A Tale of Two Dinners

This is a tale of two dinners, one of which hasn't actually happened yet, but why let a mere timeline get in the way of a good story. The first dinner happened a couple of nights ago at the Grapevine restaurant in Short Pump. The second will happen tonight at Firebirds in Fredericksburg.

Dinner at the Grapevine...

It is now an irrefutable fact of life in the modern American church that the term Sunday School must never again be uttered in polite company. It sounds silly to 21st century ears, and what could be more of a turnoff to a budding seeker than the idea of church as...school? So, several years back, all the very bright people in the church growth game devised a new term...life groups. By way of definition, as far as I can tell, a life group is an association of 8-12 people thrown together randomly or using some sort of demographic dice roll algorithm, which seeks to serve as a mini-church. By this I mean, the people in this group meet periodically to study the Bible, talk about life's struggles, and hopefully get to know and love each other. The group serves as a connection for small groups of people who are part of the much larger and more impersonal church where it's much harder to feel such a connection. This group is supposed to function as a support mechanism, one which can be designed for people of the same age and station in life. In other words....Sunday School. Except, the meetings don't happen at church and never on Sunday...and usually there's food.

Anyway, as you all know, Pam and I have been attending Hope Church for several months now, so we have been exposed to the plaintive pleas of practically every speaker extolling the virtues of the sainted Life Group experience. They even offer the occasional life group mixer, whereby a room full of a hundred strangers gather to mingle to see if something magical might happen. It's called Group Link night. Think, speed dating only ten times more awkward. No thanks. Luckily for us, we actually know one couple at Hope and as fate would have it, that couple has been in the market for a life group, and since they have been going to Hope a lot longer than us, they know several other couples in the same boat. So he took the initiative to extend an email invitation to five couples about the possibility of forming a group. "How about we all agree to have dinner at the Grapevine?" He asked. "We can talk about it over baked spaghetti and baklava and see where it goes," he said.

So there we were Thursday night in the parking lot of the Grapevine staring at the mass-produced Michelangelo's David knockoff in all of his anatomically correct glory. I remember thinking, "Great, I already feel awkward and I'm not even out of the parking lot yet!" I can think of almost nothing more fraught with land mines than having dinner with a group of perfect strangers where the goal is to like and be liked. So many things can go wrong. First of all, your's truly is an acquired taste, which is the most polite gloss I can put on the fact that I can be hard to warm up to, even in small doses. I'm opinionated, a bit loud, and am famous for speaking before thinking, which can lead to awkward moments. This unfortunate trait has been a constant source of embarrassment to Pam over the years, bless her heart. In addition to my loose cannon lips, there's also the issue of my inability to sit still for long periods of time. So, this night had the potential for being difficult for me, but horrible for Pam. Then, there's the issue of everybody else at the table. Who were these people? Suppose they were all flaming liberals, or worse, rabid Trumpsters?? Suppose they all hated baseball, and loved soccer?? What if they were all cat people??

I'm happy to report that none of my fears were justified. Everyone couldn't possibly have been nicer. The conversation flowed naturally. I didn't say anything outlandish or controversial, and as a bonus, I made it nearly an hour and a half before I had to stand up! These were people who I could see becoming friends with, people who I really wanted to get to know. We made plans for how we wanted the group to work, agreed on some guidelines and how often we would meet. We get it all started in May. A good night.

Dinner at Firebirds...

This will be a family affair. Every once in a while, and never often enough, all of my siblings get together for dinner. To help accommodate my brother who lives in Maryland, we eat in Fredericksburg, which means that his drive home is only ten hours instead of twelve! Of course, because we are Dunnevants, the decision on where to eat required an exchange of 35 emails, gastronomical putdowns, dueling reservations etc..etc.. eight chiefs, no Indians sort of thing. But, when we get there tonight at 5:30, it will be great. Unfortunately, for the other patrons of Firebirds, we will be the loudest table, which will require very generous tipping in order to ever be allowed back. Whoever our waiter is will long remember his/her encounter with us. Someone will insist that although she wants a steak, there must absolutely, positively be no blood on the plate. At least one of us will probably try to order something that isn't on the actual menu. Somebody will order something,  but add some weird request...."yeah, I'll have a BLT, but leave the tomatoes off, oh and I'm not a big fan of lettuce."  

The conversation will be all over the place, leaving no stone unturned from issues of the day to "what the heck is wrong with cousin _______?" Of course, we will talk politics, baseball, tell stories about Mom and Dad, getting weepy while doing so. Then we will pivot to our kids...Christina, Jenny, Sean, Lauren, Becky, Kaitlin, Patrick, and Ryan. Nodody will think it weird when I stand up and walk around the table a couple of times. I won't have to worry about whether they will like me, I won't even have to worry about saying something controversial, in fact they will all worry if I don't. See, that's the great thing about family, everybody knows you, and loves you anyway. I don't have to be so guarded, I don't have to do anything except be myself.

So, I can write about tonight's dinner before it even happens, because I know it will be great. How wonderful is that?

Frustration and a Lesson From My Son

I have a feeling that this blog is going to be a disjointed hodgepodge of a thing, largely because my week has been a disjointed hodgepodge of a thing. Whatever is in my head always seems to gush forth onto this space, despite my best efforts at self-editing. So, having fairly warned you of the turmoil lurking around in the great barren plains of my mind, proceed at your own risk.

For those of you who own your own businesses, you may better understand what I have been dealing with this week. I am a 35 year veteran of my line of work, the past 20 of which as an independent investment advisor, running my own shop. This week I have had an epiphany of sorts. I have figured out why my work has suddenly become so much more frustrating than I ever remember it being 30 years ago. It's always been difficult, but not tediously frustrating. Here's my theory, one I think covers many different businesses, not just mine. The skills required to build a business are not the same ones required to sustain it. When I got my start back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, I needed four basic skills to survive and eventually succeed:

1. Tenacious determination. 
2. Creativity
3. The power of persuasion 
4. A finely tuned moral compass

Without any one of these, I would have failed. With all of them, I nearly failed. I needed to be tenacious because I was dealing with daily rejection, the grinding, soul crushing routine of being told to take a hike roughly 100 times a day. Therefore, I had to learn to be creative, to figure out new and better ways to convince people to give me a chance. Once given that chance, I had to be able to convince. I had one shot to persuade someone to let me compete for their business. Finely, it didn't take long for me to figure out that if one possessed a felonious heart, mine was a terrible business to be involved in since it would be relatively easy to take advantage of people. I suppose I have my parents to thank for instilling in me a firm commitment to the Golden Rule, that in matters of commerce, it was my responsibility as a Christian to do what was best for my client, not my checkbook.

However, having built a business, I am finding that the skill set required to sustain and administer an enterprise are not necessarily the same ones I needed to build the thing. Much of this is the result of the regulatory regime that has grown up around the advisory business over these past 35 years like so much crab grass and chick weed in an unattended lawn. With the rise to dominance of lawyers in our society, simply having a moral compass is not enough. I've had to change how I think, learn to question everything, every procedure by asking one overriding question, "Will this get me sued?"

The skills I now need are as follows:

1. Computer and technological savvy
2. Ninja level powers of organization
3. Expert record keeping 
4. Ability to read and understand sentences which begin with the phrase, 'The party of the first part...'


I possess roughly none of these skills....hence, my frustration.

On a related note...yesterday morning I exchanged some short, perfunctory texts with my son..."what's up? How's your day going?.....doing great, how about them Red Sox?"  Routine stuff. But then I did something I seldom do. I told my son that I was having a difficult week, and actually asked him to say a prayer for me. Whenever we ask people to pray for us, it's almost a throwaway line, something you say just to communicate to the other person that things are tough at the moment, not really expecting them to actually drop what they are doing and...pray for you. Here's what my son said...

"Will do Dad.

I use these from the Book of Common Prayer. The first one is one I say often, the second is one I've used occasionally when stressed. So, I'll pray both of them today on behalf of both of us...

Lord God, almighty and everlasting Father, you have brought us in safety to this new day: Preserve us with your mighty power, that we may not fall into sin, nor be overcome by adversity; and in all we do, direct us to the fulfilling of your purpose; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Heavenly Father, in you we live and move and have our being: we humbly pray you so to guide and govern us by your Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget you, but may remember that we are ever walking in your sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I am ashamed to admit that there was a time in my life, when I was about my son's age, when I would have disparaged anything found in something as dusty and old as the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer. I would have considered it the extra-biblical ramblings of people with too mechanical an association with God, people who really didn't understand what it was to have a "relationship" with
Christ. I felt the same way about Pastors who read their prayers. That was back when I was in my late 20's and knew everything there was to know about my faith!!! But, these ancient words brought great comfort to me. The fact that Christians have been using these same words for roughly the past 600 years felt like a profoundly holy and blessed thing.

The day we stop learning new things about our faith is a sad day, a day that marks the beginning of something rigid and lifeless, and worthless to others. I needed my son to teach me that lesson....again.

What Ever Happened to the Ossoff Spring?

Three days ago, I had never heard of this guy. He's a thirty year old documentary filmmaker who was running for a vacant Congressional seat in Georgia. The second it appeared that he had a shot of winning, the national press corps began carpetbombing us with adoring portrayals of one Jon Ossoff. The prospect of this guy winning a red seat once held by Newt freaking Gingrich was just too much for our Democrat dominated media to resist. They were positively giddy with the hope that somehow this guy might win the seat outright with 50.1% of the vote. One headline called him the Trump Slayer!! Full length essays had no doubt been written about what this shocking upset might mean for the Democrat party's chances of retaking the House in 2018...HINT, (it would be a sure thing!!!). Long retrospectives were ready for publication about how this tall, handsome, very liberal young man might just be the new blood the Democrats need to recast their image and message.

Unfortunately, despite a jaw dropping 8 million dollars having been spent from the DNC war chest, Ossoff came up short and now faces a runoff against a single Republican candidate instead of the 18 which were on the ballot yesterday. His chances of winning that sort of race are roughly equivalent to my chances of turning around an Aroldis Chapman fastball.

This morning, the crushing disappointment of the press is palpable. Glum faced reporters are everywhere reporting the unhappy news as quickly as possible, not wanting to cause too much despair among the faithful. They had been fantasizing on how awesome it would be to hang this loss of a Republican seat around the neck of Donald Trump. And now, it's over. The Ossoff Spring snuffed out before it even got started.

So far, no mention has been made about any possible Russian tampering. No reports of the roll played by angry white men in the results. But, it's only been 12 hours since the polls closed, so I'm sure we will hear something in the next couple of days. I mean, the press, like anyone else needs time to grieve after such a devastating loss. Even the most faithful and reliable water carriers need to take a moment to gather themselves when their hopes and dreams get crushed. So, I'm thinking that by Friday we will read about some shadowy Russian connection that convinced the Georgia Republican Party to brilliantly run 18 candidates against a single Democrat and in so doing falsely raise the hopes of the national press corps.

Trump's four dimensional chess strikes again!!

The Amazing Kims

To read any newspaper in this country at the moment, it is impossible to escape the conclusion that  Kim Jung Un's North Korea poses an existential threat to these United States. It is being suggested that the strongman's nuclear weapons program has now advanced to the point where cities in America are now within range of North Korean ICBM's. For this reason, the South China Sea has become a flashpoint of international tension. Storm clouds are steadily gathering. The phrase, nuclear war, is now being bandied about. Carrier groups are said to be on the move. The Chinese are on edge.

I'm not buying any of it.

It's difficult for me to take the North Koreans seriously. The only news footage westerners ever see of the place is the stage prop square where a million soldiers are always marching stiff-legged during one of their incessant military parades. The rest of the country is a certifiable hell hole. If the folks from Michelin were ever allowed in the place, they would give the entire country negative stars. Like all communist plutocrats, the Dear Leader Kims have diverted the nation's wealth away from anyone who might threaten them. Their people might starve, but it works out quite nicely for the Kims.

Yeah, it's hard for me to take a country seriously that teaches it's school children that Kim Jong Un learned to drive a car at age 3, and was winning yacht races at age 9. Of course, young Kim cannot hold a candle to his Dad, the infamous Kim Jong Il, who on his first ever attempt at golf, shot a mind-numbing 38, coming into the clubhouse 34 strokes under par with a round that included a stunning 6 hole in ones!!! As an amateur golfer myself, I can say with relative confidence that the elder Kim is a baldface liar, and that a nation of people who would even pretend to believe such a tale should have their nation-card revoked. It is precisely this sort of thing for which Colonialsm was invented. North Korea needs to be sent to the principal's office, stripped of it's flag making ability, forced to give up its seat at the United Nations, and made into a vassal state of South Korea. Or even better, how about we ignore them altogether?

Of course, if it turns out that they actually do possess a viable nuclear capability, I will issue a retraction. But, something doesn't smell right here. Maybe this whole Kim thing is just a convenient distraction, a handy excuse to empower the Empire loving politicians here AND there.

In the meantime, I want Kim Jong Il in my next captain's choice foursome.

My Easter, 2017

The last strands of light linger outside on this long Easter Day. I am now alone with my thoughts. They are everywhere, all over the place, competing for my attention. So much to remember.

The day began earlier than most. The church I currently attend, but am not yet a member of, had rented out the Altria Theatre for their Easter services. There would be two of them instead of the usual 5. We would be attending the 9 am service, so we scrambled to get out the door in time for the longer drive and the ordeal of parking downtown. Our children were away, in other states and time zones. It was just us, just my wife and me. You would think that I would have grown used to this by now, being apart from them on the large, important days, but it still stings a little, a feeling of melancholy still lingers in the background when they aren't here with us. It isn't spoken of. No complaints are made. Still...it lingers.

I didn't know quite how I felt about having Easter in the same building where I had just seen the Book of Mormon a month ago. Pam had just seen Cinderella there recently. I half wondered if the band might find a missing shoe backstage. Sure, we Christians have been taught all of our lives that the church is the people, not the building. But, most of us find it difficult to imagine meeting for services in a strip club, or a casino. Of course, the Altria Theatre is neither of those places, but it still felt weird, until I saw three thousand people filling the place and heard the thrilling proclamation of my savior's resurrection ringing off it's walls. The service was beautifully and artfully crafted together into a living thing. A woman I had never seen before stood and recited a touching monologue about how the risen Christ had turned her into a Spring person. The incalculably talented Nicole Unice then presented a spirited defense of the physical resurrection of Christ with an eye towards the skeptic in each of us. Then the music came. It's normally the part of the Hope Church experience that I simply endure, not because the musicians aren't talented and not even because the songs aren't my style, but rather because I don't know them well, and I can't hear my fellow congregants singing the words. But, today was different somehow. Maybe it was the larger stage, the heightened excitement of the event, the majesty of the theological moment, but they were amazing. It was the thunderous exclamation point of the service, and each player seemed to sense it and their role in pointing the way to the transcendence of the risen Christ.

There was a video which was beautifully produced about one of the band members, his back story. I've seen him play lead guitar many times. He's older, carries himself in that unhurried Clapton manner, very much a slow hand sort of guy. I had no idea what the man had gone through to get to the stage, no idea of his tragic back story. Yet, there he is every Sunday, laying down soft licks in the background. I was choked up the entire time it took to tell his story.

Then David Dwight walked onto center stage carrying a stool in his hand and no notes. He spoke for maybe twenty minutes. He hardly raised his voice above standard conversational tones. Given the occasion and the topic, he would have been excused a bit of over exuberance, a little Pentecostal flair. But, this is David Dwight. He doesn't do flair. It was as if he knew that something special was going on in the room, and he didn't want to be a distraction, didn't want to screw it up. Instead, he talked to us, like he does every Sunday...from his mind and heart...."Who are we and why are we here, and why do we feel compelled to even ask these sorts of questions? Because Jesus Christ is the author of life and he has placed eternity in the hearts of man." Every word he spoke to us was designed to point us towards the ultimate meaning of this day, that because Christ loved us so much that he was willing to endure the cross, overcoming death, we are free to have a relationship with him. The meaning that we are all longing for can be found with the very author of our story.

When we walked out into the blinding sunlight of Monroe Park, it didn't matter to me that I had been overdressed. I wasn't annoyed at the traffic or the parking deck. I even took the scenic route home, driving through the back streets of the Fan, then turning on to the Boulevard by the museums, then the Diamond. I was actually trying to soak it all in, and I needed some time before the soul crush which is 95 North.

Once home, it was time to prepare for hosting my wife's family for Easter lunch. Everything was beautiful and the food was delicious. I still missed my kids, but knowing that they were both, hours away just getting out of their churches where they both heard the same story, told in different ways, made me miss them a little less.

Happy Easter.

By All Means...Let's Have a Debate.

Instead of debating the efficacy of this big honking bomb, let's debate a more important question..."Why are we still in freaking Afghanistan???"

United Scare Lines

The memes are coming fast and furious. Ignited Airlines. United Scare Lines. The best one I saw was an ad from Southwest Airlines with the tag line..."We beat the competition...not you." Earning a lifetime exemption in the CEO's hall of shame, United top dog Oscar "the grouch" Munoz, poured gasoline on the fire by praising his employees for their outstanding work in the case of one Dr. David Dao, who had made the ghastly mistake of paying for a ticket on Mr. Munoz's airline. When news came that the flight was "oversold" none of the passengers were willing to take United up on their offers of money, hotel vouchers, stock options and free cake, to get off the plane. That's when the stellar employees at the friendly skies broke out the best practices handbook, looked up "what to do when passengers will not agree to forfeit their seats" and read the words, beat the ever loving snot out of them.

It is for precisely this reason that corporate public relations departments exist, and this morning they sprang into action. The New York Post published a hit piece on the victim. Apparently, the good doctor Dao isn't so good, having had his medical licenses taken away from him...twice, for writing bogus prescriptions to various gay lovers. When he wasn't trading drugs for sex, he was attending anger management classes mandated by a string of employers. The snakes over in the PR department are hoping that this information will rehabilitate the company's battered image by suggesting that the bloodied doctor had it coming.

However, none of Dr. Dao's past troubles in any way change the fact that he paid good money for a ticket, was sitting in his seat minding his own business, when he was forcibly removed by the company who sold him said ticket. This is a part of the free exchange of goods and services that Adam Smith never imagined....the part where you sell someone a product, then right before he uses it, you rip it from his hands. Imagine for a minute that you're sitting at a very crowded Chick-fil-a about to take your first bite of that very delicious chicken sandwich, when suddenly the manager runs across the dining room and literally grabs the sandwich out of your hand, explaining that unfortunately they have discovered someone else who is even hungrier than you are, so that sandwich will have to be given to him. But, no problems because the management will give you a free sandwich on your next trip to Chick-fil-a....as long as you buy a large drink. Or, suppose you and the wife have just settled in to your comfy king sized pillow top at the Hyatt Regency in Boca Raton, when suddenly, several large men burst through the door to inform you that someone else far more important than you needs your bed. "Here's your hat, what's your hurry?"

The American airline industry is a hot mess at the moment. I don't know enough about the business to explain their incompetence, but my trick knee tells me that dragging paying customers off of planes in this age of cell phone cameras might be the single most epic public relations fail in history!