As a Christmas gift, my parents took the whole family to Frankenmuth for a night at the Bavarian Inn. If you've never been to Frankenmuth, you're lucky. Seriously though, if you like German stuff, and towns that pretend to be in Germany, than this is the place for you. The Bavarian Inn is a huge hotel done up like a German Chalet, complete with a staff dressed like Germans (sans the Nazi garb) except with huge swimming pools, a minature golf course and a giant arcade.

We arrived Saturday afternoon and the guys took the kids down to the pool while the women went shopping at a nearby outlet. Keeping track of 8 kids in a large pool, when there a million other kids around is always fun. At one point, we had to walk through the arcade to get to a pool at the other end of the hotel. We lost every kid at one point or another on that 100 yard journey.


We celebrated both my Mom and Nate's birthday that night. The girls had put together a photo album for my Mom and she loved it. At one point, her jaw dropped and she stared at me. I racked my brain to figure out what I'd just done or said that was offensive and I came up blank. She started yelling and hugged my brother Jon and his wife Beth. They'd put a page in the photo album that shared that they are pregnant! We were all really excited about the new baby, and are conflicted as to how to pay Jon back for all the damage he's inflicted on our children. How do we do this, without permanently scarring the child and annoying Beth?



At every event, my Mom wants to make sure we've got some kind of group picture for her grandkids. This one was no exception... Fun to the end. The trip was a nice getaway and a fun chance for us all to hang out. It's amazing how well we all get along. We have so much fun together. We laughed so much during this time, and even with 8 (soon to be 10) grandkids, my parents make sure that each of the kids gets one-on-one time with them and feel important to them. You can check out the the rest of the pictures here.

This is big news... I got a mac mini last week. My original excuse for buying this was after I got fed up with constantly having to hear constant complaining about our family computer dying. The thing would get chock full of spyware no matter how I tried to lock it down and I figured a mac would be the answer.
When I got it home, I hooked it up to my HDTV and I'm never disconnecting it. The panoramic display and picture quality is phenomenal. It looks so good. Will and I spent the Friday night just drooling over this thing and geeking out over it. I've got it hooked into my home stereo and home network with access to all of our family pictures, all of our family video and and my MP3 library. I've got the bluetooth keyboard hooked up to this and a wireless trackball, so I can control it from the couch. The mini is so small, and so quiet, you don't even know it's there. It's about 2"x5"x5".

So far, I was able to go with everything out of the box software-wise. My only complaint is that Apple's iPhoto software falls far short of Picasa. All of the networking and integration with my Windows network and printing worked flawlessly out of the box. Just last night, I downloaded the last episode of 24 that was "accidently" erased and we watched it in High Definition over the network full screen on my 52 inch display, and the mac never missed a beat. The performance on this thing is amazing. I went with the low-end system for $499 - 256MB of memory, 40GB Disk, 1.25GHz processor and I can't believe the performance of this thing. It does video so smoothly and effortlessly, all while I've got audio and other things happening in the background.

The only gap I see with this is that I can't do any kind of digital audio output. I want to be able to use it as a DVD player with my home entertainment system, but I need to find some kind of USB/Firewire device that allows me to connect digitally to my stereo system. It's gotta be out there, I just haven't found it yet.

On Wednesday down in Texas, we headed out to the local Dog Track after finishing up with the customer. It was $.50 hot dog and beer night, which brings out the best in people. The place was barren except for hardcore gamblers. We had no idea what we were doing and picked most of the dogs from either the tip sheet or by which one pooped when they paraded the dogs out on the track. Makes sense, right? The lighter the dog, the faster they run? I ended up talking to this older woman with no teeth trying to get some help on picking the dogs. She had a table full of paperwork laid out in front of her. She said she was there every night and spends about 2 - 3 hours a day reviewing the information BEFORE getting there. Wow. Somehow a very large woman with a gold tooth latched onto our group and kept following us around.

I'm in Galveston, TX until tomorrow. Galveston is an island outside of Houston, right on the Gulf. It's been covered in fog for the three days that I've been here. Apparently, this is pretty common. A friend of mine, Chris, explained to me that this is their version of lake affect snow. Normally the winds blow form the south off the coast, but in the winter, the water’s cooler and when it blows in over the warmer land, you get fog. Normally it burns off by 10 and it gets hot. When it’s moderately cool, it stays around for days. You're smarter for knowing all that now.

I got a new understanding of how people might look at Christianity by talking to an Apple Computer rep. Will and I were wandering around CompUSA, really just browsing. We went over to the Apple section to check out the new mini computers and found out that they're hard to get a hold of. We asked why production always seemed to be an issue with Apple products. The guy proceeded to go on a rant, explaining to us the genius of Steve Jobs, why Mac Mini's will rule the world, the genius of Apple's marketing and their far superior product. We just wanted to find out where to get a Mac mini.

There are a ton of great parallels here in terms of how some people choose to share their faith with others. Granted, much of what the apple guy said was true. Technologically, Mac's are a good, stable technology, the Mac OSX operating system is technologically superior to Microsoft Windows and has a much more intuitive, sexy and usable interface. Furthermore Steve Jobs is a genius and Apple's production capabilities suck. All that being said, I didn't want to fight with the guy, just understand where I could find a mac. Funny thing, Apple actually hires people that they term apple evangelists to promote their vision and show people the way, the truth and the life as far as Steve Jobs is concerned.

I'm pretty excited about one of my favorite books, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy being made into a movie. If you haven't read this trilogy by the late Douglas Adams, you won't understand that the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything is 42. What's the question?

Rock and Roll Fonts. Cool site.

It was a beautiful day in Boston. I had lunch at the oldest resturant in the world, and one of my favorite Oyster resturants. The Union Oyster House is in downtown, near Quicy Market and Faneuil Hall. It's the oldest resturant in America and it's great. I sat next to the booth where JFK used to come and hang out. Like all of Boston, it's got such great history. The sales rep I was with took me on the Good Will Hunting tour. We went by the bar they hung out at in the movie, the community college where Robin Williams worked, some of the MIT buildings and a few other places. I fly out tomorrow morning bright and early. I had to change my flights around at the last minute, so I'm just hoping I get upgraded. I lost my ATM card at some point, so I was scrambling to figure out how to get enough cash for a cab back to the airport. The subway from here requires 3 different line changes, and at 5:30 AM and under pressure to get to the airport, I'm pretty confident I'll get lost and miss my flight.

I always wondered about this loophole in traveling that makes all the background checks pretty much useless. Guess I'm not the only one to have noticed it.

The Westminster Dog Show is on... For whatever reason, I end up in hotel rooms when this thing's on... And I'm embarassed to say I actually watch it.

If you use Google, check out this Google Cheat Sheet.

I'm in Boston for a couple of days, staying over in Cambridge, right next door to the infamous MIT. I have a beautiful view from my hotel room, on the 25th floor, overlooking the Bay and the Boston skyline. This camera-phone picture doesn't quite capture it. Boston is probably my favorite city, even in the winter time. I worked on a project out here a 5 or 6 years ago over the course of about a year and I got to know the area pretty well, especially the resturants. I'm here until Thursday, flying out to Kansas City and then back to Texas. Next week I'm spending time between New York and Texas.

Great article entitled Fiscally Blond on Xerox's CEO Anne Mulcahy, (pictured above next to me) about her success and the fact that she's beat out rival HP CEO Carly Fiorina. Having worked under 3 CEO's at Xerox, Anne is a phenomenal leader, very inspiring and is in the process of pulling off a Lee Ioccoca size turn-around at Xerox.

Let me tell you about my friend Will. Here's what happened: More so than usual, I tried to setup a very romantic date for Valentine's day for my wife and I. I'd started thinking about it a few weeks ago and put a fair amount of thought into what we were doing, coordinated it, and suprised her with all of the different parts of it. The baby-sitter couldn't be here until 5:30, so I called up Will to see if he could fill in from 5 - 5:30. Will's helped out with all of my kids since they were babies, heck, he's 'Uncle Will' to them, but my three kids can occasionally be pretty overwhelming for anyone, let alone a bachelor. At the last minute, my sitter had an emergency come up where she couldn't baby-sit. What does Will do? He takes one for the team! He babysits my kids from 5 - 9:30, including feeding them dinner and bedtime. That is way more than a friend.... That's a brother.

With me in Florida, Cathie was home all week doing the single mom gig. Madeline wrote this note for her on her own that I thought was great:
Dear Mom,
Thanks for your hard work around the house. Love Madeline. P.S. I apprecheat it. I Love You.

This was followed two days later by the following note attached to her door:
Nobody is allowed in my room except dad. I might run away and never come back so I hope you feel sorry Mom.

Girls. Wow. I honestly believe that my friend Bob has it easier with his five boys than I do with two daughters.

My Tivo Season Pass List. What's yours?

1. 24
2. Alias
3. Desparate Housewives
4. Nip/Tuck
5. The Simpsons
6. The Surreal Life
7. True Life
8. Made
   
9. Lost
10. Saturday Night Live
11. The Apprentice
12. Scrubs
13. The Daily Show with John Stewart
14. Best Week Ever
15. Arrested Development
16. Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica
17. Tilt
18. The Simple Life: Interns
19. Distraction
20. Zoboomafoo
21. The Soup
22. Justice League Unlimited

Google's new mapping service is very cool. It's completely interactive as opposed to most web based mapping systems which make you click and refresh the map each time. This one has a great interface and looks nice and integrates well with their new local search capability.

Down in Key West, we were sitting down next to this guy, Silverman. He's one of those human statues who stand on the corners collecting money to have your picture taken with him. We talked for a while, found out he's a mime who came over from Hungary eight years ago. He trained formally as a mime for ten years and when he came over, he learned from a guy who was gold. He wanted to be original, so he went silver. He said it takes him about 5 minutes to get the makeup off at night.

I got back today from a trip down to Florida with four other guys. The trip was in honor of a good friend's 50th birthday. We'd originally planned to go to Vegas last year, but figured it might not be the best place for the group of us. Ted ended up getting a good deal on a couple of condos for a week down in West Palm Beach and combined with $166 airfare, we couldn't resist.

We flew down Tuesday morning, into West Palm Beach, getting there around noon. It was sunny and 80. When you think Florida, you think pools and gorgeous women sunning themselves by the pool, right? Not in West Palm Beach. We were the youngest people by 40 years. No kidding.

We headed down to the Marina and checked out the fishing. 80 Degrees and no wind is great temperature for hanging out by the pool, but it stinks for deep sea fishing. We ended up pushing our fishing plans out to Friday and decided we'd head down to Key West instead.

We rented two convertibles, hopped in the car and hit the road with no plans or lodging in mind. It's about a 4 - 5 hour drive down to Key West and it's one of the prettiest drives I've ever seen. We stopped on the way down to look into Tarpin fishing. Tarpin fishing are these gigantic carp type fish that are supposed to be fun to catch, just not eat. At the marina, people were feeding these huge fish. They'd jump out of the water and take it from your hand, if you were dumb enough to let them. We to Key West in time for the sunset, which was awesome. To set the tone for Key West, as soon as pulled into Key West, we got out of our car to see the two women in the car next to us making out. About 30 minutes prior to sunset, everyone in town seems to migrate to the pier to watch it. My wife put us all under suspicion based on the fact that we rented convertibles, watched sunsets and headed to Key West together. This picture really says it all (Note the Hard Rock gift bags... Who still goes to a Hard Rock Cafe to buy t-shirts??)

We went bar hopping in Key West, hitting all of the famous spots, including The Hog's Breath Saloon, Sloppy Joe's and Captain Tony's. I'd always wanted to check out Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville, but in real life, it's pretty disappointing. Talking to one of the bartenders at Captain Tony's, he explained that Jimmy Buffett owns the building and gets all of the revenue from the store, which makes a fortune, and just leases the space and franchise rights to the bar. The bar is more of a shrine to Jimmy Buffett - with lots of pictures, articles and music playing.

Captain Tony's was great. I'd heard of it by listening to Jimmy Buffet's songs. Apparently, it's one of the semi-local hangouts down there, a little off the beaten bath of the main Duvall Street area. At one point, Buffett actually helped Captain Tony run for Mayor, and he won. The next morning we got up, had breakfast and went to some of the landmarks, like the Southern-most point in the US, walked the streets and then headed back North to West Palm Beach.

On the way back, we stopped in Fort Lauderdale for dinner and to people-watch. We called it an early night with our fishing trip the next morning.

Here's what I learned about deep sea fishing - the better the weather, the worse the fishing. Based on that, Friday was set to be great. A big cold front had moved down from the north creating huge winds, cold weather and big waves. We went out into waves that were anywhere from 6 to 10 feet out a couple miles from shore. Even on a 60 foot boat, those are huge. When we'd be in the trough of a wave we weren't able to see over it at times. The pictures I took didn't capture how huge they were and how they threw the boat around. For the captain and first mate, I'm sure they weren't that bad, but for us, we were pretty sure this was the perfect storm. We'd have huge waves come crashing over the boat as we were fishing. In between fishing, we'd stare at the horizons and try not to throw up from sea-sickness. If I took my eyes off the horizons for a second, I felt like ralphing. From my last experience, I learned that once you break the seal, you're hosed for the rest of the trip, so I held it in and made it through the whole trip without chumming the waters.

We were out to catch sailfish, which are beautiful to see and a great fight. We each took turns as the fish would strike. Ted caught 2 Mahi Mahi, Brad caught a 45lb King Mackrel and Will and I each caught Sailfish. The Sailfish struck at the same time and Will and I were simultaneously fighting our fish. It took about 20 minutes of fighting to pull it in. I have the image locked in my brain forever of both Will and I's Sailfishes launching out of the water simultaneous as we fought them. We let the sailfish go, but brought the other fish back to eat. We grilled the Mahi Mahi that night and it was the best fish I've ever eaten. We brought the Mackrel back home with us for my neighbor to smoke for us. Apparently when they're that big, they only taste good smoked or grilled. We've got a lot of it. Let me know if you want any.

For our final night, the five of us ended up having to share a single room for the final night. We played poker to see who slept on the beds and who slept on the floor. I won for the pull-out bed. It was the worst night sleep I've ever had in my life. Will's snoring is unlike anything you've ever heard in your life. At one point I was just chucking stuff within reach at him to shut him up. At any given time, at least two guys were snoring to the point that you couldn't sleep through it. We got up, headed to the airport and I got back today at 3.

You can check out most of the trip pictures here. (Temporarily Down)

I just found out last night that I made President's Club at my company. This is a huge deal, and something I've hoped to be selected for over the past 5 years. The year's trip is a cruise on the Radisson Seven Seas Navigator. From what I've read, it's a private luxury cruise ship and that's amazing. My company does these things up right, so I can't wait. Now Cathie and I just have to find help watching the kids.

A friend at church had asked me a bunch of times to write another article for our church newsletter. I waited, and waited, and waited and she kept extending the deadline for me, until it was pretty much printed. I finally submitted the article to Carole, and figured for giggles, I'd submit it to Relevant Magazine for the fun of it. Relevant is my home page, and I happened to see an article synopsis in the articles section with a quote that kinda sounded like something I'd written. Sure enough, they published it. You can read the article here.

What kind of world championship team can't cover the spread? Stinkin Patriots.

Cathie's parents took us to go see the musical Movin Out last night at the Wharton Center in East Lansing. I really had no idea what to expect. I guess I just assumed it was a musical just like Rent or Les Mis. Nope. It was different than anything I'd ever seen before. It was really a modern ballet set to Billy Joel's music. I really liked it, but it was just so different. There were virtually no props on the stage, just the characters doing some very intese music while a guy above the stage (who sounded just like Billy Joel) sang the music. Almost more of a concert. Whoever created the concept basically took a bunch of Billy Joel songs, loosely tied them together into a story, and whallah, you have moving out. I'm pretty sure I could have done the same thing - just not the coreography. There's no speaking in this at all - just dance. There was one scene was the friends Eddie, Tony and James get in an argument. How do they resolve it? Dance, of course. They're plieting and Pirouetting around the stage, throwing each other around in dance. It reminded me of how I resolve conflict with my friends.

We had our first board meeting for Project 311 last night. Project 311 is a non-profit ministry whose desire is to simply love and support students and youth pastors. The Ministry is built around John 3:11: This is the message we have heard from the beginning... We should love one another. It's not about competing with youth ministries, but to support the local church, which we believe is the hope of hte world. We want to teach students how to love each other and especially how to love the unlovable. The ultimate vision is to ignite an urgency in students to love God passionatley and to love others selfllessly. We're going to accomplish all of this through the creation of events (conferences, concerts and camps), resources (books, magazines, web sites, video, music, etc) and reinforcement through communities, support and networks.

It's an amazing vision that has been mapped out in tremendous detail and vision and is moving at a very fast pace. It's built on a network of youth pastors in the metro-detroit area that extends to resources across the country. One of our first large events is coming up in early July called Blitzfest. It'll be a huge festival, held out here in the South Lyon/New Hudson area at a large park. It's geared as a positive event for kids in the area and a fun event for youth groups to come to and hang out. It's being down put on in conjuncion with the City of South Loon and should be huge.

The board that I'm a part of is a great one - very diverse in background - two youth pastors, an attorneys, an entrepeneur, a real estate broker, two finance guy, and me - 8 of us all together. There's this common thread of having worked in youth ministry roles in a significant way, with a common passion of junior high youth ministry - makes the group equally odd. This is really the first board I've been a part of, so I'm looking forward to learning how this works. My passions for seeing junior high kids reached and tought out to reach out to their friends along with Youth Pastors and their spouses connected and supported connect well with this ministry. I'm excited to begin this whole thing and see where it goes.

Ok, ok. I know this is wrong, but I secretly admire the genius of this kid for what he did:

A 16-year-old student has been charged with a misdemeanor for rigging a keystroke-recording device onto a teacher's computer. School district police received a tip from students that the boy was trying to sell answers to final exams. The District Attorney's Office has charged the teen with breach of computer information, a Class B misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $2,000 and up to 180 days in jail. This sort of thing has happened before. The problem is so pervasive that the GRE board has switched from computers back to paper and pencil.

I thought this was a cool iPod accessory. It lets you hook your digital camera into your iPod and offload your pictures while traveling. No more bringing extra memory cards or a laptop. I guess you'd have to have a camera with a lot of MPs to justify this, as a 1GB Compact Flash card costs less than the device. This would work if I were touring Europe, which I'm not anytime soon.

Good travel advice in this artcle from Fodors on packing a suitecase:

I've had a few people (including my Mom) complain that they have problems reading my blog because they're forced to scroll back and forth, left to right, to read an entry. I use the Firefox browser and it works fine. Not sure how it looks for Mac people. I've tried everything to modify the template to work better on IE. Couldn't do it. If anyone can, let me know.

Jon sent me this link and I've been amusing myself all day with it. Click on a line from Napoleon Dynamite and it plays it. I'm really not sure why I think this movie is so funny, but these lines have stuck in my head after watching it a couple of times and I giggle like a school-girl when I hear them.

This is cool to the point of being creepy. Google's got a new search feature in beta that will suggest searches as you type. You gotta check this out.

Netflix wants to save your marriage. Netflix is an online DVD rental service I've subscribed to for 4 or 5 years. You create a list of your movies online and they ship them to you, three at a time. When you're done, you drop it back in the included mailer, and they send you the next movie on the list. No late fees. 2 day turn-around time. I love it.

Now they allow you to create multiple queues and designate how many movies each can have at time. No more do I have to hear Cathie complain about my movie selection. She can make her own list and get new ones as she watches them. She gets 1 of the three, I get two.

Jason sent me this link and I literally almost wet myself watching this. Someone took the song "Baby Got Back" and made a video called "Baby Got Book" about loving the bible.