I saw Jill and Andy this weekend, once up at Acoustic Jeremiah in Canton, and once over at a church in Oxford (Conyers/Covington area).  My favorite snippet of conversation from the weekend came from Saturday night:

Jill: Do you know if any web folks will be here tonight?
Ron: I think Jeff will be here.
Jill: Really? Geof is here? Cool.
Ron: Yeah, he and his wife are coming.
Jill: (look of confusion)
Ron: He mentioned they were getting a sitter for the twins.
Jill: Geof has twins? I didn’t even know he was married!

At this point, I realized we were talking about different people.  Granted, this may only be funny if you know Jeff, Geof, or Jill.  The look on Jill’s face was almost as priceless as the thought of Geof having twins.

Recently my friend Greg made reference to a blog called Stuff Christians Like that’s written by this guy Jon Acuff. I figured it would be pretty lame and stupid, but Greg’s sense of humor is a lot like mine (sarcastic even though we call it “witty”) so I subscribed to the RSS feed to see what all the fuss was about.

Stuff Christians Like takes one topic at a time and points out how Christians like that topic. It sounds really lame, I know, but it’s absolutely awesome.  Really.

Examples:

• Boycotting Stuff
• Forcing Little Kids to Sing the End of Your Song
• Testamints - Sending Bad Breath to Hell
• Letting Porn Win

This morning I awoke to the sound of voices in the back yard. Then I heard a noise that sounded a bit like static on the TV. Neither my cat nor I really cared much about the voices, but the loud static noise really concerned me (and the cat). I went into the bathroom toward the window, wondering what I was going to see outside. What I saw was the last thing I would have ever expected to see - the Remax hot air balloon.

Yes, you read that right.

I watched from inside, and I snapped a few pictures before going out to talk to my surprise visitors. When I got out there, the pilot was laughing. I asked him if he was ok, and he wondered why I would ask - as if the Remax balloon frequents my back yard. He said they were flying and “it was time to bring her down” so since my yard is big and free of power lines, they landed in it.

There was a Remax van in my driveway. I guess they use it to transport the balloon. It had all sorts of GPS navigation equipment mounted in the dash. They backed the van up to the balloon, loaded it up, and drove away. It made for quite the bizarre morning.

Anyway, here are the pictures:

There are very strict regulations on who is allowed to coach in my kids’ soccer league. They won’t let just anybody do it…

First, you have to have a kid in the league. This takes at least 4 years of planning since the kids must be at least 4 years old.

Second, your kid’s team must be in need of a coach. This is easy (if you’ve completed the first requirement) because it’s a Baptist church, and though we love the Baptists, sometimes getting them to volunteer can be tricky.

Third, you have to watch the 20-minute coach’s training DVD.

Once you’ve completed all 3 requirements, you are a fully trained and qualified soccer coach. I am in the small minority of those who have completed all 3. I guess that makes me Coach Ron.

We had our first game today. Technically, we won, but officially we don’t keep score. I have 8 little guys aged 4-6 that are on my team. I was somewhat (ok, extremely) nervous about how today would go, but thanks to the soccer moms who helped me herd the children around the field, it went ok.

Next week, we will be trying to improve my coaching record to 2-0, which shouldn’t be difficult since they don’t keep score.

This might not be my #1 favorite movie quote, but it’s in the top few. From “Field of Dreams”:

The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again.

What’s your favorite movie quote?

Today is birthday #42 for former Braves’ pitcher Greg Maddux. Yesterday I watched him get career win 349 and watched in amazement at how smart of a pitcher he is. So with Greg’s awesomeness in my mind, and since it’s his birthday, I figured I’d share my Greg Maddux story.

It was 1996, the last year the Braves were in Fulton County Stadium. I was 18 years old. I had made the trip to Atlanta with a couple of friends and was watching Maddux pitch his regular bullpen session. In the old stadium, you could get really close to the pitchers in the bullpen, and I think I was about 15-20 feet from Maddux.

Some fat idiot was standing beside me and began talking very loudly about how awful it was that Maddux’s career had fallen apart. See, Maddux had a rough start to that year. He had an excellent ERA, but was getting on average about 2 runs per game support from the team. Smoltz, on the other hand, was getting about 5 runs per game. Apparently, the 2.72 ERA Maddux posted in 1996 meant that his career was over.

The guy wouldn’t shut up about it, and it really got me aggravated. I piped up and told the guy he was crazy. I told him that we were watching one of the smartest pitchers in the game. I pointed out how Maddux’s change of speed and location control dominates batters even though he doesn’t have overpowering stuff. I told the guy that even though Smoltz was having a good year, Maddux was still the better pitcher, and that he shouldn’t judge Greg by a win/loss record - especially when his team isn’t giving him any run support.

I went on and on (kind of like I’m doing now). I don’t remember all that I said, but I really gave the guy an earful. The guy finally shut up and walked away as Maddux was finishing his bullpen session. Greg made his final pitch, stepped off the mound to grab a towel. Then he looked up at me, smiled, and tipped his cap as if to say thanks for the support.

Hopefully in about a week, Maddux will win game #350. You can bet I’ll be watching that game. This week I found some links online talking about Greg. See here and here. The first is substantially longer than the second, but it’s about the best article on Maddux I’ve ever read.

Happy birthday, Greg! (Yes, Greg reads my blog…you doubted?)

Let there be much rejoicing in the land!  The Office is new again.  NBC 9pm.  Tonight.

If you need me in the 9:00 hour tonight, don’t bother calling.  I won’t answer.   (Yes, it’s a 30-minute show.  I’ll watch it twice.)

My last post, which provided a sneak peek at the new Diet Mt. Ron label prototypes, brought up several questions about this amazing new product. Instead of answering them in the comments of that post, I decided to put the answers here in their own post.

Tanya asks: Does that mean they’re sucking out your blood to make pop?
No. My awesomeness goes into the drink, not my blood. Putting blood in it would change the color to something other than the natural “awesome green” color. Though I suppose if we used some blood, we could do a “Code Red” type of product…

Allison asks: You do know that Gaines already patented this under his name, right?
Um, Diet Mt. Gaines? That would never work. May I suggest Diet Dr. Gaines instead? Dr. Pepper has needed an improvement for some time now…

Ethan asks: How do they extract that “little bit of extra awesomeness” from you to add to the new premier beverage of the diet soft drink world? Plasma transfusion? Colonic irrigation? Used kleenexes from your trash?
We tried plasma transfusion, but I don’t do needles. Colonic irrigation (which is even less pleasant than it sounds) worked, but I’m not willing to do that on a regular basis. Used Kleenexes from my trash give you much less awesomeness than you would ever imagine.

Ethan asks: When the awesomeness leaves you and heads for the bottling plant, do you get weaker?
If we did an invasive process, I would be less awesome for a short period of time. However, we use a process Sarah and I developed called A.W.E.S.O.M.E. (Automatic Wireless Extraction System to Obtain My Effervescence) that allows us to collect the awesomeness as it emanates from me. It’s pretty complex stuff…I’ll post more about A.W.E.S.O.M.E. later.

Ethan asks: How long does it take to come back up to full awesomeness?
We don’t harvest extra awesomeness from me, so my awesomometer is always full.

Ethan asks: Do you have special dietary requirements to keep your awesomeness levels up during a bottling cycle?
We have found that certain foods do help boost my awesome levels. For example, when my diet is high in pizza, we are able to increase production by nearly 20%. Mexican food, candy bars (specifically Butterfinger), ice cream, and BBQ pork are also among the foods that positively impact awesomeness collection levels.

Thanks for the great questions!

I’m very excited.  The prototype for the Diet Mt. Ron bottles arrived this week, and I thought I’d share it with you all.  No word yet on when it’ll be in stores…we’re still ironing out details.

I’ve ignored the blog a bit since my return from my annual Florida Spring Training trip. You may have noticed a general lull out on the internet. Yeah, that was me. Sorry.

I’ve got 17 (or so) posts floating in my head, but right now I really only have time for some random randomness.

• The 3 Yankees pitchers who all need to have a great season for the Yanks to be playing in October (Hughes, Chamberlain, and Kennedy) only make $1.2 million combined this year. For a $200ish million payroll, it seems like those 3 guys are underpaid. (or maybe some of the other guys are overpaid? Nah…) Source
• I bought The Weepies‘ “Say I Am You” as suggested by Geof, but it’s not grabbing me like he indicated it might. It’s ok, but it hasn’t floored me like I thought it would (not yet, anyway). Geof’s music recommendations are typically very solid…maybe my taste in good music is still developing…
• I just downloaded a free book (“The Man Who Was Thursday” by G. K. Chesterton) thanks to a tip from Richard. Thanks, man.
• Andy Osenga’s CCM announcement from earlier this week still has me laughing. 25 Ron Points to you, Mr. Osenga.
• I’ve been following an interesting discussion over at the Rabbit Room that included a brilliant post by Ron Block. One of these days, I’m going to get a chance to sit down with Ron Block and just talk about stuff. That guy amazes me, but with a name like Ron, you’d almost expect it.
• Diet Mt. Dew has been officially renamed “Diet Mt. Ron” in our office. The Mountain Ron tastes about the same as Mountain Dew, except you can tell there’s a little more awesome in there.

I’ll post something less random as soon as I can. Thanks for reading.