John Lennon of the Beatles once noted that “life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans”. Life is happening this week as I wrap up a wonderful season of my career and life. For twenty-six years my life has been ordered by the rhythms of Southeastern Conference basketball. Starting in January of 1984 and every New Year since I have packed up and traveled the landscape of the SEC. This week at the Southeastern Conference Tournament my 26 year run of directing SEC games will end as the Raycom Sports contract expires. I loved this package and working for Raycom and their predecessors (SPI, Lorimar, Jefferson Pilot, Lincoln Financial). Losing something dear to you is always sad. But life has happened and I am choosing to remember twenty-six years of great athletes and great games. I have had the privilege of directing games featuring superstars like Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley and Allan Houston. My tenure in the Conference saw five
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Yahoo.com had a link right there on the front page with this intriguing title. Qualities in a man that can predict lasting love. I want to make it perfectly clear that I am not looking for a man with these qualities. My interest was to see if I brought any of those projected qualities to my relationship with the stunning Mrs.Burchett. I actually joined the Men Who Married Up group on Facebook so I can handle the truth. I am going to self-score to see how I measured up 34 years ago when Joni was deciding if I was a keeper. Author Mina Azodi came up with five different traits that she believes can predict lasting love. Dating Trait #1: He Knows What He Wants Any guy you’re serious about should be able to articulate his long-term goals and passions (sorry, fantasy football and Xbox don’t count). He can’t ally himself with you until he has a sense of how he envisions
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Today’s topic has real potential to rile up the spiritual hall monitors. I expect I will hear from many of them. Recently I talked to a pastor about depression and anti-depressants. He was resisting trying medication for his struggles because he felt he wouldn’t be having these problems if he were a “better” Christian. Some folks had told him that he should trust God with his sadness. I agree. But there is sometimes more to the issue and we, as fellow sojourners in Christ, do a disservice if we merely give depressed friends the “buck-up and do better” pep talk. The old give hundred and ten percent for Jesus challenge can make a sad and lonely person feel even lower and more worthless. I have some experience with this topic. I am medicated and unrepentant. For years I went through emotional ups and downs that my wife described as my “funks”. She walked on relational eggshells when I was going through these moods. Finally I
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Over the past two years I have lost about thirty pounds. When asked how I used to joke that I had a radical new diet book idea called “The Burn More Calories Than You Consume Diet”. Now I realize that I was on the cutting edge of dietary research! I could have penned that book and finally achieved my dreams of writing a bestseller. Admittedly I would have had to add a bit of filler since the entire book could have been summarized with the phrase “eat less, exercise more”. Now a group of sober people with doctorates and lab coats have carefully evaluated all of popular diets and published their findings. “The hidden secret is it doesn’t matter if you focus on low-fat or low-carb,” said Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, which funded the research. Limiting the calories you consume and burning off more calories with exercise is key, she said. The study, which appears in Thursday’s New England
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Facebook is all the rage these days. I am sure that some of these young whippersnappers resent the invasion of the Baby Boomers to the social network scene. Deal with it. I am enjoying catching up with old and new friends. One of the things I love about Facebook are the status updates. Some people ponder really deep and thorny issues like this one from my friend Robin. Why PopTarts, why do you only come in non-resealable pkgs of 2? Shouldn’t I have the choice to eat just 1 Tart w/out sacrificing the freshness of others? That is just one example of the inequities of life that need to be addressed and only a few men like Robin have the courage to ask those tough questions. Shouldn’t a country that can put a MAN ON THE MOON be able to package PopTarts in freshness saving single packages? Why isn’t there outrage over this injustice? Some use the status updates for mundane reports about
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(Today is a beat down travel day. Please accept this iPod Devotional rerun compliments of the house.) Welcome to the experiment known as the iPod devotional series. Here is how it works. On the old iPod is a “shuffle songs” feature. You hit the button and the iPod randomly picks a song. I am writing a blog about whatever song the device selects on that day from the 1,000 plus songs on my iPod. My music list will further confirm my status as a Christian who makes others feel superior. My music goes from Al Green to the Youngbloods. Beatles to U2. Old hymns to modern praise music. Toby Keith to Frank Sinatra. Oldies to the soundtrack from Monty Python’s Spamalot. This could be interesting. I mentioned in the introductory paragraph that you might find some Toby Keith on my iPod. The shuffle confirmed that today as a tune from the Oklahoma country singer was the first one called up. Earlier I had expressed some concerns about
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I noticed a link today on MSN that touted the Top 10 Most Useless Body Parts. They had me at “useless” so I had to check it out. I could have guessed some of the parts they perceived as useless. Parts like tonsils, adenoids and appendixes. Many argue that those parts are, in fact, useful. But clearly we can live without any or all of them. Some parts on the list were surprising and a bit odd. For example, I was not aware of my plica semilunaris. You may not know it, but you have a third eyelid. Pull open the two more noticeable eyelids and take a look — it’s located right in the corner by the tear duct. That explains why I want to take a nap every afternoon. It is tough to hold all three eyelids open after lunch. Also on the list are sinuses. My wife would agree that sinuses are useless except to produce patience and longsuffering. Doctors don’t
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