This picture about sums it up. We went into the weeking confident at taking the regional and playing for a Super Regional. Then after winning the first game we hear that Georgia Tech lost the first game to Stetson! Can you believe it? We were to play N. Carolina Saturday morning after they had an 11 inning game while using 4 pitchers the night before.

After knocking their starting pitcher out in the 2nd, I think our guys got overconfident…cocky even, maybe? And it went downhill from there. We got beat 10-5. So we had to play Missouri the next game and were able to hold them off to set up a supposed double hearder with Carolina again on Sunday.

It was nip and tuck…but going into the 8th with a 6-2 lead, the fans were already planning the pitching rotation for the next game. But Carolina thought they were ready to go home and scored 4 runs in the next two innings, sent it into extra innings, and then thought they’d end another game in the 11th inning. We were winning 6-4 in the 9th with 2 outs on them….and they hit a two run shot that cleared the fence just inside the foul pole…gotta hate it.

If there’s a bright spot, it’s that we only lose one position player off the team and that we started 5 freshmen in the field (three of them true freshmen). Now, on to football speculation.

I’ve been with Ebicom.net for years. Had a few times that I got busy signals for a few hours, but for the most part, they’ve been great. Pretty fast for a dial up, as far as I could tell. But all of a sudden a few sites I’d been frequenting were not able to be accessed when I was using Ebicom.net. I emailed them. I called them. But to no avail.

So I invested in a new ISP…Dixie-Net. SUCCESS!!! I could now access the two sites I couldn’t get any more with my other ISP. But now everything seems reeeeaaaaaly slow. Some pages take forever to load. And other times I’m surfing right along lickety-split, then it bogs down and nothing will load faster than a sloth. So, I guess I’m going to call them to make sure I’ve got my “settings” right, or else cancel my account with them. I still haven’t canceled my Ebicom.net account. So I’lll just go with out the other sites for a while on my home computer til I find a different ISP or Ebicom.net gets it worked out.

Last night was an adventure.

My dad came to town and we went over to Starkville and took my daughter to see the MSU game of the Starkville Regional of the NCAA Baseball Tourney. The restless, almost 2 year old in a sea of 10,000+ people did quite well. We started off sitting in the bleachers but soon found out that she’d have a high probability of falling through to the concrete down below. After a nice snag by my dad, we decided to go out into the grass behind the right fielder. So for about 7 innings, she ran around on the hill, colored in a notebook, wiped a knapkin on my dad’s face for about 30 minutes, and tried to bum food off of people around us.

She did get to eat her first hotdog at Dudy Noble. She didn’t think one was enough, but we stopped there. All in all, it was a great game. We won 10-4. All had a good time, and she slept on the way back home. Also, if we can win this regional, looks like we might get to host the super regional. But it’s a long way off as we’re losing our 2nd game right now.

Here they are….seems this was almost the last thing I posted here….nothing like the Friday Five to get you rolling again. And these are a little deeper than “What’s your favorite gum?”

1. What do you most want to be remembered for?
Hmm…I’d like to be remembered as someone who lived out what he said he believed. Who didn’t let the fear of the unknown paralyze him.

2. What quotation best fits your outlook on life?
Not sure…I’ll edit this later and put one in here.

3. What single achievement are you most proud of in the past year?
I would say the time my wife and I have put into our daughter. Now she wants to pray at meals and before bed. Our new task is to make those times be more than a regular habit, but a means to the relationship with God.

4. What about the past ten years?
I can’t really think of a single thing that I’m most proud of. I think I’ve learned a lot in the last 10 years, but it’s also shown me that I still have so much more to learn.

5. If you were asked to give a child a single piece of advice to guide them through life, what would you say?
It’s all about a relationship, not a religion.

Well, here I am again. Nearly a week from posting. Also nearly a week from reading the blogs I usually read. Last weekend was a little busy, then we took an overnight trip to take our daughter to the zoo (maybe have some pics later), and then we’ve had Bible School and other stuff going on here at work that hasn’t offered me as much time to post. Yeah, yeah…I still have time at home. But I’ve not taken it. I had some nights were I didnt’ get as much sleep, so if I was on the computer any, it was mainly reading not writing.

But anywho…I’ll post an update on some things that happened in the past few days and we’ll play catch up.

Almost too late…but here it is.

1. What brand of toothpaste do you use?
We usually use Mentadent. It’s got some cool pump action that mixes the blue and white stuff. If I’m using a tube of toothpaste, it’s Arm & Hammer.

2. What brand of toilet paper do you prefer?
Charmin is what I prefer…not what we always have.

3. What brand(s) of shoes do you wear?
New Balance, Addidas, Nike, Colehan, Vasque, British Knights (just kidding).

4. What brand of soda do you drink?
Dr. Pepper, Vanilla Coke, Mellow Yellow, Coke, Mountain Dew, Mr. Pibb.

5. What brand of gum do you chew?
Orbit, Extra, Juicy Fruit, Gatorade.

After the SEC Baseball Tourney being delayed a day because of rain, MSU and UMiss finally got to play baseball last night. It was a great game. Back and forth. Looked like MSU had it won going into the 9th…then looked like UMiss had it won going into the bottom of the 9th. Then looked like MSU had a chance to win it in the bottom of the 9th. But a double play ended it and extra innings ensued.

So, in the bottom of the twelfth! Sweetness. 4-0 in SEC games over the Rebs this season.

We play LSU tonight.

The other night we all made a night run to Walmart. We needed to pick up a few things for the next day so the whole family went. We picked up a few things here and there and then we decided we’d split up. My wife went to get some things from the grocery section while I looked through the electronics and DVD’s. So I was looking around while my daughter tried to see how many things she could knock off of the shelves with the shopping cart.

Then she said it. Softly at first. Almost in a tone that you can ignore sometimes. But not this time. Then she said it again…”Poo-poo.” Normally I’d let her mom take her. But she was over on the other side of the store. Walmart probably doesn’t have the cleanest of toilets in their men’s room, so normally I’d wait til we got home and deal with it then (Poo-poo usually means pee-pee too.)

But this time was different because she didn’t have a diaper on. She had Big Girl Underwear on. And she was telling me she had to go in the Big Girl Potty. So we speed through Walmart hoping to get to the restroom before she lets loose. We get there and walk into the stall. Cleaner than some, but not “clean” if you catch my drift. Thankfully there were no doodles or creative writing on the walls.

I put the toilet seat paper donut thingy down and tried to get her to sit calmly on it. But a little girl has to MOVE on the pot doesn’t she? She likes to lean back with her hands on the seat to prop/balance. And she’d start to touch the nasty part that who knows what has touched. I’d go “NO! don’t touch that…!” Then she’d look up at me quickly. So I figured we’d try just toilet paper. So I got strips and strips of paper to coat the seat and tried that. But she’d shift and shimmy and move it off. So…last thing to try. Stand on the seat, then squat and pee in the water. But she had no patience for that and I was losing patience with her. But she HAD to go before we left that bathroom. She had Big Girl Panties on! That means Dad will get wet before long if she doesn’t go right now.

So, in our frustration with each other, she begins to do the worse thing she could do … cry. Maybe she had performance anxiety or something. But then the 2nd worst thing that could happen happened….someone came in the bathroom. I’m sure they were wondering why there was a man in a bathroom stall saying “It’s okay. It’s okay. Be quiet. Don’t cry.” in hushed tones and was accompanied by the whimpers of a young girl. I was afraid who ever it was would think I was abducting a girl and/or abusing her in the men’s room of a small town Walmart. [The worst thing, btw, would have been if it was a policeman.]

Anyway, I convinced her to hold it til we got home. We put her Big Girl Panties back on and mom was waiting for us near the checkout lines. We made it home all dry.

Got my first issue of Relevant Magazine in the mail yesterday. I’m still flipping through it, but it seems to be a pretty good read. There are advertisements, but still plenty of articles, features, interviews, resource reviews. Still not read enough to pass a final judgement. But looks good so far.

You can ask Jeremy himself at Yafreax.com.

After an initial jaunt into the realm of blogging, he’s back and with renewed vigor. He’s still going to do some design changes and straighten things up a little bit in the near future. But Jeremy’s entries are a study in weird humor and deep thinking.

Here’s a post where he tells the birth of his name.