If you haven't been watching The Daily Show with John Stewart's coverage of the Democratic National Convention - Indecision 2004, you need to be.  I can only say that it's really, really, really, really funny - Republican or Democrat.  There's some funny video on the site.

I came across another great application - Picasa, a google company.  It's a free photo manager application that has some very unique features.  It's got the standard stuff - allowing you to pull pictures from digital cameras and edit them.  The cool stuff is that it will poll your computer for new images, categorize them into albums automatically and then present them in timelines and slideshows as well as export them to your Tivo Series 2 DVR.  You can go through a huge collection of pictures, select them, and then either order them or export them for ordering.  It also has integration into blogger.com through the Hello product.   Can't beat the price.

I've been messing with Feedster this week.  It's a data aggregator that lets you pull together feeds from blogs and news into a single site.  There's software to do this, but I like the web based version better.  Most blogs have either an RSS or ATOM feeds that you can connect to.  The upside to using something like feedster is that you don't have to go to multiple sites, checking out what's been updated.

I guess Cathie and I are doing something right raising our kids.  I went in to check on Madeline tonight, and found a letter that Nate had written for her:
Dear Madeline,
I love you very much.  You are the best sister ever.  You relely iproved on your jim nasticks.  You did reley good on your dance resital.  You are the nisist sister ever. 
Love,
Nathan

Sometimes, I wonder how we're doing as parents.  This kind of stuff sure helps.

I'm on vacation all week.  We're doing some day trips during the week, like going to COSI tomorrow.  We're heading up to Silver Lake later this week with the Niemi's.  Today, we went on a family bike ride, which was great, except for some technical difficulties (The pedal on Nate's bike came off in the middle of nowhere, so we had to improvise).  Nate and I went up this afternoon to the coffee shop and played chess this afternoon and then we hung out and did a whole lot of nothing for the rest of the day.

 

I started reading the book If Chins Could Kill : Confessions of a B Movie Actor.  It's the autobiography of Bruce Campbell, the king of B movies.   He's a great story teller - his sarcasm comes through in the characters he plays.  Will loaned me the book after I got done watching Bubba Ho-tep and I've been laughing all the way through.

Yesterday goes down in the books as one of my favorite days this summer. I had high expectations (which are usually resentments waiting to happen) and it met them all. A bunch of us went to Brad's cottage to hang out for the day.  We spent the day riding brad's wave runners, tubing and grilling.  This picture says it all.  This four person tube was one of the highlites.  We'd get four or five people on the tube and then the battle would begin.  The goal was to either hang on for dear life while the driver tried to throw you, or be the last man standing.  In this picture, you see Brad mounting Ted, holding on to his life jacket while ted straight arms me.  Things got ugly.  Biting (Ted and Jess),  pantsing (at one point I was holding on desparately with both hands while someone had yanked my bathing suit down to my ankles) and slapping.  Brad did beer-but chicken on the grill, which was the best chicken i've ever had.  There were over 7 different air-soft guns (guns that shoot plastic bb's really hard and fast) there and during dinner, an all-out battle broke out.  The battle involved Brad and I versus Jason, Will and Ted.  People switched sides many times, but I got hit a lot and wasn't afraid to use innocent by-standers as hostages to save my own butt.  We topped the evening off with a pontoon boat ride at sunset.

I saw I, Robot on Saturday night with Jason and Will. I thought it was a great movie - pretty fast paced, fun to watch. It wasn't one of Will Smith's funnier movies, but it had amazing CG and special effects (which I suppose are really one and the same). I thought it was a great take an the original story.

 TEL AVIV, Israel -- Natasha, a 5-year-old black macaque walks at the Safari Park near Tel Aviv. The young monkey began recently walking exclusively on her hind legs after a stomach ailment nearly killed her, zookeepers said.

I like monkeys.  Especially walking monkeys.

The new season of Crank Yankers just started.  If you've never seen it, it's a show that makes crank calls and uses puppets to act them out.  Sounds odd, I know, but it's great.  It's got some great characters and then lots of guest stars.  The season premiere had Ludacris calling his manager and telling him he wants to change his name to "Peanut Head".  The character in the picture above is Ed - Jason's favorite. 

I'm watching Bubba Ho-tep.  It's a B-Movie staring the king of B-movies, Bruce Campbell about what really happened to Elvis.  It's about an elderly resident in an East Texas rest home, who switched identities with an Elvis impersonator years before his “death”, then missed his chance to switch back. Elvis teams up with Jack, a fellow nursing home resident who thinks that he is actually President John F. Kennedy, and the two valiant old codgers sally forth to battle an evil Egyptian entity who has chosen their long-term care facility as his happy hunting grounds.  I ways always a big fan of Brisco County, Jr.

I did the message in church last sunday.  I've been pretty down about it since.  I didn't dwell on it 24/7, but had a pretty heavy feeling about the whole thing.  I processed it, prayed about it, and let it go as I was heading to the airport on the way to do a presentation in Milwaukee. 
 
I heard from some people that they enjoyed the message I gave, but I didn't.  The content was alright - I was probably a little too broad and not deep enough.  I can deal with that.  Talking with a friend today, I think I figured it out.  I think I judge a lot of the success of the message based on how an audience responds.  I do this with public speaking in my job and at church.  On Sunday, the crowd was flat, I got no response, and I think that really impacted my delivery of the whole message.  It threw me off and I had a tough time recovering.  I'm not sure what to do with that.  I know that God's big enough to work through my imperfections, but I like to have conversational interaction with the audience when I'm speaking.  When they stare blankly at me, I take that as feedback.  Bad feedback.  I'm new at this church teaching thing.  Guess I'll figure it out as I go.
 
I just found out I'm teaching in August.  Something I have no clue what to do with.  Has to do with the road of faith.  There's a great section on faith in Blue Like Jazz that likes faith to Penguin Sex.  Maybe I'll talk about Penguin Sex. 

I just finished Blue Like Jazz - Non religious thoughts on Christian Spirituality.  This is one of the only books that Noel has told me I need to go buy.  I did and I love it.  It's one of the best books I've read in a long time.  It's written in a very conversational way, with some great stories wedged in.  I'm not sure how to describe what exactly it's about, though, but it made me think about a lot of the ways I look at the world and myself.   He talks a lot about his life in college, his friends, and the way they treat each other.  He's got a really fun collection of friends - one of those guys that seems like he'd be a great guy to sit down and talk with.  As I was reading the book, I kept thinking that my mother-in-law would really really like the book.  Not sure why that came to mind, but I was laughing at stuff I in this that I thought she would laugh at.

Crummy day - but at least I don't have cancer.  I got up around 5 (front desk forgot my wake-up call) and took a shuttle to the airport.  I got there in time for my 7AM flight, but it broke.  I go from getting in at 9AM EST to 12:40 PM EST.  I can deal with that.  Not great, but not horrible.  That flight then gets delayed.  They ship me 500 miles west to go east.  I fly to Minneapolis and catch a flight to Detroit, getting me in around 3.  At least I was in first class.  Apparently some guy threw up all over himself back in coach. 

I've been in Milwaukee since Sunday and I've learned a couple of things.
#1 - I don't like German food.  We've eaten at two different German resturants - both of them fairly renound, and both blew.  Comon - who eats Saurkraut Strudel?  Nasty. 
#2 - Milwaukee means "City by the River".  I learned this from my cab driver today.  My new resolution is to start trying to interact in some small way with the people i come into contact with when I travel.  I started talking to the people sitting next to me and my cabbies.  My cab driver on Sunday tried to convert me to Islam.  The one today was from Nigeria.  He's been here for 28 years and learned the meaning of hte word "Milwaukee" from a book about Jeffrey Dahmer.  Why did he read the book you ask?  He used to manage the building that Jeffrey Dahmer rented a room in and for some reason that book described the origin of the word.
 
Went to the casino tonight.  Won $325 in blackjack.  I've got a 7AM flight and a 5AM wake up call.  I'm home tomorrow and I'm on vacation next week.

I made it back from rochester, ny today without incident.  I passed the exam and I'm now a certified green belt candidate.   Yee-haw!  I'd booked an earlier flight today and got out on before the Blue Angels started their practice.  There's an airshow in Rochester this weekend and they shut down the airport for a couple of hours to allow them to practice, cancelling and screwing up a whole bunch of flights.  Most of the people in my class are probably still in Rochester right now.
 
As I was walking through the airport today, I heard the announcer come on and say "Will Ivan Gay, Ivan Gay please come to Gate 69".  This of course sounded like "I've been gay".  No idea if it was real, but it was funny.

These Wedding Announcements are real and hilarious.

One more day to go. Hopefully I can take my Green Belt certificiation exam this evening and have it done with. That's right, I said Green Belt. The Six Sigma methodology ranks the various levels of expertise by belt-level. Yellow Belt, Green Belt, Black Belt and Master Black Belt. There's all the funky sociological hierarchy to go with it. The master black belts push around the black belts, and they in turn like to tell the green belts what to do.

I heard two great stories today:
One of the guys in our training is staying at the same hotel I'm at. He walked into his room last night and found a rabbit sitting in the middle of his room. Pause for a second, how strange would that be? Anyways, he tried to shoo it out, but it kept hiding in the room. He woke up this morning, and there it was again. He took a towel and tried to open the door and move it out of the room.

One of my co-workers families just got back from Huntington Beach, CA where they camped near the beach. The kids earned money throughout the week burying dead seals on the beach. The DNR guys would pay them $10 for each dead seal they buried in the sand. Go figure.

I started reading Blue Like Jazz last week on Noel's insistence. I don't think Noel has ever "insisted" I read a book. He was right on this one. Reminds me a lot of Anne Lamott's book Traveling Mercies. Lots of loosely connected stories and thoughts on faith. A little more serious than David Sedaris, but it definately has a lighter side to it.

Training has been brutally slow. I had a great night going out with a bunch of my co-workers last night for dinner. We went to a biker bar in downtown Rochester, NY - the Dinosaur BBQ. Good stuff. I laughed a lot last night. I really needed that. Working virtually with a team has it's upside, but we really need these times to connect, bond and spend time together. I'm looking forward to my team meeting in August. My team plus a few others that have dotted lines to me will be getting together in Vegas, which was the most central meeting point for all of us.

I can't believe it's only Wednesday, though. I'm going to spend some more time tonight refining my message a little more for Sunday. I went to the gym this morning with one of the guys I work with and did something funky to my hamstrings while squatting. Guess I should warm up like Kirk always tells me to.

I went biking on Friday at Maybury State Park with Joe. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time riding and talking. We didn't break any speed records, but Joe got to try out his new bike which finally has front shocks on it.

Friday night Cathie and myself went out with Matt and Anne for dinner. We met up later with Jason and Jess to see Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burghandy. (Go to the site with your audio turned up). I laughed so hard at this movie I had tears in my eyes at one point. Better, funnier movie than Dodgeball. I won't try and go into a complex review here of themes and symbolism, but I'll say that it made me laugh - hard.

On Sunday we had a huge celebration at church. Jason came up with the great idea to build an altar to celebrate, similar to what the Isrealites used to do after God would do huge things for them so they would not forget. We started with placing a huge stone down for paying off a large debt to the schools. People then came up and added to it with their own stories of what our church has meant to them. All of the kids were in the service and about 40 minutes into it were getting a little restless. Luckily, there was a playground right outside the school, so Carole and I took a bunch of kids outside to play and tried not to lose any of them, so they didn't go nuts in there. We then topped it off with a big picnic at Island Lake Park. J and I threw together the picnic, and it didn't suck too badly. We had lots of weiners. Hundreds of them. More than we needed.

Sunday evening I had to fly out to Rochester, NY for training this week. The training goes from 8AM - 6PM with the shortest number of breaks for the shortest duration I've ever seen. I got back to my hotel room about 9:30 to check e-mail and had over 100 waiting. Who could these things be from? Most of my team is in the training and most of the sales team that my group supports is in this class. Go figure. I spent the rest of the night finishing up the first draft of my message for Sunday.

Interesting quip from a Salon.com interview with Larry Flynt, Publisher of Hustler Magazine:
Salon.com: You were born-again for a year -- doesn't every Christian feels like a sinner?
Larry Flynt: Unfortunately, I think most of the country is manic-depressive from time to time. That's when a lot of these "born-again" experiences are brought about. If someone has a religious epiphany, he can't go to a family member or a neighbor, he goes to the local church, and he winds up being caught up in the system rather than get counseling and good medication for his problem. I know what it's like. I've been there. I've seen the visions. Heard the voices. I can understand why people are so dogmatic about their religion. Hey, if it helps 'em get through the day, more power to 'em. I just don't want them imposing it on me.
…Everybody in America finds Jesus, you know. [Laughs.] It's no big deal. It's figuring out why you found him that's the problem.
Salon.com: Was there a single moment when the Holy Ghost touched you, and that was that?
Larry Flynt: Oh yes. It was with Jimmy Carter's sister, Ruth Carter Stapleton. I just started seeing visions. And hearing voices. And talking in tongues. It was some weird experience. I knew that I wanted to hear from a good shrink what had happened. That's who I sought out. I've been fine ever since.

These are hilarious pictures from Relevantmagazine.com's recent time at the CBD (Christian Book Distributors) Conference.

I'm back to work tomorrow. I'm in town all week, with the possibility of doing a day trip to San Francisco on Friday. I'm out of town Sunday - Friday in beautiful Rochester, NY at Six Sigma training and then in Madison, WI at NACUBO Sunday - Tuesday.

Jason and Will now have airsoft guns. Will came over for dinner and we shot each other for a while in the yard, but I have two different guns - one's fully automatic with 100 shot capacity, and the other only fires one shot at a time. It was pretty unfair. We went up to Galyans and picked up guns for Will and J and came back and had a full-out war around my house. You can unload your entire hopper in a matter of seconds in full-auto mode. We'd basically run around the house, trying to pop out and hit each other at as close of range as possible. I learned what temptation is all about as Cathie and I, J and Jess and Will all sat around watching the movie Dogma tonight. Will lay there in my love-sack and fell asleep. What a great way to be woken up by an airsoft gun on full-automatic. I resisted. My hand was shaking as I wanted to pull the trigger, but I didn't. I'm sure this will escalate until someone gets badly hurt. Hopefully that someone is not me.

Funny thing. Since I taught at church a few weeks back, I've had a few people say to me - both directly and to other people, how suprised they were by my teaching. Not by it's content, but more-so the fact that they didn't think I had it in me. The concencus was that since I run the Jr. High Youth Group, that I've got a Jr. High depth of spirituality and maturity. Probably a lot of truth to that.

Those people that know me know where I'm at in life and who I am, so hearing this didn't really bother me, but at one point in my life it would of. I'd much rather be underestimated than overestimated. Just like Spiderman.

Fairly new Software that i'm using and I can't do without:

X1 - E-mail and file search engine. ($99)
Mozilla Firefox plus related extensions and themes - Awesome browser that can be very customized with functionality and interface, and it's not made by Microsoft (Free)
Java Web Album - Creates web-based photo albums for digital pictures. (Free)
Evil Lyrics - Ties in with your media player and displays the lyrics to whatever music you're playing (Free).

We had our annual July 4th picnic yesterday with my family (pictures here). We have a great time that normally involves lots of squirt guns, water balloons and food. This year, we spiced thing up a bit with airsoft guns. If you've never used these, this is what my Grandmpa's holding in the picture. We tried to get her to shoot Jon, but she wouldn't. They shoot plastic pellets that hurt, but don't break the skin. As long as you're wearing eye-protection, you can have some fun battles with these. I got the chance to shoot Jon a few times, and then we headed up to Gander Mountain to get more guns.

We had the squirt guns out this year, but not the same degree as usual. Jon tried to soak Cathie, and she relentlessly chased Jon down and soaked his pants - front and back. Jon then sat around commando the rest of the evening while his stuff dried. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to nail him with the airsoft gun - without the extra layer of protection that underwear povide.

Most years, the family ends up going that night to the firworks in Meridian Township. Last night, because of the on-and-off rain, and the potential of rain, we didn't end up going, although some in the family did. We went back and forth most of the evening on what was going to happen with the weather, and in the end, we chose not to go.

Thanks to Jason for this great public service announcement by our favorite Anchorman, Ron Burgundy. Stay off drugs, read the bible... What more is there to say?

Ryan, Meghan, Erin, Anne, Matt, Jason and Jess came over last night. We hung out, barbecued and then we broke out the fireworks. Once it got dark enough out, Ryan, Matt and I had a Roman Candle battle. We went into the back yard where it was pitch black, lit them at the same time, ran to different parts of the yard, shooting the roman candle shots at each other. Picture this: It's pitch black until you're temporarily blinded by the roman candle fireball shooting out of your tube. Until this point, you're pretty much guessing where the other guy's at, until yous ee it light up the area he's in and you adjust your aim. Meanwhile, one's coming back at you and you're trying to dodge that and not take one in the eyeball. This was a great adrenaline rush, dodging balls of fire.

I read in the paper yesterday that 9300 injuries occur from fireworks. Jess is now a number. An errant bottle rocket went crazy and bounced off her, nicking her arm enough to draw blood. Didn't explode on her, didn't kill her, but it was clearly enough to add to the statistics.

My day started out kinda rough. I had a 7:30 AM interview with a candidate at the Cracker Barrel in Brighton. My alarm went off at 6:30 AM as planned. Next thing I know, it's 7:30 AM and I'm scrambling. Nothing like being 20 minutes late to make a great first impression.

I headed down to Toledo today and picked up some fireworks while I was on conference calls. I've got a four-day weekend ahead of me - should be fun. We've got a bunch of friends coming over tonight to hang out and tomorrow we're probably going to Cathie's folks to swim. Sunday we're doing the fourth of July at my parents. We typically hang out all day and then go see the fireworks at night. No big plans for Monday and Tuesday.

I've started running Firefox instead of Microsoft's Internet Explorer. It's faster, cleaner, and doesn't belong to Microsoft. Plus it gives me the small satisfaction of using open-source software and in some small way sticking it to Microsoft.

My brother in-law Ed, and his wife Stacy have started a blog. You can check it out here. Stacy's going to be over in England for the next couple of months studying law, and she'll be keeping a log here of what's going on.

Just got back from seeing Spiderman. Better yet, I saw it in Hot Springs, Arkansas. The theatre was exactly as you'd imagine it. The movie was phenomenal.