Eric Bailey's

Well, we spent the day yesterday just looking around and getting our bearings as we walk around downtown Toronto. Before when we've been here, we've rented a car and we were stayng in the outskirts of the city (sounds like some kinds of sermon series to me). Now we are downtown. I still need to call my brother since I am in town. My wife starts her conference at some point today, but because we have both been a little under the weather we have not made ourselves get up too early or get going too quickly.

Today I don't have big plans, just going to do what I have to and bum around for the rest of it. We have paid for internet so I intend to use it. I will do a bunch of reading this afternoon, blogs, webpages, all kinds of research to make the most of this (which some hotels let you have for free).

We are enjoying ourselves and getting rested and recovered. I have been sick the past week, and missing some of my favorite activities just to get better (and to be able to do my job). I am mostly better now, although I can tell I am not 100% yet. Maybe by the time hockey comes around next week I will be back to full health (I doubt it for some strange reason).

My wife has a conference sometime around noon. I will do some exploring when that time comes. I might even go hang out at the Warcraft store. There are a few other stores that I will want to locate, but I have the weekend to see if I can find them.

Well a great season ends on a hard note. We lost in the first round of the playoffs again. After four injuries that cost us players this season, and one key filler not showing, we just didn't have enough steam to win. Our rusher (who had 4 QB sacks this game) had just this week gotten out of the hospital suffering from Pneumonia. A couple of guys experienced bumps and bruises during the game that while not taking them out from playing, certainly reflected the kind of game we were playing.

I had my chance to make a circus catch and perhaps breath new life into the team, but I just couldn't come up with the play today. On a different day, who knows?

I knew that this was my last game of the year, since I am away when the finals take place, but I still wanted to play well, and to get into the finals. We made such improvements this year and I hope that we can continue with these improvements into the outdoor. The players who really stepped up for the indoor season were:
1. Our deep safety who over the course of 10 games (playoffs not included) had 20 interceptions.
2. Our rusher who just tried it this year and while he missed a couple of games (including one because of being sick) had around 16 sacks and 3 safeties.
3. A defensive back usually playing the short outside zone - he is 6'3" or more and can jump. He was number 2 for interceptions with 12. They both played the same side of hte field and I am not sure why QB's didn't see that they couldn't throw there. He still wants to play with us and will be back in town next year for the outdoor season.
4. Our QB who threw somewhere around 30 touchdowns this year (but a few to many picks).
5. Me. Playing my position of wideout (with sometime spent at slot and center) I caught the most passes, and had 15 touchdowns (more than any player in a single season on our team). I also had the best percentage of receptions (we kept track of dropped balls this year and for anyone who had a significant number of passes thrown to them this year I did best).

That is the positive. The down side is that we lost one key player for both this year indoor and outdoor coming up. Achilles Tendon can take a while and who knows when he will be ready. He was our MVP last year for outdoor, playing both QB and star receiver. He led our team in outdoor for touchdowns. The star defensive back who led our team in interceptions outdoor and indoor last year missed this last game with a shoulder injury. Our center indoor who could snap the ball best should be back by outdoor, but he did break his wrist this year. And finally on the down side we lost again in the playoffs. Our first year we won our first playoff game and made it to the finals before falling apart, but it seems like ever since then we fall apart in the playoffs. We have to figure a way to change it, to find some success. Right now we lose patience too quickly and it worked in the regular season, but we just were not able to go deep this time. We need to be patient.

We still won more games than we lost this year and that is an awesome achievement. We may get consideration when it comes to moving up next year in the indoor because of how we played. I think we could handle it if we keep these guys together and healthy. Back to next year country where I live too much of my football life.

Today I went and gotmy shot for allergies. The first needle was painless and I thought, "This isn't as bad as I remember," recognizing that this doctor gives shots to lots of people quite often. He knows what he is doing. Then I received the second shot on the other arm - "Ouch!" So much for the painless idea. Well, the doctor is not happy with me, but he is glad I have finally started getting my shots (my wife thinks that he was getting after her today while she was getting her shot, because she did not make me come in sooner). For about a month now I guess I'll be going in every Tuesday and Thursday morning (anytime between 7:30 and 9:00) for more of this torture, in hopes that I will not struggle too much during the spring thaw and the pollens that come out. Sometimes us allergy/asthma people get desperate, even to the point of being shot, just to try to escape a little of the symptoms we experience.

On a different not a group of us who have been meeting to discuss vision and work together on that process has taken the next step of writing some vision statements (I know this sounds wierd, but the idea seemed to work), that we as a congregation will then look at and use to create the vision that defines us and our direction. This is a very different process than the books tell you to do, but some of the books are thinking of purpose/mission which if you buy into the Barna stuff, is different. Vision is meant to be more specific to your individual group, location, and time period. This church has had different (unwritten) vision statements before, and some of them worked while others didn't. Now we are recognizing it and working together on it. I plan to circulate the examples before the "town hall" meeting so that people come prepared and ready to talk. It could be a lot of fun (or it could be a painful process - depending on how things go).

Tonight is the football semi-finals for my team. We have had a pretty good season and we can beat every team in our division (the team we face tonight we beat the first time and they beat us the second time). We don't play over the Easter weekend and so the finals are on Saturday April 2 somewhere between 4 & 6 for the starting time. That said, I won't be here on Saturday, my wife and I are going away that weekend and we won't be back till Sunday Morning. This will be first game I miss (if we make it there) all season. Given our injury situation (three offensive players and one defensive out) and the fact that I lead our team in touchdowns (15 for me and the next closest has 4) there is a lot of pressure for someone to step up and fill in. One of the players that is injured (our MVP from outdoor) could easily do this except that he is not walking right now (still on crutches from tearing his achilles tendon). Good luck Ringers, I plan to make up for the game by catching a lot in the semi finals (tonight at 8:30 if anyone wants to show up at the Golf Dome). We have been dubbed the most exciting division to watch by the A division teams and our team was picked by a D division team as the team to watch play because they found us exciting to watch. I think it has something to do with some of the wierd catches I make, such as two defenders colliding so neither of them catches the ball and instead it deflects behind them into my waiting arms. Ahh, but that was back in week three, and there have been other exciting plays by me and others on our team. I can't wait (but I have to) till tonights game.

This week the boys have been home with my wife. Mornings have been a little slower than most weeks but it has been relaxing. The boys always enjoy spending time with mom.

The library I have been working on is officially done, but there will be touch ups and adjustments that will need to be done as we go along. For a while it felt like it would never end, and in a sense it hasn't but for now we will declare it finished so that it can be used. There are some more books on the desk that look like they are supposed to be cataloged and put back on the shelf but because some books were going to be given to the schools, I need to make sure that is the intent of the books on the desk.

Today is St. Patrck's Day. I find myself strangely wanting a green milkshake from McDonalds. Some how a Scottish name has taken over the Irish day of celebration. I am never sure whether I should wear green as is the tradition or wear orange as a real Irishman suggesting my allegiance. Oh the pain and suffering of making such difficult decisions!

Well we have had a busy weekend. First the football update. This Sunday night we played the top team in our division and we beat them. I showed up again, having a three touchdown game. The first two were pretty nice, both required out running their fast deep coverage after I caught the ball. The second one no one gave me a chance to catch the ball, but it was third down and we would be turning the ball over in our own end and that couldn't happen, so I tried and got a hand on the ball, and brought it in. The ref and other team all made comments about that catch. The final touchdown (which came on our last offensive series) I caught after running over the coverage, from what I hear from people around me it was much more questionable than it felt like to me, my saving grace on the play was that I did not take my eyes off the ball - which is why I caught it. Our very last offensive play was the convert which someone else caught, so they won the game.

Other news, I spent most of Sunday, and part of Monday at my wife's office working on the library that I have been trying to set up. I thought I was going to finish yesterday, but I think that there is a page I still have to print off so that I have stickers for all the items, and I have all the videos and CD-ROMs to finish labeling. It seems like this job just won't end. There always seems to be one more thing to do.

My wife is spending this week, March break, at home with the kids. As I type this I smell the fresh Cinnamon Buns - my evil curse, I can't eat fresh bread items. She made cookies with boys while I was working yesterday, they were delicious.

The kids like this cause mommy is fun. Mommy does a good job of playing with them, of helping them clean up (and they enjoy it when they do this with her). They like baking with mommy too (especially the younger son).

I still have a couple of things to be preparing for, Sunday School, and a sermon/communion talk for two weeks from now. I have been teaching the pre-teen and early teen class (I have trouble catagorizing them because of the ages). Funny kids, I inturpted last weeks lesson with a talk about gambling and what is wrong with it and why playing a game like poker is not necessarily wrong. The kids are just approaching the time when they will start challenging some of their beliefs - so I am trying to help them. While I have some material and ideas I would like to work through, I feel like there are a number of topics that would be fun to get sidetracked on. I like challenging them to think and to surprise them with ideas.

The Sunday sermon is on the resurrection, and as I mentioned I am looking at the conversation between Jesus and Mary Magdalen. We will see what comes of this. I like the ideas from this last week about Mary (sister of Lazarus) and her closeness with Jesus. Yet I wonder with all the women around him, were the two Marys competing for his attention, did they want to be the one picked to be the wife, or where they thinking differently, where they thinking more about the cause, about the kingdom, knowing that Jesus was doing something big, and they just wanted to be there to see it when it happened.

Well our house has been hit finally with this whatever that is going around. First my wife has been sick all weekend and my older son was just starting to get sick as the weekend started. Now my younger son has joined the crew, throwing up this morning. I feel rundown and tired, and I have a little cough, but I have felt worse. I have been told I am not allowed to be sick, since everyone else got there first. We'll see if I am or not as the week goes on and I start to catch up on lost sleep.

My sermon on Sunday went well, I did not do anything especially multi-medie, except to have someone write peoples responses on the overhead machine (okay, on transparencies on the machine). There were no meltdowns, no explosions, so I guess all went well. I wanted to interact more with the people and the comments, but what I had to say seemed somewhat interesting based upon the reactions I was seeing as I spoke (maybe people just know how to nod as they think about whatever they want...). I am preparing to speak a combined sermon/communion talk for Easter (due to popular request). I am currently thinking around the passage of Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalen at the end of John, but we will see if that fits what the planners had in mind. Ideas for that passage, or other ideas are always welcome, it would also be great to hear others plan for Easter.

Being the only healthy person in the house (well my younger son seems to be doing pretty well right now) I have the joy being the one who is doing the work. Luckily for me the work is does not mean that I am slaving at home and all that, instead I am currently pushing myself to try finish a Library project for my wife at her work (while she is at home sick). Yesterday I worked around 7 hours on this (after working my day job with the church). Then I went and played football. I did alright, one touchdown, but we lost. It seems that when you win the aches and pains bring good memories with them, but when you lose, each pain reminds you that you were not quite good enough.

I hope to be done the initial set up of the Library today and then it will just be updating it here and there with the new books that they add to it. Currently there are a lot of new books sitting around too so it is not even done and it need updating!

My sermon went okay yesterday, I tried to add a dimension to it and that went, but I know that if I had just gone with my original idea instead of playing it safe with a sermon on hand, it could hav been far more engaging. I introduced the reading (background etc) and warned people that there would be a question and comment time following the reading, then we wrote comments on an overhead. After that the comments were taken away and so I talked briefly about one (that tied into another) and then referred to one more in the first point of the sermon. I should have done step 2, after getting the comments, organize them into an outline, or a workable format and then address them. Perhaps that could have led to more interaction on those ideas and it would have been a very interesting sermon. Ah well, I will remember and prepare to try again sometime in the future (not this next time because the context and content will be different).

Last night my wife and I went to see the Wedding Date. The jury is still out on this movie. There are a lot of mixed signals from this movie as to what good morals would be.

This morning my son and I went to the gym where he played in a daycare room while I did the workout I was supposed to do last night. While working out I also chatted with a couple of guys who play football in the league. One of these guys showed me a different arm curl and I think I like this new exercize.

The rest of the day will be spent working for my wife. I am preparing a library for her work (paid position so I need to keep track of my time in some manner).

In my sermon preparation for this Sunday, I have been given a song to find, but I have not been able to locate it. Four Day Late is a song about Lazarus that dad suggested I listen to. I think I am going to have a question period during the sermon and see how that works Sunday.

They seem like such nice people, but then they do some of the most inhumane things. Well actually they just drill holes into teeth and attach new materials. Usually this stops the pain. The problem I have been having is that I have gone two times before today to the dentist to get my back teeth worked on and once they managed to at least fix a frnt tooth, but the other time they could do nothing. My mind was stronger than their determination and my gag reflex faster than their drills. Finally today I overcame my tendancy and managed to sit with the robber dam on my face and clamps on my back teeth as they drilled and filled. I received a few needles to freeze the area but even then I felt the pain of the drill. I knew that we could not stop for refreezing, cause if we did that would be the end. Bravely I sat there not saying a word (well, how do you talk with a rubber dam over your face and someone's fingers in your mouth?). They didn't ask if it hurt, even as I clutched the chair violently. I didn't want them to ask, just keep drilling - get it finished before my mind returns and I rip off the rubber dam, gagging, trying not to throw up.

My teeth feel different now, and my tongue is still frozen (oh the irony - or is that just the freezing talking). I am so glad it is done and we can move onto the front teeth I think they are planning to drill on two of them - I hope the freezing takes this time!

Football update...
We played a team we barely beat in the regular season and we barely beat them again. At the end of the game deep in our end it is third down and long. The play I call is to give up the 2 point safety and make them take the ball with 2 plays left deep in their end. It works, they complete the first pass to get halfway down the field but they cannot make up the other half on the last play. We win 6-2. Not pretty, but we will take it any way we can.

The rest of my life. Saturday was my dad's birthday. We intended to give dad a card before he left here in early Feb but it is still sitting on the counter. Sorry dad.

My wife performed a number of songs yesterday at our church coffee house. Unfortunately the film isn't finished in the camera so I can't post any yet. Most of the songs that she sang, she also wrote. Someday I would like to get together enough money to rent her some studio time to get these songs recorded and mixed by professionals and see what she can do with her songs. Oh to be rich (not Rich although he has some really good songs too - especially his new Free Stanley song).

I still have yet to perform anything at a coffee house. Not being musical and not writing poetry, I just find it hard to come up with anything that I think people would be interested in seeing. My wife tells me to tell a story while juggling (having the two related of course). Great idea, but I don't have any story leaping to mind and I don't have much of a juggling routine so I have to work on one to create the other. I guess someday I will be inspired. Of course maybe it is kind of like this blog thing, just start it and each time something seems to come out of it. You may not have anything to say, yet somehow you find something.