It's Not Easy Being Green

I thought I would clear up that, despite the red hair, I'm not really Irish. But how about some obscure Saint Patrick's Day facts on this holiday?

• Saint Patrick didn't drive the snakes out of Ireland. They probably never had snakes in the first place. And he wasn't really Irish. He was born in Wales.

• "When Irish Eyes are Smiling" isn't an actual Irish ballad. It was composed by an American. Isn't that disappointing?

• Leprechauns aren't cute little spirits. They're evil creatures that perform treacherous deceptions to keep you away from that pot of gold. So beware when eating your Lucky Charms.

• The national symbol of Ireland is the Celtic harp [as seen in the logo of Guinness], not the shamrock.

Let's Be Honest . . .

Sure, Gonzaga beat Xavier in a close game, but Adam Morrison is a punk. He talks trash, throws elbows and whines about not getting calls. My advice to Morrison: stay in school before going pro because, once you do, nobody will hear from you ever again. You won't get away with your mid-major antics in the NBA.

Let's Be Honest . . .

Sure, Gonzaga beat Xavier in a close game, but Adam Morrison is a punk. He talks trash, throws elbows and whines about not getting calls. My advice to Morrison: stay in school before going pro because, once you do, nobody will hear from you ever again. You won't get away with your mid-major antics in the NBA.

Nobody Puts Baby In A Corner

That's why our bassinet isn't in a corner. You can't go and break a rule like that. Kelly had to make a trip to Target this afternoon to return duplicate shower gifts so this meant the first opportunity for me and Kaelyn to be alone. Good news: I didn't lose her.

I wasn't sure how to spend our time together so I made a list of things we could do. For instance, I wanted to teach her how to walk so, when Kelly returned home, she would be surprised. I don't think Kaelyn is quite ready for it. She did twitch her legs a couple times though.

Nor was she willing to learn any Spanish. Seriously, it wasn't that hard; I was keeping it simple- Spanish 1 type words. There was this one time, when she tooted, it sounded like the word "caramba," but I was mistaken; she gave me nada.

And I'm not even going to talk about our juggling session. How embarrassing. At this rate, she'll never make it into the circus.

So all we really got accomplished this afternoon was Kaelyn eating, me changing her diaper, and her sleeping. Not quite the father/daughter time I was hoping for, but it'll do for now.

More Than Words

There's so much that has happened in the past two months that I didn't get a chance to write about. I had some interesting thoughts that are sporadically returning to me. This is one of those. While Kaelyn was in the NICU the nurses would overload us with information. And since she had multiple nurses, some of the info would be repetitive. It was at this time that I believe I realized the scariest two word combination known to man:

Rectal Thermometer

Yes, more than one nurse felt it was their duty to open our eyes to this intrusive way of checking our little one's level of body heat.

Now think about it [don't think about it too hard, lest you become frightened, but gloss over the words], separately those words aren't too bad. Thermometer isn't scary by itself. And, although rectal is indeed a disturbing word, it's an adjective not meant to stand alone.

But once you combine those two words to form a noun, you suddenly have a topic unfit for your average church pot luck dinner.

Feel free to comment on your own two word combos, but I propose that this is truly a case of bad English- a noun I could do without.

Where You At?

I can't explain it, but whenever it's my turn to feed Kaelyn, I sing this to her. I wonder if she'll remember it years from now . . .

Bracketology

OK, I've calmed down . . . finally. But I'm sure that, in a few weeks, when the UC Administration gives Andy Kennedy his walking orders, I'll have yet another rant to offer up. But in keeping with my "everything basketball" posts during the past few days, I have to offer up my thoughts on filling out your NCAA brackets. If you're like most people, you spent today scanning over the NCAA brackets which you'll fill out for your office pool. And, chances are, you'll enter more than one pool- giving you the opportunity to fill out more than one bracket.

There's always that one person in your pool who brags how good they're doing. You start to get jealous but then they admit that they've filled out twelve different brackets for twelve different pools.

As a pastor I must advise you that, if you fill out more than one bracket and make different picks in each one, you're a sinner and need to see me about confession.

Listen people, you make your picks and then stick with it. Anyone can fill out multiple brackets and get one good one. But to fill out just one bracket and ride it through, that's what real men do . . . unless you're a woman . . . and then I guess that's what real women do.

So now that you're curious, my Final Four are Villanova, Connecticut, Memphis and West Virginia. UConn over the Mountaineers in the final game.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Why Stop Now?

From Greg Doyle at CBS Sportsline about the absurdity of putting George Mason in the NCAA Tournament over a team like Cincinnati: "George Mason coach Jim Larranaga worked with [Tournament Committee Chairman] Littlepage on Terry Holland's staff at Virginia. Want more? Fine. This selection committee includes Tom O'Connor. Who's Tom O'Connor? He's the athletics director at George Mason."

UC got jobbed. I want a congressional investigation.

I'm Not Done . . .

UC was snubbed by the NCAA tournament committee for Air Force. Air Force lost twice this year to Wyoming, which lost to Princeton, which lost to Carnegie Mellon [Division III], which lost to Bluffton [NAIA], who we played in soccer when I was at Cincinnati Bible. There's something definitely rotten in Denmark.

Ticked Off, To Put It Nicely

UC doesn't make the NCAA tournament. This is a travesty.

I know, anyone whose team doesn't make it into the field thinks it was the worst snub of all time but, I'm serious, this might be it; it's ridiculous. A selection committee that's supposed to pick the 34 best at-large teams, that's supposed to value a difficult schedule, that's supposed to look at quality wins. They took Air Force, Utah State, and UAB over Cincinnati. Check those stats and compare them to UC. This was a statement by the committee against power conference, elevating smaller conferences to something they're not: competitive. Put Wichita State or George Mason in the Big East and how many games do they win?

Totally moronic. It's an absolute joke. I question how many games the selection committee really watched this year.

As much as I love college basketball, I'm sickened to the point that I might not watch any of the tournament. My heart breaks for Andy Kennedy and all the seniors on the team who did an amazing job to make something good out of a horrible situation.

I might have more to say on this later, but I doubt it.

I'm rather angry.

Too Much Basketball

I've been a bit paranoid the last few days. I'm convinced that UC has made the NCAA tournament but I'm still sweating it out. I don't think I've ever been as passionate about a Bearcat team before [not even the infamous "Kenyon Martin's Broken Leg Year"] because I really want this opportunity for those guys. Since UC is a bubble team, all these other conference tournament are important to the Bearcats' tournament chances; i.e., I want all these other bubble teams to lose.

It's for this reason that I've been watching a ton of college basketball during the past few days. Seriously, my brackets should be awesome this year because I think I've seen ever team in the country play this season. By my best accounting, here's the number of games of various conference tournaments that I've watched since Wednesday [with a minimum of five minutes of viewing time]:

Big East- 7 SEC-5 ACC-4 Big Ten-3 Big 12-1 Conference USA-1 Atlantic 10- 2 West Coast- 2 Northeast- 1 Colonial- 1 Missouri Valley- 2

Please consider that I have the advantage of cable television which gives you two ESPN's and a Fox Sports in addition to regular network programming.

Yes friends, I need to get a life.

Lead On, O Kinky Turtle!

You know how I feel about Usher. Now I discover that, in addition to producing some of the best music the world has ever seen, Usher is an expert on administration and governance principles. He's going to be speaking at a teen leadership conference in Cleveland next week. I'll be looking for tickets if someone wants to make the road trip with me. Yes, I got it bad.

Is there anything he can't do?

I Just Don't Get It

Why do men's college basketball players, when the game is on the line and the situation is tense, always link their arms together when they're on the bench? In what other context do men act like this?

Have you ever been to a mall and seen eight guys with arms linked walking around together? I highly doubt it.

March Madness spurs some strange behavior.

Chad Canipe

I never met Chad Canipe, but I've read his blog for over a year now. Chad was planting a house church in Norwood in association with Vineyard Central. Chad was feeling under the weather this year and had some tests run on him. It was more serious than they thought and, after a valiant fight, Chad passed away this morning. He leaves behind a wife, Renee, and two sons, Colin and Aidan.

I know about Chad because of Aaron Klinefelter. If you'd like to send condolences or anything, it could be done through him.

Blessings

Had a very good meeting today about Echo. When we started the church, we resolved to boot-strap it: that is, we were going to run the church with as low as an overhead as possible. And I wasn't too thrilled at the thought of fundraising, so we decided we were just going to start with whatever we had. We were blessed with friends and supports who gave to Echo without having to be asked [thanks again!] and were able to get the ministry off the ground.

One of the bigger struggles we've faced is getting the word out about our new church. In an urban context, it takes time to earn trust. Plus, it takes considerable fundage to conduct effective outreach events to reach the community. So we sought assistance from the Christian Evangelizing Fellowship, a local church planting association to help Echo out. Aaron and I have been in conversation with them for about nine months now and today I attended their board meeting to discuss their supporting us.

As I laid out our vision to the group, they really seemed to understand what we are trying to accomplish. With relatively no questions asked, they decided to give us support. It was amazing! And afterward they prayed for me and our ministry. Also, many of the board members came up to and offered to help us out however possible.

This is another blessing associated with Echo. Nine months ago, when we sold our house and announced we were moving to Walnut Hills, we had no idea how God would provide for us. But He did. And I know He'll continue to do so.

God is good. Most definitely.

I Love It When You Call Me Big Papa

I don't think I'll take pictures of Kaelyn everyday of her life, but here's another one: We only had outdoor pets growing up. Low maintenance. You threw out some food for them . . . and that was pretty much it.

So I guess I really wasn't prepared for the 24/7 attention a baby requires.

Still, adjusting to having Kaelyn home has gone rather smoothly. She's on a pretty regular schedule: she sleeps, she poops, she eats. This reoccurs in three hour increments. I imagine it'll be a long time before we get to sleep through the night, but this is why people have kids, isn't it?

Kel and I were just talking about how small she is. She gained six ounces in the first twenty-four hours after we brought her home. In a few weeks she'll be a big[ger] baby and we won't have these days where we can handle her like she's a doll. Gotta enjoy it while we can.

Good times.

NBC = Nothing But Crap

I, like many of you, was enthralled by the Lazy Sunday short ["the Chronic-{what?}-les of Narnia" rap] that was on Saturday Night Live a couple of months ago. After being posted on You Tube the clip was viewed over five million times. The sketch became a cult classic, reigniting interest in SNL and giving it a fresh new attitude. But somewhere along the way greed took over. NBC gave You Tube a cease and desist order, also demanding that they take all NBC content off their site. In addition to this, they started selling Lazy Sunday on iTunes for $1.99 [isn't that the same price for an entire episode of Lost or The Office?]. This money-motivated move has squelched the clip's momentum and has drawn the ire of many in the blogosphere.

Church of the Consumer did an excellent job of tracing the rise [and fall] of this fad and also criticizing NBC for getting too wolfish. It's amazing that these networks are supposed to employ some of the sharpest minds in the marketing world and yet they were oblivious to the PR goldmine they had on their hands.

I've been a fan of SNL since junior high school. From Dana Carvey and Mike Myers to Chris Farley and Adam Sandler, the show was hysterical. But they're in the midst of [by my count] an eight year slump. They need all the help they can get to convince the public that the show is still relevant. The Lazy Sunday clip was a great ambassador. But NBC didn't want to lose out on the short-term cash cow. Way to be near-sighted.

For you entrepreneurial types out there, this goof by NBC is a great lesson. What's the goal of every successful business? [Be honest] It's to make money. But sometimes you gotta spend [or sacrifice] a little money to make even more. Nickle and diming will only get you so far.

So you can still call me Aaron Burr from the way I'm dropping Hamiltons but, rest assured, it's not on SNL iTunes downloads.

Kaelyn's Home!

Now That She's Home

Now this, my friends, is living: In case you can't tell, that's Kaelyn sleeping in the playpen.

After a 24 day hospital stay, Kaelyn is finally home.

It's sorta surreal. Most people get to bring their baby home after a few days and we had to wait three-and-a-half weeks. It's only been a couple of hours now, but it seems like she's adjusting rather well. She and mom got to take a nap together.

I had no idea how much noise she makes. When we were in the NICU, everything seemed quieter with all the machines and people around. Now, every few minutes, Kaelyn makes squeeky sounds. It's awesome. At least for now it is. Wonder if we'll get any sleep tonight . . .

So now the fun starts. Just eighteen years more and we'll be done.

Almost Home

Sorry about the light blogging as of late. I sat down wanting to post something last night, but again I had nothing I wanted to say. Well, that's not entirely true. I wanted to talk about the rappers that won the Oscar last night, but that's like shootin' fish in a barrel. Oh, and I was just watching Deal Or No Deal for a couple of minutes. How is this a popular show? Watching adults play Memory with Howie Mandell isn't my idea of compelling television. Anyway, tomorrow is the big day! We're bringing home the little girl. She looks amazing and we can't wait to finally have her under our roof. Unfortunately both Kelly and I felt under the weather today so what should be an ultra-exciting time is sorta stressing us out. I'm hoping a good night of sleep will solve everything.

So here she comes!