The Point

It’s that time again…to review another great southern city.

This one is perhaps the most SOUTHERN of all cities below the Mason-Dixon. Charleston, or Charles Towne if you really wanna go back, the accent here is a regal one, with a lovely drawl and pride that makes it proper.

It is one of the oldest continually occupied cities in the country, founded in 1670, and was one of the largest cities in the nation until surpassed in the post civil war era. It’s in the first state to secede and last to rejoin the union before and after the Civil War. The capitol of the old south is also the capitol of a region which reaches up to Wilmington, NC and down to Savannah, GA, known as the “Lowcountry“.

To do–Charleston is all about history. Due to the military significance of the area since before the Revolutionary war there is much to see in that genre. There is Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie where the civil war began, and also a cool exhibit of the Hunley submarine which was a part of the civil war, and the oldest surviving Aircraft Carrier is a museum in Patriot Park, the U.S.S. Yorktown. Most people come here for the history, culture, and scenery, so sports is definitely a background noise, but if you like minor league baseball you can get your fix watching the Charleston RiverDogs a NY Yankees affiliate. For family fun, there is a good aquarium and you can never go wrong with a trip to one of the area beaches from Folly to Edisto. Since this is the “Holy” city, it’s worth a walk to see some of the many old churches and while you’re at it you will see some of the oldest buildings in the new world. Walking tours are a popular way to see the downtown and french quarter areas including Battery park and Rainbow Row. If you’re a fisherman there are many expedition options available and for shopping the downtown area has a vast array of shops from high end to low brow. Hit Market Street for a good variety, where they have been trading things since before America was a country, you can also get a great picture of the U.S. Customs House here. Of course, being in coastal South Carolina means that there are PLENTY of good Golf options as well. If you get tired of walking downtown, take a bicycle taxi.

To Eat–This is a world class food city, with everything you could want, but the specialties are seafood and “Lowcountry” originals like Shrimp and Grits and Seafood al a Wando. It’s really tough to get a bad meal in downtown Charleston, but some of my favorites are the World Famous Hyman’s seafood where you can get a sampler with up to 7 different items! They have the best crabcakes in town and the fried grouper might be the best fish in the world. There are many great seafood places including Hank’s and Fleet Landing (has some nice views), but if you’re in the mood for something that grazes, Oak is a first class steakhouse and Peninsula Grille is another great choice. As for Lowcountry, Cypress, 82 Queen, Magnolia’s, and Circa 1886 all do this genre at a level not seen in other cities except for possibly Savannah, GA. When you come to Charleston, make sure you walk Battery Park and make sure you have some local cuisine!

To Stay–The picture accompanying this post is of a former military building and original home to The Citadel college, which is now an Embassy Suites hotel…if you have boys under 15 (Or act like one yourself) this is their ultimate hotel! A little closer to the heart of the action is one of America’s great independent hotels, The Planters Inn and on the other end of the block is my usual launching point, the Doubletree Suites. There are also a variety of small inns and B&B’s in the downtown area and if this is your first trip you should definitely stay as close to the action as possible so you can walk it all! Possibly the best hotel experience of my life was had in Summerville at The Woodlands, it’s first class all the way and also home to a PHENOMENAL restaurant, it’s worth the trip!

It’s a topic we both need to discuss and avoid all to often. In the busiest seasons of my life, I’m actually decent at managing my time, it’s in the times when I have the good fortune to slow down that I often end up wasting precious time.

I have had a pretty slow September and that has resulted in several projects not getting finished that I had plenty of time to work on. Now as I start looking at the months ahead, I realize just how important getting those things done while I had the time really should have been.

My daily schedule, in theory–when I’m not travelling, looks something like this–

7:30 a.m. wake up and spend a few minutes with my wife and son before they leave the house and I do a 15 minute devotional followed by a 35 minute workout, then shower.

8:45ish–take my coffee to the “office”, which is a nice single purpose room on the lower level of our house with great double doors out to the lower deck which I often open this time of year just to feel the breeze and listen, last week a HUGE buck (male deer) was eating about ten feet from me for several minutes…awesome.

If I’m in town, I usually spend the rest of my day until around 6 p.m. in the office, with a short break for a snack two or three times. What I do in those 9 hours varies from frenzied paperwork and long phone calls to blog reading, writing, and soul searching, which is why much of my best “work” gets done when I’m not in the office. I will sometimes go portable and end up at Starbucks or Pathway.

6 p.m.–One nice part about my commute being a flight of stairs is that I am often able to just walk upstairs and start cooking dinner about the same time that my wife and son get home. We try to make this happen at least three times a week.

7 p.m.–After dinner and clean-up, it’s time for some boy time, which means pretending to be super heroes or wrestling and often this all ends with my wife screaming at us to go away.

8 p.m.–Once Alexander is super hyper from this hour of power, it’s time to start winding down which usually involves some books and an episode of one of the super hero shows we just reenacted or the infamous Spongebob.

9 p.m.–Within a few minutes of 9, the little man goes to bed and Erika and I get to spend about an hour together, which this time of year means I get to sit next to her while she watches all the new shows.

10 p.m.–Erika goes to bed and I plug back in to the laptop for a couple more hours of work and email answering, there is usually quite a bit sense I am three hours ahead of our HQ.

12 a.m. I go to bed thankful that I had another day to improve on the one before and hopefully pleased with the progress…

Of course, next month starts next week and it looks like this…

Next week–Multi-Site Conference at Seacoast Church in Charleston, SC
Following week–Catalyst Conference in Atlanta, GA
Next week– Sales meeting in Orange County, CA
Last week– Church of God conference in Garmisch, Germany

So much for the daily routine!

I travel pretty regularly for work, and occasionally for fun. My whole life I’ve been taking planes, but I noticed something recently that got me thinking…

I was on a plane from Atlanta to Charlotte, it’s one of those up and down half hour flights, so you never really get high enough for the ground to be out of sight. On this particular trip I had a window seat, which is unusual since I prefer the aisle, but I decided to take advantage of it and enjoy the view.

What I noticed was that you can see for miles, entire cities can be seen in a single glance from 20,000 feet in the air. Everything is so small. You can look down and see entire subdivisions pass in a blink with their rows of nearly identical houses with pools. Traffic patterns become obvious and you can even catch a glimpse of the fastest way around the mess.

As I was watching and admiring all this, it hit me. This is like my life. I get so caught up in the actions/problems/opportunities of the moment that it seems all consuming and way too big to handle. All I need to do is step back and get a larger perspective to see that this VERY CRUCIAL time and decision is really just a small piece of a much bigger picture.

The next time you have a decision to make, look out the window of the plane before you choose, it has implications far beyond where you are and it will be gone before you know it.

Is Weird! It’s like many southern cities in that there is an underlying racism still present, but in Memphis, the home of the National Civil Rights museum, on the sight of MLK’s assassination, it’s a little more obvious than in other places. This is a city of rich and poor, healthy and sick, hip and square, young and old, black and white.

To Do— The sights are many and include the aforementioned National Civil Rights Museum, the Pyramid, Mud Island, Beale Street, and a great downtown ballpark for the Memphis Redbirds, the AAA affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals. Of course, no trip to Memphis would be complete without a trip to Graceland, it’s definitely worth the trip to say you’ve been, but there are many other cool places in this Jewel of the Delta. I enjoy downtown, where you can shop at Peabody Place and then wonder over to Beale St. for live music seven nights a week at any number of places from Alfred’s to Coyote Ugly to B.B. Kings (where he plays live a few times a year). Being a former Tennessee Banker, Memphis holds a special place in my heart as being the HQ for First Tennessee and Union Planters (now part of Regions Bank), these two employed the founders of Stax Records, which has a great museum on the history of Soul Music from Isaac Hayes to Booker T. and the MG’s and my personal favorite Otis Redding, there is also Sun studios where Elvis got his start. Memphis is also home to FedEx and the new FedEx Forum which hosts world class concerts and the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies, it’s also located just off Beale St. in the heart of downtown. You could easily spend a couple days without getting in your car right in the Beale St/downtown area, and another MUST to check out while you’re there is the Gibson Guitar Factory. The childhood home of W.C. Handy is on Beale! There is a fine array of evening activities from sports, to bowling (no, it’s not a sport), to Beale street, and the Flying Saucer has a great selection of brews. Last but not least, in an ode to my younger years, when on Beale St., you must stop by Silky O’ Sullivan’s, it’s the only place I know that has both goats and Dueling Pianos…seriously.

To Stay–AS you could tell with the things to do section, for the truly unique Memphis experience it happens downtown. This is a great city of nice suburbs, but if you want to experience IT, it is downtown, as are the best hotels to help with that. The only four diamond hotel in the city is the Legendary Peabody with their world famous ducks and it is truly the cream of the crop. In the last few years several VERY nice hotels have popped up on the fringes of Beale street. The Hampton Inn and Suites is very nice and convenient as is the new Westin. Other downtown choices are available, but those are my top three. Of course, if you’re here for Elvis, then the Heartbreak Hotel is your place for at least one night.

To Eat–Memphis has its own style of Barbecue and oddly the place that is most often mentioned as the best in town, Rendezvous, does not fit the label of “Memphis” ‘cue. Which is why I prefer the saucier stuff of Corky’s or The Bar-B-Q- Shop. If you’re looking for something more metropolitan, Automatic Slim’s Tonga Club is my fave, but there are MANY “unique”(boring) places that look like something out of a magazine from–you name the urban center. If you’re in the mood to be a serious carnivore, few places can top Texas de Brazil, a small chain of Churrascaria restaurants with a nice location in downtown. Memphis has a great food scene, but really…come here for the music. If you want one stop that summarizes Memphis, I’d go to The Pig.

As some of you know, I’m a huge music fan and one of my favorites is Walking in Memphis. Every time I hear it, I close my eyes, feel that thick warm air of the Mississippi and smell some BBQ, once I hear the music in the distance…I’m home. It’s weird, but it also might be a little like heaven.