Kickoff time...

It's Thursday afternoon - around 12:15 p.m. - as I'm starting this newly created blog. Here I am at work - Claude and Allan just arrived in the house; Bob will be leaving in a little while since it's his short day.

Here's some stuff about me:

The book I'm currently reading is entitled Walking The Bible A Journey By Land Through The Five Books Of Moses by Bruce Feiler.

I'm into autograph collecting - and I've sent a number of requests out - some of the latest:

Tony Stewart
Kurt Busch
Dale Jarrett
Jeff Gordon
Matt Flynn
Tom Brady
Jason Campbell
Michael Clayton
Brett Favre
Marcus Spears
Peyton Manning
Daryl Johnston
Troy Aikman
Jay Novacek
Emmitt J. Smith, III
David Lafleur

I haven't gotten a response from any of them yet, but I did send a card to Roger Staubach, retired QB of the Dallas Cowboys c/o of his company in Texas on 11/26/05 and received the signed card back on 1/5/06.

I have a friend who has a friend who lives next door to Donnie Allison, the NASCAR Legend. I came across a NASCAR Legends card of Donnie and so I talked to my friend and she checked with her friend. Then, I sent the card to my friend and she is sending it on to her friend - who is going to get Donnie to sign it for me.

BTW - anyone reading this PLEASE DO NOT ask me to get a Donnie Allison card signed for you - I don't want to "take advantage" of my connection there by asking to send more cards through that pipeline. Instead, I will give you an address for Donnie's office in North Carolina and you can send a request to him there.

I'm really big into sports, particularly football and NASCAR. My actual favorite drivers are brothers Bobby and Terry Labonte. Terry and I share the same birthday - we were born on the same day of the same month but in different yeas - he's older. My favorite NFL team is the Dallas Cowboys and my favorite college team is the LSU Tigers.

I'm a member of the First Baptist Church in the city where I live. It's a large church - around 9K in membership. I'm a member of the Maron/Wall Sunday School Class and I help with the records. I'm also a member of the Evangelism Explosion group - our new semester launch luncheon is this Sunday after second service/Sunday school. We have 2 of each and they "flip-flop" - both events are going on at the same time, some groups attend first service and then Sunday school (Maron/Wall does this) and other groups will go to Sunday school first and then to second service. I'll be heading to church early this week in order to help with the EE setup.

Well - my boss has been helpful to me. Steve helps me with printing pictures of those whose autographs I want to try for to send out at some point. We have a printshop here at work, so why not? I've sent him a number of astronaut pictures by e-mail and he has printed them 4 to a page and the file name below each photo so I'll know who I'm dealing with when I put the request package together.

My favorite type of music is country - my favorite group is ALABAMA - in particular, Randy Owen. The same friend of mine who is getting the Allison card signed got me a signed black and white photo of all 4 guys in December and I consider it a Christmas present. My male and female favorites are George Strait and Lee Ann Womack, followed closely by Alan Jackson and Reba McEntire.

I'm also into Christian music - among my favorites there are the Gaither Vocal Band, David Phelps, Clay Crosse and Michael W. Smith. I've met David, Clay, and Bill Gaither, plus a few others in the Gaither Homecoming organization.

While I live in Mississippi, I"m a native - born and bred - of Louisiana. Fortunately, the area that is my "stomping grounds" wasn't that heavily damaged - not like New Orleans and the other sections that were devastated. Mostly it's been a case of trees downed and debris in backyards. One of my cousins and his wife did live in Chalmette - one of the devastated sections and they lost almost all their stuff. I'm not sure what they're going to do yet - but I don't think they're going to return to that area and rebuild. They have been staying with his mother or his siblings, but finally got a place of their own in the southern part of the parish where his family lives.

I guess this will do it for now...