Today was Barry’s actual birthday, so happy 50th birthday, Barry Frazelle! You certainly don’t act 50 and I hope you never do.
Church was great today. Brett Eddy delivered the message and did an awesome job, even after joking about following up probably the best message Mike Ashcraft has ever given. Amanda and I saw Nick Warkentien after the service. He and Amy had gotten in late last night and today was his first day actually working for and at Port City Community Church.
Amanda and I ate at Atlanta Bread after church then went on home. As has been the norm lately on Sundays, she caught up on some of the DVR’ed shows that I don’t watch and I played BioShock. She did manage to drag me away for a little bit to do some Christmas shopping though. We’re pretty much done with my side of the family now, which is nice.
Mr. Henry, our elderly neighbor, came by the house. He was having trouble with his TV/DVD player in that he couldn’t get the DVD (or tape, as he called it) to eject. I thought it would be a simple matter, but strangely it wasn’t. I managed to get the DVD out somehow, but then the regular cable stations wouldn’t come back on for him.
Amanda and I had started watching last night’s Saturday Night Live when Mr. Henry came over and we were planning on watching Duke play Rhode Island at 5:30. Fortunately, Amanda happened to decide, while I was gone, that she’d go ahead and set the TV on ESPNU, at which time she discovered the game was about to come on right then. For some reason the Duke basketball schedule in my iPhone is an hour off, and I always forget that. Anyway, she paused it, which was a nice surprise for me when I got back to the house. It was about fifteen minutes in. (Real minutes, not game minutes.)
That was a hell of a game, let me tell you! Duke started off cold and got down, struggling to keep up. At Cameron Indoor Stadium! Again ninth in the Atlantic 10 University of Rhode Island Rams! Ironic that they are the Rams, and they also wear sissy blue, although it’s not as sissy as Carolina’s sissy blue. Anyway, Duke had to go on an eleven point run to finish the half just to still be down by one.
Not a big deal, I thought. Duke will come out strong in the second half. And they did- they played very well. But Jimmy Baron, the coach’s son, was hitting everything. Dude went eight of nine from the three point land. And it’s not like Duke was playing slack or not guarding him. He took off balance shots, shots with the defender’s hand all in his face, practically half court shots- everything was going in for the guy. Apparently he idolized JJ Redick and it showed.
Like I said though, Duke was playing a fine game, but Rhode Island was playing a crazy out of their minds game. It came down to the wire, but Kyle Singler hit some clutch free throws and Duke won 82-79 (although it should have been 82-78 because there was a shot that was counted as a three even though Baron’s foot was on the women’s three point line). It was an exciting game, to say the least. I was getting text messages like crazy and Seth Holloman, who had gone to the game with his dad, called me on the way back from Durham to talk about it.
Zach Dotsey