Rip City

Well, here I sit early on a Friday morning just outside the Starbucks next to the Oregon Convention Center in Portland. I am actually here for a convention so that makes a bit of sense. The Friday morning session starts in about 45 minutes so I have a bit of time to kill. I wouldn't have gotten up so early but my bunkmate had to rise at 6:00am to make a flight back to Spokane. I think that he had quite a convention experience in that due to personal flight delays he didn't make it until last evening to enjoy the experience of a full hour and a half of the activities. The gathering here is the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synods Northwest District convention. It happens only once every three years. If the frequency were do increase it's likely that more pastors and lay delegates might die of boredom. There have been some interesting aspects since the gavel dropped yesterday...but the tedium is just beginning. We all get paroled tomorrow at noon. Man, the sacrifices that must be made to serve! I am missing my regular Friday morning session with the tennis posse, and with the weather yesterday in Spokane it would have been an evening gathered with my honey around the Coleman Campfire Grill. As it was dinner happened at the Burgerville, which is kind of a Portland tradition. The weather here yesterday was great, while today has dawned gray. Rain is headed in this direction. Some of the rain is headed your way too...at least if you are reading this in the Spokane area.