Tête-à-Tête-Tête

In the first grade class that my daughter teaches she decided to have them do a project and write a letter to their parents for Valentines Day.

One of the little girls decided that she would rather write the letter to her grandmother instead.

So after all of the letters were turned in my daughter had to call that little girl up to her desk to find out where to send the letter to her grandmother.

She says to the little girl, “Rachel, can you get your grandmother’s address?

Rachel says, “Yeah, I can get her a dress  but I think she would rather have a hat”

Kids. You gotta love ‘em.

As a novice musician who has played, …and wishes to continue playing local venues…I want to extend a very meaningful Thank You to Mr. Bruce Springsteen for his stance on this.

ASCAP must have their heads up their proverbial backsides on this one. Sounds like they were trying to make an example…and using Bruce’s name in the process.

Gratuitous plug inserted here.

Get a life folks!

As most of you guys know, I am a Vols fan first, …and an SEC fan second.

…and it looks like its panning out to be a good day for the SEC.

The Gators, led by semi-retired, vacationing, LOA taking, lucky as hell Urban Meyer are first in the nation right now via grabbing 4 of the nation’s top 10 recruits.

As of 11:45 EST the top 5 stands as:

1. Florida

2. Texas

3. Alabama

4. USC

5. Auburn

…or course that is depending upon who you get your information from: Rivals, Scout, or ESPN.

I must admit, Lane Kiffin and Ed Orgeron have done a superb job recruiting since arriving back in Southern Cal…even stealing all-world receiver Markeith Ambles from us during the final hours.

Les Miles and Chavis also pulled off a coup by stealing J.C. Copeland to the Tigers. We could have really used that guy!

UT are not to be out done though, having stolen our own 5-star receiver away from UGA’s Mark Richt in Da’Rick Rogers. (sorry Buck) Rivals.com has him listed as the overall 8th best player in the nation…truth be told, Kiffin had already worked on him, but Dooley was the one that closed that deal.

Some are saying that UT already possesses the top group of wide receivers in the nation, …with Matt Milton already on campus as a mid-term enrollee.

We have already snagged Michael Palardy, considered the nations best kicking prospect by scout.com ….hopefully plugging a glaring hole for the Vols this coming season.

Sometimes tho’, its not about who signs the LOI on National Signing Day but who doesn’t.

I still predict, nay hope, that the Vols ultimately wind up with a top 10 class this year.

Update: as of 3:45 EST the Gators still seem to be on top of things. The article I have linked might proclaim something to the effect that us Vols “lost out” on losing Markeith Ambles…but truth be told, I am still holding on dearly to the fact that people are already claiming UT to have the best WR recruiting class in the nation.

That in itself is going to speak tons when new guys like QB Nick Stephens(yeah, he’s had a few snaps) or Tyler Bray (A 4 star QB recruit out of Kiffin’s own back yard) tries to get their feet wet in a new offense.

True, UT may have a year or two of growing pains, …but as long as the recruiting is there…and especially the development, …then “us” UT fans have a bright future indeed.

btw, Rivals.com has UT currently listed as the 8th top recruiting class in the nation. Let’s go Dooley!

Good grief!

At age 28 he is still ranked #1 in the world (237 consecutive weeks) with 16 Grand Slam titles!!!

Federer vs. Nadal…makes me kind of reminisce about the good ol’ days of Johnny Mac and Jimmy Connors. (check out the high dollar wooden rackets!)

Nadal is probably as good an athlete as I have ever seen, …he absolutely owns clay courts…but Federer caught up to him in 2007 besting him in the Hamburg Masters.

I loved watching Pete Sampras, at the time I considered him the “Greg Maddux” of tennis…but Federer is putting a stamp on the sport that may never again be equaled.

Tennis is a young man’s game, even Roger suggests that the prime years are 22 to 25 years old, as opposed to a less strenuous sport, baseball, where the prime years are generally considered to be between 27 and 30 years old.

Roger is 28, just won another major, …and is still ranked #1 on the globe.

Tiger? Jordan? Manning? Phelps? James? Pujols?

Who dominates their own sport in today’s game more than Federer?

Ken Pulliam, a former fundamentalist, has possibly a bigger beef with the notion of penal substitutionary theory of atonement than I do. His latest is a response to another effort to defend the theory from the charges that this theory turns the notion of “justice” on its head: distorts it into something wicked, then attributes that wicked parody of justice to God.

As with many attempts to defend the penal substitution theory, this one “skates around the issue” as Pulliam puts it. Rather than defending penal substitution, it proposes a new theory: one that could be humorously described as the “law of conversion of Glory”. In other words, under John Piper’s theory, Jesus’ death isn’t meant as punishment that was due to us and which is taken in our place. It is a way of restoring God’s glory, something which our dying eternal torment might otherwise have accomplished.

As Pulliam points out, this is a peculiar notion, and one that you would be hard pressed to find in the Bible. And it does require some strange thinking about what Glory is and how it can be “magnified”: issues which are implicit in Piper’s argument but which he doesn’t directly address.

On the positive side, Piper’s theory lacks the underpinning of retributive justice that normally underlies the theory of penal substitution. This is worth pointing out. When it comes right down to it, I think most believers in penal substitution balk at notions of retributive justice when forced to contemplate them seriously.

In fact, I think Piper’s argument – like many arguments in favor of penal substitution shows that most believers in it don’t really accept the justice of it, and don’t want to impute that kind of perverted justice to God. I think this is why their defenses of it are often crafted in terms that (pardon the pun) substitute some other theory in its place.

There was a post from me this morning that no longer appears… It was not meant to be published to begin with. I typed it, scheduled it to publish – then thought better of it… I thought I set it to draft.. But I noticed that it was “up” most of the day. So… it’s down now. If you saw it & were wondering, that’s where it is. It may still be on facebook – if so, it will have to remain until I can delete it later today.

As I have said before, I love these things.

I had to stop by Jay’s place this morning and congratulate him.

I think I have gotten more laughs off of the internet today than I have in a long, long time.

I will be a grandpa myself by the end of July if all goes as expected.

Future Grandma and future mama made the official doctor visit today. I have known for a week that all signs pointed to yes but was told to keep my mouth shut until today. When I saw Shayla I could not believe it. It made me dizzy.

My wife called me less than five minutes ago. She has sent me a phone message with the sound of the heartbeat. We had been expecting a delivery date of mid-September but it turns out my little girl is more pregnant than she thought.

Ya’ll can call me Big Papa.

Welcome to the world, Shayla Naomi Mae…

A blessing from the lyrics of Natalie Merchant:

I believe
that Fate smiled and Destiny
Laughed as she came to my cradle
Know this child will be able
Laughed as she came to my mother
Know this child will not suffer
Laughed as my body she lifted
Know this child will be gifted
with love with patience and with faith
She’ll make a way
She’ll make a way

Y’all can call me grandpa smijer…

Kinda weird, seeing that Hamilton is still supposed to interview another candidate, Kippy Brown, at 13:00 EST today.

Sorry for Kippy, I actually like the guy.

Dooley doesn’t really have that much of a resume’ tho’ he does have ties to Nick Saban.

If I got Saban’s autograph once, …does that mean I could be in contention for the head job too?

More will develop later for sure…but for now please feel to read this.