Cathie went to Chicago on Friday morning with her Mom and Madeline on a girls shopping weekend, so Nate, Emily and I are going solo. Friday night, Nate and I did a guys night. We played cards, watched the world series of poker, watched x-men, drank pop (caffinated even), ate pizza rolls and stayed up late.

Saturday was a pretty lazy day where we just hung out for a while, not doing much productive. Jay and I worked on our message for Sunday and then Will, Jess, Heidi, Jason and I hung out last night.

The message went pretty well today. Jason and I did what we wanted to do, and it went pretty smooth. There were no horrible screw-ups or things that in retrospective we'd of radically changed, so I guess that's a good thing. You can listen to the message here. The beginning of the message starts out with this video clip, without which you might be kind of confused.

I've got to start pulling stuff together for the message next Sunday, which is me going solo. I've got the content together, I've just to go put it in some kind of order and write it out.

We can all sleep well tonight: Singapore has lifted it's ban on chewing gum. Read more here:
Before Singaporeans think about unwrapping a pack of Wrigley's Orbit gum that's just started selling here - and only in pharmacies - they must submit their names and ID card numbers. If they don't, pharmacists who sell them gum could be jailed up to two years and fined $2,940

Can't help but smile when I look at this picture. 

I got signed up as a beta-tester for gmail - Google's e-mail system. Great interface, with 1 GB of storage. So far, I like it. I'm guessing it doesn't allow any kind of POP access, though. The interface isn't as mature as Yahoo, doesn't have any of the toolbars or thick client tools to access it, but it's new, and based on google's track record, should be great eventually.

Will, Brad and Ted took me out for Sushi last night for my birthday. We gorged ourselves. The also got me a bottle of 18 year old Glenlivet Scotch.

My brother Jon thought it important that I clarify an earlier post. Justin and Lori did in fact join Mark, Jen, Cathie and I in celebrating their birthday. Jon did not feel it was clear. He also asked that I add some kind of cross reference to him and a picture. I've given him both.

I was originally going to be doing the message on the topic of Drawing closer to the heart of God this week as a part of a new series entitled The Sacred Romance. We decided to shift the start of that series to after memorial day, and this Sunday, do a different topic. Jason, Dan and I spent time today putting together this Sunday's service, which includes a team-teaching that Jason and I are going to do on the irrational act of discipleship. We're going through the story of the disciples, a rag-tag group of guys who have been immortalized in stain glass, but in reality were a bunch of average joe's who somehow kept their eye on Jesus in the midst of doing and saying some dumb stuff. This should be a great message, and I'm looking forward to teaching with Jason. We have a good time up front and our relationship comes out in how we work together, based on doing youth ministry for the past two years.

It was a weekend of Birthday parties. We went out with Mark and Jen to celebrate Justin and Lori's birthday on Saturday. We had a great time at Mongolian Barbecue, to Starbucks, and then to see Dan/Buck Enterprises play a couple songs at a Skate festival they were playing at.

On Sunday we celebrated Jason's birthday, starting with luring Jason on stage under false pretenses about doing announcements only to have the whole church sing Happy Birthday to him. I shared with the church how much Jason loves a good hug (the man hates anyone invading his personal space in general). He estimates he got about 50 hugs that day. That night, we had a suprise party at our house under the guise of watching the Simpsons season finale. Matt & Anne, Ted & Sherri, Jess, Jason Monstrola, Nate and his wife, Meghan, Tim, Cathie, Myself and Will were there. When Jason walked, in, he got hit hard with Silly String, largely in the face and crotch. Typically when Silly String comes out of the can it turns into string. Not this stuff. It came out as propelled liquid goo that stuck to whatever it came into contact with. Not in a good way. It was a good time. We watched the final Simpsons episode and then watched a couple episodes of one of my favorite shows Wild Boyz.

We're starting a new series next Sunday called The Sacred Romance, Drawing Closer to the Heart of God. I'm doing the first message in the series, which is a stretch for me. I've done brief teachings during our Sunday service and longer stuff for the kids in our youth group, but never the whole 30+ minute message on Sunday. The topic I'm doing is one that I'm very passionate about, which is the reason I was asked, and probably the only reason I'd agree to do it. It's probably something I'll thrash on most of the week trying to make sure I've got it down. I started doing a mind-map of the subject, trying to visually lay out what I'm going to talk about, which helps. I don't think it'll be great, but it probably won't suck either.

What an amazing storm yesteday. I called it an early day yesterday we headed out to go see Shrek 2. On the way to pick up Nate this huge storm came through and a huge tree (five foot in diameter) came crashing down 100 feet in front of us on the road. After seeing Shrek, we went to Chucky Cheese and then just hung out afterwards. We've got a pretty laid back weekend, which is nice after being gone for five days.

It looks like I'm home all next week. Cathie and Madeline leave on Thursday night to go to Chicago with Cathie's mom. They're going to hit American Girl and the Miracle Mile.

We're taking the kids to go see Shrek 2 this afternoon.

I got into Chicago about 5AM this morning, took a cab to my hotel and then crashed until about 10:30. I had meetings all day and we're going out to dinner. I've got my senior leadersihp team meeting through Thursday and then I fly out thursday afternoon. Think we're going to take the kids out of school on Friday as a suprise and go see Shrek.

Great article: Vaseline Man Can't Slip Cops about a man who covered his hotel room with 14 jars of vaseline, and then himself.

Erik Larson turned me on to this cool app - the
Google Deskbar. It's a google search bar that lives on your Windows XP Toolbar and pops up a window with results. Cool interface, very efficient.

I got up around 5AM this morning, worked out and had some grueling meetings all day long - contract negotiations fry me. Afterwards I went over to Fisherman's Wharf for some fresh seafood. I'm sitting at the airport waiting to fly out at 11:30 PM PST.

So I flew out to San Francisco on United today.  The plane was huge and much nicer than Northwest, but I got pimped on the meals.  Maybe I haven’t flown coach for a while, but they charged me $10 for lunch on the plane.  And as always happens, O’Hare stuck it to me.  We ended up sitting on the Tarmac for an hour and a half before taking off, on-top of the 4 ½ hour flight we had in front of us.
On the flight, I watched the movie Final Destination.  Bad movie overall, but it starts out with this horrible plane crash scene.  Looking out my hotel room right now, I can see the sun setting behind Treasure Island and the Golden Gate Bridge.  It’s really beautiful.

I'm reading a bunch of books in parallel right now:

Traveling Mercies : Some Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott is a bunch of related stories about her journey of faith that are really well told, kinda feeling like you're sitting down having a beer with her hearing them.


The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive
by Patrick Lencioni is a parable that teaches some great business acumen. By putting it in the form of a story, the concepts stick with me way better than reading it in a dry academic way. Great book, part of a series of three.


The Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer to the Heart of God by Brent Curtis & John Eldredge. I read this book 7 or 8 years ago and it rocked my world and my faith. It opened up my eyes to living the Christian Faith from my heart instead of a bunch of tips and techniques to happy living. It gave me a new set of eyes to view my relationship with God, seeing myself in a whole new light. Figured I'd read it again.


Managing The Professional Service Firm by David H. Maister. This is pretty dry and academic, but it's helping me think through my new job a little more strategically instead of just responding to things as they're thrown at me. I'm really trying to focus and prioritize what I'm doing, and needed something to help me get a better handle on things. David Maister's love for himself comes across in this book. Our company had brought him in to do a workshop around professional services and his self-love came through at that workshop as well.

I need some fiction to throw in there right now. I've got the new Vince Flynn book on order at the library. Any suggestions?

I'm flying out to San Francisco later this afternoon. Since I'm Gold Elite on Northwest, I've been upgraded to First Class this year on every flight except one. For this flight, I'm on United. The next closest flight on Northwest was $1,300 more, which I couldn't justify. I was really hoping to get Northwest because of my flight schedule: I fly out today, I've got an 11:25PM flight tomorrow night from San Fran to Chicago, which gets me in at 5:00 AM. That gives me a few hours to get to my hotel and sleep before my meetings in the afternoon. I fly back on Thursday.

The nice thing about all the plane time is that I'm able to crank through a lot of back-emails. I've got about 400 that I need to sort through.

Ya gotta read/watch Will Ferrel's commencement speech given at Harvard. Funniest part (stolen from Noel's Blog). Read it here. Watch it here (Forward to 1hr 25min).

So my gift to you, Class of 2003, is to tell you about the real world through my eyes, through my experiences. And I'm sorry, but I refuse to sugarcoat it. I ain't gonna do it. And I probably shouldn't use the word "ain't" during this day in which we celebrate education. But that's just the way I play it, Homes.

Graduates, if you will indulge me for a moment, let me paint a picture of what it's like out there. The last four or, for some of you, five years you've been living in a fantasyland, running around, talking about Hemingway, or Clancy, or, I don't know, I mean whatever you read here at Harvard. The Novelization of the Matrix, I don't know. I don't know what you do here.

But I do know this. You're about to enter into a world filled with hypocrisy and doublespeak, a world in which your limo to the airport is often a half-hour late. In addition to not even being a limo at all; often times it's a Lincoln Towncar. You're about to enter a world where you ask your new assistant, Jamie, to bring you a tall, non-fat latte. And he comes back with a short soy cappuccino. Guess what, Jamie? You're fired. Not too hard to get right, my friend.

A world where your acting coach, Bob Leslie-Duncan -- yes, the Bob Leslie-Duncan -- tells you time and time again that you will never, ever be considered as a dramatic actor because you don't play things real, and are too over the top. Amazing! Simply amazing!

I'm sorry, graduates. But this is a world where you aren't allowed to use your cell phone in airplanes, during live theater, at the movies, at funerals, or even during your own elective surgery. Apparently, the Berlin Wall went back up because we now live in Russia. I mean just try lighting up a cigar in a movie theater or paying for a dinner for 20 friends with an autograph. It ain't that easy. Strong words, I know. Tough talk. But more like tough love. Because this is where my faith in you guys comes into play, Harvard University's graduating Class of 2003, without a doubt, the finest, most talented group of sexual beings this great land has to offer.

Thursday night I went out to see Van Helsing with Will and Mark. The big mistake here was going to the 9:45 PM showing. The movie was good, well, what what I saw was good. I slept through at least an hour of the 2hr 25min movie. Ever time I woke up, there was another action scene. Good, cheezy comic book type action, bad acting, but a fun movie. Sure beat seeing the Punisher.

Interesting article dealing with the fact that this is one of the first movies or books in a long time that shows the Catholic church as a positive force in the world, instead of focusing on them being a corrupt conspiracy.

We had Madeline's dance recital today. Tickets were $10 each... What a racket. The thing was TWO HOURS long and had at least 30 different groups of kids doing their numbers in different costumes. Other than seeing Madeline do her dance, the best part of the recital was when a group of 40-something moms came out on stage dressed as Indians and did a hip-hop dance. Will and I were sitting next to each other holding our hands over our mouths and shaking uncontrolably as we watched them do a dance-off against a group of 10 year old girls dressed like cowboys to the song "Cherokee People". Apparently, this is how the west was really won - through competive dance between the cowboys and indians.

I got a chance to go mountain biking yesterday for the first time this year. It was a little muddy, but beautiful. Great day for it and it felt good. I met a friend of mine who happens to be a co-worker of mine (Bill) at the trail, we rode and talked and then had lunch.

I just got back from seeing the movie Van Helsing. Will, Mark and I went to the 9:45 showing. Mistake. I literally slept through 75% of the movie. The parts I did see were pretty over the top. In a bad way.

I went to high school with this guy. This is an interview with Rob Bell, pastor of Mars Hill, the church my brother Jon goes to in Grand Rapids.

Cathie and I went out on a date last night. We went to P.F. Chang's for dinner and then to see the movie Mean Girls. Great movie about a home schooled girl who is brought into public school and has to deal with a totally new world. Hilarious movie, written by Tina Fey of Saturday Night Live fame. Kinda reminded me of the movie Heathers, but not quite as Dark.

THis is a really interesting interview with Madeline L'Engle, who wrote the A wrinkle in time series. She has a unique perspective on stuff. I don't agree with it all, but her personality comes through in the interview.

We had our big Survivor season finale party last night. Every survivor season we have a group of friends come over every Thursday night. This season included: Cathie, Myself, Jason S, Tim, Phil, Meghan, Jess, Will, Anne, Matt, Katie, Jason M and Sheri as the regular attenders. We're really not that big of survivor fans. We spend most of the time mocking the show, rewinding, pausing and finding humerous stuff here and there. The best part of it is hanging out together each week. People show up around 8:30, eat and talk for about half an hour, watch the show eventually, watch another show (Wild Boys, I want a new face, or Viva La Bam) talk some more and then call it a night around 11.

We had a big thunderstorm last night so we let Emily sleep in our room. When we came up to bed, we found Emily looking like E.T. - surrounded by her stuffed animals.

I'm in town all week! No travel. When I'm around on Mondays I try and work in Madeline's kindergarden class. Today I got a chance to plant Lima beans with the kids. We made it fun. It's great in small doses, but I'm not sure how Sheri, their teacher does it ALL DAY LONG. I'd go nuts. She's got some tough kids in there and she has amazing patience with them.

This is a great application called EvilLyrics. Not sure why it's called what it is, but here's how it works. As you play songs your media player of choice (WinAmp, Windows MediaPlayer, iTunes or or MusicMatch), the application automatically pulls up the related lyrics, does guitar chords, album cover art, amazon information, and lyrical meanings.

I'm in the middle of reading two different books: Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World by Henri J. M. Nouwen and The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive by Patrick M. Lencioni.

Life of the beloved has been a tough read for some reason. A couple friends have raved about the book, but I can't get into it. It's some great broad concepts, but nothing yet that jumps out at me or connects to me.

The Four Obsessions is a great book, of three written by Leciconi, all told in a parable form, which for me, helps the concepts stick a little easier. This particular book tells the story of two executives and an individual who works for both and contrasts the impact of these four obsessions between the two different leaders.

I've got the new Vince Flynn book Memorial Day on order at the library. I need some good fiction reading.

I'm still in Kansas City, coming home this afternoon on the 3:30 direct flight. It's beautiful down here, 90 degrees with very little humidity. Madeline went to the Doctor on Monday and was diagnosed with strep throat. I've now got a sore throat and I'm assuming the worst. It looks like I'm home all next week and I can't wait. I gave up a customer entertainment event at the Indy 500 in order to have a complete week without travel and I had to push back on an overnight trip to California,k but so far, so good.

This is nuts. A construction worker had six nails driven into his head in an accident with a high-powered nail gun, but doctors said Wednesday they expect him to make a full recovery.

I went to see the movie The Punisher tonight with a couple of guys from work. I was looking for a mindless movie that wouldn't require much thinking. I ended up dumber for having seen the movie. I was a big fan of the comic book growing up, but this didn't capture the spirit of the comic book, plus the acting bad. John Travolta's acting was horrible to the point of it being funny

This video is hilarious. The dubbing is seamless.

For everyone in my ELP class who uploaded their pictures, I've posted the pictures here.

I'd been travelling quite a bit and doing a horrible job of balacing my priorities. Actually, I was doing a decent job of balancing all of them but my family. I was fitting them in in tiny little chunks whenever it was convienent. Even when I was talking to them, I was only half way there, checking e-mail, with the TV on - Continuous Partial Attention. When I got back, I found that Cathie and I were horribly disconnected. We had a talk that was pretty painful (for me) to realize what I'd been doing. Last week when I travelled, I decided to put Cathie and the kids first - chunking off a big block of time where I turned off the TV, my laptop and just spent time with Cathie and the kids, on the phone. What a difference in our connection when I got back.

This past week has blown. I've had stuff blow up at work, with close friends and in my church. Thankfully, Cathie and I worked through our stuff last week. I was tapped by the end of yesterday. Spent the past two mornings reading through Isaiah 40:
Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

Jason and I have had a number of discussions about whether there was any redeeming value in Tarantino's Kill Bell series. Jeffrey Overstreet's review of Kill Bill - Vol. 1 and Vol. 2:
The moral drama, the choices and the consequences, the speeches about identity—unlike the violence, these are presented in all seriousness in order to get us thinking more than other genre pics usually do.

Life will go on. The voices of the Simpson's have been resigned!:
The actors who provide the voices for Homer, Bart and the rest of the cartoon stars of Fox TV's "The Simpsons" will return to work this week with twice as much "D'oh" in their pockets, having won a new contract collectively valued at $33 million a year.

The first concert I ever saw was Jefferson Starship in Lansing, MI when I was in 6th grade. Turns out, I shouldn't bothered. This article in USA Today claims the album 'We Built This City' ranks as the worst record ever

I'm 33 today. I'm now as old as my wife. I'm so very blessed. I'm out of town this week, but I have had about 20 e-mails wishing me a happy birthday and about 20 phone calls doing the same. My favorite was Madeline's entire Kindergarden class calling and singing happy birthday to me. How many people have that many friends who would take the time to do that? Being out of town on my birthday sucks, but what a way to make up for it. All that, plus my hotel room has two bathrooms (and I just noticed that it has two thermostats).

Tough couple of days with work. I'm in Birmingham with a great group, but just had stuff going on with my team that's been tough this week. Interesting follow-on from my leadership trianing last week.

I'm in Birmingham, AL tonight, staying at a Hilton Hotel out here. Just figured out I've got two different bathrooms in my hotel room. Not quite sure why.

Thanks to Doug for turning me onto this very cool free toolbar at SmartBarXP.com

Just downloaded the demo of X1 after using Scopeware's Vision product. Scopeware was great at finding just about anything, anywhere, but it doesn't work with Outlook 2003's new cached mode, and therefore was wasn't going to work for me. Downside of X1 is that it's not tighltly tied to the tied to outlook, so I can view and e-mail through an internal viewer, but not launch it directly. I ran across X1 while reading this article in Business Week Magazine.

Interesting review on Google's GMail Service.

I've finished my first week in the second round of our "Workout Competition". In short, it's a contest between fifteen guys with points assigned for working out, eating right, drinking water (a gallon a day) and for daily spiritual focus and reflection. This is probably the 6th or 7th time we've done this, each time with different people, and each time with the rules getting even more complex. You can read them here.

Last week was tough, being at training. Only one glass of red wine is allowed per day, and I pretty much blew that most days out in Colorado. The first three days, I was up at 5AM working out, but I petered out after that. I'm traveling again this week, so we'll see how it goes.

I'm in the office all day today, how nice. I'm flying out tomorrow to Kansas City, tomorrow night to Birmingham, Alabama and then back on Friday.

After being in Colorado for a week, my body had pretty much adjusted to Mountain Standard time, which didn't work too well this morning at 6:30 AM EST when my kids gave me an early morning wake up call. There are worse things to be woken up to than three kids, excited to see their dad, and wanting to cuddle.

I got back tonight at about 10:30 from the airport. I'm emotionally and physically drained. I've posted my pictures from the ELP (Emerging Leaders Program) online here. People from my class are uploading their pictures so we can have a common scrapbook to share.

Emily's 3rd birthday party is tomorrow. My family, Cathie's folks and brother, Will, Jess, and the Thompson's are coming.

It snowed last night! Amazing weather out here. Looking out the balcony of my hotel room, I can see the golf course and mountains covered in trees. It's a thick snow that's sticking to all of the trees, creating an amazing picture. As you walked around the Broadmoor, there were tulips and blossoming trees covered with thick show. It was breath-taking. Only problem was that my digital camera battery was drained and I didn't bring the charger. Damn.

We finished out the eveing by having dinner with the entire class, including our instructors. We had drinks, dinner and then moved on to the Golden Bee. The Golden Bee is a Piano Bar and the wait staff runs around throwing these little bee stickesr at everyone. This place was a blast. Most of the class was there, some enjoying yards-o-beer, and everyone singing along with the piano player - from Piano Man to Danny Boy. It was a great cap to the week.

There are a number of people that I plan on connecting with as I travel around over the next few months. It's a pretty amazing connection that was created this week. Intimacy that doesn't exist in any other training that I've been through.

Next week I'm home on Monday, flying to Kansas City on Tuesday and then to Birmingham on Wednesday - Friday. Between the intensity of the class experience, trying to weave work in between and having been gone a seven days already, I'm missing my famly in a huge way.

Yesterday we went orienterring near the Garden of the Gods as a leadership exercise. We created teams, roles, and a great place to practice some of what we'd been learning all week. The Navigator's allow the CCL to use their property at Glen Eyrie It's one of the most beautiful places I've seen.

When we first started out, sleet began to fall. We hiked throughout the mountains with a team, using a compass and map to figure out where we're going and then debriefed throughout on each other's behaviors. The scenery was amazing, and I learned a lot about myself and how I interact with a group. On the way out, our bus driver took us through the Garden of the Gods Park.

Today was an amazing day. Throughout the week, we've received the results of multiple profiles: Meyers Briggs, Values Assesments, FIBRO, and CTI. Today, a lot of that came together. The first half of the day, I received feedback on my actions from a collection of observers. We used a very interesting technique to deliver it, which took some of the perception and analysis out of the picture. The technique dealt with "Situation, Behavior and Impact". The information was delivered, received and then procssed by the individual. The second half of the day was spent doing a one-on-one with a clincial psychologist in the role of an exectuive coach. Imagine 3 and a half hours with a pshrink. I was apprehensive, but thought it was awesome. I'm still processing much of what I heard. I went in hoping for some amazing revelations, and to a degree, I received them, but not the way I thought I would.

Here's my brush with fame: On our cab ride back from dinner last night, we got talking about the movie This is Spinal Tap. Our cab driver over heard our conversation and yelled out, "Hey, I was in that movie". There's a scene in the beginning where an MC introduces the band (see script), yelling "You want it right, direct from hell, Spinal Tap!" Turns, it's him, Patrick Maher. He proceeded to tell us the story of how he got the job, how much he got paid and a bunch of other things about the story. Never got around to how he ended up driving a cab. He was a nice guy with some great stories. On the left is Ben, a crazy bloke from the U.K. who I got to know throughout the class. Great guy, great leader, very intelligent. Likes to be called Frenchie.

We started our first day of class today, as part of Xerox's Emerging Leaders Program. It's a class of 35 high potential people within our company, together for a five day training session on leadership. It's put on by a company called The Center for Creative Leadership and we're at their office in Colorado Springs. The facility is awesome. You can check it out here. Everything is top notch from the facilities, to the food, amentities and instructors. I've never eaten like this at training. In the beginning, the Executive Chef gives the class an oritentation on the types of low fat, balanced protein/carbohydrate meals that they cook. Each day has been things like roast duck, grouper with wasabi sauce, blended vegtables, etc. The class room we're in is surrounded on two walls by glass, and another wall by a two-way mirror for observation. As preparation for this course, we had to fill out a bunch of profiles that they'll be slowing feeding back to us, topped off by some extensive meetings with an Executive Coach. The instructors are excellent and really know their stuff. One of them, Brian, has a very interesting background - starting with playing Major League Baseball, flying F-15'Sin the Air Force and eventually running their leadership and culture program at the Air Force, which was created after the Tail Hook scandal. The other insturctor comes from an academic background, and between the two, they make a great team. Should be an interesting week. Lots of interesting personalities in the class, but it seems like a good group for the most part.

I've stayed in a couple of five star hotels: The Whitney in Washington D.C. and Mackinac Island's Grand Hotel. Both are Motel 6's compared to the Broadmoor. This place is phenomenal. My room is beautiful Marble, the bed has a featherbed on it and my room overlooks the golf course, the pool and the balcony. Words cannot describe the place, I'm in awe.

I flew into Colorado on Saturday night and was met by a friend of mine, Steve Jaszai. I got to know Steve and his family when they went to Crossroads a while back. Steve is a great guy with some great stories to tell. He went to the Air Force Academy, flew B-52 bombers and was a T-37 trainer in the Air Force, prior to moving into the Space Warfare Center. He grew up in Colorado Springs with a cottage right outside Brekenridge. Anyways, Steve and I headed back to his place and had a couple of beers. Colorado Springs is at about 6,500 feet and I couldn't believe how that changes the impact of alcohol on your system. I was ready to hit the sack soon aftewards.

On Sunday we got up early and drove out to Brekenridge via a beautiful scenic drive. I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt that morning, ready to ski. As we started getting closer, a storm swept through with high winds, snow and hail. 70 degrees to 10 below wind chill within a few minutes. I bought a coat out there, rented some skis and a helmet and we hit the slopes. For the most part, the skiing sucked. The spring-skiing slush didn't have a chance to thaw out at all, so we were left with high winds, high altitude and michigan-quality skiing (ice base with about 1" of blowing powder). The 12,500 altitude made for an amazing view, but an oxygen mask would have been nice. I great time with Steve - it was amazing watching him ski the bumps. Having grown up out there, there wasn't much he couldn't ski. Not having skiied in 3 years, it took me a few runs to get back in the groove, but once I found it, I remembered how much I love doing it! My heart just came alive as I sped down the hills, carving nice turns on tough runs. Until I wiped out... At least I had a helmet. Reminds me of riding the bus as a kid.

Afterwards, we hiked around Brekenridge a while and then hit the road towards Denver and drove through some amazing scenery, including stoppiong off at Loveland Pass:

We headed to Denver and stopped off at Steve's folks, picked up his kids and headed back to Colorado Springs where he dropped me off at my hotel. I was beat. I fell asleep at 9PM.

What a beautiful Spring day yesterday! Madeline, Riley (my overweight dog) and I went rollerblading down the nearby path. Riley hasn't seen this much exercise in a while.

Emily is in the process of climbing on my back right now, yelling in my ear to help her find more dead lady bugs in our basement. Not sure where they've come from, but they're amusing her to no end. Guess that's what vacation's all about.

I leave tomorrow for Colorado Springs, CO. I'm staying with some friends of ours out there Saturday night and then skiing all day Sunday, until my training starts on Monday.

Wow, are these addictive. Check out Insaniquarium at PopCap Games

This is the cover story of Rolling Stone Magazine entitled The Immortals - The Fifty Greatest Artists of All Time. What sets this apart is that the articles are written by their peers, who are also fans. It's got a great photo gallery also.

The kids had a blast at the hotel. The kids were probably most impressed that there was a phone in the bathroom. Nate went in to use the bathroom and came out a few minutes later announcing, "Dad, I tried to call Jess (our roomate) while I was pooping, but I ended up talking to someone else in the hotel." I shared this with Jess and she was honored by the fact that Nate would think of her while pooping.

I love video games, but rarely get a chance to play them. In my spare time this week I've been playing SOCOM Navy Seals, a great military shooter/strategy game. You've got two teams of Navy Seals that you lead on missions. It's got an online mode as well to team up with others.

I'm on vacation this week, starting yesterday morning at 10:00 am when I got home from the airport. I flew out to a customer's site on Monday and took the 6:15 AM flight home on Tuesday. Last night we had a fun family night. We started off with going out to a "fancy resturant" (Leo's Coney Island). With my traveling and eating out all the time combined with having three little kids, any resturant the kids go to with a waitress is a "Fancy Resturant". We then had "Family Olympics", which consisted of a bunch of events (boys vs. girls) like the WalMart relay race where we raced through the store in teams trying to get a list of items as fast as possible. Emily screamed most of the way, so we felt right at home in WalMart. We topped it off with "Family Movie Night"

We're heading out to the Sterling Inn today, which is a hotel/waterpark. Should be fun.

Maddie and Emily had a "sleepover" the other night. When we went to check on them, this is what we found. Emily has just started trying to sleep in her sibling's room. Most of the times they end up with Emily climbing on top of Nate and Madeline once they've already fallen asleep and waking them up.

This morning, emiliy woke Cathie and I up by climbing on top of Cathie, putting her mouth up to Cathie's ear and telling her "Good morning Momma, I love you!" What a way to wake up!

You gotta check this Chicken out. You can order it around - very weird. Thanks Jon.

Last night I had a bunch of guys over for a Texas no-limit hold 'em party: Bob, Brad, my brothers Jon and Dan, my neighbor Terry, Jake and Eli were there. We did it tournamet style and played until we had a single winner. I came in third place the first game and second place the second round. It was a blast and went from 7AM until about 1AM.

Had a great Easter service at Crossroads today. The guy behind me made me jump when he yelled something odd between verses of a song. Wasn't expecting it.


Cathie's Mom and Dad came over for Easter dinner today and we hung out with them for the afternoon. Cathie made a great pork roast and we watched the kids bounce off the walls on their never ending supply of sugar. We combined the kids easter baskets from us and both grandparents and came up with more candy then you could imagine.

This one goes in the too much information category:
Emily's started potty training. Today she went poop on the toilet for the first time and was really excited. She looked in the toilet afterwards and said "Mom, it looks like a dolphin!" Nate and Madeline were falling all over themselves laughing and both ran down to tell me, between giggles.

My camera arrived today, so here are the pictures from the Founders Day black-tie event that Cathie and I went to down to last week in Kansas City. The picture obove is of "Team XP", which represents the joint partnership between Park University and Xerox Global Services, Inc.

On Thursday night I was sitting at the hotel happy hour with some of my co-workers when we saw these giant keyboard type machines with some kind of antennas sticking out of them carried in one after the other. We also noticed that sitting all around us were older ladies, all wearing sweaters. I leaned over and asked the group next to us what was going on and they proceeded to tell me about the knitting machine convention. Needless to say, I was fascinated. They tried to convince me it wasn't a lazy person's hobby, but I wasn't buying. We then played "Guess the knitting ladies" with them based on who was sitting at the other tables. They would pick a table and we would guess whether they knitted or not. Fun times. I found out you can hook up a computer to one of these machines and feed pictures into them. I asked if I could have a giant afghan made with my face in the middle of it, and the answer was YES! What a great Christmas gift idea for next year!

Cathie and I got back this afternoon from Kansas City. Cathie had flown in on Friday afternoon to attend a black tie event with myself and some of our team on a project a Park University. I got a call from Cathie about 9:15 on Friday morning from the airport. Turns out that when I booked her ticket, I booked it in MY name and not hers and they wouldn't let her use the ticket unless we purchased another ticket for $350. I quickly called Southwest Airline's customer service, explained the situation and added that I was trying to fly my wife in for a romantic getaway, and this wasn't earning me any points, if you know what I mean. The guy understood and changed the ticket over for me.
While in Kansas City, Cathie got a tour of Park University and of some of the nearby highlights. We went back to the hotel, napped, got dressed and headed out to the Founder's Day event. While there, we got to see a world renound concert pianst (make sure you emphasize the T when you pronounce that word) and enjoy each other's company. From there we went over for a post-party at Park's IT Director's home, Sara Freeman. Sara hosted a martini party for a number of her employees and international students along with the joint Park and Xerox team. It was a great time, and I'd post my picture there, if I hadn't left my camera at Sara's home. While there, I had the chance to talk to a number of Sara' s employees that are students as well. Park has a huge international contingent, and many of her employees are from all over the world. Sara acts as the mom-away-from home for these students, and creates such a great culture in her department. The common theme I heard from each of her employees as we talked was about how much Sara cared about each of her employees, to the degree that she regularly opens up her home, loans cars and does anything she can to help them out. What a legacy to leave behind. Computers will rust, love remains.

Great interview with my favorite writer/director, Kevin Smith - creator of such classics as Clerks, Mall Rats and Dogma.

Whether or not you're a Kevin Smith fan, you need to see the movie An Evening with Kevin Smith. It's about three hours of footage from Kevin Smith's college campus tour. In these tours, he does Q&A with college students. Not only is he hilarious, but he's a phenomenal story teller. Well worth adding to your Netflix queue.

I've been re-reading The Great Divorce, by C.S. Lewis. It's about a fictional bus ride from Hell to Heaven, where the passengers are allowed to walk freely around the outskirts of Heaven for a day and decide whether they'd like to "stay on" permanently.

There's a great part of the story that deals with our choices and our addictions. Here's an synopsis of it:

One of the passengers, an oily man who has decided to leave and is headed back to the bus. Sitting on his shoulder is a little red lizard, twitching its tail like a whip and whispering things in his ear. The man turns his head to the reptile and snarls, "Shut up, I tell you!"

Just then one of Heaven's radiant angels sees the man. "Off so soon?" he calls.

"Well, yes," says the man. "I'd stay, you know, if it weren't for him," indicating the lizard. "I told him he'd have to be quiet if he came. His kind of stuff won't do here. But he won't stop. So I'll just have to go home."

"Would you like me to make him quiet?" asks the angel.

"Of course I would", says the man.

"Then I will kill him," says the angel, stepping forward.

The man panics at the thought of permanently losing the lizard and the sweet fantasies the creature whispers in his ear. But he is tired of carrying him around. He dithers back and forth between the two choices. Solemnly, the angel reminds him he cannot kill the lizard without his consent. And yes, it will be painful for the man; the angel refuses to soften the truth. Finally, in anguish, the man gives his consent, then screams in agony as the angel's burning hands close around the lizard and crush it.

"Ow! That's done for me," gasps the man, reeling back.

But then, gradually but unmistakably, the man begins to be transformed. Bright and strong he grows, into the shape of an immense man, not much smaller than the angel. And even more surprisingly, something is happening to the lizard, too. He grows, rippling with swells of flesh and muscle, until standing beside the man is a great white stallion with mane and tail of gold.

The new man turns from the horse, flings himself at the feet of the Burning One, and embraces them. When he rises, his face shines with tears. Then in joyous haste the young man leaps upon the horse's back. Turning in his seat he waves a farewell. And then they are off across the green plain, and soon among the foothills of the mountains. Like a star, they wind up, scaling what seem to be impossible steeps, till near the dim brow of the landscape, they vanish, bright themselves, into the rose brightness of that everlasting morning.

I can think of a lot of areas of my life that follow this story. I've got things that I choose to allow to remain in my life, because I don't really believe I can get along without them. Sometimes I have the strength to choose, other times I don't. A lot for me boils down to how much I believe that that God REALLY wants whats best for me. I believe it in my head, but my actions show a different set of beliefs in my heart.

Jason shared this with me. I couldn't make something this dumb up.....
The Prayer of Jabez; A Contemporary Musical
Makes you wonder why Jason was searching for this....

I'm flying out to Kansas City this afternoon. Cathie's flying in to Kansas City Friday afternoon and I'm going to take her on a tour of Park University where I've been doing a lot of work over the past year and a half. Friday night we've got a black tie banquet to go to and then we're flying home Saturday morning. Should be fun. The customer's that I work with are looking forward to meeting Cathie, and I'm looking forward to giving her a chance to see where I've been spending my time and giving her a chance to put faces to the names. They're really great people out at Park and I've developed some friendships there that go beyond the work side of things.

Probably should strike this from your list of memorization verses
Ezekiel 23:20
There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

I'm learning just how expensive daughters can be - Madeline's got a dance recital for her dance class coming up:
* Dance Costume - $75
* Tickets to recital - $10/person
* Copy of video of recital $30 (No video taping allowed)

This in addition to the cost of the dance class. Ok, I'm done whining.

My company (Xerox Global Service,s Inc.) has a commercial.

Apparently, I'm much healthier than I thought. According to this article , picking your nose and eating it is one of the best ways to stay healthy, says a top Austrian doctor.

Innsbruck-based lung specialist Dr Friedrich Bischinger said people who pick their noses with their fingers are healthy, happier and probably better in tune with their bodies. He says society should adopt a new approach to nose-picking and encourage children to take it up. 'With the finger you can get to places you just can't reach with a handkerchief, keeping your nose far cleaner. And eating the dry remains of what you pull out is a great way of strengthening the body's immune system.'"

Jason sent me the preview for the new movie Dodgeball. "If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball".

The weather's been great. Nate and I went out today and picked up a hockey net so we could start playing some street hockey. The girls and I went for a long walk outside. Will took Nate up to the Tennis courts to play tennis before he starts his lessons on Monday. They played for over and hour and a half, after which Will took him for slurpees. Just one more reason the kids call him Uncle Will.

I'm back to journaling again in the mornings... It's the quietest time of my day, probably the only time where I don't have some kind of music, phone, television or children coming at me. I'd done it for months on end and all of the sudden stopped, I think when I started blogging more. Blogging's great, but I don't go to a soul level in my blog. I was doing an online private blog for myself, but found that I need to distance myself from technology for a few moments in my day to quiet my soul enough to think and listen to God.

Religious vision that awakens basic values can enable us to transcend narrow self-interest and embrace the common good rather than reducing things to their lowest common denominator and negotiating factional interests.
Jim Wallis, from THE SOUL OF POLITICS http://sojo.net/

Good article:
Jesus loves adulterous people. Jesus also loves His radiant, holy, and blameless bride. We are one and the same.

Sara sent me this list of quality consultant speak:
BLAMESTORMING: Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.
SEAGULL MANAGER: A manager, who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.
ASSMOSIS: The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.
SALMON DAY: The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.
CUBE FARM: An office filled with cubicles.
PRAIRIE DOGGING: When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on.
MOUSE POTATO: The on-line, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.
SITCOMS: Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids.
STRESS PUPPY: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiney.
SWIPEOUT: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.
XEROX SUBSIDY: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one's workplace.
IRRITAINMENT: Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The O.J. trials and Michael Jackson's affairs are examples.
PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.
ADMINISPHERE: The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.
404: Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error message "404 Not Found," meaning that the requested document could not be located.
GENERICA: Features of the American landscape that are exactly the same no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls, etc.
OHNOSECOND: That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you've just made a BIG mistake.
CROP DUSTING: Surreptitiously passing gas while passing thru a cube farm, then enjoying the sounds of dismay and disgust.

Jess and I were talking last night about a couple verses (Genesis 6:4, Numbers 13:33 ) in the bible that I'd just skipped over in the past. The verses reference fallen angels (called Nephilim, which means fallen ones) and humans getting it on, and creating a giant race of people. I started looking around and found this article on Giants in the Bible. This is some crazy stuff, I'd of thought someone was nuts if they tried to convince me this was there... Jess brought up the idea that this idea gives credence to the City of Angels movie premise that an angel would leave heaven to be with a woman.

KRT Wire | 03/17/2004 | Stamford, Conn.-Based Xerox Kicks off Office Makeover Contest: "Spaces,' 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy' and 'Extreme Makeover.' Now, Stamford-based Xerox is clamoring to join the makeover frenzy.
Xerox, together with Entrepreneur Magazine, kicked off the nationwide 'Help! My Office is Obsolete!' makeover contest yesterday.
You don't have to live in an unstylish home or want a quick botox fix to qualify for this makeover. One only needs to work in an outdated office. The contest winner will receive a complete office makeover, including state-of-the-art technology and a sleek new look, courtesy of Xerox"

Things are starting to smooth out a little in my new job. I'm getting a better handle on the upper and lower boundries of the job and the people I'm working with. It's interesting overseeing engagements and people from the west coast. I ended up on conference calls on Monday evening until 8PM. I was able to turn around and schedule a call at 5:30 AM the following morning with the same team, which evens things out a bit. I've doubled the amount of time I spend on conference calls each day, but I still wake up each morning looking forward to my job and working with the people I work with.

I ended up buying the Plantronics Wireless Headset for $129 on eBay.

Cathie and I had dinner last night with Jeb McGruder. Jeb was part of Nixon's electrion campaign and the "George Stephanopoulos" of the Nixon administration. He went to prison as a part of the Watergate scandal. It was an interesting conversation, talking him about the personalities of the Nixon administratin (especially G. Gordon Liddy), Nixon himself and the current presidential campaigns. Jeb's been in the news recently with his claim that Nixon himself had actually ordered the Watergate break-in.

I stole this from Noel's blog, taken from Protestants for the Common Good:

The Presidential Prayer Team is currently urging us to: "Pray for
the President as he seeks wisdom on how to legally codify the
definition of marriage. Pray that it will be according to Biblical
principles. With any forces insisting on variant definitions of
marriage, pray that God's Word and His standards will be honored by
our government." This is true.

Any good religious person believes prayer should be balanced by
action. So here, in support of the Prayer Team's admirable goals,
is a proposed Constitutional Amendment codifying marriage entirely
on biblical principles:

A. Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union between
one man and one or more women. (Gen 29:17-28; II Sam 3:2-5)

B. Marriage shall not impede a man's right to take concubines in
addition to his wife or wives. (II Sam 5:13; I Kings 11:3; II Chron
11:21)

C. A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a
virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. (Deut
22:13-21)

D. Marriage of a believer and a non-believer shall be
forbidden. (Gen 24:3; Num 25:1-9; Ezra 9:12; Neh 10:30)

E. Since marriage is for life, neither this Constitution nor the
constitution of any State, nor any state or federal law, shall be
construed to permit divorce. (Deut 22:19; Mark 10:9)

F. If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry
the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother's widow or
deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one
shoe and be otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law.
(Gen. 38:6-10; Deut 25:5-10)

G. In lieu of marriage, if there are no acceptable men in your
town, it is required that you get your dad drunk and have sex with
him (even if he had previously offered you up as a sex toy to men
young and old), tag-teaming with any sisters you may have. Of
course, this rule applies only if you are female. (Gen 19:31-36)

Small World. With my new job, I now have an assistant who works out of Los Angeles. The amazing thing is that she grew up about two blocks from me as a kid and went to the same elementary school and junior high school, a year ahead of me. She's doing a great job teaching me how to have an assistant and be more productive because of it. I can now say "Have your people call my people".

I'm checking out thsi very cool Plantronics Wireless Headset system. It's a wireless system that would interface in with my office phone so I could answer the phone anywhere in the house, and even remotely lift the handset with the "automatic handset lifter". Since I've taken my new position, I've been on the phone at least 7 hours a day, when I'm in the office. Technology always makes it less painful. I found the handset along with the lifter on eBay for around $150.

I had a good, relatively unproductive weekend. Saturday afternoon Cathie, Jen and Lori went out shopping for a dress for Cathie to wear to a formal event that we're attending for work at the end of the month. On Saturday night, Cathie and I went out with some friends of ours - Ted and Sherry. We had Chinese food and went back to their house to hang out. On Sunday, we didn't accomplish much. I took a much needed nap and we just hung around the house.

The nice thing that came out of last week is that I'm not going to training in Rochester, NY this week. I had some stuff hit the fan on a project I inherited, though I may have to go out to California for a few days to iron stuff out.

Interesting article on Gay Marriage and Christians from Relevantmagazine.com. I've been thinking a lot about this lately (the topic - socially, politically and spiritually, NOT about marrying another man). What's as interesting as the article, is the dialogue aftewards... Some nice, some not so nice.

You can tell I've been on conference calls for about 5 hours today.... Lots of blog entries.

Cathie and I have been going through Night Light, A Devotional for couples over the past couple of months. It's been a great way for us to connect at night, especially when we're both beat after a long day of being everything we are to everyone else. It's got a few paragraphs to read, and then a 4 or 5 questions that are good. Sometimes we talk for an hour, sometimes 10 or 15 minutes. Either way, it's been a good way to connect at the end of al ong day, especially with all of my travel lately.

I'm gone all next week, Sunday - Friday night out in Rochester, NY at training for my Green Belt in Lean Six Sigma. My favorite part about the whole methodology is the terms for the different levels of expertise: Yellow Belt, Green Belt, Black Belt and Master Black Belt. Before I knew much about Six Sigma, I was really suprised when five guys in a meeting introduced themselves as "Black Belts". I thought, what's up with this Karate kid stuff? Anyways, I've been trying to cram 80 hours of online training this week into about 10, in preparation for my training next week.

I was recently promoted to a new position within my company. I found out last Friday and my head's been spinning ever since. The person who was my boss over the past three months is leaving the company and I was offered his position. I now get to work directly for the person who'd been my mentor over the past year and a half, which I'm really excited about. I now have responsibility for the entire U.S. and lead a team of Principals who do the same type of work that I was doing before. My team's located around the US: Indianapolis, Baton Rouge and Los Angeles. I'm in the process of hiring more.

My head's swimming as I'm trying to get up to speed on everything that's going on within our organization, my team, all while doing the job I was doing before. I'm excited about all that I can now do, but a little reluctant. All of the ideas that I've had in the past and fed up the food chain - now flow to me to process and deploy.

It's funny to look at how much of where I'm at today I can tie back to what I've learned through youth ministry. Sounds like Robert Fulgham book. I learned about leading teams (and leading teams of volunteers is by far the toughest type of team to lead), public speaking (if you can speak in front of Jr. Highers, you can speak in front of anyone), strategy (how am I going to design a system around the intangible) and politics (if you can make parents happy, you can make anyone happy).

This is why I've considered homeschooling my kids. This is considered a class project. (I've never really considered it, by the way).

I had a bad parenting moment last week. After school, Nate came into my office and asked me the question, "Dad, is f**k a bad word?". I told him it was, not wanting to make too big a deal about it. He then asked, "What does it mean?" I reiterated that it was a very bad word, and shouldn't be used. He looked and said, "You told me that already. What does it mean?". I blanked. And then something stupid came out of my mouth that I'm sure I will regret later on. "It's a bad word for when a mommy and daddy kiss." Dooooh! This will surely come back to haunt me, I don't even have to explain all the possible scenarios. Dangit.

One of my brother Jon's more significant goal's in life is to teach each of his nephews how to do the "Robot Dance". So far, Matthew is the only one who's had any real success with this mentoring. The kid in this video represents Jon's hopes and dreams for Matthew.