My Bracket Wasn't So Bad...

When I wrote this post a couple of weeks ago, I did not expect this to happen:

For the first time in my history of filling out NCAA March Madness brackets, I actually picked the tournament winner! And I picked Kentucky losing to West Virginia! These crucial picks made me the winner of our facebook bracket group(also for the first time ever!)

Tim went down. By 40 points. I expect much more respect when it comes time to smack talk next year.

One moment that I missed live, but have watched replayed many times culminated in this moment:

Robert, our pastor at Neighborhood Church describes the moment well on his blog:

Halfway through the second half West Virginia's Da'Sean Butler twisted his knee and went down in agony. The guy was in both physical and emotional pain, knowing this was his last college game and that he wasn't going to be able to help his team.

At that moment his coach, Bob Huggins, came out and, after yelling at the refs for a moment, knelt down, cradled him in his arms, and began whispering truth to him: that he loved him, his teammates loved him, and things were going to be ok. It was one of the most uncomfortable, yet powerful, moments I've ever witnessed in sports.

Last night Neighborhood Church came together with Cooper Church to celebrate the Resurrection. Bill Ganus and I taught on Luke 15, the story of the two lost sons. I closed with this story, as it gave me a picture of the Father who is in passionate pursuit of us because of His love for us. I am still quite uncomfortable with this kind of intimacy, yet I am extremely grateful for it!

Just another reason I love March Madness!

Rainmakers Faced a Drought

Our team was one-and-done, but we sure did have the most fun! Our first round opponents, Technical Sales only beat us by one point in the lowest scoring match of the tournament. All I contributed to the cause was style, too bad no style points were given.
Clayton (in the headband) scored most of our team's points and now proudly displays his headband on his rearview mirror. That is what I call team pride.

Nerf Tournament Promo

This week at Kele, the company I work for, we are having a Nerf Tournament. My team, the Rainmakers, have been practicing hard to face our competition. Here is just a taste of our skillz:

Forecast says: Rain is coming

Ornamental Metal Museum

This weekend my parents skipped town, so Martha and I ventured to a place we had never been to see the sun set over the Mississippi and to learn more about making things from metal. Our destination was the Ornamental Metal Museum, which just happens to be run by the husband of the Spanish Teacher that has taught all three Boyd girls in high schoool.


Martha was a good sport and didn't get annoyed when I wanted to design my own aluminum tile. It was really cool to carve my own design in the form and then watch them pour the aluminum.

The aluminum was solid very quickly, but still very very hot as they broke the form off and dipped each tile into a bucket of water.
I am excited to add this tile to my cross collection that I will finally get to unpack and hang up when I move in May. The grounds of the Ornamental Metal Museum are beautiful. They would be perfect for a wedding reception.

After the sun had set and my tile had cooled enough to touch, we left for dinner at one of our favorite Mexican food places and watched West Virginia beat Kentucky to get into the Final Four. As a Memphis columnist posted on Twitter, the entire city of Memphis felt Schadenfreude: delighting at another's misfortune. Also known as doing the happy dance because Calipari's team LOST!

March Madness

I love everything about March Madness. Bracket Pools, Upsets, and lots of cute basketball players.

This is my bracket, and thanks to two key losses, you can ignore the left half. But I still love March Madness because it was so exciting to be at a restaurant/bar with a big group of people as Northern Iowa pulled off the upset over Kansas earlier tonight.

Come on Duke! Please just beat Kentucky!