Dr. Praeger's Vegie Burger

This Tasty Tuesday takes a turn toward the unusual.  I tasted a yummy, all natural, vegie burger recently at a sponsor's booth at the Blissdom Conference.  I've been looking for ways to get healthier and the vegie burger smelled delish, so I ambled over and got a sample.

Dr. Praeger's vegie burger looked the part -- skinny and speckled with red, yellow and/or green specks.  I opted to put my burger in a wrap instead of a bun.  I added a couple pickles and a squirt of mayo.

It was excellent!  I was very happy.  Of course it's not as tasty as a juicy (fat) quarter pound angus beef burger, but it's perfectly satisfying and very delicious.  I will be buying some of these and trying them out more.  Find them in your frozen food section.

Facebook.com/DrPraegersSensibleFoods

Twitter.com/DrPraegers

Healthy Recipes on the DrPraegers Site

I was not asked to promote this product.  I received nothing for this review.  

Voila': And Now I'm Old

It happened that quickly.

I got old.

Doctor visits

Pills in morning/noon/night containers.

Scans

Imaging Centers

Spouse's presence at my doctor's appointments.

Talks with friends center around physical well-being.

Or lack thereof.

I still can't quite believe it.

Change Starts Now, Blissdom 2012

Blissdom12 has ended.

The pampering is over.

The hard work begins.

Perhaps the Bliss Chicks create the pampering

to ease the difficult message that slips in through the sessions:

 Quality is hard work.

Change is hard work.

Being the Best You is hard work.

Integrity is hard work.

I have a gift.

Not everybody can do what I do.

- the triumphant @jeffgoins

There is an inverse relationship between creating and reacting.

In the 80/20 reality of life, I don't want reacting to be the 80%.

I want to be creating 80%.

Reacting 20%.

- @jeffgoins

“In six words, what does your creative heart look like right now?”

-  the serene Ananda Leeke, @digitalsisterhd

Straightline on a hospital monitor, silent.

- the depleted Me, @vsliker

Sometimes we don't see what our actions will set into motions.

Your dream is big.

Just take some steps into it.

- the magnificent @jonacuff

Blissdom 2012: Jon Acuff, Keynote

"When someone tells you what you can't be, they are predicting a future they don't control."

"We are The I'm...But... generation.

I'm a teacher, but I really want to paint.

I'm a _______, but I really want to be a _______."

"Finding your passion, your dream is not an act of discovery, it's an act of recovery.

• Something you lost.
• Something you got too busy for and set down.
• Something someone criticized you for and you quit."

As usual, the Blissdom Conference Keynote speaker was 100% awesome.  Jon Acuff's enthusiasm, passion, energy and love is contagious.  What a joy to hear this guy speak.  Acuff encourages the 98% female bloggers in the audience to pursue our passion and, most importantly, not to neglect our families while we do it.  Ouch.  Something his young daughter taught him with this note on a napkin she placed over his iPhone after she had been trying to talk to him.

Daddy, Pay Atenshon!

Acuff was young enough to learn that lesson in good time. It also helps that he works on the Dave Ramsey team - can you imagine soaking in all that Dave Ramsey aura day after day?!  *jealous*

I was too smitten with Jon Acuff to take many great notes, but here are some super pointers:

1. Use your time deliberately.  Be selfish at 5:00 a.m. or maybe for you it's 11:00 p.m.  Use time that nobody else is using.  Focus on the things that count. Social media never sleeps. You'll never wipe your hands and say “I'm finished. I finished twitter today.”  My wife has never said “Enough about me. Go tweet something.” 
2. Learn to disappoint the right people.  You're going to disappoint people. "As a people pleaser, that makes me want to throw up."
3. Ignore the external and internal voices. Critics math formula: 1 insult + one thousand compliments = 1 insult.  "My wife said for every one insult I respond to, I first have to respond to 100 compliments."

The meeting concluded in grand Oprah-like style.  With great abandon, Acuff pointed his finger to the crowd on the left, "You get a free book!"  Then he pointed to the right, "You get a free book!"   Arms opened wide:  "Everyone gets a free book!!  Free books for all!!!"  Great applause and laughter at the Oprah impersonation.  And guess what?  Each book was autographed.

Jon Acuff

Author of Stuff Christians Like and Quitters.

Blogger.

Husband.

Dad.

Aiken SC to Nashville TN: Road Trip

Off to meet the Lorax and catch up with some old and some new blogging pals at the Blissdom Blogging Conference in Nashville.

I hit the road by 5:30 a.m., crossing the lazy Savannah River before sunrise. Cruising the Carl Sanders Highway right on past Mistletoe State Park with hints of daylight dodging the cloud cover. With the fog rising slowly off Lake Oconee, I found the sun sneaking up on me in my side mirror. By that time, I was connecting the dots between Chick-Fil-As and devouring chicken biscuits and thinking of my fantastic niece Emma who loves Chick-Fil-A.

I was listening to Rick Steves discussing 19th century Paris as I passed Historic Crawfordville, Historic Buckhead and then Historic Madison. Seriously? Who knew that much history was right here along I-20 in Georgia? Note to self: pack mom in the car and come check out these towns.

When I hit Atlanta traffic, bumper to bumper at 50, 60 mph, I was listening to Carl Nielsen's Masquerade Overture. Who can take that kind of pressure? The traffic! The crescendo! Yikes. My blood pressure and heart rate escalated.

As I navigated the I-20/I-75/I-85 tripartite my music appropriately switched to The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, Handel's oratorio from Solomon. I held my head a little higher. Why, yes. Yes I am the Queen and I am coming through. Clear the way.

Finally. The legendary Chattahoochie. She's kind of a screwed up piece of river where I-75 crosses. I moved on to discussing Medieval Piety in Italy with Rick Steves (via podcast) by the time I hit the Oostanaula River, a little pious river herself. As opposed to the Chattahoochie, she makes it quite clear that she is a river. Plain and simple. Riv.Er. I saluted her and motored across while Rick Steves rambled on and on, oblivious to it all.

I spent the next 40 minutes or more arguing with my Droid gps about how to get to a Starbucks in Chattanooga. I performed a few safe and legal U-turns and deftly parallel parked. Grabbed a Nonfat Raspberry Mocha on the rocks and hit the Walnut Street Bridge to get both a great view and some exercise before hoofing it on to Nashville, an hour or two west. Not to mention the great hot dog joint and native Chattanooga ice cream – Clumpies!! – that surrounds the bridge.

OK, my friend. Off I go. The last leg of the journey. I wonder what bodies of water await my crossing? I love driving by the Tennessee River out of Chattanooga with the rocky cliff on my left and rolling water on the right.  Love. It!
 

The Lorax Party

Universal Pictures

has invited me to

a Lorax Party

to celebrate the release

of Dr. Seuss' 

 in theaters March 2

featuring vocals by

Taylor Swift and Betty White

Be jealous.

Be very jealous.

Pork Chops and Rice

I love this recipe, but I don't make it often because my family doesn't like warm tomatoes.

6 chops

Sliced tomatoes

1 c uncooked rice

Sliced onions

1 can beef consommé

Sliced bell pepper

Lightly brown pork chops.  Put rice in casserole dish, then place pork chops over rice.  Arrange sliced onions, tomatoes and bell pepper on top of porkchops.  Pour beef consommé over everything, cover and bake at 350 for one hour.

Enjoy!

How to Set Up Your Google+ Page and Use it Effectively

I'm over at Broadstreet Consulting today with a post on Google+.   You know.... you really should set up your Google+ account.

Lafferty Takes Third in Round 2, National Enduro 2012

~ Husaberg Press Release

Greensboro, GA – Husaberg Factory rider Mike Lafferty landed on the podium for the second round in a row after earning a 3rd place finish at the second round of the AMA National Enduro Series......

A Visit with Memorial Designs

We grabbed a pizza and headed over to Stonecrafter's Farm to take the guys some lunch and catch up a little.  Stonecrafter's Farm is where Memorial Designs does its sandblasting and such for stone art projects.  The first thing I noticed was the new art on the wall behind Tommy while he was frantically hopping from phone to phone.

After we ate, we went out in the shop for a walk-about.  I love Tommy's work station. Little bits of blasted granite in mounds of sand under my feet.  The T-tiny chisel hooked up to the compressor.  The tools lined up like soldiers ready for service.  The granite wreath half-etched.   Dogs barking.  Birds tweeting.  Charlie begging for them to go play with the remote control airplanes.

Remember the hand chiseled Gamecock?

All I've ever seen him work on is black or grey granite until today I saw a Missouri red granite piece laying around.  Yes, I touched it.  No, I don't have a decent picture, which I should.  The Missouri red is a partially carved piece with clouds at the top, a big barn in the foreground and a windmill to the right.  How awesome will that be?  "Ooo, I want that!"  Tom begged.

Here's a piece to show you the etching and the template.  Tommy is just about to blast all the smooth part you see away so it's empty beneath the leaves.

And then we saw the top-secret piece he is just starting that will be part of a 15' tall monument, shhh, don't tell anyone. 

And finally, as we left, Charlie got Tommy to try out the remote control airplanes.

Do what you love and love what you do.

Read about their work on the SC Remembers 9/11 Memorial here and here.
Interview with Memorial Designs' Ron Clamp and Tommy Sliker.
Read about their work on the Hootie and the Blowfish Monument.
What, exactly, is stone carving?

Some Things are Just Beyond the Mind's Grasp

L'Infinito

Always dear to me was this lonely hill,

And this hedge, which from me so great a part

Of the farthest horizon excludes the gaze.

But as I sit and watch, I invent in my mind

endless spaces beyond, and superhuman

silences, and profoundest quiet;

wherefore my heart

almost loses itself in fear.

And as I hear the wind

rustle through these plants, I compare

that infinite silence to this voice:

and I recall to mind eternity,

And the dead seasons, and the one present

And alive, and the sound of it. So in this

Immensity my thinking drowns:

And to shipwreck is sweet for me in this sea.

- Giacomo Leopardi

Italian Poet

Astronaut Ron Garan Describes Re-Entry on the Soyuz Space Capsule

Others said you'll feel like you're tumbling when you hit the ground.

I thought, "No, I'm pretty sure we ARE tumbling."

- Astronaut Ron Garan

In their ongoing superb use of Social Media, NASA offered another TweetUp at the NASA Headquarters in Washington DC and I was fortunate enough to be invited. Speaking with a crowd of 134 twitter followers, NASA Astronaut Ron Garan (@Astro_Ron) gave this amazing description of his trip home from the ISS aboard the Russian Soyuz:

"There is a big difference between the United States Space Shuttle and the Russian Soyuz.  The shuttle is a massive powerful vehicle you are inside, a very violent ride into space.  The Soyuz, on the other hand, as opposed to riding in it, I felt like I was wearing it.  It's so small, everything is right there, every valve that opens, every pump that turns on -- you feel it.  It is a remarkable spacecraft. 

The launch into space on the Soyuz.....