Friday, December 26, 2008
Catching Up
Well it has been awhile since I have written so I feel it is time to catch up on what has gone on in my life the last three and a half weeks. For starters I was busy finishing school. Final exams and more projects than you could imagine but I graduated on Dec 13th so I can attest to the fact that all the hard work is worth it. It was and still is such a relief. My parents were able to come visit from Florida where they moved to this past summer. So it was really nice to see them. Now that I have graduated I am working on my teaching certificate in special education and then I will be looking for a teaching and coaching job. I also plan to start work on my masters degree in sports management this fall at Incarnate Word. The last 3 1/2 have also been busy for me with refing. I have refed 45 games in that time period and am staying busy with that. So needless to say I have been a little busy but hopefully things will calm down and I will do better on bloging.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Email Forwards
Well This is a little different than what I normally post, actually it is a lot different. This is an email forward that I recently received and wanted to share. That in itself is crazy because I hate email forwards. I delete them as fast as they come but for some reason I took the time to read this one and it touched me and I wanted to share it. Hope everyone enjoys.
In September 1960, I woke up one morning with six hungry babies and just 75 cents in my pocket. Their father was gone. The boys ranged from three months to seven years; their sister was two. Their Dad had never been much more than a presence they feared. Whenever they heard his tires crunch on the gravel driveway they would scramble to hide under their beds. He did manage to leave $15 a week to buy groceries. Now that he had decided to leave, there would be no more beatings, but no food either. If there was a welfare system in effect in southern Indiana at that time, I certainly knew nothing about it. I scrubbed the kids until they looked brand new and then put on my best homemade dress, loaded them into the rusty old 51 Chevy and drove off to find a job. The seven of us went to every factory, store and restaurant in our small town. No luck. The kids stayed crammed into the car and tried to be quiet while I tried to convince who ever would listen that I was willing to learn or do anything. I had to have a job. Still no luck. The last place we went to, just a few miles out of town, was an old Root Beer Barrel drive-in t hat had been converted to a truck stop. It was called the Big Wheel. An old lady named Granny owned the place and she peeked out of the window from time to time at all those kids. She needed someone on the graveyard shift, 11 at night until seven in the morning. She paid 65 cents an hour, and I could start that night. I raced home and called the teenager down the street that baby-sat for people. I bargained with her to come and sleep on my sofa for a dollar a night. She could arrive with her pajamas on and the kids would already be asleep. This seemed like a good arrangement to her, so we made a deal. That night when the little ones and I knelt to say our prayers, we all thanked God for finding Mommy a job. And so I started at the Big Wheel. When I got home in the mornings I woke the baby-sitter up and sent her home with one dollar of my tip money-- fully half of what I averaged every night. As the weeks went by, heating bills added a strain to my meager wage. The tires on the old Chevy had the consistency of penny balloons and began to leak. I had to fill them with air on the way to work and again every 20 morning before I could go home. One bleak fall morning, I dragged myself to the car to go home and found four tires in the back seat. New tires! There was no note, no nothing, just those beautiful brand new tires. Had angels taken up residence in Indiana? I wondered. I made a deal with the local service station. In exchange for his mounting the new tires, I would clean up his office. I remember it took me a lot longer to scrub his floor than it did for him to do the tires. I was now working six nights instead of five and it still wasn't enough. Christmas was coming and I knew there would be no money for toys for the kids. I found a can of red paint and started repairing and painting some old toys. Then I hid them in the basement so there would be something for Santa to deliver on Christmas morning. Clothes were a worry too. I was sewing patches on top of patches on the boys pants and soon they would be too far gone to repair.
On Christmas Eve the usual customers were drinking coffee in the Big Wheel. There were the truckers, Les, Frank, and Jim, and a state trooper named Joe. A few musicians were hanging around after a gig at the Legion and were dropping nickels in the pinball machine. The regulars all just sat around and talked through the wee hours of the morning and then left to get home before the sun came up. When it was time for me to go home at seven o'clock on Christmas morning, to my amazement, my old battered Chevy was filled full to the top with boxes of all shapes and sizes.
I quickly opened the driver's side door, crawled inside and knelt in the front facing the back seat. Reaching back, I pulled off the lid of the top box. Inside was whole case of little blue jeans, sizes 2-10! I looked inside another box: It was full of shirts to go with the jeans. Then I peeked inside some of the other boxes. There was candy and nuts and bananas and bags of groceries. There was an enormous ham for baking, and canned vegetables and potatoes. There was pudding and Jell-O and cookies, pie filling and flour. There was whole bag of laundry supplies and cleaning items. And there were five toy trucks and one beautiful little doll. As I drove back through empty streets as the sun slowly rose on the most amazing Christmas Day of my life, I was sobbing with gratitude. And I will never forget the joy on the faces of my little ones that precious morning. Yes, there were angels in Indiana that long-ago December. And they all hung out at the Big Wheel truck stop....
THE POWER OF PRAYER. I believe that God only gives three answers to prayer:
1. 'Yes!'
2. 'Not yet.'
3. 'I have something better in mind.'
God still sits on the throne, the devil is a liar.
You maybe going through a tough time right now but God is getting ready to bless you in a way that you cannot imagine.
In September 1960, I woke up one morning with six hungry babies and just 75 cents in my pocket. Their father was gone. The boys ranged from three months to seven years; their sister was two. Their Dad had never been much more than a presence they feared. Whenever they heard his tires crunch on the gravel driveway they would scramble to hide under their beds. He did manage to leave $15 a week to buy groceries. Now that he had decided to leave, there would be no more beatings, but no food either. If there was a welfare system in effect in southern Indiana at that time, I certainly knew nothing about it. I scrubbed the kids until they looked brand new and then put on my best homemade dress, loaded them into the rusty old 51 Chevy and drove off to find a job. The seven of us went to every factory, store and restaurant in our small town. No luck. The kids stayed crammed into the car and tried to be quiet while I tried to convince who ever would listen that I was willing to learn or do anything. I had to have a job. Still no luck. The last place we went to, just a few miles out of town, was an old Root Beer Barrel drive-in t hat had been converted to a truck stop. It was called the Big Wheel. An old lady named Granny owned the place and she peeked out of the window from time to time at all those kids. She needed someone on the graveyard shift, 11 at night until seven in the morning. She paid 65 cents an hour, and I could start that night. I raced home and called the teenager down the street that baby-sat for people. I bargained with her to come and sleep on my sofa for a dollar a night. She could arrive with her pajamas on and the kids would already be asleep. This seemed like a good arrangement to her, so we made a deal. That night when the little ones and I knelt to say our prayers, we all thanked God for finding Mommy a job. And so I started at the Big Wheel. When I got home in the mornings I woke the baby-sitter up and sent her home with one dollar of my tip money-- fully half of what I averaged every night. As the weeks went by, heating bills added a strain to my meager wage. The tires on the old Chevy had the consistency of penny balloons and began to leak. I had to fill them with air on the way to work and again every 20 morning before I could go home. One bleak fall morning, I dragged myself to the car to go home and found four tires in the back seat. New tires! There was no note, no nothing, just those beautiful brand new tires. Had angels taken up residence in Indiana? I wondered. I made a deal with the local service station. In exchange for his mounting the new tires, I would clean up his office. I remember it took me a lot longer to scrub his floor than it did for him to do the tires. I was now working six nights instead of five and it still wasn't enough. Christmas was coming and I knew there would be no money for toys for the kids. I found a can of red paint and started repairing and painting some old toys. Then I hid them in the basement so there would be something for Santa to deliver on Christmas morning. Clothes were a worry too. I was sewing patches on top of patches on the boys pants and soon they would be too far gone to repair.
On Christmas Eve the usual customers were drinking coffee in the Big Wheel. There were the truckers, Les, Frank, and Jim, and a state trooper named Joe. A few musicians were hanging around after a gig at the Legion and were dropping nickels in the pinball machine. The regulars all just sat around and talked through the wee hours of the morning and then left to get home before the sun came up. When it was time for me to go home at seven o'clock on Christmas morning, to my amazement, my old battered Chevy was filled full to the top with boxes of all shapes and sizes.
I quickly opened the driver's side door, crawled inside and knelt in the front facing the back seat. Reaching back, I pulled off the lid of the top box. Inside was whole case of little blue jeans, sizes 2-10! I looked inside another box: It was full of shirts to go with the jeans. Then I peeked inside some of the other boxes. There was candy and nuts and bananas and bags of groceries. There was an enormous ham for baking, and canned vegetables and potatoes. There was pudding and Jell-O and cookies, pie filling and flour. There was whole bag of laundry supplies and cleaning items. And there were five toy trucks and one beautiful little doll. As I drove back through empty streets as the sun slowly rose on the most amazing Christmas Day of my life, I was sobbing with gratitude. And I will never forget the joy on the faces of my little ones that precious morning. Yes, there were angels in Indiana that long-ago December. And they all hung out at the Big Wheel truck stop....
THE POWER OF PRAYER. I believe that God only gives three answers to prayer:
1. 'Yes!'
2. 'Not yet.'
3. 'I have something better in mind.'
God still sits on the throne, the devil is a liar.
You maybe going through a tough time right now but God is getting ready to bless you in a way that you cannot imagine.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
The BCS mess is the Big 12's fault
So as many of you know the BCS has created a mess of college football but this year the blame is not just theirs. The Big 12 conference must shoulder part of the blame. You may be wondering why I say this so please let me explain. First and foremost we must realize that the Big 12 conference needed to go to the 5th tie breaker to decide which team would represent the South division in the Big 12 championship game. The previous 4 are as follows:
1. The records of the three teams will be compared against each other
2. The records of the three teams will be compared within their division
3. The records of the three teams will be compared against the next highest placed teams in their division in order of finish (4, 5 and 6)
4. The records of the three teams will be compared against all common conference opponents;
The problem with such a tie breaker is that the Big 12 south division not only had a 3 way tie but also dominated the Big 12 overall. The BCS rankings currently have Oklahoma at #2, Texas at #3, and Texas Tech at #7. Yet if this was the SEC the solution would be simple. Texas would be playing for the big 12 championship. Why? Because In the SEC, the team with the highest BCS ranking advances, unless the two teams are within five places of each other and then it is determined by the head-to-head between the 2 teams. Thus Texas would win based on their 45-35 win over Oklahoma. Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe in a press conference today said that the Big 12 will reassess the tie breaking procedures after the season yet when he was asked of the SEC rule he stated "Let's say that the eighth-ranked team in the BCS is in the same division as the third-ranked,If the eighth-ranked team beat the third-ranked team on a last-second play at home, sending the eighth-ranked team, that would defeat the purpose of trying to send the team with the best chance of winning a national championship."
The problem with this scenario that it fails to account for the fact the big 12 north division has provided with Missouri who by all accounts has had a good season at 9-3 but 5-3 in Big 12 play however are no where near the level of Oklahoma, Texas, and Texas Tech. In my opinion the Big 12 has so many compelling options that they could have put in the championship game. Why not put the 2 best teams in the conference in the Big 12 championship game regardless of which division they are from. Who wouldn't love to see a Red River Rematch with Texas and Oklahoma meeting on a neutral field again? As for me I would love to see such a game, not only would it determine the true Big 12 champion but it would catapult the winner into the BCS championship game.
1. The records of the three teams will be compared against each other
2. The records of the three teams will be compared within their division
3. The records of the three teams will be compared against the next highest placed teams in their division in order of finish (4, 5 and 6)
4. The records of the three teams will be compared against all common conference opponents;
The problem with such a tie breaker is that the Big 12 south division not only had a 3 way tie but also dominated the Big 12 overall. The BCS rankings currently have Oklahoma at #2, Texas at #3, and Texas Tech at #7. Yet if this was the SEC the solution would be simple. Texas would be playing for the big 12 championship. Why? Because In the SEC, the team with the highest BCS ranking advances, unless the two teams are within five places of each other and then it is determined by the head-to-head between the 2 teams. Thus Texas would win based on their 45-35 win over Oklahoma. Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe in a press conference today said that the Big 12 will reassess the tie breaking procedures after the season yet when he was asked of the SEC rule he stated "Let's say that the eighth-ranked team in the BCS is in the same division as the third-ranked,If the eighth-ranked team beat the third-ranked team on a last-second play at home, sending the eighth-ranked team, that would defeat the purpose of trying to send the team with the best chance of winning a national championship."
The problem with this scenario that it fails to account for the fact the big 12 north division has provided with Missouri who by all accounts has had a good season at 9-3 but 5-3 in Big 12 play however are no where near the level of Oklahoma, Texas, and Texas Tech. In my opinion the Big 12 has so many compelling options that they could have put in the championship game. Why not put the 2 best teams in the conference in the Big 12 championship game regardless of which division they are from. Who wouldn't love to see a Red River Rematch with Texas and Oklahoma meeting on a neutral field again? As for me I would love to see such a game, not only would it determine the true Big 12 champion but it would catapult the winner into the BCS championship game.
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