thank you, brian

On Guster's website yesterday, Brian (the percussionist) had a picture on their studio journal of their engineer laughing while looking at a computer. He said that it was most likley of him watching a news reporter falling down while stomping grapes and freaking out into the microphone.
So, I emailed Brian and asked him where I could find this clip, and he e-mailed me back and sent me the link. Enjoy this little nugget of fun.

thanks, warren. i love you.

As I tried to do a couple of days ago...
I have had the same hair do for 6 years. I'm tired of it. Welcome back, parted hair...

wrestle mania 40

I wrestled Matt Ahrens last night. We moved a table out of the way, and wrestled. Some would say that he won. I like to think of it as I won. Matt said that he wrestled in 9th grade, and he definitely had the moves to make me believe him. But I had heart. I am pretty confident that if you were there to see this happen, you would be inspired by my courage, spunk, and punctuality. Just like every sports movie recently made, the good guy lost. Yes, I may have lost because he "pinned" me down. Yes, I may have lost because I couldn't "breathe". Or maybe even, yes, I may have lost because I still can't "move" my left leg.
But much like Friday Night Lights, Mystery Alaska, and Coach Carter, I will forever remain in the hearts a winner in the eyes of those who witnessed this. I suppose now that I will train even harder. With Kortny as my training partner, I will become stronger, more agile, and invincible. This isn't over. This story will end like every sports movie should end. Like every sports movie made before 1995. With the underdog winning. Not losing. Winning.
I am and will be a winner.

i hate you, picture.

So, I tried to upload a picture on here with my hair parted. It's a great picture, but the joke backfired on me. Dangit. I feel so stupid. If anyone knows how to post your own pics on blogs, let me know. I will reward you hansomly.
Today is the first day back to work. Spring break was nice. The thing that is getting me through now, is the thought that the amount of time I have to work until my next break is shorter than my next break is going to be. Catch that? Cause if you did, it's awesome.
Spring break was a tease-a sneak peak, if you will, of the summer vacation ahead. Nothing to do, and a whole lot of time to do it. I hope we don't make ourselves TOO busy, and I hope we don't make Tim Lybarger feel TOO bad about himself being a Cubs fan. Because we knew we were going to be able to sleep in this past week, we nailed-thats right-NAILED a blanket over our window in the bed room. We are rock stars like that.

Kortny has an interview today. Pray at 4:45. Please.

No Electoral Votes, here...

I need your help. Here are some possible finalists for a name for the band that I am in with Nathan and Lynnelle Funk. I will list some names, and you let me know which one you like the best. I will not provide any explanation for the names, so you can just go off of the name itself. I love you!

Here are the names:
_____________
Life of Riley
Some Relevance
Edison Central
Deeper Grey
Redeye Flight
_____________


Allright, let's have at it!

Juiced up.

I have to say "I am sorry" for not posting something since Sunday. I'm on spring break, and enjoying every cotton-pickin' second of it. I really did go out and pick some cotton yesterday. Today I'm going to be putting it through my new "Eli Whitney Cotton Gin 2000" today. It's gonna be in incredible.
I am an equal opportunity basher. By this, I mean, when someone from the Cardinals does something stupid, I have no bones in admitting it. Their announcer, Wayne Hagan, accused Colorado Rockies 1st baseman Todd Helton of being on "the juice". When Helton was outraged by this, Hagan backed up and said he was referring to the juice as being Creatine. And saying he was sorry and all that stuff.
Larry Walker, one of Helton's former teammates and now Cardinals Right fielder, said about Helton:

"Do I think Todd took steroids? Not a chance," Walker said. "I've seen the guy naked, and it can be disgusting at times. If he did take it, he's not putting it in the right spot."

Beautiful, Larry. That's why we traded for this guy.

3 oh, it's a magic number.

Yeah, it is. It's a magic number.
Today marks the third Caption Friday. Hey, this time through, let's try and get some more captions here. I think we only had 3 entries last week. Running out of funny???

Erin Tarr made her My Turn debut last week, so big ups to her.

But, while I have your attention, I will stick with the 3 theme and give you three things to chew on before we get to the picture.

1. I have successfully figured out how to scare off a goose or many geese. It's pretty incredible. If you see me in person some time, ask me to give you a demonstration. You will not be disapointed.

2. I was helping students cross Green Street today because on Friday, that's my duty post. I walked out and was helping a student cross the busy street. A police car just so happened to be the front car that had to stop. He just sat there with is window down until I walked to his window and he ask (very demeaning) "Are you the OFFICIAL crossing guard"? I felt like saying "Hey, the jerk store called. They're running out of you. And no, sir. I'm just some schmo who got up early and decided to help kids cross the street". Wow. Why can't more police be like Joel Sanders?

3. Rick Ankiel went 2 for 2 with a home-run yesterday.

Okay, here's the pic...


Remember, the My Turn beach ball carried over to this week, so in honor of Spring Break starting today at 2:40 central, the winner will get the My Turn beach ball and a bottle of My Turn SPF 15 sun block.

Somewhere in that ancient mystic trinity, you'll get three. It's a magic number...

junior high girls II (that's sweedish for 2)

We've already talked about one group of people that act like Jr. High girls this week: Chicago Cubs fans.
The other is Kortny and Jeremiah. Kortny and Jeremiah are at their apartment every night anticipating a phone call from Principals of schools. See, she is waiting to hear from a couple of Principals about getting interviews and others about her actual interview.
So, we sit around our table and watch the phone. The TV is not on. There is no music on. Just the sound of our increasingly heavy breathing. And whenever the Motorola phone rings, our hearts instantly skip one beat as we wait to see who is calling on the caller-ID. Last night it was Adam Tarr's cell phone.
Dangit.
So, goes our nights. Just like Jr. High girls on Friday nights wait for the phone call from the Point Guard of the 7th grade Junior High School 7th grade basketball team that just won it's sectional. It would be so incredible if he were to just call.

junior high girls

I really value our faithful readers of My Turn. So, I'm not one to point out the short-comings of people who read our work. However, I have been very amused by one of the reader's web sites (link on the right) that talks about the Cubs. For the sake of discussion, we'll call him *Tim*.
Here is the amusing thing. It seems that this guy really has a problem with the Cardinals. One look at his posts and you will find that most if not all of them have references to the Cardinals that bash them. Some posts are completely dedicated to this. When I see this, it makes me, as a Cardinal fan, feel good. Because if the Cardinals really were as horrible as he makes them seem, then he wouldn't even mention them.
Much like Junior high girls. Junior high girls like to talk mean about other girls. Is it because the other girls really are bad girls? Sometimes. But a lot of the time, it's because they are either jealous of her or a threat to themselves. Pretty girls talking bad about the other pretty girls. Do you hear *Tim* bashing the Pirates? No. They are not a threat. Nor are they good.

See, for Cubs fans, if they end the season ahead of the Cardinals, it's a successful season. For Cardinals fans, if they end ahead of the Cubs (oh, say by 16 games or so), that's fine, but we really just care about getting to the playoffs. The Cubs could beat the Cardinals in every single head to head match-up, but as long as the Cards get in the post-season, that's fine by me. Sure, sometimes, I might mention the Cubs. But consistently have entire posts dedicated to the bashing of the opposition? Insecure, are we????

I wanted to see what it's like to do that. So, *Tim*, in the spirit of your posts, I dedicate this entire entry to bashing the rival team. Oh, and this post is a response to all of yours, so feel no need to give a comeback.


How'd that work out for ya?



Well, that's good. The first step is admiting it...



Ahhhhhhh. The friendly confines.



Excuse me, ma'am? The rally cap is traditionally only for one game at a time. It won't make up for the past 100 years.



Oh, let's see. Let's blame this one on the "Sports Illustrated Curse". Yeah, that one will work.


Carefullllll, Kerry. You don't want to hurt your shoulder again. THIS is the year you'll win 20 games!


Forget our Shortstop who dropped the DP ball. Let's blame this guy!


2003? Don't worry, Mark. The team you're on now can actually GET to the World Series.


How come its only the teams that haven't won for a LONG time that have "Believe" signs and awesome rally bracelets?


Exactly.

I have 10 fingers. She has 6 strings.

Abe requested an entry on my life as a musician. I will start it off by saying, no, it did not start with me doing Neil Diamond covers in Decatur at the age of 13.

It was much less exciting than that.
I was a Sophomore at Washington Community High School. I was an average kid. A's and B's in school, played the Tuba in the marching band, played summer ball, captain of the soccer team, and worked at a bike shop. I didn't have any real friends. I hung out with some kids, but it was mostly to play hockey and stuff like that. Conversation went as far as Brett Hull or Greg Jefferies, and that was about it. Nothing deeper. For Christmas that year, I asked for a guitar, because I thought, well, to tell you the truth...I really don't know why I asked for one.
However, about 2 months before Christmas, I found the guitar in my brother's closet, where my parents were hiding it. So, just about every other day when I would get home from school before every one else, I would get it out and look at it. I just last month confessed this to my mother. I kid you not.
I started playing it that day and on my first day learned the song "Free Falling". To this day my brother John makes fun of me and tells me how friggin annoying it was to hear me playing that riff over and over and over and over.
I really got tired of playing guitar and actually stopped playing it all together for about 6 months. I started a band later in my Sophomore year with some friends and we were called "The 5th Vibe".
We should have been called "The 5th Sucky Band"
Wow, we were horrible.
So, my family moved to Decatur where I attended Mt. Zion high school, in Mt. Zion. Our church started a contemporary worship service (and, yes, it is successful, Erin) where I played guitar. Dave Burke was a praise singer. I was definatelly cooler than him. But he did get to sing next to Beth Cox-Johnson, his crush. So, I guess he wins.
I was in a band in Mt. Zion called "Worm Circus" with some guys that were all about the music and the weed. They were actually really good, but I was only with them for a small cup of coffee. So, my buddy Nick Rozanski and I started a band called "Generic Live". Dave Burke came into the band and played the Djembe'. We weren't half bad, but we were just out to have fun. Goof around, and play gigs. It was a lot of fun.
It was in Decatur that I purchased my first dream guitar. I went to a Jars of Clay concert and saw Steve Mason (from Decatur) playing a sparkle Les Paul. I became so in love with it, that I actually carried a picture of it in my wallet. True. Over a year later, I found one and purchased it.
Here she is. Try not to lust...



Then, I went off to college. This is where I really learned why, for all these years I had been playing guitar. I learned my Freshman year, that God was calling me to be a full-time worship pastor. I was asked to start a worship band at the Wesley Foundation there, and so I did. We named the band "foam" which stood for fishers of all men. Over my span of 4 years at EIU, foam had over 30 members rotate in and out each week and year. Foam is still going strong, and actually just a couple of weeks ago led worship at a high school youth retreat for a couple hundred kids.
Also, while at EIU, I participated in what was probebly my most influencial experience as a worship leader and musician. I traveled for two summers with a band called Harvest Ministry Teams. Harvest is a well-known worship band in the Midwest that travels and leads worship at concerts, festivals, camps and churches. So, for 8 weeks, each summer, I got to pack up in a van and travel around the country worshiping God every day. I got to play in the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, played in Nashville in front of 7,000 people, played at Agape music festival, and tons of other awesome stuff. It's not even that we got to play at these cool places, but just that God gave me the opportunity to do it all in His name.
As a musician's stand point, playing with Harvest was the best. If anyone sings every sing day, twice a day, for 8 weeks, your voice is going to get stronger. I've always thought that any guitar playing or voice I might have is all from working at it. I am NOT a naturall singer or musician. Its wierd, but my only natural skill I have is at hockey. Go figure. I also got to play with some really incredible musicians. One, for example, name was Theo. Theo plays bass. Theo plays bass really well. Theo went to Berkley college of music in Boston. Just to give you and idea of how incredible he is, when people go into Berkley they are rated on a scale of 1 to 10. 1 being the best. Most people go into Berkley as a 10, or 9, SOME at 8. Their goal is that when you graduate, you go up a couple of points. Don't get me wrong, if you even get accepted to Berkley you are a stud. A STUD. Okay, so back to the rating school. Theo WENT IN as a 2.
When I was at school, my dream job was to be a full-time worship pastor for a brand new church for 20 somethings.
Here comes Andy Adams.
Andy told me that he was starting a new church in Champaign/Urbana that was going to be reaching to a group of people that have not been reached to yet. 20-30 somethings.
Nice!
Kortny and I prayed and prayed and prayed, and we took the call. We were both always planning on living in St. Louis, so we really didn't want to live in Champaign. But God told us this is where we need to be. So we went. We trusted God that he would find Kortny a job, and we are still waiting on that. Sometimes we get really fed up here that she doesn't have a job, and we loose sight as to why we are here. We still keep on trying to have a good outlook on it.
So, that leads us to today. To where if you come to the Park Inn on Sunday mornings at 9 or 11, you will find little ol' Jeremiah rockin out to Jesus with the likes of Toby Curtwright, Andy Burnett, and Joel Sanders. We hope that soon, Tim Lybarger will be joining on stage with his turntables. I will post on that when it happens, I expect each and every one of you who is reading this to be there.

redbird nation

Okay, so this is my final entry on this subject. For those of you who don't care about baseball, we will get back to other subjects soon. Remember, tomorrow is the start of a new Caption Contest!!!
There was a great blog called "Redbird Nation" (new link) that is a must read for any cards fan out there. Brian Gunn (who I don't know) had been doing this for 2 years and stopped doing it just a couple of months ago. If you read anything from Nov 3rd and back, its some really great stuff.
Anyway, he sort of came out of retirement to write a piece on the Ankiel drama. I thought it was very well said, and deserved a mention here. It's long, but if you read House's blog, thats nothing new to you. Enjoy...

Rick Ankiel, Ex-Pitcher
by Brian Gunn
March 10, 2005

By the time he took his first legal drink, Rick Ankiel was already an accomplished major league pitcher. As a teenager he was both the High School Pitcher of the Year and the Minor League Player of the Year. At age 20, his first full year in the bigs, he won 11 games for the Cardinals, struck out over a man per inning, and logged an ERA a run below the league average. He possessed a mid-90s fastball and a devastating curve – the best I’ve ever seen – and his future seemed unimaginably vast.

Then one afternoon everything fell apart. You all know the story: he started Game 1 of the 2000 NLDS against the Braves, was sailing along with a big lead in the third inning, then walked four of the next eight hitters and uncorked five wild pitches. His throws hit off the catcher’s glove, hit the backstop, hit everything but the Durham Bull. It was a disaster, an agonizing meltdown on national TV.

The years since have been both strange and oddly familiar for Rick Ankiel, a ceaseless round of hopes and disappointments, one on top of the other. Last fall, after an odyssey that included maddening control problems and Tommy John surgery, Ankiel made a triumphant return to the major leagues. He pitched only 10 innings, but he struck out nine, walked only one, and flashed the same brilliant stuff he had as a rookie years back. With a solid stint in the Puerto Rican winter league, the Cards’ brain trust silently penciled him in as a starter in place of the recovering Matt Morris.

But just over a week ago Ankiel fell off the wagon once again. In a series of simulated at-bats against the heart of the Cards’ lineup, Ankiel began “feathering” his pitches – several thudded into the dirt in front of home plate, and some sailed to the back of the batting cage. Of the 23 pitches he threw that day, only three were strikes.

Yesterday Ankiel announced that he was quitting the pitching business altogether. It was unsettling news, but certainly not shocking. If you’ve followed the saga of Rick Ankiel, you’re far from shockable at this point. But that doesn’t make the breakdown of his career any less mysterious.

Everyone in St. Louis has a pet theory about what went wrong with Rick Ankiel, the same way every Oxford scholar has his own explanation for the outbreak of World War I. One theory holds that Ankiel suffered from a kind of nerve disorder, that his sense of kinesthetic awareness had gotten out of whack.

Another theory blames Tony La Russa. After all, it was La Russa who threw poor Ankiel into the pressure cooker as his Game 1 starter in the playoffs. Delay his turn in the rotation and everything would be fine today – or so the thinking goes. A related theory says Ankiel went wild because his regular catcher, Mike Matheny, wasn’t behind the plate on that fateful day in 2000. (Call it the Curse of Carlos Hernandez.)

Still others chalk up Ankiel’s problems to sheer performance anxiety. If you look at the athletes who suffered symptoms similar to Ankiel’s, you’ll notice a common thread: nearly all of them ran into mental roadblocks when they had time to become conscious (even hyper-conscious) of what they were doing. Think of Steve Blass on the mound, alone with his thoughts as he goes into his windup. Same goes for Nick Anderson at the free throw line, Ian Baker-Finch lining up a short putt, Mackey Sasser lobbing a throw to the pitcher, or Chuck Knoblauch making a routine toss to first. Notably, it’s not hitters – whose actions are more reflexive – who suffer from this kind of anxiety. It’s the guys who have time to think.

So what was Rick Ankiel thinking when he was out there on the mound? This tender article by Pat Jordan, which ran in the New York Times a few years ago, paints Ankiel as a kid who suffered from excess sensitivity, who fed into all the pressures that bore down on him. In one heartbreaking passage, Ankiel describes his childhood: “Well, I was goofy. I walked like a klutz. I spilled milk at the dinner table every night.” Apparently he never lost his self-consciousness, even on the baseball diamond. “I was terribly shy,” he said. “Maybe it was because my dad yelled at me so much. I was afraid to mess up.”

Ankiel’s father, of course, was one of those pushy Little League dads who later did prison time for dealing narcotics. By all accounts his son is the nicest guy in the world – a gleeful imp beloved by his teammates – but Jordan suggests that this same lack of guile may have made Ankiel defenseless when it came to the cauldron of big-league competition. It’s a sad but unfortunate truth that good people don’t always make good athletes. In fact, one sometimes suspects that churlishness – the ability to walk over rivals, a taste for blood – is a positive asset in the world of sports. Nice guys finish last and all.

So what happens next for Rick Ankiel? He says he’s going to try his hand as a full-time hitter, and there are some wishful thinkers who’d have you believe that Ankiel is a legitimate “blue chip prospect” with the bat. These people will tell you that Ankiel has a lifetime minor-league slugging percentage of .575, that he yanked 10 homers as a part-time DH in the Appalachian League, and that he just may be the second coming of another Cards pitcher-turned-outfielder named Stan Musial.

But it’s silly for anyone – and this includes the St. Louis Cardinals – to indulge this fantasy. By the time he was Ankiel’s age, Musial had already won two MVP awards. Ankiel, on the other hand, has struck out in exactly one-third of his at-bats in the major leagues. His on-base percentage above A ball is a miniscule .252. He is not a real hitter by any conceivable stretch of the imagination. It’s unfortunate, then, that Ankiel is flirting with the outfield, because it won’t allow him or the Cardinals to truly turn the page. He’ll be just another spring training curiosity, grist for sportswriters on a slow day in March – like Garth Brooks in a Padres uniform, only more depressing.

Some people have speculated that the whole pitcher-turned-outfielder scenario is a ruse. The Cardinals are out of options with Ankiel, see, so they can’t send him to the minors without exposing him to waivers. But if other teams think Ankiel is nothing more than a hitting project, they won’t claim him, especially if it means keeping him on their major-league roster all year long. Perhaps Jocketty was simply scaring off potential suitors yesterday when he said of Ankiel, “He said he’s not going to pitch. If someone claims him to be a pitcher, it’ll be a costly error.” But this conspiracy theory presumes a lot of work for very little in return. For all intents and purposes it’s best to consider Rick Ankiel retired from baseball.

Ankiel now joins a notorious list of “might’ve beens” from baseball history – Tony Conigliaro, Herb Score, Pete Reiser, Mark Fidrych, Steve Busby, and, of course, countless people you’ve never heard of. But we shouldn’t exactly feel sorry for the guy. By my count he made at least $4 million by the age of 25 ($1.5 million in salary over five years, plus a $2.5 million signing bonus) and, you know, he did get to play in the major leagues (which is more than you can say for flameouts like Brien Taylor or Josh Hamilton).

And let’s face it, after Ankiel hangs up his cleats for good, he’ll follow a career path not unlike countless Americans before him. I mean, very few of us get paid to follow our dreams. By the time we reach age 25, most of us have already set aside our ball gloves or our guitars or our paintbrushes and we’ve started looking for more practical ways to settle down, pay the rent, make do. In a very real sense, then, when we mourn for Rick Ankiel we may as well be mourning ourselves.

For two years, Brian Gunn ran the Redbird Nation, "A St. Louis Cardinals Obsession Site." You can purchase the Redbird Nation book -- a compendium of the best of his writing -- at the site.

i'll miss ya, rick.

Today is a really really sad day for St. Louis Cardinals fans. Rick Ankiel retired today as a pitcher and is now converting to be an outfielder. Now before you laugh, take a step back and try to see how heart-breaking this is.
Ankiel at one time had been thought of by many, as the most promising young arm in the Majors. In his rookie season, 2000, he won 11 games, struck out 194 batters in 175 innings, and was 2nd in the Rookie of the Year award voting. He threw a 95-97 mph fastball, a wicked slider and one of thost electric curves you will EVER see. That same season, he started the first game of the playoffs for the Cards. He threw wild pitch after wild pitch, and was never the same. He had worked for 4 YEARS to get back to where he was. Last year he pitched very well out of the Cards bullpen in September, and did well in winterball as well. This spring, he had one outing where he was as Pujols described, "spectacular", and one where he, again, struggled to find control. However, he was never wild.
Today, he announced that he will be moving to the outfield, where he will try to make the team that way. In the minors, he lead the Appelacian league in Homeruns, average, and total bases. As a pitcher. So, there is some hope here.
I find this very sad, not as a Cardinals fan, but as a person. Here is a guy who grew up with no mother, and who's father was and still is in jail. Not a good up-bringing and still made something of himself. Then, with the national media all up in his bidness all the time, he was like "get up off me national media" and worked his tail off for 4 years. If you are a Cardinal fan, Cub fan, anything...if you take a step back and think about it, it is a sad story.

"My concern is just taking care of me as a person, and whatever else happens will fall into place," Ankiel said.

Tony LaRussa once said this is a game that will break your heart. This guy's career proves it. Good luck, Rick.

So, in respect to Ankiel, we give an Adam Tarr and Jeremiah Cox holla...RICKANKIEELLL!!!

Rick Ankiel the pitcher 1999-2005



Rick Ankiel the outfielder 2005 - ?




ps. john has a post from earlier today.

PMQ

On the first Monday of every month, the leaders of our church get together for a leader's meeting. Quest is a new church in Champaign/Urbana that is supposed to be very postmodern/emerging generation/relavent/real/20-30 something attitude/anythingcool. Matt Arhens has always said that I am the poster boy for the postmodern Quest. Tonight, TJ (the_dude) made and filled out what he calls the "Post Modern Quotient" (PMQ). This is where he made 10 different sub-categories to rate someone on how post-modern they are.
Here is its:

Post-Modern Quotient (PMQ)
for Jeremiah Cox

9/10 Hair (spiky-ness, extra points for "tips")
8/8 Clothing (MTV V.J.-esque, appropriate mix of Gap/Buckle/Urban Outfitters & thrift store)
5/5 Speech (casual and fluent use of "ghetto-speak" aka "ebonics")
6/7 Music (at least 50% of favorite bands should be "indie" or unknown)
9/10 Computer use (Apple preferred)
9/10 Sense of Humor (should quote Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell)
6/7 Tatoos/Body Piercing (extra points for Chinese characters)
6/7 Politics (Note: Republicans are NOT post-modern)
6/6 Underwear (Boxers 6/6, BoxerBriefs 3/6, Tighty Whities 0/6)
10/10 Accessories (glasses, rings, big leather things on wrist)

SCORE 74/80

When Matt saw this score, he yelled, " A 74?!?!?! I've never seen a score that high!!!"
I felt like the golden child. I felt like Neo in the Matrix. (dang. Did I just make a Matrix refrence? That is so not post-modern.)



ps. Pujols hit 2 homers today. Nice to know some things never change.

Video killed the radio star

Nathan Funk emailed me a MP3 of a new song he wrote. I got chills up my spine when I heard it. Nathan Funk is a great song writer.

We are supposed to hear on Friday abot Kortny's job interview.

Pray.

The Cardinals won yesterday and the Cubs lost 10-1.

It is really stupid to care about spring training.

I am ready to go on Spring break.

I have to make another video this week. Can I borrow 8 hours from you so I can get it done? Thanks.

I found out that if you Email Tim Lybarger something to put on his website, he will only cut and paste the stuff he wants on there.

I found out that I was really really tired at school today.

I found out this morning that this was the first Monday of the month. That means I leave home at 5:30 am, and get back at 8pm.

I found out that there will be no hockey this year. I really thought this was the Blues' year.

Dang.

caption contest

My Turn does not usually get many new entries come the weekend. That's because The Editors of My Turn know how to work hard...and play hard. So, I had the idea that on Fridays we will start a new feature called, "Caption Contest".

As soon as the picture is posted, to Sunday at midnight, post a caption for the picture we put on here. The winner, selected by The Editors will win a "My Turn" t-shirt. Some weeks we might even give out a "My Turn" mug. Perfect for drinking hot chocolate. Or Hot milk. Or hot water. Pretty much anything but coffee.

So, with the talks this week about baseball, we will start off with a baseball pic. Don't worry, we won't always have a sports picture. But, with the recent talks of steriods and Glenallen Hill being a far superior player to Albert Pujols, we will start off with this dandy...

summer lovin'

This is the stretch in the school year where there are no breaks. I have hit a wall now. School is actually going pretty well compared to the rest of the year, but I definatelly am ready for summer break. I just kind of have a numb feeling walking around the school. Actually, the numb feeling is kinda cool. I've never done drugs, so I guess this is what its like?
This entry has gone down hill quick.
Speaking of hills, remember the Cubs' bench/outfielder, Glennallen Hill? What a stupid name.
I digress.
So here is a list of things that I am looking forward to this summer, hope to do this summer, and things I totally plan on NOT doing this summer.

Things I am looking forward to:
1. Not teaching
2. Playing baseball video games
3. Playing real-life baseball
4 Looking at my wife in a bikini
5. Hearing the Cardinals game on the radio while driving with my window rolled down. Ahhhhhhh.
6. Sleeping in everyday if I cotton-picking want to

Things I hope to do:
1. Go to Paris, France
2. Go to 35 or more Cardinals games
3. Buy a new Mac Mini
4. Run/Ride my bike at least 50 miles a week
5. Looking at my wife in a bikini at least 73 times
6. Get tan
7. Learn how to slam-dunk a basketball

Things I will definately NOT do:
1. Teach
2. Get up at 6:15 in the morning every day
3. Watch "The Notebook"
4. Cheer for the Cubs
5. Steal something from a store
6. Slam-dunk a basketball

high socks

So, "my turn" has been heated a little more than usual lately. I still stand that Dee Brown is not a "bad" person, but he really dropped the ball on this. If you have so much on your plate, don't commit to something.

Anyway, like I was saying, because we have been so hard hitting lately, I will do an entry on something not so hard hitting. That would be the opposing teams when they face these St. Louis Cardinals young pitchers. When you see these pics, notice how every one of them is styling the old-old schoool high socks. That's because these young studs are in an organization that has a long history of playing classy, fundamental, winning baseball.
Check it!

Anthony Reyes
"I told him last year, 'When you get called up, it's probably lights-out for us.'"
- Mark Prior



Brad Thompson
-Threw a record 49 consecutive scoreless innings last year for AA Smokies



Rick Ankiel


Adam Wainwright


Chris Lambert


Like I said; every one of them rockin' out the high socks. Love it!
I only wish I could still list Danny Haren with these guys.