according to jeff

You can have a favorite apple. (Honeycrisp)

You can have a favorite meal. (Tacos)

You can have a favorite flavor of ice cream. (Chocolate Marshmallow)

Your favorite might even change from time to time or even day to day. (Neopolitan)

However, can you have two favorite flavors of ice cream?

I have an opinion. But first, what’s yours?

So, here I am in Minnesota, where I’ve heard some new expressions, such as “ya sure, you betcha.”

ya (y-ah): yes

sure (shure): yes

you betcha (you betch-yuh): yes

So, decoding these Minnesota expressions, we find:

“you betcha” = yes

“ya sure” = yes, yes

“ya sure, you betcha” = yes, yes, yes

To test my new vocabulary, I’ve been using these expressions at every opportunity. Has it been a success? Ya sure, you betcha.

Composed on my iPhone.

YouTube is a lot like rummaging through an antique store: it’s mostly junk, but sometimes you find the Captain Crunch Decoder Ring. This short animation is just like that.

My typical Friday includes lunch with my Laridian associates. Today’s choice was the Flying Wienie. Or is it the Flying Weenie? Though the Web site (new since I last wrote about this establishment) contains both spellings, “wienie” does seem to win out.

The Flying Wienie is one of our choices reserved for when one of our number cannot join us. Since today was such a day, the Flying Wienie was our choice.

I’ve previously described this restaurant as a hole-in-the-wall, meaning that in the best possible sense. I am happy to report that the term still applies, in the best possible sense.

The menu features Iowa favorites such as brats, Italian sausage, tenderloins, and skin-on french fries. Today, however, I had the Double Play, Chicago style. That’s two skinny all-beef hot dogs with mustard, celery salt, tomato, pickle relish, onions, pickles and peppers. I topped it off with a side of the afore-mentioned French fries and the 23 flavors of Dr. Pepper — straight from the fountain into my Styrofoam cup. Mm mm good.

(Plus, since I’m now a health-conscious eater, you can see that my meal included vegetables.)

I enjoyed this article, What’s That, Lord?, at today’s WORLD on the Web.

We recently installed StarOn in our Toyota. StarOn has several advantages over its most well-known competition. For example:

• Installation is surprisingly easy (no tools required!)
• StarOn doesn’t require an annual subscription
• You won’t hear annoying StarOn commercials on the radio
• You can probably be the first on your block to have one

Here’s what the finished product looks like.

OK, spot the difference fans, here’s another one for you. I made some changes to my blog last week. One is the addition of the copyright statement at the bottom. I’ll give you that one. What others can you spot?

My typical Friday includes lunch with my Laridian associates. Today’s choice was the Marion Maid-Rite.

An acquaintance from the Iowa Farm League, the fantasy baseball league that I play in, once commented that he was happy to see that the Friday Lunch articles included some of the downtown restaurants. A downtown restaurant was featured last week, and another is featured this week. However, this week’s downtown is a different downtown!

Located in downtown Marion, Iowa, the Marion Maid-Rite is known for two things: its name-sake, the Iowa-original, loose-meat sandwich, and Kathy’s Pies. (You might also know the Marion Maid-Rite for its skinny onion rings. However, since I had to give those up for health reasons, I try not to think of them anymore.)

The Maid-Rite sandwich is like a Sloppy Joe, but without the Sloppy. That is, it consists of crumbled and seasoned ground beef served on a burger bun, and is always served with a spoon to facilitate cleanup up the spillage. I usually choose the Cheese-Rite, which comes standard with mustard, onions, and pickles. I typically order the basket, which includes fries (or the aforementioned, forgotten skinny onion rings) and another side. I invariably choose the cole slaw. Today was no exception, as I enjoyed the Cheese-Rite basket, fries, cole slaw, and a Pepsi. It’s classic, small-town Iowa comfort food.

A trip to the Marion Maid-Rite must include dessert, which must be a fresh slice of one of Kathy’s pies. While many gravitate to the chocolate cream or the decadent toll house, I prefer both the pecan pie and the coconut cream pie. The fall-like weather drew out a hankerin’ for pecan pie, so that was my choice today. And it was a good choice. You know what they say: “You can’t go wrong with any Kathy’s Pie.” And if they don’t, they should.

Curious about who you should support in this year’s (err, next year’s) Iowa caucus? While you could just ask me (I’d be happy to tell you who to support), here’s another resource: the Candidate Match Game ¹. Just answer eleven multiple choice questions to find the candidate whose stated position most closely matches yours. After you see the results, you can weight the issues to increase or decrease the importance of each, and see the effect on your match.

As with all things that you find on the Internet (this blog excepted, of course), you’ll need to decide for yourself how reliable it is.

1. I discovered this link from my friend Brian‘s blog.

Last night, my church hosted a free¹ concert by harpist Greg Buchanan. Greg is a 50-something guy who has been playing the harp since he was nine.

When touring the Midwest, Mr. Buchanan plays one of the first acoustic-electric harps produced by Lyon and Healy. (He has a different set of harps that he uses out west.) Though the harp does have a sound box, it is sealed without the traditional sound holes in the back. Each string has an individual crystal pickup that generates an electronic signal that is then sent to an amplifier. Several different effects (such as sustains and distortions) can then be applied using other sound equipment.

He also played a smaller harp (shown above), modeled after what King David’s harp might have looked like.

The concert began with a 25-minute medley of Christian classics and praise songs. He then played a very cool piece on the smaller harp (which had 10 or 12 strings). Later, he played while we were all invited to sing along to such songs as “You Are My All in All,” “Be Thou My Vision” and “Agnus Dei”. The concert ended with a jazzed up rendition of “Amazing Grace.”

Mr. Buchanan and His Acoustic-Electric Harp

Mr. Buchanan presents his concert as a worship experience, and he often gives his personal testimony of how God through Jesus saved him from his life of drug and alcohol addiction.

Since both my daughter and my wife play the harp, we have some extra interest in concerts such as this one. In fact, we’d prearranged to take Mr. Buchanan and his road manager out to early-dinner (or late lunch, or second lunch for our Hobbit friends), but with their travel and performance schedule, that didn’t work out. However, we were able to help David, the road manager, setup before and tear down after the concert. This gave us a little bit of extra insight into the night and the traveling harpist.

Mr. Buchanan also graciously invited Bethany to play his harp both before and after the concert. (He said something like, “I rarely have a chance to hear what my harp sounds like. You’d be doing me a great favor if you’d play it for me and let me sit back here and listen.”) The electronic pickups result in a different sound, and also tend to magnify any mistakes. Mr. Buchanan said that it took him about 2-years to adjust to it, and that some harpists never did make the adjustment. He was complimentary of Bethany’s playing.

Though we had seen Mr. Buchanan in concert several times before, we did learn some interesting things this time around.

1. Mr. Buchanan has a different philosophy about care of his harp than our harp teacher. We’ve been taught to avoid large temperature changes, excessively high humidity or low humidity, etc. Leaving the harp in a van in the hot sun would be a definite no-no. Mr. Buchanan, on the other hand, stores his harp in the van.
2. He plays approximately 180 concerts per year. His schedule involves 17 days on the road, and then 14 days at home.
3. He encourages young harpists to do weight-training. Otherwise, he says, their “little muscle groups” out-develop their “large muscle groups”, often resulting in pinched nerves and other muscular-skeletal problems.

Mr. Buchanan is an interesting man, and his concerts are equally interesting. For a second opinion, see this review by Jed.

1. In a previous article, I commented that “nothing is free.” Yet here, moments later, I discuss a free concert. You may be wondering, “what’s up with that?” Here’s what’s up: this free concert wasn’t free. Instead, the expenses were met by the church.

Have you ever wondered why most hot dog buns are sold in packages of ten, while most hot dogs are sold in packages of eight?

I finally found a package of eight hot dog buns, only to learn that the package of Hebrew National all-beef franks that I’d purchased contains only seven hot dogs.

Seven? Suppose there’s any symbolism to that?

On Friday night, Lu and I did something that we’d never done together, and that I hadn’t done in about 20 years — we attended a “Contemporary Christian Music” concert.

I’m pretty sure that the last concert that I attended that could have been described as Contemporary Christian Music was a Steve Green concert in 1985. The concert was held at a church in Waterloo (Iowa), and I’m fairly sure that admission was free. I remember being impressed that, even though CDs were for sale at a table outside the auditorium, Steve Green insisted that anyone that thought that they would benefit from a CD, but wasn’t able to afford the cost, should feel free to take a CD as a gift.

Not surprisingly, things have changed in 20-something years. Concerts aren’t often at churches. Nothing is free. And the music is much louder.

When I heard on Friday that tickets would still be available at the door for the Newsboys Go Tour, Lu and I decided on a whim to attend. We first attended the beginning of the homecoming concert at Coe College, then went from there to the U.S. Cellular Center. Tickets were indeed still available, and our last-minute seats were some of the best in the house. (Today’s concert attenders apparently don’t know how to pick the best seats.)

Since we attended the Coe concert first, we missed the opening band completely. We arrived during Kutless‘ talking time, and heard just a few songs from them.

During the intermission, the Newsboys’ new guitarist, Paul Colman, promoted Global Tribe, a poverty relief organization, and discussed a recent trip to China.

It was interesting to visually survey the crowd during intermission. The Newsboys attracted a broad age range of people; we were surprised by the large number of people our age (and older) that attended. Among the young people that we know, opinions vary about the Newsboys. While some pooh-pooh the Newsboys for being too electronic and thus less than a “real” band, and others object to this genre entirely, we found out that many people that we know were at the concert.

Quite unlike the Steve Green concert, the Newsboys concert began with lots of noise, confetti cannons, and lights. There was what I can only describe as a sea of music, continually pounding, wave upon wave. The seats literally shook with the intensity of the low bass notes. (At the risk of permanently gaining the label of ‘uncool’ and ‘old fogey’, I will now reveal that I was prepared with a set of ear plugs.)

The Opening Song with Confetti Cannon

To further perpetuate the unfair stereotype that I am ‘uncool’ and an ‘old fogey’, I’ll now reveal that I found the music to be too loud, causing the lyrics to be muddled and even unintelligible at times. I would be very interested to hear the same music performed with the volume closer to studio level.

As expected at a concert called the Go Tour, the Newsboys played several songs from their Go album. Oddly, though, Go was not among them. It was used at the beginning of the concert as an introduction as the musicians came on stage, but it was not highlighted. My other favorite song from this album, In Wonder, was not featured either. The concert also featured some older songs, including He Reigns, which, by the way, is much better with a backup choir (not used at this concert).

The staging included what I call a “model’s runway” that extended from the main stage into the audience. While some of the music was performed from this runway, it also served as the location for the “sermon” segment of the concert. Peter Furler, the lead singer, spoke sincerely about everyone’s need for salvation and forgiveness through Jesus.

On the Runway

Peter Furler has a, um, distinctive singing voice, which was occasionally, er, often drowned out by all of the other noise. He also played guitar and had a percussion duel with the band’s drummer near the conclusion of the concert. At the end of the runway, in the center of the audience on the arena’s floor, a mini-stage with a small drum set was elevated into the air as the two drummers dueled back and forth. It was fun and, um, loud.

It might come as no surprise to you to find that we were among the few in the crowd that were not dancing, hopping, jumping, swaying or waving. (Now is the time for you to apply the ‘stick-in-the-mud’ label.) I did, however, tap my foot and sing along.

All in all, while a concert such as this is a bit outside my comfort zone, it was an interesting experience. If you like this style of music, however, you’ll “hear” more of it by listening to a CD than attending a concert. And, I’d recommend that you be an old fogey like me, and preserve your hearing with some good ear plugs!

Doing things for the kids has been much in the news. For instance, expanded, free health care for children is being debated at the national level. In Iowa, free preschool for all children is being proposed, because (some think that) it would be good for the kids. Here’s another social policy for the kids that everyone that cares for kids should support: marriage.

Scientific studies have shown that children are better off emotionally, socially and economically when they live with both a mom and a dad.¹ Scientific surveys have shown that children “reared in two-parent families are significantly more likely to express greater happiness than peers reared in one-parent families.”² Studies have shown that children living with both their mom and dad are less likely to be involved in criminal behavior.³ Plus, statistics prove that they’re more likely to complete their high school education. Sara McLanahan of Princeton University, puts it this way: “Regardless of which survey we looked at, children from one-parent families are about twice as likely to drop out of school as children from two-parent families.”⁴

With such firm scientific backing, we can unabashedly conclude that marriage is good for the kids.

However, beyond reaching such a scientific conclusion, what else can we do? Here are just a few ideas:

1. Encourage pre-marital counseling. Getting married is both a huge decision and the start of a major transition in life. Marriage counseling can help prepare for the changes and inject a dose of reality into a situation that is often navigated with the proverbial rose colored glasses.
2. Reconsider the effect of no-fault divorce on families and kids. Knowing that the marriage contract can be revoked at any time, for any reason, may decrease society’s and individual’s commitment to maintaining marriage. That, in turn, results in disposable marriages.
3. Encourage faithfulness in marriage by respecting virtues such as honor and fidelity. These virtues are often lampooned in media, which prefers to promote self-gratification.
4. Discourage cohabitation as a test-drive for marriage. Statistics show that those who cohabitate prior to marriage are actually less likely to enjoy a successful, enduring marriage. Try-before-you-buy just doesn’t apply.⁵
5. Discourage cohabitation as a substitution for marriage. Studies show that cohabitations are less stable then marriage relationships. A relationship involving cohabitation is nearly twice as likely to have dissolved prior to 10 years than a marriage relationship.⁶
6. Model love that is selfless rather than selfish. For instance, selfless love doesn’t say, “I just don’t love him/her anymore.” Selfless love does ask, “What’s best for you?”
7. Recognize that some relationships are not healthy and may require short- or long-term separation with the eventual goal to bring healing to the person(s) and relationship. For instance, when a parent is abusive, the family is dysfunctional and the advantages of a two-parent family are lost. For the well-being of the other family members, and the hoped-for reformation of the abuser, separation may be needed.
8. Help and support single parents. Both science and common sense show that those raising children in single-parent homes face additional challenges. Rather than judgment and isolation, single parents need an extra dose of loving attention and support.

(You may have other ideas to contribute to this brief list.)

Remember, it’s a scientific fact — Marriage: it’s good for the kids.

1. USA Today, quoted in AZ Central
2. Kevin Marjoribanks, “Relations Between One- and Two-Parent Families and Young Adults’ Happiness Scores,” Psychological Reports 96 [2005]: 849-851
3. Palmetto Family Council
4. Sara McLanahan Gary Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), p. 19
5. Citizen Link reporting research from Penn State University
6. National Center for Health Statistics

My typical Friday includes lunch with my Laridian associates. Today’s choice was Gringo’s Mexican Restaurant.

Located in downtown Cedar Rapids, the best thing about Gringo’s is the balcony seating. The balcony was recovered from a theater in Eastern Iowa, and installed into the restaurant to provide second floor seating. Visit Gringo’s to read the entire story or this second story.

Our meal began with a Pepsi, chips and salsa. The chips are awesome. (Translation: it’s easy to fill up on chips and salsa and take most of your meal home.)

My choice today was the Tijuana Time Bomb, described a five-alarm favorite. The Tijuana Time Bomb is basically a burrito, filled with steak, peppers, and other vegetables, and covered with an enchilada sauce. While it was very good, the five-alarm description is a bit of a stretch. On the International Food Alarm Scale, this really rates a two-point-five-alarm. In other words, don’t be afraid to order the Tijuana Time Bomb even if you don’t generally like hot foods.

Do you remember the spot the difference games that were in Highlights magazine that you read as a kid? There’d be two line drawings, side by side, with differences to be found between them. For instance, the mitten in the left picture was solid, while the mitten in the right picture was shaded.

Well, consider this post a “spot the difference” challenge. The sidebar has been upgraded, and includes three differences between the sidebar from earlier this week. Can you identify the three significant differences?