Classix

Ah, the frivolous post.

This will be mindless, meaningless and will have no impact on your day. But it sure will be fun to type.

Yesterday, my old college roommate, Steve Crockett, sent me a link to a website that took me back to college. Was it a link to photos of old college friends? Was it a link to someone's blog who I haven't thought of in years? Was it a reminder of how much I love ACU (even though we are moving...)?

Nope. That would be meaningful...

The website he sent me is called ConsoleClassix. On that site, you can play practically every Atari, Nintendo, Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis game available. Everything from "Adventure" to "Yar's Revenge" and everything in between. Talk about a blast from the past. We played a ton of Nintendo when we were in college. Hours and hours of the greatest games ever. Sure Xbox and PS2 are great, but this is greatness.

What a great site. I had forgotten about half of these games and never played the rest of them. Sure my kids make fun of me for these games with awful "side-scrolling" graphics and bad music. But they are the games I grew up with. There are some funny memories associated with some of these games.

However, you can't do this kind of blog entry without a list. So, in honor of my friend, Steve Crockett, I give you my top 10 Atari and Nintendo Games of all time.

10. Karate Champ.



Karate Champ was one of those games no one ever admitted to liking. So I won't do it either. I hated this game, but strangely couldn't stop playing it.

9. Kaboom!



Kaboom! was a game from the Atari era that was a blast. All you did was catch bombs in a bucket of water. Simple. Stupid. Addicting.

8. Solomon's Key



Exceptionally underrated game. Very easy and yet really, really frustrating. My friend David Hancock would play this game all night while listening to "White Lion", yet he is completely normal...

7. Mike Tyson's Punch Out.



How many of you remember beating Glass Joe? How about Bald Bull? C'mon, be honest...Mike Tyson's Punch Out was a great game. Maybe should be top five...

6. Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt



I may get challenged on this, but Super Mario is not a top five game. I know it started a string of games, but it's my dorky list. Not top five. Duck Hunt, however...

5. Legend of Zelda



I don't know anyone that didn't finish this game. That is how sad we were in the early 90's. Anyway, I showed Zelda to Cayce (my 9 year old) last night and she laughed and said it looked ridiculous. This morning she asked me to play it when she gets home from school. Ridiculous? I think not.

4. Pitfall



My wife's favorite game of all time. That is probably why it made it this far up the list. I love her. Well, that and the fact that he made a "Tarzan" sound when he swung on the vine... Greatness.

3. RBI Baseball

My friend Garrett can still hum the music that plays during the game. Nolan Ryan and Tony Armas were sick. Bob Stanley and and Jose Oquendo were not. I cannot tell you how many hours I spent in Chad Land and Mike Harris' room in Mabee Hall playing RBI baseball. I loved being the Red Sox and taking on the Mets or Angels. But I think my all time favorite RBI Baseball player was Kirby Puckett. I loved that guy.

2. Contra



Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Select, Start. Need I say more?

1. Tecmo Super Bowl



This was and still is the greatest video game of all time. You can have Halo. You can have Madden. I love this game. My roommates and I would listen to Led Zeppelin, Del Amitri and Journey every night and play this. Nothing brought more joy and more anger than Tecmo Bowl. Bo Jackson and Christian Okoye were awesome. So were "QB Bills" and Joe Montana. The Browns, however, were terrible. Great memories.

So there you have it. The definitive top ten. You also got a bonus look at the nerd side of me.

And it didn't even cost you any rupees...

Tennessee Jed

The Grateful Dead once sang:

"Tennessee, Tennessee, there ain't no place I'd rather be,
Baby won't you carry me...back to Tennessee."

Well, I guess officially I've never been in Tennessee enough to be carried back, but it is a good lead in nonetheless.

Both of you will be happy to know that Jennifer, Cayce, Kyle, Unborn female baby and I are moving. To Tennessee. Nashville, actually. You may say to yourself, "WHAT???" If you are saying that, then this blog is for you.

I predicted to my wife on New Year's Eve that I believed I would have a job change in 2006. Little did I know that God had sooner rather than later on his mind. On January 10th, I received a phone call from Ricky Holoway, a good friend of mine and the Director of Admissions at Lipscomb University in Nashville. I had talked to him about doing some consulting at Lipscomb this year. He said to me, "You know that consulting we talked about? We will do it one better. We want you to come work here." In my mind, I laughed. There was no way we were moving to Nashville. Boy, was I wrong.

But, I decided I had nothing to lose and that the chances were exceptionally slim that I would actually get this job. So after an interview in Abilene and two in Nashville, the unthinkable has happened. I have accepted a job running enrollment at Lipscomb. Wow. They even called it an Associate Vice President position. That made my friend, Mike Shanks laugh. "You?", he said, "Are you sure they interviewed you? Have they met you?" He instills a lot of confidence in me, obviously. (For what it is worth, I shudder and kinda chuckle when I hear him called "Doctor"...so I guess we are even)

Anyway, God was all over this process. We threw all kinds of obstacles in the way of taking this job. He removed every one of them. We aren't even moving until after the baby is born (which was the biggest of all obstacles). It has been truly amazing to see God's hand at work. It has been a whirlwind two months.

So, we are moving. It should be a very interesting time in our lives. We think we will love Nashville. However, I do know that I will never see my friend, Craig Fisher ever again. He never goes to Nashville. Just ask his old roommate, Brandon Scott Thomas. Even with that, I am really excited. There is a ton of work to do. Lipscomb is a school with unbelievable potential. That is a big draw for us. We hope that we can make a difference in Nashville. We will need God every step of the way, trust me.

Kyle and Cayce are so excited about moving. They were a little hesitant at first, but it didn't take long for them to warm up. In fact, the second I told Kyle we could regularly go to Titans and Vols games, he immediately wanted to leave. At least I am raising him with his priorities straight. Geez...

We will really, really miss Abilene and ACU. But it is fun thinking about the journey that God has led us on up to this point as he "carries us back to Tennessee."

By the way, can you quote the Grateful Dead while talking about God??