How often do you see a dead whale explode?

I rolled in about 4 this morning from a scene right out of Pulp Fiction. Two of my co-workers and I went to one of the casinos here in downtown Palm Springs to play some blackjack. We sat down at a table with three other people that we proceed to spend the next 7 hours of our life with. On my right I had a guy who could of been Ving Rames brother, Darrel. On my left I had Toni and Terri. Terri and Toni were friends, out celebrating Terri's 76th birthday. It was a fun table, lots of winning, high-fiving and cocktails going around. Toni was betting between $500 and $2000 per hand, tipping the dealers hundreds of dollars on winning hands. During some of the high fiving, a drink got spilled on the table and the pit boss started getting ticked at us. Toni proceeded to take our whole table back in the high-roller room to a private table with VIP service. We joined a couple more people - a man and his "escort", and we played some pretty high stakes cards (at least for me). I went from $10 hands to $100 hands, and somehow managed to win. Anytime I'd run out of chips, Toni would throw $100 chips to me to keep me in the game - with no expectation of repayment, probably gave me around $600 throughout the night. The whole thing was surreal, the other players were buying meals, rooms and everything else for our table with their comp points. As a table, it was non-stop playing and celebrating until about 4, when I figured I was ready to call it a night. The people in our group could have been out of comic books - such a weird scene, spending all that time with them and then never seeing them again.

Cathie and I had a pretty laid back day. After doing some of the conference stuff, we headed out shopping. I've needed to pick up some long sleeve shirts. Being in the desert, it gets down in the 50s at night out here and my short sleeve shirts aren't cutting it. There was a california style outlet mall not too far from us, which really fits in with the Palm Springs genre. It had a Prada, Donna Karin, Barneys New York, Armani and a host of other high end stores with some good deals. The weather is beautiful again toady as I sit out on my balcony and type this. Cathie heads home tomorrow morning, back to the snow, the cold, and 3 hours time difference.

These are my favorite commercials.. Here's the whole list. Check out "Mr. Bowling Shoe Giver-outer".

One of my favorite movies of all time.

What a beautiful day! Cathie slept in until about 8 (11am EST) and I was up bright and early about 5:30. Our room looks out over the pool, and behind that the mountains, so when I woke up, I read for a while, and I sat out on the balcony watching the rising sun hit the mountains. It was about 70 degrees and sunny today. We had a pretty lazy day, hanging out for a while, walking around Palm Springs, and then going to visit Cathie's cousin out in San Bernadino, about an hour away. Cathie's cousin's husband Brian is a professor at San Bernadino State (one of the few conservative Political Science professors around). He's an interesting guy to talk to, who's published quite a bit, and is part of the Claremont Instituite, a conservative think-tank. He was showing me just blocks away from their house where the fires burned last year. Amazing how close they got. Cathie and I are heading down to a reception tonight, and then going out with some of my co-workers. Should be fun.

I got in Friday night around 9:30 after having plane problems in Washington D.C. The past 5 times I've flown United, 2 of them have had major aircraft difficulties. There planes are nicer inside than Northwest, their flight attendants are friendlier, however either their maintenance crews are SO thorough that they catch stuff Northwest just lets slip by, or they really suck and should fix the stuff before it breaks. Anyways, I got in late, packed, went to bed around 12:30 AM, and we got up at 4:00 AM to get to the airport for a 7AM flight. Our flight was pretty uneventful, except for the time it took for us to de-ice in Detroit almost made us miss our connecting flight in Minneapolis. Cathie took my seat up in First Class and I sat back in coach.

We got in, checked in and headed out to Joshua Tree National Park, about 40 miles away. It was breaktaking, but cold. It was about 40 degrees out there, with a stiff wind, but the scenery was worth it. We drove around, climbed on the rocks and watched people free climbing some pretty ridiculous stuff. It's been nice just taking it easy, no kids, sleeping in and enjoying ourselves so far. We're heading over to see Cathie's cousin Jenny today, who lives about an hour from here. Cathie heads out on Tuesday morning, and I come home Thursday, after speaking at the conference on Wednesday.

Anyone know what a welsher is? I've heard of a welcher....

Nice of picture of Will and I dancing.

Washington Dulles Airport has the goofiest way of getting you from terminal to terminal that I've ever seen. They have these giant cargo trailers on wheels that dock at one end of the terminal, a driver then takes you to another terminal. To make them look odder, each one is mounted on huge 4x4 truck tires and has two giant fins sticking out of the top of them. Apparently trams weren't invented, or else someone is making a killing off the annual maintenance contract on these things. As you go from terminal to terminal, you'll see at least a 100 of these things cruising around the tarmac. Odd.

I'm in Landstowne, VA for the next couple of days, right outside of Washington D.C. at the National Training Center. It's a maze of a complex that used to be owned by Xerox. People would come here for a month straight for training at a time. It was created to be an environment conducive to education - meaning they purposely make it tough to figure out where you're going. The place is literally a maze - color coded tunnels and floors running in a complex pattern that I've yet to figure out. I made record time finding my room at check-in. My previous best time was about 30 minutes - yesterday I did it in 10. It helped that my room was 5 doors down for where I stayed last time I was here. This is a kick-off meeting for the team I'm a part of, which is a completely virtual organization. I talk to these people all year long, but we're lucky to see each other face-to-face annually. It's a place where a lot of networking happens over the course of two days. You're a lot more likely to help the guy who calls you up that you've spent some time with, over the one who you don't know from Adam.
I'm here through tomorrow, getting home around 9 PM or so. From there, Cathie and I pack things up and head off to Palm Springs. Cathie's parents are watching the kids Friday and Saturday, and my Mom and Dad are coming on Monday and Tuesday until Cathie comes home.

A friend of mine was at the Young Life conference last week and had a chance to watch Mel Gibson's new Passion of Christ movie. He said he was blown away by it. He was telling me that he's as desensitized to TV/Movie violence as the next guy, but the the scene where Christ is beaten is so graphic that he had to turn away. I asked him about the subtitles, and he said they don't really take away from the power of the movie. James Caviezel, the character who played Christ spoke to the group as well which he said was excellent.

I had my driveway shoveled by three Mormon guys yesterday. The Mormon guys who'd visited me a couple of weeks ago had stopped back by two or three times while I wasn't around. As I'm sitting on the can yesterday, Cathie knocks at the door and announces that they'd returned. I invited them in, this time with a new guy. The new guy was about 6'5" 270lbs - I figured he was their muscle. We sat down in the living room and started talking. Last time they'd stopped by, they left me with the book of Mormon and had asked me to ask God to reveal to me his truth as I read it. They asked if we could begin with prayer, and I said sure, mind if I pray? So I prayed for the four of us and we began talking. I asked them to tell me about their super-secret underwear. They told me that it's not something they can talk about - even new believers in LDS (Ladder Day Saints) don't find out about this stuff until they're a mormon for a year. I mentioned that I thought that was kind of different, because in my faith, nothing is really hidden from us - no secret handshakes or rituals. I asked them about their inheriteance of universes, polygamy and being saved by works. We kept talking about what I saw the differences being between our two faiths, but it never turned into a debate. It was interesting, they continued to try and convince me that there really was no difference betwee our two faiths. I asked them if they'd ever seen the Mormon South Park episode, and none of them had. We had a chance to talk about their two year missions, and I was impressed at the priority they place on missions - during those two years, they go door-to-door 6 days a week and isolate themselves from all secular music, television, movies and books. They asked if our youth group or church needed help with any of our missions projects and if knew of any local help that was needed. When they left, they asked if I needed help with anything, and volunteered to shovel my drive-way. They did an amazing job on it, even getting that crusty stuff that'd been packed down by our cars.

This is the hotel Cathie and I are staying at in Palm Springs.

Emily came down today after playing with Madeline's dress-up eye shadow and said "I beautiful Mom. I painted my eyes like a peacock."

Last night we had a "fancy dinner" at home. Madeline created special menus and we broke out the fine china, crystals and candles. We all got into our "fancy clothes" and used our best manners, acting like we were at the nicest of resturants. We all had a lot of fun with it.

Very interesting letter from Brian McLaren to Chuck Colson.

I got back in from New Orleans this morning at 1:00 AM. I've been down there since Tuesday at a kick-off meeting for the group I support. It was 67 degrees and beautiful! We ate at Antoine's, a famous Creole restaurant in the French quarter. They're the creators of the original Oysters Rockefeller (created for john d. Rockefeller way back). I figured I need to try it. I was presented with what looked like 8 piles of puppy poop, piled on top of oysters. It tasted good, but presentation was lacking. This was my first time on Bourbon Street, the infamous home of Mardi Gras, and I was blown away. It was phenomenal. There was so much energy - and it was just getting started at midnight. You'd walk down bourbon street and see every kind of person - transvestite, mimes, funky people while the bands played in the open air bars. We hit Pat O'Brien's, home of the infamous hurricane drink. Between every bar there seemed to be a strip club - men, women, travesties - you name it - just about every appetite could be met there. We had a blast walking up and down bourbon street with our hurricanes people watching and checking out the different bars with the cajun music.

A commercial from the ever-irreverent Kevin Smith. IT was supposed to be in Dogma.

"I want to be dangerous to a dull and boring religion. I want a faith that is considered "dangerous" by our predictable and monotonus culture." --Mike Yacconelli

Cathie came down with the flu Friday night. We were hanging out with the Niemi's, Girard's and Reynold's and next thing I know, Cathie's sick and we headed home. She had the stomach flu in a bad way for about 24 hours. Emily had something nasty, that made her into a pretty miserable human being. On Saturday, Jes watched the kids while I went to my sister-in-law Kris's Grandpa's memorial service. On Sunday just about everyone started recuperating. Today, we're almost back to normal.

Cathie and I are going to Palm Springs for a mini-vacation while I'm speaking at a conference out there for FileNET, a business partner of Xerox. I'm looking forward to going to the Joshua Tree National Park, which is right outside of Palm Springs.

I leave next Wednesday for a team meeting in Leesburg, VA and come back late Friday night. Cathie and I then fly out on Saturday morning and Cathie's coming back on Tuesday, me on Thursday. Long time away from the kids, but at it'll be fun for Cathie and I.

My mentor have started stepping through Jim Collin's book From Good to Great on our calls. We started going through the idea of Level 5 Leadership. Level 5 leadership is defined very specifically as a type of leader whose ambition is focused on other and the organization - someone who takes the ego, ambition and self-interest out of the picture. This book is different from others in the sense that it's not just his opinion. It's based on huge amounts of research, historical and financial data behind the companies, their performance and their leadership. My mentor is the closest thing I've ever been in contact with that exhibits this type of leadrership. As I've read this section of the book, I came to the conclusion that I'm not sure I want to be this type of leader. From what I've seen, when you put that much time into an organization, something has to give at a personal level - typically your family. I asked my mentor about this and he shared with me that he knows he's made sacrifices, but he doesn't know how to do it any differently. He's worked with other level 5 leaders - 4 star general, joint chiefs of staff, and said he'd seen the same thing. It was a cool thing to hear someone that I respect so much tell me that I have the potential to be a level 5 leader - and mean it. For someone I respect so much to tell me that they expect me to be in their position within the next couple of years was very flattering.

I used to love Donkey Kong!

Jason loaned me his DVDs of the first season of Smallville. I'd never seen it before, but so far, I dig it.

Turns out that I wasn't quite ready to fly out this morning. It might have been too soon to start eating non BRAT foods (Bannanas, Rice, Applesauce and Toast), because I'm still hurting. I asked around, and I was the only one in the room having hot flashes and feeling light headed, so I'm guessing I'm not completely healthy yet. At least I'm back tomorrow.

I've got a crazy travel schedule coming up. Next week I'm in New Oreleans, the week after that in Virginia, then to Palm Springs and the back to Kansas City. Yeehaa!

We went out on Saturday night to a Sweet Georgia Brown's in Greektown in downtown Detroit. It's a pretty elegant resturant with lives jazz and great food.... Or so I thought until the next morning. Apparently either the crab, lobster or filet didn't quite agree with my intestinal tract. I was pretty much out of it all day Sunday with a nasty case of food poisioning. I was planning on flying out on Monday to Kansas City, but when I woke up, I found my large intestine was still liquified. One of my co-workers was on the filght I was supposed to be on, and it turns out that between the snow storm in Michigan and the Ice Storm in Kansas City, she was on the plane about 5 hours. If I'd been on that plane, I'd have owned the on board bathroom.

I woke up Saturday morning and could barely walk on my left foot. Turns out I have Plantar Fasciitis from putting some weird stress on my foot while wall climbing on Friday. Hurts like a mother. For the record, Jason diagnosed it properly from the beginning. Turns out shoe salesmen do know something.

My parents were staying at the Sheraton in Novi yesterday, so we all visited and hung out at the pool. After that Cathie, myself, Jon, Madeline and Emily went to Galyans where we hit the climbing wall.

Monkeys+Typewriters=Shakespeare

Happy New Year. We brought in the new year with our neighbors, the same way we've done it over the past fours. We get together with three other couples who have kids the same age as ours, so everyone plays as the adults hang out togther. There's no wild debauchery, but hey, we're old. Nate and Maddie made it to midnight, and the kids and I slept in until about 9:30 (Cathie until 10:45). You can check out the wild and crazy pictures here.