Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Autumn Air

Last night, I turned on the heat at our home for the first time. Now, this makes it official to me: Fall is here! Now, I'm not one of the legalists who say it's not really Fall/Autumn until September 21. On the contrary, summer ends with August. Get over it.

But, when it's 95 degrees outside, you can't rightly say it's fall either. It's just "not summer." It's almost like purgatory- just kind of an unhappy middle ground. But, no longer. Now it's Fall, and with Fall comes some of my favorite things:

1. Cool, refreshing days and even cooler nights.

2. Real football weather (This would mean more if the Razorbacks or the Cowboys were playing well.)

3. The coming of Deer and Duck Hunting Season, one of my favorite yearly holidays!

4. Leaves changing colors. (Though I'm not looking forward to raking them this year. What the heck... at least I own these leaves!)

5. The anticipation of total surrender to gluttony on Thanksgiving Day! Good idea, Pilgrims!

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Thought of the Day


At least Nero's not on the ballot.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Reveal

I returned late last night from one of the most intense conferences I've been to. Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago hosted the Reveal Conference, which focused on recent findings in some research they have done regarding spiritual formation. The whole study is nothing short of fascinating. What began as an evaluation of their church grew into a study of over 250,000 people in 800 churches. The conference highlighted some of their key findings about what facilitates spiritual formation, and it also studied 15 churches that ranked in the top 5% in helping their members grow. To learn more, check out Reveal.

While there, I was motivated to do a little research of my own. In my short trip there, I did a comparative analysis of 2 of Chicago's most famous pizza places, Gino's East and Lou Malnati's. (I also tried Reggio's Pizza in the airport, but they weren't worthy of this list.) Here's what I found:

1. Both pizza's take a long time (over 30 minutes) to come out.

2. Gino's East clearly has the thicker crust, by about 1/4 inch at the edge.

3. Gino's East also has more sauce (on top, of course), making it seem a little more balanced.

4. Lou Malnati's has a crisper crust, and a disproportionate amount of cheese.

5. Gino's East tastes slightly better when hot, Lou Malnati's is much better out of the fridge the next morning.

6. Finally, Gino's East cost about $1 more per pizza than Lou Malnati's.

While these facts are quite revealing, more research must be done to make a more conclusive statement. Also, to be thorough, future studies also need to include Giordano's and Uno's in the mix.