It went something like this...

Me (answering phone): “Hello?”

Joe: “Have you ever heard of Good Smoke BBQ?”

Me: “Uhhhhhhh are you kidding me?”

(brief silence)

Me: ” That’s like my favorite restaurant. I love that place.”

Joe: “We’re going there for your birthday. I just won two gift certificates from the John DiTullio Show.”

Me: “What!? That’s right, you’ve never been there with us.”

Joe: “Well, we’re going there for your birthday.”

Me: “I think I love you.”

So that’s cool

“By now your name and particulars have been fed into every laptop, desktop, mainframe and supermarket scanner that collectively make up the global information conspiracy, otherwise known as…

“THE BEAST.”

Between covering a game at my old high school, watching the draft, reading through the last BV of the semester and Spring Weekend reminders, staying up until 3 a.m. writing and all the general memories associated with this time of year, I’m feeling quite a bit nostalgic tonight.  

Maybe I’ll get around to writing something soon, if I’m feeling motivated one day.

LOUIS!!!

The prayer as delivered on January 23, 1996 by Pastor Joe Wright to the Kansas House of Representatives:

Heavenly Father, we come before You today to ask Your forgiveness and seek Your direction and guidance. Lord, we know Your Word says, “Woe to those who call evil good,” but that’s exactly what we’ve done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and inverted our values. 

We confess that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of Your Word and called it moral pluralism. 

We have worshipped other gods and called it multi-culturalism. 

We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle. 

We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.

We have neglected the needy and called it self-preservation. 

We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare. 

We have killed our unborn and called it choice. 

We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable. 

We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building esteem. 

We have abused power and called it political savvy. 

We have coveted our neighbors’ possessions and called it ambition. 

We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression. 

We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our fore-fathers and called it enlightenment. 

Search us oh God and know our hearts today; try us and see if there be some wicked way in us; cleanse us from every sin and set us free. 

Guide and bless these men and women who have been sent here by the people of Kansas, and who have been ordained by You, to govern this great state. Grant them Your wisdom to rule and may their decisions direct us to the center of Your will. I ask it in the name of Your Son, the Living Savior, Jesus Christ. 

Amen.

ndfootballnow:

Season In Pictures-Week 11-Wake Forest

Remember when I went to this game and it was awesome? Also, look at Louis. LOUIS!!!

usatodaysports:

3 hours and 40 minutes. 205 total points. Breaking down Notre Dame’s five-overtime marathon win over Louisville.

To my disappointment, I’ve had no problem not getting a job as a sports writer since graduation. After today, I think I’m OK with that.

There are some good people in the field, for sure. But if this is God’s way of keeping me from coming across as a self-important, cynical blowhard who follows the herd, rushes to judgment, gets off to kicking people while their down and never takes accountability for being wrong, that’s fine with me. 

Days like today show it will take increasing cynicism to make it in this business. I don’t want to fall into the trap and live that way.

Maybe someday I’ll get to defy that stereotype. In the meantime, I’ll continue enjoying the wonderful, unexpected blessings that have come my way in the last year and use them as further validation that everything will work out for the best.

God bless. Go Irish.