anything you want....

If I had a midget walk into my room tonight with a little glass shaped box that had a glowing question mark in it, and proceeded to ask me the question in a very high pitched voice "If you could do anything in this world, what would you do? say it and it will be so" I would scoop that wee lil guy up and yell at the top my lungs......"Be a late night talk show host"

poof

I'm in Dave Letterman's striped suit, making funny motions that would make the people laugh. I would talk to Paul and we would laugh like old friends.

Thats it. Right there. If I was granted a career wish that is what I would do. I've wanted to do this since college when I would stay up late watching letterman. I kept thinking, that is something I would be able to wake up every morning and be really excited about.

A couple years ago I had the idea to find a way to make this come true.....somewhat. I came up with the idea of creating my own talk show that I could use for my classes. I would write, film, and produce my own shows and use them in class as a teaching tool. My idea was to have different shows represent different chapters. So lets say I'm doing a chapter on the assassination of JFK. I would walk out and make some lame time period reference jokes like.....

"man it's hot today......isn't it folks? It's so hot JFK decided against the use of the air conditioning for the natural breeze of Texas"

ok maybe that was bad. But you get my point. In the monologue I would teach them facts. Then I would have a top ten list. Like the Top Ten Reasons Why Dallas Won't Host a Presidential Motorcade Anytime Soon.

The rest of the show would be interviews with people. I could interview LBJ. Either thru real archived footage, or thru a picture and put the fake lips in for his real ones like Conan does. I could have a person dress up as Chief Justice Earl Warren, who the "Warren Commission" was named after that investigated the assassination. Nobody really knows what he looks like off hand so i could dress up anyone.

I would have commercials interrupt us that were time period relevant, like fashion, new inventions of the time, etc..... Likewise the musical guest would be music from that time.

I think this is something I could wake up and be really excited about doing. The issue(s) here:

1. Time- when would I have the time to do all this?

2. The Set- where would I have a place like this to film and make it actually look decent.

3. Bust or Great?- Could I do it. I mean could I actually be witty enough to write worthwhile shows and execute the acting.

4. Learn- Would my kids actually learn from it? Would it accomplish the goal I wanted.

If the answer is yes to all of those. Maybe I could sell the idea, retire, and watch Letterman reruns.

Decision.

This won't come as a surprise to many of you that I have spoken to in the last 24 hours, but I have decided to not further my interest into the head football position at Fredericktown. I was fortunate enough to be interviewed saturday morning at Fredericktown, a small rural school south of Mansfield. I have been struggling with the idea that my life course has shifted from that boyhood dream of being a head coach to something else. Here I am at age 28 feeling like I'm going through a mid life crisis. It's not so much a crisis as much as it is just a shift in life in general.

The interview was a spur of the moment decision, like driving down a highway with your next exit swiftly creeping up on your right with two lanes of traffic between you. The AD called me on friday and asked if I would come up sat. morning at 8 am. I swerved hard to the exit and accepted the interview. I had my doubts going into it, I also had a heightened level of excitement. I mean, this could be it, I could be a head coach. I don't want to bore you but the interview went well with all my questions being answered. Imagine your dream vacation, really stack it up with all the bells and whistles....now find out that you can't take anyone with you, you're actually traveling on a big wheel, and your luggage is lost so you're stuck wearing a chicken suit that some overweight man traded to you for your dirty clothes (you were riding a big wheel in the rain on a dirt road)........ You still get that vacation though!!

The football job is awesome. They had a good thing going, and we would have had the opportunity to be very successful. However, the teaching job, the pay, and the daily drive is the riding on the big wheel chicken suit part. It's not doable. I wouldn't be able to be a successful coach while also being a successful teacher, oh, and a husband and now a father. The hats I would be wearing wouldn't fit on my moose sized head.

The hardest part is swallowing the fact that maybe, just maybe you are giving up on a dream. Maybe the dream is on hold, maybe the dream is better as a dream. Time will tell with that one.

The best part is that I found peace with it. God has made it very clear to me over the past four weeks that I clutter my life with junk like the character from my brother's play the {re}gifter. I search for fulfillment everywhere, instead of God. What I thought was an opportunity that God was creating for me might have been a distraction Satan was luring me in with. Maybe I'll be a head coach someday, maybe I won't, but I know when I'm 50 I will look back at this decision and be happy with the job I'll do as a husband and father, rather than the job I could have done as a football coach. That's a dream I can buy into.

Price is right and peanut butter/jelly

We are going down the list of things we need to do before baby shows up like:

1- paint the nursery

2-crib setup

3- freak out

4- find daycare

#4 seems to be the toughest part right now, the freaking out part comes naturally. Thinking back to when I was a wee-lil-lad I was lucky enough to have my momma take care of me until I was in kindergarten. I remember that I would go to half day kindergarten with my mom back to teaching full time I had to find a place to max and relax. Quick side note: I used to cry nearly everyday because I would see my mom walk across the hall and I didn't understand why I couldn't go with her. It turns out that since I didn't have a mental handicap was the reason. After leaving my morning of learning I would go over to Mrs. Peifer's house. Mrs. Peifer was this old lady that watched myself and a couple other guys. I don't remember a whole lot about her or the place other than the smell was a little off. I do remember like it was yesterday what we did everyday at 11:00, we watched the Price is Right and ate PB&J. Mrs. Peifer loved the price is right like Ellen Degeneres loves women. She wouldn't miss a single Bob Barker finger point. I think everytime I eat a PB&J I hear the Price is Right theme song and all of sudden have an urge to get my pet spade or neutered. I used to think I was being baby sat by Bob and that creepy voice that was always too happy to call someone down to guess on merchandise. I feel like I have a great feeling for when I am standing in the cleaning products aisle if the clorox bleach Kroger is trying to sell me is over or under $9.50. I'm going to make a shirt that says I love Bob and Peanut Butter, on the back will say "I love you Mrs. Peifer" you think maybe I'll get called to "Come on down" ??