preview of the greats

thursday night is usually 'the office' night. unfortunately nbc is stringing the season out and playing with its viewers' emotions though, so in case you haven't noticed it's been a few weeks since they've unleashed a new episode. instead of 'the office' this means thursday night has temporarily become braves night.

(rant: i know, you say if i was truly a hardcore braves/baseball fan that would be the case on any thursday night; however, some of my friends aren't quite in love with the sport as much as i am. so i sacrifice borderline obsession with a sport for building real relationships with friends. seems like a pretty good tradeoff, even though i do miss the days i could quote the batting averages of every braves starter - aka when i was six.)

so this week during braves night, one of the more curious girls posed an extremely dangerous, age-old question..."who is the greatest baseball player of all time?" this question is one that, if examined in the middle of braves night, could have potentially led to loud, extremely divisive arguments. not to mention we probably would not have expressed truly individual opinions (again in attempts to practice some level of civility in the debate). we chose to forego the divisive "greatest player" question and save it for later.

well, it's now 'later'. and i've decided to voice my opinion in writing instead of arguing or shouting. there's a catch though. in order to definitively state whom i believe to be the greatest baseball player of all time, you've gotta understand the gravity and depth of this question better. so to help you do that, i'm gonna break down my lists of the greatest players over the next week or two: greatest players of certain eras, greatest players at specific positions, maybe some greatest players of certain teams, maybe greats from certain countries/regions, and hopefully somewhere in that mix i can come to a confident conclusion about who i believe really is the greatest player we've ever seen take the diamond.

for now, baseball fans, keep salivating. keep tuning in for your favorite team's nightly match-ups. keep up with your fantasy teams, for cryin' out loud. and for the duration of this string of 'the greats' posts, take some downtime to ponder who you believe actually deserves some love on the lists of 'the greats.'

favorite mighty duck?

so as i was preparing for a little friendly intramural softball competition today, i stumbled across a gem of a childhood memory. maybe this will take you back to '94 like it did me. whether or not that's the case though, it should cause goosebumps to pop up on your skin and potentially send a shiver down your spine...so it's not actually that inspirational, but you get the picture. check it out if you have a few minutes to kill.

ducks fly together!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyVF1glhAfk



i think my favorite mighty duck from d2 was dwayne robertson, the dude from austin, texas. i think his cowboy charm, the accent, and his ridiculous comments sealed the deal. the bash bros. came in a close second though. and so i will conclude this blog by asking, if you don't mind, who's your favorite mighty duck?

mint juleps done and gone

my student teaching experience is over. and as most influential life experiences, finishing my student teaching was bittersweet. i enjoyed teaching this semester. my students were great, my cooperating teachers were amazing, i learned way more in one semester than i ever did in my college of education classes, and i feel much more confident in the direction i am going in life now. and even though i haven't exactly 'enjoyed' the getting up well before 6 a.m. every day, i realize that we have to make sacrifices somewhere in the mix for the things we love doing and are called to do. to be a little cliche, i'll steal a line from maroon5 about life and say that, "it ain't always rainbows and butterflies." things that we view as inconvenient and uncomfortable, such as working on five hours of sleep a night for the majority of a semester, are sometimes just the price we have to be willing to pay in order to live influentially.

to close this post out and pay tribute to the amazing cooperating teachers i worked with throughout my student teaching experience, here's a picture of what the famous ms. joliet would have looked like if she lived in 1938. enjoy!

(ps - i totally misspelled mint julep as "mint julip" earlier in the blog...forgive me? i'm not so acquainted with the spelling of my alcoholic beverages yet.)