brett’s morning blend (08dec12)

Your links.  Would you like a frothy beverage with that, sir?

international bacon day

My friends, today is International Bacon Day.  And it’s good for us to celebrate.

Several links to get you started:

4th of july in geita

I didn’t take any pictures on the 4th of July.  But some of our teammates and interns did, so I’ll send you right over to their blogs.  Afterwards, I’ll tell you a little about our day:

the 5 most likely origins of wedge salads

I have a new favorite TV show.

Yeah, my friend T brought a couple of seasons of “Modern Family” on DVD, and I think it’s hilarious.  But that’s besides the point.  I only bring it up because an episode of my new favorite show reminded me of something that really bothered me while in the U.S. last year.  I’ve not mentioned it until now, but I can’t keep it in any longer.

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Wedge salads?!  Seriously?

brett’s morning blend (16feb12)

Grab your coffee and enjoy the links.

The Importance of Roughhousing With Your Kids

This just in from The Art of Manliness blog: good fathers wrestle with their kids.  It’s really beneficial to their development, guys.  Go on, put your kid in a headlock.

10 things this missionary MUST do on furlough

When people find out we’ve been in Tanzania 2 1/2 years without visiting the U.S. — and that we plan on living here a total of at least 10 years — the first thing they say is this:

Wow!  That must be hard.
What do you miss the most?

What do I miss the most?  That’s an extremely difficult question to answer.  It’s like asking a father which of his kids he loves the most.  The answer is all of them.

But the two questions are not exactly the same, mind you, because I’ve not sired much of anything you’ll see in this list.  Nor do I miss everything about the states.  But I do miss a lot.  That’s why I’ve made this top ten list.  

brett’s morning blend: a july 4th primer

Independence Day is tomorrow.  And this post is all you really need in order to prepare for the big day.  

waiting tables, washing feet: a gratuities tutorial

image courtesy of ethisphere.com

[I recently came across this infographicfrom Conde Nast Traveler.  It highlights tipping customs all over the world, and even explains in detail what is expected here in the United States.  Then I remembered a blog post I'd written about how Christians are often poor tippers -- and, therefore, poor witnesses for Christ.  Here is that essay.]

 

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At a restaurant during Sunday lunch:

• “Do you have any idea how expensive it is to feed a family of five AND leave a 20% tip?!”
• “If I wanted to clean up after my kids, we’d have eaten at home.”
• “We paid to eat here, and we’ll sit at this table until we’ve fully enjoyed our time of Christian fellowship.”
• “Although I’m a Christian, I’m a stingy, selfish, inconsiderate person and don’t mind showing it in public — especially to someone as lowly as a waitress at Chili’s.  Now where were we?  Oh, yeah, I was critiquing today’s sermon…”

One of my favorite bloggers is Randy Morgan, over at Your Best Life Later.  I just read his latest post titled “The Sunday Lunch Crowd,” and wanted to send you his way.  It’s worth a read, especially if you ever go out to dinner on Sunday afternoons.  I’m going to add to his thoughts just a few of my own below.

I Was a Waiter Once…

Waiting tables paid for the last year of my undergraduate degree.  I never liked working the Sunday lunch crowd, despite the fact that they were all “like me” and Christian.  Randy addressed, in his essay, both the horrible tips and the large groups who sit forever, preventing their servers from making any cash above the miserly gratuities, which they’ve so begrudgingly given.

But one thing Randy didn’t mention was the way these “good Christian” families generally make no attempt to clean up after their kids. I’ve even heard some Christian mothers say, “If I wanted to clean up after my kids, we’d have eaten at home.”  I’m not saying these parents need to bus tables or wash dishes.  But they could at least pick up a few of the messy fragments of crayons that were smashed with salt shakers after being dipped in honey mustard sauce.  They could transfer some of the half-eaten french fries and chicken fingers from their tables to their plates.  Or they could utilize a few of the extra napkins they asked for in an attempt to at least begin the process of cleaning their second bottle of ketchup off the wall — or was that the first bottle… and the reason for the second?

Waiting tables was the catalyst for me to reevaluate my Christian witness through tipping.  If you are a Christian, you represent Christ everywhere you go and in everything you do — but ESPECIALLY on Sunday afternoon when you’re dressed in your Sunday best, church bulletin in hand (to get 10% off your total meal purchase).*  And just in case anyone is still wondering, leaving a gospel tract is not an acceptable substitute for tipping.

And the Best Tippers Are…

Some of the best tippers I had were big groups of drinkers and college girls with their dad’s credit cards. Next were my regulars, who were also those whom I enjoyed serving the most — real conversation and real appreciation… and sometimes leftover portions of dessert (illegal for me to eat?).

But the best tippers (far and away) are always other waiters.  I would double my tips on a Friday or Saturday night with one 8-top if the waitstaff from the restaurant next door came in for drinks after work.  There’s a lot to be said for empathy.  When you understand someone else’s situation, you’re much more likely to respond appropriately and in love.

Mandatory Service for All Christians?

Maybe the church should ask its members to fulfill a mandatory service requirement, waiting tables in the restaurant industry.  Funny, isn’t it (or sad), that it’s almost impossible to imagine many of our church members humbly fulfilling that position of service?

And you know what I think… if we’re not willing to wait tables, we’re for sure not willing to wash feet.

Recap

• Randy Morgan is the man.
• The Sunday lunch crowd DOES NOT represent Christ well.
• As a matter of fact, large groups of alcoholics are more generous, kind, and thoughtful than are Sunday lunch Christians.
• Gospel tracts are not suitable for tipping.  [Nor, in my opinion, are they suitable for evangelism.]
• Servers should not eat their customers’ leftovers.
• If I’m ever in charge of a church, there will be a mandatory requirement that all members wait tables for a period of at least one month.
• If you can’t leave a generous tip, don’t go out to eat.  [This one wasn't covered in the post, but should've been.]
• Please think about how you act in public, and how it reflects on my God.

* You know the 10% you save with that church bulletin would be a great start for a tip.  And it’s basically free.

brett’s morning blend (23mar11)

Explore Your Morality

I’m in the middle of a little series on morality and ethics (inspired by the story of Rahab), and a helpful reader provided me with this very interesting link.  A group of psychology professors and graduate students from three universities have created a site on which you can explore your own morality by taking several simple tests.  There are dozens of these tests available, and you’re provided with your own personalized results in graph form (comparing your views to those of the average liberal and conservative).  You have to register, but it’s free and your information remains private (while used in research and studies).

The Humble Origins of 11 Restaurants

My hometown of Dothan, Alabama, was the first city in the world to have a Cracker Barrel NOT on an interstate.  [We're also the "Peanut Capital of the World."]  While Dothan’s not anywhere in this article, the story of the beginning of Cracker Barrel is.  As are the origins of Waffle House and nine other popular eateries.

17 Images to Ruin Your Childhood

From Star Wars to Bugs Bunny, the entertainment world wasn’t quite as impressive as it looked when we were little.  [Or when I was little.  For all I know, some of you guys are really old....]

Globetrotter XL

I haven’t played a computer game in 10 years… until this one.  Christie and I were both addicted for a day or two.  It’s a simple idea:  You’re given a world map (no country names) and a location.  Your task is to click as close as possible to that location.  But once you advance far enough in the game, the country lines disappear.  I haven’t played in a while, but I’m pretty sure completing level 10 wins the game.

Why the SEC Dominates in Football

It’s a fact; don’t try to argue agin’ it.  But if you want to know why the best college football in the country is played in the southeast, this article contains some insights for you.  [In 13 years of the BCS, SEC schools have won the championship game 7 times -- and that includes an undefeated Auburn team not getting the chance to play for it in 2004.  Oh, and those 7 championships were won by 5 different schools.]

For Which Baseball Team Should I Cheer?

I don’t like baseball; I think it’s boring and slow.  But I did find this flowchart amusing.  Want to know which team you should cheer for?  Apparently, if you don’t care if your team wins or not and keep a skinny latte in your game day thermos, you should be a Seattle Mariners fan.  But if it’s gravy you’re sipping, you ought to be pulling for the Kansas City Royals.

The Bike Shelf

This is a pretty sweet bicycle storage system; I’d like to recreate it.  But I’m not gonna’ pay $300 for it… that’s for sure.

this week in tanzania: a sister’s visit

From time to time I get requests to see more of our family’s everyday life in Tanzania.  But, not unlike all of you, I don’t carry a camera during everyday life.  Visitors do, however, carry cameras.  And I’m taking advantage of that camera’s presence.  [This post isn't really everyday life -- it's more a family visit.]  This is what we’ve been up to this week:

we went out for breakfast one morning. this is "the grand slam breakfast" from our local denny's. except that it's not called "the grand slam." and it's not denny's. rather, the restaurant is the mary cafe. our breakfast consisted of sambusas (ground beef with onions and other veggies wrapped and fried in flour), maandazi (kind of a fried doughnut), and one egg chop (a really big sambusa with a boiled egg in the middle). we drank chai maziwa (hot tea with milk).

we went out for lunch one afternoon. this is wali samaki (rice and fish) from OPS restaurant (i have no idea what OPS means or stands for). the fried fish here is probably some of the best you can get anywhere in the world. and the avocado juice isn't bad either. the rice is kind of plain; i mean it is just rice. (the fish was good enough that brittney and mitchell asked to eat it again today.)

we killed a pig. (i realize i've documented a pig slaughter* in the past, but this is what my guests have spent much of their time doing this week.)

we quartered the pig. at this point (insides removed) our pig was still over 175 pounds -- the biggest pig we've slaughtered in tanzania to this point.

...but with great pig poundage comes great responsibility. this is mitchell getting started on the processing bit. i'm not curing hams yet, so we took the tenderloins and ribs and set the rest aside for...

sausage.** here we are cutting and grinding. we spent a lot of hours doing just this yesterday.

much of the rest of the day was spent mixing ground meat and fat, and adding spices. we made over 90 pounds of sausage yesterday -- all of it breakfast, italian, and mexican chorizo. i doubt we'll have to slaughter another pig before we come back from furlough later this year.

brittney and mitchell brought us some much needed freezer paper in their luggage; we've been without it up until this point (using ziploc bags sent in the mail). we used at least a roll and a half.

today i made ribs (while our guests played cards and took care of baylor).

then we ate ribs. these were the best i've made so far. the ribs from this week's pig were meaty and really good. the ribs that were from the pig before last, though, didn't have enough meat for the amount of dry rub i used. they were really salty and didn't become nearly as tender as the other.

christie taught her regular english class this week, but with special english-speaking guest, brittney harrison (not pictured, she was the photographer).

and, of course, baylor cried some this week -- here because her aunt brittney is going to see the eiffel tower next week without her (she made this model in protest).

but she smiled some, too.

* slaughter of a pig

** how to make link sausage