Happy Birthday?

My sister Sooze started this whole thing with posting fun facts for birthdays, and it's since caught on. On a given family member's birthday you'll see a very amusing picture along with the little gems of knowledge. These are some of my favorite posts to read. Here are 10 things about me you might not know from Jon, man of them even true.

1. As much as Dave loves going to the gym to work out, he enjoys complaining about it even more.
2. Dave always has connections to get things done. Whether it is paying to much for a new car or getting a deal on a TV, there is always "someone from church" who he can call to take care of business.
3. Dave likes to wear his clothes on the small side. His pants are a size 30 and his tee-shirts are girls medium.
4. Nobody in our family has any idea what he does for work. We know it involves travelling and watching lots of videos on you-tube.
5. Dave can't sit still for even 5 minutes. He always has to either be doing something or getting all his ducks in a row to be doing something soon.
6. Never eat ice cream while over at his house. He will occasionally dip his junk in the ice cream so other people won't eat it.
7. He is a huge "cat person". If you read his blog, you will read entry after entry about how great his cat is, but you would never even know he has three wonderful children.
8. One time on a trip out to Iowa, Dave pushed me off the slide and I broke my arm. I had to start nursery school with a cast on.
9. Dave was the Best Man at my wedding, as I was at his. Our older brother Dan had some other guy.
10. When Dave was younger, he perfected the art of taking my money. One thing he would do is convince me to put all my money underneath a brick out in the yard and he would do the same. Then together we could save up to buy Star War figures. The next day when I went to check on the money, it was all gone and I still have yet to see the figurines.

10 from Susan.

1. He is what my parents liked to call, the bad son
2. He is hypoglycemic. That may mean nothing to you, but it meant beatings for me when I was growing up. When he would get hungry and needed to eat NOW, and if he didn't he would just hurt me
3. Him and Cathie's favorite past time when they were dating was to make out in the back seat of my parents car. The odd part was, my mom, dad and I were all sitting in the front seat
4. He learned that you would have to be an idiot to light fireworks off in your room. And an even bigger idiot to try and hide a hole the carpet in the middle of the room and curtains with burn marks from your mom and dad
5. Because of him one year, I had to spend Christmas Day ALL BY MYSELF when I was 12 years old because he couldn't find his way to my aunt's house. The rest of the family was there already so Dave and Cathie dropped me off at my parent's house and took off to spend Christmas with her family
6. If it wasn't for Kevin, nothing would get fixed around his house
7. He is the best arguer in the whole entire world. Growing up, if I ever needed to convince my parents of something, I would present all the facts to Dave and let him tell them. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't

Apparently Dan doesn't even know it's my birthday. Sigh.

Georgina

This is Georgina. She spoke almost no english but helped Cathie and I win $400 Dana and Eli $300. The table was smoking hot for 2 hours. Dana hit more blackjacks than I've ever seen. I was in a funk after my video blackjack debacle, but now I'm all about the game.

The Venetian in the moonlight

We were full, so we walked and gambled. Video black jack is not my friend. You can win and lose waaaay to quickly. I'm no longer up $130, or any money for that matter. At least I got a free beer out of it.

Eli loves "Hor Fun"

Eli found a new favorite dish in Vegas. He never knew how much he loved Hor Fun until now.

Taste of Heaven at the Wynn

I have a better understanding of what heaven will be like agter dinner tonight at the Wynn's buffett. Eli and I ate our weight in sushi, giant alaskan king crab legs and everything else in the world. The dinner was as good, or better than the Bellagio's buffett. The dessert was a little lacking. The creme brule was so-so, which brought the overall score down.

Fremont Street

Apparently Jesus is angry that we're $130 up after our first gambling stint

Fountain show at the Bellagio

Bright Light City Gonna Set my Soul on Fire

We made it!

We found an agent who booked us on a connecting flight that arrived as our flight to Vegas was taking off. We were the last passengers on the plane, but we made it. Phew. Long morning. Vegas here we come.

Things Got Schultz'd up

After spending an hour on the phone with Northwest airlines and talking to four of the most useless agents I've ever seen (I maintained a smile throughout), we finally found a person who had a clue. My friend Marge works for NWA knows everything and would of had it fixed in 2 seconds. We're on a later flight, hopefully.

Dana and Eli

Dana and Eli got a late start and got to the airport 20 minutes before our flight was scheduled to depart, too late to check their luggage. They weren't quite clear on the policy on liquids as the security guy went through every item in their bag. We got to the gate and the door had closed. Oops.

Bob's new hat

BW3's

Dan, Bob, Jon, Brad, Mark, Eli, Will, Jeff, Eli and I met up at BW3s in Brighton to celebrate my birthday coming up on Sunday. 36. Middle Aged? Just not as old as my brother Dan who will be 40 soon.

We leave tomorrow morning on our trip. Dana and Cathie have no idea where we're going. We've kept it a secret for 6 months, telling almost no one - except my Dad and my Grandma and not letting it slip once. The girls will find out where we're headed once we hit our connecting flight in Indy - but we'll probably mess with them a little first. Should be fun to try and convince them that West Virginia is our final detination.

The place we're going is forecast to be 96 today. Nice!

Jon has arrived

My brother Jon got in today at noon with my niece Libby. Emily quickly tired him out so in the Kurt tradition, he took a nap.

Happy Birthday to Me?

My birthday is coming up on Sunday. Wouldn't this make a heck of a gift.

Typing Test

How fast can you type the alphabet? Try it here. Can you beat 3.139 sec?

Great Picture

Viral Video

3 Minutes of just about every video you've ever received via e-mail:

Dave/Drew/Emily's Birthday Party

We had another beautiful day yesterday and we had the family over to celebrate three birthdays. We hung out outside and enjoyed the great day.

My Dad pulled this "Hey Big Guy!" card for Andrew out of my Mom's "card-box" and found the above card. For those of you who know Will, you know that he periodically tries out new-head gear, but I'm just not sure this works for him.

Anyone have a good caption for this picture?

Small Animal Day

On Saturday we headed out to MSU for small animal day. We've been going to this the past 5 or 6 years as a family and this year this year we met up with Susan and her kids and Eli and the girls. It was a beautiful day and the place was packed. The kids loved seeing the animals and had a blast hanging out together, riding the bus from stop-to-stop.

Kid's Cafe

Em, Maddie, Olivia and Erica manned the Kid's café this morning at church, selling baked goods (all store bought by Cathie and Dana) for our building campaign. We're having family over for Em's birthday today and the weather is looking perfect. Should be fun.

Greatest Dollar Store Ever

I'm a dollar store connisour, and I think the Dollar Tree is the best of breed, hands down. In a small town with 7 pizza places and 5 coney islands, the grand opening was a big deal here. The kids and I went and perused the wares, ending up in the candy aisle, of course. People were running around excited about their finds like it was dollar days at Nordstroms.

Happy Birthday Dana!

Dana is getting really old. She turned 31 yesterday. A few things about Dana:

• Dana just got her nose pierced for her birthday in an effort to not look 31. It actually looks good on her. She wanted to get a tramp-stamp on her lower back instead, but Cathie talked her out of it.
  
• Dana hate' surprises. Dana's husband Eli and I are taking our wives on a surprise trip. Dana is desperate to know where and we've been feeding her bad information including tips like: The inventor of the electron microscope is from this state, The state is shaped like Ireland, The state is the largest cotton producing state in North America and the Appalachian trail runs through this state. (I made these all up on the spot, but she took them seriously and researched all of them)
• Did I mention Dana is gullible?
  
• Dana works at Jeffrey Animal hospital. She loves expunging anal glands more than anything and now she wants to move on to giving rectal exams, as she's studying to become a nurse.
• Dana's parents wanted a boy and hoped to name him Dan. They were stuck with a girl and named her Dana instead.
• Dana was the trainer for the monkey Clyde in the movie Every Which Way But Loose. She trained him to flip people the bird and punch people in the face.
  
• Dana has a huge heart, is one of my wife's closest friends and my girls are crazy about her. Nate tolerates her, but I think he secretly likes the attention from Dana.
• Dana was the only female wrestler on her high school wrestling team.
  

Happy Birthday Emily!

My little Emily is growing up and turns 6 today. Here are a few things you might not know about Emily:

• She loves animals more than anything. She wants to be a zoo keeper or a dolphin trainer when she grows up. She originally wanted to be a veterinarian, but my friend Brad was able to squash that dream quickly for her.
• Emily is in kindergarten and reads everything she can find, including chapter books. She loves writing as well and will occasionally write us long notes when we've hurt her feelings, made her mad or when she really wants something.
• After breaking off a branch that was whacking them everything I'd push Emily on the tire swing, she explained to me, "Dad, when you broke that branch, you broke my heart."
• She has two imaginary friends that occasionally show up - Shana and Shawna. I wonder if they know my nephew Matthew's imaginary friend Lelelelele?
• Emily's favorite color is pink and her favorite kind of food is Ramen Noodle Soup, the meal of champions.
• Emily is one of the laziest children I know.
• We all think Emily is going to be in sales someday as she is a master negotiator. If I offer her one piece of candy, she will try and negotiate up to 5, starting at 7 and working her way down. Even knowing this, it's amazing what she gets away with and the deals she tries to cut.
• Emily's soccer league starts this week.

Chaos Meeting

I love working with junior high kids. Tonight's Chaos meeting was especially amazing. We were talking about power and love and how they go together. We started off by looking at Superman's powers, arch-enemies and then looked at Jesus' power. We dug deeper and looked at how power can do everything but force someone to love you. In our small groups we talked about the story of The King and the Maiden by Søren Kierkegaard:

Suppose there was a king who loved a humble maiden. The king was like no other king. Every statesman trembled before his power. No one dared breathe a word against him, for he had strength to crush all opponents. And yet, this mighty king was melted by love for a humble maiden. How could he declare his love for her? If he brought her to the palace and crowned her head with jewels and clothed her body in royal robes, she would surely not resist -- no one dared resist him. But would she love him?

She would say she loved him, of course, but would she truly? Or would she live with him in fear, nursing a private grief for the life she had left behind? Would she be happy at this side? How could he know? If he rode to her forest cottage in his royal carriage, with an armed escort waving bright banners, that too would overwhelm her. He did not want a cringing subject. He wanted a lover, an equal. He wanted her to forget that he was a king and she a humble maiden and to let shared love cross the gulf between them. For it is only in love that an unequal can be made equal.

The amazing thing is that THE KIDS GOT IT. Now if the girls got it, you could probably understand that. Junior High girls are a little more mature than guys and sometimes connect the dots a little easier. I had a small group of nine junior high boys - grades 6th - 8th grade, and THEY GOT IT. At the end of the group, they guys were explaining to me how God created us with the ability to choose to love him or reject him, because otherwise it's not love. They explained to me that the one thing you can't do is force someone to love you - no matter what your super-powers are. Amazing! They got it, and they understand a Danish Philosopher's story to get them there...and maybe some of the Superman stuff helped.

I love working with junior high kids. They're my people and it's worth it for moments like this.

One Armed Monkey

Lincoln Zoo must be the greatest zoo in the world. They had a one-armed wrestling monkey and a baboon who respond to people waving at him and talking to him by sticking his butt on the glass at them and pointing at it. These two things were the highlight of the zoo experience for Nate and I.

Happy Birthday Andrew!

Yesterday was Andrew's birthday! Happy Birthday Andrew! Here are a few fun facts about Drew:

1. Andrew is a fellow middle child. With that honor comes all of the amazing intellect, compassion, looks and passion that go with the familial position.
2. Drew's Mom wanted him to be called Andrew and for a while insisted that he be known as Andrew. I persevered with the nick-name Drew and Kris is now comfortable with us calling him "Drew"
3. Because of his Uncle Jon's absence and lack of spiritual direction in his life, Drew has named me his honorary God-father.
4. Drew is smart. I'm constantly amazed at how his brain processes very deep questions about life and his faith.
5. Drew reads like a fiend.
6. Drew's favorite french-fry topping is Katchsup.
7. If Drew could be any kind of vegetable, he would be asparagus.
8. Drew plays soccer.
   
9. I've been promising Drew that he and I are going on a middle-child outing for a long time. I still haven't not done it yet. I am a bad uncle, but will always be viewed as a better uncle than Drew's Uncle Jon.
   

Stephen Lynch

We got up early this morning and headed to Willow World in South Barrington, home of Willow Creek Church. We got to hear Bill Hybels say the phrase 'that sucks' on stage and also got to see Jason Raitz with his sidekicks, Zach and The James (Jason is one of the leaders of Willow's Jr High Ministry, James is their janitor and Zach is their resident heart-throb).

We made it back to Lansing just in time to drop the kids off at my Dad's and meet Monaca and Will at PF Chang's for dinner. We then headed to see Stephen Lynch on campus at MSU. Stephen Lynch is a comedian who sings some of the funniest songs about the most inappropriate subjects one could imagine. I'd heard his material before, but he was twice as funny live. Lynch had just gotten off Broadway, playing the lead in the musical The Wedding Singer.

We got back late tonight and it's back to school tomorrow for the kids.

Eat at Ed's

After hitting the Shedd Aquarium and The Museum of Science and Industry, we waited in line for 15 minutes for Garrett's popcorn. We had dinner at Ed Debevic's and the kids got a kick out of the service. If you've never been there before, Ed Debevic's boasts the worst customer service around. The wait-staff is purposely rude and the periodically jumps up on the counters and do purposefully lame dance routines.

Nate and I at ESPN Zone

Per Sarah's advice, after dinner the girls went to The American Girl Doll store while Nate and I were in heaven at the ESPN Zone.

Ginos East

We had dinner tonight at Ginos East downtown. The kids liked the pizza, but loved the fact that they could write on the walls. This is their first time staying downtown in a big city and they're loving the huge buildings, walking around and taking the subway places.

Lincoln Zoo

We got into Chicago about noon and hit the Lincoln Zoo. Great zoo, great weather. We spent about three hours there before heading to our hotel on the magnificent mile downtown.

Closed Head Injuries are Funny

Emily tripped over her blanket (quilty) tonight and hit her head on the vacuum cleaner. She proceeded to pretend (at least we're pretty sure she was pretending) to have amnesia. Em explained to Cathie that she couldn't remember anything that had ever happened to her. She kept asking Cathie questions about what she'd done today, like "Mom, did we go swimming today?" Wouldn't the joke be on us if she had permanent brain damage and memory loss?

Dead On

From Zach Braff's blog, on cell phone etiquette. I couldn't have said it better myself:

I hate ringtones. I think they are uber obnoxious. I am of the school that if you’re out of your house or your car, your phone should be on vibrate. Oh, and for the love of Yaweh, DON’T LEAVE YOUR WIRELESS EARPIECE IN YOUR EAR!!!! Look, I am by no means a purveyor of “cool”. I am very dorky. But one thing I know for certain, is that if you’re wearing your wireless earpiece around and you are not on the phone, but merely waiting for a call- you should pull it out. When you do, you will probably be able to hear your brain telling you you look like Levar Burton. (Not in Roots, on Next Generation.) You were probably the same person who had a pacifier around your neck during that fad and something tells me there’s a “Dachshund Lover on Board” sign in your garage next to the albums that contain your extensive “Garbage Pail Kid” collection.

Create your own caption

Dilemma - PS3 vs. Xbox 360

I've got a dilemma. Which to get? After reviewing the comparable specs, I think the PS3 is the superior technology at this point, but the 360 has much better baseline cost model and better market saturation along with many more games, including Guitar Hero, which seems to be a must have. Add that to the fact that Halo 3 is coming out at the end of the year and there aren't any real "must-have" games for PS3 yet.

Any help here?

Wrestling Team Picture

I found this picture from my 7th grade wrestling team - front row. I wrestled in the 82 lb weight class.

Dan and Dave

Maddie and I were going through a box of some old stuff, and I came across this picture taken by my Uncle Bill. My Uncle was a semi-professional photographer who shot everything from professional sporting events to pictures of us, his nieces and nephews. As you can probably see, this is my brother Dan choking me to death. I'm sure I ended up getting in trouble somehow for this and Dan received a raise in his allowance.

Chicago

It's the kids spring break this week and we're taking them to Chicago for a few days. We're staying downtown, right on the Miracle Mile, which will be fun. I think we're going to the Museum of Science and Industry and The Shedd Aquarium for sure. Any other recommendations from those of you who've been there before with your kids?

Swiper no Swiping

Thanks to Marko for this spoof on Dora. With three kid (and my love for swiper), I've watched waaaay to many episodes and this is spot on.

Kasey is getting married!!!!!

I got a call tonight from Kasey telling me the great news that she got engaged to her boyfriend Michael today! I've known Kasey for around 11 years - since she was in the junior high youth group at church. It's been amazing watching her grow up over the years and having her become a part of our family as well. She's like a big sister to my kids, and a little sister to me. Since she's known me, the same rule has applied: If a guy wants to date you, he has to come through me first. I haven't always liked all of her boyfriends and I made that pretty clear to Kasey over the years. I'd met her boyfriend Michael in the past, but hadn't spent a ton of time with him until last night, where I got to drill him a little further on his plans for life and watch him around my kids. Funny enough, after last night, I felt pretty comfortable with Michael dating Kasey. Good thing, because when Kasey called me tonight to tell me, I was able to give her my blessing. It would have been awkward for her to have had to call the whole thing off after saying yes!

Wow! This is really like finding out my little sister's getting married. I'm so proud of the woman Kasey has become and I'm thrilled for this next big step in her life.

Odd Easter Verse

There's all sorts of odd things you can learn from John's telling of the Ressurection, but I find these three pretty amusing:

John 20 - The Empty Tomb
1Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!"
3So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. 8Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9(They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)

1. John thought rather highly of himself - referring to himself as The Disciple Jesus Loved the Most. Guess if I'm telling a story for the world to read, I'm going to paint myself pretty well.
2. John was a fast runner. Not only did he want to show the world that Jesus dug him, but that he was waaaay faster than Peter.
3. The disciples were pretty clueless most of the time. Maybe hindsight is 20/20, but after all the times they'd been told, they still had no clue that Jesus was going to die and rise again. Good thing I'm not dull and thick headed like them. :)
   

Rascal is Odd

1. My cat likes bread. If bread is left out, my cat will tear the bag open and eat a loaf.
2. My cat has a crush on our guinea pig. Check this picture out below. They're kissing.
3. My cat has 3 stuffed animals that it carries around like babies. It uses them as pillows and sleeps on them.
   

I'm a dog person, but this cat amuses me to the point that it will continue to live another year.

He is Risen...He is Risen Indeed!

At church today we celebrated Easter! I love Easter Sunday. Maddie was a part of a dance today. As much as I mock interpretive dance (and I've seen some pretty ridiculous interpretive dances) it's beautiful when it's your own daughter involved. The girls worked very hard on this it went great.


We usually get together with family on Easter Sunday, but not this Easter. So we didn't feel left out, my Dad threw us a bone and stopped by...for computer help. We didn't allow him to eat with us, but he was able to sit at the table and watch us.

Easter Photo Shoot

After church, the Schultz's stopped by for a quick lunch and the girls got a chance to hang out, giggle and take some pictures in their beautiful Easter outfits.

Easter Eggs

We decorated Easter Eggs last night with special guests Kasey and her boyfriend Michael (in the background with Nate playing Wii-Boxing). Kasey is like a big-sister to the girls and they loved having here there. Nate was still pretty attached to her last boyfriend from a couple of years ago, but Michael won him over by playing video games with him. Emily ended up schooling Michael in Wii-bowling at the end of the night where she smoked him with a 215, marking in every frame.

The girls had such a blast with Kasey, giggling non-stop with these deep-belly laughs which is just contagious.

Spartans win first NCAA hockey title since 1986

They won tonight. They came in as the underdogs and smoked Boston College tonight, and they're now the NCAA National Champions.

Wacky Wednesday

Emily had Wacky Wednesday this week (named after the Dr. Seuss book). They tried to dress as wacky as possible, which in Em's case included an inside out shirt, two different shoes, different socks, backwards pants and crazy hair. This was not difficult for her since we had Jess Shinn living with us at one point and her bohemian dress seemed to have rubbed off on both of my girls. Jess would actually consider the above look stylish.

Mac on a Dell?

I'm typing this blog entry from a Dell that is now also a Mac. I loaded the developer's version of OSX on my Dell D610 laptop as part of the OSx86 Project to see how it world work. It's not much of a laptop, but I'm amazed at how well it runs OSX - way better than it would run under Vista with all the same functionality.

Using Parallels, I'm able to run native windows applications as well. How well the OSX load works on your native intel machine is dependent on the type of machine you have and you have to be somewhat technical to get it to work, but in the end, it works flawlessly on my equipment.

Baptism

Nate's famous. This weekend's baptism at Crossroads was featured on our Church Denomination's web-site.