I think I might like to live in China someday. A lot of of my toys say they are made in China, so they must be really creative.
-Emily
After waking up Christmas morning at my Dad's house, we headed over to Cathie's parents house, just down the street from my Dad. Ed and Stacy were there along with their baby (dog) Justice. It's a nice change of pace from my Dad's house, where you can actually kick back and read a book for more than 30 seconds or take a nap without having to go hide under the bed somewhere. Em loves pickles (she eats them like Popsicles) and even received this pickle ornament! Cathie's parents were super generous and amongst other things, I received a very cool iHome iPod clock radio.
We opened presents and then had a HUGE dinner. Stacy made six different kinds of desserts which we grazed on for a while. As you can see from the picture, my brother-in-law Ed brought his favorite dessert: Spotted Dick, a British delicacy. I'm a firm believer that an Uncle's job is to spoil their nieces and nephews and do the things for them that their parents find questionable. Things like teaching them to drive before their time, teaching them funny limericks and sneaking them pieces of candy right before bed-time. I believe that the same thing holds true with my dog-nephew Justice. I felt that it was my duty to give him scraps of food at dinner and throughout the day, leaving before there was any vomit to clean up. I'm pretty sure Ed and Stacy appreciate my faithful uncling (that must be a word - my spell check didn't flag it)
After dinner we all hung out, napped, read and played games. Nate got Madden '08 (which he believes he has mastered) and got two whoopings from his Uncle Ed. Cathie's Dad had a chance to find his true love in guitar hero, which he is now considering quitting his job to play professionally.
On a very sad note: Many of you may not know that my sister-in-law Stacy just so happens to be a book-mark nazi. She believes she has been placed on this earth to save books from broken spines and bent pages. Last time we were over, I couldn't figure out why every time I would come back to my book, it would be closed, when I was sure I had left it open or turned a corner on the page. I got my revenge by yanking Stacy's bookmark out every time I saw it laying around. With Stacy being a lawyer, you would think she would support my constitutionally guaranteed right to treat my book however I want. Not sure what law school she went to.
You can see the rest of the pictures here.
On Christmas Eve we headed over to my Dads house for Christmas. As the second Christmas after my Mom's death, it was a little more normal and a little less sad, but there were still reminders of my Mom in everything we did. Sometimes the reminders made me smile, sometimes I teared up.
We had a huge dinner and then got dressed and ready for church. We went to my Mom's church in Haslett, a traditional Lutheran service which I love. We've gone to my Mom's church for Christmas eve ever since I was a kid. I used to dread it as a kid, but I love the tradition and the liturgy, along with all of the memories that go with it. We sang every Christmas carol there is and then at the end we sing Silent Night while holding candles (and constantly trying to blow each others candles out in between verses). As the kids (all eleven of them now) are getting older, Church is a little less chaotic. At one time, we had nine of them under six and you can imagine that church was nuts. It never stopped my Mom from being proud of everyone of her grandkids at church and wanting to show them off. My Dad tried to use my Mom's trick at one point and pass out candy to the kids. Some at it, others rejected the candy saying that it tasted like "pocket". There was one part in the service where every year for about 15 years I would lean over to my Mom and ask if the "Barclay Boys" were going to do their solo. My Mom would patiently explain to me that they had moved away many, many years ago, acting each time as if I just didn't know. This year I had to lean over and ask my siblings.
My Mom was also very passionate about making sure we took our family pictures every Christmas. She would bribe the grandchildren with treat bags to get the pictures done. We did it in record time this year, getting them before we headed to church so immediately after we could change and the kids could open presents.
Because i am the Godfather of their three boys, Dan and Kris asked that I join their family picture, and then take a separate picture with Dan that he could put into his office. I happily obliged.
We had some phenomenal gifts this year. One the good kind of phenomenal, one the embarrassingly bad kind. Jon and Bethie got Em and Maddie a high-school musical sing-along game for the Wii that my Nephews seemed to especially love (and I caught Nate mouthing the words in the background as the girls sang).
In the past, Dan and Kris have tried to buy my Dad the most outlandish gift. One year they got him old fashioned nails and another year a fireplace pop corn popper. Not to be outdone, Jon bought my Dad a special butter dish that doesn't have to be refrigerated. My guess is that being down in Memphis, Jon had not heard that my Dad had a heart attack a while back and that butter is not on the list of things to be consumed in a low-cholesterol, low-fat diet.
One of my Moms last requests was that we keep my Dads clothes up to date so that he doesn't begin to dress like an old man. My Dad was kind enough to gift each of us one of his sweaters, as seen above. (The irony was that Dan has and still wears one of the sweaters).
As the kids are getting older, the younger ones continue to get more attention, especially by the aunts and uncles. Bender and Reagan are especially cute. Ben (as seen on the right after I put some styling gel in his hair) cracked me up with his obsession for deer and waking Nate up Christmas morning with "Nate play football hit guys") and little Reagan is probably the cutest Kurt/Mayes baby of all time (my Mom would disagree, saying that they were all beautiful).
It was a fantastic Christmas with a ton to be grateful for. The only odd thing was that Dan and Kris did not stay over at my Dads on Christmas Eve night like they usually do. We were all a little surprised by this. (Note to those in the family: Dan and Kris have been driving back Christmas Eve night for about ten years. Every year everyone in the family acts surprised and probably mention it 20 or 30 times how strange it is that Dan and Kris aren't staying over this year).
You can see the rest of the pictures here.
Cool Christmas Note from MarkO for youth workers:
“Don’t be afraid.”
That’s how the Christmas story starts in Scripture. Twice, in fact. First, the angel shows up to Zechariah (telling him about his future son, John) and says, “dude, chill.”
Then the angel shows up to Mary and says the same thing (well, probably not the “dude” part).
Is it just the being-startled-by-an-angel part that precipitated that calming word? Seems to me it was so much more than that. The messenger wasn’t only saying, “Hey, I realize I’m a strange sight, and I’ve just materialized in front of you in a way that is likely startling.” The angel was, I believe, defining a path. The angel was speaking words that would need to be remembered over and over as the arrival of the Christ-child would completely up-end the world of those intimately involved in his birth.
You see it coming, right? You and I, my youth working friend, are intimately involved in the arrival of the Christ. I mean, sure, we’re not physically there. But this is our story! Since we get to be children of God, Jesus is both our brother and our savior. Jesus IS OUR STORY.
So the “don’t be afraid” should come to us too.
You might be thinking, “Afraid? What do I have to be afraid of?” Well, my contention would be that if you don’t have a sense of what you should be afraid of, you might not be fully living into the upside-down, kingdom-rearranging, first-shall-be-last, love-your-neighbor reality of what Jesus brought (and continues to bring).
The truth: you have plenty to be afraid of. But be not afraid.
This is one of those wonderful (and sometimes annoying, if we’re honest) paradoxes the Bible leaves us with:
Fear God… Who loves you unconditionally and tenderly.
God is all powerful and all loving… But seems to regularly not intervene in human suffering.
We’re in this world and are called to engage this world… But, ultimately, we’re not of this world.
The creator of the universe… Often speaks in a still, small voice.
You have plenty to be afraid of… But don’t be afraid.
Let’s be honest: working with teenagers, no matter how much you love them and are called to this ministry, is cause for fear. They’re a messy lot. The work is never done. The needs are never fully met. The demands and expectations of youth ministry pull in every direction, often in opposition with one another. If you live into this calling, sooner or later, you’ll get hurt; you’ll get ignored; you’ll be misunderstood; you’ll be blamed; you’ll be misrepresented; and you’ll screw up.
But, be not afraid.
For unto us a child is born. And “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”
Oh holy night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of our dear Saviour's birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
Till He appear'd and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angels' voices!
Oh night divine, Oh night when Christ was born;
Oh night divine, Oh night, Oh night Divine.
I'm pretty sure that Kasey has been watching (as in babysitting, not stalking) our kids since she was in middle school. She babysat for us on Friday night and on Saturday night she came over and took the girls to see Enchanted (she thought she'd look weird going by herself) and then hung out with Cathie helping her wrap presents while Michael, Nate and I alternated between watching the Dallas game and playing Halo 3.
As the kids have gotten older, she continues to watch the kids, but she's become like a big sister to the girls. She's amazing with them, and they adore her. I'm so thankful that the girls have a collection of older girls like this in their lives that they can talk to and have as role-models as they grow up.
Kasey grew up in our youth group at church, which her Mom Nicki helped me run for a lot of years. In middle school, she never wanted to go to the meetings, partly because she thought she was too cool, partly because she wanted to sleep in(we met on Saturday morning - can you blame her?) Over the years, she became like a little sister to me, and with that came the power of me having the chance to meet each of her boyfriends and let them know if they could continue to date Kasey or not. A while back, she started dating a guy named Michael, who I wasn't sure about. I had a chance to hang with him for a week when he went to camp Velocity with us to help out. After that, i was sold. A while back the two of them got engaged and they're getting married in August I think. The full-circle part of this is that Kasey's fiancee Michael will be the new Youth Pastor at Crossroads with Kasey helping out. I'm very excited about both of them being here.
We had our family Christmas yesterday. We celebrate Christmas eve and morning with my Dad, and then Christmas day with Cathie's family, so we started celebrating Christmas a few years back to give the kids a chance to have play with their presents and have some time as our family to celebrate Christmas. We woke up around 8 to 47 degree weather and gale force winds. We opened presents and then hung out and played with them for a while, and then cleaned up the house to get ready for our Christmas Eve-Eve post-Church party.
I was particularly proud of myself in that I had all of Cathie's Christmas shopping done by the end of November, which I've never done before. I got Cathie a Roomba floor cleaning robot. This was kind of risky because it had the potential to be the equivalent of getting her a vacuum cleaner as a gift. To understand why this qualifies as a decent gift, you need to understand Cathie's o.c.d.-like-love of clean floors and well vacuumed carpets. My thought was something that was cool and could do the job for her would be a good gift. It turns out she likes it (or at least is telling me that she does)
The thing is amazing (to me). It cruises around the lower level of the house, cleans the flooors and then goes back into it's dock to recharge. We've named it Rover (Maddie's idea) and it is fun to watch. It does a very thorough job of cleaning, even able to make it through Nate's room, including under his bed, without committing robot-ritual-suicide due to the mess. It can't be stopped (almost - short of trying to ingest an arm-cover for a chair) by much and it's a blast to watch. Before buying one, I checked with Anne Rays who gave it thumbs up, but warned me that you don't really gain any time because you spend the time watching the Roomba work.
Christmas Eve Eve evening we went to church with and then headed back to our house, where we'd invited neighbors and friends from to work to church with us and then over to our house afterwards to hang out. We hung out, did a lot of laughing, eating, drinking and being merry (not Mary).
We hadn't seen Wilbur and Monaca for a while and last night we went on a double date (seemed strange that they would wear their graduation garb). We met up in Brighton to go see Cathie's heart-throb, Will Smith in the new movie, I am Legend. Wish someone had told me that it was that scary and intense. I went in thinking it was more of a men-in-black type movie where Will Smith makes a few funny jokes as he saves the world. Didn't happen.
We headed out afterwards to a chic new martini bar in town which was crowded and too noisy, and then grabbed coffee and dessert somewhere else.
Over dessert we sat around playing "Two truths and a lie". Between the four us, we learned the following truths:
- One of us has gone on a date with Slash from Guns and Roses
- One of us used to spell their name with one "L" instead of two.
- One of us broke their front tooth off on a ride at Cedar Point
- One of us used to date the Mayor of Lansing's daughter
- One of us was detained for trying to steal the constitution
- One of us ran naked part way across the golden gate bridge.
- One of us was never the president of the united states.
Emily had been sent to her room and Cathie went upstairs a while later to tell her that she could come down. She found Emily with her legs taped to the leg of her dresser. Cathie asked her why she was taped and Em's response was:
This was the only way I could keep myself from getting out of my room.
Just a quick list of things I'm thankful for:
- A wife that is beautiful on the inside and out, who gets me completely and loves me unconditionally.
- Three kids who are the greatest blessing in my life, are healthy, are amazing reflections of faith, joy and love, and who God constantly uses to teach me about grace and His love for me.
- A family to love and be loved by, to have fun with, to support and include others in their joy.
- A job that I love, that I'm good at, with people that I love and with bosses who understand and leverage my strengths and are forgiving and tolerant of my weaknesses, and let me be me.
- A home full of stuff that I love.
- Being a part of a beautiful, amazing church that constantly teaches me why Jesus refers to the bride of Christ, with pastors, leaders and elders that love deeply, lead well, gracefully and sacrificially.
- A group of friends that love me for who I am and provide me with such joy in my life, accountability, support and laughter.
- A deep joy in my life that allows me to laugh often and hard.
- A God who loves me so much that he would leave heaven and invade earth to come and save me from myself and in turn use me to to help set the world right this side of heaven.
- A Savior who is in the process of transforming me from being a self-centered, self-righteous, hard hearted ass into a person who is a person who is more generous of my time and with my stuff, who cares more and more about the poor and hurting and values others more and more.
Apparently my saying dumb things is contagious. Here's the story:
My wife is in charge of the Christmas nut order for Emily's brownie troop. Her job last night was to distribute the nut orders to the parents. Easy enough. The conversations should have gone something like this:
Cathie: "Hello parent, I have your nut order for you to take home with you."
Parent: "Why thank you for that lovely nut order. I will cherish it forever."
Instead, one of the conversations went something like this:
Cathie (to one of the Dad's walking in): "Don't let me forget to grab your nuts before you leave"
Parent: "Ok, but i'm not sure my wife'll be too crazy about that."
Cathie: "Crap"
If you ever accidentally leave your camera in the classroom of a kindergarten teacher, strange things happen. We got the camera back in working order, but with about twenty very odd pictures on the camera of various teachers and different parts of the school.
These pictures will go very nicely with the other odd ones we have of Sheri (Em's teacher, on the left) for future blackmail.
I was listening to a message from Mars Hill by Chris Seay (author of the book, Gospel According to Tony Soprano) entitled Worship the Baby, Resist the Empire. His message talked about the way we've perverted Christmas in terms of the stuff and indulgence - something we've all probably heard before in one way or another in terms of what Christmas is all about. One part of his message stopped me in my tracks and made my heart sink. Chris told the story about how he was having a discussion with a friend about what God must think about the excess in terms of the way we celebrate the birth of Christ when there is so much poverty, famine and disease around the world. His friend responded with a parable something like this from the perspective of a Dad, (put in the context of my kids):
Suppose Nate became a famous football player out on the West Coast who pulled in millions and millions of dollars as a result of his contracts and endorsements. Suppose his sister Madeline lived on the East Coast and her kids could not get a decent education and her kids were dying of diseases where cures exist. Meanwhile, Emily lived in the South in an area where her children were very sick and dying because they simply couldn't get drinking water.
Chris Seay continued on with the story, reflecting on the question:
As a Dad, what would my desire be for Nate with all of his excess? Of course it would be for him to use his abundance to help his family, to give them a hand up out of their poverty, disease and needs.
It's probably barely even obvious to those around me, but Jesus has been transforming my life over the past years to make me a guy who is more and more generous with what I have and hold more and more loosely to what I have. I'm not even close to being there. With all that I have, I constantly amaze myself on how I sure I am that stuff will make me happy, and I continue to be surprised when it doesn't (except my TV - that makes me really really happy, and an iPhone would give me a true, deep, eternal contentment). When I reflected on that parable, I wonder what question my heavenly father would ask me when confronted with the same reality in my world as the parable above. What kind of job am I doing as the "wealthy brother" to meet the needs of the poor and hurting in the world around me?
Every time I think about where I'm at and my connection to my stuff, I feel a little like the rich young ruler that Jesus talked to around the stuff in his life that he would not let go of to follow Jesus.
Cathie and I are are going on a mini-getaway down for four nights down in Flordia. I've got a meeting in Orlando towards the end of January, so I'm going to fly down, meet Cathie in Miami and we're going to drive down and spend a couple days in Key West. We'll then spend a day in Miami and then fly out Sunday morning. I'm able to do all of the airfare, hotels and car based on the frequent flier/driver/stayer points, including some pretty amazing hotels in Key West and South Beach.
Back in 2005 Ted, Will, Brad, Bob and I went down to Florida for Brad's 50th birthday to go deep-sea fishing. Fishing conditions weren't great so we rented two matching Seabring convertibles and road-tripped down to Key West for a couple of days. 2 Months later, Cathie and visited Key West as a port of call on my company's president's club award trip and spent a few hours there snorkeling and touring around, but not long enough to see the sunset, which is amazing. Two nights there will give us a good chance to decompress in the laid back atmosphere, enjoy the sun and the margaritas and look for Jimmy Buffett.
This trip would not be possible without my Dad's offering to watch the kids while we're gone. Not only did he offer, but he's really looking forward to it - as far as I know. On a side note, what I find so cool about my Dad's recent retirement that instead of making it all about him and relaxing after 45+ years of work, he sees this as a time to serve others and spend as much time as possible with his friends, kids and grandkids. He's also started taking classes towards a Masters in Theology as he goes back and wants to be even more involved in his church in a Lay-capacity (I suggested that it was so he would become as smart as me, but he denies this). Anyways, thanks Dad!
At the beginning of last year, Brad and I and a few others started doing trying to read the bible in a year, following this schedule. It consisted of reading seven days a week for about 15-20 minutes per day. This is something my Mom did for 20 years, every day.
Today, I finished, in under a year. The year was more of a goal to shoot for to keep me doing this as part of my daily regiment. What I especially enjoyed about the whole thing was digging into the old testament, something I just don't do that often outside of Psalms, Proverbs or to read the story of David. What an amazingly dysfunctional family and story, with these vectors that all point to the Messiah. The downside to reading it at this pace is that at days, it was a chore to do it, and that the journaling that I normally do suffered this year, and I didn't read much in terms of soul-reading outside of the Bible this year. I discovered that I dig Jeremiah, the weeping prophet and all of the funky object lessons stuff that God had him do to send a message to His people (I think I also figured out where Jesus got his hatred of figs).
This post is no more than a pat on the back because I'm proud that I persevered and finished it in a year and grew by doing it. I am amazed as I look back at how what I would read each day would come to life in what I was doing or thinking. It was a great way to start the day, with God's word permeating my skull. The big theme that came through to me was what it looks like to fear God, in a healthy way. This is a concept that I'm still internalizing and trying to figure out how to live out and apply to the way that I treat others and treat God.
"ENFPs are energetic and enthusiastic leaders who are likely to take charge when a new endeavor needs a visionary spokesperson. ENFPs are values-oriented people who become champions of causes and services relating to human needs and dreams. Their leadership style is one of soliciting and recognizing others' contributions and of evaluating the personal needs of their followers. ENFPs are often charismatic leaders who are able to help people see the possibilities beyond themselves and their current realities. They function as catalysts."
- ENFP - The Visionary (Lifexplore)
"Friends are what life is about to ENFPs, moreso even than the other NFs. They hold up their end of the relationship, sometimes being victimized by less caring individuals. ENFPs are energized by being around people. Some have real difficulty being alone, especially on a regular basis."
- ENFP Profile (TypeLogic)
"Ranked 1st of all 16 types in using social and emotional coping resources and 2nd in using cognitive resources. "
- ENFP Facts (discoveryourpersonality.com)
"outgoing, social, disorganized, easily talked into doing silly things, spontaneous, wild and crazy, acts without thinking..."
- ENFP Jung Type Descriptions (similarminds.com)
My own son didn't even recognize me... Jay as a distinguished business man was equally tough to recognize, complete with his bluetooth ear piece, newspaper and our matching scarves.
The kids were all set to head out to the bus stop this morning as I ran upstairs to grab my suitcase. As I listened to the school closing being rattled off, I yelled down to Cathie to see if she'd checked to make sure the kids had school. The next thing I heard from Cathie was, "Everyone back to bed! Snow Day!" Maddie was in tears as today was the day that her Grandma was coming in to talk to her class about her 3 month stay in Japan. Em was disappointed that she was missing pajama day while Nate could not of been happier.
My flight to New York was surprisingly on time, but the roughest flight I've ever had. Half of the plane was throwing up due to the turbulence we experienced. The pilot came on and explained to everyone collectively how to dispose of their barf bags. Nice.
I have very important meeting tomorrow and then I'm back tomorrow night, done traveling for the year.
We woke up this morning to about a foot of snow in our driveway and church canceled so around 10am I headed out to start shoveling. The wind was blowing hard and seemed to be depositing all of the snow in our driveway. Growing up, my Dad's philosophy was "Why do I need a snow-blower when I have 3 strong sons and one whiny daughter?" I headed out (without any of my kids at first) to try and clear off the driveway, while my neighbors snow-blowers whirred in the background. An hour later I was done so Em came and out joined me. We wandered around out back, finding a quiet spot under some brush to sit, cuddle and listen to the wind (isn't that a Cat Stevens song?). As always, Em's thoughts turned to the animals, trying to figure out where they'd be on a day like this. We ended up going on a hike to find animal tracks. We found none - except Rileys.
Each year, whenever we get our firs big snow, we go in the backyard and create a huge pile of snow at the base of the swing set and the kids jump into it. As they've gotten older, their tricks have gotten a little crazier, most of which Cathie wouldn't be crazy about. I showed some common sense in nixing Nate's request to do a flip off the top of the swingset, figuring this wasn't the ideal place to figure out the difference between a diving board and a ten foot drop into snow.
Nate, Em and I edited it into this video:
What's happened to the kids since? Susan has gotten married and had 3 kids, along with getting a hair cut and some fashion sense. Cathie has sworn off of bad Christmas sweaters and had two more kids, Jon and Beth have 2 more kids and Beth's still not done with school, while Kris is still wearing turtlenecks and has 2 more kids. Me? I had no need to change a thing... Except for my square-headed haircut.
I had a bunch of negatives scanned in from pictures I'd taken ten years ago. I came across a whole bunch of pictures of us, the Heikkinen's and the Thompsons from 1997, New Years Eve, I think. Amazing to think that we now have ten kids amongst us.
We had the our second annual Malltease Manhunt today, an idea we stole from Butler's crew at Calvary Baptist church. Eighteen of the high school kids, college students and leaders put on disguises and wonder the mall. The kids have mug-shot books that show each of the people they're trying to find, without the disguises. We had six big teams (pictured on the left) wandering the mall, looking for their suspects. When they find the person in question, they have to join hands around the person and recite, "Twinkle, Twinkle little star, we think we know who you are. You are (fill in the blank)." The person would then give them a poker chip of some denomination based on the difficulty of the disguise.
Nate's team thought they'd found one of the girls (Courtney Novara) and circled around her and recited the rhyme, ending with "you're Courtney". She stared at them and said, "Yeah, I am." They responded, "Can we have the poker chip?" Her response: "Huh?" They'd found the wrong girl.
I walked around with Reagan (pictured below with a pregnant Tiff), in a Best Buy shirt and cheesy, dirty mustache. I was an old man with reading glasses (prescription glasses - I couldn't see ten feet in front of me). He and I wandered through Nordstrom's at one point as the staff stared at this odd combination of people. As soon as we'd spot a group of kids, we'd let them pass and start following them around the mall. At one point, we thought we'd make awesome CIA agents based on our ability to follow people - until we'd get distracted by something, and lose track of the people we were tracking. All the sudden we didn't feel like great secret agents any more. Apparently secret agents have to be very, very focused. Not a great trait for either of us. Reagan also taught me the game called: "Touch the stranger" that he and his buddies play at Cedar Point. I stood back and watched as Reagan walked up to a guy and ran his hand across the guys jacket, trying to make it seem accidental. I laughed as the guy turned and stared at Reagan as he walked by, trying to figure out what the guy was doing. Reagan explained that the greatest act is to draw an entire "S" across someones back - something you can't "accidentally" do. He explained how one of his buddies walked up to a guy and squeezed his arm four times and walked away. Odd, huh? Darn funny to see, though.
Five of the six teams ended up finding us. Nate's team ended up not finding us partly because Reagan and I ended up following them for about a half hour (only losing them 12 or 13 times when we got distracted).
Check out some of these outfits.
Katie Green was dressed like a home-schooler, Fez and Kasey did the Emo thing, complete with his lip ring, eyeliner, nail polish.
Regan looked oh so creepy and Tiff ended up ditching the wig, but the baby looked oh-so-real. Meghan Greene looked blended in, while J and Jess were dressed as business people - wearing normal business clothes - something you don't see either in often.
Great night. Jim Jeffrey was the only one to be bothered by Mall Security. Jim had a leather jacket, a t-shirt, his hair slicked back and dark reflective sunglasses - looking like your typical mall stoner/shop-lifter. They followed him into the bathroom to see what he was up to. It was a great night tonight!
You can see the rest of the pictures here.
Sick enough for her sister to make a sign for her, and the cat to actually cuddle with her.
Mark Kohne and I were comparing notes at our kids Christmas concert, trying to figure out if we'd ever been this parent. We also laughed as we watched people video tape EVERY SECOND of the concert, including the solos of kids who aren't theres. What do these people think they're going to do with this footage? Do they really think that in 20 years someone will want to watch a person they barely remember playing a piano solo? I'm pretty sure the answer is no.
For the past month or so, Nate and I have been playing nightly rounds of Halo 3 for the daily championship. Nate's getting good. Good enough to smoke me 70% of the time. Today we finally went up to the dollar store and picked up a trophy. The trophy goes back and forth to the winner. Over the past week we've been playing a few levels in Halo that I was able to dominate most of the time. Last night we bought 3 new levels that were released and tried them out today. I got quite the beating and Nate became the first recipient of the Kurt Family Halo 3 trophy.
We also added a trophy to the mix for the card game speed. Nate, Maddie and I have been playing pretty frequently, and we're all pretty even. We had our first trophy tournament today and Maddie walked away with the big prize.
In today's Wall Street Journal, political columnist Peggy Noonan has a very interesting article talking about the role of faith in political office. She talks specifically about how the main factor in the Republican primary in Iowa by the candidate's faith. Right now, Mike Huckabee is in the lead, mainly because he as seen as the being the "most christian" out of the pack. Now don't get me wrong, I like Huckabee, his love for Chuck Norris, his plan to secure the border (again, Chuck Norris), his faith and some of what I've read about his leadership.
I think a person's faith and values are important factors in choosing the leader of our country. I'm just not sure it's the only one. I know a lot of great Christians who couldn't lead their way out a paper bag, let alone our country. In this whole idea of having faith be a litmus test for candidates, are we losing focus on other key components on who will run this country for the next 4 years? Peggy Noonan talks about this idea concerning, in my opinion, one of our greatest presidents of all time, Ronald Reagan:
I wonder if our old friend Ronald Reagan could rise in this party, this environment. Not a regular churchgoer, said he experienced God riding his horse at the ranch, divorced, relaxed about the faiths of his friends and aides, or about its absence. He was a believing Christian, but he spent his adulthood in relativist Hollywood, and had a father who belonged to what some saw, and even see, as the Catholic cult. I'm just not sure he'd be pure enough to make it in this party. I'm not sure he'd be considered good enough.
I'm not sure what the right answer is on this, but is the pendulum swinging too far on how Christians are factoring faith into their voting decisions?
We took the kids and a bunch of their friends and went to see Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium tonight. Towards the end, Em started complaining about her stomach hurting. I figured she was just being Em. She came home and started throwing up. Not sure if it's the flu, but I know that all of the sudden my stomach feels sick. I'm guessing it's all in my head. Em's words were:
Mommy, my tummy's so scared, it shakes and makes me throw up.
I hope she gets better and we don't catch it. I'm traveling Monday to a big meeting out in New York with the president of the company I've been working with and our President of North America that I don't want to miss, or have the flu while I'm traveling
Maddie had her school concert tonight. How to describe it? One word: Breathtaking? Maddie was wonderful, so it must have been the other hundred kids out of tune and off rhythm.
I remember when my Mom came to Nate's Kindergarten Concert and out of all the kids, he was the sole kid not paying attention and messing around. We were horrified while my Mom thought it was the funniest thing she'd seen and a fulfillment of her 'I hope you someday have a child just like you' prophecy.
Things got so crazy last year that we didn't send out Christmas Cards. As a result of not getting a card last year, i'm wondering how many people cross us off of their Christmas card list. Early indicators are that either people are really busy, or they're not sending us cards. If after one year, someone scratches us, I know what kind of friend they are and I'll cancel them right back.
Keep in mind that Cathie controls the list of who gets them, and all the above really does not apply to reality. Just my small, vengeful view of the world.
I know the Rays Family sent us a card. I think I'll send them two cards, just because they didn't scratch us from their list.... Plus the fact that they have 27 people in their family and this way they can have two pictures around the house of us to share.
The great thing about working out of my house, is that I have lots of options in my fridge for lunch. This afternoon I headed upstairs and threw a turkey-burger on the frying pan for lunch. I ran downstairs to check my e-mail for a second and next thing I knew, I heard the smoke alarm beeping. I ran upstairs and found the house filled with smoke, and my turkey burger burned to a literal crisp. Nothing like the smell of burnt turkey burger permeating the smell of the house, combined with being freezing cold because I had to crack every door and window to clear the smoke.
Even better is that this is the second time I've done this. Not today. But the second time.
Just read this interesting post by Mark Cuban regarding some of Warren Buffett's recent comments in support of the Democratic candidates. I make no beef about the fact that I'm fascinated by Buffett and his view on the economy and philanthropy.
Cuban takes the view that he is willing to be taxed more (which I question, because why doesn't he voluntarily send the money to the government now) if he knows that spending goes down. As a fiscal conservative, I don't like big government or big taxes, and I believe in Reagonmics trickle-down supply side economics. On the flip side, I'm trying to figure out what it looks like to be a follower of Jesus with my money. If I really believe it's all God's money anyways, and i'm using it more and more in line with the values of the kingdom of God, doesn't that mean I should give more and more back to the poor and hurting to diminish the gap that exists between the rich and the poor? I think Buffett's view of giving it all away to help the poor and hurting lines up with Jesus ideal more than many conservatives.
I'm not saying that the government has all of the answers, or even many of them. I don't think that more money will solve more problems or deal with the systemic issues that exist in the world. I love hearing about communities where the local churches have put the local homeless shelters and government-subsidized centers out of business because of the way they've taken care of the widows, the poor and the orphans. I think there are new ways to help the poor, like some of the microeconomics concepts being deployed in third world countries that are a hand-up and not a hand-out.
I don't know. Just something I've been thinking about as I look at extending the kingdom of god into my finances. Anyone have any easy answers on this one? Maybe an out-of-context bible verse to help me make this a black and white issue?
Most of my friends and family have no idea what I do for a living. Working for Xerox, my family is pretty sure that I fix copy machines for a living. I received my degree in Computer Science from Michigan State, so those who don't thin I fix copiers are under the impression that I work with computers. My kids understand what I do in terms of the fact that I travel a lot, receive and send a lot of e-mail and talk on the phone all the time. So what do I do for a living? I can sum it up with this: Help companies streamline their document processes in a way that drive down costs, increase revenue and help them better serve their customers.
So what do I do specifically? My title is: Managing Principal within Xerox Global Services' Business Process Services Line of Business. For the past 13 years, my job has revolved around document management solutions - helping companies capture, manage and deliver their paper and electronic documents. I started as a programmer writing and deploying the solutions, moved on to a solutions architect where i actually designed the solutions and into a Principal role where I would oversee the entire engagement. From there, i moved into a Managing Principal role, where I oversaw teams of Principals and the accounts that they were working on.
Document Management, you're thinking? What's that? Why do you need it? If you think that 90% of a companies communication with customers happens in the form of documents and they account for about 40% of a companies labor costs, you see that it's a huge place for companies to take a look at. I work with companies and help understand their challenges, define solutions, help sell, deliver and manage those solutions. I do very little of the actual consulting any more - most of what I do is in up front salesish type workshops with the customer to help figure out what's wrong and how we can make it strategic enough for them to want it. Most of my days consist of either meeting with customers to figure out what they need and then our internal delivery teams to figure out how to deliver things or fix what's broken. I've had a ton of different roles in this company - managing teams of Principals to do this, managing the teams that design the offerings that we sell, and now it's mostly just managing the team around a single big account.
About the middle of last year, I started working on a huge account in New Jersey and I've been traveling out there every other week for meetings. On the off week of my travel, I do the same thing - just not face-to-face. When I do travel out to New Jersey, I'm out at the customer's site all day, hanging in an office-space we have allocated amongst about 20 of us. Working virtual, it's fun to occasionally have a group of co-workers to see face-to-face.
Brad and I went to the Lions game after Kohne had to bail on his own tickets due to a work related conflict. Mark's seats are fantastic, about 15 rows up from the field, but they're in the visitors section. 70% of our section were Dallas fans, all wearing their Tony Romo jerseys and their signs. The first drive they came alive, until Dallas missed the field goal. After that, we didn't hear a peep out of them. The Detroit fans (myself included) when out of our way to over-celebrate everything Detroit did well (which was a lot), mostly to annoy the Dallas fans. Every time Detroit would make a play, we'd high-five about 10 fans right around us while the Dallas fans sat their stoically with their arms crossed. With Detroit being up the whole game (except for the last 18 seconds), there was a lot to celebrate. Even when Dallas would score, the crowd would yell out ("What's the score??")
It was one of the most fun games I've been to in a while, partly because Detroit played so well against a great team, but mostly because there were so many Dallas fans in our section looking so dejected.
There's some controversy in town as some people don't want a Meijer's grocery store to be built in our community. Someone wrote the following letter (it wasn't Cathie) which we found amusing - not only the content, but their love of the run-on sentence.
Cry babies against Meijer: Why don't you stop crying and think of other people than yourselves. The traffic in this town would not get any worse than it is now. Some people are laid off and Meijer coming to town would be a great opportunity for employment. South Lyon is growing, so if you don't like it move and with gas prices the way they are people would love it, so stop being so selfish you people who are against Meijer, must be rich. So stop crying you little babies. For me, I would love Meijer to be here.
We had Em's Christmas Dance recital today. Her class was doing the song Cheetalicious Christmas by the Cheetah Girls. Cathie and I were sharing stories about how when we were kids, we would dance around the Christmas tree listening to this song. We don't even say "Merry Christmas" any more around our house. We all wish each other "Cheetahlicious Christmases".
At the beginning, they asked everyone to turn off their cell phones. Apparently, my Dad believes he is above the law. Mid way through in one of the scene transitions, my Dad's cell phone starts ringing (it was Susan) - buried in his pocket underneath five coats in the seat next to him. I tried to explain to my Dad that he needs to obey the rules just like the rest of us - but you know how he can be now that he's 65 and retired.
(I really don't expect anyone to watch this video other than family and those of you (defelice girls) who tune in just to read about the cute things that Emily says and does).
In the immortal words of the Cheetah Girls, I leave you with these Christmas wishes:
Never hide the Cheetah inside
That's a promise we made
Show how you glitter at Christmas time
Wear your spots your own way
be a Cheetah Everyday
After Em's concert, my Dad took Em, Maddie and Ally to stay with him for the weekend. They've got a lot planned, including going to see the movie Enchanted. Cathie already asked Maddie to take care of Em's hair in the morning before church because their Papa is a little challenged in that area. The girls have been looking forward to this for a long time. My Dad's gonna be beat afterwards.
I'm a guy who subscribes to Brad's theory that "Everything is a little more fun with a side-bet." Yesterday, prior to meetings with senior executives at one of our customers, my co-workers and I laid out a whole pool of bets, complete with odds on things like: Who would show up, how late they would be, would they go nuts in the meeting, etc. We'll have side-bets on who can work a given word into a conversation or presentation - and then there are sports bets. Nothing makes a game more fun than to have a little bet on the side - nothing big, and it doesn't have to be money.
For example, two weeks ago MSU played NC State. One of the VP's in my company is out of NC and knows that there are a number of MSU alumni in our company. We established a side-bet consisting of $20 and the loser wearing a giant hot-dog costume at our company kick-off meeting. The idea for the bet comes from a Southwest Airlines commercial where the guys place a bet and in the next scene, the guy walks into the company board-room dressed like a wiener.
Kohne and I are going to the Lions/Cowboys game tomorrow, which could be an absolute beating. The current spread is Dallas -10 1/2 points, where as likely, the score will probably be 34 to 10, Dallas. I'm a guy who bets with my heart, so for tomorrow's game, I've got the following bets out there:
1. Detroit +10 1/2 for a bottle of single-malt scotch with one of my customers out of Dallas. I figure this is a win/win because even if I lose, it's a customer and there's goodwill to be had.
2. Detroit +12, the loser wears a giant-hot dog costume to our next company kick-off meeting. This is with a co-worker out of lovely Hot Springs, Arkansas. This is worse for me, because I'm pretty sure people wear weiner costumes in Arkansas for social occasions.
I hate trying to fly out of New York on most days, especially in the afternoon or evening, even more so on a Friday. You have three major airports within spitting distance from each other (ok, a long spit) with JFK, Laguardia and Newark. The problem is that any weather problems, anywhere in the country throws all three of these airports off, and then the problems start to compound themselves. My 4:30 flight ended up leaving 1 1/2 hours late, full of people from the Grand Rapids flight that had been canceled a little earlier.
I rarely talk to people on the plane. I'm an extrovert and for the most part a pretty outgoing guy, but on the plane, I typically keep to myself. I have my Wall Street Journal, my laptop and my iPod with noise-canceling headphones, and I pretty much bury myself in those, rarely making even small talk with the guy next to me.
There are basically three types of people you never want to have to sit next to: a Mom with a crying baby, a very large man or woman, or an Amway salesman.... I had the third. If you're not familiar with Amway, it's a multi-level marketing firm whose people typically start their conversations with the statement, "Have you ever wanted to own your business?" After talking to him for a bit, it turned out he was an executive for Amway and he told me some pretty funny stories of how people had tried to get him to sell Amway, including total strangers following him around in Meijers and popping out and asking him to be a rep. The plane was completely full and we amused ourselves watching people wrestle for over-head luggage space, theorizing on who we'd pick if it it turned into a fist-fight.
At the customer account I've been working at out in New Jersey, we have a shared office area that we all work from. The last time I got ready to head out to the airport, I opened my backpack to throw my laptop in and found a bunch of spare paper shoved in my bag. Weird, but I didn't think much about it. Later on, I found a collection of granola bars, hot chocolate packets, bottles of water, forks, knives and a very large gourd.
Turnabout being fair play, I then loaded his bag up with 100 giant paper clips, 50 plastic forks and knives and a few water bottles. Apparently he found none of them before going through airport security. The wild thing is, TSA never found any of it.
We got the following e-mail from Em's teacher today:
Awesome story - mainly because it involves your kid! Yesterday after
lunch, Em was at her locker taking off her outside stuff and she totally mooned everyone when she pulled off her snowpants. She very quickly yanked her pants back up and frantically looked around at everyone to see if anyone had seen her. I turned around and started laughing so hard that I was crying! As i turned around, another teacher had HUGE eyes! She had also witnessed the event. Em bounced back fast because none of the kids had seen what had happened. She also has no idea that
we both saw it!!!
Em got home and proceeded to tell Cathie that she needed to get her new snow pants that don't pull down her pants. Cathie explained her she needed to hang on to her pants as she pulled off her snow pants, to which Em replied in a truly surprised voice with a deep in-thought look "Oh that's a good idea, thanks Mom"!
Our hope is that Em isn't remembered as "the girl in first grade who pulled down her pants".
On my flight to LGA yesterday, the guy in front of me was snoring louder than I've ever heard a person snore on an airplane. This guy was in full-blown mouth-open-will-brown death-rattle snoring mode to the point that it was funny to most of the passengers in first class, for about 2 minutes. After that it was just annoying. He was in the seat right in front of me and I tried to "accidentally" bump the seat back just enough to wake the guy up. Nothing doing. The guy was dead to the world. For the entire flight.
When I checked on Em last night before going to bed, I found her asleep, wearing a butterfly mask in bed. I asked her about it this morning and her response was:
My face was cold and the mask felt cozy.
Can't argue with that.
A few years back, I bought my DirecTivo HD Receiver for about a grand (and I'm selling here on eBay, hoping to get $150). I know, I know - it seems ridiculously expensive, especially when placed side-by-side with the four thousand dollar HDTV I bought at the time. There's a price to be paid for being on the leading edge. I received my new HR21-700 receiver and dish free from DirecTV (the receiver is now leased for 2 years at no additional cost) and the cost of TV has dropped to roughly 1/4 of the cost of the original model four years ago.
For those of you looking to make the switch with DirecTV, here's my two cents:
I was a little hesitant switching from the TiVo interface, which I think is the best out there. My current setup had me getting my local channels over the air and combining them through the DirecTivo receiver with my other HD channels, which there weren't too many of.
So far, I'm impressed with the new receiver. The number of channels are great. I get all of my local channels in high def, in addition to most of the major channels I would watch: Discovery, MTV, Spike, TLC, History, and pay channels. The interface is not Tivo's, but it's not bad. There I things I like about it more - like the fact that even as you navigate the menus, the picture always stays on the screen in the corner, plus some of the media sharing abilities to integrate with Windows Media Player on my desktop system. It's no replacement for my MacMini, but it's a place to start. The remote is my biggest complaint. What it doesn't have is the ability to control my receivers volume instead of my TV's volume. This is a given, and something every other remote I've had has had as well. I've got a Harmony 550 programmable remote, which works fairly well for me and gives me the ability to control multiple components and execute series of commands simultaneously.
We got together over at Bob's to celebrate Will's birthday. He received a number of very thoughtful gifts that celebrated his heritage. He had asked for gifts that helped him get in touch with his Pottawatomie (pronounced Ottawatomie) heritage - hence the Indian dream catchers and the "Story of Hiawatha" DVD. Will comes from the city and had also asked for gifts that helped him get in touch with himself there, hence the pimp hat and bling, and the bottle of cheap wine. The monkey-wash-cloth-mitt? You figure that one out. Bob had his personal greatest hits collection playing in the background, including this song - which you can see from the TV if you zoom in on the picture.
Brad's goal for the night was "to bring sexy back", and apparently woman's clothing back. He borrowed Anne's BeBe hat and is making it his own, going well wtih his Willapalooza shirt and Nike sweatshirt with the large bleach-spots (he's had that sweatshirt for the 12 years I've known him). We hung out, ate, and played cards. One of Bob's new additions to his basement are the three genuine Vegas slot machines in the back corner. I lost $20 on them, but won it back from Eli in poker (he's still learning how to play).
