SBC 2008 Week In Pictures

OK, so none of these really have anything to do with the SBC. Too bad.



My hotel: The Crowne Plaza at Union Station. It is still a working train station.


The hotel was full of these plaster "mannequins." To me, they looked like the mummies from the Mt. Vesuvius eruption. Or ghosts.



Plaster sailor lighting a cigarette. This is looking out my room door. The train cars have been converted into suites.



The RCA Dome: the home of the Indianapolis Colts. It was right across the street from my hotel.



The Indianapolis Motor Speedway... Home of the Indy 500.



I spied a few pace Corvettes doing laps. I have no idea how fast they were going.



Rounding Turn 4 in the bus.



Pit Road and The Pagoda.



The Start/Finish Line. Originally, the entire 2.5 mile track was paved with 3.6 million bricks (hence its nickname, The Brickyard. The original paving bricks are under the asphalt, except for this 9-brick strip at the Start/Finish.


Coming into Turn 1.



Our driver kept it under 220 mph. In the time it took us to complete a lap, an Indy car would have lapped us seven times.



To enter/exit the Museum parking lot, you have to drive under the track and the grand stands.



The idiots from Fred Phelps' "church" were there to protest. I just don't get it. Thankfully, there were just two of them and even the secular press ignored them.



Huh?

SBC 2008 Day 3, continued – And who do I make this out to?

No, this isn't really the author of The Baptist Way.

Today was pretty uneventful. It’s just the Pastors’ Conference, which means I’m pretty much off duty. I more or less cruised the Exhibit Hall looking for the good swag, and, to be honest, this year’s crop isn’t that great. I snagged a few nice pens and a crappy OBU mini Frisbee and that was about it. Oh, and I entered a drawing for an iPod Nano.

My only assignment of the day was to shoot (with a camera, not a gun) a professor from SBU signing his book at the bookstore. The sad thing was NOBODY was buying his book. There was another author sitting next to him and she was quite popular. I guess there’s just not a huge market for The Baptist Way, even at the SBC. I felt really sorry for him. Heck I would have bought his book if I didn’t already have it for my polity class last fall. After about 20 minutes he persuaded a woman to buy a copy for her husband and I was able to snag the pic. Thank goodness.

It rained for a good portion of today, which isn’t good news for most of Indiana. It also hailed, which makes me wonder if Mr. Valet Parking Man parked my car in an indoor garage. Hmm.

At 6 I trekked across down to the Marriott to meet my boss and associate editor for a dinner hosted by the Association of Baptist Newspapers. To answer your questions, no, we are not an exciting or dynamic group of individuals and yes, we do have fashion sense rivaling that of retarded spider monkeys. My favorite is the super-short tie that doesn’t make it 2/3 of the way to the belt buckle (which, according to GQ, is the proper resting place for the tip of a tie). To answer your next question, yes, I was probably the only one there with a subscription to GQ (not that you would be able to tell by my style, but at least my tie looks decent). Then of course there’s my editor who rocks the bow-tie, complete with the wrinkled cotton suit.

My hotel (no, I’m not in the Hilton anymore ☹) is housed in the old Indianapolis Union Station and it is still a working Amtrak station. It’s really cool and has two trains of about five cars each that each house suites. It’s pretty suite. Sweet. Sorry. I’ll post some pictures tomorrow.

Ta ta for now!