Funny guy. The game, as they say, is on. I supply the fuel; let’s see what you can do with it. You set the bar high with that first effort. Surely you can do better than the latest.

Whoever it is should own it. I lauged out loud, not twice, but THREE times! I’ll let you guess which one was my favorite.

I’ve never done this before, but here’s a list of some of the internet searches that have led (or misled) people to our little blogorhood in the last few weeks:

• thad norvell blog – Here I am. Pretty disappointing, huh?
• proper form for layup – I’m definitely the wrong guy for that. Just ask my 8th grade teammates (some of whom actually lurk around here).
• listeater.jpg – …not sure you want to see that.
• urine that smells like bacon – I’m not kidding. In fact, our urologically-warped friend Smanny has made me the number one return for this phrase on at least one search engine. Scary.
• thad norvell home anywhere – Still here. I’m impressed you remembered the name of the place.
• when is stevie brock’s birthday? – Sorry, no idea. I don’t even know who Stevie Brock is. In fact, I have no idea how you got here looking for Stevie. But tell him happy birthday for me.
• dangers of laptops – Off the lap, boys. Or is it off the boys, boys?
• oldman in the old folks home – Thirty is right around the corner, but not yet.
• —– ——‘s girlfriend – Those blanks represent the name of one of my friends. I’m not going to post his name because he’s married and it just looks bad to have people searching the internet for your girlfriend when you’re married. He doesn’t have a girlfriend, for the record. Or so he says. [Quit counting blanks, weirdo. They are not proportional to the actual name.]
• thad norvell blog (again) – Still here.
• Charlie Peacock 2005 – I once sat next to him in church, but I still haven’t finished his book. Maybe this search is a suggestion: Thad, 2005 is the year to read Charlie’s book. I’ll read it soon. No, really. I will. Quit googling me your judgments on my current lapse in reading discipline.
• Various other listeater queries – I never knew my site traffic would benefit so much from this little piece of Aggie lore. Thanks, listeater.
• urine "smells like butter" – Dear sad people with odd-smelling urine disorders: I cannot help you. I have my own bladder issues to contend with. I can’t solve everyone else’s. Go see a doctor.
• Chevy Chase autographs – He should have retired after Christmas Vacation.
• Carmelo Anthony signing autographs – No, that was just me posing as a game show host at Wal Mart. Perhaps my layup form fooled you.
• classic essays online e. b. white – Read as many as you can find. If you think he’s just the guy who wrote Charlotte’s Web, you’re like the people who think Lyle Lovett is just the really weird looking country guy who was once married to Julia Roberts. Swim toward the deep end.
• thad norvell blog – Bookmarks, people. If you’re managing to turn your computer on often enough to search me out like this, learning to bookmark web pages is a natural next step in computer literacy. Consult the nearest third grader to learn this skill.

More to come, I assume. It’s too bad I didn’t start keeping track when I was getting major hits from people searching out pimps and such.

Ian Robinson tells you why.

Too bad. I was looking forward to lightening the load a little. I’m all for increasing the ratio of actual oppressed/struggling Americans to delusional celebrities and rich folks who think they know anything about oppresion/struggle.

Postscript: If this makes you mad, a few suggestions:

1)Remember that Thad is increasingly apolitical and, at best, conflicted about the war, yadda yadda yadda.

2) Recognize that this is a Canadian perspective, not GOP propaganda.

3) Lighten up already. No matter what you think of the President, this is funny. Laugh. If you don’t, someone else will end up laughing at you.

Don’t mess with Gloria and Shoats. Especially Gloria. [Suggestion: This story plays best when you give your imagination liberty to animate Gloria. I suspect your imagination won’t do her justice. As you read what she says, remember it’s rural Georgia.]

Me thinks the Norwegians are on to something.

– I’m getting old. How do I know? Aside from thirty storming around the corner in a few months (which honestly doesn’t bother me much), I pulled a gray hair out of each side of my head this week. I’ve had them in my beard for a while, but this was new. I also experienced utter bewilderment at a New Year’s Eve party I found myself at (long story) that involved mass consumption and loud music. After the 14th playing Snoop’s Drop it Like It’s Hot, (my apologies to those who arrived here from a search engine looking for S-N double O-P, D-O double G…you might want to hit the back button and try the next link) I found a back room and went to sleep. Too loud, too silly, and I was too tired. Not that I was ever the beer swilling party machine, but the whole scene just reminded me that I was old (and that I know I’m getting old, which I can’t say for some of the other folks at the party).

– I think it’s time to go public with my belief that Joe Simpson will reap eternal consequences for what he’s done to his daughters, maybe especially the younger one. If you still think the SNL snafu was ugly, then you missed last night’s Orange Bowl meltdown. She got her @$$ booed off the stage, BCS style. It was an odd combination of sad, ugly, and altogether justified. Joe, please. Your daughter was made to do something meaningful, and you’ve hoodwinked her into thinking it’s this. It’s not. Please, rescue her. Be her Dad. Protect her and restore her. Repent and God will forgive you. I just hope your daughters, once they discover the lies they’ve been encouraged to believe and live, will be as merciful.

– I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because they feel like the kind of religious path to right living I’ve come to disdain, and maybe it’s because I’m weak and undisciplined. Either way, I’m not making any promises, but there are a few things I want to make priorities. Maybe posting them publicly will supply some manner of relational accountability sans the yoke of ritual obligation and subsequent failure. I don’t know what any of that means, but here are a few things I want to do and/or change about me:

• Write more, write better, and write more better. This is a long time goal that needs to find life. Maybe it means more writing here; maybe it means trying to get published. I’m not sure. I just believe I’m supposed to be doing this in more meaningful ways, and I wouldn’t mind the opportunity to free myself from the ritual of the desk job, which makes me get old a lot faster. My job is not without meaning or purpose, but I believe I was made to labor long and hard for the Kingdom in some ways that my job doesn’t allow.
• Be a better husband and Dad. Amy and Aiden deserve that, and I’m sure the as-yet unnamed and unknown child growing in my wife’s body does too. I love my family, and I want to love them better.
• Get in shape. As I get old, my shape is changing in ways that I’m not familiar with. I need to exercise and I need to eat better. The back end of that is among the most painful changes I can imagine.
• Love stuff less; love Jesus and people more.

– I appreciate you. I don’t know who you are, but you’re reading this, and there’s really no reason for that. I’m just a guy. Thanks for investing a small percentage of your existence in me, or at least in my words. I hope they will make you think or laugh, and I’d love it if they nudged you toward some kind of deeper interaction with Life and Light and Hope and Peace.

– Over 150,000 people died in the tsunami (that’s roughly 50 times as many people as died on 9/11). Millions more are left homeless, destitute, and hopeless. Children are orphaned, whole economies are destroyed. Do something.

When I miss you it’s often the weather I’m missing, but not today.

All my love this holiday season,

thad

A few supplemental notes about Aiden’s injuries:

– The poor kid who ran him over felt awful, and the other kids immediately began to yell at him as if he’d kicked a baby. The whole thing was an accident, and I put my arm around him and assured him that Aiden would be fine and that it wasn’t his fault. It was important to me to declare his innocence in front of the other kids. A few of Aiden’s biggest fans seem interested in acquiring the kid’s address. Not necessary. He’s a sweet kid who’s about six years old. Aiden holds no grudges. In fact, while still sobbing as I was cleaning up his face, he started asking to go back outside to play with the kids again.

– Aiden is very proud of his wounds, and he’s "telling the story" to anyone who will listen, including me and Amy (over and over). He’s just beginning to really display a command of the language, using phrases we aren’t teaching him and understanding almost everything we say. Every time he touches his nose, sees himself in a mirror, or someone remarks on his injuries, he proceeds to babble out the same half-intelligible version of the story. Despite it only being partly in English, it’s clearly the same every time, and it includes enough pertinent words (like ball and nose) that it’s obvious he’s telling his war story. Clearly that inclination is nature more than nurture.

Yesterday afternoon Aiden and I were hanging out in the living room with the windows open. Some neighborhood kids were playing out front, and after watching them for a while, Aiden started yelling at them. A few of them came over to the window to talk to him. After a minute I walked over to the window to observe the interaction, and the kids scattered. It was one of those moments you realize that you’re old…kids are scared of pretty much any strange adult.

I assured them it was fine to talk to Aiden through the window, and eventually one of them asked him, "Do you want to come outside and play with us?" At two years, three months, Aiden has a pretty good handle on the language (better than I realize a lot of the time), and to my surprise he said, "OKAY!" and headed for the front door. I stopped him to put his shoes on, and we went out to play with the big kids.

They immediately gave him their basketball, and one or two of them would pass it back and forth with him while the rest of the group played tag. I stayed in pretty close proximity the whole time, but obviously not close enough. As Aiden was chasing the ball across the drive, he ran out in front of one of the kids–probably five or six years old and twice Aiden’s size–being chased by whoever was "it." It was a classic high-speed playground collision, and Aiden went flying. Fortunately he fell forward onto the basketball, which he caught right in the gut. His upper body continued toward the ground, and his face skidded across the pavement. He came to a stop inverted, face in the ground, belly on the ball, legs in the air. I knew he was hurt, but I also knew the facial/head impact with the ground had been relatively mild, enabling Dad to maintain a reasonable amount of calm. The tears were profuse (Aiden’s, not mine), and we went inside to clean him up.

I wanted to document the scars, so I put him against the wall to take a few mugshots. Turns out he’s entered a posing phase, and he made me follow him from one wall to the next taking pictures of him. "This wall, Dad….this one, Dad…"

The first one is from last night, just a few hours after the carnage. The last two are from today, with the wounds fully developed. You can click the photos to enlarge them.