Three.

Count 'em. One. Two. Three.

That's the number of bee-you-tee-ful throws made to me that I was unable to catch. Three just-out-of-my-reach throws last night that would have been perfect layout throws, if only I could layout with regularity. At top speed. On offense.

This was at MPUL last night. One of the throws I knew was coming: a hammer from Adrian to the back corner. I watched that one fall.

The other two were from Andy Crews. He's definitely used to playing with much faster players than I am. The throws were completely and totally brilliant. And I missed them both. I wanted to cry. Especially since Andy is the type of player that not only inspires his teammates to play better, but his playing makes his teammates play better.

I am in awe of him.

Fortunately, Kris knows this and is in much the same state as I.

Heather Wolnick later saved the night for me when she commented that the training I've been doing is paying off. She can tell the difference in my play, especially my endurance and quickness. My being the first to the other end of the field on a pull is being noticed! I'm really glad she said something, because I was getting pretty down on my play last night.

I think sprinting 70 yards, then turning around and sprinting back ~35 yards will be next week's sprint workout. Maybe this Friday's, since tomorrow night is MPUL and Thursday night is SFUC.

So, the problem I have with most "devout" Christians (aside from the obvious hypocrisy of the religion and the practice of said religion) is that they refuse to listen to reason, logic or common sense when confronted with thoughts, events or other beliefs that conflict with their "faith." It's almost like becoming religious means you stop thinking for yourself.

Some scientific studies show there are distinct biological differences in the chemistry and makeup of the brains between devout religious persons and the rest of us (heh: I almost wrote, "between devout religious persons and normal people."). Perhaps those differences account for the desire to let someone else think for them, to follow blindly without a critical thought? Of course, the issue could be a brain disorder instead.

I know very few intelligent, well educated people who are also devout religious people. Note I said "few": I do know some. They exist. Though I'm not sure how they balance faith with critical thinking. Maybe early indocrination into the religious cult, er, organization?

Regardless, here's my thought about it: how about starting a blog or website that's nominally Christian based, but with pushes of critical thinking in it? It could have lots of Bible quotes, but a history of how the books of the Bible were selected, and how people should read the other "forgotten" books. And maybe some pointers about you shouldn't dump your money into some televangelist, because even Jesus tipped the bankers' tables over in the church (though it was probably a synagogue at that point). Oh, and how about the obvious-to-anyone-who-isn't-a-devout-Christian observation that being a Christian means respecting other people (even if you don't like their opinions). Oh, and that God gives us all free will. That means each of us chooses our actions and you, Mr. Bible-Thumper, may not choose mine for me.

Eh, we'll see. I could do it free at Blogger (and get some free links/search access to it!). If I do decide to create the site, I'm sure anyone who knows my writing style will recognize the site immediately as mine. Maybe when they do, they'll keep mum about the originator.

Bella peed in the bed last night. I'm at a loss for words right now.

I took Kris to the airport this morning.

We received a call from his sister yesterday that his father was having chest pains in church. He went into open-heart surgery 2 hours ago. Kris is flying back home today, and should be there when his father wakes up tonight.

I think I've managed to see Kris for 8 days this month. I think that's a new low water mark for us. I miss him.

When I dropped him off at the airport, I went around to park the car as he was checking in. Wade Hellner gave Kris his Southwest Rapid Rewards ticket, so he could fly out on a moments notice (thank you again, Wade!). Wade booked the ticket last night, which meant Kris couldn't check in online. So, I dropped him off, went to park the car, and then went inside to get that last 10 minutes with him before he spent the day travelling back east.

I think when we split at the "Ticketed passengers only beyond this point" spot, he assumed I left. I hadn't. I waited until he was through the line, turned the corner and walked to his gate. I managed to squeeze in an extra 4 minutes there. Even if he was 10+ yards away.

He didn't turn around to wave, though. Didn't know I was still there.

I miss you, Kris. Be safe. Love and prayers to your dad.

This had to be the worst weekend ever. And I mean ever. Kinda gross, too, so if you don't like reading about dry heaves and not-so-dry heaves, how about skipping to last Friday's entry?

Having just returned from Los Angeles and dealing somewhat with my condo and visiting (thankfully at Suzanne's request) Wook and Jon Hartzberg, I fed the dogs, ate some leftovers, and settled down to watch some tivo'd shows.

Around 11 pm, I started having that achy, sore, guess-what-you've-got-the-flu feeling. By 12:30, I was in the bathroom delivering the previously mentioned leftovers to the sewer system. With surprising ease, actually. I haven't vomited in a long time, maybe 10 years? But I don't ever remember being able to do the fake heave and have it trigger a real one.

Let it be known that I eat a lot of apples. When I'm at home, I have probably two a day. And with those apples, I eat a lot of peanut butter. Vitamin E, magnesium (important for day two of this exciting weekend), protein, what's not to love about peanut butter?

Tasting it coming back up.

The dry heaves started around 2:30, when the chicken leftovers wanted to come up, but couldn't quite make it back out of my intestines. Thankfully, they relented and came up. My intestinal tract was completely clear. At some point, when lying on the bathroom floor looking up, I thought about taking a picture of the bathroom from that particular vantage point. It would have made a nice addition to this post, but I couldn't get up to find the camera.

Ah well, at least I could go to sleep now that my stomach was empty.

But I didn't sleep well. I woke up at 3:16, 4:21, 5:38, 6:24, 7:37, 8:29, 9:30, 10:14 (you see where this is going right?), keeping the trend up until around 2:30 pm when I actually felt like getting out of bed.

As much as I wanted to do something with the day (strip wall paper, convert postnuke sites to drupal sites, finish an online rostering system, learn flash, read Reality Dysfunction), it wasn't going to happen. Instead, I watched all the tivo'd shows we had, and all the Alias DVDs we have that I hadn't watched yet. In told, 12 hours in a vegetative state, unable to do much other than wiggle my fingers to fast forward through the commercials.

The good thing of being unable to sleep on Friday night, was that I slept really, really well on Saturday night.

And woke up to a migraine at 10 am.

Up. Feed the dogs. Down a 800 mg ibuprofin. Back to bed to sleep off the blindness.

No such luck. I woke up at noon more blind than when I went back to bed. And really, really hungry. This time, I took a couple magnesium and B6 capsules (as a magnesium deficiency has been shown to be a contributor to migraines), had some juice, ate some toast and vegged for a couple hours hoping the pounding in my head would subside somewhat.

Fortunately, my eyes cleared up within the half hour (yay, Mg!). Unfortunately, Bella spent the whole freaking day with her whine, whine, whine, CHIRP! whine barking. I hate that whining. But the barking! Damned dog, stop the barking! Just shut up!

And Kris isn't expected home for another 5 hours. He's been gone since Friday afternoon on a ski trip. Did I mention that Jessica's breast cancer spread and she's on chemo? Or how about Kris' dad is heading in for triple bypass surgery? Yeah, found those out on Friday, too.

This has to be the worst weekend ever.