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| Thanks for checking out my old Xanga blog. I've switched over to using self-hosted WordPress now. I imported all my Xanga posts to my new site.
Come check out my new blog at jaledwith.com!
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| Leading Off - Today's post will be devoted entirely to sports. So I suppose if you don't like sports you can check back later or read what I wrote yesterday about my birthday. But it won't just be about statistics as I will go into what it feels like to be the rival school of Titletown U.S.A.
Sadly, It's Great To Be A Florida Gator - (Though make no mistake, it's still great not being one too.) It's difficult for me to describe what it's like to watch the Gators win another basketball championship. Ignore the fact that they won their first one on my 22nd birthday and their second one about an hour before my 23rd birthday. What really kills me is this team just started making the NCAA tournament a few years ago. Does anyone else remember that? These Gators used to be pretty bad. I remember in high school when it was a big deal that they beat Kentucky. It only took the Gators five or six years to put together what will be remembered as the best post-season starting five ever assembled. All I can come up with is that FSU must be terrible at recruiting. Neither of us were that good back around the turn of the century. Lord knows neither town is much more appealing than the other, at least as college towns go. They must have better facilities or something. Whatever it is, it occurred to me that it really wouldn't have taken that much for our situations to be reversed. In basketball, anyway. Football is a whole other story that I'd rather not get into.
Also, I never used to hate the Gators. I hated Miami and merely disliked UF. I think that was due to the fact that FSU lost to Miami in football about 700 straight times before finally winning my senior year and then again this past year. But FSU beat UF the first two years I was in school. And no one here really cares about basketball so it didn't break my heart if FSU lost to anyone. But it's different now. Now UF has FSU's number in football three years running. And even though the Seminoles beat the Gators in basketball this year it's the Gators with a second straight NCAA championship and the Seminoles with a second straight NIT bid. Their success has made me jealous, even bitter. Now the tables have turned. Now I hate the Gators and merely dislike the Hurricanes.
You would not believe how many Gator fans there are in Tallahassee. We must have great grad school programs at FSU, or maybe the ones in Gainesville are just terrible, because I can't account for where they've all come from. There were a few after the first basketball championship, a lot more after the football championship. Now it seems like they're everywhere. No matter where I go I see orange and blue. It's bad enough we have to share the same state; can't we at least have our own city?
The worst part about this is that it won't ever go away. I mean that. When the Gators won their first football championship in 1996 they had their moment in the sun, but then FSU won their second football championship in 1999 and had some words of their own. But even if FSU were to win a championship in either basketball or football sometime in the next ten years it won't matter. What the Gators have done over the past twelve months is historic and will not ever be forgotten. People will always remember when Gainesville held both the football and basketball championships at the same time. They'll always remember the back-to-back basketball titles and the fact that they're the only team ever to win back-to-back titles with the same starting five. No quantity of championships by FSU will erase these facts. Even if FSU were to pull the exact same feat, UF will be remembered as the school that did it first. Gator nation will be able to hold this over all college sports fans forever.
This is merely the tip of the iceberg of my disgust.
MLB Predictions - I love baseball season. Here are my annual pre-season predictions:
National League:
East: Phillies
Central: Reds
West: D'Backs
Wild card: Mets
American League:
East: Yankees
Central: Tigers
West: Angels
Wild card: Twins
I know, I know. I've got some explaining to do. The NL East is stacked this year. Sadly the Marlins might finish in fourth just because the Braves, Mets and Phillies are all pretty dang good this year (though personally I think they have a shot to do some amazing things this year). I never pick the Phillies. No one ever picks the Phillies. Therefore, I'm picking the Phillies. Everyone is telling me the Reds have got the team this year and I don't like anyone else in that division, not even the Cardinals. The D'Backs could be the great young team of the year. They have the advantage of an old ace (Randy Johnson) to help the young pitchers and a weak division to beat up on all year. I'm going with the Mets in the wild card because it's a safe pick.
The American League is much tougher. The AL is far superior to the NL once again this year. As per my own rule, I will never pick against the Yankees until the year after they lose their division (which is the reason I'm not picking the Braves this year). Though I must admit, the Red Sox look awfully good. The Tigers took a World Series team and made it better. They could win it all this year. I don't really like anyone in the AL West but I like Vlad so I'll take the Angels. The AL wild card was the hardest because it came down to the Red Sox, White Sox, Indians and Twins. I think all of them will finish with records that could win a division in the NL, but sadly that's not the way the post-season works. I'm going with the Twins because they have pitching and I'm a sucker for pitching.
Florida Marlins - As I type this, the Marlins are leading the Nationals 6-1 in the 6th inning. If they hold on to win it'll be only the second time the Marlins have ever started a season off 3-0. The only other time was in 1997 when they won their first World Series. Maybe I should update my predictions. Or maybe not.
Miami Heat - I can't believe the Heat are probably going to win the Southeast Division but it looks like that's exactly what they're going to do. Caron Butler of the Washington Wizards broke his hand and will be out six weeks. That's all the advantage the Heat need. I thought they would finish fourth but after beating the Raptors last night they might be able to finish in third in the east. This would probably mean they'd play the Wizards in the first round, which for reasons I've already mentioned would be a great draw. If they end up in fourth place behind Toronto they'll be stuck playing Chicago. That could be trouble. The third seed has the advantage of not having to play either Detroit or Chicago until the conference finals. Playing Cleveland in the second round would be no picnic, with or without Wade, but it's better than losing in the first round to the Bulls. I'm actually more interested in the Heat now that Wade has been out. It's made their playoff push that much more interesting. | | |
| My Annual Birthday Rant - Each year since I started keeping a blog in 2004 I've written a little post about just how much I dislike celebrating my birthday. Okay, I suppose I didn't have a rant when I turned 20 but that was because I was new to this whole blogging thing. When I turned 21 I was in a bad mood. No one wanted to celebrate my birthday because the Pope had died the day before. What a jerk. A guy only turns 21 once. And it's not like I wanted to get smashed, but it would have been nice to have to fight off people trying to get me drunk.
This was also when I first outlined my idea of the perfect birthday. "Here's the bottom line: the perfect birthday would be if my friends were to hang out with me so long as it wasn't something done for me. Something they would have done anyway and they simply included me in it." To put it another way, I don't want to be celebrated. Not for my birthday. This is coming from a person who craves attention and for years was willing to invent any sort of crazy story just to get it for a fleeting moment. I don't mind receiving attention if I feel like I've done something to deserve it. But on the day of my birth the only person doing anything worthy of this sort of attention and celebration was my mom. Send her a gift.
I remember my friend Renee asking me once if I felt the same way about God's grace, since He's lavished so much attention and love on me for something I didn't earn or work for. The difference there is that I could never earn God's grace with what I do. Man's favor and attention can be received by what we do without any trouble at all, and that's the way I prefer to receive attention from other people (while still finding my ultimate value in my identity provided by Christ, of course). Maybe that's sinful. If someone can show me a verse I'll be happy to take the correction.
I was feeling very sentimental last year when I turned 22 so my rant didn't have teeth. At the time I was still pretty certain I was going to be leaving Tallahassee when I graduated, so in my mind this was my last birthday with all my college friends. I couldn't have scripted a better day. First of all I had no classes because it was a Monday. That evening Andy and Curtis had some people over for pizza. Nothing crazy or out-of-this-world, just hanging out with friends. A few of us watched 24 after dinner, we suffered through the Gators winning their first basketball championship, and then I was thrown into Westcott Fountain (I could have done without that last bit, but at least we got Josh Kelley that night too). With the exception of the trip to Westcott and people saying nice things to me the entire evening could have been confused for any other Monday.
So I get to work today and there's balloons and a birthday banner hanging up in my cube. And I imagine there's going to be a "surprise" party too. Okay, I know for a fact there's going to be a party, and not just because everyone around here gets one but because I was accidentally emailed about it yesterday. I know they're trying to show their appreciation and that means a lot to me. It really does. But make no mistake: I will be uncomfortable. I'm uncomfortable sitting in my cube with all this stuff up. All you need to do is say happy birthday, talk to me a little, maybe let me go home an hour early. I'm really simple like that. I'm a quality time person; all this other stuff is just extra and weird. You have to understand that growing up, especially when I hit high school, I didn't have many close friends. I would have killed for people to talk to and who would have listened to me. That's still what I look for most in my relationships and, as a result, that's still the best way to honor me and show me that you care.
Thankfully my birthday fell on a Tuesday this year. Every Tuesday all of us working stiffs that came up in Navs together have lunch somewhere equally convenient to our various employment locations. I think these people know me well enough to know about my birthday quirks. But more importantly I'll be able to spend time with the people I care about. It'll be "with me" but not "for me," just like I said earlier.
I want to assure you that no matter what people do for me today I'll be thankful. If you want to wish me a happy birthday but you're a little scared after reading this please know that I won't bite. If you were going to call me or post something on my Facebook wall and now you're not so sure please don't change your mind. If you've already planned for the county jamboree to be in town just for me don't tell them to go home. You need to be honest and true about how you best show your love just as much as I need to be honest and true about how I best receive it. I'm very grateful to be in a position where there's anyone who cares enough about me to be even reading this, let alone do something for me that unintentionally makes me feel uncomfortable. My thanks to each of you and I hope, whatever you do today, that your day is as blessed as I know mine will be.
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| Leading Off - It's been a very busy two and a half weeks, filled with travel, family, a wedding, getting sick, a broken air conditioning unit, Rez Week and one wicked party. Where to begin?
Presenting Mr. & Mrs. Jeremy Howard - The Thursday before St Patrick's Day I traveled from Florida to Nashville for my cousin Beka's wedding. I had been eagerly looking forward to this trip for weeks. My wanderlust peaked when all the students left to go on spring break. I really needed a vacation.
Incidentally I was traveling on my sister's birthday. It was the first time I got to see Alison on her birthday since she turned fourteen back in 2002. It's weird to think about things like that, measuring time based on milestones missed. Since I arrived at around 9 PM central time I didn't spend too much time with her on her actual birthday, but I did get to give her a gift in person. Strangely, she also gave me a gift. You'd think after nineteen birthdays she would have figured out how the process works.
Friday we met up with the rest of the family. My mom is the oldest of six children, so there's lots of little ones. Or at least they used to be little. The youngest one is eight now. It never ceases to amaze me how fast kids grow, especially when you don't see them everyday. Since we were in Nashville and since my mom, four of her siblings and some of their spouses (including my dad) all went to Vanderbilt we spent the day on campus. We're all sports nuts so we found the sports bar in the student union and watched some NCAA tournament basketball while catching up with one another.
Friday afternoon each individual family went and did their own thing. Mine met up with one of my parents' old friends who is now a professor of engineering at Vanderbilt. It was fun to hear some old stories, a few of which I've heard before but only from the perspective of my mom and dad. It makes me wonder how many of my friends from college I'll be able to stay in touch with thirty years from now.
Friday night my grandmother and the parents of the bride went to the rehearsal dinner. The rest of the family went out to a fancy restaurant near campus. For the last two or three reunions I've been eagerly awaiting an invite to join the adult table, but once again I was told to head up the kids table. And it only makes it worse when they try to tell you that it's not the kids table, that it's actually just the under forty table or the second generation table. As if that would change the company or the level of conversation. And I don't mean to insult my cousins. It was still fun eating with them, and the overall maturity level has increased a good bit since the last reunion, but there were still a couple of moments during dinner where I wished I could crawl under the table for a minute or two.
Saturday was the day of the wedding. These next few sentences are going to be a bit tricky. I need to say a word about what my feelings were towards weddings before going on this trip. Without going into too much detail, I didn't think much of them. They seemed fake. People commit to a feeling and not to a person. Some are even taking the words "until death do us part" out in favor of "until love fades," which I suppose is more honest but doesn't reflect what a marriage should be. I wish more people would just elope and spare us the farce. Now, I didn't believe my cousin was going to end up as one of these statistics, and I still don't, but it's still difficult to not be cynical.
 I can say without any hesitation that none of these feelings were evoked during this wedding. From the very start you could tell this wasn't going to be a cookie cutter wedding. They first ran a slide show of old photos, first of Beka, then Jeremy, then the two of them together. After everyone walked down the aisle and took their places my Uncle Chuck, the father of the bride, began to perform the service. I had heard they wanted to make the ceremony fun, but I had no idea just how great it was going to be. The service was essentially a roast of both the bride and groom. This struck me as being what was missing in other weddings. Not that each wedding needed the participants to be embarrassed in front of their family and friends before saying "I do." But this roast did a great job of exposing each person. Here were the things they might not tell just anyone, now out in the open. The commitment they were making, it was to this person with these idiosyncrasies. Despite how difficult it might seem to combine these two lives - any two lives - in a marriage, they were committing to the challenge for life. I left knowing they were committed to each other and not just a feeling, which is something I can't always say.
The reception had a picnic theme. All the table clothes were a checkered red and white. The catering was by Loveless and was fried chicken with all the fixings. Neither Jeremy nor Beka like cake, so they had wedding pie instead. There was some music and some dancing, but before you knew it the reception was over and the newlyweds were running out to their car amidst a barrage of silver confetti.
After the reception was a late night of watching more basketball with the family. This is where I expected to be asked when I was going to be getting married. But it turns out that my family is more sensitive than that. Or at least that's one explanation. I found out on this trip that literally everyone in my family reads my blog. Even my grandmother, who doesn't have a computer, has one of her kids fax the entries to her. So I may have created a reverse self-fulling prophesy. Whatever. I'm just glad I didn't have to field any awkward questions. Early the next morning I made my way to the airport. I was the first of all the family to leave. I didn't get nearly enough time with anyone. Sadly the next reunion probably won't be for another three years, unless someone gets married before then. The day of traveling took a lot out of me. I wasn't feeling all that good by the end of the day, but I figured I was just tired. All in all I had a fantastic trip. If you'd like to see some photos from the weekend I've got an album right here.
Somebody Please Kill Me - Okay, so maybe I wasn't just tired. I had to leave work early on Monday and didn't go back to work until Thursday due to a case of food poisoning. Wow, how's that for a reality check? I'll spare you further details. I probably came down with it after eating the the Charlotte airport, but it could have been just about anything I ate on Sunday.
 90s Party - I did everything I could to get well because on Saturday my friends James, Joe and JD were hosting their Annual Decades Dance party. This year the decade of choice was the 1990s. Before you say that not enough time has passed please consider this: everyone in attendance lived through this decade. People got really creative with their attire. Most people, rather than dressing like they did in the 90s, chose to dress like a famous person from the 90s. Who did I dress as? Only the most influential man from that decade: Homer Simpson. My friends Anna and Brandon came as Marge and Bart. We were amongst those nominated for best costume, though we did not get first or second prize. Those honors went to Carrie for Edward Scissorhands and Rob for Al Borlin (Tim Allen's tool show co-host on Home Improvement). The entranceway to the party was themed after Jurassic Park, complete with an authentic-looking homemade sign. The music, which James put weeks of effort into preparing, was fantastic. There were two unexpected highlights to the evening. The first was that a number of girls came as jazzercisers. They actually led a jazzercise workout for everyone. I've got the YouTube video linked down below. The second is something is evidently a time-honored tradition in the Chandler household. That is, of course, making your own Hammer pants out of white trash bags. Hysterical. The funny thing is that most everyone got into both of these. Lots of people were jazzercising and even more were doing their best Hammer dance. You have to realize that I don't really like parties all that much. The fact that I would say I liked this party is saying a lot. But this was by far the best party I've ever been to. James and company will have a very hard time living up to this next year.
It's Like a Snow Day, Only Hot - This past week on both Tuesday and Wednesday everyone at work was sent home at 3pm because the air conditioning in our building was broken. It got pretty sticking hot those two days, and I'm sort of surprised they didn't send us home on Thursday. Since I'm an OPS employee I won't get paid for those hours. Combine that with the fact that the week before I missed two and a half days due to being sick and I'm looking at a financially thin month.
Rez Week - This past week was Rez Week at FSU. For those who don't know, Resurrection Week is a week each spring where all the campus ministries (or most of them, at least) cancel their normal schedule and come together for corporate worship events. Though traditionally it has been held the week before Easter, this year it was pushed up so that the Catholic Student Union would be free to participate. This year's theme was to turn away selfish idols and pursue God and community with other believers. I did not attend the first meeting on Tuesday when Mario, the Chi Alpha leader, gave the message. But Wednesday Brent gave a message that can be summoned up in one word: repent. It was a very passionate and forceful message that we all needed to hear. After he finished the people present spent hours praying together. Thursday Dave spoke about community within the Trinity, how God is a community unto Himself. He challenged us to through John 17:20-26 saying that we needed to be as close to each other as the Father is to the Son. We spent time praying for the other three campuses having Rez Week this week: Appalachian State, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and University of Texas at Austin, that God would move on their campuses as well as our own. Soon I'll have the audio of all three messages and will make it available on my site.
The rest - I can't believe we've already reached April. It's so much harder to judge the passage of time when you're not a student. Weeks turn into months much more easily when you're doing the same thing over and over again. I have to admit, I'm looking forward to the end of the spring semester. I'll be able to drop my student-related activities for a couple of months and concentrate on some things that I haven't been able to give the proper time, most notably writing. But there's still one more month to go. I think it will be a good one.
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| Leading Off - I miss spring break. FSU just had theirs last week and I really could have used it. Granted, my boss has been out of town for a while so my days at work have been very run-of-the-mill. That's sort of a break, right? But I miss having a week in the middle of spring where I could sleep in and choose to do as much or as little as I wanted.
My Pseudo Spring Break - That being said, I still had a break from a lot of my normal routine. Without students in town there was no Bible study to go to, no Nav Night to attend. I could leave for work a few minutes later because traffic was nonexistent. So yeah, there were some nice perks.
Monday night I had dinner at the Projectz, a traditional Cuban meal prepared by Mr James Zack Latham. Very tasty, I must say. Tuesday night I found myself watching A Goofy Movie over at Villa Special, which is evidently Joe's favorite Disney cartoon movie. Considering it was a Disney movie it was pretty sketch at times. There was all sorts of innuendo. After both the dinner on Monday and the movie on Tuesday those in attendance sat around talking about the 90s due to the upcoming 90s party. It's going to be insane. People are really passionate about this particular decade, probably because they actually lived through its entirety. I think I was at Villa on Tuesday talking about old music I used to listen to until after midnight.
Thursday night a bunch of us gathered at Camp Special for a time of worship. I really prefer the spur of the moment times of worship over any other kind of service or meeting. It's much less about habit or routine and much more about a desire to spend time in God's presence. Rob and James led us for a couple of hours. It was easily the highlight of my week.
Friday afternoon after I got off work I spent a few hours with Dave. This is something I miss about being a student. Actually it's the thing I miss most. It used to be that I'd get to spend two or more hours each week with Dave every Thursday before Nav Night. Now I get an hour with him at lunch once every two or three weeks. It was a hard adjustment. It still is. But since this week he had no students to visit and Aaron wasn't in town we both had a free Friday afternoon. We had lunch, watched FSU get beat by UNC, and talked about a lot of different things. We've each had a lot on our minds lately. I think we both needed a friendly ear.
The Greatest Video Game I've Never Played - This weekend my house stumbled upon a new way for us to bond. Scott bought Kingdom Hearts for PS2 last Friday. It is absolutely incredible. If you're not familiar with it, it takes themes and characters from the Final Fantasy video games and adds Disney characters to the plot. So you're main character (whose voice is provided by Haley Joel Osment) is doing all sorts of missions with Donald and Goofy. But it's a one-player game, so Scott is at the controls and Porter and I are offering our advice as he goes through the game. It's far more entertaining than anything on TV. We ended the weekend by being swallowed by Monstro (the whale from Pinocchio). We've decided not to play unless we're all there because we're all so consumed with the plot. I feel bad that I won't be here this weekend because it means we all have to wait two weeks to play again!
The Bauer Power Hour - So far I am unimpressed with this season of 24. This not only due to the fact that Jack has only killed seven people through the first twelve hours. It's mostly because the interpersonal relationships have dominated so far. The Bauer family, Chloe-Morris tiffs, everyone at CTU whining about Morris, the Palmer family, the White House power struggle. Tonight's episode will feature the Logan family, complete with Aaron as the new man in Martha's life. It's just too much. I also don't like how they introduced so many villians so early on. Jack's brother and father, the Middle Eastern terrorists and the Russian extremists are all involved in the same plot at varying levels. It's tough to buy.
I do like some things about this season, but they're all little things. I think I'll like this season when it's all over. I get the sense it's going to bring a lot of closure the way that season three did. I think they'll be able to pull together a good story over the next twelve hours.
The rest - This week I'll be flying to Tennessee on Thursday for my cousin Beka's wedding. It's going to be so much fun. I can't wait to see all my mom's family again. I even get to see my sister on her birthday. The whole thing should be a lot of fun, except for the inevitable questions from family asking when I plan on settling down. My fear, while at first blush appears to be self-absorbed, really is legitimate. Beka is the second oldest cousin out of ten; I'm the oldest. So I'm really the only person in my family who's eligible to be asked those questions. I'll be sure to keep a running tally and report which are the most awkward. | | |
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