I’m in Wenham, MA at Gordon College. I’m here for a week at a conference. Before I left home, Asher was just getting over the flu. The morning I left (Thursday), Truman got it. Today Amy got it. And I’m here. I don’t like being away from my family when they’re not well.

I’m doing pretty well, all things considered. Here’s the email I sent to my office about my drama in the sky on the way here:

Greetings from the future..

Just a quick note that I’m safe and sound at Gordon College in Wenham, MA. Nice place, though it looks like we’re in for thunderstorms later today. (pic from my room: )

Here’s my gripping Friday story: As our flight took off the runway yesterday, and began climbing to altitude, one of the passengers rang the flight attendant button. He was passing out in his seat, and they had to ask if there was a doctor on board (there were TWO doctors on board). They called the on-ground medics for updates and they gave the guy an oxygen thingy to breathe into and one of the doctors was all over the guy with the stethoscope and the blood pressure cuff. It was better than the in-flight entertainment!

Guess what? It was me!

I hadn’t had much water the night before, plus I accidentally doubled up on my high blood pressure medicine (it’s a diuretic), then I drank a big old coffee at the airport. By the time I sat down in my seat on the plane, I was tingly all over and and super lightheaded. I REALLY HATED ringing the flight attendant button, especially right as we’re taking off, but something was definitely wrong with me. I was getting closer and closer to passing out. Anyway the docs really helped, once they figured out what the deal was. The cure: eat pretzels and drink a ton of water. I set the in-flight record for bathroom breaks, that’s for sure.

Moral: don’t fly dehydrated!

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I visit Boise, ID roughly monthly for a couple of days. I used (grudgingly) get coffee at a local chain called Moxie Java. Recently, an Oregon-based chain called Dutch Bros. has entered the Boise market, and they’re rocking it.

Moxie seems to be primarily a walk-in joint, though they do good drive-thru business as well. Dutch Bros is all drive-thru, all the time. No store space whatsoever, though some shops do have little seats outside a walk-up window. The biggest difference, though, is the quality of coffee. Every single Moxie store I’ve been to has served up coffee that’s barely palatable. For the longest time, I thought that’s just what Boise people liked. What else could explain the proliferation of Moxie Java joints all over that town? Then I visited Rembrandt’s and realized that good coffee did exist in the Boise-metro area (Rembrandts is in Eagle).

Since Dutch Bros started popping up in the Boise area (there are at least three that I know of), I’m guessing that Moxie is scratching their heads, wondering where all their drive-thru business has gone. I bet they have no idea how much people enjoy decent coffee.

Here’s my prediction: Within 2 years, Moxie will either:
1) close 50% of their stores
2) go out of business altogether
3) fix their coffee and save their business

Personally, I hope it’s #3. Moxie has a cool name and a great vibe in their stores. They’re locally owned, too. But I really think they won’t turn it around in time. I’m guessing they’ll reduce the number of stores by half within two years. I hope I’m wrong, but they’ve got to execute some heroic maneuvers to get out of this fix and salvage their brand.

This’ll be the second year that Amy, Tru and Asher and I have done Relay For Life. If you don’t know, it’s a 24 hour relay around a track, in order to raise funds for The American Cancer Society.

Here’s the pitch: I’m trying to raise $100 by June 20, 2008. If you can help, please drop by my donation page and pitch in whatever works for you.

Here’s the gripe: why the heck does The American Cancer Society make this so hard? Why no embeddable widget that tracks my fundraising? It’s crazy! These are standard fundraising tools, but they aren’t available for RFL participants. I’d LOVE to put a little widget here that shows my fundraising thermometer, instead of sending you off through the interwebs over to my RFL page.

Okay, anyway, if you can help out with the fundraising, I’ll <3 you forEVAH!