Tomorrow is the Kentucky Derby. You cannot appreciate what happens to this town in the weeks leading up to the event, let alone the weekend of it without living here. The word “hype” doesn’t begin to do it justice. It is certainly the most exciting two minutes in sports – I’ll buy that. But it is so much more than that in this town. The celebrity watch and parties, the wall to wall coverage on every TV and radio station, the parties (Derby parties are as ubiquitous as Super Bowl parties), the parades, the pins (traded like Olympic pins)…. you get the idea. We awoke around 5:30 this morning (briefly), and flipped on the TV to discover that the day-long live coverage from Churchill Downs was underway in the dark. You see, today is the Kentucky Oaks, when they run the phillies. Oaks day is about at big as Derby day – they call it “Louisville’s day at the races” because its when all the locals turn out to show off the fancy outfits and hats that they don for the occassion (because the nice seats for the Derby itself is often dominated by out-of-towners.)

Put it this way: Schools are out today…. because of a horse race. Crazy, eh? But we’ll take with us the tradition of having a Derby party – could be a fun thing to do when we live elsewhere.

We’ve been in Greenville, SC this week visiting with family and exploring some things related to our potential move here. Turns out that I made my talk radio debut today as a guest on the “Calling for Truth” program on AM 660 WLFJ, a Christian talk radio station here in the Upstate. I’ve had a bit of email correspondance with Paul Dean, a local pastor and the host of the show pertaining to my search for a job in the area. We wound up having lunch together yesterday and talking for a good while about the Christian worldview in general, and particularly how it so easily becomes equated with politics and public policy issues. (I wrote brifely on that topic here – in fact that little article served as the jumping off point for our discussion on the air.) As it turns out he asked me to come on the show to talk about that and we had a really good conversation – one that could easily have gone longer than the alotted hour.

I really enjoyed the experience and would love to have future opportunities like that in the world of radio. If I come across the audio I’ll post a link or something if you’re interested.

Here I go again – back to school. There are times when I feel like I will always be in school and I wonder what it would be like to approach this time of year without looking at a new semester, a new school year, and all that goes with it. Obviously nobody is forcing me to stay in school, so it’s my choice. But I do look forward to a day, hopefully in the not-too-distant future, when I can finally move on. Actually I only have two seminars left before I’m done with my coursework (leaving only comprehensive exams and the big-daddy dissertation.

While I could theoretically take both seminars this semester, I’ve decided to spread them over the next two semesters. That seems to make sense in light of a new job and (coming soon) the new baby. So this semester I’ll be taking “Worldview Analysis” with Dr. Jim Parker. The subject is interesting and the books look good, so hopefully it will be profitable. I’m also taking Theological German (just one of those things you gotta do – in the PhD you have to pass a reading proficiency in two modern languages and this is number two for me). Lastly, I’m in our department’s colloquium (apologetics/worldivew, philosophy, and ethics are all together in our colloquium). I’m also once again serving as a Garrett Fellow for Dr. Chancellor’s courses (World Religions, History of Christian Missions) – which is a fancy term meaning I’ll be grading papers for him to make an extra nickel or two.

Anyway, this should be a pretty interesting semester…