Tennessee Minister Murdered

When I saw this story come out on Friday, I was intrigued by the magnitude of the horrible incident itself, as well as by the fact that it took place in a denomination that I used to be a part of, the Church of Christ. The last name of the family (Winkler) involved also sounded vaguely familiar So, I called a good friend of mine in Knoxville, who said that the father of the slain minister stayed at his house one time for a week while he was ministering at a church in the area. Over the weekend, I periodically read news updates about the case and looked at what bloggers were saying about the issue, most of which was speculation (which in a situation like this is hard to resist doing). Just a short while ago, I stumbled across the names of the confessed murderers parents in an article. I couldn't believe it, I know who they are. The mother died a few years back, something I now recall. The father still lives in Knoxville, and refused to comment on the situation. The reason I know them is because I was the temporary youth minister at the church they attended in the summer of 1997. They had a large family, I want to say 6-7 children, and a few of them were in the youth ministry. I went back and looked at the photo of the deceased minister and I was able to remember meeting him. I cannot recall having any prolonged conversations with him or his wife, but I believe they only stopped in once or twice that summer since they lived several hours west of Knoxville. I'm pretty sure that she was the oldest child and I do remember her younger siblings talking about them a lot and how they had just recently gotten married the year before. I recall that they looked up to their older brother-in-law. This is all I can remember now, but once I saw those names the memories came back rather quickly. Anyway, it is an awful thing. I cannot imagine the agony that the family, Mary, and the children are going through. Hopefully, there is some sense that can come out of this. May God grant them all grace and mercy.

Mason Makes the Final Four

As an avid sports fan, I do not think I have ever seen anything as unbelievable as George Mason's run to advance to the Final Four. I say this because runs such as this one and championships are usually won by favorites, or by teams maybe ranked in the second echelon of a particular ranking system (example- in a 32 team league, it's a big upset if a team ranked tenth wins a championship). Mason was on nobody's national radar screen and not even on a local radar at the beginning of college basketball season. If you predicted that a local team would have made the final four four months ago, most people would have suggested Maryland, Georgetown, or George Washington, but not George Mason. And then nobody could have, in their wildest dreams, ever predicted that to get to the final four Mason would knock off three of the last five national champions (Michigan State, North Carolina, and Connecticut). In watching them however, and as surprising as this run has been the Patriots are not a fluke. They are a well coached, disciplined, and smart basketball team, that deserves to be in the tourney. They almost did not make it though because of a tough, but good decision made by the coach. His principle in choosing to do the right thing(bench one of his stars), despite the fact that it was the difficult thing to do is a great lesson to all people, and especially these young kids. It's hard not to root for these underdogs especially when they are led by such people as Jim Larranaga. If Mason can win two more games they will be the champions of college basketball and pull off one of the great sports stories of all time. GO MASON GO!!

USA Video

You have to check this out, if you haven't already done so. This made me laugh so hard, I almost cried. I don't know which was more hilarious: the video or the lyrics?

Obnoxious new fad

So, what's with the sudden obsession with saying the following phrase, "... not so much." Is it just me or is this trendy phraseology kind of irksome?