Beautiful Fall Family Day

After church, it was just too beautiful to stay inside. In a rare bit of home maintenance motivation, I went out and cleaned the leaves out of the gutters and trimmed some of the trees that were rubbing up against the house. Maddie decided to show me that she has no fear of heights by scrambling all the way up our tallest tree.

Nate and I lamented end of his football season by throwing the ball around for a while.

It was a beautiful day to hang in the backyard enjoy the sun and hang out as a family.... And then watch football while grilling out - chicken drumsticks on the grill!

Maddie is flippin out

Maddie and I were playing around in the back yard and she wanted me to see how high I could throw her, like we do in the pool. I started tossing her up in the air, cheerleader style. It's a lot tougher than it looks.

After going for height, we tried to a sideways roll. It didn't go so hot, as you can see form the pictures.

She's still my little girl, no matter how old she gets.

Kurt Family Fall Day in the Leaves

Nate and I went to the Lions game on Sunday. It was kind of a last minute thing, meant to be a reward for his great report cards and conferences. It was probably the worst football game I've seen in years. It seemed like a bad way to waste a beautiful day.

I came home to find that my wife had spent the day mowing the lawn and raking the zillions of leaves we have. I went out for a few minutes to help her finish up the job. Maddie decided to take a few pictures, including this great picture of Cathie in action with the leaves, complete with her phone in holster.

Maddie had me pile the leaves so that she could launch off into the pile from the trampoline. I love this picture of her jumping into the leaves.

Emily followed suit, jumping into the leaves, with her curly hair following behind her.

I love these pictures of the girls.

Maddie's red hair blends right into the leaves. I got some other great pictures of Maddie and Cathie having a leaf flight that really captures the two of them together.

Halloween 2009, They keep growing up...

A couple of weeks ago we were sitting around as a family watching old family videos. We watched videos of Nate and Maddie's first Halloween's and laughed at their costumes. It's amazing to see how they've grown up. Nate changed his costume up at the last minute from being an injured football player to a cheerleader. Emily stuck with her animal theme to be a bee.

We weren't exactly sure what would happen this year with trick-or-treating based on some of the flu stuff going around, so it came down to the wire. In the past, Cathie had accidentally given out the stone in her wedding ring as a trick-or-treat, so this year, we made sure all the prongs were in tact.

Maddie went out as 'Little Miss Muffit' with two of her friends, Maddie and Jacklyn. It's tough finding an appropriate outfit for a 6th grader!

The girls made out pretty well with their candy, and separated out their candy for counting.

I'd suggested that the boys hit one of our bigger subdivisions, but I'm not sure how well it worked for them. Emily and her friend Kirstin went out with Monaca and Cathie and had a blast.

Emily and Maddie carved pumpkins this year, but didn't do the complex designs in past years, which worked for me, as I normally do all the carving.

Wilaca came over to hang with us. Cathie and Monaca took Em out, while Will and I passed out candy and then watched the MSU game. What a painful game to watch!

Bathroom Warning: No cell phones or cameras?

The Lions only scoring play, with an interception

The Lions only scoring play, with an interception
Originally uploaded by fusionmonkey

Is this like rock, paper, scissors?

Glenn's Bathroom Pictures

When the Xerox crew visited my friend Glenn's house, we all shared their guest bathroom. Specifically, we noticed that the pictures on the wall over the toilet were still the same that came with the frames.

Without Glenn knowing, we printed out pictures from the weekend and placed them in the frames. It took him a few days, but he figured it out eventually, and has left these amazing pictures up permanently. Zoom in to see some quality photos of the fellas.

Perfect Michigan Fall Day (for about 30 minutes)

This weather represents everything I love about Michigan Fall. Too bad we've only had about 30 minutes total of combined crisp warm days, sunshine and fall color. The rest of the day ended up overcast.

I'm waiting for a nice day (Wednesday?) to head out to Kensington and get some pictures of the fall colors.

First Place Harvest Party Trunk Design.. I think

We had our annual harvest party at church today, including the fifth annual "Trunk or Treat". People went to great lengths to decorate their trunks, with costumes, activities, prizes all around their decorated trunk theme.

Our Pastor, Joe and his wife Joanne, had a "Pie the Pastor" trunk theme:


Someone else had a human whack-a-mole theme. All very impressive. Cathie would normally be the person who would think of decorating. With her out of town, I felt proud that I'd remembered to bring the girls costumes and a bowl for the bag of suckers Cathie had bought earlier. With no real decoration theme, I quickly came up with the amazing theme of the "Blue Ultra Lounge 3000", which I'm pretty sure would have won, had I stuck around a little longer to claim my prize.

At least my trunk didn't look like this:

I think I get why the father ran...and why you'd put a sheep on your shoulders

Today, I understood why the father ran, and why you'd put a sheep on your shoulders. At this moment, I'm so filled with joy in my heart that I can barely contain it. Let me start at the beginning - about 10 years ago.

I've been working with the youth group in my church for around 12 years. In those years, I've gotten to know hundreds of kids, lots of who are grown up now - even married. I stay in touch with a lot of them through facebook, some through church and some not at all. As I've been going through cataloging my pictures in Picasa, I've seen kids that I'd forgotten about. I've called some of them to check in on them and keep up with others through their friends. There's a part of me that feels responsible and hurts when I hear about my kids making bad choices, no matter how long they've been out of my youth group.

Junior high misfit kids have a special place in my heart. I like the soul-level misfits.... For some reason, my favorite kids are the ones who don't know or don't settle for the easy church answers, the ones that don't get how to behave in church or treat others in a "nice" way, the outcasts or the hyper-popular who think they have no space or need in their life for Jesus, the ones who are too cool to be a part of a youth group.

There was a girl ten years ago who was like this in my youth group. She was full of junior high girl drama, a cheerleader, insecure but with a great heart. She stopped coming to Crossroads after junior high, and I never saw her again. She was one of the girls I would always ask about as I'd talk to other kids her age that I stayed in touch with and it was sad to hear what was going on with her.

Joe came up today and told me that she was in church today! I ran over to see her, giddy at the idea that she'd come back. My heart lept to see her. She's 21 now. The kids and I sat next to her and we caught up. I was so excited to see her there today. It made these two parables come to life for me...

"Suppose one of you had a hundred sheep and lost one. Wouldn't you leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost one until you found it? When found, you can be sure you would put it across your shoulders, rejoicing, and when you got home call in your friends and neighbors, saying, 'Celebrate with me! I've found my lost sheep!' Count on it—there's more joy in heaven over one sinner's rescued life than over ninety-nine good people in no need of rescue. Luke 15:4-7

Seriously, I felt just like that... Ok, I didn't try and throw her on my shoulders - because I'm pretty sure that's just a metaphor...

She seemed a bit ashamed to be there, like she felt out of place, like she would be condemned for having left to begin with. The other story that came to life was the prodigal son... This is the parable of the son who turns his back on his Dad, goes off and sows his oats and comes back ashamed, awaiting his father's condemnation. Instead he's greeted by a father who is ecstatic that his son has returned:

"When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. The son started his speech: 'Father, I've sinned against God, I've sinned before you; I don't deserve to be called your son ever again.'

We're going to feast! We're going to have a wonderful time! My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!' And they began to have a wonderful time.

I texted friends after church, and called a few to share the great news. My friend Ken Buck pointed out the value in being a part of one church over the long haul - being able to see people come back like this. I probably sound goofy gushing like this. At some level, it affirms what I sometimes have a hard time accepting about youth ministry: it's not my job to fix and save every kid that comes through our group. We get to put some of the puzzle pieces on the board, but in the end, God has the cover of the puzzle box and knows how it's going to turn out.

Anyone else have any good prodigal son type stories in their lives?

Freezing Cold Football Weather

Interesting Article on Facebook's Data Center

Facebook's got big 'ol data center with over 25 terabytes of data every day for the daily log files.

The motivation of failure. Life=Risk

On a lunch date with my little Emily

Guys Weekend Snapshot

I've worked with some of the same guys for over 15 years and developed close personal friendships with a group of them. We started getting together for a few days every year to hang out, golf and catch up about nine years ago. The group has expanded a bit, but over the past 5 years or so is pretty much the same group of guys. It's a group that genuinely enjoy hanging out together. Some of the guys have been the other's bosses at one time or another, but it doesn't really change the dynamic of the group. I count these guys as good friends - willing to step up and help in times of need, personal or professional.

This get together was exactly what I needed. I laughed so hard, so often on this trip. Maybe it's because we've all worked together for so long and traveled together for work so much, but we all get together so well. There was no "that guy" that annoyed everyone else the whole time. People weren't above messing with you when you fell asleep first or crushing against the window in the back seat when the car took a sharp turn in your direction. Everyone helped out and everyone took care of everyone else, and would mock you at the slightest turn or dumb thing out of your mouth. Great times.

We normally do our gathering up in Gaylord at Bill's place, with people flying in from all around the country. Glenn bought a house in Clearwater Beach, right on the Intercostal water-way and it wasn't too tough of a call to head down to Florida. The weather ended up being about the same as Michigan in the end - maybe colder.


When we arrived, it was about 92 degrees. Within about 6 hours a huge cold front came through and dropped it down to about 75 degrees. It ended up getting as cold as 40. It was actually warmer in Michigan. Most of the guys flew into Tampa, a few of us had customer meetings down in West Palm Beach and drove up from there. The only upside to the drive was experiencing my first "Five Guys Burger" on the way. Greatest burger in the world - hands down.

We woke up early on Friday, all set to go deep sea fishing for the day. The same weather front that produced the cold, also produced big winds and big waves. The captain said he wouldn't take us for our own safety. I think he was just hungover and wanted to go back to bed on a rainy day.

Instead, Glenn took us out in his sailboat into the Intercoastal waterway. It was a beautiful view of the houses in the area.

A couple of the guys were fishing off the back of the boat when a pelican decided to take the bait. We had to reel him in so Glenn could release the hook from his mouth. Newton volunteered his shirt to grab the bird. He flew off, happy as a can be. Newton ended up with a bloody shirt.

Newton and I claimed the front of the boat, and as we headed towards the ocean, the waves got big and we had a great roller coaster ride. We couldn't sit still for long, so we headed up the mast to launch in to the water.

The only downside to jumping in from the mast are the wires, the boat below that you have to clear, the big waves and the really fast currents. Other than that, no problem. Neither of us died, but neither did it again either.

After the boat ride, most of our activities consisted of eating, playing cornhole (see below)

With cornhole, it turns out I am a ninja. I can pretty much blindfold myself and get a beanbag in the hole. I was told many times that I should go pro and I am considering my options.

We watched a lot of football and baseball (by a lot, I mean I have never watched that many football games in one long weekend) and then throwing Kohne in the Ocean on his birthday. On the topic of Kohne... Everyone gradually asked him for his iPhone, glasses, etc until he was completely sea-worth. What a group of friends we are. He took it well.


On the last night, we headed downtown to Clearwater for the Jazz Festival. Aaaron Neville played Sunday night, whom I've only seen on a Saturday Night Live City Court with Aaron Neville and then as the theme song for the Fisher Price Little People song the kids watched when they were younger. The song drove me nuts and the kids would sing it over and over to torment me. It was actually a pretty good show, ending with a Bob Marley cover and Amazing Grace.

Thanks again to Glenn and Rebecca for opening their house up to us and for explaining to the neighbors why guys were jumping off the dock at midnight.

Cornholin in 20mph winds

Ron is a Dancing Machine

I've watchd this 20 times and I'm still laughing just as hard each time.