You may have surmised, if you read my post after the Georgia-Georgia Tech game the other day, that I’m not really a big Dawgs fan. That’s kind of funny, because I have been a pretty big fan of their coaches.

This article about the “hot seat” reminds me why I like Coach Richt…

That’s where player after player, person after person, senior after senior, stepped up and Georgia became a team.

“It’s what unites us,” [quarterback D.J.]

Shockley said.

Four years, that chair has sat there. They call it “the hot seat.” Each August, players � seniors primarily � are asked to sit there. Every Georgia player and every coach is right there with them. And then they just tell their story. However painful, however difficult, they tell it.

And this…

“That is what brings you that much closer together,” [junior rover Tra] Battle said. “You get past the realization that it is not just your teammate, but this is your brother. This a family member. This is someone that you love. And that is reality of what the hot seat is intended to do.”

Not in a selfish, self-serving my-life-was-more-difficult-than-yours manner, but in a way that allows teammates to understand each other. That’s why [safety Greg] Blue stepped up and told his story.

“It let them know that I can trust them,” he said. “Usually, you don’t tell everybody what you have been going through, but I was able to tell my teammates and my coaches what has been going on in my life.”

And the team starts to understand the person more than the player.

Well, the old hat answer is something like…

You make an A** out of U and ME!

Seth Godin reminds us that everybody doesn’t always know what we think they know…

Before you decide that everyone knows something (or no one does), take a second to realize that you’re wrong.

Thanks to Ross Hollman over at Strategize for the link!

I had lunch today with the one, the only Marty Duren, the voice of all things right and reasonable over at SBC Outpost. Marty’s a sharp guy, doing a great work, he gets his news from The Onion and LarkNews, and he’s a fan of maple butter blondies! Does it get any better than that?

Thanks Marty, for the lunch and the fellowship!

I’m becoming convinced that many of us just don’t get it when it comes to Christmas.

We’re frustrated by unfulfilled expectations. We’re frazzled by the unrelenting calendar. Some of us are so burdened and burned out by unpleasant and even harmful memories of Christmases past, that we don’t realize the glory of the Great Invasion.

Robert Greenleaf, of Servant Leadership fame, had such unpleasant memories of childhood Christmases gone bad. Yet, he decided to compensate by going all out to celebrate the coming of Jesus.

Check this great story over at the Servant Leadership blog. And then decide, right now, once and for all, that nothing is going to keep you from knowing, experiencing, and sharing the Good News of Great Joy this year and every year.

A rather humorous – but unfortunately, all too true – take on the real meaning of the Advent/Christmas season. Good stuff from Jeff over at The Curt Jester.

…for creating your own Christmas cards! Great stuff from Dave Walker over at The Cartoon Blog.

Tonight’s unwind is interesting in that it consists of three separate collections with the same title!

Eric Tingstad and Nancy Rumbel’s acoustic guitar set is called The Gift. It includes some of the best-known traditional Christmas songs, but in a way you may not be used to hearing them done.

Liz Story is one of my favorite pianists. I discovered her on the Windham Hill stuff several years ago. Her Christmas offering is also entitled, appropriately, The Gift.

Jim Brickman is another pianist from up on the Hill. A little more “sentimental” in his approach than Liz Story, but great Christmas stuff nonetheless. I really like the Point of Grace rendition of the non-holiday-standard Hope Is Born Again.

You’ll give a great gift to yourself and everyone in your house tonight if you’ll put these CDs on, light up one of Scott Hodge’s candles, and unwind from a weekend of mall crowds and church crowds. I’m using the time right now to finish up some notes to guests from our worship sevice today and some other loose end kind of stuff. All three of these “Gifts” are absolutely perfect for a Sunday night unwind.

Enjoy…

Just don’t say a word – not a single word. It wasn’t nearly as ugly as I thought it would be. (It wasn’t that pretty on either side, but I had predicted it would be almost as ugly as that slobbering mutt in the picture!)

Some of the places we went today, mostly to watch people. The lovely and gracious “Mrs. Just Charlie” calls it qualitative research. There were two big highlights, other than spending the whole day with the lovely and gracious “Mrs. Just Charlie.”

See the picture in the middle? It’s one of my favorite places in Atlanta. And today, I had the great privilege of dealing one of my favorite people there. Imagine The Big Show of WWE fame. Give him a tad darker complexion and a sex-change operation, stick a gold ring in his eyebrow, and give him some 3-inch-long fingernails, and you’ve got the picture! (Some of you who’ve been there know I’m telling the truth, because you’ve seen her, haven’t you?) Anyway, this gal’s been working there at least since 1996, and I remember like it was yesterday her uh…correcting of an out-of-town Olympic visitor who had no clue (“When I say ‘Whattaya have?’ you gotta say whatcha gonna have! Know what I mean?”). She’s great and slings those chili dawgs, O-rings, and F.O.’s like nobody’s business! I told her I appreciated her today, and you should have seen her stylin’, smilin’, and profilin’!

On the way to picture #3, we stopped off at Talbots in the Peachtree Battle shopping plaza. Once again, we had the privilege of great customer service by our friendly Talbots gal, Kathy. Not only did she recognize us when we walked in the store, not only did she make some very helpful recommendations and suggestions, but she pointed out some things we hadn’t thought of and helped us save a few bucks along the way! Thanks, Kathy for being the official Talbots gal of Just Charlie!

One thing that really got to me today was this: Why in the world do people willingly choose to get out of their homes and into the crowds and other mess that is “Black Friday,” and then when faced with standing in line, they get really bent out of shape with the other people? Go figure…