The most wonderful time of the year! To celebrate, I give you the best entrance in college football.

All my life, I’ve been told that I needed to smile more.  Even in feedback from interviews, one of the things I’ve been told on several occasions was that I should have smiled more.  I must confess, smiling hasn’t been one of my strong suits and it’s been that way since about the fourth or fifth grade.  If you were ever to see any pictures from then up until now, 99.9% would consist of a smile in which I did not show my teeth, which leads to the reason behind it all… I was very self-conscious about how my teeth looked.

I’ve known for many years that I needed braces.  The dentist would tell my parents that my teeth were too big for my mouth, which would lead to all kinds of crowding issues which lead to other issues.  During my teenage years, my parents weren’t able to afford braces at the time, so I never got them.  Unfortunately, years of dealing with the aforementioned issues left me very frustrated.  This lead to a conversation about three years ago with my new dentist about braces.  During that conversation, one of the hygienists talked about how her husband had just finished with braces and that he went to the School of Dentistry’s orthodontic department over at UNC-Chapel Hill to have them done.  He was pleased with their work and the cost was very reasonable.

So in November 2007, I went for my screening and was accepted into the program, which began roughly a two and a half year journey.  I will confess, I was a little apprehensive about getting braces.  My self-consciousness and self-esteem were already in the “code orange” on the heightened state of awareness scale, and walking around wondering what people would think of me as a guy in his early thirties with braces almost sent me over the top.

Needless to say, I moved past those issues and today marked the end of that journey.  Those metal brackets that have been on my teeth the past two years came off in about 30 seconds, and honestly, I’ve never felt better about my smile.  Dr. Fritz and Dr. Klein, along with their supervisor, Dr. Sheats were very patient with me and my apprehensiveness and insecurity about having braces.  I will always be very thankful to them for now giving me another good reason to smile.

High school football kicked off this past Friday night and our first Football Friday of 2010 took us to Hillsborough where we saw the Orange Panthers take on the Jordan Falcons.

The opening play from scrimmage where Jordan gained 30 yards on a toss sweep pretty much set the scene for how this one was going to play out.  I’ll spare you all the details, since you can read the Herald-Sun recap of the game.  A very sloppy game turned into a 50-6 blowout for the Falcons.

Things of note:

• Attendance was pretty decent for an opening night game.  I’m not sure what a normal night is at Orange, but the stands to the right of the picture were pretty full.  There were a number of people on the Jordan side (where we sat) as well.  Sadly, we didn’t see a lot of students, but school hasn’t started yet, which may have led to that.
• I didn’t have any concessions, but from hearing John and Kevin, they weren’t as good as their previous visits.
• The stadium layout was pretty good, as we had a good view of the field from our seats.  The scoreboard was green and looked like a football field with red numbers.  I don’t know really how to describe it.  The sound system was horrible.  One speaker on top of the press box that wasn’t very loud.  Basically, if you were on the visitor’s side, you couldn’t understand what was being said.
• Oh band… I liked the national anthem, until you put the embellished ending on it.  I didn’t hear the school’s fight song one single time, and a complete standstill show for a competitive marching band on opening night is not acceptable.  I heard you were invited to the Olympics a couple of years ago.  After hearing what I heard on Friday night, I would have called the person who told me out for that one, but they were wearing a badge.
• Orange’s uniforms would be considered an identity crisis for people from Oregon.  Their uniforms are orange and black, which look similar to Oregon State’s uniforms, but their helmets have the “O” that is similar to the ones for the University of Oregon (see the picture in the Hearld-Sun article for further detail)

Needless to say, the two-hour first half, sloppy game of penalties and turnovers, and general “blah” atmosphere left a lot to be desired.  Perhaps if there was a different team in town that was more evenly matched (it was 38-0 at half), this experience would have been better.  Jordan looks poised to have a good year, and Orange may have one once they get into conference play.

I’m taking next Friday off due to a previously scheduled appointment, but will be back in two weeks for the next Football Friday stop.  Stay tuned to Facebook and Twitter to find out where we’re heading next.

Today was my last day as Interim Pastor of Delrayno Baptist Church in Oxford.  Our morning worship service consisted of Vacation Bible School commencement, so all the farewells and things churches and ministers do on the last Sunday were done last week, including the covered dish luncheon that is a staple in any Baptist church.

I only served there four and a half months, but all the appreciation last week made me feel that I was there a lot longer than that.  Everyone there has been very supportive, and most of all they have been a blessing in my life.

As I told the congregation at the end of the service last week, I had been searching and seeking quite a bit in the area of calling since my own “5-year plan” was derailed a little over two years ago.  Serving in a pastoral role over these past few months has led me to think more and more about becoming a pastor, which was unthinkable to me a couple of years ago.

So, while I don’t know what’s next for me, I have a pretty good idea which direction to go.  For that, I have the wonderful people of Delrayno Baptist Church to thank.  I wish them all the best as their new pastor begins his ministry this week.

We’re about a month out from high school football and “Football Fridays” starting up again and hopefully I’ll be posting soon about where we’re going for the first game of the year.  In anticipation of the upcoming season though, I thought I would post about a game I will never forget.

To set the scene for you, this was a second-round 2A state playoff game played on a cold, rainy November night in 2001 in Millers Creek, NC (November 23, 2001, to be exact).  One reason I remember this game so vividly is because at the time, I had ties to both schools.  I’m a 1996 graduate of West Wilkes, and in 2001, I was on the staff for the North Rowan Cavalier Marching Band (their band director was the music minister at the church I served at in Salisbury, so he brought me on staff for the marching season).  When the playoff brackets were released, I knew this was a possibility.  When North Rowan defeated Pisgah at home in the first round and West took care of Charlotte Catholic, it became clear that I would observe my first Blackhawk football game from the visitor’s side.

It was a very sloppy first half that saw North Rowan take a 6-0 halftime lead on a touchdown followed by a missed extra-point.  The third quarter was dominated by the Blackhawks, who scored three touchdowns on consecutive drives which were the results of a short punt and two fumbles by North Rowan quarterback Alfonzo Miller.

Looking dead in the water, trailing 22-6 at the start of the fourth quarter, the Cavaliers began their comeback with a 17-yard Miller touchdown pass, followed by a two-point conversion to cut the lead to 22-14.  The Cavaliers defense blocked a Blackhawks punt on the next possession to turn a 19 yard drive into the game-tying touchdown following the second two-point conversion.

What happened next was probably the most gut-wrenching, emotional five minutes of football that I’ve ever seen in person.  On their next drive, West Wilkes ripped off a 38-yard run down inside the Cavaliers 5-yard-line.  On the next play, the Blackhawks fumbled the ball inside the 1, which was recovered by the North Rowan.  A pass got the ball out to the Cavaliers 26, but the drive stalled resulting in a punt.

The effects of the weather took it’s toll as a bad snap led to a blocked punt, and the Blackhawks returned the ball for a touchdown to go up 29-22 with 1:45 left.  Everyone in black and orange was going crazy.  I was excited, but being on the opposing sideline, could not jump up and down with everyone else at the time.  Although, 1:45 is a lot of time left in the game, so the feeling that this was over had not arrived yet.

In a minute and one second, Miller drove the Cavaliers 79 yards in four plays, completing a 26-yard touchdown pass to cut the lead to 29-28 with :44 left.  North Rowan head coach Roger Secreast called time out, and the tension began to mount as it became clear that they were going for two.  At the time, I thought they were crazy since the whole season was on the line, but then again, an extra point was not a sure thing either considering the kicking game had been abysmal at best that night.

After the time-out Miller came out and connected with a wide-open Lamar Geter for the two-point conversion, putting North Rowan ahead 30-29.  The Blackhawks’ final drive fell apart over the next four plays and the Cavalier fans stormed the field celebrating with their team on that night.

At the end of the game, I stood there in a mixed array of stunned, sad, and excited.  I was happy for the team and the kids in the band, but was devastated at it was at the expense of my high school and the way the game ended.  I’m still trying to figure out where this game stacks up on Bill Simmons’ Levels of Losing.

After the game, we got on the bus to head back to Salisbury and I called my parents.  Mom said they listened to the game on the radio (which was odd because they don’t watch football and rarely went to a game while I was a student at West).  A bunch of us headed over to Christo’s for our normal ritual of wings and Mountain Dew after we got back, and I stayed up most of the night reflecting on those past few hours.  The next week, North Rowan was crushed by Burlington Cummings 67-34 in what turned out to be Coach Seacrest’s last game.

Thanks to a Salisbury Post article by Steve Huffman that I had saved for filling in all the details about this game.  Stay tuned for details on where our first Football Friday stop will be.

Almost three years ago on an old blog, I wrote how the iPhone wasn’t for me.  My reasons behind it were fairly simple.  At the time, it couldn’t edit documents, it didn’t have a GPS, and it didn’t have a good task managing application.  Well… in three years time, most of that and more has changed.

As you can see, I purchased an iPhone 4 last week and it’s better than I thought it would be.   I will not bore you with the details on all the specifics because you’ve probably heard them already.  What I will tell you is what made the difference for me.  The answer simply is the applications.

I’ve owned an iPod Touch for a little over a year now and became amazed at all the applications out there and how they could fit into my workflow.  I tested several apps out over the past few months and found the ones that would work best.  The only trouble was that the only time I could use them  was when I had a wireless connection.  Now, with the iPhone, I can use those same applications over my wireless data plan.  The big deal for me here is that I ran some of these same applications on my HTC Fuze Windows Mobile phone, and as most of you are already well aware of, there is a world of difference.  Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, was sluggish at best on my old smartphone.

Some of the applications I use regularly, such as Dropbox, Evernote, have become more important to me now and have helped improve my workflow tremendously.  Most of all, I don’t have to worry about plugging the phone into my computer all the time to sync data, as several of the apps take care of that for me through “the cloud.”

I didn’t give a whole lot of thought into the “retina display” until I saw it on the iPhone 4.  Up against my iPod Touch, you can see how much better the screen looks.  It’s sharper, more readable and everything just looks better.

Now, there are a few things I wish were better.  For example, I’m still looking for the perfect application to sync my tasks with Outlook without having to use third-party software.  Just so you know, I use Outlook, for various reasons, as the central place to run all my appointments, tasks, etc. through.

I have friends who have iPhones and love them and I have friends who hate Apple for various reasons.  I’ve listed to both sides of the argument and can relate to all their points and looked at all the alternatives.  What it really came down to for me is the experience.  I think that’s what Apple markets the most is the experience of using their products, and this is where they slowly won me over, first with the iPod Touch and now with the iPhone.  I’ve also had people comment about AT&T’s network, but honestly, my experience with them has been pretty good over the years, and I’ve been a customer with them since it was BellSouth.

So… three years ago, I said I wouldn’t be buying an iPhone, but sorry mom, I sold out this time, and I’m happy about it.

Whenever I go out of town on an overnight trip, one of the things I make sure a potential place I stay at has is internet access… preferably free internet access.  So last week, my wife and I were on vacation in Myrtle Beach and I checked, as usual, to see if the place we were staying at had internet access.  It did… wireless… free… works for me!

What this place failed to tell me is how slow the internet access was.  It was slow enough to the point that I was checking things on my 3G smart phone faster than I was on my computer.  By the second day, I was so frustrated that the only time I got online at all was to check email, once a day, for about twenty minutes, and that was it.

And you know what… it felt good.  After all, I was on vacation, and since I was trying to get a break from my routine, the slow internet access forced me to break the routine of being in constant communication through email, Facebook and Twitter.  It felt good not being bombarded by all the notifications and it allowed me to rest and relax for a change.  What was interesting to see is how many people were out on the beach and in restaurants with their cell phones and smart phones, texting people, checking the internet and trying to keep up with everything they were supposed to be escaping from while on vacation.

This whole experience made me think how about how much we rely on technology and how much we should rely on it.  I’m old enough to remember not having a computer, internet, video game systems, iPods, TiVo and cell phones.  I survived just fine.  I barely had internet access for four days and was to the point that I did not want to get online because it was a frustrating experience, and I did not want to be frustrated on my vacation.  Technology is great, and I’ll be the first to tell you that, but sometimes you just need a break from it all, and in order to get that break, sometimes you just need to turn the devices off… or at least have someone else turn it off for you.

Yesterday, I was walking around the Books-A-Million in Asheboro when I found myself in the graphic novels section.  As I was looking through some of the books there, I began lamenting on how slack I had become with one of my hobbies, comic books.  As my wife and I were leaving, I jokingly made the comment that “I have too many interests.”

As the day wore on, that thought kept simmering around in the back of my mind.  How did I get this way?  How did I become so interested in so many things?  Well, one thought led to another, which made me think how much I am like my dad.  Like me, he has a lot of hobbies and interests and none of them relate to one another in any way.  Over the past few years, I’ve quietly observed how every few months he’ll throw is time and energy into one hobby then switch to another, and then another.  At some point, he’ll come back to a hobby even though he hasn’t put any time into it for years and spend the next few months spending time and energy on it.

I guess it’s his way of keeping up with all the things he’s interested in while I try to juggle them all at one time.  Perhaps this is a lesson I should learn from my dad, I don’t know.

What I do know is that today is Father’s Day, and as I reflect on this day, I’m thankful for the lessons I’ve learned from my dad and for his influence on me.  Happy Father’s Day, Dad!  I love you!

Richard

I’m a huge fan of Friday Night Lights – the book, the movie and now the NBC show.  Like every show, they throw in a few cameo appearances, mostly by college football coaches. Texas coach Mack Brown had a brief cameo in the first season as a booster to the fictional “Dillion” High School.

In this season, Coach Taylor has been forced out of Dillion High and is the coach at the inferior East Dillion High, which is struggling to get its football team off the ground.

In the most recent episode, there was a strange scene that didn’t seem to make any sense (unlike watching Smallville, where nothing makes sense anymore). While at a gas station this mysterious man comes up to Coach Taylor talking about his “inner pirate”. Former Texas Tech coach Mike Leach comes off as weird, crazy, or possibly drunk.

Now I’m wondering if I could work this into a sermon.

I took a glance at the site this morning and noticed that it’s been exactly one month since I blogged here.  So much has been happening lately that putting together some good content for this site has fallen down on the to-do list.  I haven’t forgotten about this site, however, and I do want to share a couple of things I’ve been doing.  So here goes…

I did experience “The Road to Carmichael” last week, which was an awesome experience.  Also, I accepted the interim pastor position of Delrayno Baptist Church in Oxford.  On top of that, I’ve been working on design and content for several websites.

Between all that, along with family time, I have stayed pretty busy, which has kept me away from the blog.  Never fear, hopefully I’ll be back to posting consistently soon.