hellllllloooooo there. thank you for listening this lovely morning to WTNK smoooooooooth jazz. this is barry white and i will be taking care of all of your jazz needs for the next two hours.

this is me today. barry white. or you can call it my sexy sick voice. or this morning it was a sexy sick voice. now it's a whisper that barely comes out, or occasionally some high-pitched squawk that sounds like hippopotamuses (or hippopotami, webster says that both are correct) mating. truthfully i've never heard hippopotami mating, but i'm sure it would sound like my voice today. whatever the case, i'm a little sick, still getting worse, but it's almost kind of funny because very rarely in the past times that i have ever been sick have i lost my voice. in fact, i'm not sure if i ever really have. but there is something almost humorous about temporarily being physically unable to speak. i tried to call a friend last night that i hadn't talked to in a real long time, and as soon as he answered the phone i was trying to talk and nothing came out. i think i managed to whisper "this is stephanie," butit took a few minutes for him to figure out who i was and then my voice came back for awhile and we could actually converse. but it's worth laughing about.

so we have a college retreat this weekend. tomorrow and friday night. it's at the mcdonald's lodge, about an hour south of here. it's this great hyatt hotel hideaway in the middle of a forest, and i guess there's this place called hamburger university right next to it where the mcdonald's bigwigs are trained. in each of the hotel rooms there is a loveseat with a statue of ronald mcdonald sitting on one side. haha not really. anyway, the speaker for the retreat this year is this 75-year-old dude, Dr. Robert Cornwall. let me tell you this is the most amazing man i've ever met. he spoke last year and then he taught in my ministerial seminar class yesterday. after this weekend is over i'm going to have to share some of the stuff he said this week, because it's too good not to. i was just so moved yesterday, by the content of which he spoke, yes... but more than that the manner in which this man carries himself. he is so truly humble and yet so confident but not prideful in where his strength is. such a rare thing. this is a person that i desire to emulate.