Palm Beach Gardens Tourist Attraction

What is there to say about such a cultural icon as this? Now doesn't it make you want to start singing the Oscar Meyer Wiener song? I know that when I saw it in the parking lot of the Palm Beach Gardens Mall, I just HAD to stop and take a picture. And lucky you...I'm sharing it! I was laughing, because another guy pulled over to take a picture too. I think there is a deeply buried child in all of us that just wants the world to be simple again: a place where the Oscar Meyer Wiener symbolizes a fresh wave of excitement rolling over the town. Too bad it was really just a stop in a parking lot of the mall.

One More video of the fire

This is the best footage of the fire: David took it.

Click Here to see the Fire

Picture of Fire in Square Lake

Fire in Square Lake

This is the house next door to my mom's house. At about 12:45 we began to hear sounds like fireworks. We looked out the back door (having just finished Greg Reade's statistics mid-term with him) and saw flame rising well above the Free's house. That was the direction of Mom's house, so we went running. David and Bill managed to get Mom out of her house ("My hair!") before the power went off. We all spent the next hour watching her neighbor's house literally burn to the ground. The embers were flying, the firetrucks arrived in force (7 of them, plus numerous police cars we didn't count) and the neighbors all crawled out to see what was happening. The man in this house heard the fireworks sound and found the fire. He grabbed his cell phone and his computer and ran. Now that's all he owns.

Top Ten Moments in NYC

1. Walking into the first Starbucks with JR Kerr and David to get my first espresso of the trip.
2. Top of the Empire State building taking useless pictures that sure were fun to take. Could have done without the security lines, though.
3. Sitting at the long table at Nikko's after walking through Central Park with David and Jay watching the gang from Buddy's church (Grace Fellowship) and the gang from Todd's church (Christ Fellowship) get to know each other.
4. Lunch in the basement of Macy's with the same gang.
5. The free books in the SWAG bag from Q!!!!
   
6. SOHO: three good espresso bars (! no wonder it's a top moment!), designer boutiques, an amazing Apple store that was offering an iMovie tutorial in its cool theater, not needing the $220 denim shorts I found in a boutique.
7. Sitting on the rooftop terrace of our hotel with Todd and David after the Fray pondering what the lasting takeaways of Q would be while we watched the Empire State Building.
8. Making Spring ride the subway.
9. Riding the wooden escalator at Macy's. It was so...authentic.
10. Returning to the upper West side for dinner at Bodrum, an amazing Mediterranean restaurant David and I found through research.

I am Home

Plane was an hour delayed, then we were #30 for take off. (No kidding). When we got to #3 for take off, a man in the front of the plane was taken violently ill and we had to return to the terminal. We finally took off after having sat on the plane for three hours already (not including the original delay). Three hour flight and we arrived home at 12:30 to... an empty house. At 2:00 the girls came home and Jillian began to get ready for bed.

It is 4:05, and I am home.

Q day 2: fun and friends!

This is what Gotham Hall looks like with all the Q dudes on break! It's very funny, actually. Most of them are making phone calls or having very in-depth conversations. The lady at Starbucks today wanted to know what in the world was going on down there. When I explained the concept, she got it. She thought it was a great idea!

You just gotta love these water bottles. I know....crazy pic, but honestly: art deco water bottles.

This is one of the pictures that the visual "scribe" did of a session this morning. It's just so cool looking. All these posters are now hung along the walls of Gotham Hall.

This was lunch in the downstairs restaurant of...you guessed it...Macy's. Buddy, Gabe, Trey, Spring, David and Todd. We were also joined by a miscellaneous woman from World Vision named Shelley. Thank you for joining us, Shelley!

You can read all about it at coffee shop, but I had to post a few pics before going to bed. It's 1 AM and I really need to NOT keep my normal hours!