Dude, Where's my car?

Ever walk through a parking lot and realize that you have no idea where you've parked your car? Crummy feeling after a flight.

New Job

I took a new job today... not at work, but at home. I'm going to be the assistant coach for Nate's football team. I helped out last year when the coach wasn't around but I made it very clear to the coach that in terms of practice, I'm just there to help and occasionally yell and throw stuff around like Bobby Knight.

The guys small group I'm a part of is going through a study on the beattitudes. This morning I read this out of Matthew 5 and it hit me like never before. I'm the kind of guy who likes to live my life with a lot of passion around whatever I'm doing. This tends to put me in front of people both at work in church. I constantly struggle with maintaining the right balance that this talks about in terms of being salt and light to the world around me.

14"Here's another way to put it: You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. 15If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand. 16Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand--shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.

Travel Thoughts

Rule #178: Always verify the gate on your ticket at the airport BEFORE running all the way over to the B terminal.

Why do the pilots think I care about the wind speed or direction?

The Perfect Church

I've been coming to grips lately on the idea of church, what it is and what it isn't. For now, I have more peace at where I'm at than I've had in a long, long time. I had a conversation with my friend Lori the other day about how church and how the deeper you go into a church, the more obvious it's imperfection become.

I just got done reading this article from relevant on the perfect church. Here's an excerpt that summarizes kinda where I've come to in all of this thinking:

If Christianity is not solely about a private, individual relationship with Christ, and the church’s mission in the world is not solely to help nurture that private, individual relationship, what does it matter if a certain church isn’t “meeting your needs” or if you’re not feeling “spiritually fed” there? It’s not about you. It’s about the body, the greater community. The trend of church shopping is a clever illusion, while we think it will help us find the “perfect church”—it actually works against us and inhibits any possibility of experiencing true community.

Tags: Adam Cleaveland, Relevantmagazine.com, church

Cool new technology

I saw one of these the other day and fell in love with it. It's an SD memory card, just like the one I just bought for my Treo 700W phone. It doubles as a USB thumb drive that can plug right into your computer. Bummer is that I just bought a 1GB SD Card for $25. Not sure this is cool enough to justify the extra price.

Great news on my Mom!

They got the biopsy results back from the stuff they removed from my Mom's liver during surgery last week and found that it was benign. Great news! Thanks for your prayers.

My Friend Mike

I went to see my Mom in the hospital on Saturday and afterwards I met up with my friend Mike for lunch. I haven't seen Mike in years and it was like we hadn't skipped a beat. Mike and I met about 15 years ago when we started running a high school youth group for Everett High School through Youth for Christ/Campus Life. Over lunch we hung out and caught up on old youth group kids and laughed about old stories.

Mike and I have gone through a lot together, even things involving the police. One of Mike's favorite stories was back about 13 year ago when I was hanging out with my brother-in-law Ed at Cathie and I's apartment in East Lansing. We heard a knock at the door and sream of of toilet paper leading outside. I followed it and found my motorcycle cocooned in toilet paper and saw Mike and a couple other guys leaving the scene of the crime. Ed and I loaded up the toilet paper into the trunk and headed over to Mike's house in Lansing. We proceeded to strew the toilet paper throughout his house and ran out before they got back. As we were pulling out, they jumped out and sat on the hood of my car. Calling their bluff, I kept driving, and turned onto Michigan Ave, going about 35mph (I never said I was a smart man or had any common sense). When we saw police lights, we pulled over onto a side street and the cop got out of his car. This was bad news for me based on the fact that my insurance was expired and I didn't have drivers license with me, on top of the fact that the whole "driving fast with people on the hood" was probably breaking a couple of laws. Luckily, Mike knew the cop and as we were talking, Mike reached in, grabbed my car keys and took off running.

Since then, we've gone through a lot of stuff together, our families have vacationed together, celebrated birthdays together and hung out together. Mike reads my blog, I'd read his if he had one. For the past bunch of years, Mike has run a para-church organization called Visions, a kind of Christian night club in Lansing. Mike has a huge heart and passion for God and people and is the most competitive person in the entire world. As a kid, Mike never received any kind of student of the month awards and because of this, he has decided to home-school all of his children and he now makes his kids students-of-the-month on a daily basis. Being the most competitive person in the known world, Mike has modeled his coaching style after Robert Duvall in the movie Kicking and Screaming.

Justin makes a friend

Here's an story from my friend Justin on his flight to England:

On the plane out of Detroit I sat next to a guy that the US would not allow into the country. He was born in Beirut and his parents are Lithuanian. He was in jail in Detroit and had marks on his wrists from all the shackels. He was mad because Immigration broke his expensive cell phone with all his numbers and photos on it. He talked and talked to me. Finally someone told him he was in their seat, which he was, but then told the person "What's the difference, you can have my seat, I've already made friends with this guy (me) so I don't want to move". Then the person, a guy, looks at me says "Oh so now you're friends?". I just shrugged my shoulders, cause I didn't want to make the guy mad.

Ned Flanders: What is it about Mrs. Simpson that you miss so much?
Flanders Boys:She made us feel happy. And "for real happy" not just "church happy"
--From "Bart Has Two Mommies" Simpsons Episode:

TP Gun

File this Toliet Paper Launcher under the "I need this" category.

Tags: Toilet Paper

With Easter coming up, you've gotta watch the McPassion of the Christ ad. "Buy one today. Make Jesus Happy."

Tags: McPassion of the Christ

I'm probably the last to know about this site, but I got this from Glenn today and about wet myself laughing. It's called AskANinja.com. The purpose of this site is tap the wealth of knowledge contained in the ancient art of ninja. I've always pondered questions like "Who makes better decisions: A Ninja or a Samurai?" Click here to find out.

I just heard from my Dad. My Mom's surgery went well and she's doing well. They removed a big 'ol nasty growth about the size of an egg. They're going to biopsy the tissue to see what they're dealing with. She should be feeling a lot better when this is done as it should take care of all of the blood infections she's been having. Thanks for your prayers.

My Mom

My Mom went into surgery today at 2:50. I went down to the hospital this afternoon to hang with her for about an hour before hand. She was doing pretty well, pretty peaceful about the whole thing. Thanks for all of your prayers (especially the Rays clan who've sent me text messages today praying for my Mom).

My Mom

My Mom is having surgery tomorrow to remove a fast growing abcess on her liver. They think this is what has been causing the blood infections that have put her in the hospital. I'm worried about her. Please pray for her.

I achieved my Hilton Diamond status this month. For those of you with more important things to do, this is the highest level of Hilton Honors status and it is almost a super-power. It gives me the ability to get a room at any Hilton property, even if it's booked up. I found out the hard way that it does not actually gives me the ability to knock on the door of my choice at a Hilton hotel and demand that the person leave the room immediately.

I'm in Charlotte, NC for a couple of days and the weather stinks. The upside is my Hilton Diamond status (just in case I'd forgotten to mention this) and the room they set me up with at the Doubletree here. I'm not sure I need a room with four different rooms, but I'll take it. Since I'm not entertaining here or doing anything beyond sleeping and watching TV that doesn't do much for me.

Update: I sat down for breakfast yesterday morning and was greeted by name and followed around being asked by name what they could get me as I wandered through the breakfast buffett line. At the end of the meal, they set a nice hand written, personalized card in front of me thanking me for having breakfast with them.

Tags: Hilton, Diamond

Middle Child of the Month!

As you know, middle children are an under appreciated caste in our society who often get lost in the shuffle of the "perfect" oldest child and the baby of the family. The middle children are left to fend for themselves and fight the battles as the black sheep of the family. The middle children are forced to develop superior social, verbal and academic skills - very self driven and self motivated, not having to rely on the approval of others and setting the bar high for themselves.

Andrew Kurt is one of these middle children, and one of the best in the world. Not only is he MY nephew and one of four in the family (myself, Maddie, Andrew and Allie in all), but he is incredibly special and awesome. Andrew is a champion video game player, an amazing soccer player, and a phenomenal artist. He is a master pokemon player and can whoop anyone in Yugioh as well. Andrew is tremendous story teller, able to communicate at an eighth grade level and has a huge heart for other people. As a middle child, I try and make sure Andrew is taken care of when I see him. Sometimes I give him money, sometimes candy - but I always make sure that he's the only one that gets it as the middle child. Fair? Nope. But the FOMC (Fraternal Order of Middle Children) stick together.

Pistons Game

Nate and I went to the Pistons game thanks to my friend Bob. We had near courtside seats and had a great time. Nate was all smiles the whole time, into every second of the game. We sat behind the boxer Thomas Hearns, which was cool and we could see Bob Seager across the court.

My Blog's Word Cloud

My blog's Word Cloud:

You can make your own here. (Via Noel)

My Mom is back again in the hospital today. She went in last night via ambulance after having a really high fever and was really out of it. They did a Cat Scan and some blood work to try and figure out what was going on. They thought they'd figured out the problem and discharged her this morning. My brother Dan called me today to tell me that the hospital had called after some problems with her blood work and wanted her back in.

The strange this is the way Dan heard about my Mom going into the hospital today....from Susan's blog. We might just be taking technology a little too far here Sooze.

Update: They found that my Mom has a blood infection which they figured out after they'd already sent her home. Nice. I'm not fancy doctor, but if someone with cancer comes in to my hospital (for the record, I don't really have a hospital) I wouldn't just send her home as if she had the flu. Once her blood infection clears she can come home.

MSU Disappoints

I can't believe MSU is out of the tournament. We watched the game last night as we hung out at the St. Patty's day party. I went from first place in all my tournament brackets to second place in almost all of them (I'm in 4 different ones - two through work, one with the guys from our morning workout and the other is through Dan's work).

In better basketball news, Nate had his last game of the season today. He scored a couple of baskets and played pretty well. It's been cool seeing him improve so much from the beginning when he had no clue how to do much more than shoot baskets. Nate and I are going to the Piston's game on Monday thanks to my friend Bob, who has courst-side seats Nate was offered the PS2 game of his choice to give up his tickets and he just laughed. I'm not sure who's more excited - Nate or I.

I'm in Charlotte, NC next week for a couple of days, but no travel yet beyond that.

St.. Patty's Day

Our neighbors had a St. Patty's day party tonight so we loaded up the family and headed over to celebrate, complete with corn beef, Irish whiskey Guinness, sans cabbage. We ended the night playing poker. The guys wanted to play a cash game, so after three hours, I was the big winner, walking away $10 up. Whoohoo!

My Mom

My Mom had an MRI in the past week to check out how exactly her pancreatic cancer has spread to her liver. Her and my Dad are heading to U of M today to find out today where things are at. Please pray for her and for Rich's Dad, who's in a similar boat.

Update: I just talked to my Dad on their way back from the doctor's appointment. The blood work was good and the spots on my Mom's liver have not grown, but they're big enough to biopsy. They're going to do another MRI at the end of the month and if all is well start a new chemo/radiation treatment mid-April.

Triad Workout

Today's 6AM workout was kind of a greatest hits. It consisted of Crab walks, Bear crawls, one legged box hops, two legged hurdle jumps, bag pushes, push ups, split lunges, tricep dips and some others that I've probably blocked out at some point. This was one that we were all dying on today - the kind that makes you dig deep and I came up empty. There were eight of us this morning: Joe, Bob, Jason, Jason, Don, Kirk, Roy and I. I'm spent. But in a good way. Wait, not in a good way. I'm just spent. I need a nap.

I'm pretty sure this kind of stuff happens all of the time in heaven.

American Idol

Much like Ken, I'm somewhat ashamed to admit this, but I like American Idol. This is my first season ever watching it, but I'm hooked. I started off just watching it to watch the auditions. The whole family got into it, and now we have a pact that none of us will watch episodes of the show without each other. There aren't any other shows that we all watch together as a family, from Emily to Nate and this shows gives everybody someone to root for. Cathie and Nate are big fans of Abe and Chris. I'm rooting for Catherine McPhee. Nate can't stand Kevin and actually does a pretty funny impersonation of him. Maddie loves Kelly and Kevin while Emily just goes with whoever her brother and sister go with.

Tags: American Idol

Lamb

I mentioned last week that I started reading Lamb, the Gospel according to Bif, Christ's Childhood Pal and how funny it was. Since then, the book has gotten funnier and caused me to really do a lot of thinking about Jesus's life between birth and age 30, which the Bible doesn't really cover. It kinda forced me out of the "Sunday School mentality" that many of us bring to envisioning the life of Christ - a sanitized, Ozzie and Harriet, Partridge Family view of life in First Century Galilee. This recasting and retelling of the story is having the effect of making me want to go back and re-read the Gospels in a new way. Anyways, I'm pretty sure that most of my theologically conservative friends would find this book offensive because of the language that Moore places in the mouths of his characters. The author often teeters on the edge of the precipice of blasphemy without ever plunging into that abyss. It's a tongue-in-cheek journey through the life of Jesus - as told through the eyes of his fictional best boyhood friend, Levi ("Call me Biff") is a study in contrasts. On the one hand, it is outrageous and occasionally sacrilegious. On the other hand, it is strangely respectful and awe-filled. The author really gets Jewish History, he gets the Torah and he gets the New Testament. Reading this, I've been trying to go figure out where the author Christopher Moore's take on Jesus as he wrote this book. Getting to the end of the book, I found the afterward interesting:

"Theologically, I made certain assumptions about who Jesus was, mainly that he was who the Gospels say he was." (Page 441)

Anyways, if you're not easily offended, like to laugh while being stretched, this book is worth reading.

Tags: Lamb, Christopher Moore

Animal Cruelty

Emily loves our dog Riley. If I were Riley, I would have bitten Emily a long time ago. In fairness to Emily, more than anyone in our family, she loves to give Riley treats and take her one walks. The downside for Riley is pictured above. Emily also loves to play dress-up with Riley as you can see from the picture of Riley in a snow-white dress, barely able to move. I have no idea how Emily got the dress on her. I've come into Emily's room before while looking for Riley, only to find her hidden in Emily's closet, dressed up in some crazy outfit, looking at me as if to say, "Help!"

Great Space Elevator

I'm thinking of building one of these. Anyone got $10M laying around? No? How about a really, really long cable?

Tags: Space Elevator

Gun Show

I guess Dan started this all by sending Rich a Hooters shirt from China. Rich reciprocated and sent me a shirt especially made for me, apparently. I'm now on the lookout for a shirt to send to someone to make the circle-of-life complete. Maybe I should turn it up a notch and send a shirt to two different people, kind of a pay-it-forward thing.

Weekend

On Sunday, Brad and I left midway through Church to head over to 242 Church in Brighton to see my friend Jason teach during the 11:00 service. He's just started there as the Director of Youth stuff and in his second week they had him up front talking. That afternoon Cathie, the kids and I went to one of the old folks home in town where our church was putting on a church service and ice cream social for the people who live there. It didn't smell as horrible as I expected but most of the residents there were in pretty bad shape. Maddie and I handed out the songs sheets and Nate helped wheel some of the residents around and afterwards the girls helped make ice cream sundaes which Nate and I helped pass out afterwards. I've been trying to make serving others more of a priority in my own life by doing things like this as well as going downtown as part of our downtown outreach program. I'm not there, but it's a start.

I met an interesting guy at church yesterday and invited him to our workout this morning. He's spent the past five years in prison after getting three DUI's in a row. 18 months turned into five years after a fair amount of fighting in prison to try and hold his own. It was interesting hearing about how prison changed him and how he's getting back on his feet now that he's out.

Project 311 Lunch

Thought I'd posted this, but somehow it fell off the site.... On Friday we had the Project 311 Youth Pastor lunch. We got 95 Youth Workers/Ministers/Pastors together for lunch to connect and for us to thank them for what they do and show them some love. Being a part of the board, I kicked things off. Things were going smoothly until I began explaining that part of the reason that those of us involved in Project 311 do these kind of things is because at some point in our life we were touched by a youth pastor.... and then the table full of the whole Velocity crew (Hovermale, Shinn, Butler, Woodman) started cracking up and I realized what I'd said. What I meant to say was that our hearts had been touched by a youth pastor... Anyways, we had some great giveaways that included shirts, resources, conference passes, pistons playoff tickets, vet clinic certificates (thanks Jeffrey Animal Hospital/Brad) and some training at the Triad (thanks Kirk).

It was great seeing the guys from 311, including Bob, who I hadn't seen in a while (pictured below... Not sure he's aware that I have a picture of him looking like Satan). Bob's the guy who designed the Blitzfest t-shirt that I'm wearing in the pictures down below from Tahoe and has done a ton of great design work for 311. Being a designer, Bob is a mac guy, and is stuck with a Treo 650, because he's not willing to recognize the glory of the Treo 700W, because it's made by Mr. Gates. All that being said, I've now got a special profile on Bob's blog with an equally special picture of me.

Saturday

Kevin, Gabe, Allie and Bender came down this afternoon to see Nate's basketball game, and then they came over to hang out and watch the MSU vs. Iowa game. Cathie took the girls up to the pet store to get some stuff for Baily's cage. Allie saw the kitties and ran through the pet store calling after them, "Kitties, Kitties...", except she pronounces her K's like T's. My sister Sooze really ought to parent her kids better.

The whole family went to Chili's last night for dinner. Midway through the meal, Nate went to the bathroom and came out telling me, "Dad, I couldn't get the bathroom stall opened, so I had to climb out and the guy in there called me an a**hole." 30 seconds late a guy walked buy and Nate pointed him out as the guy, a big 'ol guy in his mid-30s. I moseyed over to talk to him and ask him if this was the case, and he said that he never actually called Nate the name, but just said it in his general direction when he saw Nate climbing out of the stall when he'd walked in and seen this going on. I told him why Nate was doing this, and then asked him exactly what kind of guy calls a nine year old these kind of names. The conversation on my side was very nice, but I think the guy felt pretty dumb in the end for doing it, after he heard himself trying to explain why he'd done it. As we were leaving, I brought Nate over to his table to give the guy a chance to apologize, which he did.

Big Winner?

Madeline's 3-D Reading poster was selected out of all of the 2nd graders for her school's reading campaign! Not only will it be displayed in the school, but she got a water bottle as a gift for her great work.

Home Again

We made it back late last night from Ted's and I'm still reacclimating myself. You can view the Flat Brad pictures here, some of the scenic pictures here and the rest of the trip pictures here.

Will and I got in last night around midnight after what seemed like a really long day. I got upgraded to first class both segments, Will got it for the longer of the two segments, which was nice.

I started reading this book last night by Christopher Moore called Lamb : The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. The book was is about Jesus's buddy, Biff, and is the story of Jesus from his best friend's perspective, starting at about age 6. I was laying in bed trying to wake Cathie up laughing as I read this. The book is written with a deep understanding of Jewish culture and history, and a deep understanding of the bible. It's probably pretty offensive to some, but I don't think I've read anything this funny in a long time. I've always wondered what Jesus was like as a kid, and his buddy Biff does a great job explaining it.

GWB and his iPod

I'm not a smart man

Rule #321: Wear sunscreen when you ski out West to avoid this. You tell from the picture, but my face is the color of a tomato, except where my sunglasses and hat covered things up, which is a great look... If you're a raccoon.

Popular Science's movie awards... The Oscar's from a nerd's perspective.

Perfect day at Heavenly

A picture's worth 1000 words. Need I say more? I'm on my way up for my first run.

Blogging from 10,000 feet

Probably the greatest skiing day of my life. No lines, perfect snow and sun. Not quite the same without my brothers and my Dad here though.



Skiing on my own has been an awesome time of solitude and reflection. How can you not be in a state of worship when you're surrounded by this kind of beauty? I've been able to ski some amazing stuff: trees, chutes, canyons, bowl's and a 15 foot jump (which I just about wet myself when I hit it).



All of the punishment working out with Kirk has really paid off. I've been able to ski black diamond runs all morning and my legs still feel pretty good.

Gotta love a judge who cites Billy Madison in his briefs.

Lap dances for Jesus? Gotta love their passion for loving the "unlovable" in a lot of Christian circles.

In Dog we Trust

Check out this Manly Missionary Award from Mark Driscoll's blog.

Tags: Dog the Bounty Hunter

I took a seat in the poker room tonight in Tahoe to see if I could play with the big dogs. I sat down at a 3-6-12 dollar table (ok, so maybe not the really big dogs). The table was all locals and I heard some me pretty interesting stories about what brought them here to live and why they stayed. Things started out badly. I was down to my last couple dollars after a few bad beats. I ended up going all in on a couple of hands and winning, I eventually ended up with enough to be able to push the table around a little bit. I ended up about $100 up in the end, which wasn't too shabby for such a low limit table

After this I put $20 into the Wheel of Fortune machine on behalf of Project 311 and won a hundie. We've got a big Youth Pastor lunch on Friday for Youth Pastors in the Metro Detroit area, so the hundie will go towards giveaways for them. We're up to 65 so far, with the goal being to connect them, honor them, and thank them for what they do. If a Youth Pastor's even been influential in your life and you want to help out with some kind of giveaway, let me know ASAP.

Tags: Lake Tahoe, Poker, Project 311

The Hard Way

Being the high rollers that we are, we came, we played, we lost, we won. In the end, we were up....for the afternoon. We're gambling for Project 311 this evening...

Flat Brad at Bridal Vail Falls

We're trecking up through the mountains in a pretty halacious storm. We're going snowmobilng tomorrow on the Zephyr tour around Lake Tahoe. We're hitting the craps table this afternoon where Ted's found a $2 table with 10x odds.



We were stopped for a while as they pulled the bodies from a car that went off the road and into the river below.

Big Shooter

If you stay in a Residence Inn for four months, you hit Platinum status with Marriott, and in turn get your buddies into the Presidential Suite in Napa. We have two bathrooms (both with phones), plenty of bathrobes, slippers and a giant dining room table, which is oh so useful.

Napa

Ted, Will and I spent today in Napa in our very own Brokeback moment, three guys together in Napa.

I got a call from my Dad today with the results of my Mom's MRI from last week, which sucked. The cancer has moved over into my Mom's liver and they're doing a biopsy next week. They're cancelling the original chemo/radiation treatment they were going to do in order to focus on the new stuff. Please, please pray for her.

The Adventures of Flat Brad

Since Brad chose not to join us on our trip, Sherry created this version of 'Flat Brad' for us to have with us at all times. Here's Brad enjoying Sushi with us. Bob did not choose to avoid us, as he had business travel going on at the time of the trip. Brad chose to spend time with better, closer friends then us. Sad, isn't it, that he didn't bring cut-outs of Bob, Will, Ted and I?

Don't they look cozy?

Will and I flew out this morning to visit our friend Ted in California. Neither of us got upgraded to first class, but what can you expect for a $200 ticket out West. Unfortunately, Will and I weren't able to sit next to each other on the flight.

Sleepover

Cathie and the girls went to hang out with her parents yesterday and Nate and I had a guys weekend. After his basketball game we went and picked up slurpees and pizza and then settled in for a 5 hour HALO 2 video game marathon.

Albeit a month late, Nate had a super-charged sleepover with his friend Austin for his birthday. We headed up to the store and each of them got to pick out a two liter of pop and their own bag of candy. We setup the Xbox on the big screen and played video games and watched movies until about 2am.

Will and I leave to go visit our friend Ted for a few days, so most of my blogging will be from my phone. Thankfully, Will has his Sleep Apnea under control via his new mask.

Dan's Negotiating Skills

I like fake rolexes and my brother Dan works in purchasing. How are these two things related? Let me explain. First: I'm a big fan of fake rolexes. I love the look and style of them and I'm too cheap to spend $4,000 on a watch. Knock-offs last me a couple years and are great for the price. Whenever someone I know is going over to China, I have them pick me up a watch. My friend Justin just came back from China and he picked me up a great Rolex Oyster Explorer. Dan picked me up a watch last month when he was out there (which he charged me for, while getting Rich a t-shirt for free).

My brother Dan works in purchasing for his company. In my job, I deal with purchasing all the time, and for the most part, they're a pain. My brother Dan is very proud of this fact and likes to believe that he's an amazing negotiator, enjoying beating up his vendors, all while taking bribes (basketball tickets, football tickets, etc). Being in purchasing, Dan must be a way better negotiator than a chemist, right? Nope. Dan was able to "negotiate" the vendor down to a mere $25 for a watch, while Justin got them down to $12.50. Maybe the guy slipped Dan a set of tickets to a cock-fight so Dan agreed to the higher prices. Dan loves cock fights.

My friend Will was in the newspaper. Please give this picture your own caption.

We took a customer out last night to a local steak house in KC and for the first time I had a Kobe Beef Steak, which was amazing, and should be for the price. Apparently the cow must have flown first class from Japan before they slaughtered it.

We hit the casino after that. I played Blackjack with a my good friend and old boss, who knows nothing about Black Jack. He would go completely with his guy, staying on 16's against the dealer's 10, making completely unorthodox plays and being very successful with it. He would get a good feeling, press his bet and win, big on $100 hands. After a while, when he would get a good feeling, I would jump on that band wagon quickly and press my bet. For a while, we couldn't lose, and we both walked away while we were way up. He ended up about $700 up, I was about $225 up. His philosophy for winning was "You can't care whether you win or lose", and he didn't. He would bet big and tip big. We ended up getting home about 3 and I got up about 5 this morning to get to the airport. I went from 80 degrees yesterday in Kansas City to coming home this morning to 1/4" of ice on my car. I broke my ice scraper trying to cut through it without any luck. The kids are off school and are loving it.

My Mom

My Mom has her MRI today to see what's happened with her cancer since her chemotherapy. The last time they did an ultrasound on her pancreas a few weeks after the surgery, they could see that it had already started to come back. Please be praying for my Mom today. She's had a tough week dealing with the effects of her last chemo treatment before she starts on the double barrel radiation/chemo combo in a couple weeks.

I got into Missouri last night (after the listening to the two loud-talkers behind me ramble on about the concrete industry for 2 hours) and it was 70 degrees. It's supposed to be 80 degrees here today.

On Monday, I had thrown all my clothes together, but hadn't actually packed anything in my suitcase. I was tied up on conference calls and I asked Cathie if she would pack my stuff for me. She came down a few minutes later, holding a pair of pants and a t-shirt, asking "Why were you packing a pair of my pants and one of Madeline's T-shirts?" Great question. If she hadn't caught it, I'd of been hosed (the pants part, not so much the t-shirt part). I showed up to one meeting last year wearing two different colored shoes, but pants you can't really fake.

I had a presentation to do yesterday and I'd hoped to grab some swag to give to people for answering questions and making it interactive. I brought nothing. While I was in my hotel room,I considered grabbing the soap, shampoo and coffee packets, but decided against it.

I head home tomorrow morning. This weekend, Nate's is celebrating his birthday (one month later) with a sleepover with his buddy Austin. The girls are heading to Dewitt to hang out with Cathie's parents so that we can have a testosterone filled night that includes lots of video games, laser tag, pizza and movies where people spit.

Science Myths

I think I've heard everyone of these scientific myths and thought just about all of them were true.