Greetings from wherever I am when you read this! I’m writing this post sitting in the domestic airport in Mumbai, India. When I post it, I’ll probably be in the air, on my way to Bangkok, Thailand. Wherever I am when I post this, and wherever I am on Christmas day won’t matter that much. I just wanted to say a quick Merry Christmas to you all. If you’ve been following my adventures here, thanks. I love reading your comments, e-mail messages, Facebook wall posts, and tweets. I’m grateful for your interest and support and encouragement, and perhaps even your jealousy that I get to do this trip. It’s a strange way to think about it, but I don’t think this journey would be worth taking if I didn’t have folks to interact with along the way. Much love to you as you celebrate with family and friends. Much more [...]

I have recently completed a brief visit to Mumbai, India.  It’s something I had been looking forward to for a long time.  As you may know, I had the opportunity to spend almost three weeks in India in the summer of 2008.  There’s something about this place that grabs you.  I had a sense when I left last year that I would be back. When planning my itinerary, I wanted to visit some other cities in India that I hadn’t seen before, so rather than returning to Delhi (which I strongly considered doing, in order to see friends there), I decided to go to Mumbai and Bangalore – two very important cities when it comes to globalization, and the rapidly growing future of India. I was in central Mumbai on a Sunday afternoon, walking around, seeing the city.  It’s different in many way from Delhi, similar in many others.  As [...]

I’m a futbol fan – say it with me, people – “fut-bol.”  I’m also an NFL football fan (with just a little college football mixed in), but I love the game USAmericans call soccer.  So, when I started out on my big trip around the world, I was really hoping to get a chance to see some high level futbol (I’m a Seattle Sounders FC supporter, but Major League Soccer in the USA is on a very minor league level compared with most of the world).  Unfortunately, things just didn’t work out with my schedule to see an English Premier League fixture while I was in the UK.  Happily, my time in Barcelona coincided perfectly with perhaps the top futbol team in the world, FC Barcelona, to be playing at home, and I was able to acquire a ticket.  I ended up kind of building a full day around this [...]

For the past week, I’ve been off the grid.  I wrote and scheduled some posts before I left to at least give the appearance that I was around the blog . . . but I wasn’t.  I’ve even done a bit of writing in the past week (like now, when I’m still away), but without an internet connection, I haven’t been able to upload anything. So where in the world have I been?  I’m not going to say.  However, I’ll give you some clues by telling you where I haven’t been for the past week. – I haven’t been in a place with a lot of advertising.  Like, literally, almost no advertising.  Restaurants and businesses have signs outside identifying them, but for the past week of my life, I haven’t seen a billboard for any soft drinks, fast food restaurants, hotels, airlines, automobiles, banks, liquors, grocery stores, or anything except [...]

I’ve been a practicing Christian my whole life.  For the vast majority of it, I have been heavily embedded in the Christian ghetto – from feel-good churches to the Jesus-junk bookstores to “positive talk radio” to being a journalist in the “contemporary Christian music” industry.  I’ve been to countless events – concert festivals, stadium evangelism gatherings, and yes, I’ve seen the Power Team live.  Some of what I’ve just written, I’m deeply embarrassed about.  Some of it is silliness that I can laugh about in the way everyone laughs at the wardrobe choices in their old high school photos as they’re preparing for their 20 year reunions.  Some of that stuff I’m actually okay with – but I won’t tell you what! Anyway, at many of these Christians Attending Ghetto Events (a.k.a. CAGEs), there is a “pitch” for a cause.  There are a number of organizations that do these pitches, [...]

I’ve been hassled about having a thing for shoes.  That’s somewhat, but not totally true.  I do like looking at and obtaining new shoes.  I think shoes indicate something of a man’s personality.  Unfortunately, I’m also cheap – I hate paying a ton of money for shoes.  Well, in the picture here, you see my newest pair of shoes.  They are definitely the costliest shoes I’ve ever had.  Sort of . . . The truth is, I paid exactly $0.00 for these new running shoes.  They retail for the moderate sum of 70 bucks a pair (moderate by running shoe standards, that is).  I’ve paid more money for shoes before (though rarely).  So then, how are these the highest priced shoes I’ve ever owned? Well, these things cost me plenty. A few months back, my friend and former college ministry colleague, Petey Crowder got selected by Nike to be an [...]

I just bought concert tickets online.  Through Ticketmaster.  And went through what I go through every single time I do a transaction with that company.  The seething inner turmoil over being gouged by a company that is nothing more than a middle-man for a product they have very little to do with producing.  I’m clearly not the only one that feels this way – just for kicks, I just Googled “ticketmaster hate,” and came up with over 370,000 pages to choose from, including this one.  But as I sit here grumbling about it, I have to admit that somehow, some way, I’m still a chooser, and I chose to give this company my money.  And that indicates what may be some hidden value. I can call this company evil all I want, but in reality, they place my own consumerism front and center.  The truth is, I wanted something enough [...]

They say that good fences make good neighbors.  Apparently, there must be some other stuff that goes into that equation as well, because the fence between my house and my neighbors’ is leaning and sickly in spots.  We’ve tried to shore it up and secure the posts, but the occasional windstorm and some questionable construction by whoever built or repaired the thing in the past has our fence leaning.  But that doesn’t mean I don’t have good neighbors.  Not at all. A few months shy of five years ago, I met J & D for the first time.  We pretty quickly became friends, and I’m really grateful for that.  I’ve moved enough times in life to have had a lot of neighbors, but none as good as these. I still remember the day that J tentatively told me that he had unexpectedly stumbled onto my blog.  We hadn’t talked much [...]

Hello world.  It’s been a long time since I posted anything here.  Not because nothing has been happening.  Not because I haven’t had anything to say.  It’s more like I didn’t want to write a post that I would then have to go back and clarify because things had changed.  I’m at a very fluid point in life, as I will describe in brief below.  Some things that I thought were happening didn’t happen, at least not in the timing I thought they would.  Now it looks like they are. So, for those of you who have been persistent enough to keep coming to my blog, thanks.  I appreciate it, really.  I’m sorry I’ve been so mum.  I’m going to just rattle off a few things here to generally catch you up to speed, knowing that each of these items could easily justify a full post (or three) as a [...]

This blog is currently undergoing a reconstruction.  Please check back soon for a grand re-opening.  Please reset your RSS Feed, and we’ll be back in business soon.