...valets and saunas....

So I had one of the weirder experiences of my life this weekend. On Friday I went to see The Ryan graduate from Gulliver. It is weird, I remember meeting him three years ago when he was about to start his sophomore year. He seems like a very different person today....anyway, although some of you may think Ryan graduating is the weird part, it isn't.

The Davis family, who is always more generous then I know what to do with, invited me to spend the weekend with them. They had rented rooms out at the Ritz-Carlton Spa/Resort on Key Biscayne and had gotten me a room. Needless to say, I am not accustomed to "vacationing at the Ritz" so I was more than overwhelmed upon arriving.

The valet (that's right, I don't park my car...pssshh) was friendlier than the majority of people I have ever met, picture a Best-Buy manager in Texas friendly. Then I walked inside, I was greeted four times before I got to the desk to check-in. They were all "yes sir" and "it would be my pleasure Mr. Spead." Yeah...weird pants... I went to my room, 8th floor... here are some pics...

That was the view from my room and the other is obviously the bathroom. But it was just strange to me that this is life for some people. Hear me, I don't blame them. It is amazing being treated like royalty but the whole time I felt alittle...detached...I think that is the word I am looking for.

Anywhoo.....food....food was incredible. Being a bachelor, I am not exactly trained in the fine art of cooking. For me, cooking normally consists of standing in line at Panera (yuuuummmm, love me some Panera). So, when the option of fine dining (free fine dining at that) is offered I am not one to pass it up. I took a few pictures of the food that ROOM SERVICE brought up to me...

So one is Eggs Benedict that I had for breakfast....you may (whoever you are) be tired of reading this by the end, but AMAZING!! It was definitely worth getting up early for. Another picture is the Turkey Club I had for dinner and then the Key Lime Pie with Mango Drizzle that I had for dessert. I also had some shrimp tacos with Mango salsa but I didn't take a photo.

The highlight of the weekend BY FAR was the spa. I am not a "spa person" normally. When I hear spa I think cucumbers and mud...neither of which sound like a good time to me. However, at the Ritz, they have the gentleman's spa which I went to check out. It was like a movie or something. The doorman gave me a locker key and gave me a brief tour. The lockers were all maple and had gold numbers on each of them. Following a disrobing you walk past the showers and the "grooming room" into the Gentleman's area. This room had a giant hot tub in it, a steam shower, and a dry sauna. 

I LOVE STEAM SHOWERS!! So you basically just sit there and sweat. Really? That's it? I don't have to move or walk outside in the summer? I can just sweat doing nothing? DOES THIS BURN CALORIES?!??! (No it doesn't fatty...) They also had some kind of mint something or other that came out with the steam so it was fresh.

Needless to say, there was a beach and a pool too, but come on, they didn't shoot out mint steam. All in all it was a very surprising blessing. These past few weeks have been building up stress because of several disappointments and I wanted to get away for a bit. Who knew you can do it in your own backyard?

God has better timing than I could ever imagine. Whenever I feel like I have been hit in the face, He is there. I hate how cheesy that sounds but its true. I feel neither left nor forsaken and I am far more grateful then I think I ever express to Him. God is good, even when life throws curve balls. 

I am looking forward to a few things coming up...CampU is on the horizon. It will be the come back of Seven Anyday. I am giddy. I love leading worship with those guys, it recharges and challenges me. I am also looking forward to the visit of DFanch in July, but more on that later. I have been rambling for a while....I am off to....do something other than blogging...

Decisions, decisions....

What do you do when friends are hurting? It seems like this is always a looming question for me. I mean, I know what I want when I am upset. The irony is that some things we want, but we don't want certain people to try to help us. So...what to do?

There is a part of me that always wants to invade into the place of peoples hurt and physically pull them out of their pain. Whether that is through distraction or trying to rationalizing I just want people to be able to move forward past pain.

David (my adopted Miami dad) said something very interesting to me tonight. He said the problem with people is that we try to perceptually understand an emotional event. We spend so much time and effort trying to understand why things happen. We say things like "why would God let this happen?" or "if I only knew what was going on I would feel better." The truth of the matter is that understanding why things happen doesn't remove the emotions attached to them.

Why are children kidnapped and forced to be soldiers? Because people are selfish and want power at any cost. There....not to trivialize it, but that seems to be the root. We now know why that happened, but does it take away our emotions about it? Nope.

I guess in the end all we can do is trust God and pray that our friends and loved ones are able to feel loved and move on past emotional events....that still frustrates me to no end though...

Catch-Up

So, how does one complain when their internet is down in a house where they are living for free? One does not do this. So, rather than being a bad person and blogging at church rather than praying or doing...whatever it is I do there...I have waited patiently until the time when I have internet...enter current scene...

I am sitting at Geoff's house with "the crew" outside who are all talking and chatting and for some reason, I am inside blogging. I truly feel like an anti-social blogger for the first time....j/k....but, not really.

Since my last post I went to the Orange Conference in ATL. For those of you reading (huh?) who don't know what the Orange Conference is you should look into it. It is put on by the re:think group and provides tools for churches to partner with parents to make a better impact in the lives of future generations. Sounds right up my alley right?

I am going to write later (internet permitting) about the content of the seminars and the worship experience but right now I feel the need to talk about something more pandemic and widespread than those...swine flu. That's right....the porky sickness.

While in ATL I came down with....digestive issues.... this then progressed to a fever, tremors, sore throat, body aches and chills. According to Wikipedia....THAT IS SWINE FLU!!! I really don't find out until tomorrow whether or not I have it, but until then... I COULD HAVE THE SWINE FLU!!! I scheduled an appointment with my doctor and the earliest he could see me is tomorrow...I wonder if I told him I might be containing the bane of the mexican people if he would have seen me sooner.

Currently there are only 3 cases in Miami-Dade county, but tomorrow...I could be the fourth.