King of Kindergarten?

I've been working a lot with the tiny humans as of late. Last Thursday and Friday I taught the same kindergarten class on consecutive days. They were a handful, but I'd take a borderline crazy group of kidney gardeners over intermediate grade punks 10 times out of 10.

On Monday of this week, I subbed in another kindergarten class at a different school. That group was much more attentive and a fair bit easier to enjoy teaching. (Althought their room did have one of those diminutive johns. I thought about using that one but ultimately decided against it. "...fool me twice...")

This morning, during a super easy half-day of roaming, I spent about 70 minutes working for yet a third kindergarten teacher. The heart of my duties centrally involved putting staples into walls or pulling staples out of them. I also used a nifty cutting contraption to make the words "SOARING HIGH" with construction paper.

Finally, tomorrow I will have another full day with Grade 0. This class is two doors down from the one I was in at the end of last week. This school has 5 kindergarten classes and, after tomorrow, I will have subbed in four of them. That means I've recently spent a lot of time using glue sticks, listening to music designed to spur on gross motor development, and singing the days of the week to the tune of the Adams Family theme.

MMA Takeover

[NOTE: As of March 27, the speculated sale of Pride Fighting Championships to the UFC's parent company, Zuffa L.L.C., is official. In short, UFC owner Lorenzo Ferttitta told Japanese press that Pride FC will continue to function as a separate entity from the UFC. He likened this purchase to the NFC-AFC merger that created the NFL. See the comments section for more of my thoughts and links to other articles.]

The Ultimate Fighting Championship is far and away the top Mixed Martial Arts organization in North America. In fact, American fans identify the UFC so closely with the sport of MMA that the public and media alike often refer to MMA simply as "ultimate fighting." The truth of the matter is that, for the bulk of its existence, the UFC was not even close to being the world's top MMA orginazation. That place of distinction belonged to Pride Fighting Championships.

Based in Japan, Pride FC was the home of most the world's best fighters from roughly 1998 until just recently, when its future was threatened by news of internal corruption and Yakuza (Japanese mob) connections. The most immediate and devastating consequence of these reports was that Pride FC lost its contract with major Japanese television network Fuji TV- a contract the company has tried in vain to secure with another network. To get a sense of how huge a turn of events this was in Japan, imagine if scandal rocked the NFL so thoroughly that it was no longer broadcast on television in America.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, the UFC has been flourishing ever since its reality show on Spike TV (The Ultimate Fighter) has brought it mainstream attention in the U.S. The UFC is run by the company Zuffa L.L.C., which in turn is owned by casino moguls Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta. This morning weeks of speculation was confirmed: the Fertittas (but not the UFC itself, mind you) have purchased Pride FC.

Now there is no relationship in mainstream American sports that parallels the competitive relationship that Pride FC and the UFC have shared for nearly a decade. In American sports culture, there is presently only one major league for each major sport. The best analogy I can think of involves imagining that all the European basketball leagues were one big league and had a total profitability comparable to the NBA. Then NBA stuggles financially and is sold to the owners of the European league and is henceforth run as a European entity. For you pro-wrestling fans, the Fertittas purchasing Pride FC mirrors (to respectable degree, at least) Vince McMahon buying WCW after nearly being put out of business by that company during the Monday Night War.

Here is a link to the online article I read this morning:
http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=3669&zoneid=2

Any further thoughts I have on this topic will be made in the comments section of this post.

What I Learned Today

Every student is a unique and special flower. My central objective as a substitute teacher should be to facilitate the flourishing of each flower as much as I am capable. All students should be given the space to spread their petals and soak up the greatest amount of sunshine possible. Whenever I may try to discipline them, I should never ever use a stern tone, candidly identify the ways they are misbehaving, or physically infringe upon their personal space. Engaging in such activities accomplishes nothing of worth. It only casts a dark cloud of negativity over a precious plant and robs it of vital sunlight.

Never again will I allow my own sense of self-respect to interfere with my duty of being a good gardener. No matter how many thorns or nettles a flower may boast, it is not my place to judge the flower, let alone to prune its harmful features. Time outs are not punishments, but rather designated times for students to better take command of their own development. Being sent to the office is not to be presented to the student as something negative, but as a positive opportunity to refocus the trajectory of one's flourishing. As a gardener, I am not there to impose my own values of propriety on the children. I am only their to serve each flower's self-driven growth.

Today I spent my first 2 hours of a roaming assignment with some 5th graders. Unfortunately, I had to fill out two Level 2 forms before 10am. One student refused to leave the classroom to serve his time out so I had to call the office to have him removed. The other student, a girl, spoke disrespectfully to me the entire time I was filling out her form and then told me she didn't care if she got in trouble or not. So I gave her a Level 3 immediately and sent her to the office instead of another classroom. I could just have easily filled out forms for at least 3 other students in the class for similar behavior, except for at some point during my stay in that room I actually needed to discuss something resembling academic material.

30 minutes later, I'm the one being talked to by the assistant principal. The two paragraphs of italicized horseshit above expresses the subtext I identified in what this man said to me. Apparently when a kid runs across the classroom and then disrupts the other students by refusing to sit at his desk and work, it is wrong of me to put my face 4 inches from his and tell him his behavior is unacceptable. And after his classmate spends the better part of the morning talking down to me as if I'm nothing, it is wrong of me to tell her that, "It's not part of my job to be publicly disrespected by some punk kid." I was told the student "internalized" my comment and cried upon arriving at the office. Which strikes me as funny (the peculiar "funny") because she was still bragging that she didn't care about what I thought as she walked out the door with her Level 3 form in hand. Mr. Assistant Principal showed me today that when the kids piss in your face, the only appropriate response is to take it without complaining. When the adversarial disposition of his precious flowers created a situation of "students vs. the sub," he took their side.

This is the third time in three weeks I've felt the administrators of the schools I work in have hung me out to dry in a difficult situation. And as my last couple of posts have shown, this state of affairs is taking all the fun out of my job...and my blog. Recently I've been feeling as uncertain about my future as I have in about 15 years, and now my present is becoming an increasingly unpleasant situation. Even my jovial nature is finding it hard to identify something to laugh at in all of this.


...but I'm sure I will quite soon. Like Beyonce, I too am a survivor.

More Ph.D. News

This afternoon I finally received my letter from the Graduate Department of Religion at Vanderbilt. Unfortunately, it was full of condolances rather than congratulations. Towards the end of the letter, there was a statment to the effect that "Due to the great increase in the number of applications we received this year, we have had to deny admission to many well-qualified applicants." My consolation prize is that I am such an applicant.

Of course, I'm disappointed about this. Yet, given the fact that my top choice just shot me down, I'm surprisingly mellow. I haven't felt the temptation to cry, to smash things, or even to feel sorry for myself. I have felt a few pangs of anxiety since I realized that my academic future now rests with Denver and how much financial aid UD/Iliff is willing to offer me. Irrespective of those concerns, being rejected by Vanderbilt does narrow my immediate future down to two general trajectories:

1) I will be moving many, many miles westward and living there for 4 to 7 years.

2) I will face the even scarier situation of either a) going back to the drawing board with my theological career in order plan out how to improve my stock as a Ph.D. hopeful or b) seriously considering my options for an alternative career.

I could say more right now but I feel I should allow more time for the whole situation to sink in.

Damn Those 6th Graders!

It finally happened...

I became so angry with a group of kids that my so-often-repressed Irish temper finally got the better of me (one day before Saint Patty's Day, interestingly enough) and I cursed at my students. It was only one word, and it was merely PG-level profanity, but it was profanity none the less and that violates even the teacher's behavior code.

In retrospect, my great anger began to well up before I'd even started interacting with the students. I had signed up to be a K6 Bitch at Garden City Elementary. Now a lesson I've learned the hard way is that "Roaming Teacher" is a wildcard assignment. A lot of the time, the schools that post this job don't plan on having the sub roam one bit.

They use the job category as a troubleshooting catch-all, which is the reason that the office can place you in an awful room no one wants to be in or drop you in the midst of a classroom where the teacher has just left unexpectedly. When one of these two situations has fallen to me as a roaming sub, only once has it turned out well for me...which makes my overall percentage of enjoyable days that take shape in this manner a meager 20% or less. As I've already made clear, yesterday did not fall into the 20%.

About 2 minutes before students are allowed to begin filtering into the classroom, I was told that a 6th grade class was still without a substitute and that they would need me to fill in there until someone else accepted the listing the secretary had placed on SubFinder. I made it perfectly clear that I despise teaching 6th graders and would prefer to do just about any other task that might need me for than go where they had directed me. But, as a true bitch often must, I had to take a big, fat one up the pooper from the big dogs in administration and do that which I was exceedingly loathe to do.

This 6th grade room was every bit as bad as I had feared. No fights, very little open disrespect towards the teacher, but nearly everything else a class can do wrong went wrong. And the disobedience was incessant. No matter how many incentives or punishments were promised to these shits, their collective behavior never altered.

At the asst. principal's suggestion, I had made a "contract" with the class and posted the details on the chalkboard for the entire school day. If they did three things for me, I would do three things for them. I asked that they not talk out (in the classroom or the hallways), disrespect me or other students, or fail to follow instructions the first time. In return, I would let them have snack time, I would not yell at them, and I would help them work through difficult problems instead of telling them to figure them out on their own. They mostly adhered to my second item in the contract, but the first and third were thoroughly ignored. Most irritating to me was the fact they walked through the hallways like they owned the damn place and didn't have to remain quiet or form a straight line.

When this infraction was performed for the 6th or 7th time that day...that was the straw that finally broke this albino camel's back. Coming back from lunch (a time during which the class had gotten in trouble with the adults on duty), they talked and laughed and meandered through the halls and about a third of the class went to the restroom without asking for permission. The raucous remnant that actually followed me into the classroom were the unlucky souls who got a violent earful. It went something like this:

"That's ENOUGH!!! It's obvious our contract doesn't mean jack crap to you guys, so now it doesn't mean crap to me either. [Some kids are still talking to one another while I'm saying this so now I'm really getting shined on.] SIT DOWN AND SHUT THE HELL UP!!!"

Needless to say, their ears perked up at this moment and they actually shut up...for about 5 seconds.

"Were you talking to me or to the whole class?" asked a particularly obnoxious dunce named Sy.

"What do you think, Sy?" I responded indignantly. "Did I look you straight in the eyes when I said to shut up?" [All the kids who had been silent start laughing again.]
"No."
"Then I must have been talking to the whole class."

At that moment, I realized I had sworn and instantly felt upset with myself for letting a group of 13 year-old assholes get to me so much. "I apologize for swearing at you," I told them. "But you guys should never have made me angry to the point I would use language like that."

"It's OK," Sy chirped in. "It's not like we haven't heard that kind of talk before."

"All of you go to the bathroom. Go!"

I think other adults had heard my initial yell, because one teacher's aide stopped these kids in the hall while they were headed to the restroom. She told them that anyone who was sent out of the room for the rest of the day would have Saturday School the next morning. At this time, another teacher's aide, Ms. Bowen, entered the classroom to find me in a self-imposed time out.

Facing the corner behind the teacher's desk with my hands on the back of my head, I was fuming. The pressure my anger and disgust with this class, with the office, with myself for losing my cool, with the whole damn situation, was so great that tears began running out of my eyes. It wasn't because my feelings were hurt or I was just that embarrassed. Such tears have always been my body's way of letting some of that angry pressure out when I can't otherwise release it.

Ms. Bowen offered to take over the class if I wanted to take a short break. I sure as hell did. I went to the only place in the school where a boy of 25 can have some real privacy: the bathroom. Shutting myself in the corner stall, I pulled some tissue paper off the roll, clenched it in both of my fists, and pushed it against my eye sockets like I was trying to push my hands through the back of my skull. I was seething not sobbing. All I could think about for nearly 5 minutes was marching back into that class and breaking some pubescent asses, then marching downstairs to the administrative offices and breaking an adult ass or two.

When my five minutes of fuming were at there end, I walked around the floor I was on for another five minutes, waiting for the urge to hit someone to subside. Thankfully, it did and I went back into the battle zone. Ms. Bowen was doing an excellent job leading the students through a science lesson, and I had the help of her and other aides for the remaining 90 minutes of the school day. Ten more minutes of the shit I was putting up with yesterday and you would have heard a report on the evening news that went something like...

Our top story this evening involves a shocking and violent incident at a Westside school this afternoon. Three students from Garden City Elementary are dead and seven more are in critical condition. Eye witnesses stated to police that their substitute teacher- Wayne Township employee David Scott -went into an unprovoked rage, first screaming profane language at the class and then physically assaulting many of the children.

Several surviving students claimed to have been paralyzed by horror when they saw their classmates being beaten with their own chairs. The most horrifying part of this crime, police told reporters, came when Scott killed 13 year-old Sydney Owens with a desk. The most brutal of the three murders, Scott cracked Owens' sternum with the desk, spread his ribcage open, and proceeded to beat the boy's internal organs into, what the Marion County coroner's office has already described as, "a gelatinous paste."

Scott, age 25, is presently in the custody of Marion County Police and is facing charges of murder, assault and battery, as well as the newly instituted charge of gratuitous bludgeoning. Surprisingly, Scott has no previous criminal history. We'll have more on this tragic story later in our news cast. Brad.

Thank you, Cindy. Our other top story this evening:

"Bear Fucking" -a potentially fatal hobby for those who practice it. But do gaming commissions have the authority to regulate this dangerous pastime.

Peculiar Dreams

I am presently house sitting for a friend of mine while his family goes on a cruise down Florida way. I've enjoyed my time here overall...they have a flat screen HD TV with digital cable, tasty leftover ribs for me to munch on, as well as a comfortable king-size bed for me to sleep in. One of the only downsides to the whole experience is that I've still not adjusted to the house well enough to sleep soundly in that amply sized bed. Last night I was having especially bizarre dreams. Here are some snippets I can remember, in the order I think I dreamed them:

1) At a pub in Atlanta, Mark Rogers-Berry tells a bartender I offered to pay his tab and then leaves before I can tell the woman he's lying. I only have a twenty dollar bill in my wallet and I just know it's not going to be enough to pay for my beer as well as all MRB's drinks. I'm afraid of what the bartender is going to make me do to square away this money situation.

2) I move a dresser, a bookcase, some of my dumbells, and various other items into one of the rooms in Dana, Beth, and John's apartment (although it didn't actually look too much like the real Apartment K). Based loosely on a conversation I actually did have with those ladies while I was in Atlanta two weeks ago, I assume in my dream that because Dana moves out of her room, I'm next in line to occupy it. After depositing all my stuff in the room, my Atlanta friends as a group are upset with me because that room had actually been promised to the loveable Rohrers. Before I can figure out how to resolve this situation, Dana tells me she's moving back in and now I have to find a place to take the things I just moved in to her "old" space. Even though I have nowhere else to go, I am strangely optimistic that I can remove my possessions from the apartment quickly and easily.

3) Many members from my mom's side of the family are going on vacation together. Whatever long trip we are about to embark on, we've decided that taking Greyhound is the ideal means of travel. The driver of our bus, however is a real jerk. He's saying jerky things over the speaker system from the moment the bus starts rolling. In my distaste for him, I chuck my cell phone at his head as hard as I can. A direct hit!

Expectedly, he's indignant about the whole matter, immediately stops the bus, and demands to know who threw the phone. I don't hessitate to confess. He then steps into the aisle of the bus and tells me, "You're outta here!" (Interestingly, the aisle is on the passenger side of the seats rather than the middle.)

Realizing that I was now going to miss my family's vacation AND I had just forfeited my deposit, I angrily start hitting the driver as hard as I can in the face and chest. I rip off his white shirt and wrap his black tie in my left hand so he is less able to escape my punches. I even grab another person's cell and start hitting him with the antenna end. Bafflingly, none of my blows are really hurting him. He's not enjoying himself but he's not getting injured either. I really don't remember how my mind transitioned out of this part of the dream.




In the final (psycho)analysis, it seems that my subconsious mind is a microcosm of the madness.

I Received a Letter Today

It went something like this:

Dear David, [So given the greeting alone you know it's either an official document or a note from my Grandma.]

I am delighted to inform you that you have been accepted for admission to the Theology, Philosophy and Cultural Theory concentration of the Joint Ph.D. Program in Religious and Theological Studies offered by the University of Denver and the Iliff School of Theology. Congratulations on this achievement! You may begin your studies in the Fall 2007 quarter.
...
We are now beginning to make our financial aid decisions for next year. My goal is to inform you and the other newly admitted applicants of our financial aid offers by no later than March 31, 2007.

We hope that you will be able to accept this invitation to admission...We need to receive your final response to our invitation by April 30, 2007. I look forward to hearing from you and hope to welcome you into the Joint Ph.D. Program this Fall.

Frank Seeburger
Director


One down, one to go. I hope the Graduate Department of Religion at Vanderbilt University will send me a very similar letter in the near future. I would like to throw a very sincere "Thank you, Jesus!" heaven-ward. Someone traditionally considered to be the brother of Jesus once wrote that every good and perfect gift comes down to us from on high. Seeing as I regard this invitation as an exceedingly good blessing, I want to acknowledge its ultimate source as the God with whom I share an intimiate, if not always amicable, relationship.

And, Nick, if you have any wooden shoes left in your arsenal, it looks like you'll have to lob them at the department of financial aid. Apparently the Denver admissions machine is "sabot proof."

Gulliver's Potty

After only one and half days back at work, I already have an entertaining, new tale to share.

On Monday, I picked up a half-day assignment working with Mrs. Ifert's kindergarten class. For the first time in my work as a substitute teacher, I worked a half-day that started in the morning and ended in the middle of the school day. Among other things, this meant that I was in charge when it the time came to take the wee beasties to lunch in the middle of the day.

This was a good group of kids, and they caused me no special problems. When working with 5 and 6 year olds, it's to be expected that at least half the kids suffer from the inability to remain in their seats for more than 60 seconds and that at least four students will be as hyperactive as a hummingbird on amphetamines. And this group certainly sported such individuals. But there were no mean-spirited or abnormally recalcitrant rugrats among them and that state of affairs is a wonderful environment in which to be. Those are the times when you can let your guard down a bit and actually have fun being around a baker's dozen of tiny humans.

(For example, during "carpet time" I was supposed to emphasize the importance of vowels and point out that every word has them. To demonstrate the point, I re-read the morning message their teacher had written for them without any of the vowel sounds. The children enjoyed witnessing an adult speak gibberish for 60 seconds.)

Yet, no matter how well-behaved a kindergarten class may be, the teacher must throw mind-building activities at them with a machine gun-like speed of succession. Otherwise even the most eager student could easily be lured away from their school work by any number of colorful objects present in the room. That means the teacher has little time to attend to matters of self-care; namely, going to the bathroom.

Like most kindergarten classes, this one always took its lunch break at 10:30 in the AM. One thing I love about the school I was working at that day, Garden City Elementary, is that 4 of the 6 kindergarten classes are located right next to the cafeteria. As a double bonus, these classrooms also have a bathroom built in so that you don't have to deal with the potential chaos of taking 12-15 little ones to the potty all at once.

I was especially grateful for these two architectural feature's of Mrs. Ifert's room when 10:25 rolled around. Once my body realized I was about to be free of my instructional responsibilities for thirty minutes, it also realized I had to piss like a Hungarian race horse with a swollen prostate. So after I made the brief jaunt back from the cafeteria, I hastily entered the K5 watercloset to find some relief.

Now this isn't the first time I've been in such a bathroom. In my previous experience, these bathrooms have the same kind of toilet you would find in any other restroom, and a small step stool is placed in front of it to assist the kiddos in their efforts to use an adult-sized commode. Not in this restroom, my friends! This bathroom boasted the tiniest, fully functional toilet I've ever seen in my life. It was practically Lilliputian in its dimensions.

A couple of days later, some quick internet research would inform me that the seat for this toilet is only 10" in length. And like many public toilets, it is moored in one corner of the room with handrails anchored beside and behind it. This situation would create such a tight fit for any adult looking to sit on it that the adult would certainly have to turn their body sideways. Fortunately, I am a man and did not need to go #2, so sitting was not a concern for me.

What did become a concern for me as I began the process of going #1 is that a smaller toilet also has a smaller bowl. That in turn means that a kindergarten crapper is designed to hold a much smaller volume of liquid than your conventional john. To cut to the heart of the matter, my business filled the bowl up to the bottom edge of the rim. If I had been drinking that morning, I probably could have overflowed the darn thing. (There's a pleasant thought, eh?) Thanfully, for the sake of my job and the children, I had not been drinking.

The problem of an embarassing overflow in a children's restroom had been averted. But a different problem immediately presented itself. This toilet did not have a handle. It flushed with the help of one of those new fangled laser systems. I, however, am so much taller than your average kindergartener that the laser passed between my legs. Thus when I stepped away from the commode, the toilet did not flush because my presence before it had never been detected.

Panicing ever so slightly at the thought of my students returning to find their toilet nearly brimming with grown-up pee, I began furiously waving my right hand in front of the laser, hoping to trigger a flush. No dice. After repeating this fruitless exercise for 5-10 seconds, a solution occured to me. Sure enough, after holding my hand still in front of the laser for a little while and then removing it, I heard the welcome "whoosh" of the toilet's contents exiting speedily down the drain. With no urine remaining in the bowl (or having escaped to the floor), my minute and a half of concern proved to be unwarranted. I was able to wash my hands and take my own lunch break without giving any further thought to, what I have since come to refer to as, "Gulliver's potty."

The Natural

Last night I experienced one of the most thrilling moments in all my years of watching professional sports. Almost a month after seeing my Colts win Super Bowl XLI, I got to see Randy Couture, my favorite MMA fighter of all time, win the UFC Heavyweight title for a record-setting 3rd time at UFC 68.






I won't devote an ocean of space to discussing the magnitude of Randy's championship victory (because I know that only a handful of folks who read this blog are interested in this subject matter), but I do want to explain why I found his win so exhilirating.

During the 10 years I've been watching the sport of Mixed Martial Arts, Randy Couture has emerged as my most beloved fighter. And I can sum up in one concise sentence why I and thousands of other fight fans are so amazed with this man: He has continually defied expectations and natural limitations to produce dominant performances at the highest level of competition.

Randy first established himself as a high caliber athlete in the sport of Greco-Roman wrestling. In fact, Randy was already in his mid-30s when he fought in his first MMA bout back in UFC 13. But the man known in the wrestling world as "The Natural" lived up to his moniker in the world of MMA as well. A person who lives to compete against the very best, Randy consistently signed on to fight the most talented and dangerous opponents the UFC could provide him.

In just his fourth fight, Couture won his first heavyweight belt. In his late 30s, he won it a second time. But by the time Randy was almost 40, the challengers to his title had become so much larger than him (often outweighing him by 20 or 30 pounds) that Randy failed to retain/regain his championship against such bigger, comparably skilled adversaries. By the summer of 2003, back-to-back championship losses led even the most sympathetic of fans to suspect Randy's best days were behind him. After all, it's a simple truth that middle-aged men rarely ever achieve great success in combat sports.

Tired of constantly being at a weight disadvantage but not ready to call it quits either, Randy dropped down to the 205-lb Light Heavyweight division. He immediately silenced all the doubters and naysayers by defeating then #1 contender Chuck Liddell and long-time champion Tito Ortiz in consecutive fights to become the first man to hold a belt in two different weight classes. And not only did he defeat these two elite fighters, but he did so in dominating fashion and by beating each man at his own game.

Couture's 2 year run at Light Heavyweight garned him two belts (three if you count the interim title he won by beating Liddell) and solidified him as one of the greatest fighters in the short history of MMA. However, Liddell would return to knock out Couture in their second and third fights. The first loss to Chuck cost Randy his belt; the second led him to announce his retirement in February of 2006.

Nearly a year later, Randy Couture and the UFC announced that The Natural was already set to return to action. And he would be stepping back into the title picture immediately. Yet Randy's return bout would not be in the 205-division he'd most recently competed in but rather the heavyweight division. He would challenge the two-time heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia, a 6'8," 265-lb behemoth known for his potent striking ability. On paper this match-up looked horrible for Randy. Not only was the legend now 43, but he would be giving up 50 or more pounds to the current champ AND his matches with Liddell revealed that a potent striker with a long reach is a poor style match up for Randy. Even with his extensive history of doing the seemingly impossible, it seemed to even the most loyal of Couture supporters (like myself) that Randy was most likely on his way toward receiving a brutal beatdown.

Against all odds, as the cliche goes, Randy Couture once again thrived in the role of heavy underdog and blew the minds of the UFC faithful for the umpteenth time. He absolutely dominated the much larger champion last night. So dominant was his performance that Randy won all five rounds on all three judges scorecards. The fact that Randy is one of the most likeable guys and honorable sportsmen ever to put on a pair of 4-ounce gloves makes his ongoing defiance of time and probability that much sweeter for his supporters. As you should all know by know, I have tremendous love and appreciation for Matt Hughes as a fighter, but my appreciation for Randy goes even deeper than what I have for Matt.

Congratulations to Randy "The Natural" Couture! The only competitor in the history of MMA to win a title 5 times.

My Vacation (Extended Cut)

Greetings Friends!

As many of you know, I have been vacationing in Atlanta for the last week. My original plan was to leave Indianapolis on Thursday, February 22nd (which I did), and return no later than today, March 1st. That plan was coming together excellently until 6:15am when a thunderclap -one that would almost certainly frighten the Most High- woke me from my slumber. This encouraged me to access Yahoo! Weather and look at the forecasts for all four states my journey home would take me through.

The concise summary of my findings is that Mother Nature will be coercing Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Indiana to grab their collective ankles and take it without tenderness for the next 18 hours or so. Tomorrow's weather, on the other hand, is looking to be amicable to travelers. I called Perry at work to seek his opinion on the matter, and he informed me that both he and Susan would feel a lot better if I opted not to drive 550 miles in serious thunderstorms. Thus my stay in Atlanta will be extended one more day, and I will return to Naptown on Friday.

Now remaining in Atlanta another 24 hours is by no means a negative turn of events. For the last week I've been in the company of wonderful friends I had not seen in 8 months or more, enjoying the cuisine of restaurants exclusive to the Atlanta area, sitting in on courses I completed during my time at Candler, and sleeping on one of the most comfortable of couches.

Furthermore, I've spent at least a couple of hours in the presence of nearly every person I had hoped to see while I was in Tha Dirty South and revisited all my old haunts (excluding the two apartments I used to live in, which are now occupied by strangers). I once more experienced the power of potent libations that I am almost never at liberty to consume during the work week. (I am all about the White Russian, my friends. A superb choice, Dude.) All in all, I've met all the personal objectives I set for this trip...save one, and that goal is perpetual anyway.

So, as a closing word to those reading this, I say to my Atlanta friends that I am here another day should you want a little (more) quality time with Dave Scott. And to my Indianapolis friends I say that I will be home soon. I shall not miss UFC 68. :)