A regular contributor to the Greenville Journal is a man named Barry Ray whose column “Barry’s World” reminds us a lot of the style of Dave Barry. One of his recent columns about back-to-school trauma was hilarious. I searched high and low to find it online somewhere, but to no avail. I wanted to put a link on my blog to the column. Finally I decided to write to the e-mail address for Barry Ray to ask him if I could get a copy of his article somewhere so that I could put it on my blog. Within a couple of hours I got a nice reply that stated, “I am planning on putting some older columns online soon. Right now, the Journal likes being the only source and putting them online would hurt subscriptions, I suppose. I have attached a JPEG of the column for you to use on your blog. Keep reading and thanks!”

And so with Barry’s permission I’m placing the picture he sent me below. What you see below is a picture of a printed page, and so the quality of the print is not the best, but it’s definitely worth the extra effort to read this one!

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A few weeks ago my wife Becka saw a restaurant review in the Greenville News that caught her attention. One of the reasons was that the reviewers all gave the restaurant high marks - a rarity indeed! So our little team who taught in Asia last year went there with our friend Ruth as a farewell before her return to Asia. We all enjoyed our meal very much, proclaiming we’d definitely be eating there again. The food was scrumptious, beautiful and plentiful, and the entrees ranged mainly from only $7 to $10.

Last evening Becka and I returned there for dinner and were dismayed that we were the only customers during our meal. We would hate to see this place close its doors! The restaurant is Vietnamese, and it is as authentic as you can get. It’s a family-run restaurant, and everyone who works there is Vietnamese - unlike some of the local Chinese restaurants with Spanish speakers doing the cooking! With delicious food and a dining area that is clean and pleasant, there’s no reason this place shouldn’t be packing in the people! …except that I don’t think they have much of a notion at all about advertising. As a result, other than the review in the paper, they get customers only by word of mouth or from people happening by and wandering in.

updated 20 Oct. 2007: I’ve learned that the restaurant has closed its doors. Very sad.

Below is their business card. Too bad they didn’t make it. Thanks to all of you locals who tried it out and attempted to give them more business.

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In reference to teachers … “We are not just data merchants.” - Dr. Dan Olinger

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Rob

If the #2 pencil is the most popular, why is it still #2?

For the most part I enjoy e-mail. I like to hear from family, friends, former and present students, and many others. I hear from some people far more often than I used to. This past weekend I was cleaning out my inbox (it had gotten to over 600 messages!) and I asked myself *how* the number had gotten so out of hand. Just a couple of months ago, before we went to China, I did some clean up and got it down to under 100 messages. I need to keep chipping away at it - there are still almost 500 messages! You will now understand why you haven’t heard back from me if I owe you an e-mail. E-mail just allows us to procrastinate *sooner*, in a much more high-tech manner!

You’ll notice I started the last paragraph off with “For the most part….” There are some aspects of e-mail that I find unenjoyable. Even with great filtering, I still have to manually delete *way* too much spam and basically junk mail. One thing I got recently pokes fun at this kind of mail. I pass it on to the ivman group, with some editing of the original (author unknown) to reflect my own perspective.

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My life is so different because of e-mail! I could not possibly list all the ways it is different, but here are some of them, with my thanks for having “improved” my life….

I must send my thanks to whoever sent me the e-mail about rat droppings in the glue on envelopes because now I have to use a wet towel with every envelope that needs to be sealed.

Also, now I have to scrub the top of every can I open, for the same reason.

I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl (Penny Someone-or-Other) who is about to die in the hospital for the 1,387,258th time.

I no longer have any money at all thanks to 2 things - 1) my helping some poor man in Africa and 2) my updating my records with financial institutions to whom I’ve never personally given my e-mail address. But that will all change, once I receive the $15,000 that Bill Gates/Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special e-mail forwarding program.

I no longer worry about anything in life because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me since I forwarded that cute little angel made with a bunch of X’s and O’s to everyone in my address book.

I no longer eat at KFC because their chickens are actually horrible mutant freaks with no eyes or feathers.

I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I now smell like a water buffalo on a hot day.

Thanks to you, I have learned that I can get almost anything I want and see unseeable things if I forward an e-mail to a group of my friends and make a wish within five minutes.

Because of your concern, I no longer drink Coca Cola knowing it can remove stains from toilets.

I no longer drink Pepsi or Dr Pepper since the people who make these products are atheists who refuse to put “Under God” on their cans.

I no longer use plastic wrap in the microwave because it causes cancer.

And thanks for letting me know I can’t boil a cup of water in the microwave anymore because it will blow up in my face, disfiguring me for life.

I no longer check the coin return on pay phones because I could be pricked with a needle infected with AIDS.

I no longer go to shoping malls because someone will drug me with a perfume sample and rob me.

I no longer accept packages from UPS or FedEx since they are actually Al Qaeda in disguise.

I no longer shop at Target since they are French and don’t support our American troops or the Salvation Army.

I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a number for which I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica, Uganda, Singapore, or Uzbekistan.

I no longer have any sneakers - but that will change once I receive my free replacement pair from Nike.

I no longer buy expensive cookies from Neiman Marcus since I now have their recipe.

Thanks to you, I can no longer use anyone’s toilet but mine because a big brown African spider is lurking under the seat to cause me instant death when it bites my posterior.

Thanks to your great advice, I can’t ever pick up a $5 bill dropped in the parking lot because it probably was placed there by a potential molester, waiting underneath my car to grab my leg.

I no longer can buy gasoline without taking another person along to watch the car so that a serial killer won’t crawl in my back seat when I’m pumping gas.

In fact, I can no longer drive my car because I can’t buy gas from most gas companies anymore since I”m supposed to boycott them for one reason or another on some specific day or another!

If you don’t send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 70 minutes, a large dove with diarrhea will land on your head at 5 p.m. and the fleas from 12 camels will infest your back, causing you to grow a hairy hump. I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbor’s ex-mother-in-law’s second husband’s cousin’s beautician….

Have a nice day!

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I had a very nice birthday (my 55th!) this past Saturday. My family was *way* too good to me! But then the next morning at breakfast, one of my kids said, “Well, Dad, since your birthday was yesterday, as of today you are closer to 60 than you are to 50.” I’m sure our children will be a great comfort to us in our old age!

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“Idolatry begins in the mind.” - Dr. Mark Minnick

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Rob Loach in Greenville SC

I’m so upset!!! I just heard they’ve removed the word “gullible” from the dictionary!