Costco Kirkland Court Classics

We recently saw the Julie and Julia movie, and Julie took her blog fans seriously. So with all due respect, I've been neglectful to my fans. All 15 of you.

After seven months, you'd think I'd have something funny to blog about. Ideally. I'm actually in a blog windfall right now, as I have two ideas to write about. Both are in the slightly funny category. The first is a recent purchase, my CKCC's (my Costco Kirkland Court Classics).

My recent set of work shoes finally got the ax. I'm pretty sure I got them in college, so we're talking 13+ years ago. The internet had just been invented, and Al Gore had not yet claimed it. I couldn't find the cool black adidas that would make me popular at school, so I took a leap of faith and gave my credit card number to some strange company selling shoes online. I didn't try them on or anything, so I had ordered a half size bigger to make sure I didn't have to send them back (having to pay shipping) or find out their return policy stinks. Who are they accountable to? Nobody, since nobody was dumb enough to give their credit card to a stranger back then! After over a decade of faithful service, from casual wear to basketball to winter shoveling to lawn mowing ... it was time. It's possible that glue may have fixed them, if I glued together the 4-5 parts that were flapping all over the place.

But I've had my eyes on the CKCC's for awhile now. Why you say? They had that attractive price tag ... $14.99 baby. That's cheaper than the Obama coin that Montel was hawking.

Costco is one of my few brand loyalties in life, although I've recently realized that Hy-Vee (a grocery store) is another. Otherwise, I am just so neutral on most things. But even though in the big picture Costco and Sam's are the same store, for some reason they aren't to me. I like Costco. The food seems better, the products seems better, and the lines seem to go faster. We recently had both memberships for some promotion, but we like Costco and have settled back in there. I just like going.

Kirkland is the generic brand at Costco, and somehow they make food, clothes, and maybe 100 other things at Costco. It's really ridiculous. How can one brand be trusted to make quality shampoo, bread, and jeans? It's an urban mystery, but with their prices I like to try Kirkland stuff. So the CKCC's at 15 bones was almost a lock upon setting eyes on them ... all I needed was the justification to pull the trigger.

So for 6 months, I've been patiently waiting until my work shoes just became too annoying, and now the white whoppers are my digs for mowing. The CKCC's are definitely not for the court, but they do have that classic crisp white ... ala the straight man Jerry Seinfeld. I've inserted a few sweet pictures for your enjoyment, compliments of the lovely Lauren. Notice the sweet logo on the back, or the minimal hair on the legs (a Blake tradition).





You may not realize it, but you are probably very familiar with CKCC's. You've been at the shoe store before, trying to see if those bargain shoes will work for you. You try them on, and they feel funny. They're weighted strange. You definitely can't run in them ... like girls buying uncomfortable dress shoes for a wedding ... cramped toes or high heels. You're deciding if you can endure them, given the great price and their limited and specialized usage. It's a tough call. But since the price is usually $40+, it was a different ball game at $15. We went for it.

They should have made them three-quarter tops or low tops, but they're that in between top - the kind that nips at the bottom of your ankle bone. They also feel more like Dutch clogs than tennis shoes, as the heel is heavier than it should be. Overall, a great purchase.

Someone is riding my camel!

Multiple choice - this is a photo of ...

a) Lawrence of Kansas
b) A bald man who wears a beard in the summer
c) A confused camel
d) Proof that robes with sunglasses combine for the look of the future
e) An Arabian soldier
f) A serious spiritual mapper
g) William












Correct Answer: "G" our very own William Matt Anderson

Rice, Rice, Baby

I was enjoying a nice day at IHOP, reading and enjoying the music and intercession. Lou Engle was over on the side, rocking back and forth just like a good Jewish man would. I don't think he's Jewish, but the rocking was great.

When lunch time came, I went out since we bread was unavailable that morning. Now in Grandview, it's not like you're going to find a Chipotle or anything, so you have to think a bit in order to not end up at a cheap place because you're tired of driving around and realizing the places sound gross. I ended up going with Chinese since Lauren doesn't like it that much. And this is where the story of my rice picks up steam.

There are really only 3 genres of Chinese restaurants. There's the overpriced duck restaurant, whereby your duck with rice has soy sauce on it ... so it tastes like $30 chicken. Then there's the Oriental Buffet Garden type, where it's $6 for all-you-can-eat. Not a bad deal, but I've heard of a few of these that get shut down for sanitary reasons. And finally the Peking Express or Panda Express or whatever they end up calling it, where you can get a load of rice and chicken for only $4. The Express is where I ended up, and the atmosphere was epic.

I enjoy the Chinese restaurant, as they still try to hire Asian employees who speak broken English with a thick accent. It's like being at Epcot Center, right here in the heart of Grandview, Missouri. At the Express, they somehow have 80 items to pick from ... but I went with my usual of the chicken and rice to avoid any mystery meat. In classic low-budget fast food restaurant style, he wrote my order on a styrofoam box and handed it through the window, where I can't see what hygenic standards they maintain back there.

When I sat down is when the humorous, bloggable material began. Since I'm by myself then I grab a booth within earshot of the TV in case there's some news on the tube, next to construction guy who is staring at the screen. At first glance, it looked like news since it was two guys sitting still in a room. Well I was in for a real treat ... the Express left it on the info-mercial channel for me! How exciting! Today's feature ... a coin. It was spinning in nice circles so that I could see both sides.

This week's special was a Barack Obama coin that also had George Washington's mug on it. Of course there were two guys talking back and forth about how I MUST have this coin. The first was "coin guy" who was a very smooth talker, explaining that first I should collect coins, and more importantly that I should buy this coin. You see, newspapers wear out, so you don't want to collect those. But coins are made of metal, so they last a lot longer. And this may be worth thousands of dollars someday because it's ... can you believe it ... a limited edition coin.

Without my mentioning the price, I'm sure you already guessed it ... $19.99. Not kidding. I can only buy it right now, because it's a "President-Elect" coin. Now I did read the other day that President-Elect means nothing in our country other than hype. But the excitment wasn't dwindling because not only was coin guy smooth, but his sidekick is none other than Montel Williams! I had my cell phone on my hip like a six shooter, just ready for the phone number.

But then Montel says, "Aren't they selling another similar coin for only 17 bucks? [he really did say "bucks"] It only has Obama's picture intead of both him and Washington. So you should get this one." Now Robin, Batman is doing a fine job convincing Americans they should buy this worthless coin, why did you have to say that? I think they lost 20% of their sales with that comment right there.

Coin guy's time is finally over, and my Chinese is settling nicely. By the way I escaped the rest of the day without abdominal pain, so it was a successful lunch run. As I'm walking out, they announce that this was a paid info-mercial, and we go to commercials. The first commercial was perfect ... an ad to go to their website called something like "on-tv-for-u" whereby they are selling everything online that you didn't buy from infomercials. So if you somehow refrained from pulling the impulsive trigger, no worries ... just buy it online. Now that's funny - a warehouse with all the stuff they couldn't sell. They're going to have a few Obama/Washington coins in there unless Montel covers them.

To wrap up the afternoon, they go to one more commerical. Yet another classic piece, as they are trying to sell me a dirt-tiller/weed-wacker combo in late night commercial fashion. What's up with TV commercials for sharp metal objects like weed wackers, knives, and samurai swords?

Well, you guessed correctly ... I was able to keep the cell phone in its holster (no, I don't really have one of those hip holsters for my cell-phone) and save my $19.99, along with saving by not visiting "on-tv-4-u.com" or buying the dirt-tiller. So what's the moral to this story? If Montel mentions that there are similar coins available already, grab the remote and find that channel in order to do some quality comparison in your TV shopping.

The Dodgy Downstairs Deal

Of all the situations to find yourself in, this was one of the more unique. There was a driver, a needle, a brain doctor, a urine bag, an off-duty nurse, and a suburban white couple who was questioning everything. There are pictures to verify this.

The driver was the instigator, possibly the brains behind the operation. She suggested that an off-duty nurse could be brought by the house, as long as the deal happened downstairs after dark. She also arranged for the brain doctor and the urine bag to be brought over for a cash transaction. The process could be completed in two hours if everything went smoothly, but that didn't happen.

If you haven't guessed yet, my wife and I were the suburban white couple ... the straight man, and in situations like this my spontaneous wife becomes even straighter then me. I've been coming down with some type of symptom lately, and we elected to treat it with non-traditional resources. Okay, so it wasn't a urine bag, but the rest of the details so far are true. It really looked like urine though.

The driver convinced us to arrange for an IV to be administered at our house. The only good news at this point is that I saw the needle come out of sterile packaging. But the nurse was coming off of an emotionally stressful conversation just minutes prior, and the doctor asks for a coat hanger almost immediately after coming in our front door.

The nurse whips out her rubber gloves, and to ease the tension I mention that she has no need to worry because I do not have HIV. She replies, "That's okay, this is to protect you from anything I have." Then she laughed ... I'm not sure that's funny.

The doctor and the nurse had never worked together before, so I was hoping that there would be some overlap in the knowledge base between the brain doctor and the nurse ... but that just wasn't happening. The brain doctor was afraid to do needles - something about how they were considered very tiny tools. The off-duty nurse wasn't sure what the doctor was talking about half the time, and as these two were prepping for the action, I heard the phrase "I don't know" way to often.

My wife was quite serious in her questioning, "Do you really want to do this? Are you really that sick?" The doctor had his questions also: "What did you eat for dinner?" It was like I got caught or something, and I replied honestly with "Pizza and root beer." He gave me a look like, "Well maybe that's why you're not feeling so well, chump." I knew better, so I did kind of feel like a chump.

The kicker may have been when the nurse asked for a pen and paper to do some math. We asked her if she wanted a calculator, but she said no. Hmmm. She didn't need my height or weight, but somehow she was going to calculate how long I'd be hooked up to the juice. After a few disgruntled looks on her face over the next five minutes of staring at numbers, ratios, and long division, she triumphantly announced that it would only take two hours hooked up to this IV. Why no calculator?

After much hesitation, we went forward with the IV and the bag of mystery fluid that looked like urine. They said it was vitamin C. The doctor even claimed to have had this done to himself once back during "school." It was going to help me feel better.

The process took another turn for the worse when the doctor took his money and left after the first 15 minutes. He said "just send me a text if anything goes wrong" over the next two hours. He was wearing all black instead of the traditional white, so what was I supposed to say? He said he was "going across the street" ... so does that mean he has another one of these scheduled for the evening?

The nurse and the driver stuck around for a bit, but that seemed to be more for emotional reasons. They seemed quite confident that this fluid dripping into my veins was going to work out just fine. But after an hour, they left also. So my wife and I are there in the basement, urine bag not even half empty, and I'm supposed to hold "pretty still" for another hour. We decide to play a card game, and well ... I end up not holding still enough. Who knew?

We make it past the two hour point, and at this point the calculator seems like a really good idea that the nurse opted out of. Maybe in her hand calculations she forgot to carry the one. We've made it through about 80% of the bag, but I'm not paying much attention to it at this point because I'm in a card game. But after awhile I look down at my arm. Sure enough, there's a knot near my elbow the size of a GOLF BALL!!! Are you kidding me? This is a dodgy downstairs deal gone bad from the suburban white couple's perspective.

In classic home remedy fashion, the doctor told us to "just pull the needle out when you're done." He may have even winked at me after he said this. Well at this point I'm DONE, as I don't want this knot by my elbow to keep swelling and burst urine all over the place, or whatever this "vitamin C" stuff is.

In true street fashion, I pulled out the needle myself. No pain ... mission accomplished (except the massive knot in my arm). I have the cell phone numbers of the brain doctor, off-duty nurse, and the driver. So I called all three of them ... with NO answer from any of the three! Classic. At this point, I'm thinking that I should have known all along that the follow-up care in procedures like this would be below average.

Eventually the driver ends up being the one to call back, not exactly who I needed on the other end of the phone. But she was with the nurse, who let me know that "this just happens sometimes." Oh thanks.

So if you saw my blog post a few months ago about business opportunities, you may recall that I like to post a moral at the end of the story. So the lesson for today is one you have heard before, but maybe in a different context. But we've read a story about the famous cliche - "It's not what you know, it's who you know." You see, if I hadn't known the driver, I would never have been able to get the medical care that I need.









Here's a picture of me questioning the process.








Here's a picture of me literally pointing the finger at the driver (not in the picture for legal and confidentiality purposes, since she was the brains behind the operation), along with an unsettlingly bewildered look on the brain doctor's face.












And finally, a great shot of the "urine" bag next to the mysterious coat hanger.

The Yard & the T-Blakes

I'm not an "outdoor" guy in the the categories of outdoor, indoor, and indoor-outdoor. I'm an indoor guy. I really can't even juggle the scale somehow and consider myself an indoor-outdoor guy. Rumor on the street is that people over estimate themselves towards being more outdoor than they really are. Similar to how people overestimate themselves on how funny they really are. But when it comes to my outdoor lifestyle, I could go camping once every 15 years and not really feel like going again. Do people really think that it's more comfortable than a bed?

My exception is the yard ... I like the yard. It's very suburban of me I realize, and at times I feel like Hank Hill sitting in the back alley talking about the grass with his neighbors. I don't really enjoy talking grass though, it's just the working on it part that I like. I don't like messing with the flowers and bushes, but for some reason the yard is my domain. I like mowing and growing grass. I think it's because it's tangible, and the evidence of your work is right there. In our world of intangible ministry, that tangible yard outside is something to look out and ponder about what needs done. Then you do it ... and you can see it.

So all this spring, I invested in having a nice yard. I worked the land ... I planted the seed ... I fertilized ... I even laid down new dirt to help the seed not wash away. The laying of dirt was the time-consuming part. Not to mention the number of trips to the store to buy the dirt, and all the money invested. Then you have all the watering afterwards. But it was spring! It's the time of new birth and growth, so I went for it.

Apparently I should have asked somebody before doing all this work, as the time to plant grass seed is the fall. It's difficult to describe the let down, as that information was necessary about 6 months ago. I felt like a cave man who had from a hunting/gathering tribe, and then I decided to be the first generation to try agriculture by trial and error. It was as if the internet didn't exist, and I tried to pioneer grass growing all on my own.

With all that we've learned about the importance of the land, whether that be in our studies of transformation or regarding the land of Israel, my connection with the land is my grass. Irregardless (that was for Susan) I'm not a farmer, and I don't have any interest in being a farmer. So in order to connect with the land, God seems to have given me a desire to work on the grass.

I was taking it very seriously, and I was also thinking about the implications while I was out there working. I was considering this as my service to God, to make a space that was beautiful for Him to dwell. I was trying to create some ambiance, as Lauren loves to have, for all those who come to our house throughout the week. It was me taking care of the sanctuary.

So when I found out that my grass came up quickly, everything seemed to be working out. But the summer heat burned it off (especially since we were gone for three weeks, but the trip was to Israel so maybe there would be grace on that?). The roots weren't deep enough, and I remembered the parable of the sower and how difficult it must be for God to see us spring up quickly only to bail out later on.

It's fall now, and the "official" time to work on the grass is upon us. But the P-Blakes found themselves lacking in finances for grass after my spring investment fiasco. This was really disappointing, as now I have to wait until the spring of 2010 to see the yard look half way decent. Granted, if I had taken that business opportunity that I recently blogged about, maybe the extra cash would be sitting around.

This brings in the T-Blakes, who bought extra seed and fertilizer. I think they may have done it on purpose, but I can't confirm that. But they decided to give it to us, so now as I type I've got the seed and fertilizer down again and the sprinkler is running.

So thanks T-Blakes. Gifts are low on my love language list, but for some reason this one was a big hit.

I'll let you know if it makes it through the winter.

Business Opportunity

So I'm out of commission today ... in bed with some type of fever, congestion, no energy thing. But that gives me a moment to fill you in on a great job option that you may not have heard of yet. To quote Jerry Seinfled, "you may have already won some very valuable prizes."

Here's the information you need to succeed. I was walking Noah around the block, and this elderly lady stops me to chat. She's very talkative, and we've spoken once or twice before. She and her husband drive matching cars, but they actually have 3 total that match. Maybe the third is a backup in case #1 and #2 break down. They're both a Lincoln Town car, or a Buick, or a Caprice Classic ... or whatever car that is that people two generations ahead of us drive. It's one of those big cars. But honestly, they have 3 matching ones. And one of them has the license plate "Winning" in case you ever seem them around town. I'm not sure if that's Bingo they're winning or Harrah's.

So the job opportunity ... she asked me if I needed some extra cash. She even told me that I looked like somebody who could succeed in this position. At this point, my adrenaline is really pumping as I may soon become someone who also drives a gigantic car. However, after considering my limited free time, I mention that I "may know of someone" in order to deflect the attention. This was not a good move.

After she mentioned that she only needed 30 minutes (which means 300 minutes) of my time to listen to her program, it was all downhill. I tried multiple times asking questions like, "Is it sales, or what kind of job is it?" The reply was always, "Well, I just need a pencil, paper, and 30 minutes of your time in order to show it to you." Now, don't get me wrong, this could be an excellent opportunity to have people hang up on you when you call them. So if you find me trying to hook you up with this lady, you'll know that this is a legitimate opportunity for an extra part-time job.

What is the moral to this story? The next time an old lady tries to hustle you into her pyramid scheme ... ask her if she bought those matching cars through this pyramid or from a regular job. If the money came from a regular job, then stick with your regular job. If the money came from the pyramid, then problem solved. You don't want matching cars, so why take the job.

Why not? I'll tell you why not!!!!!!

Well ... apparently it's not time ... YET! I was reading Russ Resnik's book Creation to Completion, and he was discussing courage vs. discouragement. Both are contagious, so which one will we spread? It was a very timely word that I read two days before our Sunday event. Courage is facing the obstacles despite our fears and insecurities. So if we're battling fear of man now, or the insecurities of what people will say ... don't spread that discouragement! Spread courage! There's always another battle to demonstrate your courage. Flory and Cheryl are very excited about this Thursday and Friday, so let's stand up and fight again.