Emily's birthday is coming up on Tuesday (Aug 19) so I decided we should celebrate a bit early and head downtown for the night. I got a great rate on a room at the Westin through Hotwire (so far we are 2 for 2 on Hotwire) and surprised Emily with the plans. 

We ate fabulous dinner at Tony's Italian Ristorante (you know it's good when they spell it that way) and used a buy get one free coupon and an American Express gift card. That gave us a great deal on some amazing dishes:  Veal Saltimbocca (Veal filets stuffed with prosciutto ham, mozzarella cheese and sage, sauteed with mushrooms and Marsala wine sauce.) and Tony's Own Fettuccini (Our homemade pasta is topped with shrimp, scallops and surami crab blended in a rich cream sauce.) 

After dinner we headed up the street to the Westin. I was really glad that to have gotten the Westin (with Hotwire you don't know which hotel you get until after you book) because I have a relationship with the General Manager through work. My program assists with staffing for their hotel, and right now we have two of our clients working there. As we were checking in, I mentioned to him that it was Emily's birthday. Later on, we went out for a walk and when we came back we had two glasses of champagne, a dessert and a card from the front desk staff. That was characteristic of our entire stay. The staff was remarkable and the hotel was amazing. Built in 1897 it was the first hotel in Columbus to have electricity. We got a personal tour, including the ball room. If you like history and architecture, then you would love this place. 

We ate some snacks while we watched the Olympics on a sweet HD flat screen. This morning we got a late checkout at 1pm, ate lunch at P.S. Thai Tai and came home. Not quite 24 hrs away, but a wonderful getaway.  

A few pictures:

Dinner at Tony's

Emily Being Cute 

The Westin

Attached is the Southern Theatre

I always make myself look fat in these pictures 

A quick trip to the Apple Store yesterday got me a new Nike+ system and I am in business. I have to say…it's really sweet! 

After my inaugural run, Lance Armstrong congratulated me and told me it was my longest workout to date. Thanks Lance! 

Expect more running posts now, complete with links to my Nike+ page so you check out cool graphs and run data (Greg, you need to get this so we can race each other remotely!) 

Last night I got a new pair of running shoes and I was excited because I finally got a pair that is Nike+ compatible.

   

I got home, set everything up and for whatever reason the receiver couldn't detect the sensor in my shoe. I tried all kinds of different things, but nothing worked. Guess I'm headed to the Apple Store tomorrow to see if I can figure it out.  

So, it's been a while, eh? June 30th since our last post. Oh well…rather than a bunch of lame excuses and promises of more posts, I'm just gonna pretend nothing happened. (Tina, this is for you)

Tonight we hosted our International Dinner Club at our place and had an asado with 13 people. Emily is a great hostess and I am loving my parrilla. Check out the pictures here. Unfortunately, no pictures of the meat on the grill. It was eaten too quickly!

Tonight's installment of VHS movies from the 90s is The Net. An amazingly dated movie from a technology standpoint, but always thrilling to watch. 

Yesterday was I Love Trouble

Emily watched the original Mission Impossible this afternoon. 

 All from the 90s. All on VHS.  

Mike and I have a ton of places within walking distance of our house.  The weather was gorgeous this afternoon, so we took a walk a few blocks away to our closest CVS.  We have 3 of them within 10 minutes.  I did my homework before going, and walked away with this: 

for a grand total of $ 2.93.  

Definitely excited for the Derrick Rose era.

Emily and I finally have a destination. After months of planning and praying about ministry in Argentina, God has led us to the decision that Mexico City will be our destination. To make it official we signed the agreement with GBIM last Thursday. Tentative date of departure is Fall 2009, but that will depend on support raising. Check back often as things are about to pick up speed (as if they could go any faster already). Thanks to all for your prayers during this time and we look forward to many great things. 

I set a record yesterday for hous working in a day. This past week was a perfect storm of getting everything done before leaving for a week and 2 huge unexpected projects that I found out on Tuesday were due by Friday. Hence my 8am to 11:30pm day yesterday or 15.5 hrs. It was nuts, but at least it's over and I got everything done. (I also have picked up some valuable budget writing skills and learned of the amazingness of Excel's AutoFilter tool. I am such a nerd.) 

I'll also use this platform to hand out the wife of the century award to the one and only Emily McCaman. Not only did she not complain as I logged 53 hrs at work last week, but last night she met me at the office, brought a pizza and just hung out there, doing her thing, keeping me company. It was great. Thanks babe! Sorry to disappoint the rest of you, but this award won't be handed out again until 2108. 

I realized something today about my blogging habits. Most of my posts are along the lines of "today I ate…" and "yesterday I went…"  I don't really blog beyond the ins and outs of life. Not that that's bad (I know that both of you that read this are fully interested in what I are for dinner last night), but I want to blog about other things as well. I want to blog about cultures, and spirituality and maybe even some politics along the way. I realized today why I don't post as much about those things. I don't post that much because I always feel like I have to have everything figured out and then write a well-researched and documented post.  But seriously, who has time for that? And if you do go that route, then the number of posts is going to seriously diminish as well. I just want to throw some thoughts up here every now and then, without writing research papers for each blog. I just want to write, and maybe even have more questions than answers, or not totally thought out thoughts, because I'm a work in progress. Maybe I'm crazy, but that's the way I think. 

So here is my attempt to do just that. I read a Proverb this morning and it gave me some good food for thought regarding social justice and righteousness. Now, the old Mike would just put off posting because he didn't have the time or energy to write a research paper on that topic (besides, I already did that back in college) and just post about my weekend trip. Not the new Mike, though. I'm going to throw out my thoughts, and they may not be right or include all my thoughts, but here they are. Obviously discussion is warranted and encouraged so give me some feedback here. 

Proverbs 10:2 says that "Treasures gained by wickedness do not profit, but righteousness delivers from mortal danger."

For a long time now, it has really bugged me that righteousness is translated into Spanish as justice. That just didn't seem to make sense when I first realized that. Righteousness carries all these vertical connotations of personal piety, quiet times and prayer, while justice seems to carry a more horizontal meaning, affecting my relationships with my neighbors, as well even as far reaching as the trade agreements I support through my consumerism. I certainly didn't think they could really be the same concept. 

Back to the proverb. The literary style here is antithesis, where one line is contrasted with the next. Here we see 'treasures gained by wickedness (NASB: Ill-gotten gains)' contrasted with righteousness. It's obvious that those treasures are gained by means of injustice and/or oppression (maybe fodder for another post altogether), but what's interesting is that the opposite is described as righteousness. Perhaps the Spanish does get the translation right after all and we need to start thinking about righteousness more in terms of living right and in harmony with others, treating people fairly and standing up against injustice. Maybe it's time to start looking past just our quiet times as what pleases God and start to think about ways we can live out social justice (sounds like something that Micah wrote about awhile back)

Then again, piety sounds a lot easier than justice, doesn't it?