Herby Turkey

As I sat across the table from young Griffin Murphy and bit into my Herby Turkey sandwich - I couldn't help but think about what the perfect food day would look like.

First of all I think I'd go high fiber in the morning - because Oprah says to. I'm thinking instant oatmeal. For my money, the steak bagel at the local McFastfood restaurant is delicious...but then you smell like onion and upset stomach for the rest of the day. If you're going to have a great day of food, you'd better set up a foundation in the morning...

I'm thinking that lunch has to involve a Herby Turkey from Brueggers Bagels, on a toasted salt bagel (hold the lettuce). A diet coke from Frisch's with cherry added - and a chicken Caesar side salad from any of those chain restaurants (Max & Applebees...although Longhorn has delicious croutons.

Dinner has to be steak. Seems like a no brainer. I could make an argument for Damon's Ribs (I know about you crazy Montgomery Ribs folks - I'm just a K.C. bbq sauce man) and I'm just a big fan of some sort of garlic bread off to the side. If you're looking for a good pre-meal appetizer...loaded fries are always a treat.

For dessert you could do worse than a Chocó taco - but for you folks that like something not wrapped in a paper container (which takes out the order and butterfinger blizzard) you could always finish the night off with a piece of Bill Knaps chocolate cake and ice cream.

just an irk

So the question I had was - is it that you're not very smart or that you're selfish if you smoke while pregnant?

You want to say both, right? I'm going to say that it's ultimately a selfish thing. You probably are smart enough to know how bad it is, but above that comes the me factor.

just a thought motivated by a visual reminder of how crazy this world can be...

a friend just passed this on to me...

the juice...not oj

I talked with a guy who was a first round draft pick several years back.

I'm not sure that I've ever done that before, and it was interesting to hear his tales of the minor league.

He used to get tested for steroids several times a month. He told me this when I was talking to him about the steroid mess and he said it was a lot worse than you even hear about. I'd heard that they had random testing in the minor leagues for years and that's when he told me about how "random" the testing was.

He had five guys in his weekly team Bible study. All five of them were tested every month. He couldn't remember anyone else on the team ever getting tested. He was saying there was an anti Christians on the juice baseball conspiracy (although that'd be a fun conspiracy theory to spread) he was just saying that they were very particular about who they tested,\ and, more importantly, who they didn't.

Here's my thing - I don't really care about the crazy steroids.

I love Mark McGwire. I loved it when he gave back a part of his salary after he'd had a bad season and thought that he didn't deserve it. I loved it when he beat 9 golf pros in a golf skills challenge. I think he's an incredible athlete.

I remember hoping that Lance Armstrong would stick around another year and win another tour.

I loved the Steelers when they were winning a bunch of Super Bowls in the 70's.

Given a choice, I'd rather all of sports be clean...and I'm not sure how to make that happen ultimately. I really don't want our government to bother themselves with figuring out how to fix the steroids in baseball problem. I'd rather them work on fixing roads and building bridges and making sure toll booths are operational....or whatever it is that they do that's way more important than asking Roger if his wife ever took steroids.

I should mention in the interest of full disclosure that this post was written without the aid of any banned substance (unless they've banned diet dr. pepper)

spices & Time

sophistihick has a new blog

so if you're into food, or cast iron, or arguing about the best local (pizza, ice cream, burgers, etc.) you'll want to check this out.
it's brand spanking new so give it a few weeks, and let him know that Cincinnati chili is real chili...

and if you need a graphic artist...check this out.

I wonder

I wonder what it was like to live in the late '30s in Germany or what it was like to live in the states in the 1830.

You'd think that there were probably some good people, some bad people, and some just plain old normal average, every day people.

So what must have it been like to just live in a society that lived with/tolerated or just sort of ignored slavery? What about what was going on with your neighbors who happened to be Jewish?

Do you think it was the kind of thing where if you really pointed out how absurd the situation was - you were this radical extremist?

I wonder how many people thought it was wrong, distasteful, brutal even...but just didn't do anything about it?

"It's a moral problem, not a political one"

"I'm personally against this, but I can't force my beliefs on others" - this lets you tell people that you're above this, but at the same time...it's kind of ok. "I hate that there are slaves, and I'm personally against it...but if someone else truly believes that it's ok, then I can't force what I believe on them"

I wonder if this was the problem. People were afraid to speak up. They wanted to get along - to not make waves - to fit in...

So I have to wonder what those issues are today?

we do a few things that are pretty cool...

4 out of 5 Murphys agree

So first Parker was up all night getting sick - that was Friday.
Then Cooper was up all night - followed by Annie.
Last night was Griffin's turn.

It's no fun being sick, and unfortunately I have two of my busiest days in a long time today and tomorrow. I'm leaving for work now and I'll be home sometime around 10 or 10:30 tonight.

I just hope Griff gets better - and that I can hold this off for another two days.

not about the super bowl....that was some game though, huh?

I went to hear some speakers the other night.

This is what it felt like:

A tee ball game

followed by a quick high school varsity game

followed by the Super Bowl.

Here's what I mean. When I arrived at the conference there was an accountant speaking. I'd say this speaker was the equivalent of a tee ball level speaker. Actually that's not true. The reality is that I just don't generally pay to hear accountants talk about not getting audited. I'm sure that she covered the material well...it just wasn't my bag.

The next speaker was actually very engaging and was probably a great speaker, but he was just doing a preview of a talk he was giving in a few months. He only went a few minutes and it's hard to be an all star in four minutes.

Next was Aunt Peg. I obviously went to the conference to see Peggers.

She was energetic, funny, interesting, informative and connected with the crowd in just a few minutes. She had them. She did some really smart things. She told the audience enough about her business to cause them to want to follow up, and left them wanting more. She made me think about Seth Godin (a really smart marketing guy that screams common sense) and just how to put together a really clever presentation.

I was proud to be a Murphy

Anyhow, it was a great night and I learned a thing or two to boot...

faith

A friend of mine was talking about faith yesterday. He said, "we won't be able to exercise faith in Heaven, so we might as well use it while we're here"

I couldn't help but think of the college students that I worked with for years. We would do these twice weekly meetings with folks who wanted to be Young Life leaders and talk through what it meant to lead. We'd read a bunch of books, memorize a bunch of Scripture, and just walk through the basics. At some point during that year I'd see these light bulbs come on. You could almost see it in their eyes when they'd say, "If I would have known, or realized, this stuff when I was in High School...I could have changed the entire school"

yep

If I would have loved the kid that nobody talked to - encouraged the kid that was dying inside - spent time with the lonely kid - focused less on me and more on them...that could really change a place.

yep

so back to faith. I'm looking at it as a toy that I get to play with for as long as I'm walking this space ball. I'll lose my toy some day - so I might as well play with it while I've got it.

So how to exercise faith...that's the big one.

I've gotten pretty used to living on past experiences, logic, intelligence, guess work and hunches...but faith - that's kind of scary.

might be worth looking into though...