The picture is a bit misleading. I had ribs and shrimp last night at Buffalo’s Wild Wings, but six of the eight guys that showed up partook of the establishment’s signature course – all you can eat hot wings! Periodically, thanks to my friend Marion, the “guys” from church get together at Buffalo’s just to hang out. We eat a lot, talk a lot, and watch a lot of sports on the plethora of televisions spread around Buffalo’s. This will be the last time we get to do this with Marion since he just received orders from the United States Coast Guard and will be moving to Clearwater, Florida. We will sure miss him a lot, and I suspect we’ll carry on the tradition even after he’s gone. I can’t wait to get to the Buffalo’s Wild Wings in Heaven, though. We’ll all have a grand time.

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I made it home last night in time to take part in another live online fantasy football draft, this time in a “carefree” league established by my friend, John Dobbs. It’s a “just for fun” league, but since our friend, Danny, is involved, the competitive juices will flow somewhere within. The chat during the online draft was hilarious, and as John pointed out, more fun than the entire season.

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Lots of folks commented on my Hungry Hippos column yesterday. The discussion continues if you want to check in again. Just click HERE.

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On the way back from Buffalo’s last night, my wife called to say that her car quit working. Looks like I get to change out a battery today. Given my automotive expertise, this will not be nearly as easy as it would be to everyone else in the world.

Everyone!

I have a request for all of you!

I’ve had a group blog for a while now called “Desperate Houseflies,” and it has been a lot of fun. Several friends from over the years have been a part of the conversations, and I have learned a lot from it. It is sometimes funny, sometimes controversial, and sometimes deep. It has always been important to me.

But, after two-and-a-half years, it sort of grew to a point where we needed a fresh start, so we’ve converted this group blog to another server, renamed it, and are ready to unveil it today.

I’ve written a special post for today’s grand opening titled, “Can We All Get Along?” And I’m somewhat nervous about it. Nervous because the conversation there is free-flowing, and you might not like what some people have to say from time to time, including me, and nervous because of my kickoff post today.

Yet, given perspective, what I have written is so very important to me.

Here’s my request:

(1) Please go to http://hungryhungryhippos.wordpress.com and read my article

(2) Please add your comment on the website (instead of emailing me personally). You may have to get a free WordPress account to comment, but I’m not sure. If so, just jot down your password somewhere.

(3) Please consider dropping back by regularly (bookmark the site) and become involved in the regular conversations. Once you read my article, you’ll understand why this request is so important to me.

(4) Oh, and one more: then tell all your friends about the Hungry, Hungry Hippos blog, too! The more the merrier.

Thanks for being some of the people that are so important to my life. I hope you enjoy the land of the hippos!

Yours to count on,
Al

The picture above is of beautiful Cozumel a couple of months ago. Simply a breathtaking place. But it might not look so pretty in a couple of days.

I have a friend who has a very important job, and in the course of that job, he needs the very best weather information. Because he cares for our church family, he provides me insight as to which way hurricanes are pointing so we can be prepared, too.

Hurricane Dean should roar through Jamaica and the Cayman Islands today, but the last word has it slamming into Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula between Cancun and Cozumel on Monday evening as a horrible Category 5 storm. From there, once it reemerges in the Gulf of Mexico, its current track has it rebuilding into a strong 3 or possibly a 4 before blasting the Brownsville, Texas / northern Mexico region on Wednesday night.

All subject to change, of course, but that’s what it looks like for now.

And if that isn’t enough, the experts believe that this hurricane season will last much longer than 2006. Last season’s ended in mid-September, but this one is expected to last until late-October to early-November.

Stay tuned this week. I know it will be a tragic week somewhere.

Some days are ho-hum days, but not today. It is draft day for my fantasy football league, popularly known to be one of the most important days in the history of the universe.

Fantasy sports has grown tremendously, and I’ve come to enjoy participating in the fun. And of all the fantasy sports, it is my opinion that football is the best. Without delving too far into the finer points of the game, suffice it to say that draft day for football is MUCH more important than in other sports. So I’m getting my game plan together this morning…

I’m pulling up the latest football news on the internet. I have my Fantasy Football Preview in Sports Illustrated sitting by my side. Bring it on!!!

Of the twelve teams in my league, seven of us reside on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. We are anxiously crouched over our computers, and you know how painful that can be.

My friend, Andy, an attorney in Houston, Texas, is sitting by, too.

As is my friend, DeJon, a graduate student at the University of Oklahoma.

And my friend, Danny, a preacher in Pensacola, Florida.

And my friend, Wayne, retired in Northwest Alabama.

And last, but not least, my friend, David. To tell the truth, I don’t even know where David is at! He went from here to South Dakota, and from South Dakota to Oklahoma, but I’ve lost track. Except for his fantasy teams, which he faithfully manages.

Seriously, fantasy sports aren’t important at all in the grand scheme of things. Except, that is, that they keep me connected with good friends. Which is a grand reason to celebrate a day like today.

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On a much more ominous note, please watch and pray concerning Hurricane Dean.

I received a startling text message yesterday afternoon from my friend, Alison. It said “Fire @ chevron, cole & I are ok! Pray for others.”

Chevron is big business down here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The oil refinery employs 1300 folks and is one of the top ten refineries in the United States. Our friend, Cole and Alison, are engineers there, and we love them very much. A fire at a place that produces gasoline is a scary thought, and I’m glad that the first word I heard about it was from Alison saying they were okay. (The picture above came from Cole during the fire.)

It turned out that none of Chevron’s employees were injured; however, Alison worked in the area where the fire occurred, but she had taken yesterday afternoon off. She felt blessed not to have been there, but quite shaken to think about her co-workers, and at the same time, to realize what could have been.

Thank God everyone was okay.

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Well, it’s official now. After last evening, I have been officially sworn in as a CASA volunteer. I now await being assigned my first case.

The ceremony was really neat, and Jody and Hillary were able to attend with me. There are six current CASA’s in our area, and our class of thirteen helped that number significantly. My wife has already volunteered to be the first member of the next training class, and we are very much looking forward to doing this together.

There are so many children that are in need in our county. One of the current volunteers (who was named Male Volunteer of the Year by the United Way last year) said we could use a hundred volunteers.

Check out CASA if you have a heart for abused and neglected children to see what you can do to help.

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My friend, Troy, is the most creative pastor in the world I think! His recent teaching series, ivescrewedup.com and its cyber-confessional resulted in his being interviewed on CNN’s Anderson Cooper Show. You’ll have to check out his latest idea, called mynakedpastor.com. You can bet he’ll field some interesting interviews with this one!

Mynakedpastor.com isn’t about anyone taking clothes off. Instead, it deals with our fear of being vulnerable. As part of the series, cameras will follow his family around 24/7 for five weeks. He’ll be able to preach from experience when all is said and done.

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In the sports world, two happy events for me:

#1: The Cardinals are suddenly 2 ½ games out of first place, and they’re beginning an important four-game series with the Cubs today!

#2: I received my Sports Illustrated yesterday, and who was on the cover but Arkansas running back, Darren McFadden, with the title: “The Year of the Running Back / Arkansas / The No. 1 Back in the Land”

Have a great Friday!

It is hot. It is August. It is time to dust the old cobwebs off the cans of Spam and begin thinking a bit about hurricanes.

For those of you who don’t know, although hurricane season ranges through six months of the year, the peak occurrence times are really August and September. Like right now.

Hurricane Dean formed in the open Atlantic yesterday, the first hurricane of the season. Hurricane specialists still believe this will be an active season, predicting as many as nine hurricanes to develop from up to sixteen tropical storms.

Which means we’ll be watching the weather with elevated interest over the next couple of months.

We were blessed with a very quiet season in 2006. The year 2007 has been quiet so far, but, as always, that can change quickly in the steamy month of August.

A few bite-sized blogs this morning:

* Brooke Astor died this week at age 105, a truly remarkable woman. Over the course of managing her enormous wealth, she gave away about $200 million. Shannon Lawler sent me THIS LINK to an article about her life and death. Her most famous quote is in the article (“Money is like manure, it should be spread around.”), but my favorite line is the one that said she was “as comfortable in a Harlem youth center as she was in a Fifth Avenue penthouse.” That’s Jesus-like.

* I’ve had a couple of rough days at work recently, but nothing I cannot overcome. Just a reminder that although lots of things about my job may get to me, boredom isn’t one of them.

* Our friends, John and Jinger Kelley, called last night with news that their second daughter arrived safely yesterday! We celebrate the appearance of little Olivia in the world, a little girl blessed with wonderful parents and a beautiful big sister!

* We went to watch some high school volleyball last night (Ocean Springs vs. Resurrection). We’ve been out of the loop since our daughter graduated three seasons ago, so it was odd not to recognize many faces. We went to see our friend, Kelsey (the varsity captain this year!), as well as our friend, Emily (starting her career following in the footsteps of her three big sisters). Emily was in kindergarten when we met the Smith family and Erica and Marianne (Emily’s sister) played JV together. Now Emily is the age they were then… I am really getting old quick!

* I started another book yesterday afternoon, “Becoming Conversant With the Emerging Church” by D.A. Carson. I have read excerpts from this book and am familiar with its analysis, so I’m not super-excited to start it (plus, it’s an academic book, which is always a challenge for me), but I’m interested in the subject matter for two important reasons: (1) I will be teaching a class on the topic soon, and (2) I think it’s talking about me.

* Oh, and a little sports headline says the Cardinals are “lurking.” They are still sub-.500, but they are miraculously only 4 1/2 games out of first in the NL Central. Thought I’d point that out and officially jinx us.

That’s all I have this morning. Time to get started on my sermon for Sunday: “Daring to Imitate Jesus,” based on the Matthew 14 text of Jesus and Peter’s adventures walking on the water.

I finished Forty Acres and a Goat last night, and am officially depressed.

Not that it was written as a depressing book. It was really good in so many ways. Here’s the brief review from Publishers Weekly, which is right on the money:

“[A] free-flowing, allusive memoir . . . recollections are enlivened by expressive language, a blend of allegory and humor, [and] made colorful by anecdotes about important people he engaged in earthy, often confrontational dialogue, and then befriended.”

Exactly.

What depressed me, I guess, is that the author, Will Campbell, has become sort of a hero of mine, and I guess I hoped that the end of his story would be perfect, fading off in a Tennessee sunset, celebrating an attainment of the meaning of life.

It doesn’t end that way at all.

Friends move away. Friends die. Will Campbell wonders if the Civil Rights Movement, which dominated his life, made any real difference.

This doesn’t bode well for my future, you know? I have long held a “no regrets” philosophy of life. I want to live my life minimizing regrets. I don’t want to look back and wish I had gone about it all differently. I’ve always known there would be “some” regrets, but I intend on making the most of every day of my life and making any regrets few and far between.

But listening to Campbell, recalling his spectacular (to me) life in such beautiful language, I realize that there will be regrets. Lots of them.

So my whole philosophy of life is a pipe dream, eh?

I hope you have a great day, too.

My friend, John Kelley, sent me the video linked above. Take three minutes and thirty-nine seconds out of your day and check out the story of Juan Mann, set to the music of a band named the Sick Puppies.

Juan Mann felt the human scourge of loneliness and decided to do something about it. His simple, yet powerful solution has become a worldwide phenomenon (which you can read about HERE).

Maybe we could all give it a try today.

The Rick Ankiel story exemplifies why I love sports.

Ankiel grew up in Florida in what many ways might seem an ideal situation, running around on a beach and playing lots of baseball with his father. But it wasn’t ideal at all. His father, who has been arrested multiple times and is now serving time in federal prison, was extremely hard on his son. Rick reports never being good enough, lots of yelling, and an emphasis on baseball that made him wish he could do something else. He didn’t play for the love of the game; he played for his father’s approval.

Ironically, Rick’s home life had a positive effect, too. The verbal abuse made him tough in a good way, able to deal with adversity, and somewhere in the middle of it all he developed a great heart, described by everyone from that era of his life as a “great guy off the field.”

In high school, he became a great pitcher on the field, too.

Ankiel was named the best high school pitcher in America by the USA Today in 1997. He was drafted out of high school and made an instant millionaire by the St. Louis Cardinals. In 1999, he was named minor league player of the year by the USA Today and Baseball America, and he received the call his dad always wanted for him – the call to the major leagues.

In the year 2000, his first full year in the majors (at age 20!), he turned in an impressive season, coming in second in rookie of the year balloting, and leading the Cardinals to the playoffs.

Then, it all fell apart like nothing I’ve ever seen.

In Game 1 of the playoffs against the Atlanta Braves, he simply lost it. He could not throw the ball in the vicinity of home plate. Ankiel threw five wild pitches in one inning, and when I mean wild pitches, think Charlie Sheen in Major League.

Ankiel laughed it off, nervously, and the Cards went on to win the series. However, in his first start in the next series against the Mets, the demon returned. He only threw twenty pitches, five of which went sailing past the catcher to the backstop. Later in the series, he made one final appearance in relief, and uncorked two more wild pitches.

At the beginning of the 2001 season, Ankiel picked up where he left off, with more wild pitches. He was demoted the minor leagues, and the problem grew worse. It wasn’t until he landed at the bottom – rookie league – that he seemed to get things back under control.

Then came 2002: arm trouble. Then came 2003: Tommy John surgery.

It was 2005 when Rick Ankiel made the strange announcement. This “pitcher” decided he would now be an “outfielder.” And the odd journey back began.

Sports Illustrated stuck a little “Ankiel Watch” feature in their magazine along the way, mostly as a novelty, seeming to make fun of the idea. And Ankiel started hitting home runs. Eventually, folks in the know started saying he might be a marginal prospect for the major leagues. And eventually, those folks started saying he really might make it back.

This past week, Rick Ankiel was called back to the major leagues, and in his first game back, he hit a dramatic home run.

And yesterday, I sat on my couch and watched his third game back, and in addition to two beautiful catches in right field, Rick Ankiel hit two home runs. TWO home runs in ONE game!

This is why I love baseball.

And I hope Rick Ankiel hits 100 home runs a year for the next decade and makes Barry Bonds a distant memory.