Crumpled Notebook

When I lived on the Fort in VISTA housing, when I first moved here, our place didn’t have carpet. It had like hard floors. Anyway, I’d always slide down the hall in my old worn out sandals. Sometimes socks, but the floor was kind of dirty, so usually sandals. My roommate Kris used to tell me I was going to fall and break my arm or something. I almost did a few times.

Where I live now, I have hardwood floors too. I like to slide down the hall thing here as well in my socks. Think Tom Cruise in Risky Business (except I wasn’t in a t-shirt and undies). Tonight, it finally happened. I broke my arm sliding down the hall. That’s what I get for forgetting that I’m almost 30.

Lucky for me, I had my cell phone in my jacket pocket and it was soon enough after work that the front gate was still unlocked. Alisha had to come and get me and take me to the hospital.

Typing one handed kinda sucks. Anyway, here’s the battle wound x-ray. Told you I’d blog about something other than basketball.

One week til the SF Giants’ Home Opener game. This may have happened last year too, but their home opener is the same day as the NCAA Basketball Championship. That officially makes it the best day of the year.

I love baseball. I read a great post today by Walt Mueller about baseball and grace. It actually reminded me of something I was talking about the other day with someone. Maybe I’ll blog about that later. Anyway, here is his post that I liked. For anyone who doesn’t know, Walt Mueller is like the man on Youth Culture and how that fits in with our Christian lives. I heard him speak at Boot Camp in January and he was really good. He is a Phillies baseball fan so, but I won’t hold that against him. What about those Phillies? (Sorry Crystal, I couldn’t resist).

You like how I did that? I did a post that wasn’t about basketball, but still had to mention it, huh? Of course, now you get a post or two about baseball, then I’ll be silent on it probably until my trip, and then again until my next trip, and then again until, just before the playoffs.

I’ve been listening to this song non-stop for the past few days. The song is “Lights of Louisville” by The Muckrakers. The link is to their Myspace and the song is in their player. You should definitely check it out. As a side note, before I get into this post, you should also listen to “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters.” It may be in the player too.

So, “Lights of Louisville.” Well, Louisville isn’t exactly my favorite place in KY, but the song is great. Something about a song about Kentucky always gets me, but check out this part of it.

I gotta get out. Wanna get out. Won’t you help me get out? Gotta get out.

And you lose yourself, find who you are.
And you fight to breath. It shouldn’t be so hard.
And you lose yourself, when you’re all alone.
Let the lights of Louisville carry you home. Let the lights of Louisville carry you home.

I just like it. Don’t we all have our own “lights of Louisville” that take us home? I’m not sure what mine is. Lately it’s been the lights of Nashville as I’m flying back home. Or maybe the 90-Bypass, depending on if I’m heading to Monticello or Granny’s. But you know, as someone who has been away from “home” for over four years now I find it increasingly easy to lose yourself. I don’t think its a bad thing though. I’m not going to speculate what this song is about, but the part “when you lose yourself, find you who are” is true for me. I think I had to let go of myself, and get lost, to really find who I out who I am. It’s hard sometimes being out here all alone (alone as in, away from family and people I grew up with), but I can safely say that without this part of my life, I wouldn’t have ever found myself, and probably not ever really appreciated home.

There is a pretty good sense of ease that comes over me when I’m home. It’s like almost a sense of relief and calmness. In fact, this isn’t a new thing. I had a college friend (Kelli Giorgio) who used to tell me when she’d go to Monticello with me on the weekends that I was so much calmer, relaxed and nicer when I was there. Like there was no pressure. Sure, family can be pressure, but it wasn’t pressure put on me. I think it’s just that unconditional acceptance and love that you get there.

Looking at the spiritual side of that whole “finding home,” I am thinking right now that’s what Heaven is gonna be like. Hanging out at Nana’s house, climbing the mountain, and eating Granny’s mac and tomato juice. That is life my friends.

Anyway, this was about a song. Listen to it and The Muckrakers. Rob is a baseball fan, so you gotta like him for that, even if he is a Reds fan.

One day I promise I will stop blogging about basketball. Probably not until April 7th or there abouts, but I will stop someday soon.  Anyway…

Every year I join up with some people I know to make an ESPN Tournament Challenge group. We fill out our brackets and do all that stuff. We’ve been doing this for like, what 8 years now? Something like that. I’ve actually only met one of the folks in this group (Josh in Connecticut), but we all were friends from the FRIENDS Message Boards back in the day. That’s another story though.

So, Lisa, one of our group members, created a “control group” for this year. Basically what she did was selected all the top seeds to win in each game. 1 over 16, 8 over 9, 2 over 3. You get the idea. She did that for every single game. So far, she’s beating everyone in our group. In fact, she’s in the 81 percentile of all the ESPN brackets, which isn’t too bad. Of course, her Final Four are all one seeds. I assume from there she maybe picked the higher one seed for each match-up. North Carolina, being the overall one seed, she picked as the Champion.

What I find even more interesting though is that in the South Region (Memphis, Texas, Pitt, Stanford, Kentucky, etc…) the ONLY game that hasn’t been won by the higher seed was the Michigan St/ Pittsburgh game! It will be interesting to see if Memphis beats Texas tonight and keeps that pattern going.

If you saw my brackets you’d know I had Pitt in the Final Four, and everywhere but ESPN, in the Championship Game. So, of course, the only higher seed to lose in that region is going to be Pitt.

Okay, so here’s the deal. I don’t like the idea of all the top seeds (except Pitt) winning. So today, when Texas and Memphis play, we need to cheer hard against Memphis. It doesn’t matter for my bracket, it’s all about the underdog, right? And Memphis is NOT the underdog, despite what Calapari wants you to believe. They still got that 1 by their name. Unless they are overrated (ahem), then they are not the underdog.

I promise, me wanting Memphis to lose has nothing to do with the fact that I can’t stand them or their coach…heh.

I am loving the East region this year. I think this is going to be a great match-up. Two great coaches. Two great centers. David Padgett who originally was recruited and signed to play for Roy Williams at Kansas (Williams left for UNC before Padgett’s first season). Padgett played there one season before transferring to Louisville.

Apparently Williams and Pitino have some not so good history from Pitino’s first season at Kentucky. Looks like they made up though. Read about it here.

As far as coaches go, Roy Williams is a good coach, but I don’t care much for him. I like UNC well enough, but not crazy about him. It’s the opposite with Duke. I like Coach K, but not their team.