The Beacon Lube Job and Kia Lube Jobs

Yesterday, I had the gastronomical pleasure of joining a group of men from Freedom on the annual week of Christmas pilgrimage to the Beacon drive-in over in Spartanburg.  If there ever was a greasy spoon, this is the one.  You "call it" when you get in line; but, you really have no idea if they got your order right when they "call it" because it comes out in a foreign language of sorts.  I got the Chili Cheeseburger A-Plenty plate and lemon ice tea (a famous trademark drink that they actually sell in the grocery stores in SC).  "A-Plenty" plate simply means that they pile on an extra helping of fries and onion rings for your pleasure.  While I was able to finish the burger, there was just too much grease for a brother in them fries and rings to finish.  I settled for a large hand spun vanilla milkshake to chase it down.  I was done at that point but mission complete at that point.  I was more than a little sleepy when I got back home just in time for a 2pm conference call.

I also got the premium "lube" job over at Kia of Greer after I got the Spectra in for service yesterday.  I called around to a number of places trying to find someone to do the alternator and the timing belt change.  Seems that Kia timing belt is a bit of a speciality (kinda like lemon iced tea) and I quickly found that it would be best if I went to the source for my premium service.  We also decided to take care of some other needed maintenance for the car, it has over 75,000 miles and is almost 7 years old.  It's gonna be north of $1000 on this ticket but I think it should be running good and for much longer with a new alternator, new belts, new plugs and a tune up and new cylinders on the rear brakes.  Talk about a lube job!  It sure beats a monthly payment and I need something as a back-up and something to get me to the airports when I have to travel.  Just hate that kinda slam at Christmas time.  

Speaking of Christmas, I think I see the finish line and have just a few things to wrap up today (I don't wrap presents but bags are great!).  We are planning to go to the Christmas Eve service at the red barn around the corner again.  That was a lot of fun last night.  

We also went to the Christmas service at New Spring's Greenville campus on Sunday night.  This is an amazing church out of Anderson, SC. They had almost 14,000 attend their 3 campuses on Sunday.  Yes, I wrote 14,000.  It was an amazingly cool service with a full speed audio/visual presentation like none I have ever seen.  The Greenville campus is going to start having 6pm services and I think I might find myself there on occasions.  Freedom doesn't have evening services and it's good to challenge ourselves with a new or different approach to worship.  Tricia and the boys were excited about the service too.  God is good and doing amazing things all around.  

Enjoy this clip of what the Beacon might be like in the "hood" or an alternate universe, trust me, the Beacon staff is nothing like this and I know for a fact that the food is nothing like what you find in the corner King of Burgers either!

See ya!