Branson and the Dinner Salad

Brittany and I spent Friday night and Saturday night in Branson. Yeah, we're the life of the party. Don't bother asking what shows we saw. We spent time by the pool on Friday and Saturday afternoons (had to hide from a freak shower that blew through on Saturday). We played one of the most difficult and enjoyable miniature golf courses I've ever played. We ate out. We shopped. We sat in stop and go traffic forever. We discovered the secret passage from our motel to the area of town where everything we wanted to do seemed to be located. It was a pretty good trip. So, a couple of observations.

The Ramada Inn (the one located pretty close to 65 on 76 - I offer this general description because there seems to be 2 of every chain in town) was well worth the price we paid. For $70/night we had a nice (though not extravagant by any means) ground floor room with a solid cable package (my definition of solid is that it had Fox News and multiple ESPN networks), close access to the pool, parking right outside, and a full, hot breakfast you wouldn't believe. (Johnny, if you're reading this, I think I might have found a venue for that thing we talked about)

The breakfast was outstanding, no really, I'd go back there just for that. The free high speed wireless only worked in the lobby and didn't want to work on Britt's iBook, so that was a disappointment, but it wasn't intended to be a working vacation anyway.

Observation number 2, and we're going to camp out here for a while, the quality of restaurant dinner salads has really deteriorated. It's bad enough that you have to pay $2-$4 extra for them at most restaurants now, but the fact that they now consist of a grand total of 3 lettuce leaves and 1 crouton is really irritating. Is it so hard to make a dinner salad that I can't actually see the bottom of before you set it down in front of me? I don't need the entire head of lettuce, there's still an entree to come, but I need enough to stop my stomach from growling while you take your merry sweet time getting the rest of the food out to me.

I - a guy that certainly understands costs and revenue streams - understand the financial implications of the salad. I understand restaurants are probably getting squeezed with rising prices on everything - especially food. I understand that there are probably a lot of salad bowls that get half eaten, so some genius decided to just start half filling them. I'm all for reducing waste (ask my wife out wasting food, she already fears for our children), but someone needs to hire me as a consultant on salad creation.

So here's my solution.

Fry them. Maybe if they just figured out a way to fry salads people would demand larger ones. Think about it. Every "fry-able" food in the universe can be ordered in a super-size, biggie, or other monstrous portion. If we just figure out how to fry a salad people will demand them by the pound. Somebody call Darden Restaurants, I just solved the dilemma. Too bad frying it would totally negate the purpose, structure, design, and intent of the salad. But hey, you could sell the crap out of them.

Flat Tires and Coffee

I mentioned in my previous post that the reason I was at home and just sitting down to breakfast when Kurt called on Wednesday was related to getting in late from Bolivar the night before (and in part because of a flat tire I'd gotten).

Tuesday evening Britt and I decided to go to Bolivar to see that evening's program (a CIY Summer Conference is being held there this week). It was a great night. I decided to stop in Springfield on the way home to get gas and a cup of coffee from QT (it's not Starbucks, but it's pretty good most of the time). Well, I got gas, but then realized that my driver's rear tire was low. Lucky for me I was at a QT, they always have an air-compressor that is free to use. Unfortunately this one was broken. So I went across the street (notice I didn't mention getting the cup of coffee?) to a different station and paid $.75 for air (really, for air). By the time I got the tire up to recommended pressure I could hear it hissing. Not good.

I looked and could see the screw sticking out of it. Crap! I opened the trunk and started digging out the spare (well, that might be generous, perhaps BMX bicycle tire is more accurate), jack, etc. The good news was I'd done this several times before and I was sitting right next to the air compressor in case the spare was low (and it was). It took me about 15 minutes to air up the first one, realize it was shot, get stuff out, jack the car up, change the tire, drop the car down (somewhere in there I paid another $.75 because the air machine shut off before I got the spare up to 60 psi (you know it's a little car tire when it runs that much pressure).

Thankfully the spare held air and away we went. My wife, brilliant woman she is, was standing close by (close enough to hold things when asked, not close enough to be in the way) and not saying much. Did I mention it was 10pm when all this started and I am usually asleep by then?

I did get my cup of coffee, from the other station, it was rough. The recommended maximum speed on the spare is 50 mph. I'll say this, I dropped my typical Interstate speed down a little, but not to 50. Had the tire been on the front of the car I might have slowed down more (or taken a good tire off the back, put it on the front and the spare on the back so I didn't have to slow down more).

The upside of this experience (and by the way I ordered a new set of tires for the Civic yesterday, which were overdue anyway) has been that I've had a good excuse to drive the Firehawk the last two days. It needs to be washed desperately, but when the options are dirty Firehawk or Civic on a bike tire you do the math.

Hopefully the new tires will show up tomorrow morning so that they can be installed tomorrow as well. I ended up ordering a H-rated tire. What this means is that the tire is rated for continuous speeds of 130 mph. Now the Civic probably won't go that fast (maybe down a hill, I've never tried it in this car and 125 is the most I've ever done in a Civic of any type and that was definitely down a hill), but it's good to know the tires won't be the weak link should the need arise.

Disclaimer: The author of this post does not condone unsafe driving or excessive speeds. Comments and claims are unverified and should be considered the opinion of the author. The author makes no claim of the replicability of any driving related statement in this post.

Phone Call From a Friend

Yesterday morning just as I was sitting down to breakfast (normally I would have been headed out the door to work, but I was an hour behind yesterday, which is a story for a separate post) I got a phone call. Honestly, at that moment I would have let most calls go to my voicemail. Breakfast time is when it is quietest in our house and I am able to sit and spend time in scripture, with my journal, and in prayer (some mornings more effectively than others depending on how fast my mind is racing with thoughts of the day to come).

Anyway, the call came from my oldest friend (the friend that I've known the longest, not Robin Sigars, who would qualify as my friend who is the oldest :)). Kurt and I go back to Junior High and have always had a connection, something in way we see the world (which to most might be a little backward, trust me my wife thinks I'm nuts). Ever since I got over him taking my spot on the baseball team right after he moved to town we've been friends. There are pictures of us shooting hoops at the house I grew up in as 8th graders while Kurt's leg was in a massive cast (from a badly broken ankle suffered in the last football game of that season). Kurt even went along with us when my parents and I traveled to Boston for the marathon. He's one of a few friends I know I could count on regardless of the situation (and the one guy I really wish had been around the day I nearly got pummeled by a bouncer from a local bar during a softball game - that's another story).

I say all of that to get to this. It was a little out of the ordinary to get a call from Kurt at 7am on a Wednesday. So I answered the phone. He just called to say hi. But as we talked I started to see what might have prompted a call on this particular occasion. He spent last weekend with some friends out on a river (if he told me which one I forgot) just having a good time. Out of nowhere they heard a commotion and discovered that a man not far from them (not part of their group) was in the water and not breathing. Kurt dove in and swam across the river and helped pull the guy back across to the shore. By the time he'd done this the guy was some combination of gray and purple - still not breathing. Kurt said he was so worn out that he couldn't do CPR on the guy, but gave instructions instead (you have to know Kurt to know how this would have gone).

They first tried to revive the guy on a raft to which Kurt said, "That ain't going to work, you've got to get him on the bank right now or he's dead!"

A few seconds later the guy started to throw-up, hence must have been trying to breath. Kurt instructed, "You've got to turn him on his side when he throws up!"

When he stopped throwing up they started to roll him onto his back again Kurt told them, "If he's breathing you leave him on his side, he's going to throw up again."

That was about as far has he got with the story. The ambulance came and Kurt didn't know whether the guy survived or not. It seems this brush with death had reminded Kurt of the importance of staying in touch with those who are important to you. It's funny how our busy schedules and high priority items can get re-arranged in just a few moments. I'm as guilty as anyone of being completely focused on what is right in front of me and missing what's going on around me. I don't tell this as a criticism of Kurt, like it took something like this happening for him to give me a call. I was challenged by the reminder not to lose touch with the people in your life just because you're "busy".

Thanks for the call Kurt. I look forward to chatting with you again soon. By the way, my wife says you need to come to Joplin and stay with us for a few days.

A Week In Carbondale...ahh Paradise!

I spent last week in Carbondale, IL at what we call IL1 (that's our event code for the first event in Illinois for the year). With 1928 people in attendance (not including staff) this was the largest Summer Conference event of the 2007 season and the largest I'd ever been to (previous largest for me was TN5 a few years ago at almost 1600).

We had the usual SIU (Southern Illinois University) issues - dorm space reductions, meal cards that don't work, water balloons coming out of 8th floor windows, etc. But things went very smoothly for an event of this size. Registration has been a big problem at some of our large SIU events in the past. Despite a long, stressful Monday for Krystle Fernandez and Shawn Brown the lines were fairly short (average wait to enter the room was about 5 minutes and average time in the room was about 20 minutes). I don't care how you do it, registering 83 churches in a 7 hour period is going to be long, stressful, and tiring.

The program was outstanding, no surprise there. Matt Proctor couldn't make it, because of the birth of his 6th child, so Robin Sigars and Mark Moore each picked up an extra night of preaching. Jason Epperson preached Thursday night. All were very good.

We narrowly avoided getting to see a couple of guys run up on stage during worship when I happen to hear them discussing it just before they made their break for the stage. Doing my best Jimmy Foreman, I wheeled around and said, "What are we going to do?"

To which the bigger one said, "We're going to dance on stage."

My reply, "No we're not."

Bigger one again, "We're not?"

Me: "No we're not!"

They talked it over and decided to go back to their seats. Once that was over I set about trying to stop the crowd surfing that had started. No one got hurt and some semblance of order was restored a few minutes later.

One upside for me on this event was getting to spend a week at Conference with one of the intern teams. I had spent 3 weeks in the office with them prior to this event, but getting to go on the road together was a blast. Even better is the fact that they decided I was nearly as rigid and intimidating as they seemed to think I was in the office. Hopefully they'll spread that rumor to the other groups so that I'm not labeled too scary for future intern prospects. For the record, I haven't yelled at or made a single intern cry in 2 summers as the Intern Coordinator.

Enough rambling. IL1 was good. Sadly it will probably be the last time I get to attend a CIY Summer Conference directed by Robin Sigars. Who else can work a story about the Panama Canal into staff his time one night and spend the next night talking about getting run over by a bull? I mean really.

I'm An Uncle

I got the call on Saturday morning from my mom at about 6:25am (yes, I was already awake and eating breakfast) that my sister (Jillian) had just had her first child (also my mom's first grandchild) at 6:13am (I could hear him screaming in the background in that sharp, shrill sound only a cell phone can produce).

Jarod Douglas Carroll was born to Jeff and Jillian Carroll (yes, their middle names both begin with D's if are noticing a pattern) at 6:13am on 7/7/07 (mother's choice) in Claremore, Oklahoma. Jarod weighed in at 7lbs. 14oz. and measured 20 inches.

Brittany and I got to go and see him that afternoon, which was pretty stinking cool. He slept pretty much the whole time. He started to wake up just as we were about to leave, so we got to see him open his eyes just briefly.

Bad NASCAR Commentary

I'll keep this brief. On the final lap of the Pepsi 400 on Saturday night in Daytona, TNT's commentators (I think Kyle Petty was the guilty party, but I can't remember for sure) started conceding the race to Kyle Busch because he was on the inside of Jamie McMurray. In some instances this would have been correct, at some tracks the inside line is the place to be. But, for them to proclaim Kyle Busch the victor as they entered turn 4 showed that they apparently hadn't watched the Daytona 500 back in February. That day, on the same track, Kevin Harvick used the outside line and a push from a car behind him (much as Jamie McMurray got from Carl Edwards on Saturday night) to pass Mark Martin in the last 200 yards or so and win that race.

Fast forward 4 months and guess what happened? Jamie McMurray slid past Kyle Busch and won by .004 seconds (which translates to a couple of inches). Brilliant TNT!

How many more races do we (the fans) have to endure TNT's JV coverage? It's like going to church on Sunday and expecting to hear Robin Sigars preach only to get there and find out that I'm preaching. I mean you still love Jesus and being there is still good, but let's be honest there's no comparison.

Fox, please purchase the rights for the whole season from now on. I can't take much more of TNT/NBC.

Apples and Advice

Friday evening, Britt and I were in Tulsa celebrating her birthday when we stumbled onto a rare occurrence. As we walked on the lower level of Woodland Hills Mall (the monstrosity that started the mess that has become 71st & Memorial in Tulsa) I saw a store with a crowd outside. I could see on the wall inside a picture (or maybe it was a huge video screen) of an iPhone. I immediately thought, "Oh, AT&T has a store in here and people are buying iPhones." Wrong.

It turns out that Tulsa now has its own Apple Store. I really figured that only North Dakota and Montana would come after Oklahoma in getting one (or more) of these stores (and maybe they did, I haven't checked to see where they are and are not located at this point). We figured out that they were handing out free t-shirts at the door, so we wandered through the rope & stanchion and into the store. It was almost like I would imagine the experience of being a tiny person walking into the guts of a MacBook or something. The store itself was very cool, I will admit I was impressed.

We looked around for a while, took our shirts and went on our way. I did stop to ask one of the guys in black shirts (not a genius mind you, or at least his shirt didn't say he was a genius, if only everyones shirt identified their IQ) how long the store had been there. He said, "Well, since 6 this evening." The grand opening of the store had been set to coincide with the launch of the iPhone. Not a bad move. The crowd was large enough they needed police (yes, actual TPD) outside to hold people out until some of the ones inside left.

This experience, coupled with a few conversations with my wife, left me with a couple of thoughts. Two things first. My wife is already posturing to make our next home computer purchase a Mac. And I am a PC guy, matter of fact, I'm a Dell guy (I have a lot of respect for the way Dell redefined the computer buying process in the 90's and I've had good experiences with their products and service).

1. Anyone in the PC world that doesn't think Apple means business is smoking crack.

2. Apple's stuff is cooler than PC's stuff. (Yeah, I know, this one's a no brainer)

3. Apple machines now run Office (and have for a few years now). This change in the super-structure of the computer world (or computer-land as my friend Robin would say) was less publicized than when Mac's started running Windows. To me Office is way more important than Windows in this equation, read on. This matters because at one time the inability of Apple machines to run Office applications was a big barrier for businesses (and I mean those not in niche industries like design, audio, and film) to switch over. The whole world (like it or not) operates on MS Office, so to convert a corporation (take GE or GM or any other mega-corp you like or hate) to a platform that can't talk to the rest of the world would have been crazy. Those days are gone. The only drawback I see today with using Office on a Mac is the lack of a right mouse button (which is a big part of how I operate Excel, yes I know they have shortcuts, I don't care, I want a freaking right mouse button).

4. Price is the only thing that stands in the way of even corporate America heading down the Mac road (in my opinion). I do think Mac pricing has become more reasonable and competitive with PC pricing. But here's the deal. For the most part, when corporations need to buy 1000 laptops for their sales people or whatever, they are not concerned with whether they have 15 cool applications that will do everything from video or audio editing (I'm told Leopard will have iDVD standard) to I don't know, whatever other cool things Macs can do. They care about a functional machine that will run the software their people need to do their job and they care about price. That is why I think most companies who have no need for the specialized characteristics of a Mac machine are still choosing PC's.

5. Mac may not be taking over the world just yet, but they are going to take a bite out of the consumer computer market (they already have). With the usability of OSX and the affluence of the U.S. economy more and more people are opting for Mac products for their home. And for many of them this makes sense. Home users do want to be able to do things with photos they take, video they shoot, etc. and the Mac gives them this ability right out of the box.

So, as a devoted PC guy, here is my advice for PC makers.

Reinvent yourselves. You're going to have to do something to change the paradigm. The monopoly you built has been breached and if you choose to do nothing Mac will just continue to eat away at your market share until you're where they were 10 years ago.

Quit thinking that you can offer people sub par crap and they'll keep coming back for more. Yes, I know that margins are tight. But you need to catch on to the value proposition. Mac maintains its margins much better than most PC makers because they provide perceived value to the customer (by packaging applications the customer wants with the machine, no extra purchase or installation required and the applications run very efficiently on the machine). You may have to invest in some programmers and developers to come up with applications that are as user-friendly and beneficial as those Mac offers in order to keep your machines from being such commodities that you eventually have no margin on them at all.

Pray that Steve Jobs really is the creative genius behind all of this. Follow me here. If it's really all about Steve (and I've posted about this before) then when Steve is gone (and I'm sorry Apple fans, he's not going to live forever) Apple will struggle to maintain focus and direction. I see this as a key weakness for this company - it's too dependent on a single leadership figure for all ideas to continue its rise when he steps away. Apple is not the only maker to have this problem - don't forget Michael Dell had to step back in to lead his company because it began to flounder when he stepped away.

That's my take.