liveblogging Room at the Inn

Our church is part of Room in the Inn, a program to help the working homeless find a new start. Each Sunday night from Thanksgiving to Easter, our church hosts 25-30 men for the evening so that they can get a shower, a good dinner, a good night's sleep, a good breakfast and lunch the next day while they work and save to establish a new life.

Normally, the Sunday School departments take turns serving as greeters, servers, clothes washers, and overnight hosts. This year, our nights included Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, so it was tough for us to "field a team" with everyone traveling and having prior plans. Our coordinator called me last week and I agreed to work tonight (with Lydia's blessing, of course.)

This may go down as the most boring liveblog in history, but hey, it's my first try. :D

5:00 arrived - Leadfoot (Lydia) somehow beat me here even though I left home first.

5:10 - Lydia helps Miss Sherry, Betsy Kay and Becky set up the dinner and stash the snack bags.

5:25 - the guests start arriving. We have 28 tonight.

5:30 - I lead prayer and dinner begins. I'm given the duty of spooning out the barbecued chicken. Five women from The Next Door have volunteered to serve the dinners. Somehow in the hurriedness of the serving, we miscommunicate and prepare 27 plates.

5:35 - I meet Juan^*, who was shirked the dinner. It turns out that I habla about as much as he speaks English.

5:40 - Since I was the one who mis-apportioned the chicken, I drive to Wendy's to pick up dinner for me and Juan.

6:00 - Dinner's done except for me and Juan. We dine together and I explain in very broken Spanish that I don't really speak Spanish... I've just worked with little kids. He's very appreciative for the dinner anyway.

6:15 - Dinner's all cleaned up. The coffee is made, and the dinner helpers are headed out. Lydia gives me a new year's kiss. I tell her if she's still up for the ball drop to give me a call. Come to think of it, this is the first new year's eve we've been apart since we got married.

7:00 - The Next Door women head out to their New Year's party. That leaves me, Pete and Michael to hold the fort to tomorrow morning.

8:12 - The big attraction is the Green Bay football game. The pool games have wrapped up and it's getting quieter.

8:27 - Michael and I dismiss Pete. Michael told him to tell his wife that we said he snored too loud and told him he had to go home. He's coming back at 5:00.

8:33 - At a quick count, we have 17 who have already chosen to sack out. I'm on the web in the rec office and have a great view of the folks in the game room and the gym. Michael's in here reading.

8:47 - Lydia's online. All's quiet here on the front.

8:58 - Our last smoker has come in. I can tell he's supposed to be here because a) he has a name tag and b) he's in scrubs. When the men come in, they can check out scrubs to sleep in, and we wash the clothes that they bring. Tonight, the Next Door women are doing the laundry, making it an easy night for us overnight hosts. They're fantastic.

9:32 - The game is still on, but Chicago isn't really playing. The decaf is still piping hot. I'm in for my second cup.

9:37 - No more viewers for the game. We've got three pool players and 22 sacked out.

9:58 - Two at the pool table, two at the TV (seems to be a bit of renewed interest in the game.) Michael's in the kitchen, but I can't quite tell what he's trying to do... maybe just size things up for tomorrow morning.

10:09 - Brian^* comes to the window. "Hey man, I hurt my leg."

He's reinjured a wound on his lower leg and says that "blood is spurting out." Another guest comes to his aid with a towel and makes a pretty loose tourniquet around it. Brian says this has happened before, and he had to go to the hospital, so we call 911. The operator is great.

10:12 - A fire truck pulls up outside, and Michael goes out to help.

10:18 - Brian's still talking to the firemen. Michael says they're going to take him. Chances are we won't see him back... not because we don't want to, but because the ER on New Year's Eve will be a bit busy.

10:25 - curfew warning. Three guys in the gameroom. Brian's still outside with the firemen. I wish we had some sort of intermediate "quick medical" service between an ambulence and "get yourself in here." I guess that's a fire truck.

10:28 - The fire truck leaves.

10:32 - The TV is off, and our last two guests are in the gym for the night.

11:01 - just watched the ball drop on CNN. I'm headed upstairs for a sleep. My phone is set to wake me up at 5:00 a.m... hopefully there won't be any more posts before then.

^*The names of the guests were changed to protect their privacy.

I keep forgetting I signed up for this, so I'm posting it here so that I can remember

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boise thoughts

On our Thanksgiving trip to Boise, we didn't really talk a lot about the city in general. I don't know that we came away with big impressions... just interesting ones.

There are a lot of transplants there, especially in the newer parts of town where John and Michelle live. There seems to be an exodus from the west coast (and their skyrocketing housing costs) by both people and businesses.

Their city Meridian (just to the west of Boise proper) is booming. The town is split up into section lines, so it's pretty easy to navigate, and at each section intersection, you've got all kinds of big box stores and strip shopping popping up. It really feels a lot like Sim City - you have these big residential sections zoned off, and heavy commercial at the intersections!

Contrast that with the area we stayed in around Boise State University - there are lots of older homes throughout the area. Each day, we'd take Hwy 20/26 (the "old" highway west) and see downtown, the near and far suburbs. We stopped in at Fred Meyer a couple of times just to marvel at the variety.

If you're househunting in Boise, try this link: Boise homes.

payperpost

Gentle reader... I'm going to be trying an experiment over the next few weeks. I found payperpost.com, and one of the first opportunities they offered me was to talk about a website in Boise, Idaho. Having just been there, I don't mind!

If you see a blog entry on the page with a "payperpost" tag, you can know that I'm attempting to get paid for it. However, you can also know
a) I'm not lying
and
b) I'm attempting to write in a manner that's halfway interesting.

PS3-peat

This morning, I dropped Lydia off at Super Suppers to assemble our monthly rations and I headed off to shop for a new CD player for our bathroom. Thrilling, no?

My first stop was Target. I walked over to the electronics section to look around, and what did I find, but a new-in-box 60GB Playstation 3. The interesting thing was that no one was asking about it or seemed interested to buy it, even after I went to peruse the clock radios.

I then went to Best Buy. I shopped in the clock radio and portable radio sections... and then stopped by the video games just for grins. You guessed it, another PS3 60GB.

After I bought our new radio (thanks for the birthday gift certificate, Allison!) I saw that there was a UPS truck at the GameStop across the shopping center. Thinking they might be getting a shipment with a Nintendo Wii in it, I went to check. Nope, you guessed it again, only 60GB Playstation 3 systems.

I'm glad I didn't just impulse buy, thinking I could get a profit on one, because they're going for pretty close to retail on ebay. I can't see plopping down $600 on a system with no games.

Also of note: none of the stores had a Wii. I'm thinking Nintendo may be winning the seventh gen race.

tender tennessee Christmas

Lydia and I hosted Christmas for some of our family this year at our house. It was a marathon of Tennessee tourism, but everyone enjoyed the time together. It started Friday night at dinner with Pop and Polly and Lydia's parents. Then, on Saturday, I gave Pop and Polly a tour of LifeWay. I think they've met just about every person whose picture is hanging on a wall in that building at some time in their church career.

Lydia picked up Mom and Dad and we all toured the new Schermerhorn Symphony center. If you have a chance to see this amazing structure, we highly recommend it. There are free tours several days a week. It's amazing how they engineered the space to lock out all of the downtown noise around it. Although we've sung in the space, we're really looking forward to hearing the space too!

That night, Mom, Dad, Pop, Polly and us went to the Grand Old Opry at the Ryman Auditorium. Pop has been a fan of the Opry since the 20's when he listened in Colorado on his crystal radio set. When we bought the tickets, we were stuck over in Section 8, but Saturday night was an Opry Live night on GAC, so the usher came to our row and politely asked us if we could sit in an empty row right in the middle of the floor. Uh, yeah. The show was great, filled with country Christmas music. If you run back the show on TV, you can just see Mom and Dad in one of the audience pans, so we can prove they were there!

Sunday, we went to church and Lydia and I kept the one year-olds while everyone else went to the service. That afternoon, Mom and Lydia cooked ahead for Christmas dinner. We went over to our friend Elaine's house for cookies and eggnog and then went to the Christmas Eve service that night.

Monday was a nice relaxed Christmas day, with a late breakfast and then a conference call between Nashville, Los Angeles and Oregon to do our family gift card exchange. Then, Lydia's parents came over and we all sat down to a great meal of turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes, country ham, and all the fixins. Afterwards, we went and toured the Opryland Hotel to see the decorations and the lights.

Tuesday morning, Lydia, Mom and I hit a couple of after-Christmas sales and then came home to nap! Pop and Polly were originally going to leave on Tuesday, but extended their visit another day and joined us at the Frist Center for a tour of the travelling galleries there. Afterwards, Lydia showed Polly and Mom where she works and I showed Dad and Pop where I like to shop.

Wednesday morning, Pop and Polly left for Ohio, Mom and Dad got a LifeWay tour and then left for Texas, then Lydia and I blogged about it.

just a minute

Last week, I caught my usual Christmas cold that went to the usual sinus infection, but instead of trying to deal through the maze of folks at my doctor's office, I visited our local Minute Clinic. This was my first time to try Minute Clinic, so I didn't really know what to expect. It went like this:

7:50:00 a.m.	Arrive at Minute Clinic
8:00:00 a.m.	Minute Clinic opens
8:00:20	forms filled out
8:01:00 a.m.	the Physician's assistant sees me
8:03:00 a.m.	completed temperature, blood pressure (127/78, thank you), ears and throat examination
8:03:30 a.m.	exchange upcoming Christmas stories
8:04:00 a.m.	prescription printed, BCBST billed

The longest part of the whole visit followed, waiting for the prescription to be filled.

Minute Clinic really does live up to its name, and it fills a great gap between a primary care physician and an emergency room - when you need care quick, but not emergently. The PA was efficient and professional, and didn't challenge any of my self-diagnosis. When I get a sinus infection, I know what I have, and I know what I need. When she handed my prescription to me, she said "you can have this filled at any pharmacy that you like." Of course, there's one 10 feet away.

I highly recommend the Minute Clinic concept... and I hope some other folks get on the bandwagon soon to up the competition and drive down prices!

wii wiish you a merry chriistmas

Now it can be told. I sold the Wii to the aforementioned co-worker so that his two boys could have the meriiest Christmas ever.

maxi mini

Hooah! The mini now has 2GB of RAM! I got tired of waiting... and waiting... and waiting while I was working with video or doing an iTunes rip and surfing the web. Now I've got headroom galore. I'm not sure if I should attack the hard drive first or if I should go for broke and swap the processor! Mua ha ha ha!

a moment of wii-kness

I signed up to be in Amazon's random draw to get the opportunity to purchase game consoles... and I got picked. A Wii is now on the Waa to our house. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it just yet...

total non-access

First, our local Blockbuster stores didn't participate in the End of Late Fees program. Now, they're not doing the Total Access promotion. There's not a participating store as far as their site will let me search. How does this make sense for their customers?

The only upside is that Blockbuster has seen the problem and chosen to upgrade us for free from 3-out to 4-out on our NetFlix-style subscription. The email we got would lead you to believe that this would start on 12/15... but it actually starts on our first billing cycle after 12/15... which is unfortunately enough, 1/15.

Ah well, customers can't be choosers. Oh wait...

iTunes is so smart

I popped in my 3rd Coast record and it knew every track. Kudos to Jim or Clark or Greg or whomever submitted the track listing! Now I can pretend that it's the intermission to All-University Sing whenever I want to!

so addictive

The Trans-Siberian Orchestra-accompanied video of Christmas Lights is now available for $1.99 on iTunes in high resolution. I may just have to get this for Lydia for Christmas!

in sympathy

Please say a prayer today for the family of Morgan Reynolds. She passed away during the night after battling mitchondrial disease for her entire 2 1/2 year life. Her mother, Leslie, grew up at our church (she now lives in Atlanta). Morgan's grandparents and great-grandparents are still members of First Baptist. I don't know Leslie personally, but I know many people who do, and they all have wonderful things to say about her. Leslie is only two years older than me, and I cannot imagine being in her shoes today.

I have followed Morgan's life via their website, and felt a special interest since Morgan was just a month older than our niece Reganne. Morgan's older brother, Carter is only five years old, and I'm sure he is struggling with this reality today.

This is just one reminder that in the midst of this happy holiday season, there are those who are suffering tremendous pain.

freezer monocle pelican

This is totally what the Internet should be used for:

billy in nashville

As of about right now, there is a statue of Billy Graham just down the street from my office. I can't see it from my window, but I did have the opportunity to attend the unveiling ceremony and hear from several LifeWay folks, Nashville folks, Billy's grandson Will and Cliff Barrows. Memorable quote from Will:

Many of you have asked about how my grandfather and grandmother are doing. And the best way to describe it... is that they are... old.

Cliff reminisced about various crusades and led us in "How Great Thou Art." I really do appreciate the chance that I have in my job to experience historic occasions like this and be able to say, "I was there when..."

finding the deal

Lots of folks know that I have a penchant for locating good deals on everything... finding coupons, sales, closeouts... all sorts of cheap stuff. I'm not entirely sure why that is. Part of it is that I'm wired that way: to be observant and to exhaust resources before making a purchase. The other part... I know how to use the intarweb.

A new site that may soon become a favorite is wireddeals.com. This site aggregates the postings in the "hot deals" forums of my top favorite site fatwallet.com and slickdeals.net. It's free to register, and registering allows you to sort the deals from both sites to see which ones are getting the most approval votes... usually the ones with the best discount or rarest availability.

Speaking of rare availability, one of my co-workers is looking to procure a certain new game console for his family for Christmas at its retail price. Any leads would be appreciated!

coat of dual colors

When we went to visit my brother's family at thanksgiving, I quickly discovered that although I have a couple of coats that could be considered "okay" for Nashville in the winter (especially when you park in a parking garage...) I did discover that I need something for a bit colder weather. Thanks to a lengthy email consultation with Jason, I have a new winter coat on the way. It's an L.L. Bean "Rugged Ridge" parka, and it's supposed to keep me warm to -40 degrees. I hope not to test that.

fixed!

Someone behind the scenes at Blogger seems to have pulled a trigger or removed an extra space or something. We're back to normal publishing!

Actually, it seems like it's better than normal publishing. When I hit the "publish" button, it's almost instantaneous. No more waiting for 25%... 35%... 45%...

there's a reason they call it "beta"

You may have noticed, frequent reader, that our address in the address bar does not say "patrickandlydia.com" right now. That's because our fine friends at Blogger have somehow messed up our FTP connection (that's the way that our blog gets updated) to our web host. We're still online though... through the magic of HTTP redirects.

blue christmas

Sara and Alysa came over last night, and Sara and I made cookies while Alysa watched. When it came time to decorate the cookies I handed Sara what I thought was blue icing. I thought it was kind of runny, and after Patrick came in, I showed it to him and he told me it was actually food coloring. This explains why Sara's teeth turned blue!

2006 Cookie Baking with Sara

i blog, therefore i am (on the internet)

So it's been a while since I've posted... and with good reason. It's December. Lots to do, lots of work to do. However, I'm going to try to get back into the swing of things.

Blogger has updated our blog to the beta version, so now we can add cool tags. All of our future posts can be categorized with labels now, so that if you want to see all of our posts topically (like "family" or "apple" or "useless,") you can just click on a link at the bottom of the post. Of course this won't have any effect on previous posts... just new ones, like this one, appropriately tagged "useless."

the christmas letter is here!

Check it out in the link to the right!