Anne is #13

Xerox's CEO, Anne Mulcahy, is the 13th most powerful woman in the world according to Forbes. In 2005 she was #6.

XBOX 360 - Ring of Death

I love our Xbox 360, but it's got a small problem. If the unit gets bumped in any way while it's on and has a disc spinning in it, the disc is toast. The laser will etch a beautiful circle around the disc and make it completely unusable. This happened to our Guitar Hero 2. Luckily, the manufacturer of the game will replace the disc for $20. On an side note, I've got Halo 3 pre-ordered from Amazon.

Slip and Bleed

At camp every year we setup what i thought was a decent slip and slide. The one in this video is amazing, but quite as impressive as the one we do on the side of my Dad's house:

New Phone

I sold my Treo 700W and bought the new Motorola Q9m from Verizon after playing with Will's Q. My Treo had a great interface but was bulky and I blew through my battery early in the day when traveling. The Q9m is a nice multi-media phone, but it's no iPhone. It's running the new Windows Mobile 6 operating system which is fast and functional and a great battery life. The downside is that this phone has no touch screen and the interface is different enough that it's a little funky to get used to. The sound system is pretty impressive on this for being a cell phone as well. I haven't really tested the video yet.

Panthers Game vs Howell

Nate's first game was this past Saturday vs. Howell. It was my first time at a Panthers game and I was amazed. They played on the High School field, which was turf. The game has announcers calling the game as it goes, the team has it's own cheerleaders and pom-squad, the coaches have a spotter in the booth and headsets for the field, they have four referees and two guys working the chains. It's a pretty impressive operation.

It was a great game defensively and ended 6-6. Gold's defense recovered a huge fumble with 2 minutes left in the game and came close to driving it in, but couldn't convert. This is the first non-loss in 17 games for the team, so they were thrilled and played great. Their next game is this Saturday against Milford. The You can see the rest of the pictures here.

Cedar Point

Nate and I went to Cedar Point yesterday and had a blast. We got there around 9:45am when the park opened and went non-stop until the park closed at 8pm. The Kurt men are known for their fast-walking and poor Nate would run to keep up as we moved from ride-to-ride. We sat down for only a couple of minutes during the 10 hours we were there.

The lines were great and the park was pretty empty. Our favorite ride was clearly the Top Thrill Dragster, followed by the Sky Hawk. We got into a fair amount of debate as to whether the Dragster actually qualified as a roller coaster (similar to whether or not Batman is really a super-hero because he has no powers), but low-and-behold - the web site lists it as a coaster. The dragster blew us away. 0-120 in 4 seconds, shooting 420 feet in the air. It was amazing. The only ride that really scared me was the Power Tower, and that was mostly because it was 300 feet in the air and leaves you hanging there for some random amount of time before dropping you.

The rides were great, but the best part was just having that solid block of un-interrupted time to hang with Nate. No cell phone, no e-mail, no TV - just he and I. It's so cool to hear his opinions on things as we're standing in line just talking about whatever comes to mind. Around 6pm I tried to pull the whole, "Well, we've ridden everything in the Park, you ready to call it quits?" Nate was having nothing to do with that. He wanted to close the place down. The only ride we didn't get to was the Maverick, the new coaster.

I brought my Sony DSC camera and took some video of us on the different rides. Here's a compilation of those clips:

Ken Buck's Homework

My friend Ken made a deal with his wife that he would get his homework done by September 1st in order to be able to attend Willapalooza (actually, I think he was supposed to have it done BEFORE they went on vacation, but Kathy being a teacher, gave Ken chance for extra credit).

Please give Ken a call today and make sure he's doing his homework. I don't care if you know Ken, please call him anyways and see where he's at. His cell number is (856) 669-7965.

Cedar Point

Nate and I left bright and early to get to Cedar Point when it opened. There are almost no lines and within the first hour we'd ridden 8 roller coasters. So far we've waited 30 min for the Top Thrill Dragster (which we both agree is the greatest ride ever) and the Millenium Force (I consider it the greatest roller coaster so far, Nate considers the dragster a coaster and therefore the best coaster ride ever).

Willapalooza

For years we've been planning Will's bachelor party. At one point we even considered buying him a mail-order-bride in order to bring the event to fruition. We were thrilled for many reasons when he got engaged to Monaca, one of them being having the bachelor party. We've even gone so far as to create a web site as we're planning the event and having t-shirts made for the event. From the beginning, the event has been planned for Las Vegas and the vision just keeps getting bigger and better over time. We could do it anywhere, but Vegas has so much to offer in terms of a fun atmosphere, gambling and warm weather. Will has been very clear from the beginning on the ground rules, but he posted the following post on the Willapalooza blog to set the ground rules for the event. I think it's very noble, and damn funny. I think he means all of it, except for the part about the hookers.

I know that Brad will be "damned ashamed" of me for putting my expectations on the blog. As most of us know, Brad's philosophy is, "expectations are disappointments waiting to happen." Although I love the movie Bachelor Party, I don't envision us recreating any of the scenes from the movie... well, maybe there will be a dead horse in Dave's room.

First of all, I expect us all to have a REALLY good time. I have never been to Vegas, so I am looking forward to taking it in with all of you.

Secondly, I expect that we are going to be mindful of the cost of activities and other stuff. I greatly appreciate all of your generosity and I would be heartbroken if anyone came away from this trip in financial difficulty.

Even though we are going to "Sin City" I don't plan on going off the debauchery deep-end. Yes, we will be gambling and drinking, but I don't plan on you guys having to scrape me up off the pavement. Face it, someone will injure themselves trying to help me up, and that isn't going to make the trip fun for anyone.

This is going to be a "skin free" expedition. I'm sure that there are plenty of beautiful strippers and hookers in Vegas, but I'm not planning on hanging out with any of them. I'm sure that there are plenty of educational films available at the hotel, but I won't be watching any of them. I don't say this to be preachy, but I really want to start my marriage by honoring Monaca and honoring God.

Brad will say something inappropriate during the trip. At that point, he will be fitted with a red ball gag for the remainder of our stay. Don't worry, we'll run a tube down his nose from a Budweiser bottle.

Ted will escalate an incident into either something extremely embarrassing for everyone around him, or that requires a trip to the hospital. He is a big fan of Ronald Reagan's MAD policy (Mutually Assured Destruction). I'm pretty confident that we will be asked to leave at least one casino because of Ted... hopefully not the one we're staying in!

We will all awake one morning to find Dave passed out in the hallway, completely naked. This won't be due to excessive drinking... its just how Dave rolls.

Compromising photographic evidence will be gathered throughout the trip. All I have to say is that the first one who falls asleep is asking for trouble!

I can't wait to go, and what I'm really looking forward to most of all, is a chance to spend time with all of you in celebration of my upcoming marriage to the most wonderful woman in the world... Monaca.

Northwest still sucks

I was booked on an 8am flight out of Kansas City this morning and figured I'd get an early start on the day by flying standby on the 6am flight. I got up at 4:30ish to get to the airport in time, but Northwest had crew problems so the flight was rescheduled to 9am. Northwest owes me 2 hours of sleep I guess I'm the sucker for not checking the flight status before leaving the hotel.

Anniversary

Since I'm out of town, Maddie and Em decided to make sure Cathie still had a happy Anniversary. They woke Cathie up with breakfast in bed, a card and later performed an anniversary dance they'd choreographed just for the occasion. Makes the 15 roses I sent Cathie seem pretty weak.

Fifteen Years of Bliss!

15 years ago today, I walked down the aisle with my best friend in the whole world and my soul mate. Here are some things you may not know about the first year:

• My brother Jon was my best man, my brother Dan a groomsman, my sister Susan was a bridesmaid and my brother-in-law Ed a groomsman.
  
• I had two bachelor parties. One of them the police broke up.
• I still had a year left in college, Cathie got a job at Big Brothers/Big Sisters. We didn't know what we'd do with all the money.
• The first car I bought after we were married was an Audi Fox for $100. My friend Webb and I had to string a cable around the car to hold the floor up after the floor rusted out. This in turn cut the gas line, so gas would trail behind the car.
  
• We honeymooned down in Florida, the exact same time Hurricane Andrew struck.
  
• On our way down to our honeymoon the woman at the American Airlines counter saw that it was our honeymoon and upgraded us to first class. We wandered all around the back of the plane because we couldn't figure out where our seats were.
• We rented a convertible in Florida and loved every second of it. It was our first time alone together on a trip and it was amazing. I remember driving in the convertible, hearing the song Life is a Highway while Cathie and I were laughing til it hurt as we read Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy.
• We found out the hard way that the Canaveral National Seashore in front of our condo was actually a nude beach.
  
• For the first part of our marriage, we lived in a 400 square foot apartment in married housing at MSU.
• Within the first 6 months, I taped over the only copy of our wedding video.
• We didn't have much money or have a clue what we were doing, but we were on our own and it was bliss.

I have fallen more in love with Cathie every day, beyond what I could have ever dreamed. Cathie gets me and models what for me what it looks like to love and server one another. My Mom prayed for all of us since we were little that God would give us amazing spouses. God really answered that prayer in a big way for me. My heart still beats fast when I look at her. She is the perfect woman for me and can't wait to grow old with her.

(Cathie included fifteen notes in my suitcase, one for each year of marriage.)

Walking in Memphis

I got up around 4am this morning to head to Graceland for meetings. I got their earlier enough that I was able to take a side trip to the local Chick-Fil-A for a two pack of the much beloved Chicken Minis. Jon, Beth and I went downtown to dinner and then Jon and I headed out to see the movie Superbad, which we both dug. The kitchen drawers in Jon's house can not be slammed. I've tried. It's almost creepy. It was good seeing Libby and Reagan, and Beth... and Zoe and Stretch... and Jon. Dan had a layover in Memphis, but thanks to Northwest's stellar on-time record, we couldn't catch up with him. I'm flying out tomorrow morning to Kansas City and then back home on Thursday morning.

Worship Dance Group

Our friend Jen leads the worship dance group for the kids at church. They practice every week for an hour and for the third time performed at church today. Jen does a great job teaching the girls that worship is not just about singing, but about a of doing things in a way that puts God above everything else. The girls were cute and did a great job.

Hot Date in Windsor

Cathie and I went on a date last night over to Canada to Windsor. The first question people seem to want to ask is, "Did you go for the Windsor Ballet?" Windsor is like Detroit's answer to Tijuana with just about everything being legal over there: Cuban Cigars, Marijuana, Prostitution and a 19 year old drinking age. For the record, we went for none of those things.

We went to The Keg Steakhouse right on the river and then headed over to another bar for drinks. On our way back across the border we saw the guy a couple cars in front of us get swarmed by cops and arrested on the spot. No idea what for.

As much as we love going out with our friends, we really needed to do this. It was a great evening of the two of us catching up on our lives. Whenever life gets too crazy and especially when I'm traveling, it's easy for us to get disconnected relationally. When we're not connected, nothing else works. It was a fantastic night.

Linen Drive is a Bust.. Kind of

The linen drive we tried to do in our neighborhood didn't go off all that well. Nate, Maddie and I went around with the Kohne kids passed our flyer's last week to all 85 houses in our neighborhood and went around yesterday to pick up the linens off the front porches. Only two people had left stuff out there. Nate and Maddie proceeded to go up and down the block knocking on doors, hoping that people had forgotten. No luck. I think we're going to try and make this a monthly thing for our neighborhood, and try and get even more kids involved in it. Next time, we'll try to pick items that people might have laying around.

Joe interviewed the two Maddie's, Nate and Trevor up on stage as part of his message today in church. Joe's message was around starting from where you're at and doing something... Which is what the kids did. We went out to breakfast with the Kohne's afterwards.

Football Jamboree

Yesterday was Nate's Panthers season kick-off. They did team pictures a pep-rally and then inter-league scrimmages against all of the other teams at their level. Each team at each level has cheerleaders and a PomPom squad and they all did their routines at the pep-rally. Cath's parents came up to cheer him on before her Mom left for Japan today today to teach for three months. Nate decided he'd keep his Mohawk through today and get it shaved off tomorrow.

Nate's team did pretty well offensively, but had a tough time defensively containing the run outside and stopping the pass.

Mr. Slithers

After Em caught her pet snake, Mr. Slithers, we tried to feed it all sorts of things - gold fish, crickets, you name it - but none of it would take. We finally had to let it go and Em was in tears afterwards.

My Little Guitar Hero

The whole family is into Guitar Hero II for Xbox 360. Nate and I are stuck about half-way through "hard" mode" on the song Woman. Maybe Em's been playing it a little too much.. I heard her walking around the house the other day singing the words to her favorite song on the game, Surrender: "Mommy's alright, Daddy's alright, they just seem a little weird"...

High School Musical 2 Party

Maddie and Em are huge fans of the movie High School Musical, so naturally, there was a big to-do about the premiere last night of High School Musical 2. The girls went all out, turning our family room into a.... um, I don't know... family room with pillows, blankets and menus. Even the dog was not allowed in the family room prior to the big event, leste the blankets get messed up. They created menus for all of the snacks and drinks, and waited on Cathie, Nate and I as we watched the show. Maddie was a little intense as we watched, shusshing anyone who dared utter a word and chastising me for my lack of TiVO remote skills if I skipped a second or two past the commercials and into the show. I'm sure we'll be listening to the soundtrack for months to come. I completely forgot to invite Phil over.

TomTom One

With all of the travel I do for work a portable (as opposed to a stationary one??) GPS system is a huge help (if only I could get one one that helps me find my car at the airport). For the past 3 years, I've used TomTom Navigator which allowed my phone to work with a GPS receiver to give me full GPS capabilities. It worked great 95% of the time, but the 5% that my phone would lock up or my bluetooth link to the receiver would drop. I finally sold my the whole kit on eBay and used the money to buy the TomTom One GPS system. It's the same size, the same software, a great battery life and about the same price as what I sold my TomTom stuff for. I like it so far. It travels easily and I don't have to dink around with Bluetooth connections.

Bill in the Middle

Bill and I have worked together for 13 years and been close friends almost as long. We really got to know each other when Bill, Noel, Brad, Will and I went to Colorado on a 4 day spiritual retreat. Bill is also my new boss, which he's been in the past and is a great thing for me.

Bill is also Platinum on Northwest and of course is a frequent traveler who nearly always gets upgraded to first class due to his status. On our trip back from New Jersey today, I was complaining that I didn't get upgraded, assuming Bill had. Not only had Bill not gotten upgraded, but he'd forgotten to change his seat and ended up with a middle seat between two big dudes in the row behind me. It made my day.

Lost

Ever forget where you park at the airport and have to call your co-worker, admit this and ask him to drive you around until you find it? Yeah, me either.

What does this mean?

Girls Chicago Trip

Guest blogger, Cathie Kurt:
As you heard, My mom graciously took Maddie, Emily and I to Chicago for some fun last week. We had a great time. We took the train and Emily loved her first train ride. The idea of being able to walk around during a long trip was quite appealing to her!

It was definitely a girl oriented trip that Dave and Nate would have absolutely hated. We ate at a lot of fun restaurants, hung out at Navy Pier and Millinium park and visited the Field museum. The girl's highlight of the trip though was The American Girl place. For those of you who don't have girls, you may not have heard about this little doll cult. They draw you in and make you drink the kool-aid before you even realize it.


We spent an entire day at this store. The girls received a "Day at American Girl" package from Grandma. So they were able to bring their American Girls to have their doll's hair done, shop a lot, have a professional photo taken of themselves with their dolls, eat at the A.G. Cafe and even see a play done all about the stories of American Girls. It was a very fun, girly day. Aunt Susan would have loved it! Maddie put it best when she said that even more than all the gifts Grandma gave us, she loved just having Grandma to ourselves for 4 days-especially since she is heading to Japan for three whole months! Thanks Grandma for a wonderful trip! We Love You!

You can see the rest of the pictures from the girl's trip here.

Em's Latest Pet

Em and Maddie found a snake in the yard and Em has been spending hours with it. Literally. She holds it, wraps it around her neck and cuddles with it. We're going to try and keep it for a little while. Apparently you can feed them gold fish and worms.

Update: Em came to me this morning first thing after she woke up and asked if she could play with the snake. She quickly came back to me, excitedly explaining that he had laid an egg. It was poop.

New Camera Lens

I picked up a new lens for my Canon SLR. I got a 70-300 film lens, but with the lens factor it's actually 480mm on my camera. From 100+ feet out I'm able to get some great shots. I dig these two pictures of Nate (#24), especially the one of him going up against these two big 'ol linemen. His coach called him out in front of the whole team for the progress he's made on the line.

Clothing Drive

Our church is doing a bedding drive with our local Active Faith, a local organization that helps the needy in our community. We're trying to get our neighborhood involved, so Mark Kohne and I put flyers together and passed them out in our neighborhood and we're going to pick stuff up next weekend. For the most part, I think people want the chance to help the hurting, but most are either too busy, don't know how or just see it as too big of a problem to make a difference. I figured by trying to get a grass-roots group of guys doing this in my neighborhood, we might be able to get something larger going in the community. I think it's easier to invite guys to help the poor than it is to invite them to church. The idea of church carries all sorts of baggage, at least with guys who are loosely connected to churches. Regardless of church background or depth of faith, people seem to want to help others that need it and are looking for the opportunities to do it. I'd think I'd rather have people ask the question, "Why would you guys want to help people like this?" and be able to talk about my church and faith from that point on.

Over a beer with one of my neighbors last week, we started talking about how we could use our business skills to help people in our community, particularly those families who can't afford computers. We talked about ways to use some of the local technology businesses to provide computers and the related support to people in the area that need them. Lots of ideas right now, no good way to move forward.

Weekend

Cathie and the girls got home from Chicago on Thursday night. After Nate and I were solo for the week, it was strange having them back. The girls came back with lots of words and loud voices with lots and lots of words. It sounds mean, but after it being just Nate and I hanging out, it was a pretty radical shift.

I finished my parking lot duty this week for Panthers football, and I'm glad to have it done. I ended up missing some of Nate's scrimmages over the past few days because of the parking lot stuff, but Nate's coach filled me in afterwards. Nate's been playing Corner and Safety on Defense and it sounds like Nate's been popping guys out there in a way that surprised the coach. Nate's one of only 4 new guys on the team and he's had to work twice as hard to catch up with where everyone else is at. For being only 75lbs, Nate's really holding his own.

We had the Kohne's over for dinner tonight. The Kohne's are neighbors of ours with three kids as well. Mark and I have worked together for the past three years, Nate and Maddie are great friends with their youngest two kids and their oldest, Haley, is involved in our church's junior high youth group and went to camp with us this summer.

Today we're taking our Sabbath. After a busy week, we need a day to catch up, rest, recuperate and hang as a family. No errands, no chores, no friends over - just hanging out, doing a family movie night and getting some much needed rest after a crazy week.

Air Conditioning

Our air conditioning started flaking out this week. Today was an especially great day for it with 90+ degree weather and 100%+ humidity. Nice and comfortable. My air conditioner wasn't cooling down the house and the pipes would ice up when I'd run it. Trying to save a buck, I did some research online and tried replacing the filter and unblocking the condensation drain. It didn't fix it. My fear was that I was going to have to replace the whole unit, but after spending $240 for 15 minutes of service, I had some more coolant added in and everyting is back and working again. While the unit had frozen up, some of the coolant had leaked out. Apparently, replacing your filter more than once every couple of years is somewhat important. Had I done that, I'd be $240 ahead of where I'm at.

Bethanna-Banana

My sister-in-law Beth is the smartest person in our family. She's a doctor, doing her fellowship at St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. If you''re not familiar heard of St. Jude's (and amazingly, I had never heard of it until Beth started working there), it was founded by the late entertainer Danny Thomas on the premise that no child should die in the dawn of life. Thomas named the hospital for Saint Jude Thaddeus, the Catholic patron saint of desperate cases and lost causes. All medically eligible patients who are accepted for treatment at St. Jude are treated without regard to the family's ability to pay. St. Jude is the only pediatric research center where families never pay for treatments that are not covered by insurance, and families without insurance are never asked to pay. In addition to providing medical services to eligible patients, St. Jude also assists families with transportation, lodging, and meals.

Beth is the best-of-the-best working at the best hospital in the world for her area of study. Many think she's just smart. Not only is Beth brilliant, she's married to my brother Jon and has some of the worst gas of anyone in the family. Beth puts her pants on one leg a time, but afterwards she makes gold records... and cures cancer.

The other day Beth heard from a friend from residency who is now practicing up in Alaska. She was attending a Pediatric Hospital Conference and one of the talks she went to was "Top 10 articles in Pediatric Hospital Medicine". Beth's article which was published in Pediatrics last year (you can read the article here) was one of the articles presented because it was felt that it would change the way that pediatric medicine is practiced.

Man Week

Nate and I went out for breakfast this morning and then we had practice tonight. Day two of full contact went a lot better than the first day for Nate. I saw him get knocked on his butt at least twenty times, but he kept getting up and kept going. Most of the other kids have been play for a while and have a lot of the skills and techniques down, which makes all the difference when you're making a tackle. Nate does a great job not getting frustrated as he's learning the positions. He watches the other guys pretty closely and learns from them and hangs on the every word of the coaches.

I'm still on parking duty, and I've figure out to do the job right, I should bring my iPod, wave a lot, smile and look like I know what I'm doing, and . One of the women on parking duty with me has grand plans like repainting the parking lot lines, advising each and every person to park straighter and slashing the tires those cars that park on the lawn. I'm pretty content with smiling, waving and suggesting that people should park on the pavement. If they don't I figure there are worse crimes against humanity. The field is a giant trash-heap with big sinkholes that's been turned into a park, so how badly can it be destroyed?

After football, Nate and I went go-karting and then rented the baseball game The Bigs for the Wii. It's a blast and it uses the WiiMote and Nunchuck for all the hitting and pitching in a way that make the gave realistic and fun. We finished the night off watching the football movie Rudy. The girls come home tomorrow night and Nate and I have a LOT of cleaning to do.

Technology Fast

This is pretty interesting article from the Washington Post entitled, The Longest Day Ever. It talks about a group of student's 24 hour technology fast:

No television, computers, iPods or other MP3 devices, radio, video games, CD players, records or cellphones (or land lines) for 24 hours.

This would probably throw my system into shock and kill me. Anyone up for doing this with me sometime?

Nate's First Day of Full Contact

Today was Nate's first day of full-contact in football. They had to have three days of practice with helmets and five days in pads prior to contact. Talking to the other parents, this day is the make-or-break-it day for a lot of the boys in their first year. The first time getting tackled or tackling another player, going helmet to helmet, pad to pad shocks them the first time. Nate was a little nervous going into today, not knowing what to expect. I watched Nate out there a little hesitant at first to make the first full-on tackle After a few tries, he got into it. He got his bell rung during one of the drills when one of his teammates accidentally clotheslined him. He couldn't breathe for a few, which scared him more than anything. His coach told him to sit out for a bit, but instead he jumped back in and continued the drills. All-in-all, he liked his first practice, but knows he's got a lot to learn. His coaches are fantastic, working with the kids individually as need, very patient, but very disciplined. Nate's team has their first scrimmage with another team on on Thursday. Their first game is on August 25th.

Nate and I had planned on going to the Detroit Lions practice today, but it got rained out and moved inside, which doesn't have room for the public. We went out to our favorite restaurant, Buffalo Wild Wings after practice and came home to watch a movie, as part our ongoing man-week.

Nate and I talked to Cathie, Maddie and Em and it sounds like they're having a blast. They spent most of the day at the American Girl Doll store downtown. They got their dolls hair done, they got matching outfits and had their pictures taken with their doll and then took them to an American Girl Doll play. Nate and I agreed that this would be close to our idea of hell. Nate and I broke down today and did our first load of laundry, but we're avoiding any dishes, making beds or cleaning anything else until the 11th hour.

Crazy Story

Interesting (no longer Wild) story about Cathie and the girl's trip to Chicago, as told by Sooze:

I was chatting with Sherry (my Mom's best friend) today on the phone. She is shopping (what a shock) with one of her and my mom's good friend, Ramona, in Chicago. I mentioned that Cathie, her mom and the girls were there too!

Not even 20 minutes later, Sherry calls back and says that she just ran into them. Don't worry, everyone's okay. Crazy!!

Cathie texted me today and told me that they were walking down Michigan Avenue in Chicago and saw someone walking in front of them that looked just like Sherry. Sure enough, it was her. Small world.

Update: After reading the story again, I'm not exactly sure it deserves the title 'Crazy Story'. 'Mildly amusing story'? Maybe. 'Small World'? Better. Crazy... Only when it refers to Sherry.

Man Time

After football practice, Nate and I grabbed Slurpees, headed home and grilled some big 'ol steaks. As we ate our manly dinner, we watched one of the greatest football movies ever, Remember the Titans. Tomorrow we're heading to watch the Detroit Lions practice and then hit BW3's after practice for some hot wings.

Parking Lot Duty

Each family in Panthers football have to volunteer six hours of time in the organization. The jobs range from working the chains at a game, announcing, working concessions or selling tickets. I picked the first job available and signed up for parking lot duty. There are twelve teams with twenty five kids per team, which translates into a lot of cars, and I guess the need for parking lot attendants. As a parking lot attendant, I have to stand around for 30 minutes before and after practice and make sure people don't park on the lawn. I basically stand around for 30 minutes, smile and pretend like I've got a purpose there. I've tried to come up with ways to do the job better or smarter, but frankly, people pretty much don't park on grass, so I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing there. At least I get to wear a shiny green vest.

Switch to Facebook

Interesting article from Business Week on why people are switching from the business networking site LinkedIn to Facebook for professional networking.

Man Week

Cathie, Em and Madeline are in Chicago on a girls trip with Cathie's Mom. They stayed over at Cathie's parents last night and took the train out this morning. This means Nate and I are bachelors until Thursday night. We caught a movie last night and then went shopping for some "man-food" (steaks, pop, beer (for me), chips and pizza). When we originally found out about the trip, Nate and i had big plans for Cedar Point and Tigers games, but having football practice every night kind of put a damper on things. We've still got fun stuff planned - go-karting, Lions practice, BW3's and movies. We've moved the Wii upstairs along with our Xbox 360 so they're all on the big screen for late night video-gaming. We're thinking that our best bet is not clean the house until Thursday night right before the girls come home, at which point we'll go nuts and get it all straightened up.

Em's Trick

The kids and I headed to Lansing to see my Grandma and to see Cathie's parents. Despite the rain and the chill, the kids decided to swim. Em did her first flip off the diving board, or as she calls it, a 'Black Fip'.

Exreme Engineering

My degree is in Computer Science, but the degree is still part of Michigan State's College of Engineering - so I'm an engineer at heart. I was catching up on my Tivo'd shows and ended up watching the Discovery Channel show, Extreme Engineering, the Big Dig episode, one of the most ridiculous engineering feats ever done to re-route Boston's highway system underground. I was working on a project about ten years ago in downtown Boston as a lot of this was going on. It has got to be one of the most amazing engineering feats I've ever seen. (I've only seen three others, so I guess it's all relative)

"Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow."
-Oscar Wilde

I did it!

For the first time ever, I beat Emily in My Pretty Pony Memory Game. Twice. We've played this gmae a million times and she smokes me each and every time. Cathie claims she's beat Emily once a this game, but I'm skeptical.

Thrill Ride at Wal-mart

Nate, Em and I had to run some errands and came across this boat simulator ride setup outside of Walmart. Em learned that Nate's a scary driver.

When Mom's gone and Dad lets Em dress herself

I take half the blame. The other half is Jess Shinn's influence

Signalmap

Signalmap is a neat webapp that lets you punch in your zip code and your cellphone provider and see how the reception is where you live. Not only can you use it to gauge where the best place is to make your call, you can compare the four big providers so you can see which one is best suited for you (based on your home and work location). Of course, the signals are all user-contributed, so there's no guarantee that providers themselves haven't gone and flooded the site with slightly higher than usual signal ratings.

Check it out and add your own signal.

Jesus Curses the Fig Tree

I was reading these verses this morning and i scratched my head.

Mark:12-14, 20-21: The next morning as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. He noticed a fig tree in full leaf a little way off, so he went over to see if he could find any figs. But there were only leaves because it was too early in the season for fruit. Then Jesus said to the tree, “May no one ever eat your fruit again!” And the disciples heard him say it..... In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!"

Maybe this would have all made sense to the disciples back in the day, but I'm pretty sure if I were there with them, we'd have all been quietly asking each other, "You have any clue as to what that means? Nope? Ok, me neither."

Maybe Jesus had low blood sugar and was a little grumpy? I can relate.

Football

Nate's first practice in full pads is today. 95 degrees. Nice. He continues to love it.

Update: They ended up canceling practice yesterday because of the heat. I talked to my friend Newton down in Florida, where Football is a religion. He said they don't cancel practice unless there's lightning a few feet away. The kids don't even complain about the heat - just the fire ants on the field. After a recent practice he said it looked like the kids had the chicken pocks from the fire-ant bites.

Simpsons Movie

Will and I went to see the Simpsons movie last night. It was phenomenal. The movie opened up making fun of suckers like us who go see a movie based on a show you can watch 400 episodes for free on TV. One of my favorite parts was where Marge taped a goodbye video to Homer. In order to show she was serious, she explained that she'd taped it over the only copy of their wedding video. That was funny, to me.

On August 22nd, Cathie and I will celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary. About 6 months into things, I wasn't sure we'd make it that far. When we'd received our wedding video tape from a friend, i pushed in the write-protect tab instead of popping it out. Mistake. We had Cathie's boss at Big Brothers/Big Sisters over one night to our 400 square foot married housing apartment and we showed them our video. I never took it out of the VCR. Normally this wouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately, I had Star Trek, The Next Generation set to tape and it recorded over our ceremony. Wow. Bad move. Horribly bad move. Nothing like making your new bride sob for a while.

For our 1 year anniversary, I had a friend help me reconstruct a video from a bunch of people's movies (of our wedding) and came up with something that was so-so. We laugh about it now....

Mike Yaconelli Tribute

Thanks to Tom for this video tribute to Mike Yaconelli, considered by many (and more importantly me) to be the father of youth ministry. He's written two of my favorite books: Messy Spirituality and Dangerous Wonder. Mike founded Youth Specialties, a company that would create resources for youth pastors. They put on these giant youth worker conferences around the world, which I've gone to a few of. The highlight was always hearing Mike talk - encouraging and challenge youth workers like no one else. Whether you've heard of Mike or not, this is a great video: