Reading, Writing and Rhythm... at least, that's the way it should be...

Well, I've certainly been in a "reading" mood. I've been reading alot in the past few days, mostly Sherlock Holmes mysteries and the Bible, but it's been fun. I always read in spurts. I'll go forever without touching a book and then read several in a few weeks. I can hear Sarah groaning as she reads this, she's been reading sooooo much for school. At least a book or two a week. Sometimes more.

As for writing, I have been pretty lazy about writing. A few things of interest have happened since I last wrote. The biggest news was that my grandparents came out to visit last Saturday, and my sister Tammy and her husband came out Sunday on their way back to NY. Saturday, Grandma & Grandpa Miller and Sarah's mom went with us to a sweet adelines concert on the north side of Chicago. It was really good! If any of you aren't familiar with the sweet adelines, they are a large organization of female barbershop quartet singers. The quartets join together, and form a choir. These different choirs compete against eachother, and support what, in many ways, is a dying art form. Barbershop (4 part harmony) is a great American music form, and deserves to stick around. This particular group, the Melodeers, have quite a few younger members, and their future looks promising. They were joined by a really good Swedish choir that had a really good sense of humor, and great voices. Excellent day. We went out to Chili's afterward.

After G & G went back to their hotel, I left Sarah to her homework, and went over to the church to pray for awhile, and on my way out, I struck up a conversation with the security guard, a man of about 50, who is a muslim. He was reading the hadith (Sayings of the Prophet) which is a sort-of "co-Quran"... the two books together form the muslim faith. We joked for a bit, and I told him of the Quran Chaper 9, verse 11 email hoax, and how it frustrates me that in the ongoing debate between our faiths, people feel the need to make stuff up. It's like a couple of years ago, when Marilyn Manson was every xian parent's nightmare, emails circulated saying that he had bitten the head off of a puppy on stage, and other untrue things. Instead of honestly and openly disagreeing with things he did, many people were happy to settle for berating him over things he didn't do. Which was stupid, and when he was accused of things he could disprove, made everyone who disagreed with him look stupid. Kumal, the security guard and I talked for about 45 minutes, during which, we each sat down and read the story of Abraham, Hagar and Ishmael to eachother. It was interesting to hear the story from their point of view, and he listened attentively to the Bible, and what It said. He's been to the site where it happened, outside of Mecca, and has drank from the well that God provided for Hagar and her son. It still flows, and they actually bottle the water which you can buy in the states! Crazy. Anyway, I plan to continue talking to him. I am so happy to have a church that doesn't want to chase muslims away. They'll never see what we truly stand for, unless they feel safe listening to us...

Sunday, G & G went to church with us, and hung out until Tammy and Josh showed up. I made my stuffed burgers on the grill. (Peppers and cheese inside... mmmmm) They were real late, because Josh decided to take a short cut, but we had a nice visiting time before G & G left. That night, we went downtown Chicago, so that Josh and Tammy could have real Chicago pizza. On recommendation, we went to Uno's which was very good. The wait was a bit, but it was a beautiful night, so we waited outside. After that, we wandered around and took a look around the city. Before heading home, we took a brisk ride up Lake Shore Drive and back down. Tammy and Josh spent the night on the floor of our apartment, and stayed until early afternoon. Tam and I got some nice time to talk at my Starbucks while Josh slept.

Speaking of Starbucks. I've been gaining popularity there, which is good. I still feel like I'm not up to speed with all that I need to be, but I keep trying, and it helps that I'm liked. I've made alot of music mix cds for just about everybody there. My best friend there so far is Kris. He's the morning shift manager, just about my age, and been there for about 5 years. Very cool guy. Has a band, in which he drums, so Sarah and I will have to go see them sometime. Yesterday, we had a store meeting about the holidays. It's so crazy. If I thought it was busy there now... Oi. Starbucks does over 60% of its yearly business in between thanksgiving and christmas! It's gonna be nuts!

Well, that's it for now. I'll write more later.

Jim