After beating the Crimson Slide 2 of 3 this weekend, Mississippi State has earned the #4 seed in the SEC Tourney and 3rd place in the West. Now we’re hoping for a decent showing in the Tourney for hopes of hosting a regional.

I went to the Grand March of the local prom Saturday night. The Grand March is where the seniors and their date gets to arrive (in alphabetical order) with their name, dates name, and future plans announced. Sort of like a showcase of sorts. And all kinds of people show up to take pictures and video and all. I went to show support for some of the kids from our church who were in it.

But it made me wonder how much $$$ was being shelled out for the tuxes, dresses, hair, nails flowers, limos, pictures, meal, prom tix, yadda, yadda yadda… and then for some of the kids to leave the prom after 2 hours or so to ride around in limos. One group even had a Hummer-Limo!

I enjoyed my prom when I was in highschool. It was a fun time with friends. But it seems to be getting more and more expensive and the dresses more and more, um, revealing, and kids staying out later and later, and doing things more and more, um, inappropriate.

1. What drinking water do you prefer — tap, bottle, purifier, etc.?
If it were all free, I’d take Aquafinaor Dasani. I think it’s the label that sells me. But it’s really about all the same to me if I close my eyes.

2. What are your favorite flavor of chips?
Sour Cream and Cheddar, BarBQ, Dill Pickle, Salt and Vinegar…wait, favorite? Sour Cream and Onion probably.

3. Of all the things you can cook, what dish do you like the most?
Lasagna or Steak

4. How do you have your eggs?
Soft Scrambled with cheese and some really bacon in it. Then douse it with hot sauce and a little ketchup.

5. Who was the last person who cooked you a meal? How did it turn out?
Melinda cooked us a pork rib, cream style corn, green bean, potatoes, and bread meal last night when we stayed with the Spinks. It was good. The potatoes were the best!

I remember back in the day….when I first got email…and I’d get a message every now and then that read a little something like this:

If you send this email to X number of people, then you get (pick from the list):
Cash from Bill Gates, Gift Certificate from Applebee’s, Old Navy/Gap/Fitch gift certificates, cell phones, soda, trips, etc. It really, really works. My cousin’s diet specialist swears it’s true!

Then I got another, then another. I’d think that after so many years now that people would realize this is just a hoax. But I still get them from time to time. And every now and then a family member or friend takes the plunge into the world of cyber space and thinks “Hey, this might actually work and Bill Gates might actually send me some cold hard cash, no matter what color it is!” and I get it again. I should not let it bother me, I know.

US Money Men are thinking of using colored twenty dollar bills later this year to try to fight counterfeiting.

I’d made reference last month to an entry on Josh Clayborn’s blog about a huge ad that some in the UMC took out a full page ad calling for the repentance of GWB and all the war stuff.

Something in that article made reference to one of the signers of that ad being a UMC Bishop in Chicago who denied the full deity of Jesus Christ. I thought, “What!?!” So I did a search for this guy and found this saying he’s been in hot water for a few of his comments on his beliefs. Here’s an excerpt:

Bishop Sprague expressed his disbelief of various key tenants of the Christian faith, including Christ’s eternal deity, the virgin birth of Jesus, and His physical resurrection from the dead. Bishop Sprague referred to the holding of such beliefs as “idolatrous.”

Tell me this…how and the heck do you get to be a Bishop in the UMC by not believing that Jesus is God’s son, not believing in the virgin birth, and not believing that Jesus rose on the third day? This amazes me.

And this isn’t a “Slam the UMC Day” or anything because I’ve grown up in one and know that these instances aren’t indicative of the whole denomination…but check this out:

United Methodist pastor and New Testament theologian Theodore W. Jennings, Jr. has released a book entitled The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives from the New Testament. The book uses references to “the disciple Jesus loved” and the “nude youth” in the Garden of Gethsemane mentioned in the Gospel of Mark to forward his hypothesis that Jesus was a homosexual.

Truly amazing…

How does my dog know when I’m about to go to bed?

My dog used to stay in the back yard and just sit/lay there forever. Now she wanders off now and then. And will stay gone for long periods of time. I know I’m not being a good dog owner by letting her wander. I guess I’m just exhibiting wishful thinking that she’ll stick around. She fools me even by being good for a while, then starting to wander again. But I can call and call..and just about give up and go to bed..and she always shows up the last time I’m going to check on her.

Last night I was up late. I’d taped the Survivor Finale and the Reunion Show after it. Then I was on line a bit and then read some in bed….before it was all said and done, I was about to call it a night (or early morning) and checked for about the 18th time in the past 3 or 4 hours. I didn’t go out and call/clap/whistle like I usually do. I just cracked the door…gave a brief whistle…and here she came. Like she knew that was the last time of the night I was going to check and she’d have to spend the night outside.

Peer pressure. Don’t you just hate it? I had a handful of friends saying they were going to run the Gum Tree 10K run. They were really trying to get me to do it as well. The ringleader of all this encouragement/pressure was from my wife. I kept trying to tell everyone that I wasn’t in 10K shape (that’s 10,000 meters or 6.2 miles for those of you with out a calculator), and that I should probably just sit this one out. But deep down I actually wanted to do it. But I didn’t want to embarrass myself. There’s nothing like standing at the starting line with your friends, joking about whatever’s on your mind. Then to see them dart off in a hurry at the sound of the gun…and to see them get smaller and smaller as they zoom down the road.

So I ran with another friend who’d never run a 10K before. She said her goal was just to finish w/o walking. I figured I’d stick with her and if she wanted to walk, I’d be nice and walk with her. But at the midway point I had to walk and she never stopped running. She actually ended up placing in the top 5 in her age group! I made it in under 1:10, which isn’t really that good of a time, but it is considering my lack of any sort of training at all in the past year. I’ve not ran 6.2 miles since four years ago when I ran the same race, the Gum Tree, on my wedding day.

The thing is, I know I can do better. I know I could knock substantial minutes off my time if I’d put some effort/time into training some. My personal best is a 52:08 that I ran in my first 10K down in New Orleans. Again, nothing to get overly excited about. But I know that time could come down as well.

I know it’s not all about minutes and seconds. I doubt I’ll ever be a world class runner. Probably not even a small-town-Mississippi class runner. But I know with a few ounces of preparation/discipline/training that results would be fairly easy.

Again, I think this is the same truth I need to realize more and more about my spiritual life. Some spiritual discipline and training and attention will go a long way toward my relationship with God, toward my spiritual health, and [in turn] toward everything in my life. Now I just have to apply that truth. And dive into some study/prayer/solitude/fasting/meditation. Not always the most “convenient” of things to do (just like going out to run 3-4 miles a few days a week isn’t either) but so much more rewarding (even though I’ve got a few aches right now, I’m really, really glad I ran this morning.)

Yes…I forgot it last week…but here it is. Now Giddy is no longer in withdrawals.

1. Would you consider yourself an organized person? Why or why not?
Not really. To a degree I am. I usually know where my stuff is, but it’s usually in a pile over there or a stack over here. And time management is a weakness of mine too.
2. Do you keep some type of planner, organizer, calendar, etc. with you, and do you use it regularly?
I keep one on my desk. I write stuff in it from time to time. I even make out “To Do” lists. But I don’t do it enough on a consistent basis to keep it timely. Maybe if I got one of those really cool Palm Pilots I would keep up with it all then. If not, at least I’d look cool.
3. Would you say that your desk is organized right now?
Um, let’s just say I know where everything is…
4. Do you alphabetize CDs, books, and DVDs, or does it not matter?
I will from time to time…and then let them get all out of order, then come back through months and months later and redo it. But it isn’t really a huge deal.
5. What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever had to organize?
My life. I can remember what I wore to school my first day as a Freshman, but sometimes I forget to take out the trash on Tuesday mornings when we have rotten chicken stinking up the trash cans. I’m not all out of whack, but I’m not all in whack either (is that how you say it?)

Still got water in my phone lines at home or something. So I have no internet access at all, and if I want to talk to anyone I have to scream at them through what sounds like an electronic popcorn festival. I guess I need Neo to jump in my phone line and fix if for me. I’m wanting to see that movie. I never really got it the first time. Still not watched the DVD. But it’s got cool special effects and stuff you gotta figure out. Anyway, BellSouth is supposed to have it fixed by tonight. We’ll see.

I’m thinking changing ISP’s too. I’ve been with Ebicomm for about six years now. But just recently I’ve not been able to access certain sites/servers located in Australia and New Zealand. I know, some think it’s not really that big of a deal. But that means that I can’t read Rachel or Darren’s blogs. I’m probably going to go with Dixie Net (even though they have a dash in their URL), but we’ll see. They have multi dialup numbers for my area and have a free help desk where you can talk (voice) to a real person that hopefully has a good attitude (I don’t always get that with Ebicomm). Again, we’ll see.

Hopefully I’ll get both of these situations rectified in the next little bit.