I had no less than 11 tickets offered to me over the week last week. But I decided not to go. I’m going to a retreat for my new church this coming weekend, so I figured I should stick around the house last weekend. Especially since I figured we’d get blown out. I guess I wasn’ the only one. The student sections acted opposite than what they used to.

In the past the student sections were full at kickoff and empty by the end of the 3rd quarter. They were about half full at kickoff and packed at the end of the game. I guess people were waking up on campus and around Starkville and thinking, “Heck, I gotta get there!”

This is just one win, I know. But we got a huge morale boost and hopefully a recruiting boost. We’ll need it. But it appears that our players are seeing that Croom’s methods will actually work. State fans shouldn’t get cocky or overconfident just yet. But two more wins is possible. One more is probable.

But am I excited? Heck yeah!

My daughter has come to really like the Veggie Tales. But all I had to show her were the older ones. I looked on Amazon.com at some newer ones and read in one of the reviews that Veggie Tales is under new ownership/management and to expect the quality of the content to begin to decline. So I went to Phil Vischer’s website (the creator and mastermind behind Big Idea (the producton company)) and read this:

Q: What’s going on at Big Idea?

A: If you haven’t heard, there have been big changes at Big Idea over the last year. Technically speaking, Big Idea Productions, Inc., the company I started in 1993, no longer exists. It was dissolved in bankruptcy court in November of 2003. Yes, you read that right. Due to a whole host of unfortunate events (which I will detail more thoroughly on this site in the future), Big Idea fell into bankruptcy in mid-2003. All the assets (characters, films, songs, file cabinets, Sharpies… everything) had to be sold through a public auction process governed by the court to try to repay as many of Big Idea’s creditors as possible. While a whole host of interested parties showed up to place bids, the winning bid came from Classic Media, a NYC-based media company that owns a trove of classic characters like Lassie, the Lone Ranger, Casper, Rocky & Bullwinkle, and Underdog. Classic formed a new corporation called “Big Idea, Inc.” to hold these assets, and hired about 30 former Big Idea Productions employees to continue producing more VeggieTales videos and manage the business on their behalf. Some key folk like Mike Nawrocki, Kurt Heinecke and Tim Hodge have joined Classic and will remain involved with VeggieTales.

That pains me a bit. Because as goofy as Veggie Tales are, I like them a good bit myself. Click the extended entry for a few more Q&A’s from Phil about Big Idea, Veggie Tales, Phil, and the futures of all things concerned.

Q: What about YOU, Phil? Did you sign up with Classic, too?

A: Well, that part was a bit tricky. The Classic guys are decent enough fellows, and I really didn’t want to abandon the characters I’d created or the fans who’d grown to love them, but there was a catch. First, they had no interest in letting me run Big Idea (which, given the state of the company when they found it shouldn’t really surprise anyone). Second, if I had taken a staff position with Classic, not only would they have owned VeggieTales, but they also would own by default any new ideas I would create while under their employ. So Lisa and I would have lost ownership and control of everything we created in the past, and everything we would create going forward. Since we consider our work a ministry first and a business second, we really feel called by God to maintain as much control as possible, so our ideas can always stay true to God’s call and any profits they make can be reinvested into more ministry work. A staff position with Classic Media, unfortunately, would have made that impossible.

Q: So are you gone from VeggieTales forever?

A: No. I worked out a deal with Classic Media where I will write one VeggieTales episode for them each year, and give notes on up to two more that are written by the in-house creative folk or other writers. In addition, I’ve agreed to continue performing voices for my little troupe of veggies (rather vital, since I voice about half the characters). I’m doing this work in exchange for creative fees, plus an ongoing participation in the profits from VeggieTales videos, which Lisa and I can reinvest in new ministry work.

So God has really done something interesting. He has taken a situation that started out as a complete disaster (literally the loss of everything I have done in my adult life), and brought out of it an opportunity for me to return my focus to new stories as he directs, while allowing VeggieTales to provide the funding. To be honest, trying to run a ‘big company’ didn’t fit my personality or gifting in any way. I was pretty darn miserable as Big Idea’s “Top Tomato.” And the bigger the company grew, the less time I had to use the creative gifts God had given me. I was so convinced that God wanted me to be “Walt Disney” that I kept banging my head against that door, even as the company was unraveling around me. And amazingly, God used the disaster of Big Idea collapsing to gently whisper, “I don’t want you to be Walt Disney. I want you to be Phil.” To which, of course, I replied, “But I’m not sure I know who ‘Phil’ is!” And then he responded, “Just slow down, take a deep breath, and I’ll show you.” Pretty cool, huh?

Q: What’s Phil working on now?

A: I’m working on my VeggieTales script for the year (which you can learn more about on this site), and waiting to see what else God has in store for me. (Which you will also learn about on this site!

Feast Twenty-two

Appetizer
Name 3 things that you are wearing today.
Baseball cap, old Disciple Now shirt, gym shorts

Soup
Who was the last person you hugged?
My daughter

Salad
What do you like to order from your favorite fast food place?
Steak

Main Course
What time of day do you usually feel most energized?
Friday or Saturday

Dessert
Using the letters in your first name, write a sentence. (Example: Sweet unusual spaniels are nice.)
Bees like angry khaki elephants!

A cool pic from our time at the beach. She had such a good time.

This was in the water at Pick Wick two summers ago. She was trying to smile but kicking her legs like mad underwater at the same time.

We set up her tent a few weeks ago in her room. She thought it was the coolest thing in the world. She wanted me to sleep in her tent while she slept in her bed at night. I wasn’t up for that.

We had two appointments to show our house tonight. The first one didn’t show. Bummer. The 2nd one was pretty decent though. Supposed to follow up a bit tomorrow with a few details I didn’t have handy.

Last weekend we went down to the Land of Arrows. Looked for house and The Wife got to see the church and city and we hoped to have learned the lay of the land a bit. We get to the church and the pastor gives us a quick tour again (for the sake of The Wife). We meet a few people. The we met up with the old YP (but current Assoc. P) and the guy youth intern. They gave us a quick tour of the city and then we went to Sonic. There I met about a dozen or so junior high kids. The we go to the home coming parade.

It was actually really good. Tons of participation of all school clubs, lots of candy being thrown out (much to the joy of The Kid) and tons upon tons of people there to watch. Then I seemed to have met about another 2 or 3 dozen people in a matter of minutes. We go back to the church and I watch a quick video of an upcoming retreat I’m going to try and go to. Then we drive around on our own for a while.

We find neighborhoods and schools and bad parts of Jackson and back to town and all that. It’s getting dark so we go to the Pastor’s house. There we chill for about 10 minutes then it was off to eat at The Hat (or El Sombrero). Then we went to a JHigh dance at the church. There I met about 75 people in a short time span. Then back to the house for bed.

The next day we drive around and look at houses with a realtor who is cool and works w/ the youth at the church as well. We saw a few houses, but none we really like. None that we remotely like. We’ll have to do more looking…maybe even go up a level. We’ll see.

Then we drove home, ran an errand or two, at breakfast for supper and watched The Day After Tomorrow. Good movie. Good special effects. Pretty good plot and character development. Go rent it today.

I went to a youth event at another church last night. It was a community wide event and they had free pizza and a drawing for an XBox. Couple that with the fact that they went to a handful of schools in the county with a strong, ex SoCal & NFL football player who could do some fairly amazing feats of strength and the masses turned out. It was pretty much one of those “If you were to die tonight…” and “Every head bowed every eye closed” sort of deals. Then the front was packed with people looking to make a decision. I sometimes get a little skeptical about it when that many come forward…sorta like a crowd mentality sort of thing. But I do pray that it was real.

Anyhow, I saw this tshirt on a guy (it was a regular tshirt, not a girl’s-T that’s pictured here). I think it’s kinda funny when compared to the “Jesus is my homeboy” shirts you see on the stars in Holywood. I’m pretty sure you’ll never see me wearing either of these though. But it does make me snicker. Is the Mary-Homegirl shirt more of a Catholic thing?

Now we go looking for new houses.

This could either be a relaxing time or a hectic time. Turns out it’s high school homecoming where I’m moving too. So there’s lots of activity there this weekend. So there’s lots I could be pulled into. But we gotta look at houses and get a feel for the area too. We’ll see how the weekend goes. Really looking forward to it.

The Wife still hasn’t even seen the church or the city or anything. I’ve heard great things about Clinton though (the city, not the man).

We stuck the sign in the yard and put an ad in the paper and a page on the grand ole world wide web.

Now we need a buyer.

So we pray and we pray. Hopefully things will go quickly. If not, we’ll have some big decisions to make as far as renting something or being split up til it sells or something like that.

Today was fairly smooth. A handful of people asked for a bit of explanation. Many said that were proud and happy for us. Some just winked.

Now I have over a month and a half of having my mind in two places. I was looking around some youth ministry forums this week. Most people there said that two weeks was the ideal time for a notice to be given. And here I am at two months. But I can’t imagine it being only two weeks. Heck, it’s been one week already!

But some have suggested it being a slow disolve of my responsibilities over the last month. Almost to the point of me doing nothing the last couple of weeks. That way responsibility can be effectively handed over to the new boss(s) and then it’s not a cold turkey sort of thing. Plus, around that time The Wife will have The Kid Part II. Supposed to be here right in the middle of the month. We’ll see, but I’m sure that will be an interesting time.

We stuck a FOR SALE sign in our yard yesterday. It blew off in the night (omen? I think not.) But want to try and sell it ourself. We’ve gotten two calls of interest so far. Just basic inquiries. But we want to sell fast and find something fast too. I wouldn’t mind renting an apartment for a few months. But The Wife would rather not. We’ll see what we end up thinking is the best route to take at the time. Moving is going to be pretty stressful, I can already tell.

I dropped one of my seminary classes. I should have dropped both. I have absolutely no motivation right now to do any of the work.

Oh yeah….Mississippi State sucks at football. I’ll go ahead and say we will for the next, oh….., 3 years.

Bout to head to church. Last weekend was the time that I told all the students at church that I was leaving to take a position with another church. It was rough. This week has been interesting. But by now the entire church should know. So I’ll be shaking a lot of hands and answering a lot of questions today.

We’ll see how it goes.