I don’t vote for American Idol. I don’t call Seacrest or text message him on my AT&T wireless phone. I’ve never auditioned for Survivor, though I did give about two seconds of thought to applying for The Benefactor. I’ve never even found my way to a local Jeopardy casting call. I’m typically not one for reality TV or for game shows. But I have this one vice…

Back when Who Wants to be a Millionaire? made its first run, I got curious and made about four attempts to qualify by phone. And I did qualify, at least as much as it was up to me. If you don’t know how it works, you call a toll free number and a robot guy asks you sequence questions, much like the fastest finger part of the show only without Regis or the national television audience. The questions have four answers, each one corresponding to a number on your keypad (1,2,3,4). You have ten seconds to correctly answer each question. Once you get one wrong, you’re done. To qualify, you have to get them all right. It seems like it was only four questions on the first run of the show, but I may be wrong about that. Now that it’s Super Millionaire, it’s five questions. Anyway, a few years ago I made it through all the questions and advanced to the next round. As it turns out, that just meant I got put in a pool with all the other eggheads who got through the questions. They never called my number, and I’m not a millionaire.

So as you may have guessed, I’ve been sucked in again this time around. I think it’s worth saying that, for me anyway, the draw really is as much the competitive (even self-competitive) aspect of the game as the money. I still love and want money more than I should, but not as much as I used to (or at least I hope that’s true). I’ve never had much money, so I don’t think I seriously entertain the prospect of winning a million bucks, much less ten million. I just watch the show and rant about how I could school most of the folks in the hot seat. Oh, and I absolutely thrash on the fastest finger questions. Really. My wife thinks I’m an uber-genius based on this fact alone. Which is a fitting segue to —

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The NHL playoffs aren’t over yet?

American Idol isn’t over yet?

Alright, I’ll confess that I was a little disappointed in the ho-hum response to the first volume of blog-bios. Are you really that bored by each other?

Either way, I’ve received several delayed entries since publishing the initial batch. I’m hoping to get those up soon — I’m just waiting for that unmistakable moment when I’m divinely infused with just the right dose of loving wit for my intra-bio commentary.

I only make that little announcement because I think a few of you still lurk in the shadows of semi-anonymity. Bare it all, that the world may know your name….

Did I mention this whole banner-making/-changing thing is one of my favorite little features of the new setup? I’m not exactly sure why I’m appeased by such basic stuff, but I am. I make these from photos and other art I accumulate, and I know there are a few amateur photogs in our midst. If you have something that you think will look slick, zip it my way and I’ll give you props if I use it. And I know that’s what everyone really wants — props on the new blog.

As the prophets and scribes have warned, the blog is back with a brand new invention. Somethin’ grabs a hold of me tightly…

Er, sorry. I got a little side-tracked.

So I was ready for a change. I think we needed an infusion of new life in several ways, and this grand re-opening is the beginning of that (I hope). First, we need more activity around here. I’m working on that one. I also want to make the whole experience a little more interesting and worthwhile for everyone. I’m working on that too. The new name and shibboleth will serve as our north star in this effort. I’ll unpack them both eventually, but feel free to speculate and cogitate and ruminate in the meantime.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I also grew to dislike the aesthetic vibe of my blog. I’ll spare you the boring details of how it came to look that way and why it didn’t change for over a year, but there was little I could do about it in the blogger matrix. (Blogger was the host service for this stuff.) I’ll also spare you the boring details of why I didn’t do this sooner, but I’ve now officially traded in my blogger keys for the greener pastures of Typepad.

Rather than spin through a long list of the many ways in which Typepad is superior to blogger, I’ll just let you discover them for yourselves. Just know that I can do more and do it more easily. The look here is much cleaner, I have a lot more control of it, and it’s all much simpler than trying to get comfortable in my old digs. That said, I’m sure I’ll have something to complain about soon, so don’t go sending Typepad any charitable donations just yet.

Anyway, say your goodbyes to this stuff and change your bookmarks. This is where it will all go down from now on (or until I get restless again).

I’m still working through some minor issues, but I decided home anywhere was ready for public exploration. So look around and tell me what you think.

There is a Redeemer
Jesus, God’s own Son
Precious Lamb of God, Messiah
Holy One

Thank you oh my Father
For giving us Your Son
And leaving Your Spirit
‘Til the work on Earth is done

Happy Resurrection Day, everyone. He is risen…

A bunch of regulars and a few irregulars

A quick word on why we’re doing this.

I’m not sure why the rest of you show up here whenever you show up here, but this has turned into an odd little corner of the universe for me (and I mean odd in a good way). As I’ve mentioned before, there’s some interesting diversity in the crowd of faces I see as I look out from the site. That diversity is not only reflected in the types of people who are reading and posting, but in how each of you is connected to my site and, more importantly, to my life.

Over the past year, this site has evolved into a place where an unusual assortment of people from different chapters of my life assemble, often having little in common other than the misfortune of knowing me in some way. Since I’m always looking for ways to make this less about thad (okay, not really, but play along), I thought it would be nice to sort of introduce you all to one another. Some of you know a few others here, but no one knows everyone. I think we’ve had some fun and interesting conversations over the past year, and I think the potential exists to have even more so long as Blogger keeps accidentally letting me do this entirely rent-free. Hopefully a little more enlightenment about the other kids in the sand box will make for more edifying and illuminating dialogue. If not, at least we’ll all have more ammunition to poke fun at each other, especially me.

I’ve decided to include everyone’s response as they sent it to me. Everyone should have the chance to speak for themselves, so I’ll preserve the integrity of your autobiographies. That said, it just wouldn’t be right if I didn’t insert some commentary, and I’ll do that using this font style so you can tell the difference.

There’s a lot here, but I think it’s worth reading, even if you can’t do it all in one sitting. These are in no particular order. I don’t rank my friends or family, so I’m doing this as arbitrarily as possible. So, let’s get to it.

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It’s been an unusual week or two, hence the chirping crickets. I’ll be getting the VH1 Behind the Blog stories on all of you up soon. For the two or three of you who haven’t thrown down yet, you’re running out of time. I can’t promise my version of your story will be as, um, flattering as you might like if you don’t give me anything to work with.

Also, for those of you who were pimping KU and UK back in one of the comment discussions, I told you so. The rest of my bracket may have cratered (though I picked OSU to win it all in my church bracket group), but I had GaTech spot on.

It’s time for all the regulars to reveal your true identity. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, but I keep forgetting when I’m actually at the computer. If you’re reading this (and especially if you ever contribute to the graffiti in the comment sections), send me an email with the following data:

• Name

• How you know me (if you do) or how you found us (if you don’t)

• Personal info like marital status (and spouse name), kids, education, career, and age (feel free to approximate if you’re sensitive about such things)

• Why you bother hanging around here

• Anything else interesting about you worth saying.

I’ll give you a few days, then I’ll put it all together and unmask everyone. If you’re a regular and you don’t send anything in, I reserve the right to submit your life and person to creative editorial embellishment at my leisure.