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A few weeks ago, I was invited to attend an arts conference at Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago (South Barrington, actually). Community Church makes it sound kind of small and quaint, but Willow Creek has 20,000 members or so and the last time I went to a leadership conference there, the President of the United States (WJC) showed-up to speak. It’s probably the second largest church in the US. I like to call it The Mothership.

Tony Colvin and I thought that attending the arts conference would be a good way for me to jump-start getting plugged back into the arts team at ACF. Besides, it would give me a few days away from the nightmare of living in the miserable mess of our home, while the new floors were being installed.

Our flight was on Wednesday at 10:00 am. Everyone was going to meet at the church (or Starbucks) and then carpool to the airport. Around 8:40 am on Tuesday morning, I was sitting at my desk at work, already started on a busy day of preparing to be gone for a week, when Tony called. “You know that we are leaving today, don’t you?” I froze. The flight was at Tuesday at 10:00 am.

“Tony, I can’t think on the phone. I’m going to hang-up and I’ll call you back when I know what I’m going to do.” I rang off. Stupid ADD. I can’t remember anything. I ran through a couple of different scenarios. I couldn’t make it home and back in time, so that was out. I could catch a later flight, but then I would have to rent my own car. Not a big deal, but I was worried about the availability of flights. Or, I could just go make my flight. After a couple of minutes of consideration, that’s exactly what I did. I stood-up, told the folks at work that I would see them next week, drove to the airport, and made my flight with nothing but the clothes on my back and my gym bag, which was all I had in my car.

My friends got a lot of mileage out of my predicament, but it was all in good fun. I couldn’t help but think that God was having a good laugh, as well. For weeks I had been complaining about the condition of our house and the fact that we had to live out of our suitcases in one room of the house while the floors were being replaced. I could imagine God saying, “Tired of living out of a suitcase? Here, how about no suitcase. Ha-ha!” It’s just like God to humble me and have a good laugh at the same time. He wasn’t finished with me, either.

We arrived in Chicago, rented a car, and drove to the hotel in South Barrington. When I walked into the hotel, I couldn’t believe my eyes. They were redoing their floors!

Look familiar?

Everything was just like at my house - the dust, the fumes, and the piles of displaced furniture. I hadn’t escaped from anything. Okay God, I get it. I get it! Very funny.

I went up to my room and emptied my gym bag on the bed. There wasn’t much that was useful. I could probably use the clean socks and tennis shoes. I had also grabbed a toothbrush and some toothpaste that I keep in my desk. My hair was cut really short, so there was no need for a hair brush or even product (besides, hotel-provided conditioner does in a pinch). There was no need to shave, so I didn’t need any of that gear, either. The hotel provided soap and shampoo, so all I really needed was deoderant. As for clothes, I was wearing my work khakis and loafers. Not much is more versatile than that. If I had to, I could have worn those for the rest of the week and just changed shirts. So I had a plan - get by with souvenir t-shirts until I could get to a real store for a change of clothes.

Just a little while later, we went into downtown Chicago and ate at Giordano’s Pizza. I love Chicago-style pizza. In fact, I love Giordano’s pizza so much that on a previous visit, I flew some back home with me. My carry-on was a box of pizza. I swear. Anyway, we had a great time. We celebrated J.R.’s birthday and stuffed ourselves silly. I also bought a Giordano’s shirt for the next day. It was pretty late by the time we headed back to the hotel, but we found a Walgreens and I ran inside to get some supplies. Niki noticed that they actually had some shirts for sale. There were only about a dozen or so and most of them were pretty bad. One of them was a sleeveless, shiny silver roller disco style shirt. I think another one had rainbows and unicorns on it. Who the hell buys this stuff? Anyway, one of the shirts wasn’t bad at all. It was just a red knit polo shirt. It had some black accents that looked nice, it was 100% cotton, and it was made by Jerzees, which is a name brand. The only questionable design feature was the black and white, checkered flag banding around the sleeves. Probably not something I would normally choose for myself, but I guess I’m a racer kind of guy, so I it could work. Besides, the shirt was only $4! That settled it.

The next day, I chose to wear my $4 Walgreens shirt, since I thought it looked better with my work pants and loafers. I took some shots from my friends for it, but a couple of them eventually admitted that the shirt actually looked alright. After the conference was over for the day, we rushed off to grab some quick dinner before heading back to the church for their regular Wednesday night worship. We went to Chili’s but the wait was too long. Then we went to T.G.I. Friday’s, but their wait was too long, too. Finally, we ended-up at a place called Steak ‘n Shake. Apparently, there is one of these in South Austin, but I had never been to one before. Imagine my horror upon discovering that the decor of the restaurant matched my $4 shirt! I looked like I worked for Steak ‘n Shake!

I was hoping that if the employees thought I was from the corporate office, I would get better service. Not so much. I did get my order taken first, but my food took so long to come out that they gave it to me for free. Since we’re here, I guess I’ll do a quick review of Steak ‘n Shake: The vanilla malt was excellent, the “steak burger” was maybe the most bland and tasteless burger I have ever eaten (it tasted like…water?), the fries were good, but the service was poor.

After the Wednesday night service, my friend Phyllis (who had rented her own car) and another girl from our group took me to Target for some clothes. My souvenir shirt plan just wasn’t working. Obviously, an arts conference is attended by artists. Have you ever seen how artists dress? It might as well have been called an “artist and hipsters” conference, except that the word hip isn’t hip anymore and they would have to call it something else. I don’t know what that would be because I’m old and I’m not privy to the new word for hip. I won’t know it until that word has gone out of fashion, so I still have to say hip. Anyway, there were eleventy-thousand artists at this conference and they all had cool hair, and cool glasses designed by architects, and cool jeans, and cool flip-flops, and of course, cool chi teas and coffees, which they got from the cool Starbucks knock-off inside the church. I was in over my head. I was still stuck in my corporate drone-wear with a shirt from Walgreen’s. Besides, I’m just not cool. I needed help.

So, we hit Target and I put together what I call my Youth Pastor Kit™ - a dark brown and blue pullover shirt that looks exactly like one that I wore back in 1974, flared jeans, and some stylish, square-toed leather shoes. I was a puka shell necklace and feathered haircut away from looking like David Cassidy. I felt ridiculous, but my friends said the clothes looked good and maybe the other attendees wouldn’t think I was a narc.

Afterwards, Phyllis wanted to do some exploring, so we drove to a nearby little town called Elgin. It seemed like a sleepy little place - the kind with old, craftsman-style homes and a historical district downtown. By the time we got there, it seemed the town had shut-down for the night, but we drove around and looked at the interesting old homes and talked about what it would be like to live in a small town. Then we turned a corner and it was like somebody had popped a flashbulb in my face. Right in the middle of this quiet, dark little town was a huge casino! I had a assumed that the town was asleep, but I think what was really happeneing was that the casino was sapping all the power from the rest of the town. This thing was lit up like a jukebox.

From the front, it looked like a regular casino, but it was really a riverboat casino. It never sails, so I don’t know if there is some historical value to that riverboat, or if it just a way to sail through one of those legal loopholes we have in this country that says gambling is bad everywhere except for two cities, Indian reservations, and on barges where there is a good chance a nautical tragedy will drown all of the sinners at once. Whatever. We were there - so we went in. And that was how less than two hours after walking out of a Wednesday night worship service, I found myself drinking a beer in a riverboat casino.

It was actually a pretty nice casino. It was nicer than the cruise ship casinos I have seen and it was even better than many of the casinos I have seen in Vegas. Also, it was late on a Wednesday night, so there wasn’t a crowd (though it was far from empty). Now, I could make a big tall tale out of this, but the truth is, I’m not much of a gambler. If circumstances had been a little different, I might have sat at a table for a little while, just to say I had done it. But, sitting at a Blackjack table in my $4 shirt and a bummed beer (thanks, Phyllis!), while I gambled off of a credit card, sounded to me like a Really Bad Idea™. So, we each had a beer, Phyllis lost some money on the slots, and we called it a night.

The next evening was a real misadventure. The plan was to go downtown and check-out some Blues. But there were so many of us that it would have taken two cars and nobody wanted to take their car anyway, because parking in downtown Chicago is on the order of $20/hr. So, we took the train. There really isn’t a good way to tart-up this story, so I’m just going to spill it out and get it over with. First of all, dinner ran very late. I don’t know why, because we ate at a Chili’s-style restaurant that should have taken no more than an hour, but somehow it took over two. Then we took the train - the miserably slow train. Halfway through the trip downtown, the conductor announced that one of the tracks is down, so they would have to share tracks with another train. The miserably slow train had to stop and wait for that train to pass, before we could proceed. That added another 20 minutes to the trip. All told, I think we were on the train for at least an hour. It seemed like more, trust me. At one point, as my eyes wandered over the PSA posters and wireless phone ads for the eleventy-millionth time, it occurred to me that these were the same trains that were in Risky Business. I was excited for about ten seconds, but then, no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t figure-out a way to make that interesting. So, I went back to being bored to death.

Finally, we arrived downtown, but with only had a vague sense of where we needed to go. This part wasn’t too bad for me. I love walking around downtown in big cities at night. Yes, I am being that specific on pupose. I have done it in cities here and abroad, and I just love it. But there wasn’t too much time to just enjoy it, because we were on a mission. A local fella noticed we looked lost and was nice enough to actually walk us to a bar with a Blues band. We arrived just in time for last call and the last two songs of the night. It was a great band, but by that time, it just didn’t seem to me like much of a payoff. There were rumors of another Blues bar that stayed open late, but we were exhausted and a maybe a little discouraged, so we packed it in and steeled ourselves for the long train ride back. It was awful.

I haven’t said much about the conference itself, but that’s only because it doesn’t lend itself to good storytelling. It’s just like most conferences - there are general sessions and break-out sessions. The general sessions began with music and worship, then followed with teaching. The general sessions were really like little church services, except with teaching that focused on the arts. I really enjoy immersive experiences like these. They help me get focused. I’m also inspired just by being around other artistic people and seeing excellent art used for the church. The conference was also a great way for me to hang-out with my old friends that I used to serve with. The idea was that it would create a platform or bridge, from which I could reenter and serve within the arts team at ACF. I still don’t know if that will come to fruition, but I’m pressing-on regardless. Tomorrow, I will go to a training class to learn how to use the new video gear that ACF will be using.

Here is a blog with clips, comments, resources, and background stuff on the 2007 WCA arts conference. Don Miller and the Urban Poets were two of my favorite things about the conference. In fact, it was reading Don Miller’s book Blue Like Jazz earlier this year, that was one of the things that got me back to ACF. In that light, it was particularly awesome to hear him speak at the conference.

2007 WCA Arts Conference Blog

jimmy

With my house cracking apart, I was even more eager to get away this past weekend for some fresh air and the open road. So, Friday afternoon, I loaded-up the Miata and pointed her towards Rising Star, Texas, where I would meet my friend David Sylvester for some dove hunting. I’m not much of a hunter. I have been out with Dave half a dozen times and haven’t bagged a single anything, most of the time because I never saw anything. But that has always been a secondary consideration for me. Hunting has always been about getting outside, drinking beer, shooting firearms, and basically doing things that would make Ted Nugent proud. Not bathing for a few days is just a bonus. Anyway, this would be my first dove hunt; maybe I would have better luck this time.

I stopped to have lunch in Lampasas and review the burger at Storm’s:

Storm’s is legendary around Central Texas. I swear, any time that I hear anyone mention Lampasas, the very next words I hear are, “Did you go to Storm’s?” It could be a conversation between two people, or you can just walk outside and mutter “Lampasas” under your breath and a passerby in a car will call out, “Hey, be sure to go to Storm’s!” I’m not kidding. Go try it. So, inspired by the Texas Burger Guy (TBG) blog that I stumbled upon recently, I decided to stop and see what all the fuss is about.

A quick note about my review style. I hope to submit my review to TBG as a guest reviewer, so I will try to follow TBG review rules.

Storm’s has been serving burgers at their original Lampasas location for over 50 years. Originally called Dairy Cue, it sounds suspiciously like Storm’s started life as one of the many Dairy Queen knockoff restaurants that are strewn around small towns in Texas (Dairy King, Dixie Queen, Daisy Queen, et al). Dairy Cue, or Dairy Q? No matter, Jim Storm and his family were setting themselves apart serving quality burgers and attracting legions of loyal fans, including perhaps the most famous gourmand in history - Elvis Presley, who is said to have frequented the establishment while stationed at Fort Hood.

Old School Drive-In

New School Patio

The original Storm’s is a drive-in and still has the look of a bona fide burger joint. But they also have a new patio across the parking lot for those wanting to “dine-in.” The patio is contemporary and clean, with a fountain made from Llanite and landscaping that uses native Texas plants. To be honest, the patio didn’t look very “burger joint” at all, but the fact that they chose to keep the original drive-in alongside the new structure, shows their solid values and commitment to their own heritage. Okay, I can feel TBG getting impatient; let’s get to the food.

The menu is simple and features the Storm’s Special - a 1/2 pound, triple-meat cheeseburger and fries. If they say it’s special, then that’s what I want. I placed my order from the patio, using the same intercom and menu system found in the drive-in stalls. In just a few minutes, I was served. My initial observation was that the burger came wrapped in paper rendered clear from the grease. I wondered if I could get an angioplasty in Lampasas.

Click here for 1600 x 1200.

Undeterred, I unwrapped the burger. I had ordered the special without pickles or onion, which is my custom, and this is what was left: three beef patties, one slice of American cheese, shredded lettuce, tomato, and mustard, on a lightly toasted white bun that looked like it had been run over by a truck. This was a good burger, maybe even a very good burger, but I would stop short of saying that it was a great burger. Maybe it just goes against too many of my preferences. For instance, the fact that it is a triple-burger might sound impressive at first, but the individual patties are thinner than the ones found in an Elementary School cafeteria. They are so thin that it would be impossible not to overcook them, which is the real problem here. If anything, one of the valid reasons for having multiple patties, is to increase the cheese to beef ratio, but Storm’s only has one slice of cheese to hold together three patties (obviously, extra cheese is available). I also prefer to have my vegetables on top of the burger, rather than beneath it. It’s a small thing, but it does matter. Let’s run down the TBG categories:

Ooze Factor
Let’s talk about ooze for a second. There is good ooze and there is bad ooze. The best ooze is the cow juice from a nice medium-rare to medium burger. To a degree, grease can be good ooze. Bad ooze is a wet burger from watery vegetables. This was a medium-wet burger, but there was very little cow juice. The ooze was mostly from grease and wet vegetables. If you like grease, this is another advantage to a triple-burger, especially if it’s fried - there are six sides of burger holding grease for you. I’m going to go straight down the middle on this.
Ooze Factor Rating: 5

Herd Killer
No mystery here; this burger is a 1/2 pounder. With more patties to cook-down, I bet it comes out less than a single 1/2 pound burger when it’s served.
Herd Killer Rating: 4

Handling
This burger was very easy to handle. By design or by accident, this burger was squished-down flat, which made for good maneuverability and easy ingress. It had good ergonomics, but was not very impressive looking.
Handling Rating: 4

Bling Bling
My total bill was just over $5, an incredible bargain. Also, to aid in digestion and to keep my blood thin enough to hopefully stave off an aneurysm, I ordered water with my meal and they gave me a huge, Super Big Gulp sized cup, which I thought was unusually generous. However, I noticed that there was a $.50 charge for any substitution, no matter the item. I can admire that concept from the standpoint of this being a burger joint (”You get what you get,” according to Alan Richman), but I have to dock them under this category. It would be silly to charge me $.50 for tater tots instead of fries.
Bling Bling Rating: 8

Gravedigger
Half a pound of meat and a little grease isn’t enough to get me too worried. If you think food is going to kill me, you haven’t seen me drive. This was less than an hour later with the top down and the little tin can getting blown all over the road:

Storm’s Gravedigger Rating: 4 shovels
Jimmy’s Driving Gravedigger Rating: 9 shovels

Overall Storm’s Special Burger Rating: 5

This is a case where an overall rating might make a burger look poor. Nothing could be further from the truth. As I said before, this is a good burger, especially when considering other factors of the dining experience. First and foremost are the fries. The fries are outstanding. They are fresh cut and fried in the skin to a perfect level of crispiness and saltiness. The only thing I found unusual was the fact that I found a packet of ketchup at the bottom of my pile of fries, like the prize at the bottom of a cereal box, when it was too late to use it. I couldn’t tell if that was a Storm’s custom, or just a fluke. I don’t usually put ketchup on my fries, so it really didn’t matter.

Finally, on my way back home a couple of days later, I stopped at the Storm’s in Burnet to check the consistency between the two locations. I ordered the exact same thing, except that I also ordered a vanilla malt. The burger and fries were exactly as I had found them in Lampasas (except no ketchup packet prize). The malt was thick and delicious. In fact, it was so thick that I couldn’t figure out why they bothered having an “extra thick” option, which I didn’t try. I suppose it comes as a solid, rather than a liquid.

There are Storm’s locations in Lampasas, Burnet, Hamilton, Kingsland, and Marble Falls. For more information, check their website at www.stormsrestaurants.com.

Overall Rating for Storm’s: 7 

After lunch, I turned up 183 and continued heading north. The weather was stunning and the roads were clear. I found that with the top down, but the side windows up, I could cruise comfortably at fairly high speeds. I still had On The Road in my CD player, but there was no hope of hearing anything but subliminal whispers from it.

This might sound a bit strange, but I love the Southern Gothic dilapidation found in small Texas towns and the adjoining countryside. I love the abandoned shops and the broken barns. I love the fallen stables and the (not really so) ancient stone walls. I love the faded signs of times past. I stopped in Zephyr, Texas and snapped some photographs of the Miata in front of such a building.

Click here for bigger. 

I also snapped some fashion shots of the car at our final destination - the hunting camp, which is a boxcar located in the middle of the lease property as if set down by the same mischievous UFO that dropped a boat in the middle of a desert in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Now with Super Shock Control!

I arrived before anyone else, so I had a chance to just sit back, crack open a beer and dig into a book. Despite the mild weather and a gentle breeze, the afternoon sun eventually made me tired, so I dug around in the boxcar until I found a hammock. I tied it between a couple of trees and lay in the shade until Steven Sylvester and his stepson Riley drove up. We unpacked their truck and visited for awhile until the sun started to drop and then we geared-up for an evening hunt. Just as we were driving off, Steven’s best friend, Sam Roach, drove into camp. Within a half hour, the four of us were setup near a tank under a tree line where the doves were known to roost for the night. We waited for them to fly in. When they finally came, Sam and Riley each got a bird, but Steven and I were shooting blanks. We each mumbled something about the beer.

It seems migratory birds are completely safe from me as they appear to be small enough to evade my target locking computer. The same cannot be said for the cute, fuzzy bunny rabbit that Riley flushed out of the brush for me, though. The rabbit ran straight at me and fearing death at the end of sharp, pointed teeth, I was forced to defend myself.

We got back to camp and Sam showed me how to clean the rabbit. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Riley and I built a fire and Steven grilled steaks for everyone. He also grilled the two birds they had got that day. He put the meat into jalepeños and wrapped them with bacon. Delicious. David eventually arrived late in the evening. We told him what had happened and then we turned-in so we could get up early for the morning hunt.

The morning hunt didn’t go as well. I think Sam got another bird, but they were scarce. We spent the rest of the day walking David’s new property. He and his wife just closed on a property about half an hour from the lease. Dave plans to just hunt the property, but eventually they will build and probably retire there. It was a very nice plot. Unfortunately, walking around in the woods was starting to take its toll on me and I developed a fairly righteous allergy attack and I had left all of my meds back at the camp. When we drove into town for lunch, I stopped in a grocery store and bought some Benadryl. When I walked up to the checkout to pay, the cashier and the bag boy acted like I was some kind of alien. The cashier had no qualms at all about checking me out, looking hard up and down as if to say, “What is your story.” Sure, I was in my hunting drag, which is really just my Air Force BDU, except that I can’t button the top button on my trousers anymore. And I was wearing a hat, so my hair couldn’t have been too bad. I just couldn’t figure out what she was looking at. The bag boy (who was really on the verge of being a bag man) kept grinning at me like an idiot. When he asked me if I wanted paper or plastic, I said I didn’t need either and that I would just walk out with it. Then he laughed and pointed at me as if I had said the funniest thing he had ever heard.

Later, we went back to camp and shot skeet to practice for the evening hunt. As usual, I did very well shooting skeet, but I still couldn’t bring down a bird. One time, after another wave of birds had flown safely past us, I turned to Dave and expressed some frustration.

“No dude, you clipped that last one. I saw it.”

Just about then soft, downy feathers began falling gently all around us like snowflakes. I had indeed clipped a bird and the wind had blown his feathers back over us. It was surreal and funny. I never did get a dove, but the other guys each got at least one.

The next day, after another lame morning hunt, we got out our frustration by going redneck and shooting inanimate objects at the camp. Dave shot an old pair of his boots. The best though was an old TV that somebody had brought. We set it up on a chair and I went after it with my 9mm. I didn’t think it would do much…but it did. Then we stepped it up by shooting it with Sam’s AR-15. Finally, we went absolutely medieval by shooting 00 magnum loads at it with a 12 ga. shotgun. We obliterated that TV. I suppose one could argue that we were making a social statement about being outdoors vs. staying indoors, but more realistically we were probably just making a statement about us wanting to shoot up stuff.

It was a great trip.

After I got home, I checked the Internet for rabbit stew recipes, read about six of them, took the elements I liked, and then struck-out on my own. I cook by feel, so don’t expect any measurements. Here is what I did:

1 rabbit
vegetable oil
flour
red wine
potatos
carrots
red (purple) onion
bella mushrooms
2 cans beef stock
salt
pepper

Salt, pepper, and brown both sides of the rabbit in a large frying pan. Then put the rabbit in a crock pot with diced potatos, carrots, bella mushrooms, and anything else you want in your stew. I like to keep it simple. In the frying pan, make a roux out of the remaining vegetable oil, flour, salt, and pepper. Add sliced purple onion and red wine. Reduce. Add beef stock and reduce until you have the consistency you want. Pour the reduction into the crock pot and cook everything on low for a couple of hours. I was going to cook it for two, but it ended-up being three because I went into my office to work on this entry, drank the rest of the bottle of red wine that I had used to cook, and lost track of time.

I took the rabbit out of the crock pot and pulled the meat off of the bone. The stew would probably be best served with/on biscuits, but I’m too lazy, so I had mine with toast points. Okay, they weren’t really points, I just tore up a couple of slices of toast and threw them in the bowl. I thought the stew was quite good. In fact, I wouldn’t change anything except that I would start earlier and cook it longer. It wasn’t undercooked by any means, but if left in the crock pot longer (say, eight hours), the meat would be even more tender. The stew was even better a day later. And the day after that.

jimmy