A Dieing Breed

Lately Ive been writing about a lot of deep stuff but the truth is, I'm honestly not all that deep of a person. Yeah I have thoughts about life and stuff, but I like it simple. So today I'm gonna tone it down a bit and talk about something we can all relate to and love. Sports.
The NBA today is full of stand-up players who can just plain dominate. However, there is one thing we don't get to see a whole lot, and that is centers. When I say center, I mean a REAL center, not this wishy-washy center stuff we see today. I'm glad to say however that their are a few centers who uphold the canter name with enormous shoulders. Ill start with Dwight Howard, who leads the NBA in blocks AND rebounds, need I really say more? Bottom line is this guys a beast, and lets see you try to contain his eight foot wing span or his 6' 11 height with his 265 pound frame. 254 is actually not a lot for a true center, but Howard is the exception. Averaging 21.0 points per game, and 13.90 rebounds a game Id say hes a force to be reckoned with.
Another true center is the one, the only, Shaquille O'neal. The big guys not averaging as high as Howard (18.2 points per game, 8.60 rebounds) but hes a beast none-the-less. All you have to do is step back and take a glance at his career to know that this guys a legend. Just this last play-off series I found out that it was the first time in ten whole years that somebody had made it to the finals without Shaq or Tim Duncan. What does that say about their dominance? Duncans not really a center, but Ive seen him play that position and hes not bad, but hes still not a center. Shaq AKA the Big Cactus or the Diesel is a figure in the line of centers, and that's because hes 7' 1 and weighs 325 pounds. That helps in that whole center thing.
Just to name a few other good centers are Kendrick Perkins and Yao Ming.
So if you take a step back physically you will see just how big these dudes really are. Now if you take a step back figuratively which (which is what I was talking about) you'll see that the NBA is dominated by huge, freaky-scary guys who could probly eat your youngest sibling. And what makes these guys so dominant? well lets think. Here you got these enormous guys, all over around the 7 foot marker and their in the best shape of their lives, and he wants to go to the hole strong.... Unless your also a true center what exactly are you gonna do about it? Part of what makes these NBA figures what they are is because they aren't content to take shots, they don't wanna easy jumper, they wanna layup, hook shot, or a jam. most of the time a jam. And unless your willing to get physical their gonna do it whether you want them to or not.
Even those there is a major shortage of centers in the NBA, there dominance continues as they stand out more and more because they are twice the size of the rest of their team mates.

Later

Fatherhood

Does anybody ever think about being a father? I do all the time. Its a little bit of scary thought, even overwhelming at times. I mean how am I supposed to direct somebody's life? Of course Ill male mistakes, but what if I make a mistake so big that I cant ever fix? What will I do then? It must hurt so much to have a child you love so much hate you an equal amount. So then the subject of this post is: will I make a good father? I sure hope so.
Lets look at the things that make a good dad. The most prominent of these being, was my dad a good dad? Absolutely, I couldn't have asked for a better father, hes been an ideal role model. He was, and is reliable, trustworthy, wise and all those other good things a dad should be. But will I be like him? If I was half the father he was I think Id be pretty good, but I wanna be better. I wanna be the dad that everybody wished was theirs, I wanna be a dad that my kids will look up to and not wish somebody else was there dad. I wanna be the dad that can go from the ultimate sports trainer to the shoulder-to-cry-on in like .2 seconds. Will I be, Or will I be a failure? What if my kids hate me? Today you see so many kids who hate their parents and for what? Because they wont let their kids have cell phones or go out with somebody? Teens these days say they hate their parents because of the stupidest stuff. Don't they realize that these are their parents and that parents only want whats best for their kids? Its like crossing the street as a kid. Your parents told you not to cross the street because you might get hit by a car. A realistic possibility right? But what did you think when you were a kid? You thought your parents were mean because they wouldn't let you cross the street, you didn't really care that you might get hit by a car, most of us didn't even know that being hit by a car was even a possibility. So then it makes sense that their would be things that we want today (to cross the street) but our parents don't want us to have them because we might get hurt in one way or another. Make sense or do I just sound like a dad? :) Well Ill see how this whole parent thing works out one way or another right? But hey, I mean Ive got time to think about it, so no pressure. Yet.

Caleb

The Power of Prayer

Alright so check this out. About a month ago my basketball team had a tournament. And not just any tournament, a State Tournament, and we had a shot at first. Before the first game, I prayed for like, 20 minutes straight, and not this "let me win this tournament and ill follow you forever" crap, I came to the lord and said 'help me and my teammates to play to the best of our abilities and do good in your name. There it was. No making deals with God like some of us try to do, no begging, just me saying hey, your will be done.
During the game we played our hearts out, coming back from a twelve point deficit to being up by 1 point in the fourth quarter. There was about 15 seconds left in the last, and we had the ball, and remember, we were only up by 1 point. The idea was to hold the ball for those last seconds and just pass the ball around, so the other team wouldn't have a chance to score. So we passed the ball around and for about 6 seconds we did good, until I got the ball. I was wide open, i mean nobody around me for miles, so there I was on the three point line, wide open and ready to shoot. Guess what? I shot. You know what else? I missed. Just barely. The other team got the ball and headed up the court for a fast break, only about 6 seconds left. they got close but a teammate of mine fouled him to stop him from going to the basket. At that point I realized what I had done, I had lost the game for my team, if only I had held the ball and passed it around we could have won. My team was in foul trouble, so any time we fouled they got to shoot, regardless of whether or not they were shooting when we fouled them. The ref called double-double and number 25 went to shoot his free throws. There were only about 3 seconds left on the clock. At that point the gravity of my failure hit me and I dropped to my knees. I had tears in my eyes and sweat pouring down my face, number 25 was one of their best free throw shooters, I thought there was no way we could win this game. Right there and then i prayed to God, I said 'lord you control what happens, your will be done". Needless to say I couldn't watch the guy shoot free throws, so I bowed my head. It was dead quiet in the gym, nobody even dared to breathe heavy. Anxiety, fear, depression, and hope all danced about in my head, and my heart dumped a bucket of butterfly's in my stomach. All was silent. Suddenly the crowd roared and I thought surely he had made it, but I looked up to see the ball roll of the back of the rim. It was our fans cheering! he had missed. But he still had one more to shoot. If he made this shot we would go into overtime, if he missed we would win. Thinking it to much to hope for him to miss, I began to prepare myself for overtime. Once again the crowd was silent, there must have been 200 hundred people in there, all waiting and hoping for different outcomes. Passing him the ball the ref stepped back to allow number 25 to shoot. This time i watched, ready to see the outcome with my head held high since i had a second chance at this. I watched the ball go up, i knew it would go go in before it ever did. It didn't. My teammate skied up to grab the rebound as time expired, 3.... 2..... 1..... It was over. We had won by 1 point, number 25 had missed BOTH his free throws and we would be playing for 1st tomorrow. Of course my team and our friends and fans and family immediately exploded into celebration. My team became a huge huddled mass of jumping and hugging and people we didn't even know stood to their feet and applauded. After words, while I was alone I gave thanks to God for like an hour merely acknowledging his presence and power and care for everything. Let me tell you, I received quite a bit of ridicule and jokes after that game and I joined in the laughter, I knew Id made a stupid choice and I will admit some of those jokes were funny.
The next day was not fun. My whole team was oddly quiet and everybody secretly thought about, but never said aloud the possibility of us losing. Nobody really wanted to say it, because if you did, the dream would be lost, even just whispering it would shatter our hope and resolve. We joked to try to make ourselves comfortable, we laid around and did stupid jokes to one another to try to loosen ourselves up but you could still feel the tension, the full weight of what was about to happen. Later on it was the quietest locker room Ive ever been in, everybody's heart seemed to be stuck in their throat. Finally the time came, we jogged out onto the court and began to warm up. Now let me fill you in on the situation that i forgot to mention earlier. Our point guard was out, he was away on a church trip so he wasn't at the tournament. Who does that leave? Me. Here's the thing, I am a two guard, which is similar to a point guard but still different, and whats more im possibly one of the worst point guards ever, not really, but im definitely not great. Point guards an important position, and I wasn't use to playing it so there was a lot of pressure, in all honesty a lot of people didn't expect us to do too great simply because our regular point guard wasn't there. Before the game I prayed again, my prayer was shorter this time, but the same stuff was meant and said. Despite the pressure we played like animals. All the junk our coach told us to do we did, we got the ball in the paint and we rebounded pretty well. But still the team threatened to come back on us since we weren't up by a lot. Then we got a 15 point lead and kept it til the fourth. Domination? I do believe so. In the last 2 minutes of the fourth quarter we lost some points and only won by 5, but that's because we started subbing in other guys who didn't get a lot of playing time. It didn't really hit me what had happened until later, the fact that we had won just couldn't seem to stick, it was almost as if it couldn't be true, it was what I had dreamed about for the past 3 weeks. Once the game ended we lined up and shook hands with the other team like all good sportsmen should, but for some reason I still didn't feel it, that elated feeling you see in movies you know? When u see the whole team jumping on each other and screaming we won? Nope none of that. I hugged my teammates and went back to the bench. Some official lady went out and presented the 2nd place trophy to the other team, and then it got quiet. She called our team name and we stepped out onto the middle of the court and there it was. This super-heavy trophy made of wood and gold that was in the shape of the Texas state, it was beautiful. She turned and looked expectantly at one of us to take the trophy and to my surprise, everybody looked at me. I wasn't the team captain (far from it) but I had played point guard when that wasn't my position, and directed my team as best I could. I might sound conceited or prideful, and I don't mean to, but just wait and you will see what I'm saying. Anyways she handed me the trophy and we took pics and partied til like 2 in the morning at Double-Dave's. It was epic.
Now here comes the not-so-awesome part. Just this last week we went to Virginia for a National tournament. Here's the thing, I didn't pray. bum bum BUM! Why didn't I pray? I just forgot to, seriously it just never crossed my mind. Well it didn't at least til i got home, then it hit me and I realized what happened. I'm not saying that we lost because we didn't pray, don't get me wrong, I'm saying that without asking for Gods divine direction and help, I might not have played to my fullest potential.
So where does this leave us? Lets consider what happened. State tournament- I prayed before, during, and after each game for my team and myself. We won. National Tournament- I think I prayed once before I ate some pizza. We lost every single game. So while prayer might not win the game for you, I do think God will recognize you giving it all up to him and help you out and bless you for giving it to him.
Thanks for reading- Caleb

Alright so I drew this sketch with a purpose. Anybody ever listen to the radio? Do you have a favorite station? I do. Do you ever listen to the song lyrics? Hmm now there's a thought. What I'm trying to say is if you compare song lyrics with any other song its all pretty narrow. Don't get me wrong, I love music, but the song topics are pretty small. I mean how many more rap songs can u honestly want to hear about drug trafficking? Or rock songs and their messed up girlfriends or how they wanna make it big? I'm still not sure why they have wings. Just looked cool.

New Years

So its the new year. Does anybody have any awesome new years resolutions? Mine is to work on basketball everyday and be able to draw people way better before next year. Since its only January 2nd Ive got a perfect record so far, but that brings to me too what i wanted to blog about: why we cant stick to things we set out to do. So Ive never been on a diet, but i have tried to follow work out programs and stuff and like us all, I do good for about the first few days and then i either forget about it or procrastinate or get to busy or whatever. But why? Why is it so hard just to stick to something that is not fun, but good for you? Temptations one thing, I am pretty lazy so sometimes I just put things off until later, but again, why? I think its because of our sinful nature. Most of the people reading this are probly like DUH but for those of less fortunate we are all created with a sinful nature, or in terms everyone can understand a part of us that is naturally bent on self-destruction. Excuse my christianese. So how do you stick to something then? I would say your best bet is to get an accountability partner, those are pretty much one of the best things you can get whether you are a struggling drug addict or just trying to lose some weight. Another thing you can do is make yourself a chart. My Dad will probably laugh when he reads this because his answer to 75% of problems is make a chart. But hey, it works for him, so why not? To wrap this up when you make a new years resolution that you really want to stick to and not just say something that sounds good, get an accountability partner, make yourself a chart to record your progress and then, brag about it! Once you've dropped like twenty pounds or gained eight pounds of muscle why not let someone know? Your accountability partner will be happy to hear about it and once you see the results you'll be inspired to keep going. For example (I know i said id wrap this up) i worked on my three point shot for two weeks and when we played I nailed SIX threes in the first quarter. I didn't hit but only one more because I twisted my ankle bad and looked like Igor from Dr. Frankenstein for the rest of the game. Good times.

Cool Poem

I found this poem while doing some school work on a crazy hard curriculum, thought it was cool so i decided to share it.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog! Alright so sometimes I have ideas that are pretty much awesome and I have a hard time remembering them so I write them down. most of them are pretty random and a few are even very interesting, but the point is they are now here for all to see. Hope you enjoy my "daily musings".