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rlp

Hello there,

I have a number of things to tell you about. I’ll take them in order of importance.

My trip to the Dominican Republic

Back in October I went to Louisville to learn how to install water purifiers. I wrote about this while I was there. At the time I mentioned that I planned to go with Edge to the Dominican Republic in January on a team that will be installing a very large purification system in a hospital.

I thought I had all the details down regarding this trip. Trips overseas are expensive, whether you are going on vacation or for a project. The short version is that I just found out that this trip is going to cost $950 more than I anticipated. I’m sure the fault is mine. It almost always is with things like this. (Remember the church sign?)

Um...okay I’ll just say it. I need $950 pretty quickly. I can’t cancel Christmas at the Atkinson house. I wouldn’t do that, but it’s a moot point. Whatever Jeanene and I are doing for the girls and each other is already paid for anyway.

If you would like to sponsor me on this trip, I’d appreciate it. Edge created a page for donations to help me raise this money. There’s even a little counter so you can see how much has been donated. Hopefully the total will get to $950. Hey, even $10 would help. I just need 95 people do do that.

One of my jobs on the team, along with the installation work, will be documenting the trip in pictures and posting daily at Real Live Preacher. You’ll be able to watch the installation as it happens.

So...let’s move on because there are few things more awkward and uncomfortable than asking for donations and I really hate that I’m in this situation...

RLP software upgrade & spam

This site is uses Drupal, an open source content management program. It was rather state-of-the-art when Matt Sturges built it a few years ago. I went with Drupal because it has a lot of modules and things that I thought would be nice. In the years since, Typepad and Wordpress have gotten pretty sophisticated. If I was designing the site now I’d probably go with one of those.

But...I have users and subscribes, etc. The archived content of this site is pretty complex, and recreating it would be a lot of work. So I don’t want to leave Drupal. But comment spam is so bad that I’m forced to do something about it. A lot of my writing in the archives is littered with the most unbelievably filthy comments. Really awful stuff.

Comment spammers have gotten pretty sophisticated. They don’t hit the stuff on the front page where I would notice it immediately. It all gets posted on old things buried back in the archives.

Drupal has great comment spam tools now, but my old version can’t use them. Grrr. So I have to upgrade. But working with Drupal is beyond me.

Enter Tim Miller and his company, Jethro. Tim lives in Australia and has been reading my blog for a long time.  He has a blog of his own that is a part of the High Calling Blog network that I helped setup. His company also happens to specialize in Drupal. We were emailing back and forth, and he offered to let Jethro take over the software management of this site, leaving me free to write the content and not worry about it anymore. They are doing this at no charge. This gives Jethro a chance to showcase their mad Drupal skills on a site with decent traffic.

It’s one of those times when two needs come together and everyone is happy.

The very day I handed over the keys to RLP (administrative access to the site), Drupal broke. I mean it just stopped working. So it was a little embarrassing - "Thanks for taking over the site. It's broken, so can you fix it?" Tim had to figure out what was wrong, which he did quickly. His techie Rohan had no trouble putting things right. Whew. Talk about good timing! Needless to say, I’m very thankful for the folks at Jethro right now.

So why am I telling you all of this?

I’ll be getting a new version of Drupal with spam protection, but there is a problem. Tim estimates that there are 50,000 spam comments in my archives. There is no easy way to get rid of them. Going through and manually deleting them is obviously out of the question. We could just delete all the old comments, but I’m not going to do that. The comments are one of the ways you participate in Real Live Preacher, and that’s important.

I notice a number of you have had suggestions for the folks at Jethro in dealing with this. If you know something or have any ideas about how to get rid of all that old spam, let us know.

Before I leave this subject, let me say that Rohan would like your prayers. His newborn daughter Caitlyn has a rare disorder and is blind. You can visit her website here. Prayers for his family are appreciated.

I've asked for prayers a few times over the years. So many readers of rlp are not particularly religious - a thing I like. I've always been impressed by the response. Those whose spiritual discipline calls them to pray do so. Others leave respectful comments. I can feel those of you who do not pray looking on with a gentle respect for our traditions. For we are called to pray for each other, we Christians. It's not a matter of understanding what happens when we pray. It's something we do because we are called by Christ to do so. So yes, I stopped today and prayed for Caitlyn and her family. In that moment, in some mysterious way, I was connected to this family on the other side of the world.

I don't understand it. I just do it.

The Sign Saga

If you don't know about the sign, read this.

Well, Reggie saved the day. As usual. He found a very smart way to extend the sign so that it fit between the poles. Admittedly, there is now a line and some extra space to the right and left of the lettering, but given how messed up this whole thing was, I'm thankful that we have any sign at all. And I think it's amazing how good it looks. Here's the sign:

Click for an enlarged view

And here's a close-up so you can see how he did it. The sign fits into a slot on each pole. Reggie used three pieces of plywood and sandwiched the sign cleverly between them. Amazing.

Click for an enlarged view

It feels like I have a lot going on right now.

rlp

Hey everyone. Tim Miller is the new guy in charge of the technical end of things here at rlp. I'll write a little more about him tomorrow. We met by chance, but he came along just in time.

I have two pieces being considered by the Christian Century and am working on a third serious piece which will go there or here. This one is tentatively called "Let's Put the X Back in Xmas."

While I finish that, I have a number of things to tell you about tomorrow:

1. Reggie Regan saved the day on the sign. I have pics.

2. A new RLP will roll out soon. Same basic look but new Drupal and probably some new stuff. I have a hard decision to make regarding the old comments and a plague of comment spam. I want to ask you what you think I should do about that.

3. I just found out that my trip to install water purifiers in the Dominican Republic in January costs more than I thought. I'm going to humbly ask for a little help. Tell you about that tomorrow as well.

For now, I'm thankful for Tim Miller getting the site back running.

Until tomorrow...

rlp

The blog is behaving kind of wonky. Someone on my shared server did something that messed things up somehow. That's all I know. Apparently most people can't see any images.

I'm in the process of turning this blog over to a serious IT guy, but we're just getting started. Anyway, I'm sure I'll get it figured out soon.

I had jury duty today. It's the third time I've had it since moving to San Antonio in 1989. The first time I got questioned a couple of times but ended up sitting around reading the whole day. The second time I was excused because I had primary childcare responsibilities for small children.

Today I spent 9 hours in a pool of potential jurors for one trial. In the end I was selected to serve on the jury. I can't speak about this case at all, but I will say that a person's life rests in our hands. This isn't some small thing. For reasons I can't discuss, the case will definitely be done by Tuesday evening or early Wednesday morning.

I didn't want to do this. I was hoping they wouldn't take me. I knew Monday would be lost, and I didn't want to lose more days in my week. I need to be writing. Our family rather depends on that these days. I confess that I was thinking of answering the questions, well, honestly but using any angle I could to get dismissed.

Then I watched the sacred manner in which the judge and lawyers treated the jury pool. They stood respectfully each time we entered the room. I looked at the defendant, who isn't the sort of person that anyone would like. And I realized that being on a jury is a sacred calling. You follow the letter of the law because it is larger than you are. Sort of like saluting a superior officer out of respect for the rank, regardless of what you think of the person. So I said this little prayer and I told God that I didn't want to do this, but that I would answer every question with absolute honesty. If chosen, I would consider the task to be a sacred one, a holy calling. If chosen, then this task would become the most important thing in my life for a period of time. That seems only right, given how critical a trial can be for those involved.

There were 60 potential jurors, and I was one of the 12 they selected. The lawyers and judge stood as we left the crowd of 60 and filed silently into our 12 seats. The judge spoke gravely to us about what we were about to do. This was at the very end of the day. The bailiff said "All rise for the jury," and everyone in the room stood up again while we left the room. The whole thing was done with such care and dignity. I feel a huge weight on my shoulders tonight, for tomorrow I will be one of 12 who will decide the fate of another human being. Comfort comes in being willing to treat the task seriously, being prayerful if that's your thing, and following the instructions of the court with absolute care and precision.

So I'll be out until at least Wednesday sometime. I know there will be much to write about in this experience

rlp

I finally did it. I bought a Mac. A MacBook Pro, to be specific. I've been a PC guy since 1990. So how did this happen?

I remember I wanted a Mac back in the late 1980s. The interface was cool. (Remember those blue monochrome screens on those first generation Macs?) And I remember thinking the mouse was a cool idea as well. But Macs were expensive, and I didn't have much money. So I sold a bunch of stuff and bought my first computer in 1990, a little XT with an amber monochrome monitor and a 20 megabyte hard drive. No Windows back then. I was running...I think Dos 3.3. I got a disk that taught me DOS commands. I made my own little menu out of batch files and ran Word Perfect.

After that I just moved up over the years. 386, 486, Pentium, and so on. Windows 3.1, 95, 98, 2000, and XP. During that time I amassed a lot of software and thousands of documents. Consider this: I have every document I've produced for our church in the last 10 years in Microsoft Publisher. I've been using FrontPage since 1997. You get sort of stuck in a system. And for someone like me, who has no problem doing whatever I need to do with a PC, there had to be a compelling reason to change. Because you KNOW a change will be painful.

You know, the Mac's got the same shit we got over here, but it's the little differences.

So what tipped the scale?

First, I'm sick of Microsoft. I'm sick of Windows. I'm sick of installing the latest version of Windows and watching it slow to a crawl 6 months later, because it's full of spyware and patches and stranded temporary files from the scores of times I had to shut it down by turning off the power because it was hung up. I'm sick of looking down and seeing my system tray full of stuff using my resources, and I don't even know how some of it got there. I'm sick of little windows popping open every 30 minutes telling me I need to update this or that or install a security patch of some kind.

I'm tired of Windows. It seems bloated and inefficient and ridiculous. What is Windows XP doing for me, substantively, that Windows 95 wasn't doing? What is Word 2003 doing for me that Word 97 wasn't doing? I have computers that are so much more powerful than the ones I ran in the 90s, but I'm doing the same old stuff. And still dragging along.

Yeah.

So I needed a new computer anyway. My old notebook is 2.5 years old, and when you have as much critical data on a computer as I do, it's not a bad idea to consider buying a new one every few years. Do I want Vista on my new computer? The problems are probably exaggerated, but I think it's clear Vista isn't any cleaner and less cumbersome. The answer to that is NO. So I decided I was going to bite the bullet and transition to a clean operating system. For me that meant Linux Ubuntu or Macintosh. I looked long and hard at this. Ubuntu is apparently wonderful. Runs like a Olympic sprinter on 1 gig of RAM. But Ubuntu is the sort of thing serious techies can run. I'd be stuck with mainly open source software, and let's face it - open source software gets the job done, but the interface isn't always as friendly. I'm sorry nerds, Gimp is no substitute for Photoshop if you've been using Photoshop for 7 or 8 years.

Even so, I was about to go Ubuntu because I could get a $1600 notebook and put Ubuntu on it and go gangbusters, or so they say.

Then I saw Mac OS X Leopard and Parallels. I can run Windows XP inside a window on a Mac? I can run Publisher in there so that I don't have to convert the 1500 church documents I have nicely laid out? I can still run Frontpage? And what did you say? I can copy and paste back and forth from Windows to the Mac?

Game over. I'm now an uber-cool, smug Mac user. I hate PCs now. I don't even want to handle them unless I have to. I rather resent seeing XP come up on my beautiful Leopard desktop. I'm watching those "I'm a Mac and I'm a PC" commercials and just laughing, shaking my head at poor old pathetic PC. I'm even considering revising my own personal computer history. What was probably happening was that I was just a spy for Macintosh all those years. Yeah, that's what it was. I was undercover or something. Deep undercover. I'll work out the details of the story later.

In the meantime, here's a picture my Macintosh took of me this morning. She (of course my Mac is a she) suggested 4-up sepia, shadowed on a gray background. I was sleepy so I said, "Just do whatever you want, sweetheart."

rlp

ps - I will post a listing of all the difficult transitions, and there are a number of them. Give me a couple of weeks. Oh, and if you plan to run Parallels, you better get as much processor as you can and 2 gig of Ram. I mean, you are running to complete operating systems and software to help them play nice.

Yesterday was Jeanene's last day at the hospital. The last two months have been very difficult for both of us. Leaving her 20-year career as a hospital chaplain is, well, the largest vocation-related decision of her life. And I, having begun working with two organizations in forming blog networks and traveling for an unusual number of speaking engagements, have really let my writing suffer. I don't feel badly about that. There was no option. But I do miss writing. I miss it like you miss a child who is away from home for too long.

Next week I will talk to you about the two blog networks I am working with, inviting you to join in if you like. And next week I intend to begin a number of long overdue stories and essays. For one thing, I'm going back to the early days with another story about Jonah and Robert, my Jewish friends from two early essays. I'm going to tell you the story of the rosaries I keep making and how I keep losing them. And I think our friend Foy is due a little attention, as is our friend Jesus who needs another RLPDV just because it is time.

So here I am on Friday, needing the rest of the day for my sermon. Drinking coffee and dreaming of the new life Jeanene and I are beginning.

see ya next week. I can't wait.

rlp

Here is someone who had an unusual experience with one of the books I sent. Jung would call it synchronicity. She calls it God. I don't know what to say about things like this. The scientific part of me says, "Coincidence. You're looking for 29 everywhere, so of course you notice it."

But I have learned a thing or two over the years. I'm not so fast to pass judgment these days. One way to look at a situation like this is to think that it has to be proved or disproved. Another way to look at it is to understand that all we have are our perceptions of things. Some things seem more obvious and objective, but really, what do we have but our perception of reality? And so her life sometimes is truly blessed by the number 29 and candy corn.

Who knows?

It's fun to get a glimpse of what happened to one of the books I mailed. I've now filled 200 orders. 200 items included from around my house and really everywhere I can find things.

Latest surprises include:

• Purple origami paper
• Weird cigar shaped candy from Mexico
• One fuzzy green glove that looks like the Grinch's hand.
• New Orleans-ish party mask.
• bunch of .02 stamps
• assorted thank you cards (unused)
• Gummy tarantula
• Crystal Light packets
• Packet of Shout (Laundry stuff)
• Ramen noodle seasoning

rlp

Remember when I use to write for this blog? I'm only kidding, but seriously, what with water purification trips, some other things in my life, and trying to get copies of my book mailed, my writing has suffered terribly. Just no time for it.

It hurts. I want to write so badly. I need to write or I start getting kind of fidgety. So this morning I just said, "The hell with all of it," and started a piece about some things that happened to me when I was about five. It turned into something I'm liking, which always feels good. I'll probably send this one in to Christian Century when I'm done and see if they want it.

I really will be back with actual written stuff. But you can't do everything.

Speaking of things I need to do, I feel that I owe you some kind of update on the shipping of books. Some of you have been waiting for your books. In October I have packaged, addressed, and sent 175 orders. 253 books. That means I've looked at 175 addresses online and written 175 notes and found 175 things around my house to stick in the pages (actually I put two or three things in each book). With my trips out of town recently, it was hard to keep up. Last night I stayed up till midnight and got down to only 39 orders pending. Incoming orders have slowed, so if I do 15 a night, I should be close to caught up in maybe 3 days. Still getting a couple of orders a day.

Those of you from other countries: I know you're waiting longer, but it is a real pain to ship overseas these days. I have to go to the post office and fill out customs forms. I'll try to get yours boxed up over the weekend and go to the post office on Monday.

Recently included goodies:

• Greeting card from India
• Elvis postcard
• Magnetic guitar for fridge
• 1994 Advent booklet from our church
• San Antonio city street map (to New Zealand)
• Do not disturb sign from a motel door
• Small town cafe menu
• Publicity piece from my first and probably only book signing
• Don't mess with Texas sticker
• Best Buy gift card (probably no money on it, but I don't know)
• Bible map torn out of a really old Bible
• Schnitzelbank Song Fest placemat
• Don Stone guitar pick  - one of three still in existence. What? You've never heard of Don Stone? Washington? The state? Obscure but talented musician?
• Sugar packets and hats from Krispy Kreme Doughnuts
• Small packets of candy corn
• An old SAMMS club card
• Brunswick Bowling card
• My old voter registration card
• SAMM homeless shelter volunteer ID badge
• Unused ticket to a high school musical.

rlp

First, a word about sales of my book. The response has been far greater than I could have imagined. I've personally packaged and shipped over 200 books in October. It's quite a chore. I had almost 90 orders pending when I got back from Chicago. Working a couple of hours every night I've gotten that down to somewhere in the 40s. I'm happy about the sales, but it's just about more than I can do. If I could package 15 a night (including looking up people online and writing to them and all that), I'd be done in no time. But orders are still coming in. It's kind of a two steps forward one back situation.

So thank you.

However, I'm heading to Louisville right now to spend the next four days being trained to install water purification systems through Edge Outreach. E.O. is, in their own words, "a faith-based nonprofit; training and sending people and organizations to take integrated water solutions where they are most needed in the world." I'm going through their training course in preparation for a trip to the Dominican Republic in January. We'll be setting up water purification in a hospital that doesn't have clean water. Hard to imagine such a thing, but it exists.

I first became aware of Edge through my friend DE Adams. Long-time readers of rlp might remember that name. He is the musician whose CD took George out of this world in peace. I've rather caught the vision with these people. Look, there are many things that need to be done in the world. Many ways to do good. This is just one of them. Bringing clean water to places where it it lacking is a very tangible way to make the world a better place. So I'm in.

My plan is to take pictures of the training and blog about it every night while I'm in Louisville. I'll be learning about the technology they use, and about water issues in general. I'll be in training all day tomorrow and will post pics and information that night. Same Saturday and Sunday.

So now that you know I'm on a mission of mercy, you can't really complain about the book shipping delay right? Pretty sneaky of me.

Okay I just left this page and checked. Orders are back up to 53 pending. Dang! I mean, thanks. But dang. So for all of you who have ordered since about the 8th. I need to ask for your patience. I'll be unable to ship anything until I get back home on Monday. I really don't want to start automating this and just shoving books in envelopes. When I get back I should have enough time to get every ordered handled. And I have a whole load of new goodies to pass out. Should bring a bunch back from Louisville too.

Recent goodies I've put in the books include: Mexican money, gum, Wash Away Your Sins toweletes, guitar fridge-magnet, San Antonio city map (sent to New Zealand), a 1994 Advent booklet from Covenant, the manuscript to my Christmas story (I know, that was a little impulsive to give that away. Every once in awhile I put something kind of precious in a book), sugar packets from Krispy Kreme, a Don Stone guitar pick (what, you don't know Don Stone??), and most recently, packets of candy corn. (I was eating it while I was working, so...)

thanks,

rlp

I feel like I'm losing my main focus of writing, but perhaps that is okay for a season. I actually have an essay ready to put online. I think I'll do that on Monday. But right now, the only thing I can think about is shipping books. It's the only thing I have time for. Seriously, this is really cool because not only will I have enough money to pay for the remaindered books from Eerdmans, I'm going to get a badly needed new computer and then have a little money left to set aside in savings.

The only price to pay I have to pay is 2 hours of packaging and shipping every night. I've packaged and shipped 99 orders so far. Every single one of them includes a note from me and some kind of surprise. I have 57 pending orders. I'm taking them in the order they are received. Tonight I'll work on orders placed on October 7th. (International orders: I must apologize. I have to go to the post office to fill out custom forms for you, so I have about 15 to do on Saturday all at once.)

You would think that looking up every address at Microsoft Virtual Earth, writing notes, and looking for interesting things to put between the pages would get old. It doesn't. If anything, I spend more time looking at people's homes and imagining their lives now than in the beginning. Yesterday I ended up writing a two-page letter to this person who ordered 4 books. Why? Just needed to.

My latest surprises left between the pages:

• Mexican money
• Wash Away Your Sins Towelettes (seriously)
• A Route 66 pen I found
• Chili Piquin peppers picked at our church (in baggies). See our church news blog for details
• Last Supper gum
• A little metal knight from my office. One of my many toys.
• A Starbucks card that might or might not have any money left on it.

In one person's book I put a Far Side cartoon, a Mariner's ticket, and a packet of Sesame Chicken mix from my pantry. I wrote "I don't know why. I just grab stuff!"

Clearly I am having way too much fun with this.

A few homes that I enjoyed seeing:
Click any for a larger view

This person lives about the same distance from I-35 as I do, but in Minnesota.

Yes, this is how I picture life in Seattle. Huge evergreens covering your house with shade.

New Orleans. I was a little worried about this person, but...

Apparently his or her house is on the opposite side of the city from the Pontchartrain. I don't think they were flooded. Haven't heard back.

rlp

So here I am, sitting in my bedroom mailing books everywhere in the world. I don't know how many orders there have been. Well over a hundred. I'm taking them in the order they were received, and I'm down to 61 orders. There's a stack of books and envelopes on the desk. On the corner is my pile of goodies to put in the books. Some of the stuff I put in the books today includes:

• Ginko Tree leaves from the tree Frank Lloyd Wright planted when he built his home in 1898
• Coasters from Timothy O'Toole's in Chicago
• Counterfeit money that children make and try to pass off to my daughter who works at a small coffee shop and store.
• Various music CDs, mostly from Talking Taco Music.
• The Cohiba cigar bands from the cigars I smoked this summer.
• Chewing gum
• A Bit O' Honey candy bar
• Various suckers and a weird coconut candy thing from Mexico.

Tonight I raided the kitchen, so someone's getting packets of Chai Tea and a honey sesame oriental seasoning mix packet.

I'm enjoying looking at all of your homes. I've discovered that Microsoft's Virtual Earth and Google Maps are not always exactly accurate, but I get close. Here's a couple that interested me tonight.

This guy lives right on Pismo beach. I'd heard of Pismo beach but had no idea where it was.

And here is someone who lives in a building just a couple of blocks away from the Capital in D.C.

61 orders to go. A few keep trickling in, but I'm making progress. I'm going to do this every night until I get them all done. It's fun in a weird sort of way. A new experience. I will tell you that shipping things is lot of work. If I wasn't stuffing the pages with stuff, I'd die from boredom.

rlp

I'm sitting in O'Hare Intl. airport right now. Our flight home has been delayed. I checked my shopping cart program, and I have 80 orders to fill when I get home. Tomorrow will be a busy day.

I thought I'd mention a few things we did while we were in Chicago. I've only been here twice and both times for only a few days, but I love this city. It's got a lot of personality. Somehow it's enormous size and population don't diminish that.

Having watched a game at Wrigley Field when I was here earlier this year, I'm a small-time Cubs fan. I'm not that emotionally invested, but I was hoping they would win against the Diamondbacks. Jeanene and I watched their last hurrah at Timothy O'Toole's pub downtown. Watching a ballgame with the hometown fans in a pub adds something to the experience. Needless to say, the locals were not happy about the Cubs' three-and-out playoff run.

The ghostly image is our waitress who was moving too fast to be
photographed in a low-light setting.

Jeanene and I went to the Art Institute museum on Thursday. I went the last time I was here and wanted to go again. There's no way to see everything in one visit, of course. And there is only so much beauty you can take in before you get saturated. We saw what we could see and let go of the rest. I know this probably means I'm not very sophisticated, but I'm always a little amused by some of the modern art. This piece had no title that I could see. I might suggest "Red Board Leaning Against The Wall." Or maybe someone was installing doors and left one out by mistake.

The placard beside one painting said that the artist, Ad Reinhardt (1913-1967), "renounced color" in 1953. I don't know what it was about color that set him off, but if you are a painter and you renounce color altogether, it does leave you rather limited. Maybe that's why his painting looks like this:

The background is the wall. The picture is simply a black canvass.

The highlight of our visit to Chicago was seeing Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio in Oak Park. I've drooled over his furniture, windows, and houses for years. Seeing the home he built for his family and the studio he added later was a life-changing experience. I know that sounds extreme, but I'm serious. When you are in the presence of such beauty, it changes you. The inside of his home was so beautiful that it hurt a little to see it and know that I had to leave. They wouldn't allow pictures and I'm not good enough with words to describe what it means to stand in that place. So...just...I can't say anything. I am really irritated that the stuffy FLW museum people don't have any pictures of the interior online. Not everyone can go to Chicago to see this. What would it hurt to post a few pictures on the official website?

Just a few of the Frank Lloyd Wright homes we saw in Oak Park

This one was in disrepair, which surprised me. I would have
thought that anyone who could afford one of these homes
would be able to keep it up. Chicago is pretty picky about
their historical homes, so I don't know what's up with this one.

This is what your church would look like if Frank Lloyd
Wright designed it.  Unity Temple, Oak Park

In a move of surprising bad taste, given that this was
at Frank Lloyd Wright's home/studio, they actually sell
Frank Lloyd Wright puppets. I was tempted to buy one, but
I've sworn off dragging worthless kitsch into the house.

And finally, on the subway to the airport today, I noticed an advertisement for a university with a rather strange name.

Unbelievable. Take a look at the website.

rlp

I didn't mention that I'm in Chicago again. I had the Christian Century piece to post and the stuff about mailing the books and looking at satellite photos of your houses and all that. So I didn't tell you that I was going out of town. But I am in the Windy City again. Jeanene is with me this time. I spoke today to a group of marketers who are interested in blogs and social media issues. I'm not an expert on those issues, but I knew enough to be a jump or two ahead of the room. Kevin S., who does marketing for Christian Century, is letting us stay in his condominium while he is out of town. It overlooks Lake Michigan on Lake Shore Drive. We're really roughing it. But since the Marketing group paid for the tickets and the housing is free, we're staying until Sunday.

Chicago from the top of the John Hancock Center - 10-5-07

But there is something more important to tell you. I got back from the marketing thing about 3:00 this afternoon, checked my email, and there were 63 orders for the book. WHAT????

Okay, I get it. I mouth off about how personal I'm trying to be with the book. I'm going to look at satellite photos of everyone's home and write little letters and put presents between the pages and blah blah blah. All very nice and personal-like. Then you guys are like, "Okay Mr. Personal. Here's 63 orders. Have a nice day on Monday when you get back to town."

Gulp. Well, I let myself in for this. I asked for it. Oh well, how bad could it be? I'll have to spend the whole day Monday looking at houses on the internet and writing notes to people. And I'm going to be looking all over Chicago for presents that will fit in the pages of a book. I'm running out of flat things at my house.

Actually, this couldn't have come at a better time. My computer is starting to act up a bit. It overheats and shuts off periodically. So I've been trying to save money for a new one. Maybe this book thing will take care of that!

But in all seriousness, you'll have to be patient with these orders. I don't know how long it will take me to fulfill them, but I will work hard and straightaway when I get home. But I am DETERMINED not to rush this. I want to treat each one like I'm sending it to a friend.

And I guess I am, right?

rlp

So I'm in the book business now. Sort of. (see Remaindered parts one and two) I've sold 69 copies of my book, which is almost enough to recoup the cost of buying the remaindered books and paying for the freight charges. I had to get an online postage system in place. My original idea was me addressing the envelopes by hand with stamps. But as it turns out, anything over 1 pound can't have stamps on it.

When someone orders a book I get notified by email. I go to the shopping cart to find their name and address. I open Microsoft's version of Google Earth and plug in their address. (Microsoft's Live Search has a "bird's eye view" feature that gives you the best satellite imagine. It's amazing) Then I just look at the person's house for a few moments. I might zoom out and look at their neighborhood. Sometimes the book goes to a church, so I look at that.

After that I open the person's book and write them a little note inside. Sometimes I mention having looked at their house. One guy had something in his backyard that looked to me like a chicken coop. So I wrote, "Hey man, what's that thing in your backyard? A chicken coop?" Or I might say something like: "Is that a truck stop across the street from your church?"

After I've written the note, I have to find a present that will fit in the pages. Understand that these presents have absolutely no monetary value. Some of them don't even make sense. I just run around the house grabbing things and shoving them in the books. But everyone gets a little note and a present. Some of the presents I have included so far include:

• Pressed flowers from my backyard and from around Covenant Baptist Church.
• An order of worship from my church.
• Music CDs  (Native angels by SAVAE and Rio Grande Romeos by Ben King.
• Leftover communion wafers from my communion wafer taste test video.
• Cool looking old fashioned circus tickets.
• Pages from some favorite old Peanuts books.
• My old neighborhood association membership card.
• Various comic strips I have collected over the years.
• A credit card rosary.
• A purple leaf from some plant in my backyard.
• A Kansas quarter.

Then I put the book(s) in an envelope, print the postage, and drop it in the mail. One at a time.

What's cool about this is it's personal. These books were sitting in a warehouse. Eerdmans was done with them, really. And I didn't make a dime on any that sold. Eerdmans paid me an advance, so I wasn't going to make any money unless they sold out the entire first run. Now these books are in my home. I wrote the book. I own the copies. I ship them myself. I like the way that feels.

Whenever possible, you should resist the urge to automate things. You can't do everything by hand. I know that. But when you can, you should.

rlp

First, thank you for your kind comments and emails regarding Monday's post.

Well, there was a knock at my door yesterday. FedEx had 27 cases of books for me. I hadn't really considered how many boxes it would take to ship 1300 books. Nor had I counted on the freight cost. You know you're in trouble when they stop calling it "shipping" and start calling it "freight". I'll just say this: the freight was considerably more than the books.

So there they were, stacked in front of our couch. 27 boxes of RealLivePreacher.com. I opened one of the boxes and looked inside. Nothing but covers all the way to the bottom. As it turns out, 1300 is a LOT of books. I'll never sell them all. These things are going to be sitting around with me until the day I die. One has to laugh.

I went ahead and built a chair for myself out of the boxes, thinking that might be a nice way to store them. Lillian came home from school and was delighted with the idea. We decided that we're ready for the Spurs season to begin. And considering it is the NBA, isn't that in a week or two?

click for larger image

Jeanene was somewhat less enthusiastic about the chair. And it wasn't very comfortable anyway. The point is - My "Remaindered Book Lazy-Boy" no longer exists except in my memories.

So here's what I'm going to do. I'll just sell them myself on this website. I'll have to sell about 70 to break even. One of these days I'll probably pass that mark. I'm in no hurry. As long as I am actively writing and blogging, I bet one or two will sell now and then.

And yes, just as I said Monday, I'm going to have fun with this. Every sale will be a cause for celebration. They will all be treated like a wonderful surprise. Notes stuffed into the pages, secret flowers pressed between the leaves. Who KNOWS what I might do to these books. So if you buy one, make sure you check it front to back. Something will be in there.

I'm working on a mechanism for purchasing them. They were $14 originally. I'm thinking I'll sell them for $11 until I've paid for the books and the shipping (Excuse me, FREIGHT!). Then I'll drop the price a little more. I should have something up and running by the weekend if not before.

rlp

So this is what I would look like if I was on the Simpsons. Courtesy of SimpsonizeMe.com

rlp

A state of the blog address, of sorts.

Blogs have a shelf life. Some are abandoned along the way. The last post remains there, a mute testimony to someone's hopeful writing. Others change in various ways. Writing is a seasonal thing, and writers have less control over their writing than some people think. You follow what is inside and write about it. Live, listen, and follow your gut. As you change so does your writing.

So this is my blog. Real Live Preacher, as I named it back in December of 2002. It has survived a number of significant changes along the way. I think of my blog as having stages, like a child.

The early stage I think of as the wild days of the salon blogging community. I was anonymous and free, and very few Christians came to read. Mostly pagans and people of our world. I loved them, and many came to love me. I shot from the hip, wrote like hell, and sprinkled F-bombs around just because I liked the way they sounded. This stage lasted until perhaps the middle of 2003.

Then the Christians found me. I really hated that. Suddenly Christian people were all over the comments, starting arguments and carrying on theological discussions. I got a lot of email challenging me to defend myself, my theology, and my views of the Bible. I took up the challenge often enough. Sometimes I was too tired. Many who came were wounded Christians who were also tired and disgusted with church politics, fighting, etc. I think I gave them a voice. Who knows? But the pagans and people of our world slowly disappeared from the comments. It broke my heart, truly. I was deeply sorrowful, but you cannot control the comments. They have a life of their own. So be it. This period was from the middle of 2003 until May of 2004.

The next big change was losing my anonymity. People found out who I was, some of them in my church. A book was coming out, and I decided that I wanted my name to be on it. And I was tired of hiding. Anonymity is hard work. I came out of the closet, so to speak, in May of 2004 with this post. Things changed. I lost a significant chunk of freedom, but writing is always defined by a set of filters and boundaries. I just had to adjust mine a bit and get used to it.

The next stage began when I started to unravel. My church is small and pays about half a salary. I was holding down two jobs – pastoring a church and running a web design and hosting business. And I was trying to be a husband and father of three daughters. Somewhere in that mix I was making time to write about 20 hours a week. Some of my essays take 10 hours of work. Some less, some even more.

I began to be emotionally unwell. I didn’t recognize the signs of it, though my family noticed that I had disappeared into a world of writing and isolation. I met with a dear friend from my faith community to talk about things. We agreed that I could do two things and be healthy, but not three.

Pastor, web designer, or serious writer (say 20 hours a week). One of the three had to go.

I decided that I would try to transition away from web design and hosting and into writing as a second vocation. This was a big change because I could no longer write for free. I had to find some kind of income from writing, though I was determined to keep the blog going.

But it’s much harder to make money writing than I imagined. I picked up a couple of regular gigs, but it was slow going.

At this time, around the summer of 2005, two angels appeared. I kid you not. Two people came to me and said, “We’ll pay you to write at Real Live Preacher. Well send you a check every month for a period of time while you try to figure out how to make some kind of a living as a writer. We think your writing is important and a good thing in this world.”

It’s a very humbling thing to accept an offer like that. For one thing, taking money from people can make you dependant. But more importantly, I had to admit that I wasn’t going to be able to do it alone. In truth, I would have done just about anything to keep writing. I wanted this…badly. So I said yes.

I will never be allowed to reveal their names, but truly Real Live Preacher exists today because they helped me with the transition. I dropped the web design business immediately. It was something of a leap of faith, because the interim money had a definite ending. But it “felt right,” as they say, so Jeanene and I decided to go for it.

Then began another stage of Real Live Preacher. I left salon.com in July of 2005 and began blogging with custom Drupal software at my own domain – RealLivePreacher.com. At the time I was hopeful that this blog might generate enough income to combine with my regular writing at the Christian Century and The High Calling and justify the time I was spending writing. It seemed like a little community had developed at Real Live Preacher, and I thought I would try to nurture it a bit. So I put in a chat room and created users with an internal messaging system. And I made it possible for people to “subscribe” to this blog. Just voluntarily send money if they wanted to help with the expenses.

A good number of people did. You can see their blogs over to the right. Most are signed up for $5 a month. Some for $10. I’m grateful to them, because that helps. But truly, not many people are going to subscribe to a blog. That’s not how this culture is developing. Subscriptions peaked at about the level of a nice car payment. A few drop each month and a couple join. It stays about the same.

Now it’s been two years at RealLivePreacher.com. I think I have a good idea of the kind of money you can generate with a blog. Not much. Advertising doesn’t do much for you unless you turn your site into a freakin billboard. I love Real Live Preacher too much for that. I’ve had a couple of modest ads along the way, but I’ve avoided making the site look commercial. I don’t have any paying advertisers now. Anything you see on the menu is there by my choice.

I had a grand plan to publish my own Christmas series. Seven stories in seven books. I got the first two done, but I lost about $1000 starting my own publishing company to get them in print. I can’t afford to spend any writing time on that project right now. It’s on hold. I might shop it around to a publisher someday, but that publisher is going to want me to write all the stories at once. I like writing one every year or so. More than that is too much Christmas for me.

The crazy thing is, I get a ton of traffic now. Somewhere between (sit down) 4000 and 8000 unique visits a day. That estimate is based on two different programs analyzing my server log files. One is conservative and the other less so. That traffic has opened some doors to a new kind of relationship with The Christian Century and The High Calling. When I write for them I send them traffic, and that’s a nice bargaining chip for a writer.

I’ve had some people say, “You just need to get a publicist, get  your name out there, do some interviews, blah blah BLAH, blah blah BLABBITY blah.”

Yeah, maybe. Maybe that kind of thing gets you writing opportunities that pay. Maybe. Still, I think you either write or you spend your time figuring out how to “get your name out there.” I don’t have time to even think about getting my name out there. It feels good to let go of that and not think about it.

I’m going to write. That’s all I ever wanted to do. Because I want to write seriously (meaning with a significant amount of my energy and time), I’m willing to do various things and make some sacrifices for that privilege. I don’t have the luxury of being able to ignore money. I’ll need to take advantages of opportunities that come my way. But I think I’ll just take them if and when they come to me.

So I’m entering a new stage here at Real Live Preacher. This one is marked by my letting go of a dream that a blog like this can make enough money by itself to justify the time it requires. I need to upgrade Drupal (my blog software) because I’m getting KILLED with comment spam. A lot of my earlier essays have terrible spam in the comments now. A Drupal upgrade will allow me to take advantage of its new spam tools. BUT, that means I’m going to lose the chatroom. It was kind of a custom thing and keeping it tied to users is hard. And I’ll probably just get rid of the user accounts except for the subscribers. Why log-in? That’s kind of a pain. You’ll be able to leave your name when you comment or be anonymous, just the way it is at most blogs.

The subscription possibility will stay, and I hope some people will do that. That “car payment” helps a lot. It would be nice if that would at least hold at its present level.

I’ve got my eyes open for new opportunities to make a living as a writer/blogger. Just write and keep your eyes open. That’s what it’s all about anyway, right?

rlp

I got this CD in the mail from AOL on Friday.

Wow, AOL is offering unlimited dial-up internet access for $9.95 a month. What is this, 1999? Should I expect to hear from Compuserve and Prodigy soon? For a minute I wondered if this was one of those pieces of mail that got lost and is only now being delivered, many years later.

It's been a long time since I poked fun at AOL here. I'm an internet old-timer. I remember when all the websites had grey backgrounds and blue hyperlinks. And I remember when just having aol.com in your email address was an invitation to start a flame war. So I just can't resist laughing at these guys. Look, I know people still use AOL dial-up. And I pray for those poor souls, really I do. But from a business perspective, does this rapidly shrinking customer base warrant bulk mail advertising? How many thousands of these things do they have to mail just to get one dial-up customer? This cannot be making them any money.

But then I never really understood AOL anyway. AOL always seemed to me like the Disneyworld of the internet.

********

Speaking of things I don't understand, this church is about two miles from my house.

Solemn High Mass at 10:00. Yeah, I'll bet they have a REAL solemn mass. Real somber and serious-like. I hear the Low Mass is for people who can't understand 4th century Latin and have to settle for 17th century Latin. Lightweights!

Okay, I'm serious - who names their church after Saint Edward the Confessor? I'm just saying, that sounds a little harsh, doesn't it? Imagine Sean Connery saying it: "Saint Edward the ConFESSuh."

So who was this Saint Edward character? He was the son of Ethelred the Unready. I think having a father named Ethelred would screw up just about anyone, which is why Saint Edward is the patron saint of kings, bad marriages, and separated spouses. No, I'm serious. But that brings me back to my original question. What church would want to be named after the patron saint of kings, bad marriages, and separated spouses? I mean, why? There's a huge surplus of saints out there with more being added all the time. Why Edward?

I don't know, so I'm thinking I might have to visit this church. Sundays are pretty much out of the question for me, obviously, so I can't hit that High Mass. Damn! But I could take in a Low Mass some Tuesday morning. Yeah, I'm going to do that.

Stay tuned...

rlp

Your Recommendations

Here is the list of movies submitted by those commenting on my movie post. Many of these suggestions came with short reviews, so if you want more information about these films, check out the comments from that post.

By the way, if you love movies, you HAVE to subscribe to some kind of online service. You can’t just go to Blockbuster and hope they will have something good. I used Netflix for years, but they started delaying mailing movies to their customers. There was a lawsuit about this. I noticed it was taking longer and longer for movies to arrive. I switched to Blockbuster for several reasons:

1. They are more prompt in sending movies.

2. You can turn in a movie at a store and have it immediately checked in online.

3. They give you a free rental every time you turn one in at a store. (This basically doubles the movies you get for your money) I use the mail service for my serious films and the free movies for stuff my kids want to watch with me.

Okay, now your list. I wish I had time to write my own reviews for some of these, but I’ll settle for a simple rating system:

1 – I’ve seen it.
2 – I’ve seen it and would recommend it.
3 – I’ve seen it and loved it.
4 – This came close to making my list.
5 – This probably should have made my list.

My original favorites movie list from the previous post

rlp

If you don't know what transmission I'm talking about, click here and here and here.

Okay, I don't know if you're interested in this, but here is a video of Bob trying to explain what is wrong with our transmission. It's a pretty short video, but you'll get a feel for this guy. What the video doesn't show is Bob managed to find original parts, in spite of the fact that this transmission is unique to this kind of car and was only produced for a couple of years. He found an original transmission kit with all the gaskets and everything, and a number of other parts we need as well. They were shipped from back East where "there's this guy" he knows. The parts are very cool, still in their 1962 packaging.

The parts are $450, which is amazing considering what he had to go through to get them.

I thought this was funny: When I asked him how he got the transmission kit, he chuckled, paused, said "anyway," and then kept right on telling what was in the kit. Bob was not about to give up his secret connections.

How many times can I say "Wow?"
Obviously I have NO idea what he's talking about.

1962 Olds F-85 transmission kit. Possibly the only
one left in the world, and Bob found it.

Okay, enough on the transmission. I'm still working on compiling the movie list. Check back on that.

rlp

If you don't know what transmission I'm talking about, click here and here.

Just a quick update. I heard from Bob, and it looks like he will be able to repair the transmission. He called and asked me to come over so he could show me the inside of the transmission and what had happened to it. This guy is fascinating to me. See that toothpick in the corner of his mouth? It's always there. (click to enlarge the picture if you need to)

I took a short video of him showing me the inside of my transmission. I tried to act like I had SOME idea of what he was talking about. I watched the video later and was embarrassed at how many times I said, "Wow. He would show me some broken piece of the transmission and I would say, "Wow," even though I really had no idea what he was talking about.

I'm going to upload the video of Bob to my Google video account and let you watch it if you want. Probably tomorrow sometime. This guy is a dying breed. He is from the era when you fixed your own car. You even took starters and transmissions and things apart, fixed them, then put them back in your car. And all the parts of cars were made so that you could do that.

I love Bob.

ALSO, I'm working to compile a list of all the movie suggestions that were left in the comments to my movie post. I'm going to post the entire list, along with stars or something beside those that I've seen and recommend. I dumped the text of the comments into a Word document and it's 8 pages long, size 8 font and two columns. It's taking me awhile.

rlp

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I would be off to a retreat at Laity Lodge. Jeanene and I left today. I'm posting this from the road with a Verizon broad band wireless card. New toy.

The Blue Hole at Laity Lodge

I'm speaking at a retreat called: "Raising kids in a MySpace world." I'm just speaking once. The main speaker runs the show. Mostly I'll be relaxing, trying to pray and think, and writing. Yes, writing. I have a few things I need to sort out and get started on.

No internet. No phones. I'll post something late Sunday when I get back.

rlp

ps - keep the movie suggestions coming. I'll make a list of all the suggestions from the comments and post that next week.

Previously, on Transmission Repair:

Our intrepid hero, with the aid of his mechanical whiz friend, Reginald (who may or may not turn out to be a robot in the final episode), bravely attacked a one-of-a-kind transmission from a 1962 Oldsmobile F-85. The car belongs to Gordon's oldest daughter, who loves it dearly. The brave duo faced numerous challenges, the first being how to jack the car up high enough to slide under it and remove a 175-pound transmission. With the aid of a floor jack, a block of wood found in the backyard, and a pair of gigantic jack stands borrowed from ol' Richard, the crusty but lovable car mechanic of the neighborhood, the two managed to safely elevate the front of the car.

Once the car was elevated, there were many small obstacles, as is always the case with car repairs. The starter had to be removed, along with a section of the exhaust. Disconnecting the linkage, fluid lines, and speedometer cable should have been easy, but a rather nasty nut on one of the fluid lines caused a slow-down. Reggie prevailed, using a variety of wrenches and techniques in quick order. It was at this moment that our hero began to suspect that Reggie might be some sort of robot. While the transmission was still held firmly in place, at Reggie's suggestion, they loosened the 8 bolts holding the transmission to the engine. One bolt was placed in such a diabolically evil position that it proved very difficult to break loose.

In the end, nothing but a support bar and four bolts linking the transmission to the drive shaft stood in their way. The support bar stretched across the bottom of the transmission and was attached on either side and in the center. It came off easily enough, but what they thought was a block of rubber turned out to be a solid block of metal about the size of half a sandwich. It came about an inch from crashing into Gordon's head when it fell. It was precisely this moment when the first of several profanities heard that day were shouted.

Second block and jack supporting the "tranny."

Now, with the transmission supported securely by a second jack and block of wood, 7 of the transmission bolts were removed, leaving only the difficult-to-reach bolt, which turned out to be even nastier than they suspected. The entire job took four hours, but this one bolt occupied them for at least 45 minutes. The duo dubbed this bolt, "lil bastard." One wrench could be placed over it with great difficulty, but each 16th of a rotation was paid for with severe pain. The bolt could be reached with a hand, but the space around it was too tight to allow the use of an opposable thumb. It was at this time that most of the profanities uttered that day were heard.

At long last, lil' bastard gave up the fight.

Reggie gives lil' bastard an appropriate gesture

After that it was only a matter of minutes until the transmission was hoisted aloft in triumph. It was an emotional moment of victory, marked by a tender, if rather greasy, embrace.

And now our fabled transmission rests in the mysterious workshop of "Transmission Bob," the grizzled old mechanic, long retired and working now on selected projects that baffle modern transmission shops.

The interior of Bob's mysterious workshop with our transmission on the table

Will Bob be able to identify the problem with our transmission? Indeed, will he even live long enough to do so? And if the transmission is repairable, can the parts be found for the job? Reggie and Gordon left Bob's shop with his words of warning still ringing in their ears:

"You know, Oldsmobile abandoned the aluminum engine shortly after 62'. It was pretty damn hard to find parts for this transmission within a couple of years. I know a guy on the East coast. He's grouchy as hell, but if anyone can find parts, he can. I don't know..."

It may take weeks or months to get parts, even if they are available. If this transmission can't be repaired, only a new engine will save the life of this classic car. Still, Reggie freakin Regan doesn't accept defeat easily. Odds are he still has a trick or two up his filthy sleeves.

Stay tuned...

rlp

The pictures were taken by Tim Heaven, aka "Tom."

Remember Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? Remember my daughter's '62 Olds? Remember Reggie, the guy who sold my navel lint on eBay for $200? Well, all of these things are converging tomorrow in an astonishing moment of freakish synchronicity.

See the thing is, I was excited about my daughter buying this classic car. And I want to learn to work on cars, you know, like in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, where you find deep meaning in tasks that seem mundane, and you know a lot about cars and fixing things and are really cool and deep and manly all at the same time. I want that. You know, that Zen kind of car fixing thing. And I did replace the starter on this car, which is a good beginning, especially since those old starters are the size of small water heaters. Only now we have transmission problems. And it turns out that this particular Oldsmobile has a unique, aluminum motor, so we either get this transmission fixed or we're pretty much up the proverbial creek without the proverbial paddle.

Now as it turns out, there is this old guy named Bob in my town, who is apparently the transmission guru for classic cars in our area. Finding him was kind of a Zen thing in itself. But Bob is now too old to take transmissions out of cars, so you have to take it out yourself and drive it over to his house. Then he does his magic, which apparently includes contacting some even older guy in Maine who is really grouchy but knows how to find impossible parts for transmissions. If Bob can get the parts, they say he can fix anything.

So the thing is, I'm taking out a transmission tomorrow.

[Those who know me are laughing their proverbial asses off, so I'll wait a moment for the laughter to die down]

You finished? May I continue, please?

The good news: Reggie freakin Regan, who along with making bat houses and selling weird stuff on eBay is really good with cars and fixing things. So Reg is coming over tomorrow with his cool tools, and we're going to take out the transmission, or "drop the tranny" as I like to say when I'm with Reggie.

The way I see it, what's the worst that could happen? Well, I could get my hands crushed or something, but probably not. We'll get dirty. We'll drink some beer. I'll take pictures with the transmission after we wrestle it into submission and pull it out of the car. Grrrrr. Hey, life is an adventure, right? You gotta embrace it, roll with the punches, step up to the plate, or at least whine enough so that Reggie will save the day.

rlp

Foy Update - Part two is almost done....just...ooh, almost. And then this transmission thing happened, so I'm losing my writing time on Tuesday. Stay tuned.

I think Matt Sturges has fixed the problem I was having with comments. If you are still having trouble leaving a comment, please let me know.

Email me - hello[at]RealLivePreacher.com

I've gotten some emails from people who are having trouble leaving comments. Their comments may have been falsely tagged as spam. Is anyone else having this trouble? If so, send me an email. I'm trying to decide if it is a problem or just isolated incidents.

Email me - hello[at]RealLivePreacher.com

rlp

Well, I'm back. I was gone for two weeks, but it feels like six weeks. What is it about being on vacation that makes the days seem so much longer? I guess it's because you're cramming about 500% more activities and events into each day. On the way home Friday I began to feel like our house wouldn't be there when we arrived. I mean, can you just abandon your life for what feels like 6 weeks and return home to find things just as you left them?

Apparently you can. My neighbors scarcely looked up when we pulled into our driveway. You know how fast two weeks goes by in real-life time. I'm guessing the people who lived around us barely noticed we were gone.

I'm definitely not going to give you a detailed account of the cruise (week one) and church youth camp (week two). But here's the short version. No really, this is short if you think about how much happens on a cruise.

The Cruise:

First of all, we were there to celebrate my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. All of their children and grandchildren were there, so it was fun. We like each other and like doing things together, so it was great. The men brought tuxedos, the women and girls brought fancy dresses, and we had a couple of dress-up nights. The girls all loved it. And I guess I kind of did too. Here are my dad, brother, brother-in-law, and me trying to look like the rat pack.

My dad can be Sinatra. My brother-in-law (obviously
from taller stock) can be Dean Martin. My brother
HAS to be Sammy Davis. (He has the right personality
and the glass eye). That leaves me as the fourth
guy. What was his name? Joey something or other?

As for the cruise itself, I guess I would say that I discovered I'm not exactly a cruise kind of guy. Don't get me wrong; it was fun, and I enjoyed seeing parts of the world that I've only read about. I loved the clear, blue water near the beaches. But I don't know - something about the insanely indulgent, "let's all pretend that we're millionaires zipping around the world" thing didn't exactly fit me.

And it's harder than you think to find your way out of the "Disneyfied" cruise reality, even when you get off the ship. You're in a foreign country, and you only have a few hours. So you can't exactly wander around and figure out what to do. So you go for the excursions or planned trips, which are fun, but they don't feel real. And everywhere you look you see tourist junk.

I was happiest when I left the tourist areas and spent some time wandering around the streets of a little Mexican town. I liked the parts where the real people live. One look at the style of the place, and you know you're in Mexico.

Tourist

Real. See what I mean?

While wandering some less-traveled streets, my brother and I stumbled across a fascinating cemetery. It was filled with mausoleums that looked - well - different. Mexican. Their style and not ours. No one was around, so I felt like I could take a few pictures without offending anyone.

And the poorer part of the cemetery, where people
build shrines out of whatever materials are at hand.

Some quirk of nature or aberrant developmental crisis has made it so that I enjoy wandering through cemeteries and backstreets much more than being around lots of people. I really don't need anything to do. I just like seeing where and how people live. I really hated leaving the real town and going back through tourist town to get to the ship.

What can I say? We sailed around; the water was pretty; we saw things we'd never seen before; we spent time together; the guys smoked Cuban cigars at the back of the ship one night. That's a pretty good vacation, right?

Cohiba! Accept no substitutes. Actually, my brother and I went to an official cigar shop and got the real thing. $15 for the smallest Cohiba they had. My dad bought a box of counterfeits from some guy in a sombrero on a ferry. My brother and I were so smug when we pulled out our bona fide Cubans! Sadly, we all agreed that my dad's cigars were much smoother. Not that any of us know much of anything about cigars.

Youth Camp:

I'm really going to