All right American Idol fans, who goes home tonight?
I think that Luke guy is toast for sure.
I wish Danny would get the boot, but I doubt he will. I think he and Chekezie are weak.
On the girls side, Katy Malloy is gone. As for the other girl, hard to say. I think it might be the rocker-nurse chick with the white stripe in her hair.
Your thoughts?
So the news of Brett Favre’s retirement yesterday seemed to shock most of the sports world. I’ll admit, on the heels of his finest season in recent memory and with the Pack ending the ’07 season one throw away from a Super Bowl berth, I didn’t see this coming. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see Favre go all Michael Jordan / Roger Clemens / Junior Seau on us an “un-retire” come training camp. But, for now, he says he’s retired. Which begs the question of where Favre ranks among the all-time greats.
Off the top of my head, here are the top 10 quarterbacks of all-time, in my opinion. This whole thing is subjective, of course. You have to consider the numbers; you have to consider the era a QB played in; you have to consider Super Bowls. Anyway, here are my Top 10, in no particular order:
Favre
Elway
Montana
Marino
P. Manning
Brady
Unitas
Bradshaw
Tarkenton
Starr
Working with that list, if I had to rank the top 5, here’s what I come up with:
If I’m going purely on guys I saw play, then I’d have to take Unitas off the list and I’d add Elway. That’d put Favre as the 3rd best QB I’ve ever seen play. And I can’t believe I’m not putting Peyton in there somewhere.
Your thoughts? Where do you rank Favre all-time?
Over the weekend, we started practicing for Tee Ball, which starts up in a couple of weeks. Looks like I’ll be adding “coach” to the list of hats I’ll wear.
And speaking of hats, Joshua loves his new “Saint Lou Cardinals” hat! Can you tell?
I read this from Dennis Olson’s Deuteronomy and the Death of Moses and wanted to share it with you.
The death of Moses and the crossing over of the new generation into Canaan then leads to the lesson: “So be careful not to forget the covenant that the LORD your God made with you, and not to make for yourselves an idol” (Deuteronomy 4:23). The lesson is two-sided. On the one hand, follow the covenant that God made. On the other hand, don’t follow any idols that you make. But what do idols have to do with Moses’ dying outside the promised land? The connection is subtle but suggestive. The narrative preceding chapter 4 made clear Moses’ dearest wish to set foot on the promised land (3:23-27). Had the land itself in a sense become Moses’ idol? Did the land threaten to become more important to Moses than Moses’ relationship and trust in God? Or more importantly, did Moses have to die outside the land as a reminder that he himself was not a god, an object of worship for the people? Moses’ death shifts Israel’s allegiance from a human like Moses to Yahweh, the true God of Israel.
I’m reminded of the importance of not equating the gifts and blessings of God with God Himself. Far be it from us to turn God’s gifts into idols that lead us away from complete devotion to God and God alone.
“The LORD is our God, the LORD alone.” — Deuteronomy 6:4.
Chipper Jones injured his hamstring yesterday during batting practice.
At what point does this cease to qualify as newsworthy?
This just in: the sun rose in the east this morning. Details at 11.
Nevertheless…this kind of blurb does qualify as news for those of us hard core baseball purists who have had our fill of hot stove updates this offseason. It means that the game we love — America’s game — has returned once again.
Oh sure, there was a college football season and a pro football season and college basketball and each one is interesting enough in their own right, I suppose. But at the heart of things, for a guy like me, these amount to nothing more than distractions, diversions, something to keep my mind occupied during the dark night of the soul that is the winter offseason.
I know spring doesn’t officially start for another couple of weeks. But in my book, it begins with spring training.
Finally, spring is here.
Finally, we can at least begin to put the ugliness of this offseason behind us.
No more Scott Boras histrionics.
No more Barry Bonds perjury stories.
No more Roger Clemens on 60 Minutes. (Please.)
No more Johan-watch. (How about a Kyle Lohse watch, anybody?)
We can finally, FINALLY talk about the baseball that’s being played ON the field.
Sunny and I ate lunch at our my favorite taqueria on Friday and it happened. There on the TV screen, over the bar, I saw it. The 3rd inning of a Dodgers/Braves spring training game. The players were scrubs, the crowd was sparse, but it didn’t matter.
Because in an instant, I knew it.
It was baseball season again.
And all was right with the world.
All I can say is this is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.
So I’m two months in on this resolution to try and live out the love of Christ. Some of you have asked how that’s going. I think I can illustrate with two examples from this week.
On Tuesday, I was in a wreck. Nothing major, really. A lady was turning out of a parking lot from my right and she didn’t even see me in the turn lane. She was looking at the oncoming traffic and ran right into my bumper. Her little Toyota Camry just kind of imploded; the metal and plastic around her front tire just crumbled; her hood bowed up; and her headlight exploded into a million pieces. I certainly wasn’t happy about it, but I was never upset. After all, love is not easily angered (1 Cor. 13:5). I remained calm and got out to see if she and her children were OK. We called the police and moved over to the side of the road. The whole time, I was very aware of my example, due in large part to the sermon Gary preached on Sunday (a GREAT sermon, which you can download here). In fact, I found it surprisingly easy to maintain a calm attitude even when the Camry-driver’s semi-belligerent husband showed up on the scene. He calmed down quickly and everything was fine. I even thought about inviting this couple to church. Not sure why I didn’t.
Fast forward one evening: I’m at church on Wednesday night. I was going up the stairs to my class and I was behind two elementary age girls, probably age 8 or 9 or thereabouts. One girl started walking kind of funny and waving her arms around and the other girl giggled really loudly. I just thought they were being silly with each other. Until I got to the platform in the stairwell. I looked up the second flight and noticed a little girl about halfway up, walking kind of awkwardly. She had a bit of a labored gait and she was holding the arm rail with one hand, her other arm raised, drawing attention to her lack of coordination. The other kids were blowing past her, running up the stairs two and three steps at a time. The girl in front of me started making the same motions again, flailing her arms and bowing up her legs, much to the delight of her giggly little friend. And I was instantly filled with indignation. Like, Elisha-calling-down-she-bears kind of stuff. I just wanted to lash out at these girls right there in front of everybody. I wanted to humiliate them the same way they were humiliating the little girl with the awkward walk. I wanted to march them straight to their parents and demand that they be grounded for months for laughing at the expense of this poor little girl who had no idea she was being made fun of. I took a personality test once and it said I have an innate thirst for justice. I’d have to say that’s true.
I guess, two months in, that’s a fitting way to describe where I find myself: somewhere between love and justice. I know love is not easily angered, but my thirst for justice is. I think I’ll always fight that tension. Who knows, maybe that’s a good thing. Or maybe not. We’ll see.
And I still didn’t win the typing award in high school. I’d like to see Karie Stewart type 95 words a minute.
Call it poetic justice.
Call it karma.
Call it whatever you want. Just don’t call back.
Last night we got another call from a telemarketer. After my last little incident, I was looking for a chance to redeem myself. I answered the phone and a polite sounding gentleman on the other end of the line asked if Mr. Bybee was there.
“This is Mr. Bybee,” I said.
“Mr. Bybee, this is Jim calling on behalf of your local volunteer firefighters. Mr. Bybee, we want to thank you for all the support you’ve shown us in the past. You’re always so generous to help us out and it’s time for our annual fundraiser again and I was just wondering if it’d be all right if we get your pledge letter in the mail to you. Is that all right?“
I was very polite when I said, “Actually, we’re on the ‘Do Not Call’ list, so could you please remove our name from your list?“
Long pause. “Uh…I guess. But don’t you want to help?“
“It’s not that we don’t want to help. In fact, we’ve helped with a couple of these things in the past.” (Lane, I wasn’t about to tell him that I’d heard these kinds of calls were bogus. But I was thinking it.) “It’s just that we’ve received about a dozen of these same calls over the last month or so. Last week it was the state troopers. The week before that it was somebody else. In fact, I’m pretty sure you guys have already called here once. And all that annoys me, because we’re not supposed to receive solicitation calls in the first place.“
Another long pause.
“You know what I’m sayin’?“
“I guess.“
“So, can you please take me off your list?“
“FINE!” Click.
He hung up on me.
Jim, calling on behalf of our volunteer firemen, sounded a retaliatory shot on behalf of every telemarketer who’s ever been hung up on over the years.
I can only imagine how satisfying that must’ve felt. And now, my penance is complete.
Look out, people. The end is nigh.
I’ll be even happier if we’re still #1 a week from now.
already & not yet 