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I am enjoying what will probably be my last hurrah with the “old” Diet Mountain Dew.  In the days after my other post about the terrible new formula, I went on a mad dash around town (okay, so I was running a bunch of errands anyway) to look and see if anyone still had the old stuff.  Much to my surprise, after looking at about six other places, I found some of the old stuff right under my nose at the west Ames Hy-Vee.  I bought three 12-packs, two of which expire (unfortunately) in less than two weeks.  So, if you need your last hurrah or want to mourn the passing of the “old stuff” — feel free to come over and I will share!

Meanwhile, I’ve also been looking at some new drinks.  I fully expect that I will just eventually get used to the “new” diet dew, but I didn’t want to leave any possibilities.  Coke’s new “Vault” energy drink has a diet equivalent and is supposed to be a competitor for Mountain Dew.  One swig and I was done.  Blech.  I tried some “Black Cherry Citrus”-flavored Fresca, and managed to get through a few more sips…but it was kind of odd. Regular Fresca is a nice change of pace every now and then, but not my thing for a regular drink.
I also decided they probably don’t sell Diet Mellow Yellow around here (probably not a big loss — I remember not liking it years ago), and that it is probably not worth trying the Diet Hee Haw, since it too has a sign sitting next to it on the shelf that says, “Did you know that Hy-Vee diet sodas are made with Splenda?” or something like that.

In a different realm altogether, I also tried the new “Berries and Cream Dr. Pepper.”  I thought it was much better than the “Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper” but still not something I would buy again necessarily.  What I DO think would be interesting would be a “Berries and Cream” version of coke (much like Coke copied Dr. Pepper with their “Black Cherry Vanilla coke”).  Dr. Pepper is such a complex flavor that nothing really seems to taste very good on top of it to me, but the creamy/berry flavor might be a nice compliment to the standard cola flavor of coke.

Hard to believe that the start of our Chicago spring break trip was almost two weeks ago now! I’ve been meaning to blog about it for a while but just didn’t take the time to do it. Nancy did an awesome job describing our accomodations with the Jesus People, so I won’t go into detail on that.

One of the main goals of the trip was to have our team of 30 or so people spend a lot of time out in the Gospel — and I think that was accomplished pretty well. On Saturday, most of the group went downtown to talk to people who were out watching the St. Patty’s parade and engage people in spiritual conversations. It was apparently somewhat tough going for a number of people (crowds of people drinking green beer isn’t always very conducive to these people wanting to talk about God, apparently!), but our team did have some opportunities to share the gospel and it was good practice for everyone.

While most of our team members were downtown on Saturday, a few of us (including me) were searching out housing possibilities for SALT III, while a few other people were serving a church in Lincoln Park (neighborhood north of downtown) where the SALT III meals and meetings will take place this summer. Even though our actual time walking around didn’t produce very many viable leads for summer housing, I really enjoyed the time spent getting to know the area (and the great conversations with Dan J. and Alicia T!). Word to the wise — if you are ever looking for subleases in Chicago, use craigslist and oodle rather than walking around looking for signs. It’s a much better use of time!
Sunday we split up by ministry team and went to three different churches. Most of the group also listened to a presentation in the afternoon about the ministry of the Jesus People, where we were staying.

Monday and Tuesday those of us remaining went out to two campuses — Loyola and DePaul — to share the Gospel and learn more about the spiritual climate. Both are Catholic universities but they ended up each having a very different “feel.” Loyola seemed to already be a lot more “religious” and people generally were already either really into what ever faith they were pursuing, or they were completely non-interested. Loyola is also doing a lot more as a university to encourage spiritual pursuits and spiritual growth among their students, leading to a pretty active, thriving Catholic presence. We did, however, see one person make a decision to put his faith in Christ after hearing the gospel!

At DePaul, the campus environment was generally more secular — the university isn’t doing nearly as much in comparison to promote the Catholic faith or even faith in general. But the students our team talked to at DePaul seemed really open to talking to us — at least half, if not more, wanted to hear how they could know for certain they were going to heaven, when asked about this at the end of a short survey. Overall, it seemed like there was a lot of spiritual interest at DePaul, but fewer people already had it all together when it came to their religion. It’s hard to say if this sample of 20 or so surveys really reflects what we might find if we were reaching out on campus for a longer period of time…but it definitely makes more investigation worth while — which the SALT’ers will hopefully be able to do this summer.

Speaking of Chicago, we had our first-ever “potential Chicago church plant” prayer time tonight at our house. It was really great to spend time with the Lord together with a few others, most of whom are also praying about some day starting a church somewhere north of downtown. We’re going to pray every Thursday at 7pm, so please feel free to join us if you are also dreaming of Chicago (or even if you aren’t, since this potential church plant, and the Rock in general, needs all the prayer it can get!).

A few weeks ago when my beloved Diet Mountain Dew started consistently tasting a little “off.”  I tried to convince myself it was “just me” or a batch made with some bad water or something.  Even though the side of the can said “Tuned up Taste,” I told myself that they couldn’t have changed the formula…that must just be one of their weird new slogans.

Well, Pat Blair broke the awful news to me today.  They did change the formula.  Apparently it tastes “more like regular mountain dew.”  What! I drink Diet Mountain Dew for its own taste…I don’t even like regular mountain dew!

Apparently I am far from alone in this…an online petition has been started and Diet Dew fans are mobilizing to call, write and email the PepsiCo offices with their complaints.  Ther are blogs dedicated to the cause. We can only hope that this will be the New Coke fiasco-equivalent for this decade.

If you are a Diet Dew lover and don’t like the new formula…be sure to make your voice heard! Splenda/Sucralose in Diet Dew is for the birds!