Thoughts On Job Part 2

 Why Ask Why: Job's Trials and God's Sovereignty

The Bible isn’t just one book, it’s a historical novel mixed with tragedy and tons of drama. It’s violent but rooted in peace, heartbreaking but hopeful. It’s advice, poetry and a record of the past. It’s a ‘living’ document because it’s inspired by God, not because the lessons can be revised for a modern audience. The story of God’s creation and love for humanity is present from the beginning. It’s the common thread that runs from Old Testament to New, from the law to grace.

Trials of Job

The book of Job is a bit of a hobbyhorse for me. Like a puzzle, you can only see it when all the pieces fit together. Half the book is bad advice from his friends. You can’t cut and paste verses from Job without understanding the whole text. It reads like a series of essays from Job’s circle of friends which seem correct at first. You have to read to the end to find out what God says about Job’s council. There’s a great lesson in that as well. Does the advice from friends or family echo the scripture? Do they have your best interest at heart?

Job is different from the New Testament and even much of the Old. Normally we say the Old Testament is concerned with the law, and the New Testament is concerned with grace. But Job is written before the law. God revealed Himself to us in nature. “His invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made.” (Romans 1:20) Their frame of reference for God was different. In Moses day they referred to the law as their guiding principle. In the New Testament it’s Christ, as a fulfillment of the law. In Job’s day they reasoned among themselves.

Job’s wife and friends (except for Elihu) are full of bad advice. They believe Job sinned, and is therefore responsible for his calamity. But their intuition on human nature isn’t wrong. Their understanding of God’s sovereignty isn’t wrong either. They correctly position God as judge and jury in the affairs of humanity. Unlike modern man, their fear of the Lord drives their instincts.

Wise Council?

Zophar, for instance, tells Job “Do you not know this of old, since man was placed on earth, that the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite is but for a moment?” (chapter 20:4-5) Actually that’s good advice. It’s biblical too. The problem is, it’s applied to Job. He isn’t responsible for the trials. God lays that out in the first chapter. Eliaphaz also treats Job like a sinner but tells truths about human nature. “What is man, that he could be pure? And he who is born of a woman, that he could be righteous? (chapter 15:14)

He's saying that no person can gain righteousness of their own will. Most of his scolding of Job is true for people in general. But his friends haven’t heard from God on how to comfort Job. We can’t apply their instruction in this case. The sum total of their advice is wrong. That’s unlike a lot of the New Testament which points to Christ, the ultimate truth. Read Ephesians sometime, or Philippians. They’re rooted in a clear understanding of who God is and what He demands of us. His attributes and love form the basis for how we, His people, are to live. Kingdom principles fill Paul’s letters.

God’s Sovereignty

Job is a mystery where the title character discovers a universal truth in the end. It’s a foundational book that examines the Creator and His creation. Or better said, it examines our relationship to God as beings that carry His imprint. We don’t understand how He designed the stars or ‘hung the earth on nothing’. But we can know that He is the source of all knowledge and His plan for creation unfolds constantly. God’s sovereignty requires that we come to him in reverence.

It might not be worthwhile to compare Job to Paul’s letters in the New Testament. Nor to compare it to the gospels or the books of Moses from the wilderness years. But I think I’ll always have some reservations about the book of Job. God doesn’t exactly tell Job why he permitted Satan to kill his kids, servants and livestock. We don’t know why, a pious servant who feared the Lord, found himself scrapping boils off his skin. Everything taken was eventually returned by orders of magnitude. Job’s wealth increased after the ordeal. His family was blessed and he “saw his children and grandchildren for four generations.” If he had wealth before the trial, afterwards he became extremely rich.

Conclusion

 That God makes our way prosperous is not the issue. His first covenant was with Abraham, the wealthy trader to whom the Israelites trace their genealogy. Christians do as well since the new covenant.

The struggle in my head is over the ‘game’ that God plays with Satan over a ‘blameless and upright’ man. I can’t shake the comparison to the movie Trading Places with Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd. Two bankers make a $1 bet that they can replace their money manager with another and get the same results. In the process they ruin both men’s lives. It’s a crude comparison I’ll admit, but the story is set up this way.

Or is it?

Maybe the whole point of Job is that we don’t get to ask why. Does God permit some trials in our life to test us? I believe He does. James 1:3 says the “Testing of your faith produces patience”. God reveals some things and not others. He determines our path and directs our way. Don’t listen to advice unless it’s from the Lord. But you might not get an answer to your "Why?".

 

Of Gloves and Hats: Training in January

 

Cold Weather Running 

It’s looking like a cold week here in Tulsa. But it’s January, so if not now then when?

We’ve had some seriously cold weeks in February over the last couple of years. Hopefully the bitter weather is gone by late February this year. The older I get the less I like the cold. Up north it was even worse. Even here though, the temperatures will certainly drop enough to be dangerous. The lows are supposed to be in the single digits on Sunday and Monday of next week. My running group jogs on Saturday morning. If it’s even into the teens, I think they should cancel. The wind is almost always impossible to push through, or keep off your face.

Not many of us have those gator neck things that go up over your mouth. No I won't buy one for what could be one day. At a certain point though, is it worth it? Not every run should be comfortable of course. We can’t just run when it’s sunny and dry. The nasty weather plays a part in toughening up your body. But at some point, it’s too damn cold. Running in icy wind is just dumb. You’re asking to get sick. Use a treadmill. Or just wait a couple of days and make up the miles on a better day.

 I add extra miles before the race anyway.

The second half of the training cycle forces me to increase my distances. I started doing this last year. If we were scheduled to run 16 miles I’d do 18. If the schedule said 18 I'd do 20 or 22. Naturally this was in the last month. We don’t reach those big mileages until quite late.

I learned that my body will go farther when I prepare for it. January and February are tough because I miss a lot of those outside training days. It’s not just the cold and wind, it’s also the darkness. If I ran after work I could probably mitigate some of this. Runner’sWorld meets at 5:30 on Monday and Thursday evenings. But it’s tough for me to get across town in such a short window of time. I can’t leave work until 5:00. I’ve never tried to make it. It would mean changing clothes quickly after and fighting through traffic. Having a gym to run at allows me to put in miles early and rest easy in the evening. Most of the runners hold their nose at the thought of using a treadmill, but it doesn’t bother me. It’s all mental for them. They don’t like the boredom of running in place and staring at a TV.

I’ll admit it feels like a longer run, but by changing up the speed and elevation it breaks up the monotony. I will jog through the neighborhood and along the river path again when the weather gets more amenable. Saturdays are still for group runs with the crew. But we also start between 7:00 and 7:30, which is later than I would run by myself. We usually get some morning light right after that as well. Even in the darkness, there is something about going together as a group that makes the elements seem easy to conquer.

I guess that's all mental for me. It feels colder in the dark even when it's not. 

I looked back at some of my running blogs recently. The weather might be the most talked about issue for me. Whine much? Sorry, I guess it’s kind of the X factor in training. Next is the pace, and finally the food question. Others might arrange them a little different however.

As for pace, I can't seem to settle on an appropriate speed. The program director insists that you should run 45 seconds to a minute slower than your race pace. But how does one develop a race pace? It’s not like we’ve all run a lot of marathons. Besides, there is such a thing as tempo running and speed work for the midweek stuff. The rule of thumb seems to be, run slow on the long Saturdays and do faster work the rest of the time. That’s where I’m at now. The biggest change for me has to be in diet. I’m convinced that my diet is off somewhere. I’m looking at knocking off between 20 and 30 minutes on the next race. I’ll probably need to lose some weight as well. 

If I stop focusing on the weather so much I’ll be able to add calories or something. Saturday morning is just a few days away. Wish me good luck and warm thoughts.

Truth Wins: Georgia's Continuing Efforts to Hide Corruption

 

A Legal Win for True the Vote in Georgia

True the Vote won a legal battle today.

Georgia law allows voters to challenge elections under section 230 of their law. True the Vote’s (TTV) Catherine Englebrecht spearheaded the challenge by accusing the state of not verifying over 364,000 names on their rolls. TTV was sued by a left wing organization run by Stacey Abrams for supposedly intimidating voters.  An Obama appointed judge ruled in TTV’s favor, by finding no violation of the Voting Rights Act.

The non-official version goes like this. Georgia allowed hundreds of thousands fraudulent mail in votes to be counted. TTV used the state's own appeal process to look at their fake voter list. The Left didn't like it and tried to catch TTV in some minor error.

Legal Scam

It's expensive to challenge elections. The courts drag out the verdict, costing you money and time. It rarely matters, long term, because the election is already done. Honest groups like Englebrecht’s get ‘motioned’ to death and if they do get a favorable ruling, it’s on to the appeal. There will likely be an appeal here as well. Naturally this costs a lot of money. Still, the fact that this judge ruled in their favor proves they had a tight case and followed the law perfectly.

I’m thrilled that there are groups out there like True the Vote. They first came to my attention after their integral part in 2000 mules. They showed how easy it was to create chaos with mail in voting. The “mules” in this case, the thousands of paid vote slingers carrying sacks full of ballots. It’s against the law to drop off a ballot for another person. It’s laughable of course that this could ever be monitored effectively. But TTV only focused on the most egregious cases, the dopes that made multiple trips. I don’t remember where TTV set their parameters, but they had overwhelming evidence. Finding out who, when and where was the genius of Greg Phillips and his data mining crew.

Voter Rolls Scam

In this recent Georgia case, the issue was whether TTV “intimidated” voters. The dirty secret is most states don’t clean up their voter rolls as often as they should. People move out of the area they originally listed on their ID card. If they register again with another address, the old address should be deleted. But having a large database with hundreds of thousands of names it’s a useful tool if you’re going to steal an election through mail-in voting. Suddenly you’ve got a lot of extra names and address with which to pad the votes. Don’t think this is accidental. Someone finally challenged their deceit and won.

 Of course, True The Vote didn’t violate anyone’s rights, how ridiculous.

The group that sued TTV, as cover for the state’s willful steal, is called “Fair Fight”. You’ve got to hand it to the Left, they know how to bullshit right down to their organizational naming. I’ve never considered myself a vindictive person. But I’m getting  quite bitter about the lack of accountability for election shenanigans on the Left. There must be a penalty for these crimes. Yes, they are crimes. I know it’s not popular to think of election fraud as a crime like homicide or battery. But it weakens our civic institutions and shows us to be as corrupt as any third world basket case. The difference is that we’re an indispensable nation and our legal system is (was?) the envy of the world.

Lawfare Scam 

I’m heartened by Mrs. Englebrecht and her confidence that the forces of good are ascendant. She is a truly an optimist. I only hope that I can have that level of determination. But without punishment for the internal attack on our country, we won’t survive for long. Lawfare continues to used like a biological weapon, slow and painful, against patriots. If patriots ever get back the country it’s time for a reckoning. It’s time for a cleansing enema in the bowels of Washington D.C.

I didn’t see what the award was. Maybe they award the money in a separate trial. As you can tell my legal acumen is somewhere between high school senior and college freshman who is failing civics. I hope it’s hefty but I’m not counting on it. they’ll need it for the upcoming appeal. What the case really means is that Georgia is so corrupt they couldn’t defend their own process. Not to end on a negative note, but what does this mean for the 2024 election? What’s been fixed? We know they cheated, but what’s been done about it?

I’m waiting for some serious consequences for those that knowingly permitted fraud. If we’re to have a secure election system ever again…

 

The Seasons of Work

 

The Season Cycles of Employment

I’m off again. It’s the last day of my dwindling vacation time for 2023. I’ll go in tomorrow (Friday) and come back again Tuesday to a New Year. Already I’m remembering the cycles of work: early, middle and late year responsibilities. Most jobs have a seasonal rhythm to them, despite peripheral changes in the underlying business. Ours runs alongside that of the school year. For me it’s busy summers and slow autumns. Winter picks up again with baseball uniform sales. Baseball keeps me almost as busy as football uniforms in the summer. Where football is concerned with large groups, baseball is all about individual teams. I handle a lot more teams but they’re each significantly smaller. I prefer baseball.

The Update

We’ll have a new wrinkle to deal with this year. Our software system that’s kept us afloat is getting old. Actually it was old 5 years ago, now it’s ancient. Medium sized companies have mostly moved to cloud based software for their operational needs. Our industry (sporting goods) isn’t known for its first mover status on new technology. Normally that’s not a big deal, but eventually legacy systems become a liability for keeping pace with new business. On site servers, choked with information take longer to load, glitch out more frequently and generally don’t work well newer payment systems.

Like most things, software is a giant expense. We’re finally ready to set it up. I remember the last big software update we did as a company. There are few things as horrible as transitioning your entire company to a new platform. Being sued in civil court and losing hundreds of thousands in net worth comes to mind. Surgeries that keep you in bed for months, skin diseases and 3^rd degree burns are all worse, but not much else.

The Grind

 New software implementation is a grind because no one is sure when a steady process will return to business life. Learning, unlearning and re-learning gobble up most of the early days. Reports look different, as do accounting sections, item lists and costs. As painful as it is, we need to get it done or be in real trouble come summer. Summer is our busiest time because fall season sports all begin at the start of school.  

When the high schools are on break, we’re working harder than ever. Doing an update at the beginning of the year is the best idea. Of course, it also means we’ll have to count the inventory before going live. Inventory gets done at the beginning of the year anyway. This is another piece of the cyclical nature of work. I’ve been with the same company for 15 years. In today’s marketplace that’s unusual. I’m not sure what the average time spent with a company is on a national basis. My instinct on this is purely anecdotal. It’s not unusual for the guys I work with. A handful have been there over 20 years and another few are like me, more than 12 years and counting. Certainly I’ve seen the business change from when I started, but the essentials of this industry are consistent.

We used to have a much bigger retail presence. Before Dicks Sporting Goods moved into the area our operation was 75% larger. But Amazon blew up, Dicks moved in and our interest in selling what customers could get elsewhere fell dramatically. Besides, we didn’t sell as much as we bought. That’s never a good thing. At least we had a yearly tent sale to clear out the excess goods at a discount. We don’t have the space for that anymore. That’s one big change that didn’t repeat itself when we moved into our current home in 2020. The second big change is my job description.

The Versatility

Officially I’m the retail manager, unofficially I pull orders, answer sales calls, order letter jackets and float around helping where I can. I like it better than managing a busy retail store only. Everyone should do retail at some time in their career however. The experience you get from customer service is invaluable. You have to present yourself as helpful at all times, even when you don’t feel like it. That means you must smile, listen and recommend. A lot of people struggle with this. Pop into a Burger King sometime and tell me the cashier is excited to greet you. Nothing again Burger King but you don’t have to look hard to find awful service. It’s difficult to put your attitude on the shelf and be helpful. It’s assumed that retail is easy, but it’s not easy to do right.

Conclusion

At a certain point we all burn out on retail though. After the new software install we’ll all get used to a new seasonal cycle again. Not completely different of course but slightly. Our focus has already shifted from order taking and shipping to an online ordering model. In a few years I imagine the online stores will take the larger share of financials. Maybe then we can downsize the warehouse a bit. 

The seasonal cycles remain the same even when the work looks different. The change in sporting goods reflects the changes in the overall economy over the last 15 years. Web stores will remain the most popular way to buy for both players and institutions. Can’t wait to see what the next 5 years will bring.

Week Before Christmas = Lawn Care

 

Leaf Cleanup and Lawn Prep In December

I had a successful Sunday this week, measured with a very low bar. I like to be productive, normally that means yard work or exercise. I spent close to 3 hours in the lawn mowing and raking the leaves for the second time. Why does it matter to anyone? It’s a slow news day in my world. Stay with me.

 Saturday was the first time. The size of my lawn dictates that I do leaf cleanup in 2 parts. It's a seasonal situation for me. Saturday I mowed the front, Sunday the back. The front lawn is much easier. I didn’t do any raking because the leaves are spread out enough and don’t clog the mowing deck. It does take a few passes to mulch them up effectively though.

However, the ground was still wet on Saturday. Nothing is worse than trying to mulch up heavy wet leaves. I managed with my small push mower. The trick is to raise it just high enough where the leaves don’t escape, but still crunch up to a fine powder. The next heavy rain will dissolve whatever organic material still exists in the leaves.

Sunday I had more time. Christmas this year is in Texas for me. Phil and Carolina are hosting me and my mom for 3 days. I’ll drive back on Christmas Eve. It’s a 5 hour trip so it’s not too dreary. Because we won’t have a family gathering this year, Justin and Tabitha hosted a dinner Sunday night. Dad and Joyce were there as well. We had a breakfast dinner complete with pancakes, egg casserole, bacon and Danish. I had all morning and afternoon to clean up the yard. Fortunately, the sun came up in the afternoon on Saturday and dried up the wet leaves. My back yard is much denser with leaves than the front is. My mower wouldn’t have been up to the task. I bagged a good section of it first, 6 bags worth. Then I ran the mower over it. I needed to make a few passes to properly chop them up.

That took a while longer than if I’d just mowed the lawn. With all the new grass seed in the lawn I’m hoping this year I’ll have a thicker growth and fewer weeds. Last year I paid a friend to come out and spray the whole yard for weeds. It killed everything in sight, not the grass thankfully. It was after that I realized how little in my yard was actually grass.  By August the soil was ready to plant again. I used a small tiller and dumped a healthy amount of seed on the bare spots. Not to mention, I overseeded the rest. After getting the leaves up I went to Lowes and bought two bags of crabgrass killer and threw it on the lawn. I asked for a “preemergent”. The clerk had never heard the term so I took my best shot with the crabgrass killer. I’ve got high hopes this year for at least 50% more grass and 50% less weeds. This is the first time I’ve considered improving my lawn and not just mowing it.

I called a few companies last year to get quotes on a treatment plan. None were less than $500 for the year. That’s just too much. I’m sure it’s worth the money but it’s a lot of money for me. The next best thing was to call Daniel (brother of Michael) to spray one good time. The rest was up to me. No matter how long I’ve lived here, it’s still strange to be talking about lawn care just before Christmas. I get that it’s technically not Winter yet, but up north it’s already snowed at least once. We didn’t always get a White Christmas but the threat of snow was usually there. Leaves cover the ground still in Oklahoma. I prefer this climate even though it’s not dramatically different. I’d say 10 to 12 degrees on average. That’s hardly Montana and Florida, but it’s an easier way to go in January and February.

Until the spring I’ll wait patiently and watch the ground. Merry Christmas everyone!

 

Brideshead Revisited: Book Review

 

Religious Themes Run Through Brideshead

Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Charles Ryder is a novel by Evelyn Waugh set in the 1920s and 30s. After World War II, grand estates like Brideshead and a large swath of the nobility disappeared in Great Britain. The cost of both wars killed off a lot of wealth and land holdings. This is the setting for Brideshead, the twilight years of the nobility.

Brideshead is the estate of the Flyte family. It’s the central home and symbol for the characters, their Catholicism and culture. It ties them together through the years and hast a lasting impact on their characters even when far from home. The main characters are in college at Oxford in the early pages, circa 1925. Charles Ryder, the narrator, befriends a wealthy aristocrat named Sebastian Flyte. Imbued with a child’s desire for fun, Sabastian is mischievous and usually drunk. He carries a teddy bear around, representing his immaturity. The Flyte’s are Catholic. Charles rejects religion, criticizing whenever possible their beliefs in God and their adherence to church norms. It eventually causes friction. Brideshead is owned by the Marquis of Marchmain. Waugh uses Marchmain and Flyte almost interchangeably despite the first being a title. He married Teressa Flyte (Lady Marchmain) before the first World War. Then had an affair and moved with his lover to Italy, rejecting Catholicism and his wife.

The book begins in World War II but quickly jumps back to the carefree college years of Mr. Ryder. Charles Ryder is a Captain by 1944. Commissioned to paint great houses, his unit stumbles upon Brideshead Mansion. It’s been converted into a guest house for traveling soldiers. The recognition of the home prompts him to recall the Marchmains and his connection to the family. Here the novel really gets going. In their college years they drink and party a lot. Charles visits Italy with Sebastian and meets Lord Marchmain and his mistress Cara. Despite their wild fun, Charles begins to mature while Sebastian falls into alcoholism. Eventually he leaves school, unwilling to kick the habit. They remain friends but see less of each other after that. Lady Marchmain is lost on what to do about Sebastian’s drinking. Charles isn’t the help she was hoping he’d be for her son.

Years later, Sebastian ends up in Morocco at a monastery in very poor health. The monks care for him but he can’t kick the habit. It’s the last we hear of him. His sister Cordelia tells Charles he’ll probably die there, unable to go anywhere else. Charles has success as a painter and even goes to Latin America for a few years. He comes back to a wife and kids he hardly knows. That’s when he begins an affair with the oldest Flyte daughter Julia. Both are married but decide to divorce their respective spouses despite Julia’s Catholic tradition.

The final act of the story has Lord Machmain moving back home to Brideshead to die. Lady Marchmain passed on years ago, but it’s this coming back to God theme that drives the story. Wayward sons and daughters, scattered across the world all hold the thread of religion close at hand. It’s the reason why Lord Marchmain returns, it’s the reason Julia keeps bringing in the priest to read her father the last rites despite his public rejection of the faith. It’s why two of the Flyte's, Bridey and Cordelia, enthusiastically support the church. Even Sebastian, found solace in the monastery despite his crippling addiction and emptiness. Charles is moved as well to come to the faith. I won’t say how and spoil it though.

There is a description near the end that sums up the impact of religion in our lives. Charles, now Captain Ryder, walks out of the chapel at Brideshead after saying a prayer. He notices the occupying soldiers had lit an old lamp near the original stones that the early builders had started with. No one’s used it in years. But the efforts of the early builders who thought it essential to have a chapel were not in vain. He is telling us that God’s efforts to reach man carry on through riches and poverty, peace and war. The efforts of people like Lady Marchmain, who carried the torch, are alive still and affecting the next generation.

A lot of people think the book is about the good ol’ days of the aristocracy in Great Britain. That’s certainly present, but to me the religious themes were stronger. I say "religious" even thought it’s Catholicism that Waugh is concerned with. Despite the different personalities within the family, it remained the torch that burned bright for all of them.

Golden Corral and Buffet Food

 I Survived A Night at Golden Corral 

I went to Golden Corral tonight. I haven’t eaten there in years. As a kid we always went to buffets constantly. Actually it’s as close to fine dining as you get as a kid. When you have 5 siblings it’s just the best option. I remember the food being tasty, but how discerning was I as a kid? Lunch and dinner were always subpar at Golden Corral. I don’t remember them being this awful though. I’ve avoided going there for years because I knew the steaks were fatty and tasteless. Any of the sliced meats were risky. Not because they were undercooked but because they had no flavor.

 What possessed me to give it another try?

I wanted a hearty meal, comfort food as they say. Cracker Barrell would’ve been a better idea, but some part of my mind betrayed me. The mashed potatoes weren’t bad, you soak them with gravy anyway. The desserts were passable but the pot roast was fatty in spots and tough in others. I gave up cutting into what felt like a rubber ball and pushed the plate away. The mac & cheese was bland. The fajita chicken was dry and the vegetables were hard. I’ve never had a good meal at GC. But on a low scale, you know what you’re getting into when the group you’re with says “I vote for Golden Corral tonight”. You can make the best of it and select dishes that aren’t total crap. But for some reason, my brain glitched enough to where GC sounded like the perfect fit.  

With most willfully bad decisions you can claim a small victory. “I didn’t want to get drunk last night but Frank was in town! He’s always so much fun” What’s the upside with Golden Corral? The best you can hope for is to eat a reasonable amount instead of the Thanksgiving plus size portions you’ll put down. After that you’ll have mini food coma, if you don’t lie down from the stomach pain before that. Come to think of it, being hung over is less consequential.

 In my defense it had been probably 10 years since I’ve had dinner there.

I remember it being a typical buffet restaurant, low quality but passable. My old rule was that breakfast at GC was the best option of all three potential meals. It’s hard to screw up eggs and bacon. Even the biscuits and gravy tasted like something created in the kitchen instead of a frozen pack, opened an hour ago and warmed up. Potatoes are either hash browns or home fries, thankfully there is little to create. Just make sure the seasoning lands on the warm parts. 

And like most buffets you can always find a dish that suits your taste better than most. But dinner is tricky for some reason.

This isn’t true with the Chinese buffets. They aren’t fine dining either, but there are at least hot dishes with flavorful crab and noddle casseroles. If you go on a Saturday or Sunday the hosts rotate the food on a regular basis so it doesn’t get rubbery. Besides, Chinese buffets aren’t THAT Chinese. Most of them carry a few pans with American staples like meatloaf and sliced ham. In other words, I can’t think of reason to ever go back to Golden Coral. I’m putting it on the never-again-unless-family-demands-it list. It will sit right below Cici’s Pizza for the same reason. Both are suitable for holidays or special occasions. During those times you have to go to places that cater to large groups of families with kids.  

As expensive at eating out has gotten, I’ll have to learn how to cook. My resistance to cooking so far has just been the time it takes. When I get home from work I want to eat. I don’t want to spend 45 minutes making a meal. That’s why the crockpot is the best option, it’s ready when I get home. The grill is another possibility. I cook in the summer more than the winter though. Anyway, I burned out on brats and grilled chicken. I’ve cooked too much before, by the 4^th day of eating the same smoky flavored meat I’m ready for anything else. Also I don’t have a gas grill anymore. My incident from a few months ago ended my gas range for good.

Charcoal takes longer, is messier and requires fresh bag after fresh bag. You replace charcoal a lot more than you replace a gas tank. I’ll have to look for a new one after Christmas. It’s not difficult to plan meals for the week if you take the time. But I never want to take the time. Cost is going to change my mind eventually. I can’t keep going to GC and expecting a quality meal. They’ve lost me.