A few pictures from my walkaround yesterday are up.

My freaky spirituality piece of the other day sparked interesting discussion there and there and around these parts, where Fred asked, “what sin made you turn from God?” But before I could answer, Fred had figured out the answer for himself, hitting the Proverbial nail on the head with his first swing - yes, Fred, the “lust of the flesh” pointed me hellward. That, and I like shrimp.

The piece also sparked a couple of phone calls - one from a friend who said my writing was getting “too flowery” and another who told me she thought it was “beautiful.” Well shit, aren’t flowers supposed to be beautiful?

In a related coincidence, I happened upon a wonderful and very apropos Tom Robbins passage last night:
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I’m headed out - south for San Antonio. I’ll edit this post later with some suggestions for Austin visitors. Oh and while Deanna was visiting, we painted our shoes and made little cakes. It rocked.

After watching Hillary Clinton’s performance at her Iowa rally today, I anticipate a bunch of useless buzz about her horribly flat singing voice, as if how well one sings the national anthem is directly proportional to one’s performance as President. It’s about as relevant as her favorite color or movies, which are supposedly important to her fans, too.
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For someone who doesn’t believe in God, I think about God a lot.

Exploring Texas, where megachurches are more common than oil wells (and probably more profitable), lately it’s made my mind itch a little more than usual. I was raised a Pentecostal Christian, and these places remind me of the intellectual darkness I experienced inside the stifling walls of organized religion. That a hundred million of my fellow Americans believe these buildings are their best gateway to the Ultimate is heartbreaking indeed.
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Among those who have made it to the second round are a retired government worker who, when asked if he reads newspapers, responded “No sir, I only read the Bible” and a woman who said she “is very familiar with memory problems because [I] once thought my car keys were in my pocket but found them in the freezer.”

This ought to work out nicely.

[source: MSNBC's David Schuster]

For those of you considering an extended jaunt in Europe, or the merely curious, I’ve been pulling together a list of lessons learned from my journey. I wanted to travel light (to enable flexibility and mobility) and see a lot of places in the few weeks I was there. However, I didn’t want to move around so much that my memories would be of travel rather than new places, people and cultures. As it was, I chopped a couple places off my itinerary and still felt I moved around too much. Overall, I had a wonderful experience and can’t wait to do it again - better. Here’s a general idea of how I’d make it better.
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All is well here in Austin, TX - sorry for the bout of silence. I have a few pieces in the works and things will pick up again around here by the weekend. Topics include the US leadership crisis, business ideas, Europe and God. I swear.