Voice Change

Does anyone know a good way, short of going through puberty again, of making my voice deeper?

Last weekend made it very apparent--in a loud gym against a rival, it's really hard for players to hear me yell things at them. My voice is just not deep enough. It doesn't carry well. Which makes it hard when three or four of the guys know what you're trying to do, but all five of them don't.

So, I gotta work on really projecting my voice a little better (using my hands as a megaphone-type thing?), but if someone knows a good way to make me heard (bullhorn?), that would be wonderful!

Scouting my JV team

Apparently, my JV team is being scouted. Well, kind of. In our first offensive possession of the game on Saturday, we ran a set play I got from my days at Glenn. And, of course, the play worked, but it almost didn't. That's because halfway through the play, one of Greencastle's assistants started yelling out what was going to happen. I thought they maybe were just really really perceptive, but no....

The guy came from Plymouth. One of Glenn's big rivals. He actually recognized the play from three area codes away. How crazy is that?

Authorship

A good friend of mine recently wrote a book. A novel. I got to read the first draft--it hasn't been published yet, and in fact hasn't been accepted for publication. And, before it does, it needs a rewrite. Besides general proof-reading missteps that will come up in a 600-page book (it doesn't read that long), there are a few parts that need to be toned down. But he enabled me to get a copy of the first draft, which I read very quickly.

I think the book is very good, and has a chance to get a lot better after those minor changes.

Now, how cool is it to know someone like that? To be able to say "I know an author," or maybe even "I gave him feedback on his book." I feel important or famous by association. As if that mattered...

But even cooler, I think, is to have had a lot of personal, intimate conversations with the author. To know some of his joys, his struggles, and his passions, and then to see it come out in the book. There were portions of the book that made me smile because it just reaked of the author's personality and beliefs. I've never tried to write something that big, or known any who did, but I've found it fascinating. Not just to have the creativity to do so, but the willingness to open yourself up like that is amazing. I'm so proud of him, and excited for what God may do through this book!

Third time's the charm

So, take two was unsuccessful Friday night at Brown County--it was a good game, but we ended up on the short end of things. We were down three with about two minutes left, which was unfortunate, because if the game wasn't so close I probably would have gotten a technical. One official was actually apologizing for the other one.

Saturday night gave us our third try, though. We played a team that was taller than us at every position, but was really slow and couldn't handle the ball very well. So, we picked them up full court and got out in the passing lanes. We won each quarter by about five points, until the fourth quarter, which we won by about twelve or fourteen. It's nice to have a runaway win, to protect our home court, and to really see positive things.

Now, in the future, we're going to go up against teams that are going to be quicker and apply more pressure to us, but hopefully we've learned a little bit, so we can play this way against stronger teams...