Lost in Translation

Today was a really great day with an awesome Sunday School class (could i clone myself so i can attend both the classes i want to?), great worship and super messages. My friend Johnny spoke this evening on Post-Modernism. [i can read your thoughts] - well, you see that was the whole point - if we are going to effect our culture we have to understand our culture.

The District Assembly was way cool - Dr Rick Rigsby was one of our speakers - he rocked the house. [Awesome] so naturally i bought his book (signed, thank you very much :-) i ate too much chocolate (if such a thing is possible), rested well (and much) and didn't check my email from Tuesday afternoon until just a couple hours ago.

Okay, the "translation" bit. At the assembly i saw some old friends and met some new ones. Wednesday night, several of us were seated around a table and the couple to my left were valiantly trying to have a conversation with another couple at the table but the first couple speak only Spanish and the second couple speak only English. Long story short - the background noise (the dinner conversations of several hundred people), our table's proximity to a large speaker (belting out Bavarian folk tunes - not a joke) and our juxtaposition at the table all made it quite "interesting" for me trying to translate for the two couples. Hopefully, not too much was "lost in translation".

Now, after taking three days off from work i can hardly wait to see what Monday brings (and i *know* some of the machinery at work is on the fritz (and i was having so much fun in Austin that i forgot to go to Red's Guns ;-)

Coming back from the assembly, we stopped for gas (and the obligatory potty call) and one of my friends said "Hey, i heard some people talking the other day... - what is a 'blog'?". i just told him that i would have to come over to his office one day and show him. Sometimes i feel like a (very inadequate) translator between generations...

You know, this month i had every intention of blogging at least two or three times a week. Well that didn't quite go as planned. And May doesn't look any better.

Where has the time gone?

Oy! April is FLYING by, i already have most of May spoken for and a couple of work deadlines come up in June. Fortunately, the promotion that i accepted at the first of the year is "normalizing" and i have been more able to concentrate on my own regular responsibilities.

Change may be the only constant in life but that doesn't mean that its fun.

i will be headed to a 3-day conference in Austin in a few days and i'm planning on doing as much as i can to loosen my "electronic tether" while i'm out of town.

EDIT:April 22 marks my one year anniversary on blogger.

Frozen Austin

The co-worker that went to Austin with me last week described it today as "the worst week i have ever had traveling for work". That got me thinking - was it the "worst" week that i've ever had traveling for work? Thats hard for me to say because i don't usually think in those terms. But, to tell you the truth, the weather was horrible.

While i am not a "Pollyanna" at work, my co-workers have figured out that i'm not the "go-to" person for bad news when we're traveling. If they want to hear how horrible the hotel was or how bad the food was or what an awful situation we are in, normally i'm not the guy to ask. I'm such a hillbilly that i think its great that we stay in actual hotels and not in motels. (In a motel you can pull your car up to the door of the room :-)

My boss knows that, if she asks for it specifically, i will be blunt and brutally honest. And, to the credit of the co-worker that traveled with me, she is not a complainer, either. Her comment was just that - an honest comment.