according to jeff

Celebrated on September 20 every year, International Talk Like a Cowboy Day is only a month away. Help spread the word by writing about it at your blog, facebook page, etc. And, of course, don’t forget to talk like a cowboy on September 20.

To help with your promotion, use the official International Talk Like a Cowboy Day logo.

Official Logo

Follow these detailed instructions.

1. Download the logo.
2. Upload it (that is, the logo) to your blog, page, etc.
3. Use it in your official promotion article, to be published on September 20.

If you use the logo in your promotional material, which is highly recommended, you must include the following small print.

International Talk Like a Cowboy Day is observed on September 20. International Talk Like a Cowboy Day Official Logo © 2007 by Jeff Wheeler. All Rights Reserved. Because Cowboys are Better than Pirates ™ Jeff Wheeler. Portions of clip art licensed from the Clip Art Gallery on DiscoverySchool.com.

I look forward to your participation again this year!

Now, for something completely different, probably unexpected, and perhaps even a little creepy.

Men, I’ve recently discovered the best nail clipper ever: the Tweezerman stainless steel nail clipper. It’s time to throw away your 99 cent model from the grocery store checkout line and upgrade to this amazing tool.

While on our recent LTE (longest trip ever), I found that I’d left my 99 cent model at home. A visit to Harris Teeter, across the street from our hotel in Charleston, led to the discovery of the best nail clipper ever.

What makes this so great? Let me count the ways:

1. It feels “right” and “balanced”, not “cheap” or “cheezy”.
2. It cuts great.
3. It exudes masculinity.

Note that my model differs from the model shown at the Tweezerman Web site. My model is brushed stainless steel with black levers. Purist will also note that this model does not include the swivel-out nail file common to many of the every day variety clippers. Don’t let that discourage you!

While in Asheville, North Carolina, we visited the famed Biltmore House. Built by George Vanderbilt, the home — still the largest home in America — was first occupied in 1895. It includes over 250 rooms, including 34 bedrooms and 43 bathrooms. The home consists of four floors, plus a basement and subbasement. The basement includes an indoor pool, a bowling alley, and an exercise room, in addition to the primary kitchen. The subbasement includes boilers and an innovative air exchange system.

Interestingly, and a testimony to the fleeting nature of riches, prior to his death, George Vanderbilt spent more on the house and estate’s upkeep than the annual income on his vast wealth. Following his death, his widow sold some of the surrounding land to the United States Government, and it became the start of the Pisgah National Forest. Much of the family wealth was in railroad stock, which plummeted from $200 per share to $6 per share during the Great Depression. Following such financial loss, the family could not afford to live in the entire home, and therefore closed much of the home. Now the home is open to the public, and tourism income is used to maintain and preserve the home.

Biltmore House

From the Garden

Biltmore offers several tours of the house, including a self-guided tour, an audio tour, and a guided tour. Additional tours, such as a rooftop tour and a behind the scenes tour, are also offered. The main grounds also include an extensive garden, several hiking trails, and the carriage house and stable, which now includes shops and restaurants.

Since we were there in July, we opted to start our tour with the gardens immediately upon our arrival. This allowed us to tour the gardens before the heat of the day, and turned out to be a wise decision. We were able to spend a few leisurely hours in the gardens and on the trails.

Portion of the Gardens

Some of Many Flowers

On a Hiking Trail

Following our walk through the gardens, we stopped for lunch in the stables. Actually, we had lunch in a restaurant in what was once the stable. Our table was within a horse stall. (Cleaned up, of course.) It was the kind of restaurant that serves $6 hamburgers for $9, but was a nice lunch never-the-less.

Following lunch, we toured the house. Most guests appeared to be opting for the audio-assisted tour — wearing an audio player and headset while touring the house. However, we opted for the self-guided tour, followed by a guided Behind the Scenes tour.

The house itself is simply amazing, and somewhat oversized. That is, everything (except perhaps the servant’s quarters) is big. Some might even say over the top. It is definitely a display of wealth from the turn of the 19th century.

Obligatory Tourist Photo

We were among the first to arrive in the morning, and among the last to leave at night. (Our parking lot was virtually empty when we returned.) We did not tour the winery or the farm, or visit the inn which has been added to the grounds. There’s definitely much to see and do!

Biltmore House definitely worth a visit when you are in the Asheville area.

“My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened.”
— Michel de Montaigne

My typical Friday includes lunch with my Laridian associates. This past Friday, our choice was SiamVille.

SiamVille is in Town and Country Shopping Center, in the location previously operated by Thai Flavors. Whereas Thai Flavors had a distinct “hole in the wall” ambiance, SiamVille immediately presents a different impression. It has been remodeled and redecorated, and provides a much nicer, more refined atmosphere.

Another significant difference between Thai Flavors and SiamVille is the menu. While both restaurants feature Thai food, Thai Flavors was known for its lunch buffet, while SiamVille offers only meals from the menu. The menu itself offered a variety of choices, many of which were tempting. I finally chose the Garlic and Pepper Chicken. It was very good and very garlic-y, though not as spicy as I’d anticipated. This is not the dish to pick if you’ll be in close company with some one who did not enjoy Garlic and Pepper Chicken, or something similar, with you.

Several hot teas are offered, but since it was hot outside, I decided to try something called Thai Tea (or maybe Thai Iced Tea). It is difficult to describe the taste of Thai Tea, which ranged in color from dark on bottom to creamy on top. (I learned to lift the straw from the bottom of the glass prior to taking a swig; the bottom was occupied by what I assume were tea particles.) It was definitely worth trying, though next time that I want to try something different, I’ll try something else.

If you enjoy Asian cuisine, then you should try SiamVille.

Why We’re Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be), by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck, is a good introduction to the emergent/emerging church movement, if you (like me) are inclined to be a bit skeptical.

One challenge of writing (and reading) a book about the emergent/emerging church is defining what it is. In fact, to some, there are definite distinctions (other than spelling and form) between emergent and emerging, ironically foreshadowing my conclusion that saying the same things with different, “hip” words is a big part of the movement. Kevin DeYoung states that “defining the emergent church is like nailing Jell-O to the wall.”¹ This difficulty in defining the movement stems, in part, from the movement not defining itself, and even questioning the value of definitions. DeYoung offers this definition, which is really more of an explanation and less of a definition.

Back to the question at hand — attempting an explanation of the emergent church. To some “emergent” means nothing more than a new style and approach to worship (”couches, candles and coffee”). To others it signals an appreciation for postmodernism. To yet others it means a return to a more ancient, primitive, and pristine form of Christianity. At a popular level, “the term emerging church has been applied to high-profile, youth-oriented congregations that have gained attention on account of their rapid numerical growth; their ability to attract (or retain) twentysomethings; and their ability to promote themselves to the Christian subculture through websites and by word of mouth.” Or, as Andy Crouch puts it in Christianity Today, emerging churches are “frequently urban, disproportionately young, overwhelmingly white, and very new.”

One of its critics has described the emerging church as a protest movement — a protest against traditional evangelicalism, a protest against modernism, and a protest against seeker-sensitive megachurches. Others, sympathetic to the movement, have used the acronym EPIC: experiential, participatory, image driven, and connected.²

In the event that that explanation doesn’t resonate, try this:

After reading nearly five thousand pages of emerging-church literature, I have no doubt that the emerging church, while loosely defined and far from uniform, can be described and critiqued as a diverse, but recognizable, movement. You might be an emergent Christian: if you listen to U2, Moby, and Johnny Cash’s Hurt (sometimes in church); use sermon illustrations from The Sopranos; drink lattes in the afternoon and Guinness in the evenings, and always use a Mac; if your reading list consists primarily of Stanley Hauewas, Henri Nouwen, N.T. Wright, Stan Grenz, Dallas Willard, Bernnan Manning, Jim Wallis, Frederick Buechner, David Bosch, John Howard Yoder, Wendell Berry, Nancy Murphy, John Franke, Walter Winks and Leslie Newbigin (not to mention McLaren, Pagitt, Bell, etc.) and your sparring partners include D.A. Carson, John Calvin, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and Wayne Grudem; if your idea of quintessential Christian discipleship is Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, or Desmond Tutu; if you don’t like George W. Bush or institutions or big business or capitalism or Left Behind Christianity; if your political concerns are poverty, AIDS, imperialism, war-mongering, CEO salaries, consumerism, global warming, racism, and oppression and not so much abortion and gay marriage; if you are into bohemian, goth, rave or indie; if you talk about the myth of redemptive violence and the myth of certainty; if you lie awake at night having nightmares about all the ways modernism has ruined your life; if you love the Bible as a beautiful, inspiring collection of works that lead us into the mystery of God but is not inerrant; if you search for truth but aren’t sure it can be found; if you’ve ever been to a church with prayer labyrinths, candles, Play-Doh, chalk drawings, couches or beanbags (your youth group doesn’t count); if you loathe words like linear, propositional, rational, machine and hierarchy and use words like ancient-future, jazz, mosaic, matrix, missional, vintage and dance; if you grew up in a very conservative Christian home that in retrospect seems legalistic, naive, and rigid; if you support women in all levels of ministry, prioritize urban over suburban, and like your theology narrative instead of systematic; if you disbelieve in any sacred-secular divide; if you want to be the church and not just go to church; if you long for a community that is relational, tribal and primal like a river or garden; if you believe doctrine gets in the way of an interactive relationship with Jesus; if you believe who goes to hell is no one’s business and no one may be there anyway; if you believe salvation has little to do with atoning for guilt and a lot to do with bringing the whole creation back into shalom with its Maker; if you believe following Jesus is not believing the right things but living the right way; if it really bugs you when people talk about going to heaven instead of heaven coming to us; if you disdain monological, didactic preaching; if you use the word “story” in all your propositions about postmodernism — if all or most of this tortuously long sentence describes you, then you might be an emergent Christian.³

The authors rightly conclude that many of the questions and complaints that the emerging movement has for the “traditional, evangelical church” are valid and worthy of discussion. However, there are several disturbing trends that suggest that some of what is labeled “emergent” is, in fact, more properly called “another gospel.”⁴ If this rings alarm bells with you, and especially if you find yourself attracted to some of the emergent terminology, then read this thoroughly researched and footnoted book yourself.

All quotes offered so far have been from Kevin DeYoung, a pastor. Yet, the book has two authors. The second is Ted Kluck, a sports writer. It’s no surprise, therefore, that their writing styles are different. Kevin DeYoung writes from a more scholarly, theological perspective. Ted Kluck, in contrast, writes from a more everyday, common sense perspective. The combination is quite effective, as each writes (mostly) alternating chapters.

Take this example from one of Ted Kluck’s chapters.

“Ain’t gonna let nobody turn be ’round, turn ’round, turn me ’round.”

“Ain’t gonna let injustice, turn me ’round, turn me ’round, turn me ’round.”

A quick look around the room at Mars Hill Bible Church, at the five thousand or so other middle-class, suburban white people, and I really wonder what injustice it is that they’re singing about. Not finding their size at the Gap?

All kidding aside, I’m surprised to see that the clientele at Rob Bell’s church is so, well, normal. And I can honestly say that watching thousands of tall, white, Dutch folk — baby boomers, yuppies, college and high school kids — belting out a Civil Rights-era spiritual is just about the weirdest thing I have ever seen. My black buddy L.J. would blow his stack if he saw this. I’m glad he’s not here.⁵

Why We’re Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be) is both entertaining and informative. It isn’t reactionary and identifies some positive areas of the emergent movement; yet it also provides some cautions worthy of consideration.

1. page 17
2. pages 17-18
3. pages 20-22
4. see Galatians 1:1-9
5. page 214, and evidence that I did read past the first few (extensively quoted from) chapters!

Way back in 2001, a technology-related radio show solicited ideas that could be used to promote both a product and the radio show. I submitted a script, and the this audio clip, which aired on March 13, 2001, was the result. (Press the play button to stream the audio via Flash.)

(By the way, PocketBible.com still exists, but the radio show’s Web site does not.)

I previously wrote a trivia (not trivial) article featuring an amazing feat by Fernando Tatis. My coverage of this nearly forgotten player spurred additional attention. Tatis has lately been in the news again, and it’s a good story. Read about it in the New York Times or at Yahoo Sports.

iPod Mechanic (now at imechanic.com)