Denial

My freshman daughter was asked out by a senior this week. I have been in denial about the arrival of this day. Luckily Maddi wasn't interested. Wffhoo! (wiping sweat from brow). When I found out what had happened I gave her an impassioned long litany of what she was supposed to say. She simply said, "Dad, I handled it." When I pursued what she had said she related how she had let him know that she wasn't interested and in the process she allowed him some dignity as well. She didn't blame it on her parents (Which she certainly could done with my blessing)or make up some lame excuse which would continue to allow him to consider possibilities in the future. Once she related all she had said I shook my head and thought...

"Wow, Debbi had done a good job with this kid!"

One thing I am not in denial about is that I married well.

New Blog

I highly recommend you visit this new blog, it is awesome. *Wink* I have created a blog that just speaks to issues related to Youth Ministry. I have a lot of stuff to share, but it doesn't necessarity fit with The Stand. I would love for you to visit often and comment.

Youth Ministry Musings

Looking forward to your visit.

Funny

So I am getting ready to go to sleep last night and I was flipping channels. I ran across CMT and saw a familiar face...looked sort of like mine actually. I elbowed my wife and told her to look and what we saw was weird. My cousin Rich Ragains was on CMT. Rich is a comedian. He was commenting on CMT's "20 Greatest Rednecks Moments" He was quite funny. The great thing is that he is probably actually the third funniest person in my family (sorry Rich if you see this). I would rank the top 4 like this like this...

1) Rich Vanhook
2) Bill Ragains
3) Rich Ragains
4) Liz Akers

Family weddings and funerals are always interesting times.

High Five

I have been sleep deprived recently staying up late to catch the Olympics. I have enjoyed the games with this one exception...people from other countries, especially China, are butchering the high five. When I see a Chinese gymnast step off the floor and greet a teammate with a high five I want to throw a brick through my t.v. screen. It goes down like this...they face one-another (straight on) and slap palms over their head and follow through moving upward toward the roof. It is just the most stupid thing I have ever seen. You know, you just can't export cool.

So how should a high five go you ask? Something like this. Two people face one-another. They align right shoulder to right shoulder (for righties), and they raise their hands and slap palms with a naturally swooping downward motion.

Why so agitated you may ask? I witnessed the genesis of the high five. As a kid I was a fan of the Louisville Cards basketball team (Not popular in my Indiana University household) The cards team were the first ones I saw do the high five. That claim was recorded in the P. Dickson's 1989 Basketball Dictionary:

"The origin of the gesture and the term were claimed by Derek Smith of the University of Louisville basketball team, which won the NCAA championship in the 1979-80 season. Smith was quoted [widely] to the effect that he and two fellow Georgians on the Louisville squad, Wiley Brown and Daryl Cleveland ... [created the] high five during pre-season practice and introduced [it] to the nation in 1979."

By the way, I am an awful high-fiver. This weekend Craig Herr and I tried to high five and missed hands completely. That was lame...like the Chinese gymnasts.

Is anyone else agitated by this?