Dimly Lit

All who know me know that I am a coffee addict. I probably drink way too much of this gift from above. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, I’m not really very picky about my coffee either. Oh sure, given the choice I’d much rather enjoy a cup of freshly roasted Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, (and if it’s produced in a sustainable and organic way it’s even better!) but when the need arises I’ll hit a truck stop on Interstate 44 and be quite satisfied.

But saying all of that is simply to point you to a beautiful story of conversion. A lifelong coffee-hater and hot chocolate lover, converted to good, real coffee. This conversion took place in Paris, but fear not - there really is wonderful coffee to be had here in the U.S. and it isn’t found at that ubiquitous third place that I’ve seen referred to as the church of St. Arbucks.

The author even managed to find a great cup of coffee in a most unexpected place, his grandfather’s kitchen:

Grandpa rose with the sun and had completed eight sudoku before eyes had rolled from the back of my head. Dragging myself to kitchen to endure whatever was about to pass for coffee, I found Grandpa in the kitchen with a burlap sack of raw green Guatemalan coffee beans, carefully shoveling scoops into a jet black coffee roaster, equipped with a small catalytic converter to quell the smoke that would otherwise coat the kitchen when roasting coffee beans at home. One has many expectations before a trip to Florida, both good and bad, but homemade, fresh-roasted coffee was not one. Yet there I was with a rich and bold mug of black coffee, cradled in hand on a dewy Ocala winter’s morn that I could not have had anywhere else in the world.

I’m not a big Katie Couric fan, but it’s always kind of cool when a big name shows up at one of our little local hot spots:

Yes, that title is taken from Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivores Dilemma. I haven’t read it yet, though I have certainly heard of it. You see, if I read it, I might feel an increased need to make changes in how and what my family eats and, quite frankly I don’t want to make the effort!

Now Denis Haack has gone and written a fantastic post that, just very briefly, looks at the costs of current dairy and meat production practice. The costs are not financial, but they are great.

“I do want to argue, however, that Christians take creation seriously. And that includes treating our fellow creatures with the dignity and care that is intrinsic to their natures as part of the gloriously interconnected world that God called into existence. Though ruined by brokenness it need not include mistreating fellow creatures because of greed.”

Please read the whole thing here.

I have become a cynic. I didn’t mean to, I just woke up at some point and found that I’m having a very hard time believing anything that comes from the political world.

For years I was a complete political junkie. Way back in high school I thought that I wanted to someday run for political office and while I had long ago moved away from that idea, I’ve always kept up with what’s going on in Washington. Over the past couple of years however, I’ve begun to believe that nothing worthwhile is actually happening there. Cynical right?

Or maybe it’s just my small government, local is better, community-oriented, ‘crunchy’ conservatism playing itself out. I’m looking for a candidate to say that the federal government is way too big, way too intrusive and needs to be scaled back dramatically. That doesn’t mean that I’m a libertarian, I wouldn’t mind at all if there were government funded programs, as long as they were run at the state or local level. Why not cut federal taxes dramatically and allow states to determine what is truly necessary for the citizens of that state? Yes, the federal government has a role to play, just not as large of a role as it’s taken on.

And yes, these are just rambling, incoherent thoughts as I keep one eye on the stock market tumbling after this over-extended, bloated government has voted to give away 700 billion dollars in order to keep this very thing from happening.

As a follow up to that previous post, here’s the trailer for the Johnny Bunko book that Garr’s presentation is about. It’s a whole new take on the career guide:

Johnny Bunko trailer from DHP on Vimeo.

This came out differently then the tests I’ve taken before, but I like the brutal honesty!

(oops, quick update - I checked and I did actually score ENFP the last couple of times I’ve taken a personality test)

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Your result for The Brutally Honest Personality Test…

Scumbag- ENFP

67% Extraversion, 87% Intuition, 40% Thinking, 47% Judging

Take The Brutally Honest Personality Test at HelloQuizzy

Self-portrait of the artist as a middle-aged man. Actually, this looks pretty creepy, let’s not call it a self-portrait.

I first posted about this guy back in 2006. He’s still going strong, and he still makes me smile. Thanks to the Thinklings for reminding me and bringing a smile today.

Where the Hell is Matt?

The fingertips on my left hand itch and tickle at the same time. My guess is that that is a good sign, it means callouses might be starting to form which in turn means that my fingertips won’t start hurting after just 15 minutes of trying to form chords on a guitar.

I have a red guitar. It’s really nothing like the one pictured. It was actually my brothers when he was a young teen and wanted to be a rock star. My guess is that it was purchased at Sears back in the day, this would have been 30 years ago - before the age of Wal-Mart was ushered in and ‘big box’ retailers ruled the day.

Now I have the guitar and neither my brother nor I have become rock stars. But I like to strum and my wife and kids seem to enjoy it when I do, so I’m trying again to learn a few simple songs. And now my fingers kind of itch and tickle all day long.

That’s really all I have to say about it. Nothing profound. Just that.

Because everybody else is doing it… Here’s my blog Wordled (at least part of it):