So a couple of weeks ago, Jeremy Oehring, who has been interning here this fall, found a church website with the most awesomely bad flash intro either of us had ever seen. You MUST check it out here (BUT make sure your speakers aren't up too high - they might explode from sheer awesomeness!):
http://www.evangelcathedral.net/
My favorite part is that after the glory beams launch into the sky around the church building and we're done with the intro, then the rock guitar kicks into its plaintive wail, and the pastor welcomes us to their "PPresence" on the web (a "P" plosive sound is a cardinal sin in recording).
Yesterday I was trying to find this site again to show it to someone, and couldn't remember what it was called. I googled for "church site flash intro" and it was in the second result - this. Careful - if you spend too long in that post you may never return from the awfulness. But I noticed that several in that list were designed by the same designer as Evangel Cathedral's, including this one:
http://www.iccm-1.org/
Another gem on this site is found after the intro is over by clicking on the "Founder and CEO" link on the left. The guy has "over one hundred best-selling books"?!?!? REALLY? Over a hundred? Best-selling by whose definition? I'm pretty sure Stephen flippin' King doesn't even have that many best-sellers. So why haven't I heard of this guy?
If you want lots more of the same, check out the designer's portfolio here. Especially scroll to the second page and watch the K & K Mime site intro. It doesn't even have a "skip" button! It actually just has a "replay" button! How... why... uh... eh?
I wish I could come up with some pithy summing-up paragraph here that makes a clever commentary on something. I think the Flash awesomeness was just too much for me though.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Monday, December 07, 2009
Monday, November 09, 2009
The whole "keeping the Christ in Christmas" thing
Long ago I decided that I think it's phenomenally silly to protest or boycott businesses, organizations, etc. that call Christmas "Xmas" or just refer to it as "The Holidays." Well-meaning folks like the American Family Association have been in the forefront of the fight to force businesses to use the word "Christmas" for the past few years. I confess I fail to see the point of protests and boycotts on an issue like this. A time to remember the advent of the Savior of the Universe, and we're writing angry letters and signing petitions threatening boycotts.
Now let me make clear that I do oppose efforts in some circles to ban the use of the term "Christmas." Ridiculous. Losing the legal right to use the word in business or governmental circles would be highly annoying to me. But punishing businesses who use "Holidays" has long seemed silly and a misdirected concentration of energy badly needed elsewhere.
But though I've long thought that these well-meaning efforts were a bit silly, more recently I've decided it's more than silly. It's counterproductive and even injurious to Christians' representation of Christ to the world. The AFA article linked above refers to the "Christmas culture war" and compares a small-town municipal decision to remove a nativity scene from public property to the Taliban's removal of cultural symbols from Afghanistan. I'm thinking if I'm an outsider to this odd ghetto of American Christianity, I might originally think it a bit silly of the town's government to decide to remove the nativity scene, but my main reaction to this campaign as a whole would be, "Whoah, AFA. Calm down now." Dwain and others, I'm honestly eager to read your (likely much more erudite) comments if you have a few minutes to do so.
When I hear of this kind of thing I also think of a painful ride home from a certain Large-Scale Christian Youth Event which will remain unnamed.
I had taken my youth group to said event, mostly because their high production values were cool, and several of the students and I shared a fondness for the headlining band that was featured the second day of the event. Also, we had had generally positive experiences at other events sponsored by this organization. But at this particular event, the theme for the weekend was highly military. (Disclaimer here: I am very well aware that the Bible uses lots of militaristic language, but Paul makes very clear that our battle is NOT against flesh and blood. In other words, people aren't the enemy.) The speakers, drama, and all the graphics and promo stuff was all about how we are in a "culture war" in America. Apparently, according to the thrust of the weekend, if we win this culture war, American culture will be predominantly conservative Republican and Christian.
A couple more disclaimers. I'm fairly conservative and Republican, and Christian. And to their credit, this organization did place a heavy emphasis on mission work and compassion toward those less fortunate. But the "culture war" language did its damage. A girl who had gone with us (and I was very excited about it, because she was just coming clean from some serious addictions and other destructive patterns of behavior) who wasn't a Christian turned to me during one of the drama performances and said, "This is why no one likes Christians. You all see us as the enemy."
On the ride home, Randy Joe Bland and I spent the bulk of the two hours talking to this girl and basically trying to tell her how sorry we were for this misrepresentation of Christianity. After that ride I have enormous respect for Randy's ability to listen with compassion, his lack of defensiveness, and his wisdom and depth. (I know some of you are thinking, "RANDY?!? Riiiiight..." But that's because you've only seen his humorous side and his constant deceptive drowsiness.) I think we were successful in communicating to the girl in question how followers of Jesus really should be about compassion and selflessness rather than militancy against fellow human beings, but damage was undoubtedly done. The campaign to force "Christmas" on everyone does similar damage.
Instead of going on the offensive with legal action, boycotts, and nasty letters, wouldn't Christians' cause be better served by buying less junk at Christmas time and using that massive marketplace muscle to put a serious dent in some of the social ills at home and abroad? Instead of decorating the house with 300,000 tiny bulbs and fattening up the Christmas bonuses of execs at Target, why not finance a clean-water well in Africa, where cholera is a sweeping the continent yet again? You can even buy a goat for a family in Africa for $75. Instead of spending time and energy and legal muscle protesting a "Holiday" display, why not spend that valuable time and energy and legal muscle speaking up for those who cannot speak up for themselves?
If Christians want people to celebrate Christmas as Christmas, let's be a people who make the birth of Christ impossible NOT to celebrate.
To close this post, I'll say this. It's easy for me to sit here and whine about how I think some other Christians are a bunch of bumbling incompetents. Talk is cheap. I must confess that my own materialism is seriously out of control in many ways. Without going into specifics, I'll tell you that this Christmas I'm going to do some things to reduce my consuming and increase my contribution to stuff that really matters. Even if it's a bit painful.
I know the half-dozen or so of you that read my blog probably have some ideas for ways to make an impact. Two of you actually ARE a way to make an impact. Share your ideas below please.
-- Edit 11/11 - The AFA is calling for a new boycott. See story here. (I THINK this link works.)
-- Edit 12/16 - See this interesting article from Time about The Advent Conspiracy.
Friday, August 07, 2009
Just a quote
From Don Miller's blog:
I had a long conversation with a distinguished scholar last month whose lifelong expertise is story structure. He is not a Christian. And as we talked, he said something that fascinated me. He said this:
“I understand you Christians. I understand the essence of your message. It’s this: If you are not a good person, you are going to burn in hell for all eternity.”
As I said, this man was a distinguished scholar and so it surprised me when he made this statement from a position of absolute knowing. There was no doubt in his voice. He wasn’t asking me to confirm. He knew. But he was absolutely wrong. That isn’t the essence of the Christian story, and anybody who believes so is a heretic.
Our story, and by our story I don’t mean the Christian story, I mean humanity’s story, is this:
The Trinity existed forever in a completely loving community. They were and are other focussed, without what we think of as ego (though I believe they have something like ego, we would not recognize it in comparison to our own) and they created an existence, including you and I, to enjoy their company. That is the most loving thing a perfectly loving being could do. But love cannot be controlling, it has to set it’s muse free, so they gave humanity an option out. And humanity took it, thus, by necessity, there was a separation between pure good and anything other than pure good. So now, we who have been designed to be complete in God, seek affirmation and validation from each other as though our lives depend on it. But it doesn’t work. Nobody has agency but God. So God sends his son to earth and his son essentially says this:
“You guys have all walked away from God. He can’t have anything to do with you, because he is purely good. But look, I haven’t walked away from him, so if you marry me, and we become one, you’ll be reunited with the Trinity. He’ll look at you and see me. We’ll do this at a wedding in heaven. Until the wedding, though, just have faith. It’s as though it’s already done. But it’s going to kind of suck until then.”
So that’s where we are in our story. We are waiting for the wedding, and until then, we have hope, and we have an explanation for our hope.
I know some of y'all are hopelessly cynical about Don Miller, and, for that matter, about life in general. My cynical heart beats with yours, but this is good stuff.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
My greatest artwork
Here's the series I did in youth group for the Wednesdays this summer when we actually had youth group. Obviously it was expanded with accompanying material added on, but here is my artistic masterpiece - a multi-part work of staggering genius. My artistic wife is hanging her head in shame.
The series is called, "Don't Make the Mistakes of Jim's Imaginary Friends Roscoe and Rockette."
Obviously each night had a funny one and a slightly-more-spiritual one. The slightly-more-spiritual ones were opposites of the Fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5.
I think my favorite is number 7.
Click the images to see them larger.
These images are copyrighted by me, although I can't imagine anyone stealing my intellectual property here.
The series is called, "Don't Make the Mistakes of Jim's Imaginary Friends Roscoe and Rockette."
Obviously each night had a funny one and a slightly-more-spiritual one. The slightly-more-spiritual ones were opposites of the Fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5.
I think my favorite is number 7.
Click the images to see them larger.
These images are copyrighted by me, although I can't imagine anyone stealing my intellectual property here.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Further Wilderness Adventures
It has been almost two months, so I'm due to finally post about the backpacking trip I took at the end of April this year.
My friend Travis Sayler, with whom I've planned many a backcountry excursion, has been telling me for several years that I need to go see the Buffalo National River area in northern Arkansas. I've honestly been a bit skeptical, because I've canoed another section of the same river before, and though that section was certainly scenic, it didn't exactly make the Life List category of places you have to visit before you die. However, Travis persisted. Randy Joe Bland also told me of a place in this wilderness area called Big Bluff, where one walks along a narrow cliff ledge 500-600 feet above the river. I began to get intrigued - I'm a sucker for sweeping vistas. Travis mentioned a cave with a waterfall inside. I got a bit more interested. Travis also mentioned Hemmed-In Hollow Waterfall, the highest waterfall between the Rockies and the Appalachians. I agreed to the expedition.
So in late April, despite forecasts calling for rain every day of the trip, five of us - Travis, Brandon Speak (my brother-in-law), Kevin Allred, Drew Ryan, and me - converged on Lost Valley Campground just west of Ponca, Arkansas. That afternoon of Day 1 we hiked the mile-or-so to Eden Falls, beside which is the entrance to Cob Cave. The falls themselves are quite beautiful, but the highlight to me was the cave. A few feet inside the entrance the ceiling gets lower and lower. We crawled in muck and bat guano (the bats themselves were often in evidence) under a low ceiling for about twenty yards beside a rushing stream coming from deeper in the blackness of the cave ahead of us. Then, as the noise of rushing water grew steadily louder, there was a tight squeeze through a claustrophobic spot, and suddenly I felt a sense of space and roominess. I turned around and shined my headlamp upward, and laughed aloud. The roar of rushing water was coming from a waterfall that fell from the middle of a high domed ceiling about twenty-five feet over our heads. It was a bit of a surreal moment for me. Even though this was a readily-accessible cave (we saw families with young children successfully navigate the same passage), it had the sense of a pirate treasure cave or the hideout of an Old-West outlaw. I could imagine looking over in the corner and seeing a bleached skeleton fastened by a rusty cutlass to cracks in the rock.
That night we "car camped" at Lost Valley. Then in the morning of Day 2 we loaded up the cars again and drove a few miles to Steel Creek, one of the popular put-in points for canoe floaters and our trailhead for the trip.
There, surrounded by high bluffs with leaky clouds socked in overhead, we made final adjustments to our packs, locked up the cars, and hit the trail. After just a few hundred trail yards, signs of civilization had completely disappeared. I commented to Travis that this was "good trail." He knew what I meant. Good trail doesn't necessarily mean that the trail is well-maintained or even safely banked on steep slopes. It means that it's a narrow track through areas where evidence of civilization is minimal, where the scenery is good, where the noise is all nature noise... It's a bit hard to define, but this was good trail. The steady dripping of recent rain water off the leaves, the misty feel to the air, and the deeper green that a cloudy day imparts to a deep forest didn't hurt. I was pleasantly surprised to find such a place in Arkansas.
It was definitely not easy trail. We had had two choices for hiking. We could have taken the Old River Trail (ORT), which follows the river and fords it about once or twice per mile. The ORT is fairly free of steep climbs and knee-testing descents. The newer Buffalo River Trail (BRT), however, stays feet-dry along its entire length (or at least it does in the Western section of the Buffalo National River area), but incorporates repeated strenuous climbs and descents. In view of the fact that this was early April and the water was still considerably cool (and also in view of the fact that this was the same group that in the two previous years hiked in the Great Smokies and the Grand Canyon), we chose the BRT. The BRT also recommended itself to us because the occasionally brutal climbs sometimes reward the hiker with an overlook in full wide-screen, hi-definition spectacularity.
We hiked without incident for several hours, with Kevin Allred consistently in the rear, especially on the climbs. He freely confessed that he had just found out about the trip a few days before we departed, and therefore had done zero conditioning. "I'm just gonna be slow," he said. So when, after our first big climb, it became evident that there was another major climb in the offing, we made sure Kevin had enough water and then told him that at the next trail junction we would leave a map and make an arrow with rocks showing which way to go. Then we headed on up the trail. You, gentle reader, may criticize this decision. You'd probably be correct in this criticism. But Kevin was eager to avoid being a hindrance to us, and we respected his prowess in the wilderness. Also, if you've done significant hiking carrying a full pack in steep terrain, you know how important it can be to your endurance to be able to stay in the rhythm once you hit your stride on a climb. Frequently stopping or pausing to wait for stragglers is the last thing you want to do when you have a good pace going. All this reasoning was sound, but disastrous. I'll come back to that in a bit.
Brandon and I kept a good pace and pushed out considerably ahead of the others, and reached the top of the last hard climb on the 7.2 miles of our first day breathing hard, but otherwise feeling pretty saucy and full of life. (If you're the geographical type and want to see what I'm talking about on a map, go here and zoom in on the left side of the upper section of the main map.) At that point we had a little over a mile and a half to go, all of which was descent. So we stepped out eagerly, heading for the junction with the ORT at Horseshoe Bend, where we planned to set up our base camp for the next few days. The descent went quickly, and soon we took a left turn and joined up with the ORT, which here seemed to follow an old wagon trail's wide, straight, rutted track northwest toward the river. The deciduous forest turned to tall pines, which gave a spongy floor of needles to walk on.
Two tenths of a mile later, we found our destination. We started to glimpse an open area through the pines ahead. We came out of the forest onto a wide, flat rock shaped roughly like a football, about fifty feet wide and maybe three times that long. On the southwest side to our left, one of the points of the football pushed out directly over the clear blue-green of the Buffalo River, forming a bluff about thirty feet off the water. This, the west side of Horseshoe Bend, was home for the next few days: unlike our previous expeditions in which we backpacked point-to-point or in a large loop, this trip was a base-camp-with-daily-excursions setup.
We decided that the perfect place to camp was just off the eastern edge of the rock under the shade of the pines. We took off our packs, stretched, rested a bit, and then started setting up camp. Travis and Drew had brought lightweight hammocks made of something similar to parachute cloth. They were very excited about hammock camping. They kept saying things like, "It's lighter to carry, much better ventilated, more comfortable..." They had lightweight tarps to rig over their hammocks to keep the rain off, and I don't mind admitting that at first I was just a bit envious. I have two great backpacking tents I've written about before here - one an REI Half Dome 2-man and the other a Big Agnes Muddy Slide 3-man. Both my tents are very lightweight and bombproof in extreme weather, but the hammock system seemed ideal for warmer-weather backpacking.
Brandon pitched the tiny solo tent he was using for the week nearby. I waited to start setting up my tent, because Kevin Allred was carrying the tent fabric while I had the poles and stakes in my pack.
When we had set up camp to this point and eaten a snack, we noted that Kevin Allred still hadn't shown up. We wondered if he'd taken a break to eat his lunch. Then we went to the bluff over the river and spotted a good place to jump off the bluff into the water. The water was very clear, and when I tossed in a rock I could see it take time to fall all the way to the bottom. Brandon climbed down and swam over to the spot, and noted that he couldn't touch the bottom without making a serious effort to dive down and do so. He also mentioned that the water was a bit chilly. But we decided we had found our diving board. I went first, and made the plunge after stalling for only a little bit. The dive was great, the adrenaline rush was wonderful, and the shock of the cold water revived my tired muscles. 
And it was cold water.
We swam for a while, then dried off and started wondering when Kevin would show up. After I ate a little, I decided to go look for him. I took a couple of granola bars, a full Nalgene water bottle, and a map, and headed back up the trail. I told the guys exactly where I was going and the route I was taking to get there. I hoped to find Kevin in the first mile and help him carry his things back to camp. No luck. I ended up hiking all the way back up the hill of the last descent of earlier that day. It was 1.7 miles and lots of elevation gain to the last trail junction, where we had left Kevin a water bottle and a map. I decided to go at least that far, and see if the items were still there, which would mean that Kevin hadn't made it to the junction. The bottle and map were gone, our directional arrow made of rocks was still intact, but no Kevin. I started to get worried at this point, but not too badly. Kevin had water and a map, and enough food and equipment to survive for more than a week if he had to. There were also roads and trailheads within an easy day's hike in any direction, so he shouldn't have to do more than spend a night on his own unless he were seriously injured. I headed back down the hill, keeping my eyes open for signs that Kevin had turned off the main trail or left us some sort of indication where he was going. At this point I was seriously tiring. I had hiked the seven miles with a full pack, and then after a rest had blasted back up the hill after eating two granola bars and some trail mix. I drank the rest of the quart-size Nalgene I was carrying, but my legs muscles started trembling and I could tell I wasn't going to be able to do much more searching. I headed back to camp. When I got there, we discussed our options. We knew that Kevin was in an area bounded by the state highway on the south and by the river on the north. As long as he stayed on trails (and we were fairly confident he was smart enough to do that), we knew we could find him within a day or so. For now, we were losing daylight, so Travis and Drew just did a little more searching close to camp, to no avail. We were all a bit discouraged when night fell and Kevin still hadn't shown up. But we knew that Kevin was capable in the wilderness, so after praying about it, we felt he was in good Hands and went to bed, ending Day 2.
That night, since I had no tent, I put my Therm-A-Rest and sleeping bag on a tarp on the ground under Drew's hammock, hoping his rain-fly tarp would keep me reasonably dry in case of rain. That's why in the picture above you can see my orange Therm-A-Rest and blue-rain-covered pack on the ground tarp under the hammock on the right. Fortunately, that was the one night of the trip where there was no rain. However, in the middle of the night, we got a nasty surprise. I was dreaming peacefully, when suddenly in the middle of the dream there was a sound like a pistol shot and a loud yell. Then Drew suddenly came down on top of me. I came instantly awake, adrenaline pumping and my throat a little sore from my instinctive yell of terror. "My stupid hammock broke!" Drew said. Then when we realized what had happened, we both started laughing. Travis and Brandon peered through the darkness at us.
After a bit, Travis said, "Dare I ask what just happened?" We got a flashlight out and ascertained that the steel S-hook that was connecting the hammock to the nylon strap that goes around the tree had snapped. This was surprising, because the hammock, straps, and all were guaranteed to 350 pounds of capacity, and Drew is far below that limit. He hadn't been swinging, bouncing or anything either. So Drew threw the hammock down beside me on the ground tarp and slept the rest of the night there.
The morning of Day 3 we awoke, brewed coffee (a non-negotiable morning starter on all trips involving Travis, Drew or me), and discussed plans to find Kevin. We tentatively agreed that the most likely scenario was that Kevin had been unaware of how close to camp he was at the last trail junction, and had decided that he couldn't make it and had therefore gone back to the cars. We were prepared to be frustrated with him and make fun of him mercilessly for this perceived wimping out. Travis had left three inner tubes at the vehicles at Steel Creek, a little over four miles upstream via the ORT. He and Drew and Brandon decided they would take a light pack and hike the ORT back to the vehicles, and then inflate the inner tubes and float back to camp. If they didn't find Kevin, we would search downstream if enough daylight was left to permit it. My jaunt back up the ascent the previous evening had seriously sapped my energy, so I decided to be the one to stay behind at the campsite for the day.
We were expecting Kevin Askew, another companion of previous adventures, to join us that day - he hadn't been able to come the first day, and therefore we had pinpointed on a map where we would be, and he was going to hike over the hills from the north and cross the river to join us. I sat in Travis' hammock (after carefully inspecting the hardware!) and read most of the morning, glad that I had recently downloaded to my phone the newly-published Tolkien book The Children of Hurin, which turned out to be a very good read, if a bit depressing. I kept my eyes and ears open for both Kevins.
A little before noon I heard someone calling, "Hello, the camp!" I turned and saw Kevin Askew striding confidently in (of course - he had no ascents in his hike of the morning). I got up and helped him stretch his own hammock (what IS it with these bandwagon trend-followers?) and filled him in on the sequence of events. After we ate lunch, we decided to try a little fishing by our bluff. Travis had packed in a light rod that was still strapped to his pack, so I assembled it and tied on a crappie jig. Kevin had a pole as well. Kevin caught a couple of decent-sized fish. I had one on twice (it was crazy - you could see the fish hit and everything in the clear water) and lost them both. The rain started falling around that time, and I got out my nifty new Marmot PreCip rain jacket, the one new piece of gear I had bought for this trip. I very shortly decided that I liked that jacket a lot. (Later experience reinforced that first impression. Strenuous hiking will make it steam up inside for sure, but it breathes remarkably well for a jacket that will keep a torrential downpour off you. As I've said before about various items, I'm not getting paid by Marmot to say nice things about their jacket, but I'm definitely willing to discuss offers!)
After we had been fishing for perhaps an hour, we heard an extremely welcome sound. It was that of FOUR familiar, cheery voices coming down the ORT across the river from us. Travis, Drew, and Brandon walked into view, Kevin Allred in tow.
Over the next while, the stories were exchanged. Kevin had reached the trail junction and found the map and bottle. The difficulty was that he had no idea where we had started or where we were headed on said map, and we hadn't marked anything. He had taken the correct trail down the hill to meet up with the ORT. He had gotten to within two tenths of a mile from our campsite, where our route had joined the ORT and we had turned left, heading northwest into Horseshoe Bend. There he had instead turned right, and headed southeast along the ORT. He had in fact then hiked an additional two miles downstream to Kyle's Landing, where most float-trippers in this section are picked up at the end of the day. In traversing this section of trail Kevin had to cross the river four times. One of these crossings put him in an even fouler mood. He had shorts on under his pants for the river crossings, where he would drape his pants around his neck to keep them dry for the crossing. So far so good. But the river was fairly high that week due to the rains, and one crossing was unusually deep and swift-flowing. Kevin stumbled and almost lost all his stuff. His pants fell off from around his neck and were caught by the current and swept away very rapidly. They were sucked underwater and out of sight in another instant. By this time Kevin was in no physical shape to fight rapid current to try to find them, and daylight was fading fast, so he gritted his teeth and kept going. When he got to Kyle's landing, he found a kind Park Service employee who loaned him an old tent that had poles (I was carrying the poles for the tent in Kevin's pack, remember?) and he used it to spend the night there at Kyle's Landing. The next morning he did some thinking and going over maps, and correctly ascertained that we had started from Steel Creek. He found a kind soul who agreed to give him a ride there. When Travis, Drew and Brandon hiked into Steel Creek late that morning, they found Kevin, who had only been there about three minutes. They grabbed their inner tubes, inflated them, and headed back to camp. Of course, the cigarette-lighter-powered air pump they used wouldn't let them get the tubes as inflated as they would have liked, so they actually did more hiking than floating back to camp, but they got there in the middle of the afternoon.
So we were all there. Travis, Drew, Brandon, Kevin Askew, Kevin Allred, and me. Kevin and I triumphantly reunited the components of our tent and set it up in a likely spot. That night was considerably more cheery, despite the fact that it rained steadily. And by the way, after going through a rainy week, even Travis was ready to admit that a good tent was preferable to a hammock-and-tarp setup for weatherproof comfort. My gear envy abated.
It was nice, though, to have the rain-fly tarp over Drew's hammock for use as a rain cover while cooking.
I don't cook in tents for several good reasons, but the tarp was high enough and ventilated enough that it was great for that purpose.
My MSR Pocket Rocket stove brewed coffee, cooked my food, and did everything I asked - from roaring flame to gentle simmer - all week, with only two small fuel canisters used and a total pack weight of 19 ounces including fuel. A great little stove.
The rest of Day 3 was spent bluff-diving and hanging around camp. We went to bed that night in a much better frame of mind.
The next two days were spent swimming, fishing, and sitting on our large flat rock discussing life's mysteries.
One evening we accomplished a very difficult feat. Using only the rain-soaked wood we could find around us, and using a small hatchet to cut into the drier core of some logs, we lit a very respectable fire and had it roaring even with the light rain continuing to splash down drops from time to time. That night we sat on our flat rock by our fire and had a time of frank discussion and prayer that I will, very simply, treasure for the rest of my life. I hope the other guys benefited as much from that time as I did. Gentlemen, my profoundest thanks.
We took two side excursions that are definitely worth a mention. We did these hikes in various groupings, because Brandon had to leave a day early and we were shuffling transportation around. The first was Hemmed-In Hollow Waterfall. I don't have a good picture of Hemmed-In Hollow, because I made the rookie mistake of allowing a stranger to take the only picture I have of the fall so that I could be IN said picture. I am indeed in the picture, blurred and unrecognizable. And the fall is nowhere in the frame. But Hemmed-In Hollow was definitely worth the hike. The fall (which are dry when there is no rain for a few days) was gushing water impressively, tumbling into a craggy box-canyon that soars up almost 300 feet.
The other side excursion was to Big Bluff. This will stay in my mind as one of my favorite spots. It definitely lived up to the hype that Randy gave it. We hiked through the rain in late afternoon, noting that the clouds were clearing off in spots and hoping that the sun would peek out and give us an impressive sunset we could watch from Big Bluff. There was a difficult 1.6-mile climb up the hill northwest of Horseshoe Bend, followed by a mosquito-filled "primitive route" for a quarter of a mile or so onto the Bluff trail. But then we came out onto the little ledge. There was an overhang of rock above our heads, and a wide panorama of the river below us. We got there with a few minutes to spare before sunset, and were rewarded for our labors. The sun came out from under the clouds just before it set, and for a glorious half hour or so we watched clouds forming below us as rain water evaporated off the trees and slowly moved up the river valley.
We sat and brewed coffee and tea, and then headed back before it got too dark to navigate the treacherous parts of the ledge.
Finally the last day came. We were intending to hike out on Saturday, but we heard rumors of a huge thunderstorm brewing, so we decided to head out on Friday. We hiked out in various directions and hit the road. As we headed north, a monster storm moved in and pelted us with hail and blinding rain. We later heard that there was golf-ball-sized hail falling in the area where we were camped. We were glad our tents and tarps weren't put to that test.
We met in Springfield at Lambert's Cafe. "Throwed" rolls, fried potatoes, and classic southern American food. I did something I never thought possible before: I took advantage of a little-optioned Lambert's policy that allows you to get a second helping of your entree for free if you finish the first. Before I've always felt so full after the rolls and pass-around food that my entree barely fit. This time I ate all the rolls, pass-arounds, and my barbecued pork steak, and STILL wanted more. I cleaned my plate the second time and wasn't even painfully full then. So I don't think that counts as gluttony... A week of hiking creates, I think, an extenuating circumstance, right? (I'm starting to think much more about gluttony lately after I heard someone describe it quite debatably as the "pet sin of the American church." Hey, buddy, there's a lot of competition for that award...)
So anyway, I loved the Buffalo National River. In fact, I liked it so much that when our friend Candace wanted Cindy and I to go backpacking with her to celebrate the end of the school year in late May, I convinced her that we should go back to Arkansas. And we did, despite the fact that we only had three days instead of six. Cindy bravely ignored her claustrophobia and conquered Cob's Cave, and we used the ORT and its multiple river crossings to do an overnight out-and-back trip from Steel Creek to the same campsite on the west side of Horseshoe Bend. The warmer weather meant lots more drunken canoers this time around, but it was still a blast. Cindy and Candace both did the cliff dive, Cindy with the stylish "angel wing" that is now her trademark.
My friend Travis Sayler, with whom I've planned many a backcountry excursion, has been telling me for several years that I need to go see the Buffalo National River area in northern Arkansas. I've honestly been a bit skeptical, because I've canoed another section of the same river before, and though that section was certainly scenic, it didn't exactly make the Life List category of places you have to visit before you die. However, Travis persisted. Randy Joe Bland also told me of a place in this wilderness area called Big Bluff, where one walks along a narrow cliff ledge 500-600 feet above the river. I began to get intrigued - I'm a sucker for sweeping vistas. Travis mentioned a cave with a waterfall inside. I got a bit more interested. Travis also mentioned Hemmed-In Hollow Waterfall, the highest waterfall between the Rockies and the Appalachians. I agreed to the expedition.
So in late April, despite forecasts calling for rain every day of the trip, five of us - Travis, Brandon Speak (my brother-in-law), Kevin Allred, Drew Ryan, and me - converged on Lost Valley Campground just west of Ponca, Arkansas. That afternoon of Day 1 we hiked the mile-or-so to Eden Falls, beside which is the entrance to Cob Cave. The falls themselves are quite beautiful, but the highlight to me was the cave. A few feet inside the entrance the ceiling gets lower and lower. We crawled in muck and bat guano (the bats themselves were often in evidence) under a low ceiling for about twenty yards beside a rushing stream coming from deeper in the blackness of the cave ahead of us. Then, as the noise of rushing water grew steadily louder, there was a tight squeeze through a claustrophobic spot, and suddenly I felt a sense of space and roominess. I turned around and shined my headlamp upward, and laughed aloud. The roar of rushing water was coming from a waterfall that fell from the middle of a high domed ceiling about twenty-five feet over our heads. It was a bit of a surreal moment for me. Even though this was a readily-accessible cave (we saw families with young children successfully navigate the same passage), it had the sense of a pirate treasure cave or the hideout of an Old-West outlaw. I could imagine looking over in the corner and seeing a bleached skeleton fastened by a rusty cutlass to cracks in the rock.
That night we "car camped" at Lost Valley. Then in the morning of Day 2 we loaded up the cars again and drove a few miles to Steel Creek, one of the popular put-in points for canoe floaters and our trailhead for the trip.
There, surrounded by high bluffs with leaky clouds socked in overhead, we made final adjustments to our packs, locked up the cars, and hit the trail. After just a few hundred trail yards, signs of civilization had completely disappeared. I commented to Travis that this was "good trail." He knew what I meant. Good trail doesn't necessarily mean that the trail is well-maintained or even safely banked on steep slopes. It means that it's a narrow track through areas where evidence of civilization is minimal, where the scenery is good, where the noise is all nature noise... It's a bit hard to define, but this was good trail. The steady dripping of recent rain water off the leaves, the misty feel to the air, and the deeper green that a cloudy day imparts to a deep forest didn't hurt. I was pleasantly surprised to find such a place in Arkansas.
It was definitely not easy trail. We had had two choices for hiking. We could have taken the Old River Trail (ORT), which follows the river and fords it about once or twice per mile. The ORT is fairly free of steep climbs and knee-testing descents. The newer Buffalo River Trail (BRT), however, stays feet-dry along its entire length (or at least it does in the Western section of the Buffalo National River area), but incorporates repeated strenuous climbs and descents. In view of the fact that this was early April and the water was still considerably cool (and also in view of the fact that this was the same group that in the two previous years hiked in the Great Smokies and the Grand Canyon), we chose the BRT. The BRT also recommended itself to us because the occasionally brutal climbs sometimes reward the hiker with an overlook in full wide-screen, hi-definition spectacularity.
We hiked without incident for several hours, with Kevin Allred consistently in the rear, especially on the climbs. He freely confessed that he had just found out about the trip a few days before we departed, and therefore had done zero conditioning. "I'm just gonna be slow," he said. So when, after our first big climb, it became evident that there was another major climb in the offing, we made sure Kevin had enough water and then told him that at the next trail junction we would leave a map and make an arrow with rocks showing which way to go. Then we headed on up the trail. You, gentle reader, may criticize this decision. You'd probably be correct in this criticism. But Kevin was eager to avoid being a hindrance to us, and we respected his prowess in the wilderness. Also, if you've done significant hiking carrying a full pack in steep terrain, you know how important it can be to your endurance to be able to stay in the rhythm once you hit your stride on a climb. Frequently stopping or pausing to wait for stragglers is the last thing you want to do when you have a good pace going. All this reasoning was sound, but disastrous. I'll come back to that in a bit.Brandon and I kept a good pace and pushed out considerably ahead of the others, and reached the top of the last hard climb on the 7.2 miles of our first day breathing hard, but otherwise feeling pretty saucy and full of life. (If you're the geographical type and want to see what I'm talking about on a map, go here and zoom in on the left side of the upper section of the main map.) At that point we had a little over a mile and a half to go, all of which was descent. So we stepped out eagerly, heading for the junction with the ORT at Horseshoe Bend, where we planned to set up our base camp for the next few days. The descent went quickly, and soon we took a left turn and joined up with the ORT, which here seemed to follow an old wagon trail's wide, straight, rutted track northwest toward the river. The deciduous forest turned to tall pines, which gave a spongy floor of needles to walk on.
Two tenths of a mile later, we found our destination. We started to glimpse an open area through the pines ahead. We came out of the forest onto a wide, flat rock shaped roughly like a football, about fifty feet wide and maybe three times that long. On the southwest side to our left, one of the points of the football pushed out directly over the clear blue-green of the Buffalo River, forming a bluff about thirty feet off the water. This, the west side of Horseshoe Bend, was home for the next few days: unlike our previous expeditions in which we backpacked point-to-point or in a large loop, this trip was a base-camp-with-daily-excursions setup.
We decided that the perfect place to camp was just off the eastern edge of the rock under the shade of the pines. We took off our packs, stretched, rested a bit, and then started setting up camp. Travis and Drew had brought lightweight hammocks made of something similar to parachute cloth. They were very excited about hammock camping. They kept saying things like, "It's lighter to carry, much better ventilated, more comfortable..." They had lightweight tarps to rig over their hammocks to keep the rain off, and I don't mind admitting that at first I was just a bit envious. I have two great backpacking tents I've written about before here - one an REI Half Dome 2-man and the other a Big Agnes Muddy Slide 3-man. Both my tents are very lightweight and bombproof in extreme weather, but the hammock system seemed ideal for warmer-weather backpacking.
Brandon pitched the tiny solo tent he was using for the week nearby. I waited to start setting up my tent, because Kevin Allred was carrying the tent fabric while I had the poles and stakes in my pack.
When we had set up camp to this point and eaten a snack, we noted that Kevin Allred still hadn't shown up. We wondered if he'd taken a break to eat his lunch. Then we went to the bluff over the river and spotted a good place to jump off the bluff into the water. The water was very clear, and when I tossed in a rock I could see it take time to fall all the way to the bottom. Brandon climbed down and swam over to the spot, and noted that he couldn't touch the bottom without making a serious effort to dive down and do so. He also mentioned that the water was a bit chilly. But we decided we had found our diving board. I went first, and made the plunge after stalling for only a little bit. The dive was great, the adrenaline rush was wonderful, and the shock of the cold water revived my tired muscles. 
And it was cold water.We swam for a while, then dried off and started wondering when Kevin would show up. After I ate a little, I decided to go look for him. I took a couple of granola bars, a full Nalgene water bottle, and a map, and headed back up the trail. I told the guys exactly where I was going and the route I was taking to get there. I hoped to find Kevin in the first mile and help him carry his things back to camp. No luck. I ended up hiking all the way back up the hill of the last descent of earlier that day. It was 1.7 miles and lots of elevation gain to the last trail junction, where we had left Kevin a water bottle and a map. I decided to go at least that far, and see if the items were still there, which would mean that Kevin hadn't made it to the junction. The bottle and map were gone, our directional arrow made of rocks was still intact, but no Kevin. I started to get worried at this point, but not too badly. Kevin had water and a map, and enough food and equipment to survive for more than a week if he had to. There were also roads and trailheads within an easy day's hike in any direction, so he shouldn't have to do more than spend a night on his own unless he were seriously injured. I headed back down the hill, keeping my eyes open for signs that Kevin had turned off the main trail or left us some sort of indication where he was going. At this point I was seriously tiring. I had hiked the seven miles with a full pack, and then after a rest had blasted back up the hill after eating two granola bars and some trail mix. I drank the rest of the quart-size Nalgene I was carrying, but my legs muscles started trembling and I could tell I wasn't going to be able to do much more searching. I headed back to camp. When I got there, we discussed our options. We knew that Kevin was in an area bounded by the state highway on the south and by the river on the north. As long as he stayed on trails (and we were fairly confident he was smart enough to do that), we knew we could find him within a day or so. For now, we were losing daylight, so Travis and Drew just did a little more searching close to camp, to no avail. We were all a bit discouraged when night fell and Kevin still hadn't shown up. But we knew that Kevin was capable in the wilderness, so after praying about it, we felt he was in good Hands and went to bed, ending Day 2.
That night, since I had no tent, I put my Therm-A-Rest and sleeping bag on a tarp on the ground under Drew's hammock, hoping his rain-fly tarp would keep me reasonably dry in case of rain. That's why in the picture above you can see my orange Therm-A-Rest and blue-rain-covered pack on the ground tarp under the hammock on the right. Fortunately, that was the one night of the trip where there was no rain. However, in the middle of the night, we got a nasty surprise. I was dreaming peacefully, when suddenly in the middle of the dream there was a sound like a pistol shot and a loud yell. Then Drew suddenly came down on top of me. I came instantly awake, adrenaline pumping and my throat a little sore from my instinctive yell of terror. "My stupid hammock broke!" Drew said. Then when we realized what had happened, we both started laughing. Travis and Brandon peered through the darkness at us.
After a bit, Travis said, "Dare I ask what just happened?" We got a flashlight out and ascertained that the steel S-hook that was connecting the hammock to the nylon strap that goes around the tree had snapped. This was surprising, because the hammock, straps, and all were guaranteed to 350 pounds of capacity, and Drew is far below that limit. He hadn't been swinging, bouncing or anything either. So Drew threw the hammock down beside me on the ground tarp and slept the rest of the night there.
The morning of Day 3 we awoke, brewed coffee (a non-negotiable morning starter on all trips involving Travis, Drew or me), and discussed plans to find Kevin. We tentatively agreed that the most likely scenario was that Kevin had been unaware of how close to camp he was at the last trail junction, and had decided that he couldn't make it and had therefore gone back to the cars. We were prepared to be frustrated with him and make fun of him mercilessly for this perceived wimping out. Travis had left three inner tubes at the vehicles at Steel Creek, a little over four miles upstream via the ORT. He and Drew and Brandon decided they would take a light pack and hike the ORT back to the vehicles, and then inflate the inner tubes and float back to camp. If they didn't find Kevin, we would search downstream if enough daylight was left to permit it. My jaunt back up the ascent the previous evening had seriously sapped my energy, so I decided to be the one to stay behind at the campsite for the day.
We were expecting Kevin Askew, another companion of previous adventures, to join us that day - he hadn't been able to come the first day, and therefore we had pinpointed on a map where we would be, and he was going to hike over the hills from the north and cross the river to join us. I sat in Travis' hammock (after carefully inspecting the hardware!) and read most of the morning, glad that I had recently downloaded to my phone the newly-published Tolkien book The Children of Hurin, which turned out to be a very good read, if a bit depressing. I kept my eyes and ears open for both Kevins.
A little before noon I heard someone calling, "Hello, the camp!" I turned and saw Kevin Askew striding confidently in (of course - he had no ascents in his hike of the morning). I got up and helped him stretch his own hammock (what IS it with these bandwagon trend-followers?) and filled him in on the sequence of events. After we ate lunch, we decided to try a little fishing by our bluff. Travis had packed in a light rod that was still strapped to his pack, so I assembled it and tied on a crappie jig. Kevin had a pole as well. Kevin caught a couple of decent-sized fish. I had one on twice (it was crazy - you could see the fish hit and everything in the clear water) and lost them both. The rain started falling around that time, and I got out my nifty new Marmot PreCip rain jacket, the one new piece of gear I had bought for this trip. I very shortly decided that I liked that jacket a lot. (Later experience reinforced that first impression. Strenuous hiking will make it steam up inside for sure, but it breathes remarkably well for a jacket that will keep a torrential downpour off you. As I've said before about various items, I'm not getting paid by Marmot to say nice things about their jacket, but I'm definitely willing to discuss offers!)
After we had been fishing for perhaps an hour, we heard an extremely welcome sound. It was that of FOUR familiar, cheery voices coming down the ORT across the river from us. Travis, Drew, and Brandon walked into view, Kevin Allred in tow.
Over the next while, the stories were exchanged. Kevin had reached the trail junction and found the map and bottle. The difficulty was that he had no idea where we had started or where we were headed on said map, and we hadn't marked anything. He had taken the correct trail down the hill to meet up with the ORT. He had gotten to within two tenths of a mile from our campsite, where our route had joined the ORT and we had turned left, heading northwest into Horseshoe Bend. There he had instead turned right, and headed southeast along the ORT. He had in fact then hiked an additional two miles downstream to Kyle's Landing, where most float-trippers in this section are picked up at the end of the day. In traversing this section of trail Kevin had to cross the river four times. One of these crossings put him in an even fouler mood. He had shorts on under his pants for the river crossings, where he would drape his pants around his neck to keep them dry for the crossing. So far so good. But the river was fairly high that week due to the rains, and one crossing was unusually deep and swift-flowing. Kevin stumbled and almost lost all his stuff. His pants fell off from around his neck and were caught by the current and swept away very rapidly. They were sucked underwater and out of sight in another instant. By this time Kevin was in no physical shape to fight rapid current to try to find them, and daylight was fading fast, so he gritted his teeth and kept going. When he got to Kyle's landing, he found a kind Park Service employee who loaned him an old tent that had poles (I was carrying the poles for the tent in Kevin's pack, remember?) and he used it to spend the night there at Kyle's Landing. The next morning he did some thinking and going over maps, and correctly ascertained that we had started from Steel Creek. He found a kind soul who agreed to give him a ride there. When Travis, Drew and Brandon hiked into Steel Creek late that morning, they found Kevin, who had only been there about three minutes. They grabbed their inner tubes, inflated them, and headed back to camp. Of course, the cigarette-lighter-powered air pump they used wouldn't let them get the tubes as inflated as they would have liked, so they actually did more hiking than floating back to camp, but they got there in the middle of the afternoon.
So we were all there. Travis, Drew, Brandon, Kevin Askew, Kevin Allred, and me. Kevin and I triumphantly reunited the components of our tent and set it up in a likely spot. That night was considerably more cheery, despite the fact that it rained steadily. And by the way, after going through a rainy week, even Travis was ready to admit that a good tent was preferable to a hammock-and-tarp setup for weatherproof comfort. My gear envy abated.
It was nice, though, to have the rain-fly tarp over Drew's hammock for use as a rain cover while cooking.
I don't cook in tents for several good reasons, but the tarp was high enough and ventilated enough that it was great for that purpose.
My MSR Pocket Rocket stove brewed coffee, cooked my food, and did everything I asked - from roaring flame to gentle simmer - all week, with only two small fuel canisters used and a total pack weight of 19 ounces including fuel. A great little stove.
The rest of Day 3 was spent bluff-diving and hanging around camp. We went to bed that night in a much better frame of mind.
The next two days were spent swimming, fishing, and sitting on our large flat rock discussing life's mysteries.
One evening we accomplished a very difficult feat. Using only the rain-soaked wood we could find around us, and using a small hatchet to cut into the drier core of some logs, we lit a very respectable fire and had it roaring even with the light rain continuing to splash down drops from time to time. That night we sat on our flat rock by our fire and had a time of frank discussion and prayer that I will, very simply, treasure for the rest of my life. I hope the other guys benefited as much from that time as I did. Gentlemen, my profoundest thanks.We took two side excursions that are definitely worth a mention. We did these hikes in various groupings, because Brandon had to leave a day early and we were shuffling transportation around. The first was Hemmed-In Hollow Waterfall. I don't have a good picture of Hemmed-In Hollow, because I made the rookie mistake of allowing a stranger to take the only picture I have of the fall so that I could be IN said picture. I am indeed in the picture, blurred and unrecognizable. And the fall is nowhere in the frame. But Hemmed-In Hollow was definitely worth the hike. The fall (which are dry when there is no rain for a few days) was gushing water impressively, tumbling into a craggy box-canyon that soars up almost 300 feet.
The other side excursion was to Big Bluff. This will stay in my mind as one of my favorite spots. It definitely lived up to the hype that Randy gave it. We hiked through the rain in late afternoon, noting that the clouds were clearing off in spots and hoping that the sun would peek out and give us an impressive sunset we could watch from Big Bluff. There was a difficult 1.6-mile climb up the hill northwest of Horseshoe Bend, followed by a mosquito-filled "primitive route" for a quarter of a mile or so onto the Bluff trail. But then we came out onto the little ledge. There was an overhang of rock above our heads, and a wide panorama of the river below us. We got there with a few minutes to spare before sunset, and were rewarded for our labors. The sun came out from under the clouds just before it set, and for a glorious half hour or so we watched clouds forming below us as rain water evaporated off the trees and slowly moved up the river valley.
We sat and brewed coffee and tea, and then headed back before it got too dark to navigate the treacherous parts of the ledge.Finally the last day came. We were intending to hike out on Saturday, but we heard rumors of a huge thunderstorm brewing, so we decided to head out on Friday. We hiked out in various directions and hit the road. As we headed north, a monster storm moved in and pelted us with hail and blinding rain. We later heard that there was golf-ball-sized hail falling in the area where we were camped. We were glad our tents and tarps weren't put to that test.
We met in Springfield at Lambert's Cafe. "Throwed" rolls, fried potatoes, and classic southern American food. I did something I never thought possible before: I took advantage of a little-optioned Lambert's policy that allows you to get a second helping of your entree for free if you finish the first. Before I've always felt so full after the rolls and pass-around food that my entree barely fit. This time I ate all the rolls, pass-arounds, and my barbecued pork steak, and STILL wanted more. I cleaned my plate the second time and wasn't even painfully full then. So I don't think that counts as gluttony... A week of hiking creates, I think, an extenuating circumstance, right? (I'm starting to think much more about gluttony lately after I heard someone describe it quite debatably as the "pet sin of the American church." Hey, buddy, there's a lot of competition for that award...)
So anyway, I loved the Buffalo National River. In fact, I liked it so much that when our friend Candace wanted Cindy and I to go backpacking with her to celebrate the end of the school year in late May, I convinced her that we should go back to Arkansas. And we did, despite the fact that we only had three days instead of six. Cindy bravely ignored her claustrophobia and conquered Cob's Cave, and we used the ORT and its multiple river crossings to do an overnight out-and-back trip from Steel Creek to the same campsite on the west side of Horseshoe Bend. The warmer weather meant lots more drunken canoers this time around, but it was still a blast. Cindy and Candace both did the cliff dive, Cindy with the stylish "angel wing" that is now her trademark.
Friday, June 05, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Un-thin
You've probably heard a lot about the flap surrounding KFC's Oprah-enabled free meal coupons to promote their new grilled chicken.
I find it hilarious that the domain they chose to publicize the coupon offer (and the new grilled line) is www.unthinkfc.com. Of course, their take on that is "un-think what you thought about KFC."
I guess no one in their marketing department realized it also says "un-thin KFC." Hrm...
I find it hilarious that the domain they chose to publicize the coupon offer (and the new grilled line) is www.unthinkfc.com. Of course, their take on that is "un-think what you thought about KFC."
I guess no one in their marketing department realized it also says "un-thin KFC." Hrm...
Monday, April 13, 2009
My Inner Geek Rejoices
Okay, this is awesome. Segway is teaming up with GM to make a new all-electric two-person urban transport device that makes all my gadget geekiness giggle with gratuitous glee. It's got six wheels - two small ones just for safety in the back (they don't touch the pavement unless you run the battery clear dead and then lean back), two small ones in the front that it rests on when parked, and two larger main wheels that it runs around on, automatically balancing on these two wheels Segway-style.
It's strictly for urban commuters - the 35-mph top speed limits it for use on major roads. And the version they're showing around right now has absolutely zero aesthetic appeal. It's not cute OR cool-looking OR impressive-looking OR even ugly enough to inspire a sort of backward affection. It depends on sheer geek appeal. They call it the PUMA in a futile attempt to make it seem tougher somehow. But it runs for 35 miles before needing a recharge, and that's plenty for almost anyone who commutes on urban streets. They're also promising a low energy impact to accomplish that recharge. If they make it reasonably rain-proof and sell it for less than, say, 10 grand or so, I think they'll have a serious seller on their hands.
The jury is, of course, still out on the wisdom of picking up your date in this thing.
It's strictly for urban commuters - the 35-mph top speed limits it for use on major roads. And the version they're showing around right now has absolutely zero aesthetic appeal. It's not cute OR cool-looking OR impressive-looking OR even ugly enough to inspire a sort of backward affection. It depends on sheer geek appeal. They call it the PUMA in a futile attempt to make it seem tougher somehow. But it runs for 35 miles before needing a recharge, and that's plenty for almost anyone who commutes on urban streets. They're also promising a low energy impact to accomplish that recharge. If they make it reasonably rain-proof and sell it for less than, say, 10 grand or so, I think they'll have a serious seller on their hands.
The jury is, of course, still out on the wisdom of picking up your date in this thing.
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
True love = exorbitant over-spending!
It's been a month, so here's a brief thought for you in the middle of Holy Week that has nothing whatever to do with Holy Week. (This week around here being an insanely busy one if you're employed where I am.) Enjoy Holy Week, never lose sight of the victory won by Jesus' sacrifice, and worship with abandon this Sunday.
The rest of this post will be a rant on something much less sacred.
De Beers, the dominant worldwide diamond supplier, created a masterful marketing campaign some time in the twentieth century (early 1900's or just after the Second World War, depending on which source you believe) that said the proper amount to spend on an engagement ring is two months' wages. Since then, most people have accepted this figure as the proper one.
Some of you will shout me down as a cheapskate and say I must not love my wife very much, but you'd be wrong. About the loving my wife thing, that is. Almost five years in, my marriage is better than yours. Sorry, it's a fact.
I am admittedly a bit of a thrifty person, but those who know me best will tell you that one of my love languages is gifts, and I've been known to save up my lunch money and surprise my wife with something awesome and a bit expensive from time to time.
But before De Beers created the aforementioned marketing campaign, engagement rings with diamonds were much less common than they are today. Only the very rich could afford diamond rings until the discovery of the Kimberley African diamonds in the late nineteenth century, which led to greater supply and lower prices. Until the early twentieth century many engagement rings were plain, or had other precious stones, if they were used at all. During the Great Depression the sale of diamonds dropped drastically, and after the Second World War De Beers began heavily marketing the slogan "Diamonds are Forever," and promoting the idea of two-to-three-months' salary being the proper amount to spend on an engagement ring.
There's an interesting art project here that explores this idea. This it was that got me thinking on this topic and produced this rant.
I think all this is pure malarkey. The idea that a minimum-wage-earning worker struggling to make ends meet should spend in the neighborhood of $2000 for an engagement ring makes my blood almost boil. That is fiscal irresponsibility. Such a ring will almost certainly have to be financed over time, and it's a terrible idea to carry a debt like that into a marriage. I know some of you will probably disagree violently with me on this, but there it is. Besides that, consider the implications of having such a man's fiancee/wife toting around a two-thousand-dollar bauble on her finger in what is most likely a low-income neighborhood.
How much was Cindy's engagement ring, you ask? None of your business. But it was certainly less than one sixth of my annual salary. And we're not still paying for it. Is this an indicator that my love for her is somehow lacking? I will fight anyone (despite my total ineptitude in hand-to-hand combat) who suggests such a thing. I love that lady more than the highest poetry, prose, music, and art allow me to express. I desperately want to be the best husband Cindy Carlson Purtle could ever have. And with God's help, I will be.
Oh, and she said yes. Eat that, De Beers.
You may now criticize me mercilessly.
[Note: I know it's fashionable to criticize De Beers for exploiting workers and fostering "conflict diamonds," but they really seem to have turned the corner in the past two decades and are now doing much more responsible commerce in Africa than many other large corporations who do business on that continent. See this article for more on that.]
The rest of this post will be a rant on something much less sacred.
De Beers, the dominant worldwide diamond supplier, created a masterful marketing campaign some time in the twentieth century (early 1900's or just after the Second World War, depending on which source you believe) that said the proper amount to spend on an engagement ring is two months' wages. Since then, most people have accepted this figure as the proper one.
Some of you will shout me down as a cheapskate and say I must not love my wife very much, but you'd be wrong. About the loving my wife thing, that is. Almost five years in, my marriage is better than yours. Sorry, it's a fact.
I am admittedly a bit of a thrifty person, but those who know me best will tell you that one of my love languages is gifts, and I've been known to save up my lunch money and surprise my wife with something awesome and a bit expensive from time to time.
But before De Beers created the aforementioned marketing campaign, engagement rings with diamonds were much less common than they are today. Only the very rich could afford diamond rings until the discovery of the Kimberley African diamonds in the late nineteenth century, which led to greater supply and lower prices. Until the early twentieth century many engagement rings were plain, or had other precious stones, if they were used at all. During the Great Depression the sale of diamonds dropped drastically, and after the Second World War De Beers began heavily marketing the slogan "Diamonds are Forever," and promoting the idea of two-to-three-months' salary being the proper amount to spend on an engagement ring.
There's an interesting art project here that explores this idea. This it was that got me thinking on this topic and produced this rant.
I think all this is pure malarkey. The idea that a minimum-wage-earning worker struggling to make ends meet should spend in the neighborhood of $2000 for an engagement ring makes my blood almost boil. That is fiscal irresponsibility. Such a ring will almost certainly have to be financed over time, and it's a terrible idea to carry a debt like that into a marriage. I know some of you will probably disagree violently with me on this, but there it is. Besides that, consider the implications of having such a man's fiancee/wife toting around a two-thousand-dollar bauble on her finger in what is most likely a low-income neighborhood.
How much was Cindy's engagement ring, you ask? None of your business. But it was certainly less than one sixth of my annual salary. And we're not still paying for it. Is this an indicator that my love for her is somehow lacking? I will fight anyone (despite my total ineptitude in hand-to-hand combat) who suggests such a thing. I love that lady more than the highest poetry, prose, music, and art allow me to express. I desperately want to be the best husband Cindy Carlson Purtle could ever have. And with God's help, I will be.
Oh, and she said yes. Eat that, De Beers.
You may now criticize me mercilessly.
[Note: I know it's fashionable to criticize De Beers for exploiting workers and fostering "conflict diamonds," but they really seem to have turned the corner in the past two decades and are now doing much more responsible commerce in Africa than many other large corporations who do business on that continent. See this article for more on that.]
Friday, March 06, 2009
Snowy Insanity... and a Raccoon
Last Friday, our friend Candace Fortney, who is a track coach and an avid backpacker and marathoner, called to see if we wanted to go camping that night. The forecast said the overnight low would be in the twenties, and there would be snow. So of course we excitedly agreed. (I excitedly agreed. Cindy more just sighed.) We have good gear - our tents, sleeping bags, inflatable sleeping pads, etc. are quality stuff. We dressed in our Merino wool base layers (Merino or good wicking synthetic base layers are essential for cold-weather camping/hiking - cotton is the worst) and hit the woods.
We set up camp in Stockton Lake State Park, after determining that at this frigid time of year, there is no one staffing the place where you pay your fee for camping.
We originally set up in a designated campsite with just a few trees between us and the lake. But after we had the tents up, Candace discovered that there was a raccoon lying on the ground a few feet away from one of our tents, apparently having some sort of seizure. I watched it for a while, and even tossed a couple of twigs at it to see if it would respond. It didn't seem to react at all to a flashlight or to the twigs. I didn't know if it was rabid, dying, or just insane, but I've seen enough dumb comedy movies involving the outdoors to know that a crazy raccoon can do bad things to tent fabric. So we pulled up the stakes and moved about a hundred feet away.
There was a fire ring nearby, and I got a fire going. I knew it would be a challenge with the damp weather, but we had some dry logs and I used a Strike-A-Fire jumbo match thingy to get it going, and it burned cheerfully and willingly. That was good, because I didn't bring any lighter fluid or other accellerant. The fact that the snow hadn't started yet probably helped.
We ate lots of carbs in the form of S'mores, granola bars, and peanut butter, and then went to bed. Our sleeping bags were warm enough with all the layering and other stuff we did.
The rub, however, was that I had to get up TWICE in the night to answer nature's call, which causes several problems. The first problem is that when you're warm in your sleeping bag, it is downright miserable to get out in the cold again. You have to put on your freezing boots (Get On Your Boots - U2's new album - check it out. "Let me in the sound..."), and enough other layers of ice-cold clothing to keep you alive in the elements. Then, you have to actually get out of the tent into whatever those elements are doing to try to kill you. Finally, you have to risk the possibility that you will be attacked, um, (ahem), mid-stream, as it were, by an insane raccoon or other servant of Sauron; and this precisely at the least advantageous moment for you to flee or defend yourself. But both times, I successfully accomplished my purpose, and then was rewarded with that heavenly feeling of snuggling back down into the warmth of my sleeping bag.
About two inches of snow fell during the night. Snow has the effect of quieting everything: the tree branches are more muffled when the wind blows and the dead leaves on the ground don't rustle. There's just the occasional swishing sound when the snow on the top of the tent gets enough accumulation that there's a clump that slides off, pulled by its own weight and nudged by the wind. Usually all this combines for ideal sleeping conditions. On this occasion, however, the first such swish woke me up with a start, imagining the raccoon, with red eyes and four-inch fangs, beginning his assault. As soon as I was fully awake, I realized what the actual cause of the sound was, but the adrenaline kept me alert for half an hour or so. Cindy was sleeping like a log, which was a small victory because it's very hard for her to get warm in a tent. This time she was toasty.
The snow had turned everything spectacular by the time we got up in the morning.
A park ranger in an SUV drove within view once, but didn't stop. About half an hour later he came back, this time with a small girl in the back seat staring at us wide-eyed. I wondered if he went by the first time and then went back to his cabin, where he commented on the crazy people camping in the snow, and then the little girl said, "I wanna see!"
I went over and checked on the raccoon. He was still there, and the only movement I could see was his breathing. I asked Travis Bland (one of the great authorities of our time on Ozark wildlife) about it later and he said that it's common for raccoons to get canine distemper, a virus that effects breathing and nerve function.
Also, I discovered that the door to the pit toilet was actually unlocked, despite the website's claim that all facilities were locked until some time in March. Our nighttime fears of a ring-tailed attack could have been abated, but by the time I figured it out we were ready to leave.
We packed up our stuff, and after we got everything loaded in the car, we drove to The Powderhorn Restaurant for epic-sized pancakes. Never had one, you say? You should.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Patriotic Over-Spending
Those clever writers at woot.com come through once again with insightful social commentary, this time on how profligate spending is somehow "patriotic."
http://www.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=7539
http://www.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=7539
Monday, February 02, 2009
Jim's Guide to Kansas City
I wrote this in response to a couple in our church who spent some vacation time in Kansas City. They're from Wisconsin and don't really know Kansas City at all. I figured I might as well post it here.
Clarification: this post is written mostly for the benefit of Kansas City outsiders who, like us, live on a budget, but have managed to scrape together funds for a "splurge" weekend in KC. Your budget may allow you to stay at the Hotel Phillips for a month. If so, this is not your guide to KC. I've included a few chain places on this list (sorry Chris), even though I support local flava whenever possible.
Here's a rundown on some of our favorites in Kansas City.
PLACES TO EAT
Downtown:
The Majestic Steakhouse ($15-30) – Steaks, pasta, and seafood. The atmosphere is old-town Kansas City class. The building was a speakeasy during prohibition, among other things. On the weekends, the Bram Wijnands Trio performs at dinnertime (Bram is one of my all-time favorite jazz pianists). Ask to sit downstairs where you can see the band.
http://www.kansascitymenus.com/majesticsteakhouse/
http://tinyurl.com/c9ym4k
The Hereford House ($20-40) - One of the great steakhouses. A Kansas City classic. I've heard it much maligned recently, but I still support it. I've only been able to afford it a few times, but every time my steak was a memorable experience (in a good way). Thanks to bigBADbobby for reminding me to include a few steakhouses!
http://tinyurl.com/b26dme
http://www.herefordhouse.com
The Peachtree Restaurant ($10-20) – In the Power and Light District next to the Sprint Center Arena (the Power and Light District has lots of other places to eat, plus a sweetastic-looking bowling alley, but we don't have good info on them yet). “Soul food with elegance.” Fried chicken, catfish, cornbread, collard greens, sweet tea, and peach cobbler. The original location off Eastwood Trafficway is one of my dad's all-time favorite places to eat.
http://tinyurl.com/bhbvo6
Arthur Bryant's Barbecue ($5-10) – Near the 18th and Vine jazz district. Bryant's is still neck-and-neck with Gates & Sons for the title of The Classic Kansas City Barbecue Place. I slightly prefer Bryant's, although if you're buying a bottle of sauce for your own purposes, go with Gates.
http://www.arthurbryantsbbq.com/
http://tinyurl.com/dgqg3q
The Happy Gillis Cafe ($3-12) - Just off the northeast corner of the Downtown loop. A really cool little cafe with yummy breakfast sandwiches and pastries, plus the best soups and sandwiches anywhere for lunchtime.
http://www.happysoupeater.com/happy_gillis.php
The Skies ($30-50 for dinner, but we just go for dessert, which is $6-10) – The rotating restaurant high atop the Hyatt Regency hotel by Crown Center. Awesome view that rotates all the way around slowly, so you see the whole thing in about an hour. Go at sunset or later.
www.hyattkc.com/skies/
Pancho's ($3-7) – Awesome, epic, huge, authentic gut-busting burritos. Open all night so you can make your heartburn worse. I've spent a large percentage of my restaurant dollars here. Get the carne asada burrito and experience true felicidad.
http://tinyurl.com/aarv9d
Town Topic ($3-7) - One of those classic 24-hour diners that kept blue-collar Americans alive through the best and worst of the twentieth century. The burgers are the famous part, and I love them in all their greasy goodness.
Southwest Boulevard/ Crossroads Arts District:
Lulu's Thai Noodles ($8-20) – Cool little Thai place on Southwest Boulevard. Good atmosphere and great food. If you like really spicy curry, order theirs and prepare to have your mouth on fire for hours. Most menu items can be made milder, though.
www.lulusnoodles.com
http://tinyurl.com/dgujh5
Manny's Mexican Restaurant ($7-15) – Authentic Mex with a real south-of-the-border atmosphere. If you can't find Manny's, just keep going down Southwest Boulevard and eat at any of the dozen or more Mexican places. They're all good.
www.mannyskc.com
http://tinyurl.com/cvphd2
Dagwood's Cafe ($4-10) - Another classic diner. Dagwood's pancakes take my prize for best-in-city, and their burgers are hard to beat. Also try the biscuits and gravy, cinnamon rolls, and breakfast sandwiches on Texas toast. Open for breakfast and lunch only.
http://tinyurl.com/b4xbkm
The Plaza/Westport:
- The Country Club Plaza (mentioned above) is a short drive south of downtown Kansas City. It's the classic romantic place to hang out in KC. Upscale shopping and dining, with the look of the Mercado in Seville, Spain. It's probably most famous for its fountains and for the Plaza Lights (during the Christmas season). You can take a gondola ride on Brush Creek, but I recommend saving that idea for the warmer months.
The Cheesecake Factory – hard to go wrong here, but I recommend just getting your dessert here. It does have the best-looking interior and exterior of any CF location I've seen, though.
The Classic Cup Cafe ($8-45, depending on when you go) – Probably my vote for best romantic place for couples in Kansas City. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but upscale and a bit spendy (especially dinner).
http://tinyurl.com/cbhcvh
http://www.classiccup.com
PF Chang's China Bistro ($7-25) – Surprisingly good Chinese place, and laid-back atmosphere, just across from the JC Nichols Fountain (the huge one with the rearing horses and such).
http://tinyurl.com/c6olcp
O'Dowd's Little Dublin ($10-20) – Irish pub with my favorite shepherd's pie ever.
http://tinyurl.com/cfc55j
Andre's Confiserie Suisse ($5-15) – A Swiss chocolatier that also serves lunch. You can go for awesome pastries and coffee for breakfast, or get lunch for around $13 per person, which includes drink and super-nice dessert.
http://tinyurl.com/dlz3pk
http://www.andreschocolates.com
Winstead's ($4-12) - A 50's-themed burgers-and-ice-cream joint and a Kansas City tradition. Their food is good, but the highlight is the Skyscraper Soda, an enormous ice cream soda that you need a buddy (or two or three) to finish.
http://tinyurl.com/d3janx
D'Bronx Pizza ($6-10 approx. per person) - Very very good New-York-style pizza. The original (and by far the coolest) location is in Westport. Other locations on the bottom floor of Crown Center, on Metcalf in Overland Park, and now on Johnson Drive in Mission.
http://www.dbronxkc.com/
Blanc Burgers and Bottles ($8-20) - Possibly the best burger I've ever eaten, although I'm willing to accept arguments from anyone willing to buy me a burger at Westport Flea Market or 5 Guys Burgers and Fries. But you do pay for it. They use seriously premium ingredients to make seriously premium burgers. The Kobe burger is excellent, but spendy. Also, they serve fries (and you can get truffle fries for an upcharge) in little shopping carts that sit on the table. And the atmosphere is very cool. The "Bottles" part is that they have tons of bottled drinks. Most are alcoholic, but they have a very wide selection of non-alcoholic bottled sodas and other interesting bottled drinks. Also, the milkshakes are made with Shatto milk and Foo's Fabulous Frozen Custard. I invented my own milkshake made with Shatto Root-Beer-Flavored Milk (which is awesome) and vanilla custard. WIN. They have recently moved from Westport to the Plaza, and have a second location in Leawood on Mission Road just north of I-435. Don't look for a Mission Road exit, though - there ain't one. Take Roe or State Line and use 103rd to get there. It's between 103rd and the highway bridge on Mission Road.
http://www.blancburgers.com/
Jerusalem Cafe ($6-15) - A middle-eastern restaurant with two Westport locations. Things like beef and lamb kabobs, falafel, baba ganoush, hummus, pita sandwiches, gyros, etc. For the price, you get a ton of food. We usually share the big complete meal for two that costs around $20, and there's enough to take some home and feed us another complete meal later!
http://www.yelp.com/biz/jerusalem-cafe-kansas-city
Other Locations:
Oklahoma Joe's Barbecue ($4-10) – The best barbecue in the world. I know you're going to try to argue, but stop. It's simply the best. These guys won the American Royal Barbecue competition several times in the nineties, and then decided, hey, why not open a restaurant? Get the pulled pork sandwich. They have the world's best fries, too. It's in a gas station, so don't let that throw you. (There's a classier-looking location now in Olathe, but go to the original.)
http://tinyurl.com/cwkjc5
Waldo Pizza ($6-20) – Good pizza, with good crust. If you're feeling the need for good basic pizza, this is your place. Or if you want to get some crazy pizza, this is also your place. One of my favorites is pizza with barbecue sauce instead of marinara sauce, topped with chicken and maraschino cherries. No, seriously. Or you can get things like pine nuts and artichoke hearts on your pizza. No, seriously.
http://tinyurl.com/bnchhk
Tatsu's ($15-35) – Possibly Cindy's favorite restaurant. French cuisine that doesn't leave you hungry when you're finished. It's kind of buried in a residential neighborhood, which can make you feel like you've taken a wrong turn somewhere when you're trying to find the place.
http://tinyurl.com/auhosn
Coffee:
The Roasterie Cafe – Has recently emerged as one of my favorites, and is now battling Toto's (RIP) for the top slot. They roast their own, and they know their stuff. Classy place, too. If you're a coffee purist, try one of their Clover coffees or the siphon-brewed coffee. Ask them about it – it's hard to explain.
http://tinyurl.com/bhuqyf
Toto's – CLOSED NOW! ALAS! RIP Toto's... you were my introduction to fine coffees, and my hometown pride. Long my favorite coffee shop (but see above), just a great little place.
http://tinyurl.com/b8kgnm
Homer's – Good coffee, and free live music on weekends. The cinnamon rolls, scones, and tiramisu are pretty great too. In the fall, they have a hot caramel cider that Cindy and her friend Maggie refer to as "liquid autumn."
http://tinyurl.com/banqzc
Benetti's – Excellent little place in Raytown, which is a recent discovery for me. They do great latte art and know how to make a traditional Italian cappuccino.
http://benettiscoffee.com/
LIVE MUSIC
The Blue Room – in the 18th and Vine Jazz District. Some of the best jazz players in the world come through this club, which is a smoke-free dedicated jazz venue attached to the Jazz Museum. Some nights are free, others have a cover charge attached. Check the calendar.
http://tinyurl.com/675yjq
The Majestic Steakhouse and other restaurants with live music are mentioned above.
The Music Hall – The place to see major touring shows, at least until the new Performing Arts Center is completed.
http://tinyurl.com/cvmbpv
The Sprint Center – The new downtown arena. Concerts from Bon Jovi to Trans-Siberian Orchestra to Coldplay. Lots of special sports events, too, and the NCAA Basketball Experience is attached. Check the calendar.
www.sprintcenter.com
The Main Street Cafe – Christian coffeehouse venue with reliably good indie/underground Christian music from The Almost to Bradley Hathaway to Derek Webb to Waterdeep.
www.mainstreetcafe.org
CULTURE
First Fridays – The Crossroads Arts District, just southwest of downtown KC, has an open gallery night on the first friday night of every month. There are street performers and lots of things to see.
http://kansascity.about.com/od/thearts/p/FirstFriday.htm
Union Station – the old train station, now refurbished and gorgeous. Houses a science museum, theaters, and traveling exhibitions.
www.unionstation.org
American Heartland Theatre – Live plays. Good ones.
http://www.ahtkc.com/
The New Theatre Restaurant – Dinner theatre. Good dinner theatre.
http://www.newtheatre.com/home.html
Crown Center – Shopping, dining, ice skating – attached to the world headquarters of Hallmark Cards.
www.crowncenter.com
River Market – The downtown farmer's market with restaurants and the Steamboat Arabia Museum attached. Walk around and find crazy stuff to buy. Free samples all over the place on Saturdays.
http://www.kansascityrivermarket.com/
MUSEUMS
Nelson Atkins Art Gallery – One of the world's premiere art galleries. Ancient to modern art from all over the world. Free, except for special exhibitions. Also, their Rozzelle Court Restaurant is a very romantic place. Ahh, memories...
http://www.nelson-atkins.org/
National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial – This is a really cool place if you're into history. Also, the tower has great views from the top. Go and just hang around outside for free, or pay to see the museum.
http://www.theworldwar.org
Kauffman Garden – A small but memorable memorial botanical garden open to the public. Within walking distance of the Nelson Atkins gallery.
http://www.powellgardens.org/default.asp?page=KauffmanMap
Powell Gardens – Botanical garden.
http://www.powellgardens.org/
PLACE TO STAY
The Raphael Hotel - ($120-200/night) - This is our favorite KC hotel. It's across Brush Creek from The Plaza, and just had a major renovation. Very romantic, if a bit spendy.
www.raphaelkc.com
This is all just scratching the surface. There are movie theaters (including IMAX), shopping malls, the Royals and Chiefs, and lots more places to eat and hang out. Have fun!
Clarification: this post is written mostly for the benefit of Kansas City outsiders who, like us, live on a budget, but have managed to scrape together funds for a "splurge" weekend in KC. Your budget may allow you to stay at the Hotel Phillips for a month. If so, this is not your guide to KC. I've included a few chain places on this list (sorry Chris), even though I support local flava whenever possible.
Here's a rundown on some of our favorites in Kansas City.
PLACES TO EAT
Downtown:
The Majestic Steakhouse ($15-30) – Steaks, pasta, and seafood. The atmosphere is old-town Kansas City class. The building was a speakeasy during prohibition, among other things. On the weekends, the Bram Wijnands Trio performs at dinnertime (Bram is one of my all-time favorite jazz pianists). Ask to sit downstairs where you can see the band.
http://www.kansascitymenus.com/majesticsteakhouse/
http://tinyurl.com/c9ym4k
The Hereford House ($20-40) - One of the great steakhouses. A Kansas City classic. I've heard it much maligned recently, but I still support it. I've only been able to afford it a few times, but every time my steak was a memorable experience (in a good way). Thanks to bigBADbobby for reminding me to include a few steakhouses!
http://tinyurl.com/b26dme
http://www.herefordhouse.com
The Peachtree Restaurant ($10-20) – In the Power and Light District next to the Sprint Center Arena (the Power and Light District has lots of other places to eat, plus a sweetastic-looking bowling alley, but we don't have good info on them yet). “Soul food with elegance.” Fried chicken, catfish, cornbread, collard greens, sweet tea, and peach cobbler. The original location off Eastwood Trafficway is one of my dad's all-time favorite places to eat.
http://tinyurl.com/bhbvo6
Arthur Bryant's Barbecue ($5-10) – Near the 18th and Vine jazz district. Bryant's is still neck-and-neck with Gates & Sons for the title of The Classic Kansas City Barbecue Place. I slightly prefer Bryant's, although if you're buying a bottle of sauce for your own purposes, go with Gates.
http://www.arthurbryantsbbq.com/
http://tinyurl.com/dgqg3q
The Happy Gillis Cafe ($3-12) - Just off the northeast corner of the Downtown loop. A really cool little cafe with yummy breakfast sandwiches and pastries, plus the best soups and sandwiches anywhere for lunchtime.
http://www.happysoupeater.com/happy_gillis.php
The Skies ($30-50 for dinner, but we just go for dessert, which is $6-10) – The rotating restaurant high atop the Hyatt Regency hotel by Crown Center. Awesome view that rotates all the way around slowly, so you see the whole thing in about an hour. Go at sunset or later.
www.hyattkc.com/skies/
Pancho's ($3-7) – Awesome, epic, huge, authentic gut-busting burritos. Open all night so you can make your heartburn worse. I've spent a large percentage of my restaurant dollars here. Get the carne asada burrito and experience true felicidad.
http://tinyurl.com/aarv9d
Town Topic ($3-7) - One of those classic 24-hour diners that kept blue-collar Americans alive through the best and worst of the twentieth century. The burgers are the famous part, and I love them in all their greasy goodness.
Southwest Boulevard/ Crossroads Arts District:
Lulu's Thai Noodles ($8-20) – Cool little Thai place on Southwest Boulevard. Good atmosphere and great food. If you like really spicy curry, order theirs and prepare to have your mouth on fire for hours. Most menu items can be made milder, though.
www.lulusnoodles.com
http://tinyurl.com/dgujh5
Manny's Mexican Restaurant ($7-15) – Authentic Mex with a real south-of-the-border atmosphere. If you can't find Manny's, just keep going down Southwest Boulevard and eat at any of the dozen or more Mexican places. They're all good.
www.mannyskc.com
http://tinyurl.com/cvphd2
Dagwood's Cafe ($4-10) - Another classic diner. Dagwood's pancakes take my prize for best-in-city, and their burgers are hard to beat. Also try the biscuits and gravy, cinnamon rolls, and breakfast sandwiches on Texas toast. Open for breakfast and lunch only.
http://tinyurl.com/b4xbkm
The Plaza/Westport:
- The Country Club Plaza (mentioned above) is a short drive south of downtown Kansas City. It's the classic romantic place to hang out in KC. Upscale shopping and dining, with the look of the Mercado in Seville, Spain. It's probably most famous for its fountains and for the Plaza Lights (during the Christmas season). You can take a gondola ride on Brush Creek, but I recommend saving that idea for the warmer months.
The Cheesecake Factory – hard to go wrong here, but I recommend just getting your dessert here. It does have the best-looking interior and exterior of any CF location I've seen, though.
The Classic Cup Cafe ($8-45, depending on when you go) – Probably my vote for best romantic place for couples in Kansas City. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but upscale and a bit spendy (especially dinner).
http://tinyurl.com/cbhcvh
http://www.classiccup.com
PF Chang's China Bistro ($7-25) – Surprisingly good Chinese place, and laid-back atmosphere, just across from the JC Nichols Fountain (the huge one with the rearing horses and such).
http://tinyurl.com/c6olcp
O'Dowd's Little Dublin ($10-20) – Irish pub with my favorite shepherd's pie ever.
http://tinyurl.com/cfc55j
Andre's Confiserie Suisse ($5-15) – A Swiss chocolatier that also serves lunch. You can go for awesome pastries and coffee for breakfast, or get lunch for around $13 per person, which includes drink and super-nice dessert.
http://tinyurl.com/dlz3pk
http://www.andreschocolates.com
Winstead's ($4-12) - A 50's-themed burgers-and-ice-cream joint and a Kansas City tradition. Their food is good, but the highlight is the Skyscraper Soda, an enormous ice cream soda that you need a buddy (or two or three) to finish.
http://tinyurl.com/d3janx
D'Bronx Pizza ($6-10 approx. per person) - Very very good New-York-style pizza. The original (and by far the coolest) location is in Westport. Other locations on the bottom floor of Crown Center, on Metcalf in Overland Park, and now on Johnson Drive in Mission.
http://www.dbronxkc.com/
Blanc Burgers and Bottles ($8-20) - Possibly the best burger I've ever eaten, although I'm willing to accept arguments from anyone willing to buy me a burger at Westport Flea Market or 5 Guys Burgers and Fries. But you do pay for it. They use seriously premium ingredients to make seriously premium burgers. The Kobe burger is excellent, but spendy. Also, they serve fries (and you can get truffle fries for an upcharge) in little shopping carts that sit on the table. And the atmosphere is very cool. The "Bottles" part is that they have tons of bottled drinks. Most are alcoholic, but they have a very wide selection of non-alcoholic bottled sodas and other interesting bottled drinks. Also, the milkshakes are made with Shatto milk and Foo's Fabulous Frozen Custard. I invented my own milkshake made with Shatto Root-Beer-Flavored Milk (which is awesome) and vanilla custard. WIN. They have recently moved from Westport to the Plaza, and have a second location in Leawood on Mission Road just north of I-435. Don't look for a Mission Road exit, though - there ain't one. Take Roe or State Line and use 103rd to get there. It's between 103rd and the highway bridge on Mission Road.
http://www.blancburgers.com/
Jerusalem Cafe ($6-15) - A middle-eastern restaurant with two Westport locations. Things like beef and lamb kabobs, falafel, baba ganoush, hummus, pita sandwiches, gyros, etc. For the price, you get a ton of food. We usually share the big complete meal for two that costs around $20, and there's enough to take some home and feed us another complete meal later!
http://www.yelp.com/biz/jerusalem-cafe-kansas-city
Other Locations:
Oklahoma Joe's Barbecue ($4-10) – The best barbecue in the world. I know you're going to try to argue, but stop. It's simply the best. These guys won the American Royal Barbecue competition several times in the nineties, and then decided, hey, why not open a restaurant? Get the pulled pork sandwich. They have the world's best fries, too. It's in a gas station, so don't let that throw you. (There's a classier-looking location now in Olathe, but go to the original.)
http://tinyurl.com/cwkjc5
Waldo Pizza ($6-20) – Good pizza, with good crust. If you're feeling the need for good basic pizza, this is your place. Or if you want to get some crazy pizza, this is also your place. One of my favorites is pizza with barbecue sauce instead of marinara sauce, topped with chicken and maraschino cherries. No, seriously. Or you can get things like pine nuts and artichoke hearts on your pizza. No, seriously.
http://tinyurl.com/bnchhk
Tatsu's ($15-35) – Possibly Cindy's favorite restaurant. French cuisine that doesn't leave you hungry when you're finished. It's kind of buried in a residential neighborhood, which can make you feel like you've taken a wrong turn somewhere when you're trying to find the place.
http://tinyurl.com/auhosn
Coffee:
The Roasterie Cafe – Has recently emerged as one of my favorites, and is now battling Toto's (RIP) for the top slot. They roast their own, and they know their stuff. Classy place, too. If you're a coffee purist, try one of their Clover coffees or the siphon-brewed coffee. Ask them about it – it's hard to explain.
http://tinyurl.com/bhuqyf
Toto's – CLOSED NOW! ALAS! RIP Toto's... you were my introduction to fine coffees, and my hometown pride. Long my favorite coffee shop (but see above), just a great little place.
http://tinyurl.com/b8kgnm
Homer's – Good coffee, and free live music on weekends. The cinnamon rolls, scones, and tiramisu are pretty great too. In the fall, they have a hot caramel cider that Cindy and her friend Maggie refer to as "liquid autumn."
http://tinyurl.com/banqzc
Benetti's – Excellent little place in Raytown, which is a recent discovery for me. They do great latte art and know how to make a traditional Italian cappuccino.
http://benettiscoffee.com/
LIVE MUSIC
The Blue Room – in the 18th and Vine Jazz District. Some of the best jazz players in the world come through this club, which is a smoke-free dedicated jazz venue attached to the Jazz Museum. Some nights are free, others have a cover charge attached. Check the calendar.
http://tinyurl.com/675yjq
The Majestic Steakhouse and other restaurants with live music are mentioned above.
The Music Hall – The place to see major touring shows, at least until the new Performing Arts Center is completed.
http://tinyurl.com/cvmbpv
The Sprint Center – The new downtown arena. Concerts from Bon Jovi to Trans-Siberian Orchestra to Coldplay. Lots of special sports events, too, and the NCAA Basketball Experience is attached. Check the calendar.
www.sprintcenter.com
The Main Street Cafe – Christian coffeehouse venue with reliably good indie/underground Christian music from The Almost to Bradley Hathaway to Derek Webb to Waterdeep.
www.mainstreetcafe.org
CULTURE
First Fridays – The Crossroads Arts District, just southwest of downtown KC, has an open gallery night on the first friday night of every month. There are street performers and lots of things to see.
http://kansascity.about.com/od/thearts/p/FirstFriday.htm
Union Station – the old train station, now refurbished and gorgeous. Houses a science museum, theaters, and traveling exhibitions.
www.unionstation.org
American Heartland Theatre – Live plays. Good ones.
http://www.ahtkc.com/
The New Theatre Restaurant – Dinner theatre. Good dinner theatre.
http://www.newtheatre.com/home.html
Crown Center – Shopping, dining, ice skating – attached to the world headquarters of Hallmark Cards.
www.crowncenter.com
River Market – The downtown farmer's market with restaurants and the Steamboat Arabia Museum attached. Walk around and find crazy stuff to buy. Free samples all over the place on Saturdays.
http://www.kansascityrivermarket.com/
MUSEUMS
Nelson Atkins Art Gallery – One of the world's premiere art galleries. Ancient to modern art from all over the world. Free, except for special exhibitions. Also, their Rozzelle Court Restaurant is a very romantic place. Ahh, memories...
http://www.nelson-atkins.org/
National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial – This is a really cool place if you're into history. Also, the tower has great views from the top. Go and just hang around outside for free, or pay to see the museum.
http://www.theworldwar.org
Kauffman Garden – A small but memorable memorial botanical garden open to the public. Within walking distance of the Nelson Atkins gallery.
http://www.powellgardens.org/default.asp?page=KauffmanMap
Powell Gardens – Botanical garden.
http://www.powellgardens.org/
PLACE TO STAY
The Raphael Hotel - ($120-200/night) - This is our favorite KC hotel. It's across Brush Creek from The Plaza, and just had a major renovation. Very romantic, if a bit spendy.
www.raphaelkc.com
This is all just scratching the surface. There are movie theaters (including IMAX), shopping malls, the Royals and Chiefs, and lots more places to eat and hang out. Have fun!
Monday, January 19, 2009
30 Strikes with a Vengeance
I'm sitting in a coffee house in Nevada, MO. The overhead music is the Fort Scott, KS "Oldies" station. This "Oldies" station just played the Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris," a song I remember hearing a DJ say was "the newest from the Goo Goo Dolls" while I was driving my truck to school one morning.
I am stinkin' OLD.
I am stinkin' OLD.
My Grandpa is a Failure at Materialism
Cindy and I are under a curse. A curse? you say. Surely, Jim, you're not getting superstitious, are you?
I'll explain. My mom's family is a gargantuan, many-headed monster. I have seven aunts on this side of the family. When they all get together, I call it the Invasion of the Aunts. When we all get together, with all the uncles, aunts, cousins, cousins-once-removed, and various hangers-on and gate-crashers, there are enough of us to perform Riverdance (if any of us believed in dancing, that is... cough...).
So every year at Christmas, instead of everyone getting something for everyone (which would singlehandedly revive the US economy, if the buying-stuff-is-patriotic crowd is to be believed), we all draw names out of a hat (or box or basket or bedpan or whatever) and just buy one gift for a giant exchange. Everyone fills out a little four-question form saying what we're into and what stores and colors and sports teams we like, and this form is provided to the person who draws the name. And it's a lot of fun every year having everyone open the gifts, and then having a massive gift-wrap fight afterward. Wherein, you ask, lies the curse?
The curse, gentle reader, comes in this form: every year Cindy or I draws the name of one of my grandparents. Now don't get me wrong. My grandparents are wonderful people. Silas and Irene McGehee are two of the finest members of the human race. But they are utter failures at the grasping capitalistic materialism that most of us in America have mastered.
They fill out the little form with the most insipid answers to the questions. "What are your hobbies?" asks the survey.
Grandpa's answer: "Spending time with our wonderful family and friends."
The survey reels in astonishment, but dusts itself off and comes back for another try. "What are your favorite stores?" it asks.
Grandpa responds, "I don't really have any."
The survey, aghast, makes a last-ditch attempt. "Any specific gift requests?"
"That our family be unified and that each one be fully committed to Christ." NOT HELPFUL, GRANDPA.
HOW, I ask you, does one find a Christmas gift for such a man? He does like John Deere tractors and associated memorabilia, but he has literally everything there is to own on that score. EVERYTHING? you ask, skeptically. Yes. Everything.
And Grandma is no better. Now, a clever reader at this point would suggest, "Hey, why not make them something, if they're into stuff that reminds them of their family?" My response to you, clever reader, is that their legion of daughters is much more artistic, crafty, talented, and musical than I am. Everything creative and crafty has already been thought of.
Why can't we just draw the names of some real capitalists? The chances of our drawing their names every year are very small, but as I said, we're cursed.
I'll explain. My mom's family is a gargantuan, many-headed monster. I have seven aunts on this side of the family. When they all get together, I call it the Invasion of the Aunts. When we all get together, with all the uncles, aunts, cousins, cousins-once-removed, and various hangers-on and gate-crashers, there are enough of us to perform Riverdance (if any of us believed in dancing, that is... cough...).
So every year at Christmas, instead of everyone getting something for everyone (which would singlehandedly revive the US economy, if the buying-stuff-is-patriotic crowd is to be believed), we all draw names out of a hat (or box or basket or bedpan or whatever) and just buy one gift for a giant exchange. Everyone fills out a little four-question form saying what we're into and what stores and colors and sports teams we like, and this form is provided to the person who draws the name. And it's a lot of fun every year having everyone open the gifts, and then having a massive gift-wrap fight afterward. Wherein, you ask, lies the curse?
The curse, gentle reader, comes in this form: every year Cindy or I draws the name of one of my grandparents. Now don't get me wrong. My grandparents are wonderful people. Silas and Irene McGehee are two of the finest members of the human race. But they are utter failures at the grasping capitalistic materialism that most of us in America have mastered.
They fill out the little form with the most insipid answers to the questions. "What are your hobbies?" asks the survey.
Grandpa's answer: "Spending time with our wonderful family and friends."
The survey reels in astonishment, but dusts itself off and comes back for another try. "What are your favorite stores?" it asks.
Grandpa responds, "I don't really have any."
The survey, aghast, makes a last-ditch attempt. "Any specific gift requests?"
"That our family be unified and that each one be fully committed to Christ." NOT HELPFUL, GRANDPA.
HOW, I ask you, does one find a Christmas gift for such a man? He does like John Deere tractors and associated memorabilia, but he has literally everything there is to own on that score. EVERYTHING? you ask, skeptically. Yes. Everything.
And Grandma is no better. Now, a clever reader at this point would suggest, "Hey, why not make them something, if they're into stuff that reminds them of their family?" My response to you, clever reader, is that their legion of daughters is much more artistic, crafty, talented, and musical than I am. Everything creative and crafty has already been thought of.
Why can't we just draw the names of some real capitalists? The chances of our drawing their names every year are very small, but as I said, we're cursed.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
A small chuckle
Those guys at woot.com are masters of satire. Here's an excerpt from their live blog of Steve Ballmer's keynote at CES yesterday:
A musical-comedy interlude was provided by Aussie-sounding acoustic trio Tripod, who lifted their shtick from Flight of the Conchords the way Windows has lifted a lot of its shtick from Apple. We give MS points for hiring an act whose name includes the letters "ipod".
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