Our babysitter Tiffany has a Mac Powerbook with a camera mounted on it. The great thing with this camera is that it lets you take pictures in all sorts of crazy modes, including the following:

Night in the box

I went to check on the kids Sunday night and found Emily sleeping inside of this school bus, inside of a cardboard box. We never know where she's going to end up in her room at night.

My Mom

My Mom is moving towards the end of an eleven month battle with pancreatic cancer. She has fought so hard and battled through so much to get to this point. She has fought the fight against one of the toughest forms of cancer with a faith, a strength and optimism that I hope to have some day. My Mom has never doubted God's greatness or God's goodness in all of this. She has spent each day with a gratefulness for that day and clung to the smallest joys, appreciative of everything that people have done for her - never pitying herself in all of this. When I think of her faith throughout this, the lyrics to the hymn On Christ the Solid Rock come to mind:

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly trust in Jesus’ Name.

On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

When darkness seems to hide His face,
I rest on His unchanging grace.
In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil.

On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

My Dad has fought the fight right along side of my Mom and saying that I'm proud of him doesn't do it justice. I am in awe. After 40 years of marriage, my Dad has shown me how seriously he takes the "in sickness and in health" portion of his marriage vows. He has stood by my Mom, made her his top priority and served her tirelessly through everything she's gone through over the past 11 months, not to mention the rest of their marriage. He has been a model father and husband all of his life and I am so proud to have him as my Dad. I want to be that kind of man and that kind of husband someday. He is truly my hero and my role-model as a man.

This has sucked. I have had sadness in my life I've never experienced. I know people go through things like this every day, but I had no idea something like this could hurt so much. I don't know how I would get through this without my faith. I've thought a lot about this over the past months and spent a lot of time praying and dealing with God on this, trying to get a handle around suffering as a follower of Jesus. Throughout all of this, I have had to come back to these fundamental truths over and over again:

1. God loves my Mom with a love beyond what I can understand.
2. God is big enough to heal my Mom
3. God could heal my Mom if he wanted to
   
4. God has a perfect plan
5. I don't always get God's plan, but that doesn't change the first four tenants for me.
   

I've never gone through something this tough in my life. I am sad at the core of my being. I hate seeing my Mom, my Dad, my Grandma, my kids - my whole family go through this. I am thankful that we have such a close family and we can lean on each other and grow closer throughout this. It still sucks in a big way.



One bright light in all of this has been my Mom's friend Sherry Burmeister. Sherry has been my Mom's best friend for a long, long time - I think around 25 years or so. Sherry radiates joy about her in a way that you can't help but smile. She has a laugh that is contagious and her and my Mom are hilarious together. They have a friendship that is deep beyond explanation. Throughout my Mom's battle, Sherry has been there every step along the way. She reads to my Mom, she paints her toenails and gives her foot massages. One of Sherry's few flaws is a complete lack of a sense of direction. She frequently gets herself horribly lost trips across town. She has been known as "wrong-way" Burmeister for years. One time she was picking up a speaker for a conference from the airport in Lansing. She got on the expressway and before she knew it, she was in Grand Rapids, instead of Okemos. Oops. This is a weekly occurrence for Sherry, but we love her none-the-less and consider her a part of the family.

Family Picture

Cathie and I have been at my parents house today spending time with my family. Jon, Dan, Susan, Cathie, Sherry and I spent some time looking at old pictures in a giant bin. This was one of my favorite thanks to Susan's bangs, Jon's drugged out look and Dan's huge glasses. I'm wearing my favorite three-piece cordoroy suit with a clip-on time.

This Weekend

What a horrible week for sports in Michigan. U of M won, MSU lost, the Lions lost and the Spartans lost. The only bright spot in the weekend is that I crushed brad with a humiliating defeat in Fantasy Football. The Lions game was bittersweet because I had Jackson and Bulger on my team and every time they scored, I scored big.

I went to see Jackass 2 this weekend with Brad, Will and Eli. I have not laughed that hard in a long time, which felt great. Today turned into a beautiful day. I mowed the lawn and the kids played with friends, while Cathie met her friend Debbie for lunch in Howell. Maddie stayed over at her Grandma and Grandpa Lebbon's for the night and then met up with Cathie to hand her off. She had a blast seeing her Grandparents, Ed & Stacy and most of all their dog, Justice.

We got the kids down and I made a fire in the fireplace on our deck and we sat outside, enjoying the nice fall weather.

Snakey

While I was mowing the lawn today, I found this tiny little gardner snake. Emily loves animals of all kind, including bugs, worms and snakes. Emily has a wonderful naming convention for everything - it's very complex. For a pink bear - she calls it 'pinky'. For a pet frog, she calls it 'froggy', and you can guess that the snake would be called - 'snakey'.

She carried this snake around for a while, showing the neighborhood boys. Growing up, we used to bring all sorts of snakes and frogs home. My Mom doesn't like either, but she always pretended to be interested in what we'd bring home and shared our excitement about findings.

Emily is a great contrast: a girly, girl who loves to wear dresses - yet loves snakes, bugs and any other living creature.

Peanut Butter and Salami

This is odd. Emily's sandwich of choice today for lunch was a peanut butter and salami sandwich. Peanut butter and bananas I can see - but salami? She must have gotten this from Cathie's side of the family.

10 or so things about my Mom

10 Things about my Mom:

1. She's one of the few people that are allowed to call me David.
2. She has asthetically-challenged, but very talented toes. She can pick things up with them and pull weeds with them.
3. Over the past 15 years she has kept a journal on her vacations, writing down everything they did, everywhere they stayed, and most importantly - where and what they ate.
4. My Mom was on the front page of the Detroit News when she met her father (my grandpa) for the first time as he came home from the war.
5. My Mom collects teapots. She has a bazillion of them.
6. My Mom loves just about every food in the world except for brussel sprouts.
7. My Mom keeps a journal of every book she's read and the author of the book. She reads about 75 books a year.
8. My Mom has cross-stitched for a long time. She has made us at least ten different pieces, including one about computers and a sampler for our wedding.
9. My Mom has been there for the birth of every one of her grandchildren and in the delivery room for three of them (Maddie, Emily and Ben).
10. My Mom has read the whole bible every year for the past 20ish years.
11. My Mom has told this crazy 'Peanut butter stuck in my mouth' story, complete with voice inflection and motions, since I was a kid. She told it during our car talent shows and a few months ago, she told it to my kids while sitting at Scoopy Doos eating ice cream. It never ceases to make me laugh.
    

Most of all, my Mom is the woman in my life by whom all other women are measured. I married my wife because I saw in Cathie the potential to have the kind of relationship my Dad and Mom have, and saw in Cathie the ability to be a phenomenal Mom to our kids, like my Mom was and is to us. My Mom loves her grandchildren so much treating each one as if they are her favorite. She listens so attentively to every story they tell her and treats each gift from them - whether it's a scribble, a picture or a special rock, as a treasure.

My Mom is a woman with a giant heart for others. I remember when one of the kids in my youth group had cancer, my Mom would send her gifts, never having met her. She is an amazing woman of God who has prayed for me daily. Beyond that, she prays for friends of ours that she barely knows. She is where I got my optimistic outlook on life. For my Mom, not only is the glass half full, but it's probably full of the most wonderful drink in the world and will be full tomorrow. All throughout my Mom's battle with cancer, she rarely complained and never asked for pity. She has always looked on the bright side, reflecting that things could always be worse, and would likely be better tomorrow.

Nate's Football Game

Nate's first football game was today. The team had two practices before the game, and they played great. Of the four coaches, I'm the only one who has coached football before , so I ran the offense and defenses while one of the other Dad's helped out and got the hang of it. Nate started off as Quarterback and he played great. After playing for a few years, he's finally got comfortable in the pocket, and he threw a nice pass for a touchdown. I love seeing the joy on the kids faces when they make a big play or when they hear a complimentary word, even after a broken play went south and they know it. We won the game, 12 - 6.

Gift to my Family

As a kid on our family road trips, the 6 of us would pile into the car for very long car rides. My parents would keep us entertained by doing 'Talent Shows'. We would each showcase a talent like singing, reciting a poem or some other skill you could do while crammed in a four-door Oldsmobile. I was always guaranteed victory by doing a version of Kenny Roger's 'The Gambler'. My brothers thought I won based on pity, but I believe it was based on raw skill - because my Mom told me so, and I believe her. Jon and Dan got to the point where they would do motions to the song - purely in mockery of me, of course. My Dad would always do a horrible operatic/yodeling rendition of 'Little Boy Blue', but never ceased to get a laugh.

Star Wars Quotes

This is a list of Star Wars quotes that have been improved by replacing a word with the word 'pants'. My favorite:

I cannot teach him. The boy has no pants.

Coolest Costume Ever

I'm a big X-Men fan. This guy made the coolest Halloween customer ever. My brother Jon is the only guy I know with enough time on his hand to make a set of those working, retractable claws.

Warning Label?

What does this mean?

Mom and her favorite children

A few years ago, for Christmas Cathie, Sooze, Kris and Beth made my Mom a scrapbook of pictures from her life all the way back when cameras had just been invented. My brothers and I decided to try and claim credit for it, at least in a picture, which we all know is worth a thousand words. My Mom calls this picture, "Me and my favorite children". Dan and Jon calls this picture, "Our wives didn't pick out these pants for us."

Computer Science

In 1989 I began at MSU getting a degree in Computer Science. This was before the big .com boom. We would follow the average starting pay for the degrees pretty religiously and in the College of Engineering, Computer Science was one step above Civil Engineering and below Chemical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. Computer Science guys were still considered geeks - not .com bazillionaires. My classes were made up 98% guys and the classes were hard. I got by not by being the smartest guy in the world, but by being able to get the smartest, most anti-social guys in the class into my study group and facilitating and lead the guys to the point that we'd actually get the stuff done and by not ostracizing the smartest guys, they were glad to help me with the toughest assignments. My Computer Science degree from MSU was one of the best decisions I ever made. I've been playign with computers for 25 years and I still love them.

Over the past 10 years, there are fewer and fewer people getting computer science degrees. The feeling is that the really technical stuff is being sent offshore. This is a very interesting article that describes how demand for the degrees is going up, but the number of people getting them is going down.

Domino

I watched the movie Domino last night. It's the true story of Domino Harvey, a model who abandoned her career and a 90210 lifestyle to become a bounty hunter. She was also the sister of Lindsay Lohan's ex-fiancee, Harry Morton. Decent movie. Interesting lifestyle. My sister Susan would make a good bounty hunter.

Adidas

When Nate was 2ish, he was fascinated by construction equipment, aka "Big Trucks". He couldn't quite say "Big Truck" so he would call them "De-Das". When Nate and I were driving home, we had the following conversation:

Nate: "Dad, when I was little, do you remember what I called big trucks?"
Me: "Yep. De-Das"
Nate: "Yeah. I didn't know they were a kind of shoe."
Me: "Huh? Shoes?"
Nate: "Yeah. A De-Das. They're a kind of shoe."
Me: "Never thought of it that way. Guess you're right."

(Be sure and Note that Matthew, Andrew and Stephen are all wearing turtle-necks in the picture.)

Before and After: Maddie's Haircut

Maddie got her hair cut today.

Short. I think it looks great, but makes her look too old.


I want her to stay my little girl forever!

Hon

Nate and I both agree that waitresses under the age of 50 shouldn't be allowed to call you 'Hon' or 'Honey'.

Video Games and Food

Nate has his first football game tomorrow so we went out to pick up a pair of cleats and mouth guard. A new BW3's opened up over in Brighton so we grabbed dinner and spent time talking and playing these video game stations at each table. Needless to say, Nate was in heaven.

Bloglines | My Feeds (1694) (11)

I'll admit it: I'm addicted to my e-mail. I can access it from my phone, my laptop, my desktop at a moments notice. A little too easily. I just read this interesting summary on LifeHacker around why?

How many times a day do you refresh your inbox? How often do you do it without thinking? The Mind Hacks blog tackles why checking your email can become such a compulsive, addicting behavior: because, like the slot machines, it has "variable interval reinforcement."

Sometimes, but not every time, the behaviour produces a reward. Everyone loves to get an email from a friend, or some good news, or even an amusing web link. Sometimes checking your email will get you one of these rewards. And because you can never tell which time you check will produce the reward, checking all the time is reinforced, even if most of the time checking your email turns out to have been pointless. You still check because you never know when the reward will come.

Like Pavlov's dogs, the article discusses ways to recondition yourself to stop hitting that "Get Mail" button so often - by enforcing timed delays, making it harder to do, and removing or moving the new mail notification. This article's a little heavy on the psych-talk and "we're just animals with animal responses," but it's a really interesting look at the why's and how's of online addiction. Why email is addictive (and what to do about it)

Things I learned from the show 'The Office'

When I have a big party in my hotel room, I will not bring a black light. I owe my success in my job to the things I've learned from Michael and Dwight on The Office.

Tigers Game

I went to a Tiger's game today with some friends from work. It turned out to be a nice day for the game, and my first time in Comerica Park. I'm not a big baseball fan, but with the Tiger's being getting into the playoffs and playing well, it was fun to see.

I met up with Mark Kohne, Mike Doyle & Todd Hawley there. I was also amazed to see my brother Dan's Doppelgänger, complete with mullet.

A beautiful day in the neighbrhood

I got into Charlotte, NC yesterday and the weather is beautiful - 80 degrees and sunny. I checked into my hotel and they upgraded me (thanks you Hilton Diamond status) into a ginormous room with two bathrooms, two bedrooms, three beds a living room and kitchen with a pool view balcony. I feel obligated to use them all. I'm sitting on the balcony checking e-mail this morning, getting ready to head into the office for all day meetings.

Charlotte

I'm heading to Charlotte, NC this morning. I haven't been traveling much, which has been nice, for me. Now that the kids are in school during the day, I'm pretty sure Cathie wants me to get an office so I'm not bothering at home.

Stink Eye

Cathie woke up yesterday unable to open her eyes. She was in a huge amount of pain, so after church, I took her to the emergency room to get checked out. Dana took the girls for me and Lori ended up picking her up from the emergency room. Apparently, she had a pretty serious case of keratitis and it good that she went in yesterday instead of waiting. She ended up getting some drops which she had to wake up every two hours and put in her eyes. She's got to go to the eye doctor today to get them checked out further. I'm hoping she's able to get a sexy pair for blue blocker sunglasses out of this.

Paintball

Our Junior High & High School youth groups and a bunch of adults got together with two other churches in the area to play Paintball at Futureball Paintball course.

Bob Rays grilled out for us and the Rays boys were out in force along with their buddies.

There were all sorts of Paintball couples who've been playing together for years - including Zach & Tiffany and J & Jess. One of the cool things this year was that Nate finally got to play with me. Technically, you need to be in 6th grade and it was great to see how well he did. I wasn't sure how he'd react to getting nailed with a paintball, which can hurt pretty badly - especially when you get pelted multiple times.

Nate was there with kids he's grown up with in the church - kids like Grant, Josh and Justin.

I walked away without a too many bad welts, but I did take a shot dead on my cash and prizes, much like Eli did below:

Eli was there with Jeff and Bobby. Bobby had a ridiciulous paintball setup and looked like a commando. Jeff was trying to let off some aggression from the beating he took in Fantasy Football from me last week (although he said it was Diane that picked him team for him.)

You can see the rest of the pictures here.

Tags: Paintball, Futureball

Emily

Emily: "Mom, I threw up a little bit, but don't worry, I cleaned it up."
Cathie: "Was your tummy feeling sick?"
Emily: "No. I was doing this with my hand (puts whole hand in mouth) and it made me throw up a little."

Free Coffee

I love Dunkin Donuts coffee, especially their Iced Coffee. Yahoo has a coupon today for a free one, good only today.

New Fall Lineup

There seems to be a plethora of good new TV out there this year. I hate to add new shows into my core lineup because I just don't have the time for it. Here's what I've caught so far:

Survivor - This is turning out to be a pretty lame season. The racial divide isn't cutting it.
Grey's Anatomy - I've never seen the show last night so I sat with Cathie and watched it. It seems to be a less funny, more dramatic version of Scrubs. Cathie was pretty annoyed as I asked her who all the characters were, but so far, I'm not hooked. I want Scrubs back.
Studio 60 - I caught this last night and liked it. Kinda seems like the West Wing.
The Amazing Race - I watched it for the first time last season and liked it, a second season might just be too much more of the same and I'm not sure if it's worth doing again.
The Office - This show has come back stronger than ever. I about wet myself laughing last night.
My Name is Earl - I love Jason Lee. Enough said.
Thief - I heard this is an amazing show, but I haven't watched it yet.

Tags: Survivor, Grey's Anatomy, Studio 60, The Amazing Race, Scrubs, The Office, Thief, My Name is Earl

Poopy Tooth

I went to the Dentists today to get my permanent crown put on. My dentist was putting it in the back of my mouth and he made sure to explain to me that if it popped out, to turn my head sideways and not swallow it. He went on to explain to me that he'd had one patient's pop out at home and he swallowed it. It was later "released" from his system, he brought it in and asked if he could put it back in. The only condition was that my dentist could never tell the guys wife. He figured his wife would have something funny to say every time he had bad breath. I explained to my dentist that telling my wife would be the least of my worries. It'd be my brothers and my friends I'd be concerned about. (It did end up back in the guy's mouth).

Total Chaos

We had our first junior high youth group meeting on Tuesday, called Chaos, which was the right word for it. We started out with some fun games that included duct taping kids to the wall and a five minutes segment where Matt and Zach demonstrated the power of Mentos and Diet coke.

We then went in to the lesson part of the night, called "Dares from Jesus". We're looking at some of the counter-cultural teachings of Jesus and how he challenges us in different aspects of our lives. As part of the lesson, we were talking about what a Dare is all about and tried to come up with some good dares ourselves, one of which was stopping this fan with my tounge. It hurt more than you'd think.

Aside from Jason, Jess and myself we've got 4 other leaders: Chris Cornell, Mike Rays, Matt Killeen and Zach Bashista. All four of them were were in Fusion when they were in 6th grade and now 3 of them are in college and one is a senior in high school. They're great with the kids, each with their own style.

You can see more of the pictures here at the Kurt Family Photo Gallery.

Em in a Tree

Roger Waters Concert

Bob, Eli, Brad and I went to the Roger Waters concert last night and we were blown away. It was about a 3 hour show it was probably the greatest concert I've ever seen, even better than The Who back in 1989. This is one of those shows that I've wanted to see since I was a kid, so my expectations were very high, and I was not disappointed. The guitarist that covered the vocals and guitar solos for David Gilmour was amazing - at least as talented as Gilmour, if not more-so. You can see a set-list here and a review of the concert here.

I took some pictures and video, which you can watch here:

Tags: Roger Waters, Palace of Auburn Hills, David Gilmour

Bob, Brad, Eli and I are going to see Roger Waters tonight for the Dark Side of the Moon Live Tour at the Palace. I've listened to Pink Floyd since I was a kid and I gradually got hooked on his solo stuff like The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking. This should be a great concert but a little different that seeing Jimmy Buffett last week.

Tags: Roger Waters, Dark Side of the Moon Live Tour, Palace of Auburn Hills, The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking

My Mom

Here's the latest update on my Mom from my Dad:

She has been fighting pancreatic cancer for 11 1/2 months and remains resolute in fighting this dreaded disease. She doesn't complain about what she goes through and is an inspiration to all of us.

My Mom started her third round of chemotherapy almost three weeks ago. Before she started these treatments, her oncologist encouraged her to have vascular access port implanted for ease of infusions, hydration and blood draws (which are twice a week). Since this required surgery as an out patient, Lynn was reluctant, but had it implanted anyway. Now that the nurses don't have to stick a needle into her veins she loves her port.

This has been the most difficult treatment yet, with the side effects of pain, nausea, and extreme fatigue, being much worse than the previous treatments. The pain and nausea are controlled to some degree with medication. Because of the fatigue, the doctors decided to postpone the next treatments by one week. They hope that this will allow Lynn to build up her energy level.

You continue to be so faithful with cards, other well wishes, and your prayers for Lynn's healing. With all your prayers and so many other people who don't even really know Lynn bombarding heaven, we thought God would be saying, okay? enough already, shes healed! We remind ourselves that, He is God. He knows the master plan. We place our trust in Him and we believe in miracles. Prominently displayed in our home is a plaque from one of Lynn s closest friends which says: Be still, and know that I am God.

I've used statcounter.com for a while to track the usage statistics on my blog. It's good, but it's not free. Google's got their own free version called Google Analytics. If you've got a blog, this will tell you who looks at your site and when with some amazing detail.

To get set up, login Google Analytics with your Google Account. Once you've got your account set up, to get Google Analytics tracking your site's pageviews, drop a snippet of javascript onto your site's pages (much like Sitemeter.) If you're a blogger, just include the Google Analytics code into all your blogging software's templates.

Tags: statcounter.com, google analytics

Gaylord - Sunday Night

We got back from boating and Mike Doyle and Newton Peters had arrived from Michigan. Newton flew up from Alabama and Mike came all the way from Clarkston, MI. Mike came dressed for action, as you can see by the pictures below.

Newton was kind enough to bring some moonshine, all the way from his brother-in-law's still in rural Alabama.

Bill and Glenn cooked some gimongeous steaks, along with some asparagus and mushrooms that were amazing.

We ended the night playing poker and digesting our food. It's a great group of guys that go way back. Bill, Ron, Mike and I have worked together for the past 12 years. I came out of college knowing nothing and Bill and Ron taught me all sorts of good stuff, most of it true. Bill and I stuck together and went to Xerox and then Bill and Ron came back to work with us after a few years.