A friend of mine, Lane Widick, posted this on his blog.  I liked it so much that I felt like it needed to be shared with whomever may read my blog. 

It has been a long time since I updated my blog; I doubt anyone reads it anymore.  This will just be a short update to let everyone know what has been going on in my life. 

 

I refereed basketball again this year.  It's something that I really enjoy doing.  I like to watch the players, to see the talent, to enjoy the atmosphere.  I even enjoy getting yelled at on occasion.  Some of the comments you hear from coaches or from the stands are extremely witty.  I was selected to call my first post-season tournament games this year: two games in Spring Garden, AL.

 

Some very good news on the homefront is that Rebecca is pregnant.  We found out about a month ago, and I can say with authority that we are both very excited.  So are our parents, our brothers and sisters, our grandparents, our aunts and uncles and cousins, and our friends.  (If you're excited about it and I left you off this list, I'm sorry.)  Compared to this news, everything else pretty much pales in comparison.

 

Who knows, maybe I'll start updating this blog more often.

I have really enjoyed embedding videos in my blog as of late.  For anyone who reads this regularly, you've probably picked up on that.  Well, I thought this one was worthy of sharing as well.  Enjoy.

Analogies are an excellent form of communication, providing the reader with a familiar a discription of something that may not be as familiar to him or her.  We're taught analogies in English class, and it's only fitting that someone (probably an English teacher) has compiled a list of twenty-five of the funniest analogies collected by high school english teachers.  You can read them here.

As a kid, I loved the transformers.  Therefore, I'm very excited about the new Transformers movie that is coming out on July 4.  In honor of the upcoming release of the movie and in memory of my favorite childhood tv show, I'm posting this video.

 

I know that yorkies are smart because Rebecca and I have one.  Chloe knows a lot of tricks, and she's a great companion.  But I don't know if I can teach her this one.

This is definitely worth a look.  The video's good, but the song is excellent.  If you're in the north Alabama area, "Vertical" is being released to Christian radio stations today.  Call WAAY FM 88.1 to request the song.

This is such a great article, I felt it deserved to be published and read by those who run across my blog.

Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from "Is This a Great Game, or What?" by Tim Kurkjian. Copyright (c) 2007 by the author and reprinted by permission of St. Martin's Press. Click here for information on how to purchase the book.

It is the best game. Ask anyone who follows it. Ask George Will; he says, "Baseball is the background music in my life." Ask Billy Crystal; he got chills the first time he met Ted Williams. Ask Jon Miller, the best broadcaster in the game today. I once went to his room at midnight in Minneapolis after he had called an Orioles-Twins game. He was playing Strat-O-Matic by himself. "I love the Blue Jays bullpen," he said. Ask the president of the United States. As I went through the receiving line at the White House in 2003, Mr. Bush whispered in my ear, "Who hit the home runs for the Yankees today? Did Ruben hit one?"

It is the best game because once it grabs you, it never lets go; it is so seductive, it really is important for some to know whether Ruben Sierra hit a home run today. I am so incurably hooked by my passion, I check Sierra's batting line first thing every day for a far more important reason: to see if he was hit by a pitch. He has not been hit by a pitch since 1990. How pathetic am I? The daily ritual of devouring box scores at the breakfast table is a rite reserved only for baseball, and intriguing box score lines don't just appear such as Ben Petrick's 3-0-0-4 or Curtis Granderson's 5-0-5-0 -- they fly off the page and hit me in the face. And to be sure I absorb them, I have cut out every box score from every game for the last seventeen years, like a seven-year-old doing a current events assignment with scissors and tape.

"You know you can get all that on the Internet," said my wife, Kathy.

"I know," I said, "but I remember it better when I do it by hand."

It is the best game because the players look like us. They are not seven feet tall, they don't weigh 350 pounds, and they don't bench-press 650. We can relate to them. We can see them -- they're not obscured by some hideous face mask, and they don't play behind a wall of Plexiglas -- we can touch them and we can feel them. I see Greg Maddux with his shirt off, with his concave chest and no discernible muscles, and I marvel: This is one of the six greatest pitchers in the history of the game? I see Tony Gwynn with his shirt off and I see a short, fat guy with the smallest hands I've ever seen on an athlete, and I wonder: "This is the best hitter since Ted Williams?" This game is open to all shapes and sizes, including the Cardinals' David Eckstein, who is five feet six; he can't throw, he gets hit by a pitch thirty times just to get on base, and he was the shortstop for the World Champion Angels in 2002 and the World Champion Cardinals in 2006. Pedro Martinez told me that when he was in the minor leagues, he weighed 138 pounds and threw 93mph. How can that be? Mets reliever Billy Wagner is five feet nine and throws 100mph. "The first time I met him," said six-ten pitcher Randy Johnson, "I thought, 'This guy is a foot shorter than me, and he throws harder than I do.'"

Phillies pitcher Jamie Moyer doesn't throw harder than anyone -- about 83mph -- yet he has been one of the game's most consistent pitchers over the last ten years. On the ride home from the ballpark one night after a game he pitched, one of his young sons asked him, "Dad, can't you throw just one pitch 90 (mph)? Just one?" To which, Jamie Moyer said, "Son, that's not how I pitch." As they drove on, Moyer's son noticed how fast his dad was driving. "Dad," he said, "you are driving the car faster than you throw a baseball."

The players, at least most of them, and their stories, are so human. Former pitcher Pete Harnisch helped work his way through Fordham University by appearing in police lineups. "Twenty-five bucks for a regular case," he said. "Fifty bucks for a murder case." Ex-Twins first baseman Kent Hrbek was the only player who showed up for World Series parties in 1987 and '91 because the food and beer were free. In 1990, he met White Sox rookie Craig Grebeck, who wore number 14, same number as Hrbek, and was roughly half his size: 280 pounds to 140 pounds. "You're too small to wear that number," Hrbek told him. "Put a slash between the 1 and the 4 and be 1/4." Hrbek went camping with Andy Van Slyke. "Around the campfire," Van Slyke said, "he played a tape recording of his favorite farts."

They are regular guys, at least most of them, who just happen to be really, really good at something that everyone else is not. Padres outfielder Ryan Klesko was a terrific high school pitcher. He had a mound in his backyard. His mother often caught him. "She wore a mask," Klesko said, "but no shin guards." The mother of former major-league infielder Casey Candaele played in the Women's Professional Baseball League, which was glorified in the movie A League of Their Own. "She had a better swing than mine," Candaele said with a smile. "She was the only mother ever to be banned from playing in father-son baseball games at school because she was too good." Orioles pitcher Mike Flanagan's seventy-two-year-old grandfather was his catcher in the backyard. "If I threw too far inside or too far outside, he couldn't reach it," Flanagan said. "And if he missed it, he would have to chase it. So I had to learn how to hit the target."

Normal guys? Rangers outfielder George Wright went three for five on Opening Day 1982. "Did you have fun today?" I asked. He said, "Yeah, I'd never been to a major-league game before." Amazing: the first major-league game he had ever seen, he played in and got three hits. Former reliever Bob Patterson used to fix the gloves of teammates as he sat in the bullpen during the early innings. Teammate Gary Redus called him Dr. Glove. In the minor leagues, he was nicknamed Emmett after the fix-it man on The Andy Griffith Show. "He's coming over Saturday to upholster my couch," said Rich Donnelly, one of his coaches. The day Keith Hernandez left home after being drafted in 1975, he packed his Strat-O-Matic in his suitcase. "You're not taking that," his father said. "You're a professional ballplayer now.'" Hernandez said, "But, Dad, I'm halfway through the '72 season!"

Human? Brewers third baseman Jeff Cirillo made the 1997 All-Star team. As he was stowing his overhead luggage in the plane on his way to the game, a man behind him asked, "Aren't you Jeff Cirillo?" Cirillo was shocked that anyone recognized him. "Yes, I am," he said proudly. The man said, "Aren't you going to the All-Star game?" Cirillo said yes.

"This plane is going to Detroit," the man said.

Even the best players, at least some of them, are genuine. There is no finer person, no more unpretentious superstar, than Hall of Fame third baseman Brooks Robinson of the Orioles. When Robin Roberts came to Baltimore late in his career, he unsuccessfully tried to field a bunt down the third-base line, preventing Robinson from making his trademark barehand catch-and-throw play. Robinson patted Roberts on the butt and said, "Let me have that one the next time; I'm good on that play." In the late '70s, Gordon Beard, a sportswriter in Baltimore, made a speech at one of the retirement functions for Robinson. "In New York," Beard said, "they named a candy bar after Reggie Jackson. Here in Baltimore, we name our children after Brooks Robinson."

It is the best game because it's a romantic game. Our finest essayists write poetically about it, yet ultimately they're all wrong. In truth, it is a hard game played by hard men; the romance disappears when that ball is traveling at your face at an incomprehensible rate of speed. It is, without question, the hardest game in the world to play, yet it looks so easy on TV. It isn't. My wish is for everyone in America to get one at-bat in a major-league game against Randy Johnson, and to stand even with third base when Albert Pujols hits a rocket down the line. Then everyone would appreciate what I appreciate: the speed of the game and the danger involved. It is a game that requires tremendous skill, athleticism, and courage. It is golf, except with running, jumping, throwing, sliding, and an overwhelming fear of the ball. PGA Tour players are amazingly skilled and disciplined, but imagine hitting an eight-iron into a green with a baseball that's hard as a rock and coming at you at 95mph, or, after finishing your swing, having to avoid a 225-pound man in metal spikes who is coming at your knees at full speed. How hard is it? Ask Danny Ainge, perhaps the best all-round athlete of the last twenty-five years. There wasn't a sport that he couldn't play, and he did play in the major leagues, but when Orioles pitcher Tippy Martinez was asked what he threw to get Ainge out, he said, "Strikes."

How hard? Ask Michael Jordan. His greatest feat was not leading the NBA in scoring by more than eight points and winning Defensive Player of the Year in the same year, it was hitting .202 in Double-A ball after having not played baseball since high school, sixteen years earlier. It was a miracle that he hit that high. I thought he would hit .050, and I wasn't alone. Jordan will tell you that hitting a baseball is a lot harder than hitting a jump shot. A great NBA shooter misses ten shots in a row and he can't wait to shoot the eleventh because he knows it's going in. But a major-league hitter goes twenty at-bats without a hit, and he's a mess. Hall of Famer Frank Robinson, who had one of the greatest rookie seasons ever, and is the most confident hitter I've ever met, told me "I went something like 0 for twenty-five during my second year and I honestly thought I'd never get another hit." Dante Bichette was a really good hitter for nearly ten years, but he told me, "Every day I come to the park I wonder if it's the last day I'll be able to hit in the big leagues."

How hard? The Yankees' Alex Rodriguez has been the game's best player for the last ten years. His talent level is astonishingly high, far higher than that of Derek Jeter. Someday, he might be the all-time home run king, and could have the best numbers this side of Babe Ruth.

And yet, due to his failures in the postseason for the Yankees in 2004-06, critics have questioned his ability, his courage and his heart. He has been savaged by the press in New York and the fans at Yankee Stadium, where he has been booed liked an itinerant player with no track record rather than a two-time MVP, and the only infielder ever to win a Gold Glove in a 50-homer season. Only in baseball can the most gifted player on the field perform like the worst player some nights. That can't happen in basketball. On a bad night, Larry Bird was the best player on the court, the guy who always took the last shot.

There's nothing wrong with A-Rod's heart. It's his head. "The guys who are most affected by slumps are the bright guys who think so much and care so much," says veteran outfielder Jeff Conine. A-Rod cares too much about things around him, especially his image, and he thinks way too much. In 2006, he spoke on the phone for ninety minutes with ESPN basketball analyst Dick Vitale looking for answers for his hitting woes, as if Dickie V. might actually say something that would help A-Rod hit a 98mph heater. Basketball players just react, they let their bodies take over because there's no time to do anything else. In baseball, with so much time to think, a player can think himself into trouble.

"You know what he's thinking right now?" a former teammate of A-Rod said after A-Rod made the final out of the eighth inning of a playoff game against the Tigers in 2006. "He's thinking 'great, I don't have to bat in the ninth inning?'" What? That's what a scared, overmatched, ten-year-old thinks! How can a guy with 460 home runs at age thirty-one think like that? It's baseball. It will strangle you if you let it. That's what makes it the best game.

How hard? Of all the stupid hypothetical questions I like to ask, my favorite is, "How many hits would you get in a hundred at-bats against Randy Johnson?" The answer for me is simple: zero. Any other fifty-year-old who hasn't played since high school, and thinks it's higher than zero, has no idea what he's talking about. Why? Because Johnson would sense my fear, he'd buzz the tower my first time up, and I'd never get back in there, and neither would you. I told this to ESPN's Dan Patrick on his radio show, explaining that he, too, would get zero hits in a hundred at-bats against Randy Johnson. Patrick is a good athlete, so he disagreed. I told Dan that he would get zero hits in a hundred at-bats against 200-game winner Jamie Moyer, whom I chose only because he's left-handed (Dan hits right-handed) and is a finesse pitcher who throws 83 mph, and not quite as scary.

"I'd get a hit off Jamie Moyer," Patrick said.

The next day, Jamie Moyer came on his radio show.

"You would never get a hit off me," Moyer said.

It is the best game because of its unpredictability. Every day you go to the ballpark, you might see something you've never seen in your life. How many other people can say that about their jobs? I saw Brad Komminsk disappear over the eight-feet-high fence in left-center field at Memorial Stadium after making a spectacular catch; his hand, with the ball in it, eventually reached over the top of the fence. I saw Bo Jackson run up the same fence, like a skateboarder on a banked turn, after making a great running catch. I saw Bert Blyleven strike out nine batters in one game, all called third strikes. I saw a deranged fan jump out of the upper deck and land on the netting behind the plate at Yankee Stadium. I saw Jeff Stone make an out at all four bases in one game. Think about that one.

Unpredictable? Look, no one loves basketball more than I do. But in many basketball games, you know who is going to win, and how the game is going to be played, before it starts. When the Clippers would go to Chicago to play the dynastic Bulls, they couldn't win. That's never the case in baseball. No team in baseball goes 39-2 at home. Only in baseball can someone -- in this case, me -- pick the Angels to win the seven-team American League West in 1991, and the Twins to finish last, then have the Twins finish first and the Angels finish last. And I wasn't the only dope who made that call. In basketball, Michael Jordan is Michael Jordan, and Paul Mokeski is Paul Mokeski, and it never changes. The best player always dominates the game. The last guy on the bench never takes the game-winning shot. But in baseball, the best player might not even be a factor in the game, and his team can still win. The last player on the bench, be it Tom Lawless or Lenny Webster, or Geoff Blum in Game 3 of the 2005 World Series, might win the game. Francisco Cabrera was the last guy on the bench for the Braves in Game 7 of the 1992 National League Championship Series against the Pirates. His only expected role that night was to catch the ceremonial first ball before the game, yet his two-out, two-run single off Stan Belinda won the game and ruined the Pirates for what is now fourteen years: It remains the only postseason Game 7 ever to end on a two-out hit that took a team from behind to ahead.

It is the best game because of its rich history and tradition, from the seventh-inning stretch to my wife's favorite: the simple tossing of a baseball to the first baseman as he runs in after each inning so he'll have a baseball in his mitt for the next inning. It is a game of copiously kept statistics that have real meaning; they allow us to compare eras. At the 1999 All-Star game at Fenway Park, Ted Williams, who was introduced as The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived, sat in his wheelchair next to the pitcher's mound before the game. At the subtle urging of Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken -- no surprise it was those guys -- the rest of the All-Stars surrounded Williams to talk to the great man. "Can you smell the smoke on your bat when you really hit one?" Williams asked Mark McGwire. The current All-Stars revered Williams because they knew if he were playing today, he would be the best hitter on the field. And they would be right. If this had been a gathering of NBA basketball players, and that had been George Mikan, the first great big man in the league's history, sitting at center court, with all due respect, Shaquille O'Neal probably would have thought, "Man, I'd dunk every time on this guy," and he would be right.

Baseball is the only major sport in which some of the standard-bearers have been dead for fifty years, and a team that hasn't played in eighty years, the 1927 Yankees, are still mentioned in casual conversation, as in "The Indians are a good hitting team, but they're not the '27 Yankees." It is the only sport in which we can argue who was better, Walter Johnson or Roger Clemens, Babe Ruth or Barry Bonds. Johnson was the best ever, and not because I'm biased because I went to his high school, but because he threw 113 shutouts, more than Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, and Curt Schilling combined. Who is better, Bonds or Ruth? Entering the 2006 season, Ruth had as many career shutouts as Pedro Martinez (17). When Bonds becomes a pitcher, then we'll talk about who is the greatest baseball player of all time.

It is the best game because it begins in the spring, a time when the flowers are blooming, the snow has melted, and summer is ahead. People build their vacations around baseball trips. Countless times I have met a family that is in the middle of a two-week odyssey in which they are visiting ten different major-league ballparks. They don't do trips like that in the NFL, do they? Baseball fans spend March going to every spring training site. Do football fans spend August visiting every NFL training camp? You're not even allowed in those places for fear that you might steal a team's game plan for next week. Does anyone really say, "We have to go to Arco Arena" in Sacramento? No. Why? Because NFL stadiums and NBA arenas are largely the same. The dimensions of the field and the court are always exactly the same. But in baseball, they're all different. When my family visited Wrigley Field in 2003, my wife, no big baseball fan, was dazzled by the ivy on the outfield walls and the hand-operated scoreboard. Every ballpark is different in its own way. I know. I've covered a game in forty-eight of them.

It is the best game because it is a family game, one that begins every spring with a father, or Ryan Klesko's mother, taking a son to the backyard for a game of catch. The Bell family is a three-generation family of big leaguers. Gus Bell, then with the Reds, would watch his son Buddy play as a kid, but so as not to draw any extra attention, Gus would sit alone in his car beyond the center-field fence. "If I made a good play," Buddy said, "he'd honk his horn once. For a great play, he'd honk twice." The Tyler family works in Baltimore. Jimmy runs the Oriole clubhouse. Fred runs the visiting clubhouse. Their dad, Ernie, is the umpire attendant. He has not missed a home game since he took the job in 1960, a Ripkenesque streak. There are thirteen Tylers, Ernie, Mom, and eleven kids. They once all lived in the same house at the same time. A baseball family indeed.

It is the best game because it's a daily game with great rhythm and flow to it. The game writes itself, and, if you're paying attention, it never disappoints. There are few days off, and, thankfully, fewer off-day stories to write. When Tracy Ringolsby, a Hall of Fame baseball writer, filled in briefly on his newspaper's NFL coverage years ago, he asked a question of Chiefs coach Marty Schottenheimer, who scolded him, saying, "Today's Monday; that's a Tuesday question." In football, coaches can't completely comment on a game "until we've seen the film." In baseball, there is enough time between plays, between pitches, you have time to analyze it. In baseball, you don't wonder if the home run is going to be called back because of a penalty. You don't have to wait for the referee to stare into the replay monitor for twenty minutes to determine that, yes, now you're allowed to celebrate. And, in baseball, the ground can indeed cause a fumble.

As I've said on my blog before, I started a photography business a little over a month ago.  I did it in part for the tax benefits, but mostly because I really enjoy photography.  I want to become a better photographer, and I believe I learn something every day that will help me take better pictures.  I learn from magazines I read.  I currently have a subscription to Shutterbug and Popular Photography and Imaging thanks to my wonderful in-laws.  I work with two men who do photography for a second income, so I learn from them as well.  I learn from web sites I find, and from seeing other people's pictures.

 

Rebecca has told me that I need to take a class or classes before I can start charging people.  So, if anyone who reads my blog has a pile of extra money sitting around and want to use it to help me, I've found a couple of places where I'd like to take classes.  Check them out, they look like great places to learn photography.

 

How do you know your calling in life?  How does a person figure out that he or she should be a stuntman, a pilot, a writer, or President of the United States?  Do you really think there is one job that you are called to do in life?  Or could you be called to multiple jobs, either at different points in your life or even at the same time? 

 

I asked myself the question this morning as I sat down at my desk, "What is my calling?"  I had a difficult time coming up with an answer.  And the answers I came up with really didn't have anything to do with a job per se.  I believe I have been called to be a Christian and to set a Christian example in everything that I do.  I believe that every Christian should feel that their calling is to set a Christian example.  I also feel that I have been called to be the best husband that I can be for my wife.  To me, that means making sure her needs are met physically, emotionally and spiritually.  It didn't take me any time at all to come up with those callings, but I had a very difficult time coming up with anything else.  Is my calling in life to be a computer programmer?  Is my calling to be a photographer?  Is my calling something that I haven't even discovered yet?

 

I'm going to ask you to leave comments on this post because I'm interested in hearing about other people's callings and how those callings were discovered.

I enjoy reading, although it may take me more time to read something than the average person.  My wife tells me I'm a slow reader.  My response is that reading slowly allows the book to come to life.  She laughs and gives me an inquisitive look as if she is trying to decide if I am joking or telling the truth.  I am telling the truth.  You see, when I read a book, it is much more than just words on a page.  Reading is a chance to explore, to delve into places and situations that I would never be able to go.

 

A book opens to reveal a new world, a world different from the one in which the reader lives.  A book, whether fiction or nonfiction, comedy or tragedy, futuristic or historical, thought-provoking or dull, inspiring or trivial, uplifting or depressing, provieds the reader a glimpse into the mind of the writer.  The reader can gain insight into emotions and experiences that would otherwise go unrevealed.  A book can touch a number of emotions within you, some that may be comfortably familiar and some that are oddly unfamiliar.  From the triumph of the hero to the heartbreak of ill-fated lovers, life is captured in writing.

 

As I write this blog, have resolved to make myself a better writer.  I want people to look at my writing as more than just words in a book (or on the screen) and see the world as only I see it.  My world is different from your world, just as your world is different from your parents' world or your friends' world.  By reading what others have written, we can learn to appreciate those writers for the world they have revealed to us.

 

Look around you.  Open your eyes and open your mind...there are worlds to be discovered.

An old adage states that you don't know what you miss until it is gone.  I don't know who first said that, but I'm thinking it might have been Adam after he and Eve were forced to leave the Garden of Eden because of sin.  I know it's not recorded anywhere in the Bible, but if he didn't say it, I'm sure he thought it.

 

Why is it that we don't realize how much we enjoy/need something until it is gone?  Spring break is happening all around me this week.  Decatur city schools are out, Morgan county schools are out, Freed-Hardeman University (my alma mater) is out, and I'm sitting in my office right now at 7:52 a.m., working on a day when half of my group is out enjoying spring break with their families.  I definitely took spring break forgranted. 

 

Another thing that I never realized how much I enjoyed until too late is singing in a chorus.  I sang for four and a half years in the Sonshine Singers while I was in college.  I loved the friendship, the camraderie that was built among the members of the group.  We had fun, but at the same time we learned discipline and made beautiful music.  To this day there are certain songs that I can sing or hear that will take me back to those great days.

 

I miss Mid-South Youth Camp.  I first went to camp there when I was 7, and it was a bit daunting to me.  It was the first time I had been away from my parents for a week.  And I remember my first counselor, Schmoo.  That wasn't his real name, but that's what everyone called him.  I went to camp there almost every year until I graduated high school, and I was blessed to work there as a counselor for the first two summers I was in college.  I loved having the cabin of the youngest campers, and I tried to make them feel as good about being at camp as I did the first time I went.  Because of the camp's focus on God, I always felt so close to Him.  I miss the frienships I built with the counselors, the devotionals, and the children I hope I made an impact upon.  I even miss the sweltering heat because it really made me appreciate cooling off in the pool every day.

 

I know that I still take many things forgranted.  I often take my health forgranted.  I have used less than five sick days in the three plus years I have been working since getting out of college.  I should consider that a blessing, and I do when I stop and think about it.  I loved playing basketball in high school.  Maybe I should say I loved practicing and sitting the bench in high school.  I didn't ever get to play much.  Because of the practice, and because I'm lucky enough to work at a place that has a gym, I'm still able to play ball three times per week.  The biggest difference now is that I actually get to play, and I'm one of the better players.  I now realize how important that practice was, but not just for high school basketball.  It taught me that I'm not always going to be the best at whatever I do.  There are times that I will have to work as hard as I can just to keep pace with everyone else.  But it also taught me that I can do whatever I set my mind to do if I am determined.

 

It saddens me to say this, but I think I take my family forgranted as well.  I call my parents once or twice a week, and I call Pop and my brother about as often.  Grandmama is in the nursing home, and I now make it a point to go and spend time with her every time we visit.  But Rebecca and I only make it to visit them once every month or two.  I never call my mother-in-law or my father-in-law, and I don't often speak with my sister-in-law (Hi, SIL, I know you'll read this.), her husband, or brother-in-law.  I want everyone in my family to know that I love them and I appreciate everything that they have done and continue to do for us.

 

There are other things that I am sure that I take forgranted, but, like the saying, I doubt I'll realize it until it's gone.

 

We're rapidly approaching spring break week.  For me that means absolutely nothing.  It means I still have to go to work, but there might be a few less cars on the road as I travel.  I always enjoyed spring break.  Oh, well.  There's really no sense in looking back.  So, in present day news...

 

We are selling our house.  We met with our agent on Saturday and signed the papers.  We love our house, but we're wanting to move somewhere smaller until we have children and they are ready to start school.  Really, what we are wanting to do is save money on our house payment each month so that we can retire our debt faster.  The sooner we can get rid of our debt, the better we will feel.  So we've decided to sacrifice the house we have grown to love for the greater good of our family.

 

That being said, we spend the majority of the weekend preparing the outside of the house for selling.  It's the first impression people will get of your house, and first impressions can many times make or break a deal.  We spent about 14 hours outside this weekend spraying and pulling weeds, planting flowers, and adding mulch to our flower bed.  I've learned that I really, really don't like weeds, especially the kind with little purple flowers that stink.  We may have worn ourselves out getting the house ready, but it looks as good as it has since we moved in.

 

Keep us in mind as we start the process of selling our house.  Hopefully it won't take too long because we really want to start saving money.

I'm sorry I haven't updated this in a while.  I update this space from work, so a lack of blogging will mean one of just a few things: I'm on vacation, work is really busy, or, as in this case, they decided to block anything that is spaces.live.com with internet filters.  I just checked back and, to my surprise, I got to my blog.  So this is an update letting everyone know that I may not get to make another update for a long while.

 

Here's what's been happening lately:

- Rebecca and I are going to Gatlinburg this weekend with Dave and Amanda, some good friends of ours.

- Jared's basketball team won their district championship.  And the girls team won their district championship as well.  Both teams play Eagleville in the first round of the regional tournament.  Way to go, and good luck, Patriots!

- I've taken about 400 pictures since I purchased my D80.  Too bad I haven't had much time to edit the photos.

- I have adopted a new life philosophy: You only get one chance to live today, so make the most of it!

- I'm done refereeing basketball.  I'm trying to decide whether I'd rather umpire baseball (sure money) or take and sell pictures of baseball (unstable money, but it is what I want to do with my photography business) to earn some extra cash to help pay off our car.

- Rebecca has joined a gym with Amanda.  I don't know that they really enjoy working out, but they're working hard to get into better shape. Rebecca told me that she already feels like she has more energy when she works out.

- My job is going well, and it's keeping me busy.  I'd tell you all about it, but I really don't want to put you to sleep with the boring details.  Rebecca's eyes glaze over when I try to tell her about it.  Our group of friends call it "computer talk" or "geek speak."

- I went to see the Blue Man Group in concert on Monday night.  It was a BLAST!  I caught a marshmallow that one of the blue men threw into the audience.  Maybe I'll post some pictures later.

 

I guess that's about it for now.  Who knows, maybe I'll still be able to post next week.

I have posted a new set of pictures from the holidays.  They include pictures from my work group's Christmas party (yes, that's me wearing pantyhose on my head), pictures from Christmas day at my parents' house, and pictures from the Christmas classic in Knoxville where White House Heritage played.  I hope you enjoy them!

 

In other picture news, I have decided to start my own photography business.  After weeks of deliberation on a name, Rebecca finally had the genius idea of J. McKnight Photography.  I thought about Jonathan McKnight Photography, but that's really a mouthful.  I thought about Jonathan Ryan Photography, because it has a nice ring to it.  But then people would think my name is Jonathan Ryan.  Rebecca and I tossed around other names that didn't have my name in it, but we really couldn't settle on one until J. McKnight Photography jumped out of Rebecca's mouth and hit me on the side of the head.

 

The business will be like a professional hobby.  I'd like to get into shooting sports, and that should be pretty easy with all of the youth sports around.  Another area I want to concentrate on is children.  Several of our friends have small children, and having pictures can preserve memories for them.  I also wouldn't mind doing senior portraits and things like that, but I don't have a studio and I don't really plan on getting one or setting one up in my house any time soon.  For now, I'll have to concentrate on location photography, and that is fine with me.

 

I've been saving for a camera for a while now, and I finally broke down and bought the camera that I've been looking at on Saturday.  It's a Nikon D80, and it must be pretty popular because it stays on backorder almost everywhere.  I got it at Wolf Camera in Huntsville after calling around everywhere.  And they still had to ship the lens in from another store in their district.  They called and told me that the lens came in today.

 

Look for me to start taking a whole lot more pictures.  I'm going to try to find somewhere online that I can share them because I've almost reached my upload limit here. 

It's been three full weeks since I posted my goals, so I'm going to give my first update on how I am doing to reach them.  I'll list the goal and then list my progress or lack of progress.

 

Isn't it crazy how things in life work out sometimes?  Check out this example, and then read 14 others like it here.

 

The British actor Anthony Hopkins [who shot to fame as Hannibal Lecter] was delighted to hear that he had landed a leading role in a film based on the book The Girl From Petrovka by George Feifer. A few days after signing the contract, Hopkins travelled to London to buy a copy of the book. He tried several bookshops, but there wasn't one to be had. Waiting at Leicester Square underground for his train home, he noticed a book apparently discarded on a bench. Incredibly, it was The Girl From Petrovka. That in itself would have been coincidence enough but in fact it was merely the beginning of an extraordinary chain of events. Two years later, in the middle of filming in Vienna, Hopkins was visited by George Feifer, the author. Feifer mentioned that he did not have a copy of his own book. He had lent the last one - containing his own annotations - to a friend who had lost it somewhere in London. With mounting astonishment, Hopkins handed Feifer the book he had found. 'Is this the one?' he asked, 'with the notes scribbled in the margins?' It was the same book.

I posted a few months ago about Rebecca's and my dilemma about whether or not to buy a new car.  Over the course of the next month, it became more apparent to us that we were going to need to find a new(er) car.  Rebecca and I had decided we wanted to find a car we could drive for 100,000+ miles.  We narrowed our choices down to new vehicles (even though we know how Dave Ramsey feels about them), Hondas, Nissans, or Toyotas.  Over the Christmas holiday as we spent time in Henderson, we stopped by a dealership owned by a guy we have bought several cars from in the past.  Actually, we bought my truck from him.  We looked over the lot because he had several Hondas.  I noticed the "weekly special" which was a Volvo that looked really sharp.  We called Joe Knowles on Friday afternoon before Christmas and he said he would meet us at the lot so we could do a little test driving.  I told Rebecca I wanted to test drive the Volvo, and she reluctantly agreed.  She didn't seem enthused about owning a Volvo.  After I drove it for a little while, I knew it was the car I wanted; Rebecca just had to be convinced.  So I let her drive it.  And she was convinced.  Now, we are the proud owners of a 2003 Volvo S60 AWD that is loaded.  Power sunroof, leather seats, power seats and mirrors with memory settings, heated seats with two heat settings, a 60/40 fold-down rear seat, 8 air bags, and the list goes on.

 

We are incredibly thankful for what Joe did by coming to the dealership on his Christmas vacation and getting everything ready for us.  Also, we are thankful for my grandfather who offered us a 0% financing option to get the car.  Here's to the next 150,000 miles put on the Volvo!