Big Shooter

This is my nephew Drew's victory pose in front of his lucky tree. He led his team to victory on Saturday with three goals, giving them a 5-1 victory!

JV Gold Panthers vs. Fowlerville

It's a blast to watch Nate keep improving every week at football. He had his best week ever this week with a few big tackles, including the one pictured on the right as he's chasing down a guy heading towards the end-zone. Cathie's Dad was there to capture the moment on video. Cathie's Mom is over in Japan and not able to make the commute back for his games, so I wanted to put it online for her (and to brag about my son as I'm a very proud Dad). They lost the game by a touchdown and had one kid taken to the hospital in an ambulance.

Kevin, Sooze and the kids made it up for the game as well. Maddie and Em are proud of their brother, but only have so much tolerance for football. Coloring is a nice alternative. We had perfect weather for the game. Only three games left until the end of the season.

Paintball

We had a beautiful day for our 15th annual Crossroads Youth Group Paintball outing. What made it even better is that for the second year, Nate's been old enough to play as well with me. After doing this for so many years with other people's kids, it's so much fun being out there with Nate and doing this as a father-son activity. The best part for me is working with the fifth and sixth graders who play. They're all new enough and scared enough that they just need a little coaching and direction. We formed an unstoppable mob. Nate and I ended up with lots of welts, which Nate wears like badges of courage. We had a huge group, around 40, and did the event with two other youth groups in the area, giving us over 70 people total in our group.

Cathie was over at the Girards making Apple Cider, so I helped Nate pick out his clothes for paintball - trying to find some thick enough pants and shirt that might minimize the pain. Apparently I picked out his brand-new school shirt and only pair of dress pants. Nate was kind enough to try and take all the blame for me, but Cathie somehow re-directed it back to me. Oops.

My brother Jon is odd

Just like in US Weekly, Jon is asking you:

"Who wore it best?"

Is this animal cruelty or just the beginning of raising a kid just like Jon?

Stuck in Little Rock

Northwest finally cancelled our flight and we headed to downtown Little Rock to our hotel. It's a nice downtown and they've just gotten done celebrating the Little Rock Nine's fiftieth anniversary. We found this sign at the resturant where we ate.

Mud Bowl

Jason and I were trying to demonstrate how to play leap-frog in the mud as one of the games. Instead, it looks like I'm delivering some kind of odd choreographed dance with another man's head up my butt.

Bill Belanger's Shoes

I'm in Hot Springs with Bill and he was sporting an interesting foot wear choice.

Underwear

For 35 years of my life, the tag of my underwear has always been in the
back. My wife bought me new underwear with the tag in the front.
Apparently it's going to take me another 35 years to get used to this as
I've put them on backwards at first every time I've worn them over the
past 6 months.

Bad Dad?

I took Nate out of school early today to go and play Halo 3 with me. Probably not going to earn me the "Good Parent of the Year Award" unless kids are passing them out. We went over to the garage where there were a bunch of other high school kids from our youth group whose parents had done the same thing. Go figure.

Jail Bird

Cathie had to pick Emily up from school to take her to the doctor today. As they were leaving the school, Cathie remembered that she'd left something in the office. She ran inside to get it and came back to find Emily curled up on the floor of the van.

Cathie: "Emily, why are you laying on the floor?"
Emily: "Because I didn't want you to go to jail."
Cathie: "Go to jail?"
Emily: "Yeah. For leaving me in the van by myself."

Halo - the Review

Nigel got here about 12:30 with Halo 3. We hooked it up and played two player for a while. The graphics, textures and shading are amazing. The new features rock. Haven't played the story-mode yet.

Halo 3

I had originally pre-ordered Halo 3 from Amazon, assuming they'd ship it early so that I would receive the game on the day it was released, like they did with Harry Potter.

Instead, I met Jason and Nigel up at Game Stop, took advantage of Jason's Barnes and Nobles discount and pre-ordered it. Nigel's picking it up at midnight and dropping it off at my house. The countdown is on.

Em and Her Teacher

Emily's teacher happens to be a good friend of ours. We had her over for dinner tonight, as we have many times, but this is the first time she was here as Emily's teacher. It was the equivalent of having Barry Sanders come over and have dinner with me. She was pure celebrity. Remember back to what a big deal it was when you saw your teacher in a non-school setting. Em's teacher has known her since she was a baby and it's funny to see how quiet Em is in her class, even though she's known her forever.

As she was enjoying an adult beverage, Emily asked her, "Ms. X, while you're drinking, could you play Go-Fish with me." Later as she was eating, Em said quietly, "Wow Ms. X, you must have been really hungry."

Em and Baily

I came outside yesterday after watching the Lions get destroyed and I found Emily laying on the lawn in front of the house, with Baily the guinea pig on her back. No idea what she was doing, but the girl sure loves her animals.

How long is too long?

Very good article on the question How long do I wait to buy new technology?

Mudbowl 2007

We had an the perfect storm for this year's tenth annual Crossroads Mudbowl. We had perfect weather, a great team of guys that did the leg work and setup, a ton of kids and great mud. We played steal the bacon, link tag, four-corner crossing and caterpillar racing followed by a team painting contest.

I stayed pretty mud-free until the end when the 8th graders tag-teamed me and tried to take me down. Nate started off playing and was joined at the end by Cathie and Maddie. Nate brought his buddy Austin to play.

Cathie, Jess and Jen all got into it - and Maddie took multiple dunkings from Tiff and Jess both. The highlight was watching Jess and Tifff deliver regular beatings to each other in the pit.


Since I was out of town last week, they were kind enough to move it to this week so I could be a part of it. Our Pastor Joe explained in Church today that he had a very, very somber and important family event that he had to be at and could not make the Mud Bowl. I was never aware that your team NHL Fantasy Hockey Draft qualified as a somber family event.

You can see the rest of the pictures on our youth group's site here.

Panthers vs. Brighton Game

Nate's team lost to the Brighton Bulldogs 0-19. These guys were impressive, including the 6'3" sixth grader with a 50" vertical, as pictured on the left. These guys seemed to play dirty, including the giant #54 pictured in both of these shots. How many personal fouls can you see wrong with the picture on the right?

Nate's been getting a lot more playing time and I've been getting out on the field taking more and more pictures, including a couple like this one below where I almost got drilled.

The coach continues to do a great job with these boys, knowing how to motivate them and work on the fundamentals. Brighton traditionally has a very good team and the silver lining in this cloud was that they beat us by less than they'd beaten the other teas.

Nate

Nate and I were playing Madden '08 today. He was the Patriots and I was the Colts.

Nate: "Dad, why is that guy on the kick-off team named Gay?"
Me: "No idea."

Later on the kick-return when Nate was about to tackle me with the same player.

Nate: "Look Dad, I'm gay."
Me: "Wow."

Em's view of the world

"This piece of pizza is mine, but not forever. Soon I'm gonna poop it out."
-Emily, eating pizza

I love my youth group

...and this picture of them.

Emily's Room Cleaning

Emily is our little third child negotiator. She believes the world is her bargaining table. She didn't want to clean her room, so she figured she'd negotiate her way out of it:

Emily: "Mom, if you're going make me clean my room then I'm going to sleep in this box."
Cathie: "You're going to sleep in a box? Ok."

and later....

Emily: "Mom, if you make my clean my room, I'm going to be sad and wear this box on my head the whole time."
Cathie: "Ok. You can be sad and wear a box on your head. Just as long as your room gets clean."

Emily is SMRT

Emily: "Dad, i know how to scare a fly just by walking by it'
Me: "Did Ms. Brainard (family friend and Em's 1st grade teacher0 teach you that trick?"
Emily: "I already knew it BEFORE I started first grade."

L.A. County Fair Ads

Thanks to Jenny for these hilarious commercials for the LA County Fair:



This, this and this are just as funny.

Brokaw on Junior High

Addressing the graduating class of emory university, tom brokaw said:

You have been hearing all of your life that this occasion is a big step into what is called the real world. What, you may ask, is that real world all about? What is this new life? Ladies ahttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifnd gentlemen of the class of 2005 at Emory, real life is not college; real life is not high school. Here is a secret that no one has told you: Real life is junior high.

The world that you’re about to enter is filled with junior high adolescent pettiness, pubescent rivalries, the insecurities of 13-year-olds, and the false bravado of 14-year-olds. 40 years from now, I guarantee it: You will still make a silly mistake every day. You will have temper tantrums and you’re feelings will be hurt for some trivial sleight. You’ll say something dumb at the wrong time. And you will wonder at least once a week, “Will I ever grow up?” You can change that. In your pursuit of your passions, always be young. In your relationship with others, always be grown-up. Set a standard, and stay faithful to it.

tom brokaw, emory university commencement address

(thanks to for this)

Glad I'm not like this

Glad I'm not like this.... No really... I'm uncomfortable gong 2 hours without the internet:

A recent survey shows most Americans are uncomfortable going more than a day without the internet; online activity also lessens the amount of time people spend having sex and socializing with friends face-to-face.

My TV is fixed

The guy came at 7:30 this morning to fix the TV and we're good to go. Apparently the bulbs on DLP TV's last about 2 -3 years or 5,000 - 10,000 watchable hours. Since we bought the TV in 2002, the guy showed me that had the TV on for 9,756 hours. Mind you our macmini is hooked up to the TV and we use it as a home entertainment system for pictures and music - but that's still a LOT of time. An embarrassing lot of time.

This is probably the first time I've fasted from TV for a week as we waited for the repair guy. This being a crazy week at work, I found myself working at night. Even last night when I wrapped up with work, Cathie and I were both sitting in front of our laptops instead of hanging out together. The good news is that the TV is fixed in time to play Halo 3 next Tuesday.

iPod Touch Review

I fell in love with the new iPod touch when I saw it at the press conference. I've been reading all of the reviews (This is by far the most comprehensive review I've seen out there. Mossberg has an interesting review as well) and trying to figure out if i really NEED one of these. I bought my iPod in 2004 when the 20GB 4G iPod was first released. Through the beauty of Best Buy service contracts, I now have a state of the art (for 2 more weeks) 80GB Video iPod that works great. To my earlier thoughts on simplicity, buying another device to support, keep track of and manage doesn't really play into that. Since I don't really NEED this and the money could go to way better places to bring way more joy to others than it would to me, I'm torn. Nothing like knowing the right thing to do and not wanting to do it.

Fashion Divas

Cathie had small group last night and decided to get dressed up in this fancy pants-suit, complete with swank ear-rings, shoes and boob-shaped-purse. Her friends had gotten her this nifty outfit for her 37th birthday, figuring she should start dressing her age.

Emily on the other hand chose this outfit, and decided not to button it up because it would be a lot of work. This is the outcome after having Jess Shinn influence your children's fashion sense combined with having a lazy third child.

First JV Gold Panthers Victory

Nate's football team won their first game ever, 26 - 6! The kids were thrilled. The coach had told them he'd shave his head on the first victory. Should be fun to watch. Dan, Kris and the kids were there to see the first win - while I was up North, which I felt really bad about. I wanted to see it really badly - and wish I'd of gone p North later after the game.

Guy's Trip - Day 2

We golfed on Sunday at Black Forest golf course up in Gaylord. The course was beautiful and the weather was perfect. Nine of us played, two teams, for money, of course. I figured that after golfing all year in a league, I might not continue to embarrass myself on the course. I was wrong. I think i was actually worse this year than in the past.

If nothing else, we enjoyed cold beer and cigars, and laughed a lot. My favorite pictures are these of Mark Kohne, hitting the ball - almost - or at least a giant piece of grass.

In the evenings, everyone had their laptops and would break them out periodically to check e-mail or update their fantasy football team. Newton apparently worked so hard that he fell asleep. That's just the way they roll in South Alabama.

Guy's Weekend

We left on Saturday morning for our fifth annual Xerox guy's weekend. We started five years ago with a local group of guys who worked together, heading up to my friend Bill's place to wake-board, eat, drink and golf. We've now got it to the point where people fly in from all around the country. We're a team that all work virtually, many of us who've worked together as long as 13 years. This is a time to get together to just hang out, have fun and solve the company's problems.

Glenn (in the middle) flew in Friday afternoon from Arkansas and stayed with us. I took Glenn into the "D" so he could see the best of Detroit and then we headed back to our house to hang out.


Todd made about 450 jello shots to keep things lively and he brought the game Corn Hole, which we played for roughly 13 hours non-stop, with lots of side-bets and jello consumption. One of the rules of the game is that you must have a beer in your hand as you throw. The game consists of throwing bean-bags into a hole.

Newton flew in from Alabama and apparently brought his wife's pretty flowered suitcase. Bill continued his role as the the grill-master as we ate like kings with a giant beef-brisket. Today we're heading out to golf, eat and hang out some more.

Simplicity

1. My big-screen TV is broken. Thankfully I'd bought a service plan and it won't cost me a penny to have it fixed.
2. I was cleaning my hot-tub out this morning and filling it out, getting it ready for the fall. I found a dead frog and a ton of frog poop all over the thing. Nasty.

Having lots of stuff can be a pain in the butt. This post on living a life of simplicity was painful to read.

Last Night's Junior High Chaos

We kicked off the year with a huge crowd at our first Chaos meeting, over half of the kids being brand new sixth graders, who I think a blast. Being their first Chaos meeting, they got to pick from the box of crap, which is a collection of dollar store junk that they seem to love. One of the 6th grade guys picked out a set of decorative plastic nut cups. He held on to these the rest throughout the meeting, including in our small group breakout time. In our guys small group, we were talking about the types of things you have to leave behind to follow Jesus where one of the kids shared the obvious thing: nut cups.

The boys were wetting themselves laughing at this idea and every time anyone said 'nut cups', the guys kept laughing harder and harder. Every time I used the words "nut cups" they assumed I had no idea why it should be funny. That's the beauty of having a sixth grade sense of humor.

Mike's Asher Pole

While I was waiting for my Dad, I called Mike to find out where to eat. I brougt him a free lunch of some nasty chinese food and I ended up visiting his house so I could see his new pool. I'm pretty sure he loves it more than Jesus.

Dad is in recovery

I just met with the surgeon and he said that everything went very well. Funny, he did not mention that it would have been faster had I been there to assist.

They were able to remove the blockage and there was no undue stress on the heart during the procedure. He was under local anesthetic, so recovery should be fairly quick. He's in post-op right now and he'll be moved up to ICU in an hour or so for recovery. He should be able to go home tomorrow and drive by the end of the week. As much as Dad requested a catheter, they would not put one in for him. Even though they said he should be fine, Susan keeps insisting she needs to help him go to the bathroom. Weird, huh?

Sad Day for Eli

Poor, poor Eli. I have embarrassed both him and his family. As usual, Eli was crushed by me in this past weekend's fantasy football league 165 to 123. Eli is the consummate football fan who understands the game inside and out and knows all of the stats off the top of his head. This makes it even more humiliating for him to lose to a novice like myself, a guy who can barely spell football. As a side note, my brother Dan is embarrassing the family with his beating from the Rays family, 198 to 120. Eli could have beaten him, I guess.

Dad's surgery

My Dad is having surgery today to have his carotid artery roto-rootered. I stayed over at his house in Dewitt last night and we sat around watching my Dad's taped editions of Oprah (In his defense, David Letterman was on) while I drunk Will's gift of 12 year old single malt scotch. In preparation for his surgery, I volunteered to shave his chest, but he said it wasn't necessary. I explained that you can't be too careful and drew the line at giving him a sponge bath - again, not necessary. We got up at 4:30 to get to the hospital in time so that we could wander around the hospital lost for fifteen minutes and then wait around for another hour.

The procedure he's having is called Carotid Edearterectomy and they do it under local anesthetic, so they can make sure he's still getting enough blood-flow to the brain, but they keep him knocked-out enough so he won't try make jokes or tell "funny" stories. When they put him under with the initial dose of truth serum, I asked him who his favorite son is, and he said me. Enough said. Many people wrote in suggesting I assist with the procedure, ready to toss a junior mint in at a moments notice. Apparently, the surgeons are not as open to help as one might think. Prima Donnas. He's at Ingham Medical in Lansing if you want to stop by and say hi. Don't bring him any Single Malt Scotch, Will already took care of that.

Ouch

Wow. Bad year to be a Michigan fan. I smiled watching my alma-mater Michigan State defeat Bowling Green and saw Michigan get trounced by Oregon. These stats on ESPN were fun to look at. Since MSU has historically started strong over the past few years, enough to get my hopes up, and then tank in the second half - I need to enjoy this while it lasts.