The Total Package comes to Middle Georgia

My grandfather on my mother's side was a big wrestling fan. Every Saturday night, and I mean every Saturday night, he was in front of that T.V.

So when I heard that Lex Luger, one of the Four Horsemen, artisan of the Human Torture Rack, was going to be in town talking to teenagers, I volunteered to cover it.

I don't usually link my own stories here, but I really like the way this one turned out. This was a broken and contrite man who says he has given his life to Christ.

I shot some video, too. Some of it is him playing to the crowd, some of it is his testimony. But the end is about the death of Miss Elizabeth, whom wrestling fans will probably remember.

She was his girlfriend (even though he was married) and she died of a drug overdose in the townhouse he'd purchased for her. Died in his arms.

It's an emotional description, and a cautionary tale.

Super-inside Georgia news

There's a new highlight video for the pre-game festivities, which may or may not include Elton John's "Saturday Night's Alright," but definitely includes various players talking about what Saturday means to them.

Not sure what that means for the Baba O'Reilly intro, but surely the Munson intro remains.

Also - did you know the cheerleaders and a bunch of other folks associated with the team are going to Munson's house for dinner Friday night? I can't decide who's luckier, him or the cheerleaders.

In other Bulldog news, John Isner, who led the men's tennis team to a National Title earlier this year, is set to play Roger Federer in the U.S. Open this weekend.

Now Federer faces a much taller task: His third-round opponent is John Isner, the 6-foot-9 American who only a few months ago was playing college tennis for Georgia. With fans barking for their favorite Bulldog, Isner followed up his first-round upset of No. 26 Jarkko Nieminen by beating Rik de Voest of South Africa 6-3, 6-3, 7-6 (4).

Federer said he's only seen Isner play a few games and called him a "new kid on the block."

During an on-court interview, Isner was asked to look ahead to the matchup with Federer.
"Is he good?" Isner asked with a knowing laugh.

"I'm going to believe," Isner said later. "I'm not saying I'm going to win, but I'm going to believe. That's what I have to do."

I saw Isner play this year. He smoked the second best college player in the country, and I mean it wasn't even close.

Looks like the 3rd round is Saturday and Sunday. Not sure when Isner's match will be.

Atlanta: You couldn't be more screwed

A friend of mine sent me this and, just based on the idea, I thought "lame."

But it made me laugh. It's a grid of NFL predictions with a Star Wars character assigned to each one. Amazing how well it all works.

Han Solo frozen in carbonite.

Belief beats anything

I was watching something hopeful on T.V. last night. It doesn't matter what.

Is it possible humankind is unstoppable?

Of course, it's worth noting that the next thing on T.V. was an ad for Dancing with the Stars. And after that a Primetime murder investigation.

So let me rephrase: Is it possible that humankind, at it's best, when we shine, is unstoppable?

Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu

That was Mother Teresa's given name, according to a New York Daily News piece we ran this weekend.

When I heard on CNN, or some place, that Mother Teresa had a crisis of faith for much of her life, I thought - "oh, that happens to everyone." But the depth of her loss, and the obvious pain it brought her, just sadden my heart.

"If there be God - please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul," she wrote.

"How painful is this unknown pain - I have no Faith.

How could someone so good become such an empty shell of faith?

Or, to put it another way, why does God let bad things happen to good people?

What, I wonder, did Mother Teresa think of on her death bed? And what did she see after she died?

They looked like Big Leaguers to me

How about the Warner Robins American Little Leaguers, winners yesterday of the Little League World Series on an 8th inning walk-off homer.

Let's go to Brent Musburger, who's seen a ton of these things:

"I've done so many great Little League games, and then you think it can't equal or surpass that. And then you come along with a game like this and suddenly, this might be the best of them all. I mean, it was very, very dramatic. ... I noticed the Warner Robins fans. They were growing increasingly quiet down there because they had to be exhausted. I mean, they had played four straight lose-or-out games, as I recall, and they were the underdog every game. The little team that could, they got it done."

Full coverage (and then some) on the main site.



















The Team















Dalton Carriker, who hit the walk off.
















And my favorite, David Umphreyville Jr., whose mom works here at The Telegraph. He caught it. All photos by Jason Vorhees, Telegraph staff.

Logan Gray: Bulldog

Picked this up from David Ching's blog today:

* Richt had some pretty complimentary things to say about Logan Gray embracing his role as scout team QB, particularly for this first game against Oklahoma State's multi-talented QB Bobby Reid. Although as a true freshman he's obviously not as polished, Gray can do some of the same things Reid does, so he's a good candidate to simulate him in scout team work. He even asked to be "live" in tomorrow's practice game, meaning defensive players can hit him, in order to give the defense as good of a look as possible.

Now that's what I'm talking about. Eight days, folks. Eight days.

Shirley I shouldn't share this

Last night I said a prayer for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss suggested we do this yesterday, during a speech in Perry. It seemed like something I should have been doing all along.

I opened my eyes and began to get up. Then I closed them again and said a prayer for the other side's troop's, too.

Anyone think Jesus would have just prayed for the Americans?

My season tickets have arrived

Here we go. Section 318, rows 16 and 17, seat 1.

Apparently I'm not important enough to merit seats that are actually next to each other. But they are adjacent, in a vertical sort-of-way, which is more than enough for me.














Athens, Georgia, Sept. 2, 2007, circa 2 a.m.

UPDATE: Classes have begun at UGA. I just got this text message from a buddy of mine - "Walmart in Athens is reminiscent of the Playboy mansion right about now."

The Jawga 2-deep

David Ching, from The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, has posted his best guess on what the Dawgs' starting lineup will look like come Sept. 1. There's also some info. on likely redshirts.

Not to geek out and quote Star Trek, but I feel better about Ching's guesses than most people's facts.

So close you can almost taste it. Wait, no, that's bourbon.

I'm not sick, but I'm not well

SpaceyG over at peach pundit put this up. I can't explain why, but I can't stop watching it.


Lip Dub - Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger from amandalynferri and Vimeo.

Did you hear I went to Australia?

A week ago I was on a beach in northern Australia. I spent yesterday trying to figure out whether the city of Macon can get out of a multi-million-dollar deal to build a convention center hotel.

Where's a good lawyer when you need one?

Eight minutes of video from my trip. The song is Chest Fever, originally by The Band, done here by Widespread Panic.


She was just here. Now she can't be here no more.

$63 billion billion

South Carolina prison inmate Jonathan Lee Riches has sued Michael Vick for $63 quintillion. I hope he wins.

Some excerpts:

Riches -- who has developed an Internet cult following for his propensity to file strange lawsuits naming multiple diverse defendants -- claims that Vick stole his pit bulls and sold them on eBay to "use the proceeds to purchase missiles from the Iran government."

...

In his most noteworthy suit, Riches submitted a 57-page list of defendants that included President Bush, Pope Benedict, actor Tony Danza, Fruit of the Loom, NASCAR, the Ming Dynasty, Skittles candy, the Philadelphia Eagles (2005 roster), the Doobie Brothers, the Congolese Army, the Magna Carta, "WKRP in Cincinnati," the King's Dominion amusement park in Virginia, the philosopher Plato, and the Liberty Bell.

I'm with him. Skittles and the Ming Dynasty owe me money too.

Why does everything fill me with dread?

So, after hailing Brandon Miller's move to middle linebacker as the key to The Dawgs' defense in 2007, we're hailing his move back to SAM linebacker as... the key to The Dawgs' defense in 2007.

This from Coach Richt last week, courtesy of Josh Kendall here at The Telegraph:

"(Miller) is the key to our whole defense in my opinion," head coach Mark Richt said. "When you do certain drill work, where he knows exactly what he's doing, he's a dominant player. If he can get comfortable in the role of the (middle) linebacker, if he can play full speed, he can make a huge difference for us."

And this from Richt yesterday, per David Ching at The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer:

"He quite frankly is throwing our tight ends around. We have some outside plays, whether it's toss or stretch, what we call a stretch play, and the whole key to that play is whether a tight end can at least neutralize a sam linebacker the way our defense plays our looks. And Brandon's just thrashing everybody right now. I don't know if we've gotten around the edge yet with him playing the sam linebacker."

Kiante Tripp has also moved from defensive end to offensive tackle, which I don't think is any shock, but the fact that it's happening this late in the process (we open the season Sept. 1) doesn't inspire a hell of a lot of confidence.

Oh, and apparently Ramarcus Brown is suspended for the first two games of the season.

Your daily dose of optmism done, a little light reading from the practice reports:

Ching's stuff.

Kendall's.

Aussie slideshow, take 2

I changed the music and it seems to work. I went with Party at Your Mama's House.

Again, I hope to do a better job eventually, labeling things so you can tell what you're looking at, for example. Also I shot some video (a koala attacked several small children) and I've got some stuff from the Great Barrier Reef on another camera.

Generally speaking the slideshow goes: Sydney -> Wollongong -> Jenola Caves -> Blue Mountains -> Tasmania -> Melbourne -> Great Ocean Road -> Brisbane.

Good morning

I went to bed at 7 p.m. last night and woke up at 4:30 a.m.

And this is the sun rising over Rose Hill Cemetery here in Macon.

Clicked my heels three times and everything

I spent 24 hours yesterday either on an airplane or in an airport. And this morning I remembered the pilot light's out on my hot water heater.

But it's nice to be home.










Along the Great Ocean Road in southern Australia.

Just read the back of, this post card

I fly home tomorrow, which is Sunday, and arrive in Los Angeles 7 hours before I leave Brisbane.

Something tells me I'll be up to solving all the world's problems come Monday.

The picture below is the southern cross, which I'm sure can be looked up on Wikipedia, probably under Crosby, Stills and Nash. It's on the Aussie flag, in fact.

I took the picture from a horse ranch outside of Sydney. Many more pictures and movies to come... eventually.

If any of my new Aussie or traveling friends (who of course I've plied mercilessly with this blog address) are reading: I've had a wonderful time and thank you for your hospitality and company.

Take care.