Giving him the what?

In a crazy college football season it is only appropriate that this "penalty" would be called during a game this year. Also, Auburn 6 in a row pushing Alabama to 6-6.. 666 and a Coach named Saban. Priceless.

Bravo to official Ron Cherry for giving us a new category for personal fouls.

"We fix problems""

.. should be the family motto for the Bley's. I have told my boss many times that he likes me because I fix problems and don't create them. So what do you do in this situation (sort of a McGyver scenario):

You come home to your simple house that you have put together with your own two hands and you notice a blood spot near your driveway. You pull in and you see in the ditch next to the highway a deer. Someone hit it but still alive. You think that the deer will just die over night and that will be the end of this journey. The next morning you come out and the deer is still alive. What do you do?

What my brother did was call the county sheriff to tell him that he had a deer still alive next to his house. The sheriff comes out, gets his "deer gloves" out and drags the deer out of the ditch. He pulls his service revolver and puts the deer out of his misery. He then issues my brother a "Highway Kill" permit and he takes possession of the deer. He cuts it and dresses it and now he wants to sausagifiy his deer but doesn't have a meet grinder and only has the attachment with no motor. What do you do? Exhibit A:

What you have here is a custom, variable speed- 1/2" Makita meat grinder. All you need is a hand me down drill from your brother (me) a dimmer switch, pipe clamp, quick clamp and some zip ties. Now you are ready for the process of sausagification. My brother mix's deer and pork sausage for what is known as "dork". I had a dork burger and it was delicious.


... problem solved.

















(It should be noted for all you wanting to have this type of opportunity that the county does have a call list for "Highway Kill" but they can call you at 3 a.m. and you got to come get it while it's hot. My brothers brother-in law has been on this call list. Who wants to come home for Christmas with me?)

O-H-I-O

College Football is God's good gift to me to make me happy during the fall. That and hoodies and what else could you want. Marching bands are a big part of that and there is nothing cooler than seeing "script Ohio" performed by The Ohio State University. The logistics of how they do this I still am figuring out. Enjoy and wait until they dot the "I". Please enjoy the cheesy narration as well

"Oh the humanity"

In an effort to keep my humor in the midst of loosing my sanity this week I had to put this footnote in a paper I have been trying to destroy.

Some background: My week is full of papers, preaching, papers, preaching etc.. and I found a window to translate the verses I needed to for a Proverbs paper 48 hours before it was due. Did Proverbs 31:10-31. I went yesterday morning to print something and had to inform my fellow classmate, after I saw his computer screen, that he was translating the wrong verses. My fellow classmate then informed me that I was the one doing the wrong verses, 1-9. I sort of went numb, panicked, teared up, freaked out, cried and then went numb again in about 5.7 seconds. I had to preach in 3.5 hours, had another huge project in 24 hours and then preach again.
So after getting extensions from everybody but Beyonce and so much help from classmates steering me the write direction for this paper, it is done. I felt like I was that guy who was building the Hindenburg with a lit cigarette in his mouth. "Hey, you guy, you want to put that out. Nah, its bien be all cool,Dah" From the Hindenburg to the Mercedes the Germans have come a long way. So I didn't build the Hindenburg of papers but I came pretty dam close.

So that all said I buried this in footnote 32 of my paper:

[32] Roland Murphy 240- says that this instruction was about how to deal with harems or concubines. Waltke 507 makes a similar argument. You can see biblically examples of harems in I K. 11, Esth. 2 or sex outside marriage 2 Sam. 11. Giving your strength to such things distracts you from kingly duties. I’m so glad I don’t have to juggle the complexities of King/concubine relationships.

Fire

"Eloquence is an idea on fire" - Williams Jennings Bryant.

One of my favorite quotes and applicable today. I preached in class today and actually preached for the first time. I think the fire part had much to do with the preaching well. I also have appeared to pull a muscle in my chest. I think that happened during my reading of Exodus. We will see what fire and pulled muscles happen Sunday when this sermon goes before a live studio audience.

Tricked or Treat?- The true story of Candy Corn

The gathering has begun. We have been removed from Halloween just over a week and the completion of this years harvest is coming to a close. Underneath every corn silo in the United States is a candy corn silo that goes deep into the bowels of the deep dark sweet earth. It is a well known fact that every bit of candy corn that exists today was made in the year 1948. We all know how candy corn is produced and know that this one mass production in '48 was all there would be. There is a reason this stuff lasts forever as it has a coating of Carnauba wax. Even the inventer, George Renninger, has ringer clearly in his name. It is a fact that "The National Confectioners Association estimate 20 million pounds of candy corn are sold each year." Do you notice what is missing from this statement? None of this candy corn is ever consumed. There are by my estimate over 360,000,000 million pieces of candy corn that is never consumed. Now you will have loss due to accidental consumption, desperation due to lack of BabyRuth or Kit-Kat and the fact that they are on top of a cupcake. So remains 359,281,492 pieces of candy corn after the holiday season. Did you eat any candy corn this season?

Tell me where I am wrong.

The Crush, The Shame, The Truth

I have been hitting my stride on youtube lately and have found things through friends that have been pretty interesting. Let me introduce you first to my man crush. I didn't realize I had this crush until I was in his presence in a club in New York and I got girly quick and couldn't go up to talk to him. He is in St. Louis Sunday night and I can't wait to see him. I'm going alone as to not give him the wrong impression. The Croc lady knows about him so I feel safe doing this.




The second clip involves my very own alma mater Ball State. The worst sports cast ever and if you have seen it I encourage you to watch it again because there are so many painful subtleties. My personal favorite is the mouthed, wordless apology on air. Here is my school on display, Oh the shame.



Finally, I was introduced to this in one of my classes. Slam Poetry. This guy Taylor Mali and it's amazing stuff. It's humor and profound truth tied together and spoken so well. I'll include two. One on speaking with truth and the other "what teachers make" that gives me goosebumps. Both are fantastic and thoughtful. I'll write something next that is not a youtube splurge but I get some grace for spacing these things out.