Horn Bar

I’m flying down to New Orleans this evening for a three day Starbucks Leadership Conference, along with every other SBX store manager in North America.  Not sure how we’ll fit 10,000 people on one plane, but I hear that technology has advanced since I last flew.

I am excited about the gathering of peers, and the direction of the company that will be set into motion by our fearless leader, Howard Schultz, especially in this pivotal moment in US Business history.  I wish I had as much confidence in whoever our next president will be to right the ship.

But I am most excited about leveraging the critical mass of 10,000 enthusiastic volunteers over three days to pitch in, and help with the continuing recovery efforts in a post-Katrina New Orleans.  I don’t know the details of specifically how we will help, but we were instructed to bring "work clothes" for a day of the conference, so I would anticipate much cleaning, building, painting, and sweating.

I’ll let you know when I get back how it went.

Now, I’m going to to ask my dad how to use a hammer.

This past Saturday (October 18, 2008), my little sister Kristin ran her first full marathon in Indianapolis. That’s her in the top right corner, 23rd from the right in the white t-shirt.  And visor.

Her twin brother, Kirk, and I inspired her so much with our high school running exploits, that she took up running herself at AHS, and never stopped running.              Kirk and I did. 

She had been running 5K races for years, once while pushing one of those three wheeled racing strollers carrying her sleeping four year old twins.  The twins finished ahead of her.  Once, she ran a small 5K with a couple hundred or so runners, and the twins watched from the side, and jumped out at the end to finish the race with mom, and run through the finish chute.  Race officials were not amused, and caught them before the five-year old’s could finish, and potentially alter the race results, by confusing the place-counters at the end.  You can’t be sure if a five year old did NOT run the entire race, and beat some adults out of their age group.

 But I digress…

At some point, Kristin had decided she wanted to run a marathon just once, so she began training with some running partners from her hometown of Wadsworth, Ohio.  As it turned out, Kristin was going to be traveling to Anderson to join family for Mom’s 75th birthday party, and when she saw there was an Indy Marathon that weekend, the plans just fell into place.

The race itself went very well, and Kristin finished 575th at 4:08.  She failed to qualify for Boston, but she said this was her first, and last marathon, so there.

Saturday night, at Mom’s birthday party, someone questioned how a Casino in Anderson, Indiana could get Aretha Franklin to play there, and how desperate she must’ve been to take the billing.  This is when Kristin told us that Indy had somehow managed to hire Meatloaf to perform on a race route street corner to entertain the runners as they passed.  She swore it was him, and that it had been too early in the race for her to be delirious. The oddest thing was that he was singing    "I Would Do Anything For Love, (But I Won’t Do That)", instead of the more obvious "Paradise By The Dashboard Light".  I guess he would’ve needed a girl to accompany him.  Or a drunk college student.

Google has since informed me that, much to my surprise, this was not, in fact, Meatloaf on the street corner, but instead one of the famous Perkins Brothers Celebrity Impersonators of Bardstown, Kentucky, who had been hired to perform during and after the race.  Apparently, the elder Perkins brother does a first-rate Elvis, though I always prefer "50’s Elvis" over "70’s Jumpsuit Elvis".

My two other favorite moments from the marathon my sister ran, while I was at work less than 26.3 miles away in downtown Indy were almost as good as a bad Meatloaf song.  Somewhere near the midway point, Kristin was cruising along at 9:28 minutes per mile pace, when someone yelled out 

"Runner down!"

Fearing a Tour de France style mass pile-up, Kristin instinctively braced herself for the inevitable log-jam, but was surprised when the "runner down" turned out to be a dead squirrel in the road.  It’s just another tragic reminder that, nuts are a good source of carbs and energy, but you MUST hydrate properly, or you pay the price.

I also enjoyed hearing Kristin tell us that she pulled out her cell phone around Mile 22 to call husband Mark, and let him know about when she would be at the finish line.  I was concerned that she had elected NOT to use any sort of hands-free devise as she ran.  But at least she wasn’t texting.

Sunday morning, as I was leaving for work, and Kristin was preparing the family for the return trip to Wadsworth, I asked how she was feeling, and she said she was not too sore, at least yet.  I found out tonight that, Sunday night, when they got back home, Kristin had cut the grass at their new house with the big yard.  And apparently, she had done it in less than four hours, best in her age group, or her immediate family.

I’m so proud of my little sister.

Saturday nite, after an exhausting day of working
in the yard at Debbie’s house, we went out for dinner,
and then came back to Lapel thinking of watching a
movie, but we hadn’t picked up anything, so we
looked through her DVD’s and VHS tapes, and
somehow ended up watching a 30 minute episode
of "Veggie Tales", where Cucumber Larry and Tomato Bob
told the story of Joseph from the Old Testament, but
in the context of an American Western story.

I wasn’t really familiar with the "Veggie Tales" thing, having never had my own kids, but once I figured out the subtext of the story in front of me,I got really interested, and ended up really getting encouraged and inspired by the message, mainly of being patient of God’s plan, and continuing to "do what is right", even in the face of darkness and uncertainty, because He will provide in the end, when His time is right, but meanwhile, there is work we can and should be doing while we are planted wherever we are.

As if to drive the point home, at church today, we heard about Joshua, and I was encouraged to recommit myself to God’s plan, (Joshua’s Stone–24:26-27), and to challenge myself to remain faithful, even in times of darkness and uncertainty.

I love it when God speaks so clearly to me, especially when I need to hear Him.

Even if it is in the form of an animated cucumber.

They should really market this stuff to kids….