SBC 2008 Day 4 - There's One Thing. One Thing.

My roommate came in this morning at 2. He had told me he was planning on arriving at 12:30, but because he was running late and because he’d forgotten that he was crossing into the Eastern Time Zone, he was later than he expected. I stayed up waiting for him, so I’m a little drowsy this morning.

Before we turned out the lights, Mr. Roommate (a freelancer who is a pastor in St. Louis), fished out the room service menu. “I just can’t get going when I’m away from home without eggs first thing in the morning,” he said, as he proceeded to place a room service order for 7:15 a.m. of two eggs over easy, toast, hash browns, milk and coffee. I was more than a little bit shocked, but I didn’t say anything because I was falling asleep and didn’t feel like giving a lecture in stewardship.

I’m always very conscious of my spending when I’m staying/eating on Missouri Baptists’ tab. If I had my way, I’d be staying in a Motel 6. Whenever I dine out while on convention business, I’m very careful to never eat anywhere I wouldn’t eat at if I were paying for it myself. Do I want to eat at Ruth's Cris Steak House tonight, of course. I just can't justify spending Missouri's CP money that way. I don’t care if Mr. Roommate normally does order room service when it’s his credit card number on the bill, it’s just not cool to do it when you’re spending little old ladies’ tithe. Especially not when it’s $15.97 for a plate of eggs plus the tip, and especially not when it’s being posted to my expense account.

At the moment I’m in the press room and it’s a pretty cool set up. There’s probably seating and tables for 100 media members plus a bank of printers and closed circuit video feed from the convention floor. We’re also issued radio headsets so we can listen to the audio from the convention floor if we want to, or we can turn it off and write in peace. The radio broadcast isn’t top-notch and all the voices are tinny. It’s like listening those old recordings of Hitler. Without the book burnings or the Jew-killing.

Of course this headphone thing also means I can plug into my laptop and listen to iTunes instead of the preaching/business sessions…

Ha! In line with my earlier comment on stewardship, they just ran a video promoting stewardship. It was set to Pink Floyd’s Money. I promise. Rock on, SBC. Rock on.

And from Pink Floyd we roll right into the Gaithers. I’m not knocking the Gaithers (I’ve met and was very impressed by Gloria), but how can they follow Pink Floyd?

Holy crap, now they’re playing from City Slickers. What kind of convention is this? [Note: did anyone else realize that Jake Gyllenhaal played Billy’s son in City Slickers?]