Well, I met three great people today.  i was at my favorite coffee shop, Ava (I'll include pics soon), writing, and like always, i had one eye and one ear open - seeking non-awkward openings for discussion.  So, here's a little about one of my encounters (I'll let you know of the others later, kind of funny encounters):

I was writing and sipping on a Milk Chocolate Mocha.  The amazing thing about this coffee shop is that they make their mocha's with REAL CHOCOLATE!  Amazing.  Big difference.  I'll never go back.  More on the mocha's later.

The first open door of the day was when the internet in the coffee shop went down.  As soon as I noticed it I asked the guy sitting in front of me if he was having trouble with internet.  This is always a good teaser!  You quickly see if the person will talk or not by their response to these simply questions.  

He turned around, and said, "Yeah, not sure what happened.  I think I'll tell them to reset the router."  He got up, walked over to the counter, and let one of the employees know of the issue.  As he approached his seat again I said, "I come here a lot and that never happens."  He then asked, "Do you work here or study for school?"  And, we were off.  15 minutes later I knew his name (Shereem), he was married, had 3 kids, a fourth on the way, works full-time, is pursuing his second master's degree and desires to be a physician assistant.  I didn't know what that was, so he filled me in.  Sounds like a pretty cool career.  

Church planting never came up, but we had a lot in common - which I always stick with in conversations like this.  Shereem is a great guy, I like him.  He's very sharp and seems to have a great head on his shoulders - you know, down to earth.  We talked about how key our wives are in our lives, that we couldn't do what we do without them and how much we love our kids.  

It's amazing how deep we can get into conversations with people if we just make the most of every opportunity.  Shereem told me he really enjoyed our conversation and he was looking forward to seeing me again - he comes there a lot too, I've seen him multiple times.  I'm looking forward to seeing him again.