NCAA Tournament brackets rant

There is truly no better time of year than March Madness. I get so excited when the NCAA tournament brackets come out and I can sit down and begin filling out what I think will be the perfect bracket. Of course, it is not perfect and this is usually because I tend to make picks more with my heart than with my head but at least I am honest about it. I choose a fair share first round upsets but it usually works out where a 1 or 2 seed comes out of each region (history tells us that this is a good formula to go by) Before the tournament begins I will have filled out around 10 brackets with many different ways I can see the tournament playing out but by the time the first game tips off I only claim one of them as my "true" bracket. This is what frustrates me. Everyone has the friend who fills out 20 brackets with pretty much every combination and outcome represented in those brackets and when that miraculous 15 seed beats the 2 seed they are quick to say "oh I picked that." You know good and well that he did pick that in one of his brackets but it was 18th one that he had filled out. No matter what happens in the tournament that guy will always say "I picked that one too!" It is easy for most of you to see how ridiculous this is (unless you are this person) but everyone at least knows someone who is just like this. You need to have ONE bracket. Can you fill out a bunch of brackets? Sure! It is fun to fill out brackets. But in the end you need to claim only one. You need to "game up" and put all of your basketball knowledge and sit down and fill out the bracket that you will claim as you own. I would argue that the more brackets you claim the less you know about basketball. I get so mad when I enter a tournament pool and I pay my $5 entry fee only to lose by a couple of points to the guy who won but filled out 5 brackets. Now yes that does mean that he paid $25 dollars to enter those 5 brackets but nevertheless why can't we just man up fill out one bracket and say "this is my bracket, these are my picks and this is what I think will happen." For those of you who claim more than one bracket please stop telling all of us that you picked Arizona to beat Cleveland St. in this years tourney because you really didn't. You were just tired of picking the higher seeds like you did in you previous 10 brackets you claim. You are not smarter than those of us who have integrity, honesty and confidence. You are weak minded souls whose entrance fee money should be accepted but your brackets dismissed.
You would think that based on this rant that I am doing poorly in my tournament bracket. Well quite the opposite, I am doing very well. I picked 13 of the 16 Sweet Sixteen teams with all of my Elite Eight teams still in play. Lauren is still beating me which is tough to swallow but there is still a lot of basketball left to be played. GO DUKE!

Why Do We Care?

I just do not understand why people in this country are so enthralled with people like Terrell Owens and Brittany Spears. All they seem to do is make one bad decision after another. Their bad decision is made and then every media outlet falls all over themselves to get the scoop on their selfishness, greed and stupidity and then we go out and buy the magazine or newspaper so we can read all about it. Or in my case I will sit in front of the television and watch umpteen hours of coverage about Owens talking bad about someone and dividing the lockerroom but who cares because he has "got so much talent." Why do we care about these people? Why does sportscenter devote over half of their show each day to the bonehead mistakes people like Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez make? Do you want to know why? It is because we love drama. Our culture is a culture that lives for drama. It is a source of life for many people. I don't mean drama like a good murder mystery or the final seconds of a great basketball game. I mean drama like the "he said, she said" crap of our celebrities. Tune into Sportscenter today or to E Entertainment News and I would be willing to bet that 75% of the show will be devoted to some negative "drama" by the elite people in the industry. I guarantee you that the "drama" will make up most of the show and the 10th story of the day will be about some obscure Triple A baseball player who helped his grandmother across the street or some "D" list celebrity that gave $20 to a girl scout for some cookies. These shows do have standards you know. Why do we highlight all the negative publicity and not highlight the many positive things that athletes and celebrities are doing. It is because by and large we do not really care. We want the "dirt" on everyone so that we know that we are better than them or to validate our own struggles in life. We don't just want it with our celebrities but we want it with one another. I would argue that gossip is the most unrepented sin there is. People do not even realize they are doing it. We want to know we are better than other people so we can somehow appeal to that. We so badly want this "cosmic scoreboard" that we can look at from time to time to see how we are comparing not to God's standards but to other people because that, too often, is where we are finding our worth. God's law has been lost on Christians and we now live a "Christianity of Comparison" that says as long as I am not doing the bad things that that guy is doing over there then I am fine. It is as if we think that as long as we are "better" than most people then we are right with God. Not only is this not true but it is communicating something awful to the unbelieving world. We are telling them two things. First, that you must get your life cleaned up before you can come to Christ. No one has their life cleaned up! Christ died for sinful, broken people that did not clean their lives up first but instead realized their sin and placed them at the foot of the Cross. The Tax Collector in Luke 18 had the right idea when he cried out to God and said "have mercy on me, a sinner." He realized that all he could do was to appeal to God's mercy because all he had was his sin. Secondly, we communicate to unbelievers that our deeds can be given to God in exchange for salvation. The theme verse of this blog dashes these hopes. "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." When we were broken, reprobate, totally dead in our sin and had no inclination towards Christ, that is when Christ died for us. It was not because of any merit of our own. Our deeds accomplish nothing for us. Once we are accepted in Christ then our deeds are a fruit of our relationship with Him. So to conclude, I do not know why we are so interested in the mistakes of our celebrities. What would happen if the negative stories became the last story of the show and the positive ones were moved to the front? What if a big deal was made about the benevolent giving of celebrities and the time they spend helping others? Would this have a positive influence on kids today? Of course it would. Unfortunately, the negative stories will stay at the forefront communicating to kids that this is how you supposed to act. The stupid decisions, drugs, beating you wife and huge, greedy contracts will continue to get the publicity because that is what people want to know about and that is what kids will aspire to be. Oh let the Lord cleanse us of these things. Let Him show us His standards and how we do not measure up. My prayer is that this would not lead us to despair but would lead us to our knees begging for forgiveness, repenting of our sins and thanking Him for His abundant grace. Thanks be to God for His grace!!

My Next BIG Project (Hopefully)

Taylor Creek (aka "The Dream")

As some of you may know, I love a project. Before we left Birmingham, Andy and I were blessed to own a home. I love that home so much, and what was great about it was that I always had a project. More than likely Andy and I will only be in Charlotte 2 years so we are renting. And since this is not my home, I have no projects. So I got thinking....

It has been my dream since high school to build my own home. In fact halfway through nursing school I was going to quit and change my major to contracting because I wanted to build homes for a living. And you can see how that turned out... But it is still a dream. So Andy promised me that we could build a house one day. And God willing, it will be our next house. So this thought gave me even more ideas... What if I really researched this whole process and figured out how to save Andy and I a lot of money.

So, let the project begin! I have the next two years to figure out the best and cheapest(without cutting corners) to build a house. I am researching every single aspect from framing to flooring, drywall to doors, baseboards to bathrooms, plumbing to painting, and the list goes on...

Where do I start... I started with the dream house. I have been spending quite a bit of time digging through house plans, and there are A LOT. But I know that I love the Colonial/Federal look. So I narrowed my search. TA DA!! I found it. A home that both Andy and I love!! Now I know what some people are thinking, you don't know where you will be living. True... But wherever we go we can find a place to build. And if we can't vuild in two years than I will save all of my research and findings until the day when my dream comes true.

The house plan is called Taylor Creek. If anyone has any knowledge about home building let me know... I need a heavy arsenal of tips and tricks...