December 20, 2009
I have been in Kentucky for about 10 days now. Hitting the big double digits! Aside from the lack of familiarity with tri-tip among the natives, this place ain’t* so bad.
*Note: “Ain’t” is a local colloquialism often used as a contraction for laborious phrases such as “is not”.

So far I have frequented two superb coffee shops in town. One is adjacent to a bakery. This bakery sells an assortment of fun products such as a maple bar with a thick piece of bacon on it (pictured above). I’m wondering if I can convince them to make a bear claw with a sausage patty baked inside.

One fine young gentleman who works at said coffee shop is pictured here participating in a latte art competition I was invited to this past week. I had no idea such a thing existed.

The results were quite impressive.

In less than one week I managed to discover the best thrift store in town thanks to the help of a new friend. The tally so far? 4 books, one beanie, two pairs of gloves (I’m still not used to the cold), old-school editions of Risk!, Monopoly, and Clue, an Eddie Bauer gore-tex jacket (I’m not used to the rain either), new (to me) running shoes, and a copy of the Star Wars Christmas Album on cassette tape (pictured above)! Apparently the cassette tape version is quite rare and worth well over $100. (Kids: if mom tells you to stop shopping at thrift stores, you should probably obey her, but be sure to give money to your friends so they can buy you stuff.) It may be worth some money, but from what I listened to so far, it sucks.
December 3, 2009

New Mexico tried its best this morning to derail the trip with snowy roads and icy conditions so much so that Odysseus may have thought that I angered Khionê the night before (that’s for you, Adam). But, rest assured, all is well.

All is well except for the cleanliness of my car’s exterior. No, I did not run over a lot of chocolate ice cream. Those are mudsicles.

“How could that have happened?” you may ask. This is how. Driving, stopping, and driving some more through a steady stream of snow for a few hours will do it. Note: descending down a spiraling highway off-ramp caked with snow with no tire chains is about 10 minutes of no fun.

You know what else is no fun? Picnic areas. As you drive down a lonely highway full of snow, you may desire a place to take a quick “rest” break. Thus the wonder of the “Rest Area”. But picnic areas are no such wonders. Some genius decided to build a few of these along the I-40 in Texas, but didn’t feel like including any restrooms. No toilets, no urinals, not even a squatty. Just a quiet place (because no one has a picnic in the middle of Texas when it is below 30 degrees out) for truckers to park and take a nap.

But Oklahoma came to the rescue! Stopping at a gas station that John Wayne probably used (top picture) also reaped the great bounty of a sweet meal at a place called “Restaurant”. I didn’t bother to ask what it was really called but that’s what the big sign had written on it.

I was going to order the country fried steak, but they were out. So I settled for BBQ beef. It came with pinto beans, potato salad, Texas toast, and fried okra. The coffee tasted like it was brewed with grody gym socks and old toilet water, so it was utterly fantastic (but not as good as Silver Dollar’s).

Speaking of toilet water, the men’s room had two showers in it. Apparently people out here don’t know how to eat and instead of simply wiping their hands clean they need to shower off after a meal. If that is you, then this is the place to eat!
September 15, 2009
Fantastic sermon by Al Jackson at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Chapel this morning: here is the link.
On a similar note:
No, it isn’t for lack of money that there are 1,568 peoples with no missionaries. It’s because we have so much. The comforts of the West have made us soft and cautious and fearful and indulgent and self-protecting, instead of tough and risk-taking and bold and self-controlled and self-sacrificing. When prosperity preachers fly their personal jets to the Two-thirds World and promise the poor that if they believe in Jesus, they will get rich, they are not doing Christian missions. They are destroying its foundations. That is not the gospel that saves and produces sacrifice.
John Piper, Proclaiming the Excellencies of Christ, Not Prosperity, Among the Nations