This page will be full of B-Houses' favorite hobbies like sports, reading, my commentary picks, and will also have some teaching outlines and papers that have been requested. This page will take a while to develop (sorry!).

All USC, Baby!

I love rooting for the USC college football team. College football is the best sport to watch because of the history, rivalries, and the huge number of people that go to the games. The last few years have been good years for being a big USC fan. In 2002, Carson Palmer won the Heisman and USC finished with a BCS Bowl win over Iowa. In 2003, USC won a share of it's first national championship in 26 years. In 2004 they won a second national champsionship in a row and another Heisman Trophy (it doesn't get any better than that), and in 2005 they finished second after making too many mistakes in the national championship game but did win their third Heisman in four years. In 2006 they blew their opportunity to play for it all when they lost to UCLA the last game of the season and the same thing in 2007 when they lost to Stanford. It's hard to know what to expect in 2008 but hopefully it will be a great season with a national championship for the Trojans.

Music:

I enjoy a few different genres of music and what I do like, I like a lot. As far as Classical music goes, Handel, Bach, and Telemann are my favorites. These are wonderful composers. My favorite Worship & Praise music is usually given to my by my buddy "Boston" Will. He always finds music I've never heard before and I always enjoy it. Swing is what I know best. In Germany, I D.J. a lot of dances so I've accumulated quite a bit of swing music. I enjoy all of the old stuff (Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Les Brown, Sinatra, Tommy Dorsey, etc.) but also really enjoy many of the modern swing bands like Wartime Radio, Bill Elliott Swing Orchestra, Stompy Jones, etc.. My favorite CD's is by Gene Krupa with Anita O'Day called "Meet me Uptown." These songs are nice to listen to and great to dance to.

Sports:

I love rooting for the USC Trojans football team with my father-in-law, Howard. We've gone to a bunch of games including the USC-Notre Dame game in South Bend, Indiana! Unfortunately, there is no American Football in Europe (except Europe League which is now shut down) and absolutely no college football - talk about sacrifice. Even CNN (I hate CNN) doesn't offer any college football scores or highlights. BUT thankfully there is now Slingbox which allows us to watch live T.V. from America in Europe through the internet including football games (though the games are usually in the middle of the night and the picture quality isn't great). Still, I have to admit that I've stayed up a bit late and gotten up early a few times.

Books:

I've really enjoyed reading Jeff Shaara's books (Historical Fiction on American Wars). The most recent one I've read have been a series by Donald Burgett about his experiences as a paratrouper in WW2. They are pretty intense but very interesting. I've also been enjoying reading a a book on marriage called "Love & Respect" published by Focus on the Family. In addition, I'm also reading "The Reformed Pastor." This is a great book by one of the Puritans, Richard Baxter. It is one of the best books for pastors (another is "Lectures to my Students" by Spurgeon). I wish I had more time for reading but the girls and continual moving has kept us too busy to read much.

Photography:

I don't know why or where it came from, but I love taking pictures, especially of landscapes. I prefer very much to use film, but we finally invested in a digital camera due to the expense of film and developing in Europe. It's amazing how quickly camera de-value; fast than computers but not as fast as new cars. I really wish we could afford a camera body upgrade and a new lens. Right now we have a Canon 10D with a 85mm and 28-200 lenses. Not great but we're thankful for them.

Games:

One of my favorite board games is Scotland Yard by Ravensburger, a German company. One person plays the part of Mr. X who trying to avoid the detectives of Scotland Yard (the other players). He gets chased all over cental London using various transportation systems. Another great games are Settlers of Catan & Carcassonne. Other games I recommend include: Carcassonne, & New York Chase (another version of Scotland Yard).

I hate to admit it, but I also like video games. My favorite Game Boy Advance game is Advance Wars 1 & 2. These games are great strategy fun, but can get a little time-consuming (or so Jennifer tells me). For the XBOX, I recommend NCAA Football by EA Sports. I like to play as USC and win national championships every year. I'm trying to ween myself off video games though and hope to sell my XBOX and games when we get back to Germany.

Commentaries:

Here's B-House's current suggested commentary list of the New Testament. Most of these are evangelical. My favorites are the Pillar & Baker series. A fair understanding of Greek is probably needed for the NIGTC Series ("New International Greek Testament Commentary"). The NIV Application is pretty good too though some tend to be a bit liberal for my taste (just a bit pon a few issues). I'm currently working to beek up my Old Testament collection little by little. The only way to buy them is on trips back to the states.