Me and my Coffee Habit

(Jeff Kubina – Flickr)

Hello, my name is JoeMama and I’m a coffee addict…(Hello Joe says the room)

I absolutely love a good cup of coffee.  I wouldn’t consider myself a coffee snob at all.  I’ve drank coffee from just about every locale: truck stop, my kitchen, coffee shop big and small, from a coffee single, and I’ve even eaten instant coffee straight out of the jar.  What can I say I love this stuff.  To me there is nothing better than walking out to the dock very early in the morning when the water is like glass, sip my coffee, and say hello to the sunrise.

I digress.  I’ll get to the point.  There isn’t a coffee maker in my office area and I’m surrounded by non-drinkers.  So when I need my fix, I’m left to suffer.  We do have a near-boiling water tap nearby and I’ve used it along with some coffee singles.  It’s okay but I need more.  Better flavor.  So the current debate I’ve got bouncing around in my head is the following three options

1. Coffee Maker
2. French Press
3. Thermos

So lets do what any good engineer would do and weigh the pros and cons scientifically.   Let’s take a look at what I need and then balance them against. 

What I need – good coffee, not a lot of volume necessarily (32 oz max), and easily to clean/maintain (since it’s in my office.

Now to the pros/cons

Coffee Maker –

Pros:  Makes a good coffee with whatever volume you need.

Cons:  uses electricity, have to make sure you watch the burner so you don’t scorch, you have to ditch the filter everyday,

French Press

Pros:  Makes great coffee with limited amount of volume,  uses no electricity, easy to maintain (just dump and rinse)

Cons:  Need certain size grind on your coffee, Need boiling water to make this happen.

Thermos

Pros:  Takes a finite amount of coffee anywhere, get a good thermos and you get a piping hot cup anytime anywhere.  Pour and enjoy.

Cons:  You have to brew ahead of time, another item to lug back and forth to work.

The verdict….

I need a good, warm cup of tasty java.  I always am rushing out the door for work so I think that rules out brewing ahead of time.  My schedule varies from day to day.  Sometimes a ton of meetings.  Sometimes not.  This means I don’t have time to babysit a coffee maker.  This is a sure bet that I’ll scorch a pot and end up having to scrape it.  Looks like I’m going to give a run with the French press.  Am I crazy?

THE WINNER

Road Trip!! (finding some truth along the way)

We took a trip to pick up my oldest from his grandma this past weekend.  We met halfway in lovely Wichita, KS.  This trip resulted in roughly 18+ hours in the car.  Sounds like a lot but I love a good drive.  I get a lot of good thinking behind the wheel.  When I used to have a 45 minute commute to work, I had to have a tape recorder nearby because as I drove I would literally download my brain out of my mouth.  Lots of good ideas.  To capture these ideas I would record them and transcribe them later.   This trip allowed me to think about a lot things.  Mostly my Christian walk and how it is speaking through my family, work, and me.

We found a lot of good modern Christian stations between here and Wichita.  This isn’t Gospel but modern rock that praises God.  I am a normal guy who loves the Lord.  Do I have shortcomings? You betcha.  I am not perfect because I am a Christian.  I try to achieve perfection because I feel that Christ deserves that much but I come up short on a daily basis.  I am made perfect because I believe and he loves me back.  Now getting to the point.  I heard Matthew West’s ‘Something to Say’ and the message behind says that everyone’s life speaks for the Lord.  What is my Life saying?  As I said before, I’m a normal guy.  I love sports, my wife, my kids, playing the guitar, etc.  I have areas of my life that are far from perfect.  They are broken.  I need fixing.  I look to the Lord to show me how.  I’ll never be Billy Graham and stand at a pulpit and preach to the masses or Bart Millard and sing God’s praises to thousands.  My life is my testimony.  I heard something on the Dan Patrick Show about Tim Tebow.  They were talking how he operates in a football locker room and Dan said that Tebow just takes on an attitude of ‘I’m here to help you.’  He is not the standing on a street corner screaming for people to repent.  This really spoke to me and so has this verse.

¹⁶"Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may ^(T)see your good works, and ^(U)glorify your Father who is in heaven.  Matthew 5:16

So putting it all together.  I am a normal guy who is trying to let the Lord speak through my life.  I will not thump my bible in your face but I am here if my friends, family, or whoever wants to talk about the Lord.

It’s Alive!!!

Sometimes I have something I want to say with more than 140 characters.  I’m still learning how to use these sets of tools.  Twitter, Facebook, and Blogspot are a great way to communicate and they all have their place.  I guess I’m sorting out how I’m going to use them all.  Each has their great points.  I’m bringing this old bird back from the dead.  I know a few months ago I said I was going to 86 this thing but as time moved on it became apparent that I needed more than 140 characters to get out my thoughts.

I’ve messed around with how I’m going to format this.  Largely I think I’ve been chasing my tail.  My original thought for this blog was a catch all of thoughts, feelings on whatever trips my trigger.  It could be spiritual, sports, work, family, whatever.  I tried to make this blog like others but I’ve gotta make this one MINE.  In essence this blog is going to be about nothing from here on out. 

Whether I have one reader or a thousand, I’m going to stick to the original concept.  So I’m going to proceed to bore you all to death from here on out.