WINDING DOWN BACK HOME IN CHICAGO

Back home now... Feels good. I'm tired and going to bed. Goodnight.

Kind of a cool picture of lightening striking the Sears Tower here in Chicago. Check it out here.

Story on Mel Gibson's new movie, Passion, Click here.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Quick stop in Knoxville, TN. This wireless Internet stuff is great! Sitting in a Borders Bookstore feeling at home... On my way to Cincinnati.

Picked up a book on tape called A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. Fun author - and full of tiny knowledge tid-bits.

Gotta go!

BORING TRAVEL UPDATE, SORRY!

Almost 2AM in Atlanta. Getting up in a few hours to shoot up to Cincinnati. See route here... Been a crazy couple of days - more updates later...

Ate at Chick-Fil-A today. I have to take advantage of the trips down south. They don't have those in Chicago.

Also had some good cheese tonight. It's called "Drunken Goat Cheese" It's much better than the "Sober Chicken Cheese." Sorry - bad joke.

Anyway - they take this cheese (from Spain) and they let it soak in red wine for 48-72 hours. It's unbelievable! I'm not sure if it's the goats that are drunk or the cheese - but regardless - it's GOOD STUFF!

Talk to you up north!

THE PASSION TRAILER

Mel Gibson has produced a new movie about the life of Christ. Check out the preview here!

WEDNESDAY ITINERARY, CARTOON & CHICKEN TERIYAKI

Well, I'm here in Atlanta. Bad traffic capital of the world... Atlanta is a big city. I'm from Chicago and I know big cities and this is definitely one of them. It's not as big as NYC or LA or even Chicago for that matter, but it is big and it "feels" big.

Tomorrow is a crazy day. 9:15am meeting at Northpoint Community Church (Andy Stanley - Lead Pastor), 11:00am meeting at Injoy (a.k.a. John Maxwell's company) and a 12:30pm lunch w/ a recent acquaintance who just joined the staff at Crossroads Community Church in Lawrenceville, GA. Busy day - but filled with great connections and a great opporunity to be around top notch leaders in the Christian community.

On a whole other note... I guess this cartoon is upsetting some people. According to the cartoon's creator, Michael Ramirez, the cartoon was meant to illustrate the "the political assassination of our president". Apparently the Secret Service got involved after this cartoon was published in the LA Times and they weren't too happy about it. Check out this article to find out what happened.

By the way - today I had lunch at a place called "Maui Teriyaki" in Gainsville, Fl - right next to University of Florida. Had the chicken teriyaki bowl. Grilled chicken with rice and vegetables with yep, you guessed it - teriyaki sauce. Pretty good and I even did pretty good eating it while I was driving. Watch out I-75 drivers! Scott Hodge on the road eating and driving!! DUIOT = Driving Under the Influence of Teriyaki. For some reason, DUIOT looks a lot like the word IDIOT.

Goodnight...

JESUS TATTOOS, CHEWING TOBACCO & PLAYBOY

Arrived in hot & steamy Orlando tonight. Just weeks ago I was here on vacation and it's amazing how quickly you forget how humid it is down here.

Plane ride: Sardines. That's the best way to put it. We were packed on the ATA flight like a can of crowded sardines.

Picture this: Here I am flipping through my Fast Company and highlighting leadership articles that I printed from my email and all of the sudden I look over and see my (immediate) neighbor excitedly flipping through Playboy magazine (no link here...). I'm sure he only reads it for the articles, but none the less, I made it a point to stay FOCUSED on my reading material. (It's a good thing my neck was hurting tonight - I couldn't really move it that well anyway...)

About 10 minutes later, out came the chewing tobacco (not saying this like, "shame on him..." - but read on...). He asked the flight attendant for a cup and unfortunately it was a clear, plastic one. And there was reason #2 not to look to my left.

The ironic part about this was that as I was getting off of the flight I noticed a large "Jesus Tattoo" on his right arm. I wish I would have seen that earlier - it might have made a good conversation starter. But I didn't know how to begin a conversation based on Playboy or chewing tobacco... "Hey man, she's hot... kind of like hell..." No, I don't think that would have worked.

(Don't get me wrong - this is not being said in a 'judgemental' way. People are just amazing creatures - and REALLY, REALLY funny!)

The other fun fact: I was sitting in the back near the bathrooms and sure enough, someone used it - in a big way. On top of that, a man a couple rows in front of me opened up his Chinese left overs from hours earlier. That didn't help the odor situation.

That was one flight I was GLAD to be off of.

So, tomorrow it's off to Atlanta. Great city... More updates then. Goodnight.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Spent the morning at home today before taking off for a week. Getting ready to go jump in the pool w/ Elise before heading to Orlando. I'll also be visiting Atlanta and Cincinatti in the next few days as well. Check back often for up to the minute travel logs. Ok, well maybe not "up to the minute" but daily, at least...

Bob Hope died last night. It's funny, but for some reason I thought he was already dead. WOOPS.

Later...