Fred and Valerie

Michael Gates Gill’s How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else is a wonderful book. Interweaving stories from his past life as a member of the advertising world’s elite with his more recent story as a Starbucks “Partner,” Gates does a wonderful job of explaining why it became so important for him to follow his heart and how, in the end, it saved many of his relationships and opened the doors to many more.

While this could have easily come across as a story of a do-gooder who finally wakes up and smells the roses and discovers the real world, Gill has a storytelling ability and a humility that keeps the book from becoming that. Instead, you find yourself rooting for him to do better in his new world and seem to become the proverbial fly on the wall in his new life.

Next Up: A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906

As we drove down Afton Mountain on the way to work this morning, we passed an “oversized load” semi-truck with unusual cargo on its trailer. The cargo was a large box that had “Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter” written on the side of it. Instantly, we wondered if it was something top secret, special, or otherwise noteworthy.

It turns out, it is!

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission will conduct investigations that will prepare for and support future human exploration of the moon.

The orbiter is heading to Florida and is targeted for launch on April 24.

“What’s the Kama Sutra?”

This was asked by a child — Valerie guesses she was about six years old — of her mother as they stood by the Valentine’s Day book display.

That the little girl mispronounced it “cam-uh soo-truh” and her mother responded, “It’s for adults,” just made it that much more hilarious.

Former President John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage should be a must-read for every American. While Kennedy has a wonderful gift for making history lessons interesting to read, it’s his ability to set the tone and paint the picture of the U.S. Senate that I appreciated most. It was interesting to read Kennedy’s descriptions about the attitudes towards the Senate and Senators and how those attitudes in the 1950s weren’t that different from the late 1800s or early 1900s and, to my surprise, they also weren’t all that different from present day attitudes.

There’s a reason Kennedy won a Pulitzer Prize for this book and every History teacher in America should thank Kennedy for making history interesting.

Next Up: How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else

Smoking is expensive. Not only do the actual cigarettes cost a lot of money thanks to all the taxes imposed, but it’s widely accepted that smoking causes health issues that are then going to cost money by way of increased doctor’s visits. But, are there instances where smoking is even more expensive than usual? Absolutely.

Last night, we went out for dinner to have a little celebration. We went to Sanzone’s, the local Italian restaurant that we LOVE. The meal was delicious, as usual, and it came time to pay the bill. Being very patient people, we waited. And waited. And waited some more. Finally, after seeing no sign of our server, we asked the server that was helping the nearby tables if he would be so kind as to bring our bill. When he brought our bill and there was still no sign of our server, I asked him if I could also trouble him to bring me a to-go box. He did.

Finally, as I was packing up my to-go box, our server reappeared, reeking of cigarette smoke, and asked if there was anything else we needed. We said no, paid our bill, left a 10% tip (she was good for the first half of the dinner), and went home.

It was clear from the server smelling like a giant cigarette and from what we overheard the other server asking as he walked back into the kitchen that our server decided she needed a “smoke break.” Unfortunately, for her, that smoke break not only cost her the warmth of being inside while it was snowing outside, it also cost her 50% of her tip.

In these hard economic times, one has to wonder how smoking can be THAT much more important to a server as compared to making the biggest and best tips possible.

We’ve been looking for a church to go to in the Stuarts Draft area since we moved here and we’ve been fairly dissappointed with all of our experiences. Our friends have also been looking for a church to go to and they told us about one they found that seemed to be in line with what we had been looking for. The church is Victory Worship Center.

The church is technically located in Staunton, but it’s just up the road from our house about 10 miles (not that far in these parts). On Sunday, we joined our friends and had a wonderful time at the church. The music was great, the people were great and, most importantly, the “sermon” was great. The best part is that the church isn’t like typical churches that get so caught up in religion that they make you feel bad for everything you’ve done wrong all week. Instead, the church seems focused on trying to help you lead a happier life while serving God.

After the service was over, one of the members of the church said that the pastor would like to meet us (since we were new). We met the pastor and his wife and shook hands and they asked were we live.

“Stuarts Draft,” I replied. To which they replied that they lived in the Stoney Run neighborhood.

“So do we!,” I replied. And after talking a bit, we figured out that we live just 5-10 houses away from each other in our neighborhood.

Here we were just looking for a church to become members of and we ended up finding a church whose pastor lives in our neighborhood!