Great State of Texas

Well, I'm here. In the great state of Texas, on my first Study Break of 2006. I arrived around 1:05 this afternoon, after a slight delay in taking off from LAX that was actually quite funny.

As we were rolling out to the runway, a flight attendant asked a lady a few rows behind me to turn off her cell phone. This was apparently her 3rd request, and the passenger was not cooperating.

Her argument was that she had a Nextel cell phone that has an "airplane" setting that would allow her to keep the phone turned on while not being any potential disturbance to the plane's navigational equipment. The flight attendant politely stated that the setting didn't matter, she would need to turn the phone off.

At this, the passenger became embarrassingly beligerent and refused to turn the phone off! When the flight attendant warned she would have to call the Captain if she didn't get cooperation, the passenger declared, "Go right ahead!"

I kept thinking, "I am NOT hearing this. I am still asleep waiting for my alarm to go off. This is both embarrassing for her and hilarious to the rest of us."

Sure enough, as we're waiting to take off, the Captain comes back to talk to the lady, who repeats her conversation regarding the phone, urging the Captain to "call Nextel and take it up with them!" Still no cooperation. The Captain warned her that if she didn't comply, he would have her removed from the airplane. Digging her heels in, she exclaimed, "Go right ahead!"

I don't think she believed he would do it. A few minutes after returning to the cockpit, he expalined on the intercom that we would have to return to the terminal to deal with a problem passenger. She let loose with a few choice words as the plane turned around!

Anyway, that was the excitement of the day! Flight was smooth and time with Mom and my sister Patty and her husband Gary was rich.

For any wondering, this is not a week of vacation for me, though it is a good time to kill two birds with one stone. Since my parents' place is a restful one, it's a good place to take one of the Study Breaks that I build into my calendar. I'll spend the next few days resting, reading, praying, writing, working out. It's a good and regular time to get away from the everyday and seek the Lord for where we're headed next and how we'll get there.

Additionally, though I try to not do much ministry activity during these breaks, I am speaking this weekend in Austin (about 6 hours drive south of here) at City Life Community, the church that our former Youth Pastors, Mike Barker and Eric Mejia, have planted. That will be a real blast!

I'll try to keep blogging as the week progresses, so check back with me soon!