Chris's Musings

This weekend, I was able to get home and enjoy my fill of great Texas food, and yes I'm watching my calories and making sure to work out a little extra this week.  Needless to say, I've had some Mexican, some Greek (there's a famous place in Montrose called Niko Niko's that's crazy good - and was on Diners Drive-ins, and Dives), and of course some Goode Company BBQ :-) I do miss Texas BBQ.  I really do.  Not that my new home doesn't have good BBQ - it's just not the same and that's okay.  I'm sure that you know some folks that when you say the word "barbecue" automatically think about something that may or may not be foreign to your experience, so having been around I'll give you a little lexicon. "Southern" Barbecue (Tennessee/Georgia variety) This would be slow smoked pulled pork with a sweet sauce, most often served with macaroni and cheese, french fries, collard greens, or a plethora of other sides.  Those just happen...

If you are like me in this new post-recession (whether you believe we are really out of it or not) world, you are looking out for a deal when you shop.  As you know, there are a number of new companies and ventures out there attempting to take advantage of this mentality, the most famous of them now being Groupon. If you're following this emerging cluster of ventures, you know that recently GroupOn had talked about going IPO and they were bragging that their initial sale would rival any company that has gone IPO before... that is, until they had to restate their books. http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/08/groupon_doomed_by_too_much_of.html I am a "deals site" consumer so I do pay attention to what's going on here.  I am also a business marketing professional so I'm also very fascinated by this new tactic for attracting consumers and the retailers' ambitions when choosing to do business with these companies.  I do, in some way, tend to agree with the HBR blogg...

My parents are in town this weekend.  We are chilling right now, and planning to get some Stone Mountain laser show action in tonight. Last night, we went through the "where do you want to go to eat?" question, and we decided to go down to the Colonnade.  I organized my dinner group there a few months ago, and they have great, aka - amazing - Southern "down home" goodies.  Mom and Dad were pretty down with that. We get to the restaurant around 7:30pm, and it is PACKED, the smells of fried chicken is in the air (mmmmmmm), and there's a 20 minute wait to get a table.  Given that I've waited over an hour for tables in Houston before, I didn't see this as a big deal.  After about 5 minutes of standing, we find a table in the bar/lounge area where people are hanging out and waiting for tables. Oh, I should give you this detail... The Colonnade is an Atlanta landmark, it was showcased on Guy's show "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives" (a Food Net...

In the last couple of weeks, partly because of the study I'm working through with my small group but also through a lot of conversations within my community, I've really been thinking about what it really means for me to live Gospel-centered. One thing that I heard tonight that's really got my brain churning is how we as human beings can even turn the truths of this good news of unconditional, unmerited grace given to us at the expense of Jesus Christ somehow into a moral improvement code. Several years ago, a guy at Second Baptist gave a talk about the "two sides of the gospel" that has really stuck with me and I've gone back to often.  It also explains why we are, in many of our Christian circles, so quick to jump on the "performance bandwagon" - when we only embrace one side of the gospel and not the totality of what God has offered to us. If you think about "it" in terms of Accounting, consider that we human beings have a balance ...