New Orleans Menu

Sunday

• Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers – Gulfport, MS:  This is basically a Guthrie’s with a different name.  Raising Cane’s founder, Todd Graves, apparently “came up” with the idea for his restaurant and proposed in his business course at LSU.  Todd received a really bad grade on this business proposal.  Apparently, his business professor must have eaten at Guthrie’s before and failed him for plagiarism.

Monday

• Horsely Home, Biloxi, MS – Sausage Balls and Blueberry Muffins:  Thanks to Cory Horton for introducing us to this great family.  Their hospitality was outstanding and their home was beautiful.
• Cafe’ Maspero – Grilled Cajun Chicken Sandwich
• NOBTS Cafeteria – Red Beans & Rice
• Cafe’ Du Monde – Beignets and Cafe Au Lait

Tuesday

• NOBTS Cafeteira – Breakfast
• NOBTS Cafeteria – Cajun Chicken Pasta with Vegetables
• NOBTS Cafeteira – Country Buffet dinner
• Krystal – #1 Combo with Cheese (Post-Basketball Tournament dinner):  I was not happy about replacing beignets for Krystal burgers.

Wednesday

• NOBTS Cafeteria – Breakfast
• NOBTS Cafeteria – Catfish
• Deanie’s Seafood – Dozen Charbroiled Oysters on the half shell
• Cafe’ Du Monde – Beignets and Cafe Au Lait

Thursday

• Skipped breakfast (stayed up till 3:00 a.m. doing paper) but grabbed a NutriGrain Bar from the Coffee Shop.
• NOBTS Cafeteria – Red Beans & Rice
• Squeal BBQ – Seafood Stuffed Mushrooms (appetizer), Cheeseburger:  We actually found this place after 4 of us walked out of Jacques-Imo’s Cafe because it was too expensive.  The 6 guys that ate at Jacques-Imo’s said that it was well worth the money.  Squeal was good too!
• Cafe’ Du Monde – Beignets and Cafe Au Lait

Friday

• NOBTS Cafeteria – Breakfast
• Wendy’s – Spicy Chicken Combo (on the road)

Total Beignet Count = 9

Great food, boring class, tons of homework!  Great being home!  Time to diet!

Red Carpet Week

I’m in New Orleans again this week taking Intro. to Christian Missions.  The course work load for this class is ridiculous.  The professor is treating us like a bunch of elementary school students.  It’s not helping that the air conditioner seems to be broken.

This week at NOBTS is Red Carpet Week.  Red Carpet Week is basically a preview week for potential seminary students.  There have been several activities scheduled for this week.  Tonight, “The Bob Hall Ballers”, my 3-on-3 basketball team, will participate in the first round of the tournament.  Wish us luck (how good can seminary students be anyway?).

Beignet count so far = 3

Congrats Kris Allen

Attack of the Bird

While watching American Idol on Tuesday night, I heard a strange noise coming from the fireplace.  I ignored it at first thinking it was just an echo of Adam Lambert screaming.  After a while, the strange noise went away.  We paused American Idol (the beauty of a DVR) so that Jaime could feed Avery and I started playing NBA Live ’09 (I’m in the 2nd round of the playoffs with the New Orleans Hornets).  Just as I started the game, I heard a loud thud come from the fireplace.  I paused the game to investigate and that’s when it happened.

As I stood up, a bird started to fly directly at my face!  Scenes from the Alfred Hitchcock movie started racing through my head.  I immediately hit the deck and crawled into the nursery to protect my wife and child.  God has blessed Jaime with many spiritual gifts but at this moment, mercy was not one of them.  She couldn’t care less about the fear on my face.  She wanted that bird out of the house and she expected me to figure out a way to do it!  In her mind, a silly bird was not going to get our baby off “schedule”.

I never really notice birds when I’m outside unless they poop on my truck or something.  But, when a bird is bouncing around your living room like a pinball in a pinball machine, they suddenly demand your attention.  I could not let my wife call her father over to handle this crisis.  On our wedding day, I took that responsibility from her dad (but it sure would’ve been nice if it weren’t so late and he lived closer).

I finally worked up enough courage to enter the living room to face the bird.  I closed all the adjacent doors to confine the bird to one central location.  I let our dog Rascal in for moral support.  This was the one and only time that i wished Rascal were a cat.  Needless to say, Rascal was not much help.  He saw the bird but he was more interested in the front door being open so he took the opportunity to go mark his territory on my mailbox which has become the neighborhood “pee pole” for all passing dogs.

After several unsuccessful attempts (my attempts = waiting for the bird to fly out the door) of catching this bird, I swallowed my pride and called Caleb over for his much needed assistance.  This move caused me to lose “hero” status points with my wife, but as Caleb stated best, “This was a tw0-man job”.  We grabbed a broom, garbage bag, and a box and went to work.  The bird eventually tired itself out and landed on a decorative palm tree on top of our china cabinet.  Caleb grabbed the palm tree and escorted the intruder out our front door.  Thank you Caleb!  God continues to give me material to use with my middle school audience.

Charles Barkley’s New Golf Swing

I shot this video this morning at the 2009 Regions Charity Classic Pro-Am out at Ross Bridge.  It looks as if Hank Haney can’t even fix this horrific swing.  As soon as I arrived at the tournament, I almost witnessed Barkley kill my best friend’s dad with a stray drive.  The shot hit Tommy Parrish square in the back of the head (video below).

Luckily, Tommy was okay and now has a cool story to tell.  Here’s a picture of Charles apologizing to Mr. Parrish.

See a related article at al.com:

Reality of Charles Barkley’s golf swing: There’s still a ways to go

“Church” From the Eyes of an Atheist

I’ve been reading “Jim & Casper Go To Church” by Jim Henderson and Matt Casper.  The basic premise of the book is this…

Jim Henderson, a Christian, hires Matt Casper, an atheist, to go on a cross-country tour of twelve churches of all shapes, colors, and sizes.  The book is basically a (very funny) dialogue between the Christian and the atheist as they evaluate the pros and cons of each church.

I like the following quote from Jim Henderson:

“Otherliness is a word I use to describe people caught in the act of following in the footsteps of Jesus.  They’re focused on others, listening to others and serving others in small, doable ways.”

“many Christians don’t practice otherliness at all; some actually practice beliefism, or the worship of right beliefs.”

“Beliefs are part of life, but when we make them the central identifier of our lives, they can make us mean at worst and shut off to good ideas at the very least.  I simply think Christians need to make a small change.  We need to major in otherliness and minor in beliefs, that’s all.”

Want to know what “outsiders” are thinking of your church?  Read this book.

248 Pizzas…

ordered in just under 9 months of being a Student Minister.