Sledding

We were at my Dad's house celebrating my Grandma's 89th birthday yesterday and after the party Dan, Kevin and I took the kids sledding at the nearby Granger Hill. This is by far one of the best sledding hills I've ever been to in Michigan. It's got three separate hills, all of which generate some wicked speed.

The snow was hard packed and fast, but it made for some wicked wipe-outs. If you were turned sideways when you hit the washboard at the bottom of the hill, you were pretty much assured of a wipe-out, which felt about the same as rolling on concrete. The kids went non-stop for two hours and I was able to get some fun video:

Tags: Granger Hill Dewitt Michigan Sledding

You can see the rest of the pictures here in the Kurt Family Photo Gallery.

Maddie and Em

I found this note from Madeline (8) to Emily (5) taped on Em's door tonight:

Dear Emily,
You're the best sister ever. You're fun to be around, you cheer me up when I'm sad, and you're so nice. If I lined all the sisters up in the world and picked one, that would be you. I love you and nobody else could take your place in my heart.

Sincerely,
Maddie
XOXOXOX

Guy Love

This song from Scrubs sums up the 'Guy Love' between Will and I very nicely (I'm the Zach Braff character in the relationship)

Tags: Scrubs, Guy Love, Zach Braff, Donald Faison

Nate's First Game

Nate's team had their first pratice yesterday and their first game today, which they lost (Mike, if this were you son, you would be angry, wouldn't you?). Nate's coach is a friend of mine, Tim Hill, who I served with on the board of Project 311. Tim love basketball and actually owns a pair of every Air Jordan show style ever made. He is also one of the few black men in the South Lyon area. He was sharing with me that people often ask him if he actually has a kid in the school district, because it's such a white community. We were joking that he's a pretty hot commodity as a coach in this area, due to his uniqueness. He's a phenomenal coach who played three years of college ball and has a great understanding the game, how to coach and motivate the kids while teaching them the fundamentals.

Mack

I flew into Atlanta yesterday and went over to a friend of mines house for dinner. My friend Mack is the ultimate gadget guy. He me makes me look like a technophobe, frankly. Arriving at his house, I wasn't sure if I was in the right place until I saw the box for an infra-red auto-opening trash-can sitting outside his garage, so I knew I was there. His 13 computers and 2 multi-terabyte file servers makes my technology infrastructure pale in comparison. We went through gadget after gadget as he showed . He's got a fully digital recording studio, a huge collection of signed guitars and a separate digital DJ/Karaoke setup with full intelligent lighting setup. This picture is of his office, with the center screen being a touch screen tablet that he can take notes on with a pen and have it translate them to text.

Mack's always had a large music collection, but he's taken it to the next level. He figured out what it takes to make iTunes break. Apparently a 170,000 songs is more than iTunes was built to handle.

Mack was my boss and mentor a couple of years ago and we've still stayed in touch now that we work in different divisions of the same company. I finally had a chance to meet Mack's wife and daughter who are great and love the technology as well, taking all of his hand-me-downs.

Bible in a Year

I'm in week three of the Bible in a Year thing I'm doing with some friends. So far, so good. It's about 15 minutes per day of reading, which I do first thing in the morning before or after working out. I've gotten into a good rhythm of reading and journaling each morning that gives me a good chance to reflect on the day coming up and connect with God.

It's funny how a few weeks ago I was in a slump, but I figured I was managing life pretty well on my own. The more I've taken the time to sit back, journal and reflect on where I was at, the less "under-control" I saw my life. I'm not out of my funk, but I've got some rhythms back in my life that are good and fulfilling.

IT Infrastructure

I was reading someone's blog post a while back about how stuff can make you happy. I guess it can, for a while. My computers are a double edged sword. I buy them, sure that they'll make me happy forever and they end up giving me a headache. I just got done re-doing my office computer infrastructure, which consists of four computers, not to mention the three others I have dispersed around the house. i recently bought a new Dell system because my own desktop was getting to be five years old, which is ancient in computer years. It was a top of the line system when I bought it and I'd upgraded it to the point that it was a souped-up duct taped system that was choking with all of the load I was putting on it.

I took that system and turned it into a central file, multimedia, backup, web and application server. I re-loaded it from scratch and have it set up to mirror all of my data around the house, and serve my iPods, stereo systems and other desktops with music, pictures and video. I've got it setup with a scheduled on-line off-site backup, so that I'm not at risk of losing any data should my house burn down or if i were to spill a cup of coffee on my system. I need to pick up another disk and set it up as a mirror for my data, but that can wait a little while - I hope. I've also got it setup as a centralized torrent server that my other systems can feed as well as running all of my web services to give a more stable environment for the family photo gallery and my iTunes playlist publisher for my blog.

I think everything is just how I'd like it for now, until another computer dies. I've finally rebuilt the kids computer and got that up and running and I still have a laptop that needs a new hard drive. Some guys have a honey-do list of home-repairs, I have one of computer infrastructure.

Photo Gallery is Down

I'm redoing my computer infrastructure so the Family Photo Gallery is down right now.

24 (Spoiler)

Cathie and i watched the second part of 24 tonight. It's the wrong show to watch before bed-time because you end up so amped from the intensity of the show afterwards, you can't sleep. I can't believe Jack shot Curtis. Had to do it, though. I'd of shot Will in the throat in similar circumstances. And in the leg, just for emphasis.

If you don't watch this show, you need to rearrange everything in your life so that you can watch it. Seriously.

Tags: 24, Curtis, Roger Cross

Segregation

Maddie's class did an exercise in segregation today. The teacher gave half of the kids stickers and those with stickers could do all of their normal activities, get drinks of water and had erasers. At one point, Madeline got her name put on the board for laughing. It was a cool object lesson in racism for the kids that had a big impact on Madeline.

While other schools were taking the day off to celebrate Martin Luther King day, the kids at our school were actually learning about the segregation that MLK fought against.

Ice Storm

We got hit with a big 'ol Ice Storm last night. It's snowed since then, so the ice hasn't had a chance to thaw and my trees are pretty stressed out about it, bent over at half mast. I think we're expecting more of the same weather tonight.

Winter Blast 2007

I got back last night from our Winterblast Retreat. Our youth group went with Calvary Baptist church's youth group. In the past we'd gone to Spring Hill Camp, camp up North with amazing facilities. We decided to do it on our own this year because Spring Hill's food keeps getting worse, the camp more expensive, their pre-registration and cancellation policies tougher and for groups as far away as ours, we're never able to sign up for stuff by the time we get there.

We went to Grace Adventures camp in Mears, MI on the West side of the state, right outside the Silver Lake Sand Dunes. The retreat was called "Who Am I?" looking at Jesus in terms of our false images and the reality of who he is. I MC'd the retreat and before each speaker, Reagan would come up dressed as Jesus and act one of people's mis-conceptions of Jesus: King James Bible Jesus (quoting shakeperean King James scripture), Magician Jesus, Wimpy Relativist Peacenick Jesus and Dictator Jesus, as seen below. Reagan and I would talk as Reagan would do his hilarious spiel in character as we'd come to the conclusion that he was not the real Jesus.

Jason Shinn, Mark Butler and Phil Woodman taught the sessions and did an amazing job with the teachings. They did a great job using scriptures, story and video to hit the kids.

The camp had a great climbing wall also. 10 of us went climbing and it was fun watching the kids climb and cheer each other on as they scaled the wall.

We had no snow, but we made due by hitting the Silver Lake Sand Dunes close by. The place was deserted and the sand was frozen, but the kids had a blast. We climbed up, slid down and ran down the dunes, loving every second of it. The side benefit was that we wore the kids down hiking up and down the dunes.

The two pictured above are Matt and Seth, two of the more amusing kids. Saturday night around 12:30 in our cabin, the lights were out and these two started making farting noises, and being junior high guys, the rest laughed. You'd assume that after about five minutes they would stop. This kept going for about 30 minutes with the kids making the noises and others laughing. Twenty minutes in I just could stop laughing at the absurdity of the moment, but also realizing that this is exactly why I like working with junior high kids. I fell asleep to the noises while Shinn was forced to be the bad cop 30 minutes in.

We got home around 4:00 on Sunday and I was beat. It was an amazing event. I got to spend a ton of time with the kids and see them impacted by a message that will stick with them for a long time and have the potential to impact their eternity.

You can see more of the pictures here in the photo gallery.

More Jesus Sports Statues

What a way to end the week. The Catholic Shopper (one of my Dad's favorite stores) has new Jesus Sports figurines. What better way to communicate to your loved one that Jesus is with you always? This skiing one makes me a little nervous, because Jesus is skiing too close for safety - and I question whether someone who could walk on water really needs ski poles. My Dad was on the ski patrol at a few different ski resorts in Michigan over the years and taught all of the kids in our family to ski. What better way to tell my Dad I love him than with a statue like this?

Mom and Dad

I just came across this picture of my Mom just before she found out she had cancer. I love it.

iPhone and AppleTV

I'm embarrassed to say that I watched the entire 2 hour Apple keynote address that highlighted the much acclaimed iPhone and AppleTV. I am in love with both. The iPhone probably isn't the most effective phone for what I need for business, but it's amazing. Thanks to Will on this very interesting perspective on the iPhone from the Palm SmartPhone community.

For the past two years, I've been using a macMini as a multi-media center for all of my video, photos and music. The appleTV does this and does it better with HDMI and digital audio ports, capable of 720p video quality and built in wireless network. I pre-ordered one for when they come out in February.

God's Gonna Cut You Down

Wow. I just saw this amazing Johnny Cash video for the folk song God's gonna cut you Down, done by Rick Rubin and Tony Kaye. They got every celebrity whose anyone to appear in the video, which is shot in all black and white. My brother Jon's hero Justin Timberlake was actually the guy who came up with the idea for the video.

Tags: Johnny Cash, God's Gonna Cut You Down, Justin Timberlake, Rick Rubin, Tony Kaye

Stinkin Air Freshener

I got a great Nyko iPod car mount for Christmas. The clips the manufacturer sent were defective and I noticed that the air freshener in my car had the same kind of clip. It seemed like a great idea to take the clip off the air freshener and put it on the iPod docking station. It didn't seem like a bad idea at the time to set the air freshener on the console of my car, but I was wrong. Very wrong.

Somehow the air-freshener stuff spilled in my car, on my workout gloves and on my iPod headphones. This horrible smell has been following me everywhere. It smells good in small doses, but is killing me in heavy doses. I can't get rid of it.

Em in the Snow

My brother Jon got the kids these crazy butt sleds. In theory, you can strap the sled-harness on and sled down the hill without having to drag a pesky sled. Kind of an "inspector gadget" approach to sledding. Emily was more than happy to test this sled out with our first dusting of snow since the Fall. Emily was loving having the snow and was just happy to be playing outside.

Chaos

We had our Junior High Chaos meeting last night. The series is called "The Losers Lounge" where we're looking at how God used all sorts of imperfect people in the Bible to do great things. We had some fun games, including the one from the picture above involving tape and balloons and another involving Alphabet Spagettios.

For the last part of the meeting, we broke off into small groups and we went through the stuff in more depth. Jess's girls didn't even get through half the questions, with the guys it can be like pulling teeth to get multi-word answers.

We've got our retreat this weekend. We leave Friday afternoon and get back Sunday afternoon. We've got 12 junior high kids going and Calvary Baptist (the church we're putting this retreat on with) has around 60 kids going. We've got snow, and it should be a blast. The weekend's topic is entitled "Who am I?" looking at the reality of Jesus and all of the false images we have of him. The T-Shirts are some of the coolest ever:

You can see more pictures from the Chaos meeting here.

Maddie's Room

Cathie and Monaca had been planning for a while to re-do Maddie's room as a surprise. Monaca came over early yesterday and the two of them painted and re-decorated the room in pure Trading Spaces fashion. They had new furniture, blinds, light fixtures and wall hangings along with a new border and re-painting the entire room, everything color-coordinated, of course.

They worked for about 10 hours straight to get things ready for the unveiling, which you can see here on video:


Maddie was surprised and loved it. Will and I did the heavy lifting with the furniture and hanging the curtains. Thankfully Maddie made it through the night, surviving a room full of paint fumes.