until they faced the Georgia Bulldogs. Carolina defeated the Dawgs in convincing fashion, pounding them into submission with powerful running back Marcus Lattimore (37 car., 182 yds., 2 TD). The Gamecocks proved that they can compete with the upper echelon of the SEC East. Now they have to prove that they can sustain success.

Pretender - Boise State (Idle). After defeating #10 Virginia Tech 33-30 last Monday night, Boise State was the talk of the nation. Should they be allowed into the BCS Championship Game? Were they the number one team in the country? Did it matter that their conference is terrible if they have proven themselves over and over again? Shouldn't defeating a great Virginia Tech team in what was more or less a home game for the Hokies be enough to prove their worth? The question that every one should have been asking was, 'What if Virginia Tech isn't very good?' After FCS (that's I-AA to you and me) squad James Madison defeated the Hokies 21-16 at HOME on Saturday, it's clear that Virginia Tech is not a Top 25 caliber team, and now Boise State has no quality win to hang their little blue hat on. If the Broncos played in a good league, that wouldn't be the end of the world. But since they don't, the same process that could have vaulted them into the championship game with only one quality win will almost surely keep them out of it without one.

Contenders - Former Champs. One of the storylines going in to Saturday was that the three marquee matchups of the day featured rematches of former national championship game pairings from the past - #1 Alabama - #18 Penn State (1979 Sugar Bowl); #2 Ohio State - #12 Miami (2003 BCS Championship Game); and #10 Oklahoma - #17 Florida State (2001 BCS Championship Game). At the end of the day, all three games finished with the same three winners as those championships - Alabama, Ohio State, and Oklahoma. Other common factors were that none of the games were really close, with the higher-ranked home teams romping in each contest.

Pretenders - The ACC. The Atlantic Coast Conference has had a bad couple of years in football, finishing 2-6 in bowl games in 2008 and 3-4 in 2009. The conference suffered through an off-season that exposed the weak position it faces vis-a-vis television contracts and conference re-alignment. It hasn't placed a representative in the BCS national championship game in ten years, and it has been nearly that long since it had a serious contender. And it generally suffers from the characterization that its fans tolerate football season until basketball tips off. The 2010 season was supposed to be the one where the ACC started re-asserting itself, but the first two weeks have been abysmal. Virginia Tech, the highest-ranked ACC team preseason, suffered the aforementioned devastating losses to Boise State and James Madison. North Carolina lost part of its team to NCAA violations, then dropped a heartbreaker to an average LSU team. The defending ACC champ Georgia Tech fell to Kansas Saturday, who lost to FCS-level North Dakota State the previous week. Miami and Florida were both crushed in big matchups. It is entirely possible that no ACC team will remain in the top 20 when polls come out Monday. A lot is riding on Clemson's matchup with Auburn next week. The Tigers are the only upper-tier ACC team still undefeated after week two.

TossUp - The FCS. Nobody except the NCAA and the folks at the Worldwide Leader even seem to know what the FCS is. Regular Joes still call them I-AA. (For the record, the NCAA now calls that the Football Championship Subdivision.) That doesn't mean that FCS schools aren't getting a lot of notice though. Through two weeks of football, six FCS teams have defeated FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) teams. And although Kansas and Ole Miss gave the Big 12 and SEC a black eye last week, the Big Ten (Minnesota) and the ACC (Va. Tech) felt the wrath in week two. There were only five losses by FBS teams to FCS teams in all of 2009. The separation between the two subdivisions is as fuzzy as it has ever been.

Game 2 Review: No. 1 Alabama 24, No. 18 Penn State 3

2010-09-11T22:31:00.000-05:00

With all eyes on Tuscaloosa, the top-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide completely demolished Penn State in a renewal of one of the most interesting and historic series in college football. The postponement of the home-and-home series from the 2004/2005 seasons to 2010/2011 set Joe Paterno and the Nittany Lions up to visit Tuscaloosa in the midst of an Alabama football renaissance, and the Tide smothered PSU from beginning to end.

My Seven Points on Game Two:

1. Trent Richardson is more than able to carry the load while Ingram recovers. Mark Ingram's knee injury kept him out of the game for the second straight week, but Trent Richardson made sure that he was hardly missed. Penn State had not allowed a 100-yard rusher in 17 games until Richardson slashed the Lions defense for 102 in the first half. He finished with 144 yards rushing on 22 carries and a touchdown, and caught an additional 4 passes for 46 yards. Much was made over the last few days of Richardson's freakish strength, and of course, there was the Sports Illustrated cover as well. The bottom line is, Trent is an amazing running back in his own right, and he and Ingram are arguably the top two backs in the country.

2. When you're good, "jinxes" don't matter. ESPN's Gameday visited Tuscaloosa for the sixth time today. Alabama was 0-5 coming in to the game tonight with GameDay on campus. Sports Illustrated featured Trent Richardson on the cover this week. The SI "cover jinx" is legendary. Fortunately, silly superstitions do not dress out for football games. Both "jinxes" quietly died in light of a decisive performance by Alabama and Richardson tonight.

3. At this point in his career, McElroy confidently executes the offense. While he wasn't perfect, McElroy turned in a workmanlike performance, completing 16 of 24 passes for 229 yards and 2 TD. McElroy has matured into a field general, managing the offense, making good decisions, hitting receivers in impossibly tight coverage, and just generally looking every bit the undefeated senior quarterback. We don't expect to see a mid-season slump from the Rhodes Scholar candidate this year like we did in 2009.

4. Special teams performed well, although not perfectly. Cade Foster did miss a long field goal, and a few Penn State kick returns gained more yardage than strictly necessary. Cody Mandell continued to impress with solid punting, averaging 37 yards on three punts. Overall, far from being the weak link that some expected, the special teams contributed solidly to the Alabama win.

5. Youth in the secondary was exposed a little bit tonight, relatively speaking. There were a few blown coverages. Lowery and Lester were out of position a couple of times, and there were some missed tackles and dropped interceptions. On the other hand, the Penn State quarterbacks combined for 14 of 31 passing with 156 yards and 3 interceptions, so the "problems" that we saw ended up being a lot less problematic in light of the results. Forcing turnovers is critical for any defense, and one of the differences tonight was that Alabama forced turnovers nearly every time the Nittany Lions were in the red zone.

6. Give me SEC officials any day. Rogers Redding and the Southeastern Conference officiating crews have taken a lot of hits over the the past couple of years. In fairness, some of it is deserved, and some is sour grapes. The Big Ten officials tonight, however, made several puzzling calls - none more so than the decision to give Penn State the ball back on an admittedly bizarre play. The Lions fumbled the ball in the red zone, Alabama cornerback Robert Lester picked it up and ran it nearly to the opposite end zone before having the ball ripped loose. Then Bama's Dre Kirkpatrick fell on the ball and had it punched out again while rolling on the ground. How Kirkpatrick was not ruled down, even after the replay, was unclear. In addition, the officials seemed to spot the ball a yard short every time Alabama hit the ground. We didn't notice poor spotting on the other side of the ball, however. All in all, it made us glad that we'll be done with Big Ten officials for the foreseeable future.

7. Everybody's talking about separation. In the last two years, the talk around the country has been about how Alabama and Florida had separated themselves from the rest of the SEC. After two weeks of football, it may be fair to say that the top two teams in the country, Alabama and Ohio State, have separated themselves from the rest of the nation. The Buckeyes looked strong while dispatching the Miami Hurricanes 36-24, and both the Tide and OSU should be favored in every game they both have the rest of the year. It's too early to book a trip to Glendale, Arizona for the Fiesta Bowl, but we wouldn't rule it out for either team.

Game 1 Review: No. 1 Alabama 48, San Jose State 3

2010-09-04T22:25:00.003-05:00

The 2010 edition of the Alabama Crimson Tide probably didn't expect much of a contest in its opener against San Jose State, and to be fair, it didn't get much of one. The Tide, however, did take care of business quickly and efficiently against the Spartans, and subsequently got some meaningful game experience to a number of young players. The result was a nice tune-up game for Penn State next Saturday.

My Seven Points on Game One:

1. Off-the-field distractions didn't seem to impact the team. The off-season had its share of opportunities to lose focus, with Mark Ingram's knee injury and Marcel Dareus' two-game suspension, not to mention that little matter of the 2009 national championship and the attendant media interest. Alabama did not seem to be affected on the field, however, even against a non-marquee team. Anyone who doubts that distracted, unfocused teams can look bad against over-matched opponents need only roam as far as Oxford or Gainesville. It is a tribute to the Tide's buy-in to Nick Saban's philosophy that Alabama came out enthusiastic and ready to play.

2. Special teams looked much better than expected. After losing the starting punter, kicker, kick returner and holder from last year's squad, Alabama's biggest question mark coming into the season was arguably special teams. Cody Mandell made two punts over 50 yards, and both Jeremy Shelley and Cade Foster made every field goal and extra point attempted. Kickoff returns were decent, and while no one is going to approach Arenas as a punt returner, coverage on punts and kicks was good. Granted, SJSU is no great test, but the special teams overall contributed to the win and did everything they were asked to do.

3. Mark Ingram shouldn't have to hurry back. Ingram is a great player and leader, without question. He is the best blocker among the RBs, and he just doesn't turn the ball over. That being said, Trent Richardson, Eddie Lacy, and Demetrius Goode all ran the ball really well against SJSU, and should give 'Bama the opportunity get Ingram back to 100 percent before he plays again, hopefully by the time SEC play begins.

4. Greg McElroy was totally in command. This is Greg's team. He was calm in the pocket, made great throws, and good decisions (the improvised toss to Richardson might have been the best). He looked like he was having fun and was totally confident, passing 13 of 15 for 218 yards and a TD in basically two quarters. He has continued to grow and mature into a real on-the-field leader.

5. It was good, however, to see McCarron early and often. Once the game started getting away from the Spartans, McCarron came in and almost immediately threw a fantastic touchdown pass to Julio Jones (fantastic more for the catch than the throw). Anyone who has been a Bama fan long enough to remember Brodie Croyle's season-ending knee injury (or David Smith's, if you want to go back another couple of decades) knows that the line between backup and starter can be one play. I like the fact that Saban got McCarron some game experience early, and seated McElroy, Richardson, and most of the other starters once the result was certain.

6. The stadium looks fantastic. I've been in and around Bryant-Denny Stadium many times, and have seen it from inside and out since the south end zone construction began, but you don't really get the full impact of it until it's full of rowdy fans. In a way, though, tonight was really a dress rehearsal. As great as 101,821 fans looked and felt against SJSU, no fan went into that game expecting anything but a blowout and a chance to see some new players get on the field. Next week will provide the first real chance to change the game with the enclosed space and crowd noise. That being said, the new work looks beautiful. Compared to the 70,000-81,000 seat structure that I experienced as a college student, it looks like a totally different place, and one that every 'Bama man (or woman) should be proud of.

7. Overall, this night was a success. Although it didn't provide the excitement that opening day has the last two years, the matchup with San Jose State provided something for this team that it needed. In 2008, Alabama's decisive win over Clemson gave the team the confidence that it could compete at a high level and set the stage for a great run that ended in Atlanta 12 games later. Last year, the victory over Virginia Tech established a fresh-faced young quarterback and inaugurated a national championship run. In 2010, the question is not talent but experience, and the game was lopsided enough that second, third and fourth-string players got significant time on the field. Beyond that, they mostly maintained the level of play and enthusiasm that the starters established. That is a good sign of things to come.

College Football Day 1: Contenders and Pretenders

2010-09-03T08:31:00.001-05:00

College football kicked off last night with 18(!) games. Although most of them were cakewalks, there were a few surprising moments. Without further adieu, here is what we learned last night as we wade into the 2010 season.

Contender - South Carolina (41-13 over Southern Miss). Every year since Steve Spurrier took the helm at South Carolina, Gamecock fans have been predicting success on the way to another eight-win season. This year, they might be right. Southern Miss was no great competition last night, but neither are they a team that surrenders a lot of 30-point blowouts. Carolina looked poised, confident and hungry last night. If they can get by Georgia next Saturday, they will prove themselves at least the second best team in the SEC East. After that, who knows?

Pretender - Pittsburgh (24-27 OT to Utah). The best thing that you can say about Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt is that he has put Pitt back into the conversation since taking over the Panthers. Unfortunately, they seem to take two steps back for every step forward. Pitt blew a golden opportunity at Utah last night to capitalize on a top 15 ranking, a moderately high-profile opponent, and a winnable game. Pitt will still probably win a game or two this year that they shouldn't, but this was an chance to prove that they could play with the big boys, and they blew it.

Tossup - USC (49-36 over Hawaii). For all the blows that USC has taken over the off-season, many prognosticators still predicted that the talent level at USC would put them in contention for a conference title this year, if not the national championship. Last night's game at Hawaii showed that the Trojans have lots of offensive talent for certain. On the defense, which Monte Kiffin is supposed to own, there is a lot of work to be done. Granted, USC did not do any contact work at all in fall camp due to low numbers and the Warriors did surprise the USC coaching staff by running the pistol formation rather than their customary spread. But giving up nearly 600 yards to Hawaii, and getting good and gassed doing it, does not bode well for the rest of the season.

Punching Bag of the Week - UAB (31-32 to FAU). When will the Birmingham media stop treating UAB like they are a top-tier college football program (we're looking at YOU Birmingham News and WJOX)? The Blazers don't deserve to be treated like they are one step behind Alabama and Auburn. They aren't even one step behind Troy. This was supposed to be the year Neil Callaway had the Blazers in Conference USA contention. They even, somehow, pulled 25,000 fans to Legion Field on a Thursday night. And then they lay an egg against a team that they destroyed 56-29 last year. UAB ranks 101 out of 119 FBS teams in winning percentage (that's 18 spots below Vanderbilt, if you're keeping score). Compare that to Alabama (6th), Auburn (16th) and Troy (43rd). Put a fork in the Blazers. They are done.

Review: No. 1 Alabama 37, No. 2 Texas 21

2010-01-07T23:20:00.008-06:00

It wasn't easy. Alabama overcame an inspired comeback. Texas gave an heroic effort behind a freshman quarterback and an outstanding wide receiver. Alabama overcame two early turnovers. Texas intercepted a pass on a fake punt and inexplicably failed to field a short kickoff. Alabama overcame tons of history - the Heisman jinx, the underdog advantage, the 0-7-1 record against the Longhorns, and the fact that no coach in the modern era had ever won a national championship at two different schools. But Alabama did overcome, winning the 2009 BCS National Championship over the Texas Longhorns 37-21.

My Seven Points:

1. Alabama was able to win the game because they were able to run the ball. Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram had 22 carries for 116 yards and two touchdowns, fighting through a hamstring injury, while Trent Richardson ran 19 times for 109 yards and two touchdowns. The offensive line was able to consistently block Texas, who had the top-ranked rushing defense in the country coming into the game and had not allowed a back to rush for 100 yards all season.

2. Nick Saban is the best college football coach in the country. You can make the case that Urban Meyer, Pete Carroll, Mack Brown or Jim Tressel deserve consideration for that title. But Saban has done something that no other coach in the modern era has ever done - win national titles at two different colleges. Building winning football programs at one school is difficult, and winning a national title is rare. Building winning football programs at multiple schools is the sign of a great coach, but catching lightning in a bottle in two totally different situations is virtually impossible. A majority of the nation believed when Alabama hired Saban from the Miami Dolphins that expectations of a national title among 'Bama fans were unrealistic. Saban was a liar and untrustworthy. He was overpaid. Alabama was living in the past. Rarely do so many people get proven wrong so thoroughly.

3. This may be the best TEAM in Alabama history. Alabama has a great history. The 1920 Crimson Tide paved the way for Southern football to be taken seriously with a 9-7 victory over Pennsylvania. The 1925 Tide defeated Washington in the first Rose Bowl ever for a team from the South. The 1961 Tide allowed only 25 points in ten games. In 1979 Alabama finished 12-0 and won Bear Bryant's sixth national title. The 1992 defense may have been the Tide's best.

But consider this: Alabama won 14 games this season - the most ever for a Tide team, and a feat matched only by three other teams (BYU 1996, Ohio State 2002, Boise State 2009). Alabama had six first-team All-Americans on this team, the most by any school ever. Alabama's Mark Ingram won the Heisman trophy, the first ever for the Tide. Rolando McClain won the Butkus Award, only the second in Alabama history. Leigh Tiffin led the country in field goals. Javier Arenas broke records for punt return yardage. Oh, and Greg McElroy has never lost a game as a starter. Top to bottom, this team is probably the most talented Crimson Tide squad, and the highest-achieving team in Alabama history.

4. The SEC is unquestionably the dominant football conference. Every year the college football world argues about which conference is the best. Every head-to-head matchup and bowl showdown is touted as "proof" that the ACC is terrible or the Mountain West is better than the Big Ten. But with Alabama's win tonight, the SEC has won four national championships in a row - the first time that has ever happened. Three in a row from one conference has happened twice before - 1940-1942 (Big Ten: Minnesota twice and Ohio State) and 1978-1980 (SEC: Alabama twice and Georgia), but the SEC has dominated since the BCS was implemented in 1998, winning six of the 12 titles, never having lost the game. (One might also argue that the 13-0 Auburn squad from 2004 should have been there as well.) Clearly, the level of competition at the top of the SEC is head and shoulders above the level of competition in any other conference. Throw in Florida, who finished third in the country and destroyed an unbeaten Cincinnati in the Sugar Bowl, and even in what was termed a down year, the SEC's best still dominate.

5. Texas deserved to be in the title game. After Texas slipped by Nebraska in the Big 12 title game 13-12, many thought that the Longhorns weren't worthy of a title shot. The pundits said that TCU was stronger, or that Cincinnati deserved a shot. Clearly, now that the dust has cleared, Texas proved that they could go toe-to-toe with the Tide, while Cincinnati and TCU were both exposed in their bowl games. The Longhorns lost all-star quarterback Colt McCoy to a shoulder injury early in the first quarter, and had to throw an untested freshman - Garrett Gilbert - into the fire of a championship game. Texas adjusted, played defense, and cut a 24-6 lead to 24-21 and had the ball in the last three minutes with a chance to drive for the win. Injuries are a part of the game, and I'm sure that Texas fans will always wonder what might have been, but the 'Horns made a valiant effort to win the game when everyone thought that they had no chance without McCoy.

6. How long will it be before Nick Saban has a statue on the Walk of Champions? Four Alabama coaches have statues on the walkway to enter Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa - Paul 'Bear' Bryant, Wallace Wade, Frank Thomas, and Gene Stallings - all of whom won national championships at Alabama. So now that Saban has the 2009 title, when will his statue be erected? Saban, predictably, doesn't care about the statue, and probably won't give it one thought on his own. But I suspect that Alabama will have a Nick Saban statue on the Walk by the time San Jose State visits the upgraded 101,000-seat stadium in September of 2010.

7. Can Alabama repeat? Even harder than winning a national title is winning repeat titles. Pundits predicted that Florida, who won the 2008 title and had Tim Tebow and their entire defense returning in 2009, would win the title this year. Of course the Gators fell short in the SEC Championship Game to Alabama. No team has repeated for the championship since Nebraska in 1994-95, although the AP broke ranks with the BCS and made USC its champion in 2003 (the Trojans won the BCS in 2004).

Alabama will lose a number of defensive starters to graduation and the NFL. However, the fact that McElroy, Ingram, Richardson, and Julio Jones, among others, will return in 2010 and that Alabama has recruited extremely well since Saban took over the reins probably means that the Tide will start 2010 at or near the top of the polls next year. Florida will lose a host of players to the NFL in February, and uncertainty at the head coaching position leave the Gators as a big question mark. No other SEC team appears poised to take the divisions away from the Tide and the Gators though. As we've seen, winning the SEC correlates pretty strongly to winning the national title. And of course, Alabama has already won repeat titles three times in its history - 1925-26, 1964-65 and 1978-79.

So, let's savor this one tonight. Tomorrow, "The Process" continues!

SEC in Review: Postseason

2009-12-08T17:07:00.006-06:00

The SEC regular season is over. It's bowl season again, and it's time to review my predictions and the SEC season as a whole. First, my predictions:

1. Ole Miss will be good this year, and perhaps beat a team they shouldn't, but they will not go to the SEC Championship Game.

Ole Miss was good by Ole Miss standards (8-4 overall, 4-4 SEC) but finished third in the SEC West.

2. Vanderbilt will return to a bowl game.

No. Vanderbilt had a dismal season.

3. Of the three teams with a new coach (Auburn, Mississippi State and Tennessee), State will be the one that performs better than expected.

I think you could make a case that any of these teams was the best overall, but you could just as easily say that they failed to meet expectations. Auburn finished 7-5, which sounds good, unless you remember that they started off 5-0 - including losses to Kentucky and Georgia. Tennessee looked to have really righted the ship midseason, and they did finish 7-5 and second in the East. But then they tanked against Ole Miss, and second in the East was shared with four other teams. Mississippi State finished with a 5-7 record, which isn't great, but it is their second-best record since 2000, and given the fact that they wrapped the season with a blowout of hated rival Ole Miss, I will give the Bulldogs the nod.

4. Les Miles (LSU) will be on the coaching hot seat by the end of the year.

This didn't look likely to happen, until Miles shot both feet off in the Ole Miss game. After rectifying the clock management issues against Arkansas, Miles is safe for now, but the seat is definitely warmer than at mid-season.

5. Florida will beat Tennessee by at least 35 points.

Unfortunately, this didn't happen.

6. Alabama will win the SEC West.

Done.

7. Florida will win the SEC East.

Done.

8. Florida will win the SEC.

Wrong. Alabama crushed Florida 32-13 in the Championship Game.

9. Tim Tebow will win the Heisman Trophy.

Not likely. We'll find out Saturday. Expect the closest race we've seen in a while.

10. The national champion will come from outside the SEC this year.

We won't know this until January, obviously, but it will be either #1 Alabama or #2 Texas. Currently, I am picking the Tide.

Other observations:

Alabama (13-0, 8-0) - The Crimson Tide avenged last year's loss against the Gators in the SEC Championship game with a totally dominating performance. They have set themselves up to play for the team's 13th national championship against the Texas Longhorns as well as sweeping a number of postseason SEC accolades. My prediction: BCS Championship Game Result: BCS Championship Game vs. Texas

Arkansas (7-5, 3-5) - Arkansas has improved as a team over last year, but the overtime loss to LSU put a bit of a damper on things. The Hogs had an opportunity to tie for second in the West, but had to settle for fourth. My prediction: PapaJohns.com Bowl Result: Liberty Bowl vs. East Carolina

Auburn (7-5, 3-5) - Auburn started on a hot streak, winning five in a row, but finished the regular season with a 2-5 slide. Still, the Tigers' strong showing against Alabama has Auburn fans looking forward to the future under Gene Chizik. My prediction: Cotton Bowl Result: Outback Bowl vs. Northwestern

Florida (12-1, 8-0) - The Gators benefited from a weak schedule and honestly, a weak division. Florida is a good team, but missed an opportunity to be the greatest in school history. The only question remaining for the Gators is whether or not Tebow can bring them back from a devastating loss to the Tide. My prediction: Sugar Bowl Result: Sugar Bowl vs. Cincinnati

Georgia (7-5, 4-4) - The Bulldogs are an average team and finished with a disappointing record, but unlikely victories over Auburn and a top-10 Georgia Tech team helped ease the pain. Marc Richt has already cleaned house in an effort to keep himself off the hot seat, but next year may be make-or-break. My prediction: Chick-Fil-A Bowl Result: Independence Bowl vs. Texas A&M

Kentucky (7-5, 3-5) - Kentucky is a decent team, but missed an opportunity to make a good season a great one with an overtime loss to Tennessee. Still, historic victories over Auburn and Georgia, and the Wildcat's fourth consecutive bowl game, made 2009 a successful year for UK. My prediction: No bowl Result: Music City Bowl vs. Clemson

LSU (9-3, 5-3) - LSU's two losses to Alabama and Florida were not unexpected, but Les Miles' botching of the Ole Miss game was epic. Fortunately for Miles, he righted the ship against Arkansas. The Bayou Bengals still have an opportunity for a ten-win season, if they can take care of business against Penn State. My prediction: Capital One Bowl Result: Capital One Bowl vs. Penn State

Mississippi (8-4, 4-4)- Ole Miss is a split personality team, it seems. They tanked against South Carolina, Alabama, and Auburn, then seemed to be ready to turn things around by pummeling Tennessee and pulling out a miracle win over LSU. Then of course, they got dominated by MSU. Obviously, they did not win the West, and if anything, declined a bit compared to last year, although a big bowl win would help salvage the season somewhat. My prediction: Independence Bowl Result: Cotton Bowl vs. Oklahoma State

Mississippi State (5-7, 3-5) - State played a tough schedule out of conference (Houston, Georgia Tech) and in, and while they were unable to reach bowl eligibility, they go into the off-season feeling good about the program - especially the Egg Bowl win over Ole Miss. My prediction: Music City Bowl Result: No bowl

South Carolina (7-5, 3-5) - South Carolina didn't completely fall off the map at the end of the year, but close enough. Only a surprising victory over rival Clemson kept the season from a disastrous finish. Still, wrapping up 2009 in Birmingham is nothing to write home about. My prediction: Liberty Bowl Result: PapaJohns.com Bowl vs. Connecticut

Tennessee (7-5, 4-4) - Tennessee finished 2009 strong, despite laying an egg against Ole Miss (aka Dexter McCluster). The Vols got jobbed out of the Outback Bowl, but may have gotten a better game in the process. My prediction: Outback Bowl Result: Chick-Fil-A Bowl vs. Virginia Tech

Vanderbilt (2-10, 0-8) - Just horrible, or in other words, back to normal. My prediction: No bowl Result: No bowl

Review: No. 2 Alabama 32, No. 1 Florida 13

2009-12-05T18:29:00.003-06:00

In what many billed as the biggest college football game of the 21st century (if not all-time), the second-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide (13-0) dominated the number-1 Florida Gators (12-1) in all phases of the game. Alabama's defense was stifling, as expected, and Mark Ingram was back to his usual impressive self, but 'Bama quarterback Greg McElroy surprised and upstaged the former Heisman trophy winner and "greatest college football player of all time" Tim Tebow.

The Tide crushed the Gators in convincing fashion, shutting them out in the second half. Alabama will now head to Pasadena, CA for the BCS National Chmapionship game versus (likely) either Texas or TCU.

My Seven Points:

1. This game was won by the Alabama offensive and defensive lines. Alabama O-line pushed Florida back, opened holes, and protected Greg McElroy all day long, giving him time to find receivers. The D-line contained Tebow, disallowed Florida's running game, and contained the Gators' offense. Credit to all the big uglies for getting it done.

2. Mark Ingram may not win the Heisman, but he certainly deserves consideration for his performance in the championship. Ingram carried the ball 28 times for 113 yards. He scored three touchdowns, tying the SEC Championship Game record. He broke Alabama's single-season rushing record, gaining 1,542 yards on the season. His biggest play, though, may have been a 69-yard reception immediately following a second-quarter Florida touchdown that made the score 12-10. That run set up an Ingram touchdown run before the half, and Florida never got any closer.

3. Tim Tebow is a great player - a firey competitor, a talented runner, and a true leader. But Greg McElroy showed him up tonight. Every pregame analysis of this matchup was about how Alabama and Florida were very similar teams, with the main difference being Tebow's obvious superiority at quarterback. Tebow is a great player with a great record and has a lot of class. Everyone knows that. But McElroy consistently made great throws tonight. He didn't make any mistakes. And surprisingly, he made several key plays running the ball. Tebow didn't do any of these things tonight, and he had to for Florida to win.

4. The coaching staff put together a great game plan. It is rumored that Alabama has been preparing for Florida ever since last spring, and today it was obvious that it paid off. It's no secret that the 2008 SEC Championship left a bitter taste in the mouths of Coach Saban and the team, and they had no intention of repeating that today. Jim McElwain deserves a lot of credit for calling good plays, keeping Florida off balance from the very start.

5. Nick Saban - worth every penny. Many sportswriters made a huge stink about Saban leaving the Miami Dolphins to come to Alabama. Many accosted Alabama for paying Saban what seemed an exorbitant amount to do so. But Saban immediately righted the ship, bringing 92,000 fans to the A-Day spring game, bringing enthusiam and an iron will to the team, attracting fantastic recruiting classes, and now, an SEC championship, with a national title in reach. No one would argue now that Saban was worth it.

6. The Crimson Tide returns to the Rose Bowl. While it isn't the actual Rose Bowl game, Alabama has a history with the Rose Bowl that goes back to January 1, 1926. Alabama defeated the Washington Huskies 20-19 then, winning the 1925 national championship and putting Southern football on the map. Now, Southern football, especially SEC Football, is widely recognized as the best in the country and Alabama is at the pinnacle of that success. Alabama has played in the Rose Bowl more than any other team not in the Big Ten or Pac-10 (and more than many of those as well), and it even figures in the fight song. So it seems entirely appropriate for the Tide to return there to play for the title.

7. Alabama wins its 22nd SEC Championship. The most storied program in SEC history, Alabama has won more SEC titles than any other team (Tennessee is second with 13). The Tide also kept alive a streak with tonight's win - it has won at least one SEC title in every decade since the league came into existence. It is the only program in the league to have accomplished this. Tonight's game was the last opportunity to win a title in the decade of the 2000s. Alabama has now also reached 13-0 for the second season in its history (1992) and has an opportunity to finish 14-0 for the first time ever. Only BYU (1996) and Ohio State (2002) have won 14 games in a season, with only Ohio State finishing undefeated.

Review: No. 2 Alabama 26, Auburn 21

2009-11-27T17:11:00.003-06:00

Auburn came in to the Iron Bowl throwing everything that they had at Alabama and landed two early touchdowns against the Tide. Facing a 14-0 deficit - the largest of the season, Alabama fought back to tie it up at the half. In the second half of the game, Auburn again struck early, and looked to be poised for the upset. But the Tide fought back, scoring two field goals and then driving 79 yards for the game-winning touchdown with 1:24 remaining.

The Tide can now look forward to next week's SEC Championship Game. Alabama has 21 SEC championships throughout its history, more than any other school. Alabama won the first SEC title in 1933 as well as the first SEC Championship Game in 1992. The Tide is also the only program to win a conference championship in every decade since the inception of the conference, although that record is in jeopardy. Alabama has to defeat Florida on Saturday to win a title in the 2000s. The Tide won its last title in 1999.

My Seven Points:

1. Greg McElroy came into his own as the Alabama quarterback today. McElroy took the ball down 21-20 with 8:32 remaining in the game at the Tide 21-yard line. On the 15-play drive he completed 7 of 8 passes for 62 yards, including the go-ahead score - a four-yard play action to Roy Upchurch. Throughout the drive, McElroy, who has still never lost a game as a starting quarterback, appeared to be poised and confident, and took control of the game. Auburn's plan was to hold Mark Ingram in check and force McElroy to beat them, and to their chagrin, he did.

2. Julio Jones had possibly the best performance of his Alabama career. While the yardage (9 receptions for 83 yards) wasn't his best, Jones made one clutch reception after another on the final drive, securing yardage and first downs to keep the drive alive. Jones also made several crucial blocks in the running game as well. He appears to be all the way back from his early season issues.

3. Javier Arenas probably made the difference in the game. Clutch returns from Arenas gave Alabama excellent field position in several key situations. Arenas returned one kickoff for 46 yards and two punts for a total of 67 yards., including a long of 56. Arenas now holds the SEC record for career punt return yardage (1,723) and is only 38 yards away for the all-time NCAA record. Not bad for a guy who nearly walked away from football three years ago.

4. Mark Ingram, on the other hand, was clearly not himself today. I'm not sure if Ingram is out of the Heisman race or not. It's certainly possible. But Ingram had 16 carries for 30 yards and appeared to be injured late in the game. He did not appear in the final drive.

5. In many ways, the Alabama defense struggled against Auburn's offense. Alabama held Auburn well below their season averages in total yardage and points, but did allow the Tigers 332 yards of offense, including 151 on the ground. Auburn achieved a lot of its yardage on big plays as well - a 67-yard TD run by Terrell Zachery and the 72-yard TD pass from Chris Todd to Darvin Adams. The key to the game, however, may have been the two turnovers that the defense forced, as well as the the last defensive stop before the Tide's final drive.

6. The Tide has completed something that had never been accomplished in SEC history. In 2008, Alabama became the first team in SEC history to complete an 12-0 undefeated regular season. Now the Tide has done it two years in a row. Not bad for only three years in to the Nick Saban era.

7. The Crimson Tide did its part to set up what may be the biggest SEC Championship game in conference history. Last year Alabama came into Atlanta ranked #1 and Florida came in #2. This year the roles are reversed, but the difference is that both teams have a chance to be undefeated as well. Alabama took care of business today, but Florida will need to knock off Florida State tomorrow to make it happen. Assuming that they do, one of the two teams will be in the BCS National Championship Game.

Review: No. 2 Alabama 45, UT-Chattanooga 0

2009-11-21T14:25:00.003-06:00

Well, the only unknowns for this week's game were 1) How long would Mark Ingram play? (a half), 2) would the Mocs score on Alabama? (an emphatic "No"), and 3) could the Tide escape without an significant injuries? (thankfully, "Yes"). Alabama was never seriously threatened by a Chattanooga team that finished with fewer than 100 yards of offense. The offense and special teams scored early and often and left ample time to get the second and third team players some time on the field in the last home game of the season. All-in-all, the best possible scenario for the second-ranked Tide.

My seven points:

1. Mark Ingram's day was perfect. Many wondered, and even asked Coach Saban, if Mark Ingram would play most of the game to pad his stats to impress Heisman voters. But Coach Saban's priorities are to do what's best for the team, and he explained that he wasn't going to play Ingram any longer than necessary. He finished with 102 yards, two big-play touchdowns, and a 9+ yard per carry average, all in the first half. Ingram's Heisman campaign will hinge on performances against Auburn and Florida. This game was relevant only in the sense that he looked good and didn't get hurt. Mission accomplished.

2. Javier Arenas set an SEC punt return record. Javier Arenas has already secured his position as the greatest Alabama punt returner of all time, but he is tantalizingly close to the best overall. Arenas returned a punt 66 yards for a touchdown against UTC, setting the SEC record for career punt return touchdowns with seven. He is only 39 yards away from the all-time SEC record for punt return yards (held by Vanderbilt's Lee Nalley) and 105 yards away from Wes Welker's (Texas Tech) NCAA record of 1,761. Arenas has three more games to achieve that career milestone, and I believe he will get it. Congratulations to him.

3. Speaking of milestones, Mark Ingram is approaching another one. Ingram's 1,399 yards this season put him well within reach of Bobby Humphey's single season record of 1,471. Ingram, of course, will play 14 games in 2009, including the bowl game, which did not count in season stats until the 1990s. But longtime fans may remember that the 1986 season did feature 13 games for the Tide, including the Kickoff Classic against Ohio State. Regardless, Ingram currently trails Humphrey by less than 100 yards with three games to go, and eclipses single-season marks by former greats Shaun Alexander, Glen Coffee, and Shaud Williams.

4. Superlative defense is again the theme of the day. Even in the second half, the the starters safely ensconced on the sideline, the Tide defense continued to dominate. The Tide allowed just 48 yards rushing and 36 yards passing to the Mocs, a total of 84 yards of offense. The Mocs had only five first downs and three turnovers, all interceptions.

5. The Tide has a short week to prepare for Auburn. The other good part about being able to pull the starters early today is that Alabama has a limited amount of time to prepare for Auburn next Friday. The Tide will most likely travel on Thursday, which means basically three days of work before the game. Auburn, of course, has had almost two weeks to get ready for the Crimson Tide. On the other hand, Alabama will get to watch Florida play Florida State next Saturday, and will have an extra day of rest before the SEC Championship.

6. Speaking of off weeks, have you ever noticed that Alabama's opponents have a bye before playing the Tide an awful lot? I've commented on it many times in the past, but the contrast in bye weeks between Alabama and the other teams in the SEC is even more striking when it is examined statistically. RollBamaRoll has featured a couple of detailed articles on this phenomenon, but this is an eye opener:

Total SEC opponents coming off bye weeks, 2007-2010
Alabama - 17
LSU - 5
Tennessee - 4
Florida - 4
Vanderbilt - 3
Georgia - 3
Auburn - 3
Kentucky - 2
Mississippi State - 1
Mississippi - 1
South Carolina - 0
Arkansas - 0

This means that in the 32 SEC games that Alabama has during this four-year period, the opponent has a bye week before the game over 50% of the time! The most anyone else has is five. Part of this is controlled by the school, part by the SEC office, but it's a pretty amazing statistic. So when you hear someone say, "They may not be a great team, but they always play Alabama hard" you'll know why. Chances are that they had a week off.

7. Pause a moment in honor of 2009's senior class. The seniors of 2009 were the last full class recruited by Mike Shula, and had to endure the Tide's last losing season, in 2006. A few have been major contributors (especially on defense), a few have been relegated to the background, and one or two considered leaving altogether (including Arenas). But this senior class has accomplished something that has not been done at Alabama in decades, winning ten or more games in consecutive years, and still has every team goal in its sights.

Review: No. 2 Alabama 31, Mississippi State 3

2009-11-14T21:43:00.004-06:00

Mississippi State used every possible morale builder in their arsenal - including black jerseys, a record-crowd boosted by extra seating and standing room only tickets, even a smoke machine-aided entrance - but it wasn't enough to lift the Bulldogs past the second-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide Saturday.

'Bama turned in a strong offensive performance, knocking the Bulldogs out with big plays, especially in the fourth quarter. State was able to move the ball on the Tide at times. The Bulldogs had 113 yards rushing as a team, just the second time this year that Alabama has given up more than 100, but missed opportunities and stingy defense kept MSU out of the end zone, and the Tide rolled to 10-0 (7-0 SEC) on the season.

My seven points:

1. The Tide took care of business in a difficult test tonight. Mississippi State has played one of the toughest schedules in the country this year, and their record (4-6, 2-4 SEC) shows it. But this team was down by three to Florida with ten minutes left in the game, led Houston going in the the fourth quarter of that game, and came within a yard of defeating LSU. After a physical, emotional game against LSU, Alabama figured to be vulnerable to an upset. Mississippi State did everything that they could to fire up the fans, and the team played hard, but Alabama's superior speed, talent and strength wore the Bulldogs down. The Tide did what they had to do and looked pretty good doing it. (By the way, can we all agree now that putting on black jerseys, or helmets, etc., doesn't make you a better team? I have never been more proud of Alabama's ultra-traditional uniforms.)

2. The offensive game plan showed much improvement over LSU. I was not a fan of the pass-first plan last week, and I think the win had more to do with committing to the run in the second half than it did with "loosening up" the corners by passing the ball. The offensive plan for Mississippi State on the other hand, was largely successful, mixing the run and pass within drives and getting the ball to the playmakers. Julio Jones, Marquis Maze and Darius Hanks all saw multiple receptions, and Mark Ingram and Trent Richardson continued to pound the rock. The only person I missed in the gameplan was tight end Colin Peek, who I assume is still feeling the effects of his knee sprain, although he did see more game action today.

3. The one player I expected us to miss this year in the defense was Rashad Johnson. The fact that we have not missed the All-American significantly is due in large part to Mark Barron, who should be SEC Defensive player of the week after tonight's game. Barron intercepted two passes, one of which was a spectacular diving catch, and would have caught another if Marquis Johnson has not taken it from his hands. Barron also broke up what appeared to be a sure touchdown with what looked like a 40-inch leap. The sophomore safety is getting better every week. I expect that we'll see him playing on Sunday in a year or two.

4. Speaking of Marquis Johnson, have you ever seen a player who improved on the field as much as he has over his four years at the University? Saban has helped turn this young man into an NFL-caliber cornerback. Proving that his performance against South Carolina (where he broke up one fade route after another to the corner of the end zone) was no fluke, Johnson again made several acrobatic plays to stop sure touchdown passes from the Bulldogs late in the game, without resorting to interfering with the receiver. Although Johnson did get burned on an interference call early on the first MSU drive, he recovered nicely, keeping the Bulldogs off the board on at least three different occasions, and picking off the last gasp throw just for good measure.

5. ESPN's primetime college team is good. Like most 'Bama fans, I don't care much for CBS's main play-by-play team of Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson (CBS's second team is much worse, by the way). It is always a breath of fresh air when we have a game that is called by Brad Nessler and Todd Blackledge of ESPN. Not only do they do a better job with the human interest stuff (Taste of the Town is a always interesting and often good for a laugh), but they just don't get in the way of the game. They also made two really prescient calls tonight. First, Blackledge was talking about how Alabama HAD to get the ball to Julio Jones to win a national championship mere seconds before Greg McElroy dropped back and hit a wide-open Jones on a 48-yard touchdown. On the next possession, it was Nessler's turn, commenting that this was the time in the game that Alabama would just hand the ball to Mark Ingram a split second before McElroy handed him the ball for a 70-yard touchdown. It was like they knew what was coming before it happened, and it takes a lot of research to make things look that effortless.

6. Alabama and Florida really are two sides of the same coin. The similarities between the Tide and the Gators this year really are striking. From the defensive stats, to the points per game, to the red zone woes, to the fairly lackluster quarterback stats, there is not a whole lot of difference on paper between the two teams. Both will finish the season up with a tuneup game, and then a big rival, and meet in three weeks at the SEC Championship. Given the way that the two teams are playing right now, I'd give the edge to Alabama. The Tide is showing more consistency on offense the last couple of weeks, while Florida has continued to struggle. However, I don't expect anything but a hard-fought, closely-contested game between two of the best teams in the country. It doesn't get much better than that.

7. One more record in the books. Alabama reached the 10-0 mark for the 17th time in the program's 115-year history, an NCAA record. Alabama has had 30 ten-win seasons, which is second in the NCAA behind Oklahoma (31). It is the first time that Alabama has had consecutive 10-0 starts since the 1973-74 seasons, and the first time in Coach Nick Saban's career that he has had consecutive ten-win seasons.

SEC in Review: Week Nine

2009-11-07T21:01:00.006-06:00

The SEC season is three-fourths over and winding down. The title game participants have already been decided. Let's review my preseason predictions, and where we stand in the best conference in college football.

1. Ole Miss will be good this year, and perhaps beat a team they shouldn't, but they will not go to the SEC Championship Game.

Ole Miss has turned out to be a pretty average team. They could still surprise me, by winning against Tennessee and/or LSU, but I honestly doubt it.

2. Vanderbilt will return to a bowl game.

No. Vanderbilt has regressed considerably.

3. Of the three teams with a new coach (Auburn, Mississippi State and Tennessee), State will be the one that performs better than expected.

Early on this looked like Auburn running away, but the Tigers (7-3) have fallen back to earth. Tennessee (4-4) has played well recently, but has dropped three winnable games. Mississippi State is 4-5 and has improved along the way while facing a brutal schedule. If State could pull out wins against Arkansas and Ole Miss and get a bowl bid, then i will be totally vindicated.

4. Les Miles (LSU) will be on the coaching hot seat by the end of the year.

Not likely. LSU has improved over last year, especially defensively. Their two losses have come to Florida and Alabama, and they could legitimately finish 11-2.

5. Florida will beat Tennessee by at least 35 points.

Unfortunately, this didn't happen.

6. Alabama will win the SEC West.

Done.

7. Florida will win the SEC East.

Done.

8. Florida will win the SEC.

This one is still undecided and will be until December 5. Florida hasn't looked incredibly impressive this year, but they do know how to win. If both teams make it to the game undefeated... wow, it's going to be a slugfest.

9. Tim Tebow will win the Heisman Trophy.

If he does it will be based on his body of work rather than this year. Surprisingly, the front-runner appears to be Mark Ingram.

10. The national champion will come from outside the SEC this year.

We won't know this until January, obviously, but with Florida at #1 and Alabama at #3, an SEC representative is relatively likely to make it to Pasadena. I just don't see anyone else knocking the SEC champ off at this point, although Texas is the odds-on favorite to face them.

Other observations:

Alabama - The Tide will play Florida again in the title game for all the marbles, assuming they take care of business the next three weeks. Winning 21 of the last 23 games has probably given the Tide more confidence this time around and Florida looks vulnerable. This could be one for the ages. My prediction: Alabama plays in the BCS National Championship Game

Arkansas - Arkansas has improved as a team over last year, but may have missed an opportunity to take the next step against Ole Miss. Still, the Hogs should make a bowl game. The missing piece for this team is defense. My prediction: PapaJohns.com Bowl

Auburn - Auburn has been streaky this year, winning five in a row, then losing three straight, now winning the last two. Now an 8-4 finish looks achievable, which is quite an accomplishment given the situation Chizik inherited. My prediction: Cotton Bowl

Florida - The Gators have benefited from a weak schedule and honestly, a weak division. Florida is a good team, but are they a great one? The only question remaining for the Gators is whether or not Tebow can will them to another championship. My prediction: Sugar Bowl

Georgia - The Bulldogs are an average team. They could salvage this season by winning out, but it won't be easy. Auburn, Kentucky and Georgia Tech are all capable of beating the 'Dawgs, and the difference between 5-7 and 8-4 is huge for Mark Richt. At the very least, look for defensive coordinator Willie Martinez to get the boot at the end of the season. My prediction: Chick-Fil-A Bowl

Kentucky - Kentucky is a decent team, but not a great one. Next weekend's game at Vandy is their best chance to get bowl-eligible, but a win over either Georgia or Tennessee would cement it. My prediction: Bowl eligible, but nowhere to go.

LSU - LSU has seemed to hit its stride over the last few weeks, despite the setback at Alabama. The offense has gotten steadily better and the defense has kept the Bayou Bengals in every game. After receiving a number of injuries during the 'Bama game, it remains to be seen how the Tigers will be affected. My prediction: Capital One Bowl

Mississippi - Ole Miss has played one good game this year (Arkansas) and three bad ones (South Carolina, Alabama, and Auburn). The Rebs are bowl eligible now at 6-3, but they could conceivably lose the last three on the schedule. Not what Colonel Reb was expecting with the SEC championship hype. I predict that Ole Miss will finish 7-5, and go to the Independence Bowl, which is where they should expect to hang out for a while. My prediction: Independence Bowl

Mississippi State - State has played a tough schedule out of conference (Houston, Georgia Tech) and in, but last week's win against Kentucky could have been a turning point. Expect them to give Alabama all they can handle next weekend. Still, the road to bowl eligibility will be difficult. State will have to pick up wins against both Arkansas and Ole Miss to get there. My prediction: Music City Bowl

South Carolina - South Carolina looked like a player at mid-season, but with two consecutive losses and Florida coming up next week, the Gamecocks look to be on another patented late-season slide. If the 'Cocks lose to the Gators and to Clemson in two weeks, finishing 6-6, don't be surprised to hear for calls for Spurrier to retire (or be fired). How the mighty have fallen. My prediction: Liberty Bowl

Tennessee - The Vols have looked mighty strong since losing to Auburn in early October, and they seem to have finally found out how to play offense in Knoxville. I wouldn't be surprised to see Tennessee finish 8-4. My prediction: Outback Bowl

Vanderbilt - Just horrible, or in other words, back to normal. My prediction: No bowl game

Review: No. 2 Alabama 24, No. 9 LSU 15

2009-11-07T18:47:00.002-06:00

Alabama's biggest game of the year (so far) saw the Tide offense break out of a mid-season slump. Amassing 267 yards passing, Greg McElroy had easily his best performance since September, hitting Darius Hanks and Julio Jones for touchdowns. Mark Ingram had another stellar performance as well, gaining 144 yards on 22 carries, over 100 of which came in the second half.

Alabama and LSU played for control of the SEC West, as they have for the last two years, and the game played out as many experts predicted - a close battle for three quarters that the Tide would eventually pull away from. The win sets up an Alabama-Florida matchup in the SEC Championship game on December 5.

My seven points:

1. The monkey is off Greg McElroy's back. Underwhelming statistics and lack of red zone success for McElroy over the last month have led to a lot of questioning from fans and pundits about what is wrong and even some . The source of McElroy's problems has been pretty obvious, as was the source of his success tonight. Pressure. Unlike Ole Miss, South Carolina and Tennessee, LSU was unable to put sustained pressure on McElroy. Therefore he was able to stand in the pocket and make throws. McElroy finished 19-of-34 with two TDs and a pick against a quality defense.

2. Ditto for Julio Jones. Jones has been hampered by injuries all year, and while he still hasn't regained his form from last year, he did turn in the biggest play of the game - a 73-yard touchdown reception that put the Tide ahead for good. Jones wasn't perfect - a dropped pass deep in Alabama territory helped set up the safety LSU got on the next play. But a hundred-yard receiving day can heal many wounds.

3. Mark Ingram for Heisman is looking like more than just talk. Most Alabama fans are unconcerned about Heisman talk. After all, SEC and national championships are within the Tide's reach, and no Alabama player has ever finished higher than third in the Heisman balloting anyway. But Mark Ingram was a tentative midseason favorite to win the Trophy coming into the game, and he soldified his reputation today for playing big in big games, which is one of the most important things that a candidate can do. Notre Dame's Jimmy Clausen probably killed his chances today with a three turnover showing in a loss to Navy. Colt McCoy (Texas) and Tim Tebow (Florida) are both in the race by virtue of leading undefeated teams (as is Ingram) but both quarterbacks are suffering somewhat due to comparisons to their previous seasons. Right now, the Heisman Trophy looks like it is Ingram's to win.

4. SEC Officiating didn't do itself any favors tonight. The big story in SEC football over the past month has been blown calls by officials in critical moments, and the aftermath thereof. Conspiracy theorists have accused the SEC of propping up Florida and Alabama in order to keep them undefeated, and to be fair, bad calls did impact the LSU-Georgia and Florida-Arkansas games. (The Alabama-Tennessee helmet controversy, by contrast, was mostly a creation of CBS color analyst Gary Danielson). Bad calls have always been a part of college football, but there is intense scrutiny on the SEC right now. That's why I wouldn't be surprised to see the Greg McElroy interception no-call become a big topic of conversation this week. The video evidence was not 100% conclusive, but it looked like Patrick Peterson may have gotten his foot down before going out of bounds. Danielson, of course, had already ruled it an interception from his perspective, and disgruntled (read, L-O-S-E-R) fans will probably point to the call as further evidence that the SEC helped Alabama win.

5. Strength and conditioning appeared to be a huge advantage for Alabama in this game. It seemed to me that as the game went along, LSU seemed to have an injured player on the turf virtually every other play. One lineman, running back, quarterback, cornerback, etc. after another went down for the Tigers while I only remember one player for Alabama going out of the game at all (Arenas) and he made it back in a few plays later. It's a credit LSU's talent level that they were able to stay in the game with so many players leaving the field, but it did seem a little odd to me that the injuries seemed to be so weighted to their side. Flukey injuries can happen to anyone, but a 8- or 10-1 injury margin is hugely significant in a close game, and may point to a difference between the conditioning of the two teams.

6. Leigh Tiffin is the all-time leading scorer for Alabama. Tiffin has not only recovered completely from being the goat for Alabama's loss to Arkansas in 2006 (he missed two field goals and an extra point in overtime), but has become perhaps the best kicker in the country and the Crimson Tide's all-time leading scorer. Tiffin hit three field goals and an extra point to stand alone above three other legendary Tide kickers - Philip Doyle, Michael Proctor, and his father, Van Tiffin. If Alabama is to reach its championship dreams, Tiffin will continue to play a critical part.

7. Mississippi State won't be a cakewalk. State is in a perfect position to spoil the party for Alabama next week in Starkville. The Bulldogs have improved steadily throughout the year, and while the talent is still thin, overconfidence can be fatal to the Tide's hopes. Just ask anyone on the 1980 Alabama team, who went into Starkville ranked number 1, riding a 28-game winning streak and heavily favored over the unranked Bulldogs. State went on to win that day 6-3, causing a fumble on what would might have been Alabama's go-ahead touchdown play. Saban is not going to take any opponent lightly. Let's hope the team follows his lead.

Review: No. 2 Alabama 12, Tennessee 10

2009-10-24T18:54:00.002-05:00

Alabama snatched victory from the jaws of defeat in a classic matchup with rival Tennessee, blocking two field goals in a fourth quarter that saw almost everything else go wrong for the Tide.

Alabama nursed a 9-3 halftime lead through the third quarter while the Volunteers began to find success moving the ball on the Tide. But Tennessee's Daniel Lincoln, who had missed a 49-yard field goal earlier in the game, had a 47-yarder blocked by Terrence Cody, and Leigh Tiffin pushed the score to 12-3 with a field goal with 6:31 left. After a short Tennessee possession, Alabama's Mark Ingram, who had never lost a fumble in his career, had the ball stripped from his hands as he struggled for yardage at the Alabama 43. Tennessee quickly converted the turnover into points, scoring a touchdown with 1:19 remaining.

The Vols then converted an onside kick and drove the ball into scoring position, lining up for a 43-yard field goal on third down with 4 seconds left in the game. But Mount Cody broke through the line again and blocked Lincoln's kick to seal the victory and keep the national title hopes alive.

Now for my seven points:

1. In a championship season, you have to win the close games. Thinking back to 1992, Alabama played several close games, but the closest may have been the SEC Championship game against Florida, which the Tide won on a late interception by Antonio Langham. But few remember that the Tide also had to come from behind to beat Mississippi State that year as well. Regardless, Tennessee brought their "A" game today, and the Tide still pulled out the win.

2. Terrence Cody solidifed his position today as a Tide player for the ages. The gargantuan nose tackle, who made an immediate impact for Alabama from his first game (last year against Clemson), is already one of the most popular players on the team, but plays like the two blocked field goals he had today, especially against one of your biggest rivals, are what makes legends. 'Bama fans will remember Cody's game-saving block today long after his NFL playing days are over.

3. This is a team in need of an off week. It's become a cliche to say "this off week comes at a good time," but in all seriousness, the Tide looked tired versus a Tennessee team with an extra week to prepare. The defense has been especially tested the last three weeks, and should expect to be tested again when LSU comes to town. A week to rest the legs and heal the bruises will be welcome.

4. Alabama needs to continue to work on red zone offense. The offense's inability to punch the ball into the end zone nearly cost the Tide the game today, and the red zone should continue to be a point of emphasis in practice. In fairness, the offense seemed to be hampered by poor play calling, especially on the last scoring drive of the first half. Why lean on the beleagured passing game for points when Tennessee seemed unable to stop the run?

5. Leigh Tiffin has quietly become one of the best kickers in the country. In my opinion, Tiffin has always suffered from the burden of his father's name. After all, Van Tiffin made the best-known kick in Alabama football history. But Leigh Tiffin today moved into second place in scoring all time in the Alabama record books, and is leading the country in field goals made. The knock on Tiffin has been consistency, but keep in mind if he had missed one kick today, Alabama would have lost.

6. Greg McElroy needs to step it up another notch. McElroy was excoriated, and rightly so, for his performance in the last two games. The quarterback did improve his accruacy this week, but the undemanding game plan may have nearly cost 'Bama the game. McElroy's protection has improved since the breakdown at Ole Miss, and he needs to get his confidence back with the downfield pass. Two and three-yard dump passes are not going to fill the bill against LSU and (possibly) Florida.

7. All of Alabama's goals are still in sight. Even a one-point loss to the Vols today would not have eliminated the Tide from national title contention, but Alabama has to remember that every game from now on, with the possible exception of Chattanooga, is going to be difficult. That's not the say that 'Bama won't be favored against LSU, Mississippi State and Auburn, but they will get the best shot from each of those teams. Taking a week off will still get you beat.

Review: No. 2 Alabama 20, No. 22 South Carolina 6

2009-10-18T15:35:00.002-05:00

In another weekend filled with upsets and near misses, Alabama continued to do what it does best - dominate with defense and a pounding running game. The Tide played sloppily, garnering 113 yards in penalties and turning the ball over four times, but for the second straight game, the defense kept a top 25 opponent from reaching the end zone. Alabama's Mark Ingram had his second consecutive career game, rushing for 246 yards on 24 carries - a whopping 10.3 yards per carry.

Now here are my seven points:

1. Ingram for Heisman? Chris Low, ESPN.com's SEC blogger, claims that Ingram ran into the frontrunner spot in the Heisman race Saturday, and the case can certainly be made. Ingram ran the ball for every one of the plays in the game-clinching final touchdown drive, gaining 68 yards in six carries, five of them from the direct-snap "Wildcat" formation. Ingram also seems to be getting better as the competition gets tougher, gaining 150 against Virginia Tech, 140 against Kentucky, 172 versus Ole Miss, and 246 Saturday. And the majority of Ingram's yardage this year has come after contact, a fact not lost on NFL scouts. However, the Heisman is a quarterback's award generally, and Ingram isn't even the leading rusher in the country (he's third). Ingram is helped by injuries and lackluster performances from the early season frontrunners, but he will have to continue to have high-yardage, game-winning performances to have a realistic shot.

2. McElroy needs to get his game back on track. Alabama QB Greg McElroy saw some fleeting Heisman hype earlier this season, but as Ingram's game has improved, McElroy's has seemed to regress. Following up on the abysmal performance at Ole Miss, McElroy may have actually improved slightly, although the game plan seemed to move away from passing the ball at an earlier point than last week. This last few weeks shouldn't have been totally unexpected for an inexperienced quarterback against SEC competition, but it has looked worse compared to McElory's early season performances. The offensive line did look better against South Carolina than Ole Miss, but Tennessee's defense is pretty good too, and boasts arguably the better defensive back in the country in Eric Berry. The time to get back to basics is now.

3. The defense is getting better. Despite injuries, Alabama's defense really has been stingy in the last two games, particularly in the red zone - giving up only three field goals. Alabama's Marquis Johnson, who was filling in for Javier Arenas (bruised ribs), must have successfully defended the same fade route to the corner of the end zone six times. Performances like that boost a man's confidence and (hopefully) continue to drive improvement.

4. The weak point for this team is clearly special teams. Not every aspect of the special teams is bad - Leigh Tiffin has kicked well and consistently, although he did miss a field goal against South Carolina. P.J. Fitzgerald has punted fairly well. But kick/punt coverage is still an issue, and several lengthy returns by 'Bama players have been negated by penalties. So far, it hasn't cost us a game, but several scoring opportunities have likely been squandered by undisciplined return blocking.

5. South Carolina could give Florida problems. Florida and Alabama have very similar defenses. Florida, however, has been hampered by a lack of offensive firepower, especially since Tim Tebow's injury. Therefore, I expect South Carolina to challenge Florida similar to the way Arkansas did Saturday.

6. Get used to games like this one. Tennessee and LSU, Alabama's next two opponents, are teams with good defenses and weak offenses, you know, kind of like the last three opponents. Expect closely contested games that Alabama should be able to salt away in the fourth quarter.

7. 'Bama has made the best case to be Number One. It doesn't really matter whether Florida, Texas or Alabama are ranked number 1. As long as the three teams stay undefeated, they will all have a shot at the national championship. But Alabama has played the toughest competition of the three, and has looked the most consistent doing it.

Review: Kentucky/Ole Miss - Two for the price of one!

2009-10-10T21:08:00.003-05:00

I missed last week's post due to a camping trip, so I decided to review the Kentucky and Ole Miss games together. This might seem odd, since Kentucky was an unranked opponent with low expectations and Ole Miss was a preseason favorite to win the West, but there were many parallels between the two games for Alabama. So to honor the two-game format, I will make fourteen points rather than my usual seven.

First, seven parallels:

Both opponents came into the game having suffered a devastating loss prior to the Alabama game. Kentucky's came the previous week against Florida 41-7. Ole Miss's was two weeks ago, on a Thursday night versus South Carolina 16-10.
Both opponents featured stingy defenses and offenses that struggled to score against 'Bama.
Both games were decided by Alabama's defense and the turnovers that it created. The Tide caused NINE turnovers in the two games, many of them spectacular plays.
The Alabama passing game appeared ineffective at times. After a hot start of the season, Greg McElroy passed for only 148 yards against UK, and 147 against UM.
On the other hand, Mark Ingram has had two consecutive career games. Ingram rushed for 140 yards on 22 carries with two TDs against the Wildcats, then followed up with 28 rushes for 172 yards and a TD versus the Rebels.
Although more points were scored in the Kentucky game than against Ole Miss, the margin of victory was almost identical: 18 points against UK and 19 against UM.
The killing blow in both games occurred just before the half. Against Kentucky, Alabama held a 7-6 lead before driving 97 yards to score a touchdown with 40 second left in the half. Nineteen seconds later, Courtney Upshaw returned a fumble 45 yards for a TD to take a 21-6 lead into halftime. Versus Ole Miss, the Tide led 9-0 after three trips to the red zone were blunted by the Rebels' defense, forcing field goals. Then, following another turnover, Alabama went for it on fourth and one, and Ingram ran for a 36-yard score with 55 seconds remaining.

Now, for my usual seven points, aka "what we have learned:"

Alabama is starting to look more like the team everyone expected before the year began: great defense, somewhat inconsistent offense, although that is probably more a measure of the level of competition rather than deterioration. No one is seriously talking about a Heisman for McElroy now, although he is certainly not making mistakes that cost Alabama.
Alabama now stands alone atop the SEC West. At the beginning of the day, there were three undefeated teams in the West, and Ole Miss was still conceivably in the race as well, with one loss and games to come against the top 3. Alabama's defeat of Ole Miss, coupled with Auburn's loss to Arkansas and LSU's to Florida puts the Tide in the driver's seat.
The defense is just full of playmakers. Every starter and contributer on the defense seemed to make a big play today. Rolando McClain is clearly the star athlete (and future NFL pick), but it seems like from Woodall to Green to Cody to Dareus to Arenas to Upshaw and so on, everyone has stepped up their game since losing Hightower.
The offseason work on defense has really paid off. The biggest strike against the Tide's defense in 2008 was inability to pressure the quarterback. This was especially borne out in the two season-ending losses. Coach Saban made it a point in the offseason to work on the pass rush. In 2009, Alabama is leading the league in sacks, and Jevan Snead was harrassed pretty consistently all day today.
Can everybody get off Julio Jones' back now? Before the Arkansas game, the knock on Jones was that he hadn't gotten a touchdown in 12 games (he promptly caught one that week). This week, the talk was about how Jones hadn't been as productive as he was last year. It seemed to me that McElroy overcompensated, passing to Jones several times in double and triple coverage. Let's all keep in mind that passing to nine or ten different guys in a game you win by three scores is a good thing. Julio is a great player, but we've got a lot of really good receivers. If they're wide open, it's okay to throw to them!
South Carolina is shaping up to be a much tougher game than it looked to be a few weeks ago. Alabama has struggled somewhat against stronger SEC defenses (relatively speaking), and South Carolina may have the best defense 'Bama has played so far. The Gamecocks came within a play of being undefeated, and has improved steadily since that game with Georgia. Let's hope that they aren't offended by playing us for Homecoming. You don't think that Spurrier will make a big deal about that do you?
Could two SEC schools play for the national championship? CBS's Gary Danielson predicted before the season that two SEC teams (Florida and LSU) would play for the national championship in Pasadena. This prompted much scoffing from critics, but imagine this scenario: The AP top 5 Monday are likely to be Florida, Texas, Alabama, Virginia Tech and Boise State. If Texas loses at some point (next week at Oklahoma is a possibility), and Florida and Alabama continue undefeated, they will be ranked number 1 and 2. Assuming that either team lost a close game in the SEC championship, it seems pretty conceivable that the BCS would pair up Florida and Alabama again rather than a Virginia Tech team from a weak ACC (that Alabama already defeated by the way) or a non-BCS conference Boise State. We've got a long way to go yet, but would anything establish the SEC's dominance of college football more? I mean, other than winning the last three championships and four of the last six?

SEC in Review: Week Four

2009-09-26T21:17:00.005-05:00

So we're basically one-third of the way through the SEC season, and although we're just getting in to the meat of the conference schedule, I think it's time to review. First, let's look back at my preseason predictions for the season and see where I stand.

1. Ole Miss will be good this year, and perhaps beat a team they shouldn't, but they will not go to the SEC Championship Game.

The only thing wrong with this one is that Ole Miss may not be that good. They definitely don't look like a team on its way to Atlanta.

2. Vanderbilt will return to a bowl game.

The jury is still out on this one, but it doesn't look good for the Commodores.

3. Of the three teams with a new coach (Auburn, Mississippi State and Tennessee), State will be the one that performs better than expected.

This one is still debatable, but I would have to give the nod to Auburn. Although they haven't really played anyone that should have threatened them, the offensive improvement over last year cannot be overstated. Mississippi State might have made a better case if they could have punched it in against LSU.

4. Les Miles (LSU) will be on the coaching hot seat by the end of the year.

He got pretty darn close to being there Saturday.

5. Florida will beat Tennessee by at least 35 points.

Unfortunately, this didn't happen.

6. Alabama will win the SEC West.

Looking pretty likely right now.

7. Florida will win the SEC East.

Almost a certainty.

8. Florida will win the SEC.

Not so sure about this after watching 'Bama and Florida so far.

9. Tim Tebow will win the Heisman Trophy.

He won't win it on statistics even assuming that the concussion doesn't keep him out for any significant time. However, Sam Bradford (Oklahoma) and Jevan Snead (Ole Miss) have already more or less been eliminated. It remains to be seen whether Cal's loss to Oregon hurts Jahvid Best. So far though, I would call Colt McCoy the front-runner.

10. The national champion will come from outside the SEC this year.

We won't know this until January, obviously, but with Florida at #1 and Alabama at #3, an SEC representative is relatively likely to make it to Pasadena.

Other observations:

Alabama - The big questions coming in to the season were about the quarterback position and the offensive line. So far, Greg McElroy and the O-line have performed surprisingly well, and Alabama's offense has been much more multidimensional than in 2008. The SEC West is Alabama's to lose.

Arkansas - The Razorbacks have improved significantly with former Michigan transfer Ryan Mallett calling the signals. Unfortunately, their defense is still suspect. One can begin to see the progress under Bobby Petrino's system, but it will be another year or two before Arkansas is a contender.

Auburn - New coach Gene Chizik has the Tigers winning and has Auburn fans thinking championship. Offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn deserves loads of credit for nearly tripling the points per game that Auburn scores on average versus last year. The Tigers are awfully thin though, and with Kodi Burns, Onterio McCalebb and Ben Tate all getting banged up this weekend, the wheels could come off pretty quickly.

Florida - The Gators may not be quite as good as last year's squad, but the conference schedule is almost ludicrously weak. The only question right now is Tim Tebow. How hurt is he, and when will he be back?

Georgia - Surprise, surprise! Losing two offensive stars in the first round of the NFL draft has an impact on your team. The problem for Georgia though is that their defense is still porous as a sieve. The Bulldogs have enough talent to be competitive, but the next four weeks is brutal, with games versus LSU, at Tennessee, at Vandy, and versus Florida. Georgia will be lucky to come out of that stretch with less than two losses.

Kentucky - Kentucky is Kentucky - decent team, not world beaters. Capable of pulling off an upset, the goal this year is going to be getting back to a bowl game. They have a good chance, if they can win one against either MSU, Vandy, or South Carolina.

LSU - Former Tennessee defensive coordinator was supposed to fix LSU's defensive woes. The Fighting Tigers gave up 374 yards Saturday to Mississippi State (over 100 yards more than they had), and staved off a disaster by less than one yard. Given the losses by Ole Miss, California and Penn State, the Tigers might move up to #4 in the polls, but I expect them to be exposed in the next two weeks.

Mississippi - Ole Miss may have fallen victim to their own hype, as some would have you believe, but this team has looked lethargic and out of sync in its first three games. I'm not sure that the Rebels were ever serious contenders for the West title, but they need to tune up next Saturday against Vanderbilt (the Commodores have won the last two meetings) if they want to have a chance against the Crimson Tide in two weeks.

Mississippi State - Coach Dan Mullen was one yard away from a big-time "signature" win Saturday, and he already has brought improvement to the Bulldogs. Unfortunately, it may be hard to tell from the record, as the Bulldogs have a conference schedule that includes Florida, and a nonconference schedule featuring #17 Houston and soon-to-be-ranked Georgia Tech.

South Carolina - Sure, the Gamecocks did defeat a top five team at home for the first time EVER (wrap your head around that), but unfortunately, it was Ole Miss - a team that had no business being ranked there to start with. Still, South Carolina is one play away from being 4-0, and has a decent defense that should keep them in any game. Spurrier's biggest problem the last couple of years has been his team falling apart at the end of the season, so we may not really know about this team until December.

Tennessee - Tennessee got more credit for losing a game than any team ever after last week's 23-13 defeat at Florida, but followed it up with an underwhelming performance against Ohio Saturday. It might be unfair to call the Vols' offense abysmal (that would be reserved for last year's team), but any blue chip senior high school quarterback recruit out there should expect to be able to start next year for Tennessee. A bowl game would be an accomplishment.

Vanderbilt - The Commodores went to their first bowl game in 50 years last season. Given the schedule, it's going to be an uphill climb to repeat that accomplishment. The Dores blew their best opportunity for an SEC win against Mississippi State, and they will probably not be favored in any other conference game.

Review: No. 3 Alabama 35, Arkansas 7

2009-09-26T18:30:00.002-05:00

In a game that some people were pointing to as Alabama's first real test, the Crimson Tide (4-0, 1-0 SEC) crushed the Arkansas Razorbacks (1-2, 0-2) 35-7, in a game that wasn't even as close as the final score indicated.

Arkansas quarterback Ryan Mallett, who led the nation in passing efficiency and the SEC in passing yardage coming into the game, was badgered and beaten by 'Bama's defense all day. Mallett, who finished just 12-of-35 for 161 yards, threw his first interception of the season late in the the game, was sacked three times, and seemed out of sync with his receivers most of the day.

Arkansas came into the game with the nation's 2nd-ranked offense, and had scored 41 points the previous weekend in a losing effort at Georgia. But Alabama's defense, ranked 3rd in the country, stifled the Hogs, holding them nearly 200 yards below their average. The Tide dominated with big plays, scoring touchdowns on plays of 52, 50, 80, 14 and 2 yards.

My Seven Points for this game:

1. We're learning more about the kind of team Alabama has. It goes without saying that the system of preseason rankings can be significantly flawed; witness Clemson last year, Alabama in 2000, and any one of a hundred other examples. Two things happened today that served to confirm Alabama's ranking. First, Alabama has been in a position to score additional points late in every game so far this season and has run the clock out instead, not needing additional points to win. It happened again today against a team that was averaging 45 points a game. Second, No. 11 Virginia Tech, who Alabama beat 34-24 to start the season, delivered a crushing 31-7 defeat to No. 9 Miami. Unlike Clemson, who completely fell apart last year after losing to Alabama, Tech has now defeated two ranked teams since losing to the Tide.

2. The most costly play of the game for Alabama came in the first quarter. It was the one that took out Dont'a Hightower. Hightower left the game late in the first quarter with a knee injury, and while there were no official indications of the severity, all observable signs were bad. Hightower is one of the best players on the Alabama defense and the loss of #30 will be significant.

3. Bama's defense is for-real. Not that many people will be surprised with the quality of the Tide defense, but they completely dominated a high-powered, productive offense that was by far the best one that they have faced this season. Even observers who predicted an easy win for Alabama assumed that the Hogs would have a few big plays and score several times. Many pundits expected a shootout like Arkansas's 52-41 loss to Georgia. This defense is much better than Georgia's.

4. Greg McElroy continues to improve. McElroy didn't have a perfect day - there were a few too many missed connections and dropped balls. He did, however, have a career day, passing 24 times and completing 17 of them for 291 yards and 3 touchdowns. Oh, and as a starter, he has never lost a game. McElroy started for his high school team his senior year and won the 5A state championship, finishing 16-0. He is 4-0 as the Alabama signal caller.

5. Julio got his touchdown. A few statisticians with too much time on their hands observed this week that wide receiver Julio Jones had not scored a touchdown in 11 games, dating back to last season. Gary Danielson, the CBS television color analyst, observed this immediately before Alabama executed a gadget play from the "Wildcat" formation, snapping the ball to Mark Ingram, who handed off to Terry Grant, who flipped it back to Greg McElroy, who threw it to a wide open Jones. Julio then completed the 50-yard play by breaking free of a tackle and scoring a touchdown.

6. Trent Richardson is a full-grown man. Richardson's 52-yard touchdown run to start the game was a thing of beauty. He broke through at least four tackles before speeding past the secondary and scoring. For anyone who has watched any of his high school highlights, the run looked awfully familiar. He also took an Arkansas safety head on along the left sideline later in the game and knocked him on his tail with a punishing hit, gaining a few extra yards after the play. It's a pleasure to watch him carry the rock.

7. This team enjoys playing the game. You call tell that these guys are having a good time. Every big play, they are jumping, chest-bumping, and slapping each other on the back. McElroy even had a mini celebration after drawing the Hogs offside facing first-and-ten from nearly his own goal line. After watching teams like Ole Miss, USC, Cal, BYU and Miami fall apart in the last two weeks after reading about how good they were, it's nice to see the Tide playing loose and not letting the pressure of being #3 in the country get to them. Credit for that goes to the Nick Saban and the coaching staff.

Review: No. 4 Alabama 53, North Texas 7

2009-09-19T20:49:00.004-05:00

On the first play from scrimmage, Alabama's Greg McElroy fumbled as he went back to pass and turned the ball over to North Texas. Other than that play, Alabama was nearly perfect, scoring two touchdowns in each of the first three quarters and holding North Texas under 200 yards of offense and a late touchdown against the second and third teamers. Shaking off the inconsistency and lack of focus that characterized the first two games, Alabama (3-0, 0-0 SEC) was able to put together a complete game, and give some less experienced players meaningful time on the field, unlike the previous week against FIU.

Alabama is 19-1 all-time against teams in the Sun Belt conference, the lone scourge on that record the loss against Louisiana-Monroe barely two seasons ago. This 'Bama team bears scant resemblance to that one, putting together its largest point total in a game since Dennis Francione's first season (2001). Given USC's upset loss to Washington, the Tide can expect to rise to at least number 3 in both polls on Monday, setting up an important game with an improved Arkansas team to start SEC play next weekend. If the Tide continues to play like they did today, this season could be something special.

My Seven Points:

1. How in the world did Greg McElroy ever sit on the bench behind John Parker Wilson? Sure, Wilson ended his career as Alabama's statistical leader in passing, but savvy 'Bama fans realize that Wilson's inconsistency and poor decision-making cost the Tide as many victories as he brought on his own. McElroy on the other hand, after a shaky first half against Virginia Tech, has been almost as efficicient as it is possible to be. McElroy finished 13 of 15 with 176 yards and two TDs (he had another one rushing) and his touchdown pass to Marquis Maze was a thing of beauty - the kind of pass Wilson could never seem to complete. Most important though, McElroy mastered the offense to such an extent that backup QB Star Jackson played the majority of the second half, after the Tide amassed 37 points.

2. Who would have thought that 'Bama could go two games without Julio Jones and hardly notice? Jones (WR) and Roy Upchurch (RB) sat for the game, although Jones could probably have played. Interestingly enough, Alabama didn't need him. McElroy continued to find McCoy, Hanks, and Peek as well as Ingram out of the backfield. Jones is a special player, but it's really nice to see these other guys stepping up their games in his absence.

3. Mark Ingram's dark horse Heisman candidacy is a fading memory. Not that Ingram couldn't carry the load if he had to, but he doesn't have to. Ingram had 91 yards rushing and a TD on eight carries, but Trent Richardson had 87 yards and Terry Grant had 79 and two TDs. Even without Upchurch, 'Bama has more running back depth and talent at one time since probably the mid-eighties, when Bobby Humphrey, Kerry Goode and Gene Jelks all wore crimson.

4. Kickoff coverage was better, but not perfect. While the Tide didn't give up a score this week, and there were no long returns that held up, North Texas did get a return of nearly seventy yards called back on a penalty. This is a weak spot that must be corrected if Alabama wants to make a championship run.

5. Javier Arenas. What else can you say about one of the best return men in the country? Arenas set up three scores with punt returns of 33 and 36 yards and a kick return of 61, and fought through one hit and tackle after another. Then, of course, he goes on to provide smothering coverage in the defensive secondary.

6. PATs are not optional. Leigh Tiffin continued to display some inconsistency, missing two extra points. Over his career, Tiffin has shown an ability to hit long, clutch kicks, but then miss what could be considered easy, much shorter ones. Against SEC competition, 'Bama cannot leave points on the field.

7. Offensive and defensive productivity are remarkably consistent. Alabama had 523 yards of offense against North Texas (516 against FIU, 498 against Va. Tech) for a 512 yards per game average. The Tide offense was again very balanced between rushing (260 yards) and passing (263 yards). The offense averages 268 ypg rushing and 245 ypg passing. Defensively, 'Bama held North Texas below 100 yards rushing (61 yds), as it did FIU (1 yard) and Va. Tech (64). The defense allowed 187 total yards to the Mean Green, slightly above its 185 ypg average.

Review: No. 4 Alabama 40, Florida International 14

2009-09-12T22:43:00.006-05:00

Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban harangued the media in his press conference this week for questioning him about a "letdown" this week after last Saturday's victory over then seventh-ranked Virginia Tech. Well, surprise, surprise! There might have been a little bit of a letdown.

To be fair, unlike last year, when 'Bama followed up the season-opening win over a top-ten Clemson team with a sub-par performance against Tulane, 'Bama's offense appeared to be firing on nearly all cylinders for most of the night. Quarterback Greg McElroy was on fire in the first half, hitting nearly every pass early on and completing 14 in a row - a new school record. He finished 18 of 24 for 241 yards and a TD. Despite sparing play from star wideout Julio Jones (who hurt his knee early in the game) and running back Mark Ingram (who had been hospitalized for the flu earlier this week), the Tide moved the ball up and down the field, although the team had to settle for short field goals from Leigh Tiffin instead of touchdowns on two occasions and missed a third.

In this game, however, the Tide gave up another kickoff return for a touchdown, and then allowed FIU to drive the field and score on a second quarter pass that put the Golden Panthers up 14-13 briefly. FIU's pass-happy offense was somewhat effective, at least until halftime.

Here are my seven points:

1. This year's team appears to be the polar opposite of last year's. The M.O. of the 2008 Tide was to hammer you with the running game, clobber you early and hold on to win. They went to the LSU game before they even trailed anyone. The 2009 Tide starts slow but is much more balanced on offense (averaging 271.5 yards rushing and 235.5 passing), and has destroyed its first two opponents in the fourth quarter, outscoring them 32-7.

2. 'Bama has talent at wide receiver. With Julio out, Mike McCoy stepped up his game, catching 5 passes for 100 yards and a touchdown. But McElroy spread the ball around to a number of wide open receivers, and completed 75% of them.

3. Trent Richardson is going to be special. It wasn't as amazing a debut as Shaun Alexander's breakout game against LSU in 1996, but in Richardson's first significant work, he had 118 yards on 15 carries and two TDs.

4. Congrats to Terry Grant. The fact that Terry Grant was once the starting running back for Alabama may say more about the level of talent under Saban compared to that under Mike Shula. But Grant, who is fourth or fifth on the depth chart now as a senior got a carry in relief and made the most of it, scrambling 42 yards for a touchdown in the final quarter. He has worked hard for four years while seeing less and less playing time, so I'm glad he got a little taste of the glory tonight.

5. McElroy is gaining confidence. After a shaky start, McElroy is 27-36 passing in the last six quarters of play. That's a 75% average, which seems about 25% better than John Parker Wilson averaged.

6. This is probably the last pay-per-view game until November. Given that the SEC Network picked up next week's matchup with North Texas, and the fact that the Tide will begin the meat of the schedule the following week, the next questionable television game is against Chattanooga on the next-to-last week of the regular season.

7. On a crazy second week of college football, a 26-point win is acceptable. The Tide may have underperformed as a 33-point favorite, but considering the upsets suffered today by Oklahoma State, Notre Dame, Tennessee and Michigan State - and near misses for Georgia, Florida State and Missouri - 40-14 doesn't seem so bad.

Review: No. 5 Alabama 34, No. 7 Virginia Tech 24

2009-09-05T23:03:00.004-05:00

For three quarters, the seventh-ranked Hokies stood toe-to-toe with #5 Alabama and actually led them 17-16. Virginia Tech had taken advantage of numerous mistakes by the Tide - fumbles, blown kickoff return coverage, penalties - and made them count on the scoreboard. But, much like Alabama versus Florida in the SEC Championship last year, the best team asserted itself in the final quarter.

'Bama began to gel as an offensive unit tonight, and showed signs of dominance in the running game against a stingy Virginia Tech defense. By the end, Mark Ingram had 150 yards rushing, the Tide had nearly 500 yards of offense, and Alabama walked away from the Georgia Dome a winner again over the Hokies.

So what did we learn tonight?

1. Greg McElroy can make plays when he has to. McElroy started shakily, beginning 2 for 8 in the first half. By the end, however, he was back at 50% (15 of 30) and had made perhaps the most important play in the game - a 48-yard bomb to Marquis Maze that set up the go-ahead touchdown.

2. Alabama's defense is as good as advertised. The Hokies were held to 155 total yards of offense, and 'Bama's defense really dominated the game more than the score indicated.

3. Tyrod Taylor may be ready to be a passer, but it didn't show tonight. Taylor did not make any significant plays in the passing game and finished 9 of 20 for 91 yards.

4. There are other 'Bama receivers besides Julio Jones. Jones was double-teamed most of the game, but Maze and Darius Hanks made several big plays. And most gratifying to Tide fans, several big catches were made by the tight end, Colin Peek.

5. The "Wildcat" appears to be a significant part of the Tide offense. Ingram received several direct snaps in the Wildcat formation, and Upchurch even got in on the action. The results were mixed, but the Tide ran it often enough that it looks to be more than just a passing fancy.

6. Virginia Tech may contend for a title, but it won't be a national title. The Hokies are good in two phases of the game - defense and special teams - but the offense was lethargic. The one bright spot was running back Ryan Williams, whose TD run in the fourth quarter was something special.

7. Bama likely will be undefeated through October. There isn't another significant challenge to the Tide until they travel to Ole Miss on Oct. 10, and, after Oklahoma's upset defeat today, Alabama should be be ranked no lower than 4th in the country by then.

Blast from the Past

2009-08-28T22:32:00.003-05:00

I got an update on FaceBook a day or two ago that the Tallassee High football games were going to be streamed live on the internet by the local radio station. Pretty sophisticated, I thought - not like the Tallassee I remembered at all. I missed the game broadcast watching TV with the kids, but tuned in to the audio stream afterwards for a little bit of the postgame show. I also watched a part of a video on the web site. I was struck by something really odd.

I've been back to Tallassee many times since I left for college - I went back "home" for many weekends and breaks from school. Even when my brother and sister graduated and my parents moved (briefly) to Ohio, I still went to Tallassee every once in while for a wedding or funeral or to visit relatives who, ironically, moved there after I left. But from the summer of 1992 onward, Tuscaloosa gradually replaced Tallassee as my home, and the friendships and memories that I have from those days have largely faded over time. So what was odd about tonight?

First, in the snippet of video I watched, I saw five or six people who I knew from high school all hanging out together and having a good time. Then on the audio stream of the postgame show I heard other familiar names and voices, both in the studio and on the phone. The hosts were asking callers to answer a trivia question, and the names of coaches I remembered from years back - some still around and some who have passed on - were mentioned. And I thought about the two types of people I knew from those days. First, there were those, like me, who couldn't wait to leave town after we graduated. Maybe some thought they were bigger or wanted more than small-town life. A few probably wanted to escape memories, or who they were back there. Leaving allowed them to start over. Some appreciated the opportunity to be nurtured in a warm, close-knit community, but needed to spread their wings toward new horizons. Some were transplants to begin with, and never really felt like they fit in. Whatever the reason, many former classmates and Tallasseeans have moved on without looking back.

But there was another type of person. Many of these grew up in Tallassee - maybe their parents and grandparents did too. They enjoyed the small-town life and the close-knit community. And for whatever reason, they stayed. Some even went off to college and came back to make their life there. Tallassee will always be home to them.

I used to think this type of person - the kind who either grew up and never left or left briefly and came back - as inferior in a way. "Why would you want to live in Tallassee the rest of your life?" As I've gotten older and become a parent, I've begun to see the inherent value in a place where a kid could ride his bicycle to the library or play in someone else's field without fear; where our neighbors didn't even lock their doors when they went out; where life was slow and simple, even if it wasn't always easy.

This phenomenon of course isn't limited to my hometown. Everyone has a similar story - "I couldn't wait to leave" or "I wanted to live the rest of my life there." I have never regretted leaving my former hometown. Ours was always a love-hate relationship. But for a little while tonight I did find myself wondering what might have made that group of old friends live out their lives there, and, I admit, pondered wistfully what might have been.

Ten Predictions for the 2009 SEC Football Season

2009-08-20T07:29:00.002-05:00

1. Ole Miss will be good this year, and perhaps beat a team they shouldn't, but they will not go to the SEC Championship Game.
2. Vanderbilt will return to a bowl game.
3. Of the three teams with a new coach (Auburn, Mississippi State and Tennessee), State will be the one that performs better than expected.
4. Les Miles (LSU) will be on the coaching hot seat by the end of the year.
5. Florida will beat Tennessee by at least 35 points.
6. Alabama will win the SEC West.
7. Florida will win the SEC East.
8. Florida will win the SEC.
9. Tim Tebow will win the Heisman Trophy.
10. The national champion will come from outside the SEC this year.

Arrrrggghhh! Painting!!

2009-08-12T11:10:00.001-05:00

Painting the den this week. You'd think with all the practice I've had at this now I'd be better at it. Guess not.

Alabama Bloggers column

2009-08-04T15:35:00.001-05:00

So, I may write a column covering Alabama football games for Alabama Bloggers. We'll see if that comes to fruition.

Man, I can't wait until football season...

2009-06-30T15:03:00.003-05:00

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9955RMO0&show_article=1

Three characters

2007-04-27T16:10:00.000-05:00

LJ tagged me for a meme. While this wouldn't normally compel me to blog, I will humor her just this once.

Name three characters (from books)...

1. You wish were real so you could meet them.
Aslan, from the Chronicles of Narnia (C.S. Lewis). Lions have always been my favorite animal anyway, and meeting Aslan would be wonderful and terrifying at the same time.

Gandalf, from The Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkein). Gandalf always intrigued me - he seems to know and understand more about what's happening in the story than almost anyone, as if he has insight into what's going to happen. Yet he has his blind spots as well, which make him rather more endearing. Frodo is a little too helpless; Aragorn, nearly inscrutable; and Sam, just a bit too one-dimensional. Gandalf is my favorite character from LOTR, and one it would be interesting to know.

John Clark, from the Jack Ryan novels (Tom Clancy). Clark is a mysterious and deadly CIA operative who is a patriot with his own moral code. He is completely loyal to his friends and his enemies? Well, they have a way of meeting their end with extreme prejudice. Don't mess with The Snake.

2. You would like to be.
It's probably not exactly abiding with the rules, but since I have lots of Star Wars books, I'm going to say a Jedi. Who wouldn't want to be able to sense others' thoughts, move objects with your mind, and fight with a lightsaber? "These are not the droids you're looking for."

Calvin, from Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson). That counts as a character from a book, right? Calvin's smart-alecky attitude I have got down pat, but his absolute unwillingness to accept school/chores/girls/or anything else he doesn't like without a fight (usually in vain) I also can identify with. I like his imagination too.

Hmm, this is harder than I thought. Maybe Jack Hawkins in Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson). Although the first part of the book doesn't go too well for him, being left a treasure and pretty much single-handedly rounding up a band of pirates is pretty sweet.

3. Scare You.

Captain Ahab, from Moby-Dick (Herman Melville) scares me, mainly because people with insane obsessions are scary.

I'm reading this series of Star Wars books called Legacy of the Force (only four of the nine books have yet been released). The main character, Jacen Solo, is the son of Han Solo and Leia Organa, and he's been one of my favorite characters over the last 15 years since he was created. He is a very powerful Jedi, but he is turning to the dark side, and he will become a Sith (I know this due to marketing for the books). The scary part is that his master has foretold that he will have to sacrifice (kill) someone precious to him to become a Sith lord. I am dreading who it is going to be. They've already killed off Chewbacca and Jacen's brother Anakin in the last few years, so I have a feeling that they're going with someone pretty important, especially because this storyline with Jacen has been building for several years now.

Mrs. Havisham from Great Expectations (Charles Dickens). That lady was creepy.

In putting together this little bit of nothing, I realized that I don't really read much fiction, or more accurately, I read a very narrow range of fiction. Most of my reading, other than Star Wars books, is history, biography, scientific or political. Now I am presumably supposed to pass this on to other bloggers, but since I don't often read blogs, other than LJ's, I don't guess I will.

This quiz tells me I'm smart...

2007-04-24T22:58:00.001-05:00

You paid attention during 100% of high school!

85-100% You must be an autodidact, because American high schools don't get scores that high! Good show, old chap!

Do you deserve your high school diploma?
Create a Quiz

And although I did have a couple of good teachers in high school, the autodidact comment is on point. Most of the things I know about history, science, religion, politics, art, etc., were self-taught (or at least self-reinforced). Does it make me a better person? No, but it doesn't do much for humility.

24 fever

2007-01-18T15:49:00.000-06:00

LJ and I are addicted to the Fox Television show "24." Interestingly, we don't have cable, satellite or even antenna television, so we have watched every episode through Netflix. This is great because you get the whole season one DVD after another with no commercials. The downside is that while everyone is talking about season 6, we won't have full-season DVDs to watch until (usually) November. Through the wonders of the Internet, however, LJ has met a blog friend who is also a big "24" fan. She has agreed to record the show for us, and two DVDs with the first four episodes (which aired earlier this week) arrived in the mail today!

Jenn, you are my new best friend!

Thursday Thirteen: Movie Lines

2007-01-18T13:25:00.000-06:00

LJ and I are doing complementary themes today. She listed her 13 favorite lines from "Raising Arizona". So, for my Thursday Thirteen I'm going to list the 13 other favorite lines that she left out. There are just too many from this movie.

1. "Hurry't up, I'm in dutch with the wife."
2. "Never leave a man behind!"
3. "No one sleeps naked in this house!"
4. "I love him so much!" "I know you do honey. I know you do."
5. "Darn good cereal flakes you got here, Mrs. McDonough."
6. "Okay, then."
7. "Government do take a bite."
8. "The doctor told us her insides were a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase."
9. "We're set to pop here, honey."
10. "You want to find a man, you call a manhunter. You want to find a Dunkin' Donuts, call a cop."
11. "And when there was no crawdad to be found, we ate sand."
12. "I think I got the best one."
13. "I don't know. Maybe it was Utah."

Florida-Ohio State (BCS National Championship)

2007-01-08T21:19:00.000-06:00

So although we don't have cable, I'm listening to the national championship game on the radio. It's 34-14 Florida at the half. I figured that Ohio State would be much more competitive, given the fact that Auburn beat Florida, and Alabama played Florida even for three quarters (28-13 final). Apparently the SEC really IS that much better than everybody else. I did have a feeling that there might be a little bit of the dynamic that occurred between Miami and Alabama in the 1992 National Championship. So many folks thought Miami was going to kill 'Bama and Miami had been number 1 all year, while Alabama sort of came out of nowhere. It seemed that Ohio State had that kind of deal going, although you should hear all the radio guys acting like they knew Florida was going to win all along. Puh-lease!

What would you do?

2007-01-05T07:27:00.000-06:00

Let me draw you a picture.

Suppose you had a high-pressure, high-paying job at Company A. You took the job a couple of years ago, thinking it was your dream job. As it turns out, you really liked the place you worked previously better. You and your wife are both unhappy, and wish that you had never left your old position. Then one day Company B, a company very similar to the one you used to work for, comes calling. You aren't sure about this new company - you are quite familiar with them and know that they've had high turnover in the past. However, you think you might enjoy working there in a way that you don't enjoy your current job, so you entertain the idea.

The next day, you're at lunch with your boss at Company A. An acquaintance comes up to your table. You aren't really friendly with this person, but you know that he knows many of your friends and talks to them often. He comes out right in front of your bos and blurts out, "I hear you're considering a new job at company B." How do you respond?

a) Say "Yes, as a matter of fact I am." This would be the truth. However, this would ruin your relationship with your boss, putting you in jeopardy when you aren't at all sure about whether you will take the job at Company B.

b) Say "No comment." This seems like a safe answer, but at the very least, your boss will suspect that you are looking for other jobs. Your boss has a reputation as a cutthroat businessman, and this alone might induce him to begin looking for your replacement.

c) Say "No, that's not true." Obviously this is a false statement. You don't know where this acquaintance got that information and you can be pretty sure that your friends will feel betrayed if it turns out that you DO take the job at Company B. But you don't want to burn bridges at Company A should it turn out that the opportunity at Company B isn't the one you're looking for.

Can you honestly say you wouldn't choose option C? Assume further that this acquaintance won't let it go, but insists that he has heard you were looking strongly at Company B, that you are at the top of their list, and that he wants you to look him in the eye and tell him that you will never consider a job at Company B. Now what do you do?

I wish that all the folks in the Miami media and ESPN would put themselves in Nick Saban's position before calling him a liar when he was put in a difficult situation where they likely would have done the same thing. I'm convinced that most of the media is offended not because Saban was disingenuous (although in all honesty it's likely that none of them believed him anyway), but because he dared to be disingenuous with them. What a bunch of hypocrites.

That being said, I am excited about Saban at Alabama. I didn't hate Mike Shula, but he proved himself insufficient to the task of leading this team. It's unfortunate that all the folks who cry about giving Shula more time either ignored or were unaware of the discipline issues that led to the disintegration of this team. Shula expected the players to act like professionals rather than the immature 18-22 year olds they are. And as he demonstrated in every facet of his tenure at Alabama, he was unable or unwilling to adjust when circumstances dictated that he do so. What this program needs more than anything right now is a leader. Saban will be that leader. Mike Shula never was.

Where I been

2006-12-11T16:38:00.000-06:00

create your own personalized map of the USA
or check out ourCalifornia travel guide

Humor Test

2006-11-21T20:22:00.001-06:00

the Wit

(57% dark, 38% spontaneous, 36% vulgar)

your humor style:
CLEAN COMPLEX DARK

You like things edgy, subtle, and smart. I guess that means you're probably an intellectual, but don't take that to mean pretentious. You realize 'dumb' can be witty--after all isn't that the Simpsons' philosophy?--but rudeness for its own sake, 'gross-out' humor and most other things found in a fraternity leave you totally flat.

I guess you just have a more cerebral approach than most. You have the perfect mindset for a joke writer or staff writer.

Your sense of humor takes the most thought to appreciate, but it's also the best, in my opinion.

You probably loved the Office. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check it out here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/theoffice/.

PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Jon Stewart - Woody Allen - Ricky Gervais

The 3-Variable Funny Test!
- it rules -

If you're interested, try my best friend's best test: The Genghis Khan Genetic Fitness Masterpiece

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 61% on darkness

You scored higher than 28% on spontaneity

You scored higher than 46% on vulgarity
Link: The 3 Variable Funny Test written by jason_bateman on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Mike Shula Watch

2006-11-20T18:50:00.000-06:00

It sounds like he might be gone.

My Favorite Albums - Number 2

2006-11-06T16:30:00.000-06:00

Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti (1975)

Physical Graffiti, a double album that appeared in the middle of Zeppelin's career, is arguably their best (supporters of Led Zeppelin II and the untitled fourth album are excused). Featuring some of their longest and most sonically dense tracks, Graffiti features several of the best Zep songs of all time ("Kashmir", "Custard Pie", "Trampled Underfoot", "In the Light"), but several underrated numbers like "In My Time of Dying", "Ten Years Gone" and "Night Flight". One of the best-selling musical acts of all time, Led Zeppelin did it without singles (they released only two) or much radio airplay at the time. If you had never heard any other music by them, listening to this album would show you why.

What a day!

2006-10-26T18:36:00.000-05:00

I think almost every system we have went down today in some form. We had a motherboard die in a domain controller last night, and Doug and the technician replaced it, but the time for the server was set to PM not AM (it was after one in the morning). Turns out the domain controller was the time server for the network. When we changed it back to AM this morning, everything went haywire. Terminal servers stopped working, the e-mail cluster crashed, accounting systems inaccessible, web portals locked up, backup jobs failed - it was a mess. I got several of the more minor problems resolved, but Doug has been on the phone with tech support for over eight hours trying to resolve the e-mail problem. It's nasty stuff.

LJ just IM'ed me and asked me how the day has been. I told her that it's been terrible. She asked if I had gotten everything fixed, and I said yes, except for the e-mail, and she said, "why isn't that a good day?" I told her that in IT, a good day is when nothing unexpected happens. Sure it's challenging to solve problems, and rewarding to fix a system that lesser mortals would have given up for dead, but most IT folks (at least the ones I know) would rather have things peaceful and boring.

Well, looks like Doug's making progress. Talk to you later.

Christmas album reviews

2006-10-24T17:35:00.000-05:00

Is it too early to start talking about Christmas? I realize that the Halloween "holiday" doesn't even take place until next week, but as we have not really spent any time focusing on or talking to the kids about Halloween, I keep thinking it has already passed. My Halloween plans typically revolve around not going to the office costume party and trying to figure out how not to be at home for the trick-or-treaters.

Anyway, every year I typically buy one or more new Christmas CDs. I call it a tradition, but the only one who really pays any attention to the tradition is me, so that's probably a stretch. The last month or so, I have gotten several e-mails from Third Day regarding their new Christmas album, Christmas Offerings. As I have stated before, Third Day is one of the few Christian groups that I listen to with any frequency, and since the other two albums in the "Offerings" series have been pretty good, I was looking forward to this one. I bought it online when it was released. I also saw a new James Taylor Christmas CD at Wal*Mart the other day and picked it up on a whim. This one is titled, very originally, James Taylor at Christmas.

I listened to the Third Day CD in the van for the first time last week, and I have to say I was disappointed. I generally expect Third Day to do some interesting things on several of the songs on any particular album, and to put together a real gem or two. The original Offerings album begins with "King of Glory," which is one of my all-time favorite songs. It rocks, it quotes directly from the Bible, and it builds from this low-key guitar and vocal piece to a powerful full-throated band and choir number that can bring tears to your eyes if you're not careful. Even Offerings II: All I Have to Give features a few rousing numbers like "Sing a Song," although overall it is inferior to the first. The source of my let-down on the Christmas album is that I expected at least a couple of tunes that Third Day really put their stamp on, maybe even a couple of rockers. The best song on the album is probably "Do You Hear What I Hear?" which is just a live version of a song that they did for one of those in-store promotional Christian CDs that we already had anyway. The sad thing about it is that every one of the tracks could have been done by just about anyone - nothing terrible, but just 'blah.' There are a few original songs scattered amongst the traditional ones, and while they are slightly more interesting musically, in my opinion they are all lyrically weak. Without Mac Powell's distinct voice, well, I'd probably never listen to it again.

So before I bought the JT album, I had this musical washout on my hands. I picked up the James Taylor disc mainly because his Greatest Hits CD is a perennial favorite of ours, and I know he still has the voice. This album, which turns out to be a re-packaging of a Hallmark exclusive album released in 2004, nevertheless turned out to be a surprise. The arrangements of the traditional songs are jazzy and interesting, and as I said before, JT still has the voice. I remember LJ coming into the room while I was listening to it and asking "Is that 'Jingle Bells'?" She wasn't sure, because it sounded different - i.e., not like every other version of "Jingle Bells" ever recorded. I mean, once you've heard Bing Crosby sing "White Christmas," is there ever a need to hear anyone else attempt it? Negatory, good buddy. Aside from "Baby, It's Cold Outside," which I got tired of years ago (no offense to JT or Natalie Cole) this is an album I can tell that I'm going to listen to again and again for years to come.

YEEEESSSSSS!

2006-10-24T17:32:00.000-05:00

I have finally established my ownership of all things Oracle and have completed the never-ending Oracle project. I resolved the final outstanding issue with the poll, and everything is working at least as well as it did before I ran the upgrade. You don't have to know what this means to celebrate with me. Whoo-hoo!

Laundry time

2006-10-20T21:58:00.000-05:00

I don't usually do a whole lot to keep the house clean (just ask LJ!). I have allergies to dust and mold and other things, and vacuuming or dusting just knocks me over. I hate washing dishes, partly because it's just nasty, but mostly because I am almost 6' 5", and I have to bend over the sink to do it and it makes my back hurt. So pretty much the only household task I don't mind doing is laundry. Since I was home today and didn't have anything I needed to do, I have been washing clothes all day, and I do mean all day. I think I have washed somewhere between 12-15 loads so far, and I still have at least three left.

Usually we don't have quite this much laundry, and LJ hasn't even been falling down on the job. We recently bought some winter clothes for HannahBanana and BenjiBoy. We also got last year's clothes down from the attic and closets and cleaned them for NoahKrakatoa and AbsCadabs. I just had a birthday, so there are some clothes from that. Plus, LJ got a bag of shirts from an aunt that she couldn't wear any more. Add it all up and you get a $90 water bill.

You know, while we were shopping for the kids, I looked around at dresses. For a seven-year-old and a three-year-old, there were dresses that were $60 and $70 and up. I guess that's a drop in the bucket for some people, but I'll bet there's not an article of clothing in my whole wardrobe that I spent $70 or more on. I just don't see the point of spending that much on an outfit that they are going to wear just one season. And we at least have the advantage of using everything twice!

The other thing that really aggravates me is the clothing for girls. Once you get past about two or three, the choices for girls are pretty slim. I don't mean that you can't find clothing, because there is obviously tons of it. But we have had a hard time finding clothing that is appropriate for a seven-year-old to wear that makes her look like a girl and not a hooker. We finally gave up on finding her a pair of jeans that fit modestly. I don't necessarily want her to look like she's Mennonite or anything, but you would think that there would be a few choices for people who don't want their daughters to dress like Eva Longoria. Is that too much to ask?

Well, back to work for me. Now I have to go fold 12-15 loads of laundry!

EC Concert

2006-10-17T17:17:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow night LJ and I are going to hear Eric Clapton in concert in Birmingham. Two other folks from the IT department are going, so that should be pretty cool. I'm really looking forward to it. Mom and Dad are keeping the young'uns for us, and I'm taking the rest of the week off from work (icing on the cake). This will be the third time I've seen EC in concert. My brother and I went to see him in Birmingham in 1992, when concert tickets could still be had for under $30. LJ and I saw him for our anniversary in 2001 at the Pyramid in Memphis, which was a rocking show. Robert Cray is opening for him, and I'm excited about hearing him too. Should be fun!

I always enjoy talking with folks about concerts that they have attended in their lives, especially if they have seen a few. Here are some concert highlights and lowlights from my past:

Best Performance - James Taylor, Coleman Coliseum, Tuscaloosa, AL
Best Opening Act - Taj Mahal (opening for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers), Coleman Coliseum, Tuscaloosa, AL
Best Venue - Alabama Theatre, Birmingham, AL (Bob Dylan)
Most Sentimental Show - John Denver, BJCC Concert Hall, Birmingham, AL (just months before he died)
Best Song in Concert - "River of Tears" - Eric Clapton, The Pyramid, Memphis, TN
Worst Concert - Reba McEntire, BJCC Arena, Birmingham, AL
Most Pot Smokers - Dave Matthews Band, Oak Mountain Amphitheatre, Pelham, AL
Best Christian Concert - Third Day and Michael W. Smith, BJCC Arena, Birmingham, AL
Biggest Letdown - Ray Charles, City Stages, Birmingham, AL (only played for 30 minutes)
Biggest Surprise - Kool and the Gang, City Stages, Birmingham, AL
Closest to Stage (Whole Concert) - Tie: Taj Mahal, City Stages, Birmingham, AL; B.B. King, CityFest, Tuscaloosa, AL
Closest to Stage (End of Concert) - Bob Dylan, Alabama Theatre, Birmingham, AL
Farthest from Stage - Bonnie Raitt, City Stages, Birmingham, AL
Most Singalong-Friendly Show - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Coleman Coliseum, Tuscaloosa, AL
Most Enjoyable Show - Chris Isaak, City Stages, Birmingham, AL

Hope you enjoyed sharing some of my concert memories. Now, share some of yours!

Thirty-Three

2006-10-12T15:41:00.000-05:00

Today is my birthday. I turned 33 years old this morning at 7:55 CDT. Now one doesn't usually think of 33 as a milestone birthday, but I have thought about it as such ever since I realized as a child that Jesus was 30 when he began his ministry and (most likely) 33 when he was crucified (based on the number of Passovers mentioned in the gospels). I remember when my parents turned 33 thinking about the fact that they were the same age as Jesus when he had completed his ministry on earth, and now I am as well.

Now if you consider it, that's pretty profound. Jesus had spoken and accomplished everything that he was to do on this earth (until his return) in 33 years, more or less.

Then I look at my life. Have I accomplished everything (or anything) that God has planned for me? Well, that's a question that I'm not sure I can answer. Only God knows what he has ordained for my future. But as I reflect on my life, there are some things for which I am grateful - an intelligent, funny, beautiful wife; four fantastic children; a loving, supportive extended family; a good job, doing work I enjoy; a home in a nice, safe neighborhood; and most of all, a Savior who loves me in spite of who I am. Not bad for 33.

World leader quiz

2006-10-09T22:09:00.000-05:00

Leslie took this world leader quiz last week and her result was that she was Abe Lincoln. So she was very enthusiastic about having me take the same quiz. I came out as Saddam Hussein. The money quote was "People who don't like you better like chemical weapons." I'll admit that gave me a good long laugh. Hey, who says that evil dictators can't laugh at themselves?

Well, that was something!

2006-10-09T21:29:00.000-05:00

When I told you all that it might be a while before I updated again, I had no idea how long it would really be. My Oracle upgrade did not go as planned, and we never made it to Charlotte last week. I thought about sharing the whole ordeal with you, but suffice to say I worked over 52 hours on the upgrade last week, including a 36-hour stretch without sleep, not counting eight hours of travel time to and from the ATL. So I didn't have much time or clarity of thought to blog last week.

Of course, all that is old news and this week we're on to fresh challenges. My boss has asked me to come up with a vision statement for my group, and informed me today that we are going to do things differently next year. I think my response was about five seconds of silence, followed by, "Okay."

That reminds me of a story that we like to tell about Microsoft. Several years ago, we were audited by Microsoft and they asked us to document all of our software licensing. Long story short, we ended up spending lots of money on software, including purchasing their brand new Software Assurance on much of our server software. Three years later, we were visited by Microsoft reps again, this time selling us on the benefits of continuing our SA contracts. My boss and I had talked prior to their visit about how we had spent so much money on SA for all of our SQL Servers, and that since Microsoft had not delivered on their promised upgrade to SQL Server during those three years, we were going to confront the Microsoft guys about it and see what they had to say for themselves. The conversation went something like this:

Us - "You know, we bought Software Assurance for our SQL Servers because it was a better deal than relicensing every one of them, provided that there was a new version of SQL Server."
MS - "Okay."
Us - "So it's really a ripoff to have paid 60% on top of the software cost to get an upgrade that was never delivered."
MS - "Okay."
Us - "Now you're asking us to re-up for SA, and we can't see why it's a good investment, given the fact that we haven't seen any new versions of any of the software for which we purchased SA in the first place."
MS - "Okay."

Every time we made a statement about how we felt abused and misused by their licensing extortion, they acknowledged that we had spoken without admitting they had done anything wrong, or even attempting to make a case for SA. It was really mind blowing, and yet funny at the same time. So now every time someone says something to me for which I have no response, my response is "Okay." Don't tell me that Microsoft is good for nothing!

So anyway, my boss explained further that I shouldn't worry and it was going to be good for everyone. I have no idea what that means. And the cynic in me is already struggling with the whole vision statement assignment. But, I'm going to do my best to try to synopsize our goals in a short, visionary fashion.

The second week begins

2006-10-02T17:15:00.000-05:00

So I'm on my second week now of business traveling. This time I am in Atlanta again for a day or two, then on to Charlotte, NC for a couple of days. In Atlanta, I'm finally performing my 28-step procedure for the Oracle upgrade from 8.1.7.4 to 10.2.0.2. After many false starts, I eventually performed it successfully three times on the test and development environments, so I am hopeful that this will go smoothly in production. Chris, Doug and I are all up here at the co-lo to work on the upgrade. Chris is observing me, since he will eventually take over the Oracle support duties as DBA. Doug is here to test the mail and application after the upgrade is complete, and he's going on with me to Charlotte to install a server up there.

Anyway, I may or may not have time to blog since we're doing a lot of driving, but I'll try to keep you posted on how things are going. Pray for a safe and successful trip!

This should scare you...

2006-09-29T08:41:00.000-05:00

The UK Telegraph reported this week that China has been attacking U.S. surveillance satellites with lasers in attempts to disable them while they pass over China. If this had been the Soviets, we'd be at Defcon 2 by now.

SEE ARTICLE HERE:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/09/26/wchina226.xml

South Carolina loses a close one

2006-09-28T22:03:00.000-05:00

Well, I just got through watching the Auburn-South Carolina football game, and the Barn won 24-17, with USC missing out on a tying touchdown on the last fourth down of the game. I had no thought that South Carolina would be able to stay with Auburn, but they made it interesting up until the very end. Their quarterback, Syvelle Newton, is a player. He single-handedly kept them in the game.

On top of going for it (successfully, no less) on several fourth downs, the biggest difference between Tommy Tuberville and Alabama head coach Mike Shula was there for everyone to see in the third quarter. The Barn is leading by 4 at the half, and drives down the field in 17 plays to finally kick a field goal and take a seven-point lead. So what does Wingnut do? He goes for the jugular. Onside kick, drive down the field, and score the touchdown. South Carolina did not touch the ball for the entire third quarter. Twenty-nine straight offensive plays.

Even so, USC didn't give up. Newton actually threw the tying touchdown pass, but his freshman wide receiver dropped it. South Carolina still gained one more first down, but couldn't pull it out. Unfortunately, since Alabama is likely to get blown out this Saturday by #5 Florida, this looks like a long weekend ahead.

Weird things to eat

2006-09-27T21:28:00.000-05:00

Have you ever wondered how we as human beings ever got into eating the things we do? I find it fascinating to think about how people discovered that certain fish or animals or plants were good to eat (or not), and even more so, how people have come up with thousands of different ways to mix ingredients in pleasing combinations.

One of the great things about being in a big city this week is that there are literally hundreds of places close to the hotel to eat, and we have been to Italian, Thai, Caribbean, and Mexican, just to name a few. Tonight though, I tried something new - escargot au fromage. Yes, snails. Well, just one snail. It was interesting. Not exactly what I expected. It wasn't particularly tasty, in my opinion, but it wasn't slimy or particularly odd in texture. It was sort of like a mushroom, but the taste was just different. And yes, I think it is the weirdest thing I have ever eaten, although calamari is a close second. I followed it up shortly afterward with a filet mignon, just to be safe.

So what's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten?

Monday Night Football

2006-09-25T20:03:00.000-05:00

So, I'm sitting here in the hotel room in watching MNF on ESPN. Now, I don't often get to watch football any more, so this is the first pro game I've seen from the beginning in a while. Tonight is a "special" night because the New Orleans Saints are playing Atlanta in the first game at the Louisiana Superdome since Hurricane Katrina. Now, I know that's a big deal for New Orleans, and it's a big deal, I guess, for the NFL. But the hyperbole from everyone associated with this broadcast is just unbelievable. If I hear one more thing about how "what was once a scene of devastation is now a scene of celebration," I'm going to vomit. The pre-game show included U2 and Green Day, and the hype is almost the equivalent of a Super Bowl. I mean, did either of these teams even make the playoffs last year? It's just a football game people. Quit acting like it's more significant than that.

Now, as a football fan, I want to give props to Roman Harper, former Crimson Tider and rookie starting cornerback for the Saints. Halfway through the first quarter, he's already made two noteworthy plays, including breaking up what would have been a touchdown pass. Good job, Roman!

SQL Server 2005 training

2006-09-25T15:55:00.000-05:00

I am in Atlanta this week, attending SQL Server 2005 administration training. This is the first training that I have been to since I've been at Randall-Reilly Publishing that relates to something I use every day. That's a good thing. So far the class (through Global Knowledge) has been pretty good, which is to say that the instructor is knowledgable and isn't just a slide reader.

Atlanta is close to four hours away from my home, so it's going to be a long week (without the wife and kids)! Then next week, I'm going to be in Atlanta and Charlotte for two different projects. And in between, Alabama is going to get shallacked by Florida down in Gainesville. :(

Christian Carnival CXL is up

2006-09-20T09:55:00.000-05:00

LJ is hosting the Christian Carnival this week over at Lux Venit. Y'all go give her a shout out.

My Favorite Albums - Number 3

2006-09-19T21:33:00.000-05:00

The Beatles (aka "The White Album") - The Beatles (1968)

As my favorite musical artists, it was easy to predict that the Beatles would make it on to my list of top ten albums, and they do. Twice. For the only artists to have sold over 1 billion records worldwide, this should come as no surprise. However, what is amazing is that hardly any of the Beatles' record 20 number one singles is even on an album. In the days that the Beatles recorded, singles and albums were purposefully kept separate. The catalog of Beatles songs is deep, well over 250 songs, and comprises 12 studio albums, an EP and nearly 30 singles, over a scant eight years from 1962-1970.

The arc of the Beatles' recording career follows three distinct phases. The musical styles are so vastly different in these three phases, that it is often amazing that you are listening to the same group. The first phase, from 1962's Please Please Me to 1964's Beatles For Sale is the poppy, lighthearted music, derivative in many ways from their diverse influences, such as Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and others. The second phase, beginning with 1965's Help and Rubber Soul, and continuing through 1966's Revolver, and 1967's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour, showed the influence of both drugs and Eastern philosophy, and revealed a growing musical depth as well as an amazing penchant for innovation.

By the time of The Beatles, the supergroup was moving into their third phase - the breakup. The band had devolved by this point to recording basically solo songs with the other Beatles as side men. Many of the compositions on this double album were written during the group's infamous "vacation" in India with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and the album is almost jarringly different than those of the previous year. Gone are the multiple session musicians and orchestral arrangements. Instead, the cuts run the gamut from hard rock ("Helter Skelter" and "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey") to acoustic guitar ballads ("Julia" and "Mother Nature's Son"). There is a lullaby ("Good Night"); a tongue-in-cheek homage to the Beach Boys ("Back in the USSR"); a pastiche of sound clips, backward loops and nonsense ("Revolution 9"); an listed "hidden" song (we'll call it "Can You Take me Back?"); a first-ever solo composition by Ringo ("Don't Pass Me By"), and an old-West saloon number ("Rocky Raccoon"). Eric Clapton even contributed an uncredited guitar solo on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." In all, there are 30 songs (31 if you count the unlisted track), in almost every style imaginable. Even the album cover, with its lack of any photo or even color, was a statement in sharp contrast to the bright, busy cover of Sgt. Pepper.

In a nutshell, the sheer diversity of the album is a large part of the reason I like it so much. You can listen through the over 90 minutes of running time and not run into two songs that sound alike. It is fascinating to me that John, Paul, George and Ringo had the ability to produce so much good music over so short a span of time, and the White Album showcases their broad range of musical gifts. It is definitely worth your time.

The Church as Entertainment Media

2006-09-19T19:04:00.000-05:00

I was in the Ham (that's Birmingham, for all you out-of-staters) today at a BellSouth conference for major customers. The keynote speaker was former FCC chairman Michael Powell (the son of the former SecState/CJCS/General Colin Powell). He gave an engaging and interesting speech, and I even got to ask a question afterwards, although I won't bore you with the details of that. However, there were some things he said that got me thinking.

Powell told a story about his 12-year-old son. He said he told his son that he needed to stop downloading pirated music and start using an online store like iTunes, because it was wrong to "steal" the music. His son responded, "That sucks! Music should be free!" like he was Che Guevera, fighting the Man, and he stormed off. Sometime later Powell got the cell phone bill, which included $35 worth of charges for ring tones that his son had downloaded. Powell asked his son "Che" why it was okay to pay $2.99 for 10 seconds of ringtone music, but not 99 cents for an actual full song. His son's comment was something along the lines of, "You just don't understand." However, Powell thought about it after a while and concluded that the reason that his son, and by extension others of the digital generation, didn't have a problem with this was that music is music, but ringtones are personal. They make a person's cell phone identifiably his, and not someone else's, and he doesn't have a problem spending money for them.

Powell went on to say that the children of the Information Age live in a world where entertainment content, catered to their personal desires, is available virtually on demand. Entertainment media like newspapers and television, that are designed based on a one-size-fits-all model, are failing because they cannot compete with immediately available, personally-tailored content.

This got me to thinking about the seeker-sensitive church movement. Pastors like Rick Warren preach a gospel that is about personal fulfillment and purpose, and their churches are designed to appeal to people who are curious about Christianity but don't want the "churchy" stuff. This is perfectly understandable. But is it right?

I have gone about as far as you possibly can over the last five years or so on this question. About five years ago, LJ and I were members of a relatively large "First Baptist"-type church. The church had six or seven full-time and part-time paid staff members, lots of wonderful people, a fantastic choir, and a well-developed and established children's program. The problem was, the church was effectively as dead as a doornail. Many people were attenders by habit or for appearance's sake. There were few people who were interested in studying the Word or sharing the gospel. When we participated in a sixteen-week visitation program to share the gospel with people who visited the church, we never visited one person who claimed to be unsaved. They were ALL members of other churches. That's not to say that all of them were Christians, but that obviously only people who claimed to be Christians were coming to this church.

That really started to bother me. I had realized that I was not concerned for those who were lost, and I had prayed that God would break my heart and give me a desire to see people come to Christ. When he answered my prayer, I started to become really dissatisfied with the church. At the same time, a couple who had been members there for many years had felt called to plant a church that would be focused on reaching the lost. They asked LJ and me to join them, and after some prayer and thought, we agreed.

The church plant, despite the best intentions, was probably doomed from the start. None of us had any experience planting a church, and almost everyone involved had small children, which meant that nearly all of our efforts had to be focused on ministering to our own kids rather than to those outside the church. What we also realized was that contemporary music and topical preaching, while refreshing for a time, was not very spiritually satisfying. Although we grew close in relationship to each other, we didn't reach very many new people before our plans and dreams fell apart.

Soon afterward, we joined an existing church that was contemporary, and seemed to be really growing. There were lots of young parents and small kids. The preaching was interesting and exciting. The pastor used visual aids and videos, and the music leader looked and sang like Justin Timberlake. It seemed to be a happening place. But after a while, we realized that many of the members there had come there specifically because of the pastor, who had worked at at least six other churches in town. The members were not all that interested in meeting the church's ministry needs, and LJ and I found ourselves running programs there with almost no willing helpers. After just 18 months, we decided to move on.

So now, we have been searching for a church home for more than a year. We have visited 20 different churches, and while we haven't made a decision yet, the place we have been attending lately is a very traditional church, about as far from the church plant we tried to start as is possible. Over the last few years, what LJ and I have been searching for in a church has changed dramatically, and we have come full circle (or at least I have - I'm not sure LJ was ever sold on it) on the seeker-sensitive mentality.

I wholeheartedly agree with Powell that our culture is teaching us that our desires can be met at the push of a button. We can receive voice and data communication 24 hours a day, seven days a week, at almost any place on the globe. We can meet our spouses and order our dinner online. We can shop for anything, anywhere, right from our home computer, and the only limit is how much credit you can convince some company to extend to you. In our consumer culture, is it any wonder that churches are conforming to the a la carte, on-demand model as well?

The problem is that CHURCHES ARE NOT BUSINESSES, and CHRISTIANITY IS NOT ENTERTAINMENT. In the business world, a company's success is based on bottom-line profitability. Many pastors and Christian leaders attempt to base the church's success on bottom-line member numbers. The best way to make those membership rolls grow is to cater to as many desires as possible, right? Meet people's "felt needs?" This is the worst possible solution. In Matthew 23:25, Jesus condemns the Pharisees for their greed and self-indulgence. Is it possible that he has changed his mind? "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." (Luke 9:23 ESV) Is it possible that God's desire for us is not to gratify ourselves, but to glorify Him? How is it that we have gotten things so backwards?

My Favorite Albums - Number 4

2006-09-18T07:38:00.000-05:00

From the Cradle - Eric Clapton (1994)

Eric Clapton's career has followed a long and winding road. From his start with the Yardbirds in 1963 at the tender age of 18, the guitarist went through several bands and reinventions (John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Cream, Blind Faith, Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, and Derek and the Dominos) before striking out as a solo act in the early seventies. Through his entire career, though he explored pop, reggae, rock, jazz, soul, and country, the music that has most influenced and defined him is the blues. Clapton, and others of like mind, have introduced many to music that they would not have otherwise heard, all while pointing back to the originators, like Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Howlin' Wolf, Willie Dixon and Elmore James to name a few as their biggest influences.

Although it may to difficult to believe now, Eric Clapton was thought to have reached the nadir of his creative career in the mid 1980s. While he continued to have commercial success with two Phil Collins-produced albums, he was struggling with alcoholism, and his guitar-playing seemed to be relegated to almost an afterthought. But by the early nineties, Clapton had not only returned to his guitar-hero roots, but achieved amazing success, first with his "comeback" album Journeyman (1989), and then with his 1992 MTV Unplugged appearance, which garnered him six Grammies, as well as his first and only number one song "Tears in Heaven," dedicated to his four-year-old son who died in a freak accident in 1991. By the time that 1994 rolled around, Clapton was on top of the world commercially, and he set out to pay homage to his influences by recording an album consisting entirely of blues covers.

From the Cradle finally served to throw off the over-produced polish that had characterized most of his music from the eighties. The album was recorded live in the studio, with no overdubs, and with Clapton obviously singing and playing his heart out. For those critics that speculated that Clapton could no longer play as he once had, "Five Long Years" alone would put that to rest. It features a biting lyric ("I worked five long years for one woman/She had the nerve to put me out") and incendiary guitar work. Other standouts include "Tore Down," "Someday After A While," and "Groaning the Blues." Clapton is here at the top of his form.

The best-selling blues album of all time, some critics carp that From the Cradle is nothing more than a collection of inferior versions of the originals, but those critics would be missing the point. Clapton isn't trying to outdo the original blues artists, or to somehow improve on their legacy. He is paying tribute to them, and turning in my favorite album of his to date.

Flying high

2006-09-15T15:38:00.000-05:00

LJ's uncle John is a pilot for the police department. This afternoon after I got home from work, we took the kids over to the airport and we all got to take turns flying in the helicopter with John. Well, actually the kids mostly just hovered around the hanger with him, but he took LJ and me on separate trips around the city. It was pretty cool. This would be a good time to show you a cool picture from today, but we left the camera at my parents' house this weekend, so we got video but no snaps.

Anyway, we arrived at the hanger while John was at lunch, so we went with the kids over to the airport park and the kids swinged (swang?) for a while. As John drove past the park in the police truck, we saw us and turned the lights and sirens on to let us know he was back. We then walked over to the hanger and the kids all got in one of the helicopters that was parked there and pretended to fly it, flipping switches and pulling the triggers (the helicopters are all Vietnam-era Army surplus Hueys, and were once armed). Abs pushed a button and the engine tried to start. She scared herself (and us) and removed her finger quickly from the button. After that NoahKrakatoa made sure that she didn't touch it again (he said later that he "fweaked out"). After they played in the helicopter a little bit, we went outside, where John preflighted the helicopter outside and showed me how to strap everyone in and gave me instructions for how to bring the kids back and forth to him.

First up was NoahKrakatoa. I walked out to the helicopter with him and strapped him in, put on the headset, and plugged him in so he could hear John. Then I walked back and John started the engine. Noah looked unsure, very clenched up, and LJ commented to me that out of all the kids, Noah is the one most afraid of heights. I guess I should say that this particular Huey had the front doors removed, so there's nothing between you and the ground other than your seatbelts. Anyway, John brought the engine up slowly and Noah gained confidence, so that when he took off, Noah waved to us. John took him up from the pad and hovered backwards toward the grass between the hanger and Runway 29. Then he turned and hovered around back and forth for a few minutes and brought him back. BenjiBoy went next, then HannahBanana. When I came to get HannahBanana out, I asked John if Abs would be able to go. He wasn't sure how she would do, and he asked what she said. I told him that she wanted to go (she had asked to every time the others went), so he said that we'd give it a try. So Abs strapped in and went and she liked it a lot. Then LJ got her turn, which was probably 10 minutes of flying, and then finally was my turn.

I'm a big, tall guy (we'll leave it at that), so my biggest problem was that the flight controls had to make it past and around my legs. This meant that I had to sit in sort of a cramped position so that the collective and cyclic could make it past my left leg while I made sure that I didn't touch the pedals with my feet (there are live controls on both front seats). This made it a little bit nervewracking, since I felt like I might block a critical movement by accident, but John did a great job. This was the first time any of us had been up in a helicopter, and it was interesting to contrast it with airplane flight. I have been up many times in airliners, and I have flown in a Cessna and an "experimental" kit plane. Flying in the helicopter was much different.

For one, the takeoff and landing was much easier than going up in a plane. Although you feel the power of takeoff, it was a much more gradual transition than in a plane. Landing was much softer as well, and since you are at zero air speed at both times, it feels less dangerous, although I'm pretty sure that isn't the case. But it isn't as scary. In the air, it's a little bit different, although, granted, that could have been because I was totally exposed to the outside, my arm was out the door, and I could look straight down to the ground. But the sensation of flight was different too. I am pretty sure we were going slow enough that we would have been at the lower end of the flight envelope for even a small plane, so you really felt the rises and falls caused by wind, even though it was not windy at all today. I would hate to be in a helicopter in a bad storm (I have been in a plane in a bad one). Somehow the forward momentum of flight in a plane gives me a sensation that even if we hit an up or down draft that we will still be flying forward and that we'll be okay. I could imagine the helicopter getting tossed around quite a bit, although I'm sure John could have taken the speed up significantly had that been necessary. It was neat to see the city from above with the ability to really focus and identify things as you leisurely circle around.

So all in all, it was a lot of fun. Once I got back, NoahKrakatoa was ready to go again, but we will have to save the next ride for later. BenjiBoy and I were talking about it after we got home, and I told him that he got to do something today that billions of people will never have a chance to do. I'm not even sure that I even know anyone else who's ever ridden in a chopper, except for John's family. Cool stuff.

Total War

2006-09-12T21:34:00.000-05:00

I am just looking over the headlines on Drudge, and man, are we living in scary times. Just a couple of examples:

"Iran still refusing to halt enrichment"

"Bush Assassination movie coming to U.S. theaters"

"Syria foils American embassy attack"

"Oliver Stone hints at film tackling 9/11 'conspiracy'"

So it's obvious that while terrorists and the states that support them are still hard at work on their plan to destroy our country and our way of life, the liberal moonbats are hard at work blaming the Bush administration for all the evils in the world. The dichotomy is breathtaking.

I realize that Christians of good faith can hold differing political views. I try hard not to look upon Christians with socially liberal viewpoints as apostates, and there are certainly a lot of things that are distasteful to me about the Bush presidency (although probably not the same things that liberal Democrats have against it). However, this irrational hatred of Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, et al, is starting to become psychopathic. It's amazing to me that people are so blinded by their politics that they cannot see that there is an enemy out there who would just as soon see both sides lying dead in a pool of their own blood. I was heartened after the September 11th attacks to see both sides of the political spectrum come together symbolically to stand against terrorism, but I feared that it would be short-lived. I had no idea it would be like this.

I disagree with the way that the administration has prosecuted the war in both Afghanistan and Iraq, although interestingly enough, the war-fighting part of both wars was initially incredibly successful. Unfortunately, we seem to have become so concerned with convincing everyone that we don't want to stay any longer than we have to that we have relinquished the initiative, and most of the territory, to the enemy. I am a bit of a history buff, and I have just finished Shelby Foote's three-volume, 3000+ page history of the Civil War. As a Southerner, I will be committing a little bit of a sacrilege here, but for the sake of argument, let's compare the South to the Islamist fanatics we are fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Southerners had fewer resources, less people, less land, and less weapons than the North. They had nothing going for them but a fanatical belief in the justice of their cause and their personal honor. However, for a good part of the war, almost every battle was won by the South, and if things had gone slightly differently at Gettysburg, the South could possibly have forced an end to the war.

What are the parallels? Like the anti-war crowd today, there were many in the North who weren't interested in fighting to keep the South in the Union. They frankly didn't think that the Southern states were worth the effort. Many went into the war thinking that it would be over in a matter of months - as a matter of fact, many of the first enlistments only lasted three months, and thousands of Union soldiers left the army without having fought at all. There were many in the North who wanted nothing to do with fighting a war over slavery, thinking that the slaves weren't worth risking white men's blood to free. And of course, there were those who were enthusiastic at first, but who became tired of the seemingly relentless conflict.

So what can we learn from the North's successful prosecution of the war? It is a little-known fact that only one major battle in the Civil War was fought on Union soil, again similar to the current war. When the Union moved over Southern territory, total war was waged. Crops were eaten or burned, houses were burned down, livestock was slaughtered, factories were destroyed, railroads demolished. The ability to live on the land was removed, and the Confederate Army was slowly beaten down by hunger, lack of clothing, and shear hopelessness.

Now one might argue that the battle to win hearts and minds would be forever lost if we decided to wage total war on our enemies with overwhelming force. However, I would contend that we never had much chance to win the hearts and minds of most of the inhabitants of Iraq and Afghanistan. They mistrust our motives, they have varying degrees of affinity with our enemies, and they have a long history of animosity toward the West in general and the U.S. in particular. Also, the bungling, ineffective way in which we have managed the post-war situation has created less confidence in our eventual success than there was before we started.

Now I'm not advocating burning down Baghdad. What I am suggesting though, is that the so-called "Bush Doctrine" should be completely implemented. The countries should be smothered with American troops. Weapons smugglers coming from Iran and Syria should be bombed, and strategic targets in Iran and Syria bombed as well, if efforts aren't made to cooperate. Terrorist/insurgent fighters should be tried quickly and executed. The Iraqi police should be brought under control and tried for crimes that they commit. The countries should be blockaded to the best of our ability. And leaders that foment unrest, even if they are members of the "government" (I'm talking about you, Muqtada al-Sadr) should be apprehended and imprisoned if possible, and killed if not.

Winning the U.S. Civil War was not about wiping out the hatred of the typical Southerner for the Yankees (some would argue that it still exists). It finally boiled down to Grant's determination to removing the South's will to fight, and accepting nothing less than "unconditional surrender." That was done by removing all hope the Confederacy had of winning. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that the terrorists have figured out that, if our strategy doesn't change, they only need to hold on until Election Day, November 2008 for victory.

Five years

2006-09-11T07:56:00.000-05:00

I remember the day started pretty innocuously. I had been at work for about an hour or so when our department admin, Cari, came over to my office and said something like, "You're interested in airplanes and stuff, right?" I replied affirmatively, and she continued, "They said on the radio that a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center." I asked what kind of plane it was, and she told me that they were reporting that it was a small private plane (the news was still pretty sketchy at that point). I asked if the weather was bad, and she said she didn't know. I told her that a B-17 had crashed into the Empire State building back around World War II because of heavy fog, and maybe it was something like that. So we made small talk for a little while longer and she went back to her office.

A little while later, Cari came back, white-faced, and said that another plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I immediately said, "That wasn't an accident." I remember the stomach-wrenching feeling of knowing that attacks on the country were taking place while we were sitting trying to do some relatively meaningless work. I went over to Doug and Ellen's office, because they have a seldom-used television there, and watched the news with a small knot of people for a little while. Doug came back to my office a little while later and said that one of the towers had collapsed. That, I honestly could not believe. Then, of course, we were back watching on the TV, and I saw the second tower collapse.

Even now, it seems impossible that those two buildings would go down like that, and I'm sure that in their wildest dreams, the terrorists never imagined that they would either. Other images I have of that day are the terror and panic of the people around the WTC as it collapsed; President Bush speaking for the first time and breaking down in tears; and of course, people jumping to escape the flames. I also remember thanking God that George Bush was president rather than Al Gore.

It astounds me that today we know so much about the men who committed this terrible act and that we had allowed them free access to the means by which they attacked us. It disturbs and angers me that rather than addressing the system that allows Middle Eastern men to learn how to pilot an aircraft, get easy access to student visas and pass into our country undetected, the citizens of this country are required to take off their shoes and pour out their beverages before boarding a plane (as if that will somehow stop an attack). Could anything be more ridiculous than the extremes to which we go not to offend people who have no qualms against blowing themselves up to kill as many of us as they can?

I know it is unpopular and politically incorrect to view the conflict with Islamist terrorists as a conflict between Islam and Christianity, or a battle of good versus evil. And yet, the terrorists themselves have no problem framing their jihad in just those terms (with themselves as the good guys, of course). LJ and I recently watched the first season of the HBO series "Rome" (WARNING - viewer discretion advised). The first year of the series focused on the rise and fall of Julius Caesar. One of the most profound things about the series is that it brings home how the culture of Rome in the days before Christianity is almost unimaginable to the West today. However, the brutality and disregard for human life in those times is rivaled by that of the Muslim world today. We in the West do not realize how much the teachings of Jesus Christ inform our cultural respect for human life, even for those to whom Christianity is repugnant. There is no parallel in the Muslim world. The history of Islam is rife with war, betrayal, assassination and cruelty, not only to "infidels," but to other Muslims as well. I know that there's a school of thought out there that holds that the history of Christianity is no different, and there are, sadly, numerous examples from history to support this. However, the truth is that human beings are depraved, and that evil people will wrap themselves in whatever legitimacy serves their purposes. However, if you look at the overall impact of Jesus Christ on our culture, as opposed to the life of Mohammed on the Muslim culture, it's easy to understand why you will never see a vast crowd of Westerners jubilantly dancing in the street when 3000 civilians are purposefully murdered.

And just in case you were wondering, CNN Reports, "A lengthy statement from al Qaeda number 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks calls on Muslims to step up their resistance to the United States."

Why I am not a salesperson

2006-09-06T20:49:00.000-05:00

I could never be a salesman. I don't think I have the patience for it, for one. I don't have the ability to walk up to people I don't know and initiate meaningless small talk (much less meaningful small talk). I have to fumble around and think about what I could or should say, and usually by the time I've worked up the nerve to initiate something, I have no follow-up. Also, I am a wee bit too cynical and sarcastic to spread the sunshine on some unsuspecting customer. On my last evaluation from my boss, under the heading of Integrity, he put "Too Honest." Frankly, I don't know if that's a compliment or a slam, but since he gave me a 10/10, we'll call it a compliment. The closest I get to being a salesman is eBay.

So anyway, a significant part of my job is dealing with salespeople. When I'm working on a project and I know I need a server with four CPUs and 32GB of RAM, I'm know I'm going to wade into a feeding frenzy of four or five salesguys who want my business, and I'm fine with that. It's days like today that I find it difficult to be civil.

Sometimes I exaggerate when I say that I am multitasking (working on several things at once), but not this week. I have been rebuilding a SQL Server from backups for our ERP upgrade, configuring my Oracle test server for the third time, getting server specs and pricing for a project to upgrade one of our web portals, reviewing lease contracts to plan for the 2007 budget year, testing a financial reporting application with our new ERP software, rebuilding three data import packages from scratch that blew up when the user account of the developer who built them was disabled, making a decision about how many desktop computers to buy this month, troubleshooting a SQL Reporting Services installation that has stopped working, compiling capital expenditure requests for 2007, figuring out how to replace the cell phones of the editors at one of our remote offices with Blackberrys (Blackberries?) without the company actually paying for them, and trying to get a quote from a vendor for a UPS and generator to replace what we have in our data center. That's just the stuff that I can recall as I sit here, and it's been a short week! Needless to say, at the end of the last two days I've been mentally drained.

Enter the cold sales call. We have caller ID at work, so when I see the numbers for some of my vendors come up and I know I don't have the wherewithal to speak to them, I let the call roll over to voice mail. But today I was expecting a call from the aforementioned UPS vendor, and I made the mistake of answering a call from [salesguy] over at [big box computer vendor]. So the first thing he asks me is, "what's going on?" Now at this point, if [salesguy] had been in front of me I would probably have strangled him with the phone cord, but I believe I said something like, "uh, lots of things." This of course was the cue for [salesguy] to jump in like a superhero and ask if there was anything I needed. I said, "Yeah, I need someone who knows Oracle better than I do so I can get this Oracle project off my plate." He says, "Really? We can set you up with that!" And I say, "Well, the only problem is that there's no money to pay for it." That kind of deflated him. Then I ran down most of the projects I mentioned above, none of which he could do anything to help me with. (I didn't mention the desktops, because he is never the low cost provider and it wastes my time and his).

Anyway, eventually I was able to get him off the phone and try to focus back on whatever I was doing at the time. Net result? Five to 10 minutes wasted on a meaningless phone call, and another couple of minutes delving back into the work I had to drop to talk to him. Don't these guys know that if there's something I can throw off on them, that I'm going to call them? Like I'm over here trying to hoard all the work. This salesguy's problem is that he's nearly always much more expensive than everyone else, so he never gets business from me. So he thinks he needs to call more often because I need personal contact. See I can't even empathize with the salesguy. That's why I could never be one.

My Favorite Albums - Number 5

2006-09-06T16:43:00.000-05:00

Crash - Dave Matthews Band (1996)

I had a roommate in college that loved Dave Matthews Band. My roommate Pak had what I would call eccentric tastes in music. He liked Frank Zappa and Dead Kennedys and Fishbone and several other groups that I had never heard of then and haven't really heard since. But for a while there Pak was playing Under the Table and Dreaming by DMB all the time. I remember when I first saw the video for "What Would You Say?" on MTV, I had been hearing that song for MONTHS already. I must admit that it took a while for Dave to grow on me, but by July of 1995, my brother, girlfriend and I were going to see him in concert.

Crash debuted in 1996, and was the first DMB CD I bought. I immediately loved it. To me, it is a much better listen than its predecessors, and has hints of the direction Dave was taking the band, mainly expanding into more electric guitar and complex arrangements. There are several great songs on this album, but the (almost) medley of "#41" and "Say Goodbye" along with "Lie in Our Graves" are possibly my favorites of all time by DMB. They are so musically interesting that they would be fantastic without the lyrics at all. Carter Beauford's drumming alone on the transition between "#41" and "Say Goodbye" is fantastic. To date, this is still my favorite DMB album, not only because it represents a particular period in my life in a way that the other ones do not, but because it's arguably his best.

Actual letters from actual viewers...

2006-09-06T14:36:00.000-05:00

The company for whom I work runs a web portal geared toward the trucking industry (www.etrucker.com). The company owns several trucking magazines. From time to time this means we get e-mail from actual truck drivers. This has led to some pretty interesting e-mails. Here's one we got today (the names have been changed to protect the ignorant):

hey ... how is it going, my name's tom and i was wondering if you ever used funny photoes for your magazine.

recently me and my buddy JD was met up with a friend of mine harry, a trucker from dothan, alabama and his son jerry. harry and jerry smashed JD with pies in the face as a belated birthday gift LOL! JD got creamed. i was wondering if you would like to have the photoes we took of it for the magazine.

take it easy man,

tom

Well, my gut impulse was to tell the guy to grow up, but thankfully for the company, I don't receive or respond to these e-mails. How would you answer our foolish friend?

The Paradox of Birth Control

2006-09-06T13:04:00.000-05:00

LJ posted over at Lux Venit about an article on MInTheGap today. The article is about birth control, and whether or not it is a sin. Check out the article here. I have posted a few comments there as well, and rather than trying to rehash it here, just go check it out.

This week's Christian Carnival is posted

2006-09-06T10:08:00.000-05:00

Christian Carnival CXXXVIII (138) is up at From the Anchor Hold.

The Great Commission and the Holy Spirit

2006-09-05T08:20:00.000-05:00

This Sunday, the pastor at the church we attended spoke on missions, using Acts 13:1-4 as the basis for his sermon. He talked about how the church at Antioch commissioned Saul (Paul) and Barnabas as missionaries, and discuss how he felt that his own church had failed to raise up missionaries from the congregation from baptism to commissioning. He also explained that he felt that Christians who were waiting on a specific call from the Holy Spirit to serve as missionaries had already received the only call that they really need - the Great Commission.

Now for those of you who might need refreshing, the Great Commission as recorded in Matthew 28:19-20 (ESV) says, "19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." In this context, I agree with the pastor that we are all called to make disciples as we go through our daily walk. However, I would distinguish this from a call into full-time missionary work. The Great Commission was delivered, in my opinion, to all believers. Yet, the church at Antioch did not close the doors and send every one of its members out to be full-time missionaries, they only sent Saul and Barnabas, as far as we can tell from the passage, so there appears to me to be a special calling from the Holy Spirit on these men that set them apart from the others.

That goes to the heart of what I thought the pastor failed to emphasize in his sermon, namely the first part of verse 2 - "While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said..." Now the passage doesn't explain how the Holy Spirit said that these two men were called to be missionaries, but I don't think that that is important to us. What is important here is that the men of the church were worshiping and fasting, and God, through His Holy Spirit, told them something specific about these two men. Now, when things were tough for Saul and Barnabas down the road, which they undoubtedly were, they both had a specific calling that they could cling to as evidence that God meant for them to be doing what they were doing. That's not to say that we too don't have a specific calling from God to be His witnesses - we do. But the calling for Saul and Barnabas went beyond that. I am sure that it was something that they both felt, but it was also confirmed to a larger group through other means than just Jesus's final words.

Now again, I don't think that there would necessarily be anything wrong with a believer going out and serving on the mission field without any other calling other than the Great Commission. However, when doubts and fear arise, and times are hard, it seems to me that a firm calling from the Holy Spirit, confirmed by your church leaders, would be a strong point on which he (or she) could cling. I know from our experience with the church plant that the lack of a clear calling from God (for both of us) was the source of many hours of confusion and doubt for LJ and me once things got truly hard. I imagine that the same is true for many pastors as well. Am I off base here?

"Crocodile Hunter" killed by stingray in freak accident

2006-09-05T07:58:00.000-05:00

View Article.

Rest in peace, Steve.

Triple Digits!!!

2006-09-01T21:53:00.000-05:00

Whoo-hoo! I have had 100 visitors in the two weeks since I've started blogging! Thank you to all of you who sought my blog out to find out what LJ's husband was like, or who came over to see what I am all about from a comment, or who just tripped over it. My next goal is to accumulate more visitors than there are buyers for Paris Hilton's CD. That shouldn't be too hard.

Star Wars Action Scene - I

2006-09-01T21:37:00.000-05:00

Remember how I said that I collect Star Wars action figures? Well, since I have so many of them, and I really am too old to play with them (except with the kids), I don't get to see them too much. LJ only allows me one area to keep them out, which is my dresser in our bedroom. So every couple of weeks I set up a different scene with some of my figures. This week's scene is from the Battle of Hoth (Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back). It features an Imperial walker (AT-AT) and a scout walker wreaking havoc on the Rebel front lines. Luke Skywalker is hanging from the walker and has ignited his lightsaber in preparation for planting an explosive on the AT-AT's belly. Here's another angle:

If this is a popular-enough feature (that means if you folks comment positively), then I'll post photos whenever I change it.

Find a church or leave town?

2006-09-01T09:48:00.000-05:00

Paul Martin over at kerux noemata has posted about finding a church where God is. Basically he says that if you aren't finding a church where God is present and Jesus is Lord then you should move somewhere that you can. Here's the comment I left on his site:

"I definitely can understand where you are coming from. My wife and I have despaired of finding a place where the gospel is preached and the members of the body are spiritually alive. My question though is how do you find a church where God is at work if the church is in another city (or state)? I have found that the opinions of people I know and trust on other matters are not terribly helpful when it comes to their own churches, so I think it would be hard to find a place that I was sure of without spending time there myself. I don't see how that's practical without quitting my job and going church-hunting full time. Which would work for about two weeks. "

If Paul responds, I'll post it here.

Happy Birthday, Sweetie Pie!!!

2006-08-31T17:20:00.000-05:00

Abs is 3 today!

Forced conversion

2006-08-31T08:42:00.000-05:00

Catez over at allthings2all recently posted on his blog about the release of two Fox News reporters by terrorists in Gaza. As you may have heard, the two reporters "converted" to Islam as part of the agreement to release them. This got me and Catez thinking about what we would do if faced with the same situation. Check out the post here.

I'm not going to debate whether Wiig and Centanni made a bad decision for themselves, because I don't know whether either of them is a Christian. I started wondering what I would do in the same situation, and whether it would be wrong to falsely claim that I had converted to Islam to escape death. I agree with Catez that the ability to stand up and say, "NO" would only be possible through the Holy Spirit. The early Christians faced the same dilemma in the Coliseum though - renounce your faith and bow to Caesar and go free, or be torn apart by lions. Whether or not those early believers would have truly abandoned their faith in their hearts had they capitulated could be a matter of debate, but there was no debate in their minds over whether bowing to Caesar was a sin. I am afraid that publicly declaring one's conversion to Islam, forced or not, to escape terrorists would be a sin for a believer as well.

My Favorite Albums - Number 6

2006-08-30T17:19:00.000-05:00

Free-For-All - Michael Penn (1992)

This album was released at about the same time that I was starting as a freshman in college. My brother had bought Penn's debut album March back in 1989 on the basis of the minor radio/MTV hit "No Myth." I liked the original album moderately, but it wasn't necessarily something I listened to very much. I didn't even have a copy of it, and we always copied each others tapes at the time if we wanted a copy to listen to ourselves. Anyway, my brother had bought the new tape and offered to let me take it back with me to school (2.5 hours away) and listen to it. I still remember that because I listened to the album over and over again on the way back to Tuscaloosa. With only ten songs and a running time of slightly under 40 minutes, that's nearly four times through. It was so interesting, different, and enjoyable, I didn't want to stop listening to it.

This album features some fine acoustic guitar playing, lyrical complexity, dark themes, and catchy, singable tunes. At the time of his debut, Michael Penn seemed poised to take the mantle of poet singer from the likes of Bob Dylan. However, the grunge revolution led by groups like Nirvana changed the music world by the time this album came around, and Penn's career has never reached the popular heights of his first release. Free-For-All is an example then of what might have been, and is perhaps Penn's finest effort.

My favorite track on the album is "Long Way Down (Look What the Cat Drug In)," which features a pure, clean acoustic guitar that sounds like Penn is in the room with you and a biting, cynical lyric about the girl he loves who is returning from a night on the town without him. There are other acoustic gems in "Coal" and "By the Book" with fast-paced rockers like "Free Time" and "Seen the Doctor" to liven the pace. This album is highly underrated, and gets better with every hearing. And it looks like Amazon has it for 1 cent, so how can you beat that?

"Painter of Light" in trouble

2006-08-30T11:32:00.000-05:00

Apparently Thomas Kinkade's greatest crime may not be painting cheesy, overpriced works of art.

The Article

Christian Carnival Posted

2006-08-30T08:08:00.000-05:00

Christian Carnival CXXXVII (137) is up at Brain Cramps for God.

The Church Search

2006-08-29T19:55:00.000-05:00

I am 32 years old. I have been a member of seven churches in my life - one briefly as a young child and new Christian, one for the next 11 years until I went to college, two during college, another after LJ and I married and moved, the sixth when we attempted to help plant a church, and the seventh and final one after the church plant failed. Our family left that church a little more than a year ago after some serious consideration and prayer when our problems with the pastor's leadership style finally came to a head (the pastor has since left that church). We have been without a church home for a year and have visited 20 churches in that time, four of them at least twice. We live in Alabama in a county of 160,000 people. In this county, there are over 100 Southern Baptist churches alone! So why is it so hard to find the right place?

I guess part of the problem is that we have high expectations. LJ and I expect the people to be friendly, the worship to be vibrant and glorifying to God, and the prayer to be fervent. We homeschool our children, so we'd like to find other homeschooling parents. We believe in evangelism, so we want to see Christians who are enthusiastic about reaching others. And we long for Christian fellowship, so we'd like to make friends that share at least some of our interests. We originally thought we'd like to find a place that had not had a major split at some point due to infighting, but had to rule that out because we couldn't find any. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we want to locate a pastor that preaches the Bible, not a verse or two and a couple of good stories. We've had all the purpose-driven, seeker-sensitive nonsense we could stomach.

It's amazing to me how so many churches that we've visited have been cookie-cutter images of each other. Oh sure, the buildings are different and the styles of dress may vary some, but when you look beyond the surface you find the same repetitive "praise music," the same cold, disinterested parishoners, the same three points and a poem feel-good sermons, and the same feeling of a wasted hour (or two) when you walk away.

What is the purpose of a church? The second chapter of Acts says that the early church was "continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." Acts 11:26-30 indicates that the church is designed for teaching and for providing relief to other Christians in need. In Romans, Paul reminds the church to be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Does this sound like your church?

To my shame, I have gone to church for years with people I have barely known, some of whom I couldn't name if my life depended on it. LJ and I tried to conduct a Precept Bible study in our last church. The pastor would only allow it to happen on Sunday nights during the worship services. By the time the study concluded, only two or three other members were even attending the meetings, and none of them had gotten anywhere near completing the study. We visited one church for four or five months at a stretch during our search (by far the most time we've given a church - we had family there). Not once did a member of that church visit us (there was one "formal" church visit), or invite our family to visit them. Not once were we ever asked to go to lunch at someone's home or even to meet at a restaurant. Not once were we ever called to see how we were doing or just to talk. Not once was LJ or I ever invited to do anything with anyone outside the church building. At another church we visited, my Bible was stolen right off the pew next to me. Is this what the writer of Hebrews warned us not to give up doing?

I have a great fear that God looks down on our tired Sunday rituals and desires to spit our lukewarm Christianity out of his mouth. How I pray that God would direct us to a church where his gospel is preached, his love is proclaimed, and his Spirit is at work. I have begun to despair that there is such a place where we live.

Why is Christian Music so boring?

2006-08-29T18:12:00.001-05:00

What is the deal with Christian music? I know I am probably going to offend some of you out there, but according to my exacting standards for good music (write your own music, play at least one instrument, have talent, and be an innovator), a vast majority of "contemporary Christian" music does not qualify. Pop music today is a vacuous wasteland, so if your musical style apes the pop music of today, like most Christian music, you're already in deep trouble.

Now I realize that pop music, by definition, is the most-purchased music out there. But check out the top 10 artists on the current Billboard Hot 100 list (Fergie, Gnarls Barkley, Nelly Furtado, Sean Paul, The Pussycat Dolls, Cassie, Ciara, Christina Aguilera, Ne-Yo, and Panic! At the Disco) . Are you kidding me? There's only two of these supposed "artists" that I have even heard of, and whether or not they can sing or are even a great singer is beside the point. Will anybody be listening to these songs twenty years from now? Is any one of them doing something interesting with their music? Are any of them virtually interchangable with each other, or a thousand other singers out there? What are Christian artists doing trying to sound like them, or worse, trying to sound like pop music that's 10 (or more) years out of date.

I think musical giftedness is a talent from God. I sing and play a little bit of guitar, and I have written music, but I have no illusions about my talent level. I have heard artists in many churches that greatly exceed my musical abilities, and yet still have no business with a recording contract. So why is one of the most obvious of God's gifts seemingly missing from the pool of his servants? Where are the innovators in Christian music? Where are the artists who are masters of their instruments, who worship God with their amazing talents? Where are the Mozarts and The Beatles? The Beethovens and the Bob Dylans? Where are the bands who are creating music that truly glorifies God rather than sounding like a cheap knockoff of Celine Dion or Nickelback? Is God really pleased with music that couldn't make it among the likes of Josh Turner and Rihanna?

My favorite Christian band - well, the only one I listen to anyway - is Third Day. I like Mac Powell's voice and I think some of their songs are pretty good. But as far as innovation goes, they are probably 30 years behind the rock bands they sound like (Lynnyrd Skynnyrd or the Allman Brothers). What has happened to the talented and interesting performers? Is there nothing new to play or sing?

In my opinion, Christian music should be better than pop music. The singers should have better voices, the instrumentalists should have more prowess. Can it really be the case that none of the most talented musicians in the world are Christians? I hear music on our three local Christian stations that would not have been interesting on Top 40 radio in 1986, much less 2006. And don't even get me into the theology of Christian music. Most of it is either lightweight "Jesus is my girlfriend" type nonsense, or simple and repetitive praise music (or both). When was the last time you heard a confessional song along the lines of Psalm 51 ("Against Thee, Thee only, I have sinned, and done what is evil in Thy sight")? Or a lament like Psalm 79 ("They have given the dead bodies of Thy servants for food to the birds of the heavens, The flesh of Thy godly ones to the beasts of the earth.") Where are the Christian artists who sing out about our country's struggle against Islamofascists or the moral issues of the day (abortion, crime, poverty, personal debt, etc.) and cry out to God for help? Instead we get man-centered songs that are so innocuous that they can crossover to the pop charts and be inoffensive to everyone (see MercyMe's "I Can Only Imagine" for a recent example). Something is very wrong here.

I just took "The Politics Test"

2006-08-26T00:02:00.000-05:00

You are a Social Conservative
(18% permissive)

and an...
Economic Conservative
(75% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Strong Republican

You exhibit a very well-developed sense of Right and Wrong and believe in economic fairness.

Well, I have to say I think this one works. Try it.

PET PEEVE!!! (WARNING--RANT AHEAD)

2006-08-25T21:02:00.000-05:00

I work in IT and I've been a user of internet e-mail since 1991, so maybe the novelty of it has worn off. I get between 50-100 e-mails a day, every day. This only refers to the e-mail that passes through the multiple spam and virus filters that we employ to block the folks who are hawking V1@gr@ and porn and low mortgage rates. I realize that there are people out there who get four or five e-mails from their friends in a week's time, and they're happy to get every piece of it, so I realize that not everybody feels about it the way I do. But I have one big e-mail pet peeve. I'll give it to you in a nutshell. If your e-mail looks like this:

[numerous e-mail addresses]

FW: FW: FW: FW: FW: [some stupid crap]

[numerous e-mail addresses]

FW: FW: FW: FW: [some stupid
crap]

[numerous e-mail addresses]

FW: FW: FW: [some stupid
crap]

[numerous e-mail addresses]

FW: FW: [some stupid crap]

[numerous e-mail addresses]

FW: [some stupid crap]

[blah blah blah blah blah]

Please pass this onto your friends even if you don't usually
take time to forward mail...do it this time! If this touched you as much
as it touched me, please forward it on.

I DON'T WANT IT!!! Don't you people have something better to do than forward this crap to me? Half the time whatever is in the e-mail is some urban legend or hoax that has little basis in fact, and the other half of the time it's some sappy shmaltz that I can't believe I wasted two minutes of my life reading. I'm not getting that time back, people!

It's getting to the point when I see an e-mail from certain people that I know, I can just go ahead and delete it without review because I know it is totally worthless. My company gets around one million e-mails a week. We have less than 500 employees. That's over 2000 e-mails a week for the average worker, and you know what? Ninety-eight percent of it literally is garbage. We filter that crap out before it even gets inside the firewall. Junk like this message makes up another half a percent. Okay, you say, half a percent isn't so much. Well, that's 5000 e-mails in a week. If it takes a person thirty seconds during their workday to read those messages, that's 41 person-hours wasted. That's a work week wasted for Pete's sake! And that's just one small company out of thousands. If you are sending these messages (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE), FREAKING STOP IT ALREADY!!! I don't need to get an e-mail to convince me that God loves me, that we should support our soldiers or that illegal immigration is a problem. No one has signed a law prohibiting us from going to church, 9/11 wasn't staged by the government, and there is no secret e-mail program that Bill Gates' is going to pay me $1000 to beta test for him. Viruses ARE a problem, but sending an e-mail to warn me about one is not the best way to handle it, especially since many viruses are spread by e-mail, and most likely we're going to catch those anyway. There's hardly anything you can send me in an e-mail that I haven't already learned somewhere else, unless it's personal, and in that case I'm all ears. I would love to get a personal note telling me how you are doing and asking about my family. But DON'T SEND ME ANY MORE OF THIS CRAP!

I mean it.

Oracle problems

2006-08-25T17:31:00.000-05:00

I started out working as a Microsoft SQL Server DBA (database administrator) about six and a half years ago, and even though I'm a manager now, I still do a good bit of work with the company database servers. We have, oh 9-10 SQL Servers, a MySQL server and a couple of Oracle servers (one in production, one development). The production Oracle server is the back-end for our web portal. We're running Oracle Database 8i on the server, which is no longer being supported by Oracle, so I have been working on a project to upgrade this system to Oracle Database 10gR2, which is the current version.

Here's where the problem comes in. The web portal that uses Oracle is no cash cow, and given the fact that no other system in our company runs on Oracle, there's no money available for training. On top of that is the fact that the system works perfectly fine with Oracle 8i, thank you very much, so I've been trying to get this project underway for over a year. Something else always takes precedence. After doing some testing a few months back, we determined that upgrading to 10gR2 wouldn't break our site, so I've been trying to squeeze in some time to upgrade the development server (as a test) and then the production server. Well, this week I finally had a few hours to work through it. Unfortunately, it didn't quite go as planned.

After downloading the latest patches, I ran through the 10gR2 install, but once I got it in place, I realized that the new system would have to have a different database name, which was okay for the dev environment but wouldn't be for production. So I uninstalled the software. Next I tried to run the install and do the upgrade wizard as part of the installation. The upgrade wizard apparently couldn't communicate with the 8i database, even though I could still connect to it with the 8i tools, so I cancelled the 10gR2 installation and deleted all the services and related files from the initial install. I stopped all the 8i services and ran the installation and upgrade again, and after a couple of hours, the upgrade had completed successfully. Great! So then I went ahead and tried to run the latest patchset installation over the upgraded database. For some reason the installation would not replace a particular .dll file. I looked on the Oracle support site and couldn't find any reference to this error, so I cancelled the installation. Bad mistake.

So now the database isn't responding and the services won't start. I ran the patchset installation again, and still got the .dll error, but I ignored it and progressed through the install. Still the services wouldn't start. So I deleted the Oracle 8i folder and rebooted the computer. Then I installed the patchset again and it installed successfully, so I thought, "Now it's going to work!" I rebooted the system, and was able to start the services and mount the database, but it wouldn't open. When I dug into the logs, I realized that the database was looking for some of the custom database files that no longer existed, having been conveniently deleted by yours truly when I dropped the Oracle 8i folder. Now I had an upgraded system that was totally broken with no way to recover. So then I uninstalled all the Oracle software, deleted the files and services and reinstalled Oracle 8i and the patches to bring it up to our current version. So I'm almost ready to start all over again, after I import all of our data from production. Keep in mind that this has taken me a week, and I'm not any closer to getting the upgrade completed than when I started. It's a good thing I don't need Oracle training.

My Favorite Albums - Number 7

2006-08-25T16:31:00.000-05:00

Are You Experienced? - Jimi Hendrix (1967)

There were originally two versions of this album - the U.K. version, which did not include the previously released singles "Hey Joe"/"Stone Free," "Purple Haze"/"51st Anniversary," and "The Wind Cries Mary"/"Highway Chile" - and the U.S. version, released six months later, which had the A-sides of the three singles but dropped "Remember," "Red House," and "Can You See Me." My preferred rendition of the album, only available as the CD format came into being, combines both versions in a 17-track homage to one of the greatest, and probably most-talented, guitar-slingers of all time.

This album is widely regarded as perhaps the best debut album of the rock era, and it's a testament to the artist that many of the tracks sound as fresh today as they did in the Summer of Love. Compared to the other "great" album of 1967, The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which is interesting as a snapshot of the times but sounds dated, Are You Experienced? blazed a trail that, whether they know it or not, every rock guitar band since has followed.

Considering the fact that Hendrix's recording career barely lasted four years, and that he was a black American musician in the 1960s that had to move to England to get noticed, his lasting influence and continued commercial success is truly astounding. His amazing instrumental virtuosity and creativity have been rarely duplicated.

My Favorite Albums - Number 8

2006-08-25T15:45:00.000-05:00

Odelay - Beck (1996)

Beck Hansen's major label debut, Mellow Gold, and the ubiquitous MTV single "Loser" introduced him to the world, but the quirky nature of his slacker poet lyrics and bizarre instrumentation led many to assume that Beck was a flash-in-the-pan one-hit wonder. Odelay proved them wrong, winning two Grammies, garnering rarely-awarded perfect reviews from Rolling Stone and Spin magazines, and selling over two million records. Beck has been compared to Prince for his instrumental proficiency and to Bob Dylan (think "Subterranean Homesick Blues") for his stream-of-consciousness nonsense lyrics, but the truth is that Beck is unique in that he just really doesn't sound like anyone else. Equally at home with rock and rap, jazz and blues, hip-hop and bossa nova, there is no style of music that is off limits, and no limit to where he will go to explore his musical art. I remember watching Beck at the Grammies singing/rapping his hit "Where It's At" in a powder blue suit and asking myself if he was serious. The truth is that all of Beck's music is serious and none of it is.

What does it mean to have "a devil's haircut in my mind?" My favorite thing about Beck is that you can read as much or as little into his lyrics as you want and still enjoy the music. Odelay is in my opinion the only Beck album that seems to have a blend of musical styles in equal proportion, so you can rock out on "Devil's Haircut" and "Novacane," mellow out on the smooth, quiet tones of "Jack-Ass" and "Ramshackle," or get your groove on with "Where It's At," "The New Pollution" or "Sissyneck."

Then of course, there's my personal favorite "Lord Only Knows," which has the great singalong chorus "Lord only knows it's getting late/Your senses are gone so don't you hesitate/Give yourself a call/Let your bottom dollars fall/Throwing your two-bit cares down the drain." At the time that Odelay came out I was a college student working something like 35 hours a week and my girlfriend and I had just broken up, so I had a lot of two-bit cares. This album helped me take my mind off my problems for a while and just enjoy some really unique music, and it still has a special place in my collection because of that.

Oh, and by the way, my girlfriend and I got back together eventually. We've been married eight years.

My Favorite Albums - Number 9

2006-08-24T14:56:00.000-05:00

Nevermind - Nirvana (1991)

I was the last guy on the Nirvana bandwagon. Well, not really the last guy. I was 17 when this album first came out, and I saw the video for "Smells like Teen Spirit" on MTV and I just didn't get it. I didn't listen to music like this on the radio - although in Montgomery, Alabama, none of the radio stations were playing anything like this anyway. I didn't have a whole lot of teenage "I hate the world and everything in it" angst, and I just couldn't get where they were coming from.

Then, I remember shopping at a music store in a mall somewhere (ah, the days before the Internet), and hearing virtually the entire album on the store sound system. When it got to the intro of "Territorial Pissings" and Krist Novoselic hollers out the line from "Everybody Get Together" and then Kurt Cobain goes into a guitar riff that sounds like the guitar and amp and soundboard are held together with duck tape (and knowing what I know now, it might have been), it all made sense to me. Nirvana was the anti-John Denver. The music of the "Make Love, Not War" era - the 1960s - had devolved into the feel-good but disillusioned 1970s, which had devolved into the lightweight, synthetic 1980s. Nirvana kicked in the door to the 1990s and dethroned Michael Jackson from the top of the pop charts with an attitude that said "the world sucks, and we don't care." Nirvana almost singlehandedly destroyed hair bands like Poison and Cinderella, who suddenly looked woefully out of touch. Here was a band with no gimmick, no makeup, no costume, stringy hair, and out of tune instruments playing a style of music that was raw, angry, and yet melodic and catchy too.

Aside from the fact that the album is a milestone in rock music, it is actually an easier listen than you might expect, being the most polished and "produced" of Nirvana's albums. Many of the songs - "In Bloom," "Come as You Are," and "Lithium" come to mind - have a genuine singalong quality. There are even a couple of quieter numbers; the dark "Polly" and the emotive, autobiographical "Something in the Way," where Cobain sings about living underneath a bridge, as he did for a brief stint in Aberdeen, WA.

It's hard to listen to Nirvana today without thinking about the sorry end of Kurt Cobain, who couldn't tame the addictions and self-destructive behavior that brought about his untimely demise at the end of a shotgun in April 1994. But in this album you can hear the voice of a band that changed the music world in its prime.

Forbes.com article reposted, sort of

2006-08-24T11:44:00.000-05:00

UPDATED:
Forbes.com has re-posted the article, but this time with a rebuttal, in Point/Counterpoint fashion. Cowards.

My Favorite Albums - Number 10

2006-08-24T09:14:00.000-05:00

I know what you've been thinking. What ARE Karl's favorite albums of all time? Why is he keeping us in suspense? Can I stand not knowing any longer? Well, rest your heads, my peeps. I have given it 15 solid minutes of thought, and have come up with my favorite albums (or CDs, if you must) of all time.

You know I mentioned that I collected Star Wars action figures, but that isn't the only thing that I have a tendency to accumulate. I have around 600 CDs, along with about 200 or so tapes. My iTunes includes almost 5000 songs, or about 13 days worth of music. So I'm a big music fan. I used to say that I enjoyed all kinds of music except country, but that definition doesn't really fit any more. My favorite types of music are probably classic rock and roll, followed by blues. I like some classic country, some grunge/alternative rock, some folk, some classical and even some rap. Basically, what I don't like is formulaic music. I am much more interested in artists with a unique sound or songwriting ability than I am with what's popular, although to be fair, most of my favorite artists are generally popular. I'm not going to rant about popular music today - if you want to hear a rant, see LJ's blog. But I will say that [insert current pop idol]=[insert current country star]=[insert most rap artists]=[insert any boy "band"]=vomit-inducing bilge. Basically, to be on my list, you need to write your own music, play at least one instrument, have talent, and be an innovator. And even if I don't personally enjoy your music, I will respect you if you fit that criteria.

Now before I get started, I need to lay out the ground rules. Greatest Hits collections, since they are not technically albums, do not count. Certainly, there are a few of them that I would have included otherwise, but I am going with the body of work as the artists (probably) intended. NON SEQUITER ALERT!! Have you ever noticed that I use parentheses a lot? What's up with that?

So basically, this is the list of ten albums I would take with me if I was stranded on a desert island.

Back Home Again - John Denver (1974)

Okay, I know after going through everything I said above, you're going to look at this and think, "What?!" I hear you. I should have mentioned one other thing when spelling out my musical tastes - there are some people who are grandfathered in. When I was a little boy, John Denver was my favorite musician. Of course, that was because my parents had several of his LPs. The first album that I ever owned was John Denver's Greatest Hits, and since it has sold over 10 million copies since it was first released, I'm not the only one out there. So if you are John Denver, Neil Diamond, or Hall and Oates, you are allowed to linger with those who more accurately fit my musical preferences, even though if I was just hearing you for the first time today I probably wouldn't be interested. I actually saw John Denver in concert twice, once in around 1977 (I was almost four), and once in 1997, just a few months before he died. You know, you can't afford to take a four-year-old to a concert any more. LJ and I are going to see Eric Clapton in October with a couple of folks from work, and the four tickets totalled nearly $400! But I digress...

Back Home Again was the album that made John Denver a superstar. Sure, he had already hit it big with "Take Me Home, Country Roads" and "Rocky Mountain High." And the aforementioned Greatest Hits album had been released the previous year. But this album was the Academy of Country Music's 1974 Album of the Year, and arguably features more of his best and most well-known songs than any other. There isn't a bad one in the bunch. The beauty and purity of "Annie's Song" has made it a popular wedding song for decades. The autobiographical nature of songs like "Matthew," "On the Road," "This Old Guitar," and "Back Home Again," make one feel as if they are looking in to Denver's life - how he feels and what is important to him. The album is light-hearted and yet poignant and personal. And of course, there's the kneeslappers like "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" and "Grandma's Feather Bed," both written by members of Denver's band, to make you stomp your feet.

Critics of Denver dismiss him as naive and lightweight; a product of the sixties that never moved beyond the flower-child optimism. However, Denver went through family relocation, death (his favorite uncle and father), divorce, alcoholism, and drug addiction during his life and career, which easily could have turned him into a jaded cynic. He certainly knew that life wasn't always rosy and that peace and love didn't cure all ills. But he chose to write and sing music that was positive, optimistic and sometimes downright funny, because that's what he wanted his music to be. Although it's on the list for nostalgic reasons, Back Home Again is a master work by an artist the likes of which we will probably never see again.

Pluto "not a planet"

2006-08-24T08:59:00.000-05:00

Well this is especially disappointing. Pluto has been demoted by the International Astronomical Union, and is no longer a planet. Granted, the behavior and size of Pluto worked against it, as well as the fact that scientists discovered another Kuiper Belt object (2003 UB313) that was larger. Still, I always kind of liked Pluto for being remote, mysterious and quite different from the other planets. This definitely takes some of the shine off.

You would think that, given the fact that what is or isn't a planet is a totally arbitrary decision, scientists would have come up with a system that included Pluto, if for no other reason than to honor Clyde Tombaugh's improbable discovery of it in 1932. Isn't is more interesting to add planets to the solar system, as this proposal would have, rather than take them away?

Pluto's Moons

2006-08-23T18:51:00.000-05:00

Well, if you are like me, and interested in astronomy, you might be interested to know that Pluto's two most recently discovered moons have been named. Along with Charon, which is quite large in comparison to Pluto, astronomers have named the two much smaller moons Nix and Hydra. It's amazing to me that so many objects are being discovered in our own solar system all the time. I remember when the Voyager probes flew by Jupiter and Saturn in the late 1970's and rewrote all the astronomy books. Before Voyager, Jupiter supposedly had 16 moons. Now, we know of eight regular moons, and at least six groups of irregular moons. We also learned through Voyager that Saturn wasn't the only planet with rings - Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune had them as well. What an amazing place God created for us. We still know so little about it.

Forbes.com and women with careers

2006-08-23T18:34:00.000-05:00

I was going to publish a link to a Forbes.com article posted today about why men shouldn't marry women with careers. However, since (I assume) the article was mentioned on the Rush Limbaugh radio program and Fark.com (there's a combination for you), Forbes.com appears to have removed it from their site. Here is Rush Limbaugh's characterization of the article from his website :

"These are the reasons you should not marry a career woman: One, you're less likely to get married to her. She's not interested in it. Number two, if you do marry, you are more likely to get divorced if you marry a career woman. Number three, she is more likely to cheat on you if you marry a career woman. Number four, you are much less likely to have kids. That would be in my plus column. Number five, if you do have kids, your wife is more likely to be unhappy. Number six, your house will be dirtier. This is in Forbes magazine! This is the subject of a study done in 2005 by two University of Michigan scientists, concluding that if your wife has a job earning more than $15 an hour which is roughly 30 grand a year, she'll do two hours less housework a week. Number seven. If you marry a career woman, you'll be unhappy if she makes more than you do. And number eight, she'll be unhappy if she makes more than you do. And number nine, you're more likely to get sick if you marry a career woman."

Well, I don't know if the study's findings are true or not, but anecdotally, I would have to agree. Proving causality here is a different matter. I think it is likely that women who pursue careers are less interested in settling down with a man or less likely to be committed to one man from the get-go, rather than becoming that way because they pursue careers. They are generally less likely to feel that they need a husband or a child to have a full life. I am thankful nonetheless that LJ stays at home to teach and be there for the kids. I think we, as a family, will all be better off for it.

UPDATED:
Forbes.com has re-posted the article, but this time with a rebuttal, in Point/Counterpoint fashion. Cowards.

Yellow Jacket super colonies

2006-08-23T15:11:00.000-05:00

I cannot let a weird story that features a picture of a giant yellow jacket nest in a 1955 Chevrolet in my hometown go by.

Yellow Jacket Article

Messing with Life

2006-08-22T17:39:00.000-05:00

Sunday morning, the pastor of the church we were attending made an interesting statement that has stuck with me. He has been speaking about the Creation and was focusing on Genesis 1:26, where God decides to create man in His image. The pastor then went on to say that the manipulation of life by man is wrong, since God alone is the Creator. I don't disagree with this.

He went on to show in Genesis 3 that God ordains capital punishment for those who murder, because killing a man is a sin against God, in whose image man was created. I hadn't thought about it exactly that way, but again, I don't disagree. He then stated that abortion was a sin because, again, men (or women) are taking life that God has ordained, and ending it. Finally, the kicker. He said that in vitro fertilization was wrong, because man is altering the natural birth process outside of the means God provided for reproduction, and because unwanted fetuses are disposed of, or perhaps used for the purposes of stem-cell research. I hadn't really thought about that. The next logical step I (not the pastor) made in my mind was then to birth control/sterilization. If it is a sin to manipulate the process by which God intended life to be created, would it not then be a sin to pick and choose when or if we will have children?

Now, this hit close to home. LJ and I made the decision after our fourth child, Abigail (Abbey or Abs, as I like to call her), that we were finished having children. The world would say that this was a smart decision (after of course, we are condemned and ridiculed for having four children in the first place). But what does God think about it? LJ and I will both tell you we have had a lot of second thoughts about that decision since the surgery, and while I think we made a decision that is backed by sound financial and mental health arguments, I'm not sure that I can say that it wasn't prideful, arrogant and sinful of us as well.

What do you think?

Sidebar additions

2006-08-22T17:28:00.000-05:00

I have added a few of my favorite books and artists on the sidebar of the blog. I thought about doing a favorite CD/albums list, but it will take more thought to narrow it down. I did split the books into fiction and non-fiction, and I definitely had a hard time digging out my favs. These are the books that I go back to over and over. These books make me laugh, cry (okay, only one of them did that), and think. Sometimes I think about writing my own book, but until then, these are the books I would like to have written.

Ten Most Popular Books of All Time

2006-08-22T08:35:00.000-05:00

As an avid reader with a keen interest in statistics, a top ten list of the bestselling books of all time is of great interest to me. This particular list is based on the sales of the individual books, and there are some surprises:

10. In His Steps: "What Would Jesus Do?"

Author: Rev. Charles Monroe Sheldon
Copies sold: 28,500,000

9. Valley of the Dolls

Author: Jacqueline Susann
Copies sold: 30,000,000

8. The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care

Author: Dr. Benjamin Spock
Copies sold: 39,200,000

7. World Almanac

Author: Who knows?
Copies sold: 40,000,000

6. A Message to Garcia

Author: Elbert Hubbard
Copies sold: 40-50,000,000

5. The McGuffey Readers

Author: William Holmes McGuffey
Copies sold: 60,000,000

4. The Guinness Book of Records

Author: Who knows?
Copies sold: 81,000,000

3. American Spelling Book

Author: Noah Webster
Copies sold: 100,000,000

2. Quotations from the Works of Mao Tse-tung

Author: Mao Tse-tung
Copies sold: 800,000,000

1. The Bible

Author: God
Copies sold: 6,000,000,000

What, no Dr. Phil? I think they made the six billion number up, based on the article, although there's no question the Bible was number 1. I was intrigued by the fact that there was no "great work of literature" on the list (the Bible notwithstanding). Valley of the Dolls?!?

SEE THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE: http://soyouwanna.grab.com/site/toptens/books/books.html

Ring of Fire

2006-08-21T17:54:00.000-05:00

A burning ring of fire pretty well describes my back pain over the last couple of days. After attending church, and enjoying dinner with one of the families from the church, I lay down late yesterday afternoon in some pain, and by the time I got up I could barely walk again. I got up this morning and tried to get ready for work, but I just couldn't make it, so I've been on strict bed rest most of the day. Hopefully, I will be ready to tackle the stairs at work tomorrow.

Most irritating hobby

2006-08-19T19:26:00.000-05:00

I collect Star Wars action figures. And ships. And playsets. LJ is not very fond of this hobby. As a matter of fact she thinks it's a waste of time and money. She's probably right (okay, okay, you ARE right, Leslie!) . But I've been collecting the figures since I was a wee lad, and I have a closet full of them. Well, a closet and a half. Actually, there's also a large toy box full of them at the end of the hall. And that doesn't count the action figures that I have bought for each of the kids. Leslie has bought the kids a few too, as bribes, so I'm not solely to blame. Maybe 98%.

In case you are reading this blog and don't know me already (unlikely as that may be), I have four kids. Two girls and two boys, between the ages of seven and almost three. Since the Star Wars action figures come with lots of small parts that are inappropriate for young children (guns, lightsabers, capes, jetpacks and whatnot), I keep a large plastic bag full of accessories for each child in a can in my bedroom closet. These bags of accessories have been the source of many conflicts in our house, and this week was the worst.

For some reason, my boys, Benjamin and Noah, are drawn to this can of guns and lightsabers like flies to a barbecue. Several times in the past, the boys have sneaked into the room and spirited a few of the choice items out to play with, and of course, they were punished accordingly. Well, it happened again Thursday. The Benj was getting ready for bed and stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans, and lo-and-behold, he pulled out a double bladed Darth Maul lightsaber - accidentally.

"Where did that come from?" I asked naively. Without explanation, The Benj pulls handfuls of accessories from both jeans pockets. I'm talking helmets, guns, hats, capes, jackets, staffs, lightsabers, you name it. I have no idea what he was planning to do with them, as he had WAY too many of them to even realistically use. Well, of course, it was all NoahKrakatoa's fault, since he made The Benj get them out, and forced them into his pockets, no doubt. They both tried to implicate Queen Hannah as well, although she got off with just a warning since she had not taken anything from the can. So LJ blurts out, "That's it! Bring all your Star Wars stuff here. We're taking it away!" Let me tell you, there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth. I gathered up all the action figures, ships, lightsabers and playsets and put them away. I think The Benj refused to even say goodnight to Mommy that night.

Okay, so two days later, the home is still relatively calm. Even without Star Wars figures, the boys have both survived. Now, deep inside, I know that LJ is just waiting for me to slip up so she can take all my figures away and eBay them.

You are under surveillance

2006-08-19T18:32:00.000-05:00

I have added Site Meter to my blog, so nothing you do will be hidden from me. Bwah ha ha ha ha ha ha *hack* ha *cough* *cough*...

The pool and the weird house next door

2006-08-19T17:56:00.000-05:00

We have an inflatable pool in the backyard. You know, the kind that you fill up and then by the next day it's half empty and you have to fill it up again? Well, maybe that's just ours. Anyway, three of the four kids are out in the pool and I can hear them screaming from every corner of the house. I guess it's a good thing our neighbors on one side are out of town, and the other house is "empty."

I say "empty" because I'm not really sure if it is. You see the house next door is owned by people who rent it out, and since we moved here in 1999, we have had numerous neighbors - some good, some bad, but all temporary. Given the fact that my wife LJ and I are not really outgoing, this means that we haven't really gotten to know any of them, and never even met a few. Anyway, over the last three or four months, someone has come to mow the grass, and every once in a while there is a car parked in the driveway for a day or two. The garage, when I've seen it open, is full of boxes and junk, and usually has a car there. But there is nothing in the yard to indicate someone lives there. I never see anyone going to the mailbox or milling about in the yard except when the rare vehicle is there (usually cleaning up the yard). The other night though, it appeared that there was a light on inside, although the curtains were drawn and I couldn't tell for sure.

You know how in the interviews with the neighbors of serial killers who finally get caught, there's always someone who says, "He was always so quiet"? Well, I'm thinking we might have one next door now. Or maybe a shut-in. Or possibly no one, although I don't understand the boxes in the garage otherwise.

I guess I should be grateful. The last neighbors were a couple or three college age girls (I guess), who had some kind of hippie commune going on over there. There were usually at least three or four cars parked in the back yard, sometimes as many as eight or ten, along with a purple Firebird that was always parked on the street (I don't know what their problem was with the driveway and garage). I could never figure out how many people were actually living there, but periodically there would be a couple of preteen boys that hung around on the weekends and jumped on their trampoline. There were college girls and boys, and from time to time there were older folks as well. We also would see a 20ish chick with a baby. I know that house is smaller than ours, so I don't have any idea how they all fit in there together, but I sure didn't mind seeing them leave.

Ok, now one of the boys is urinating in a bucket beside the pool. Guess it's time to wrap up.

UPDATED:
OpinionJournal.com's James Taranto echoes me in his August 22 "Best of the Web Today" blog:

Never Trust a 'Nice, Quiet Kid'
Cops in Blacksburg, Va., have captured 24-year-old William Morva, an escaped convict who allegedly shot a hospital guard and a sheriff's deputy to death, the Associated Press reports in a dispatch that ends with this observation:

Akio Robrecht, 27, of Blacksburg, said Morva was a couple [of] years behind him in school. Morva "seemed like a nice, quiet kid," he said. "It's kind of hard to believe."

Have you noticed how whenever there's a news story about some crazed (alleged) killer, his neighbors always describe him as "nice" and "quiet"? It really makes us glad the people who live near us are loud jerks.

So I guess there's something to be said for obnoxious neighbors.

Oh my aching back!

2006-08-19T17:52:00.000-05:00

Sometime after lunch yesterday, my back started hurting. By the end of the day I was really in pain, and when I woke up this morning I could barely move. I don't know what's worse - being in so much pain that everything is uncomfortable, or not knowing how it started in the first place.

Do you drop church members from the rolls?

2006-08-18T07:44:00.000-05:00

Personally, I can see the guy's point, but it seems to me that setting up arbitrary rules for membership expiration raises more problems than it solves. What about invalids? What about debilitating illnesses? What about people who attend on Easter and Christmas and one or two other Sundays? If you're asking the membership to create the inevitable "Membership Committee" and determine who does and doesn't deserve membership aren't you creating a situation where members are pronouncing judgement on someone's faith? Maybe there's a way to deal with this by notifying the members after a certain period of time that they will be moved to an inactive list. Maybe there's some removal if there's no response to this, but it seems that we have to be careful to make sure that efforts to bring members back in to the fold are made in love.

I'm much more concerned with the member who attends every Sunday and flouts his disobedience the other six days of the week.

SEE THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE: http://blog.togetherforthegospel.org/2006/08/southern_baptis.html