Yahoo Mail Client Interface

Yahoo just upgraded my web based e-mail interface to their Yahoo Beta E-Mail client. It's interface is very similar to Microsoft's Web Based Outlook interface, but a lot faster, no need for multiple windows and integrated RSS. I haven't used a thick client for my e-mail in a couple of years, and after using this interface, I see no advantage to using one at all now. This interface can be navigated as quickly or quicker than a thick client system, plus it travels with me no matter which of my 6 computers I access it from. Read here to read Mossberg's review of the interface.

Tags: Yahoo E-Mail Beta, Mossberg

Applause on a Plane

Cathie and I were watching the movie Flightplan this evening and Cathie was laughing at how the passengers were applauding when the Air Marshall walked down the aisle with Jodie Foster in handcuffs. I explained to her that I've made an entire plane applaud. She doubted me. Here's what happened:

I was flying home from Florida when our plane got diverted due to a storm. We didn't have enough fuel, so we had to touch down somewhere to refuel the plane. During our landing, the plane blew a tire. Since it wasn't a Northwest hub, they had to fly a replacement tire in. They couldn't replace the tire, so they replaced the plane. The crew worked hard to shift all the luggage into the exact overhead bins, but it took a long time and people were getting ornery. By the time we got back on the plane, people were being downright mean to the flight crew. In order to quiet and shame the cantakerous passengers, I stood up announced very loudly that the flight crew had worked hard to make sure we could get home tonight, and that we should all give them a big round of applause to show our appreciation. They applauded. 10 minutes later, one of the flight attendants came over and handed me a very full air sickness bag and thanked me for my kind words. Instead of being filled with puke (which would have been funny in and of itself) it was filled with about 40 airline liquor bottles.

Cathie's response: "Ohhhh. That's were all those bottles came from."

Mom Update

Here's the latest update on my Mom from my Dad:

Lynn has now completed four weeks of radiation and chemotherapy at Sparrow Regional Cancer Clinic in Lansing with two weeks left to go. She receives 5 treatments per week and takes Xeloda capecitabine chemotherapy tablets twice a day which makes the radiation treatment more effective.

Lynn has been tolerating the treatment as well as can be expected. She continues to be very fatigued and nauseated. When the weather is nice, she takes a short walk outside. Other than that, she stays close to home. Her spirits are very good and she looks forward to the time when she starts to feel better and can look back on this and say, "Thank you Lord for healing me. Now, I want to get on with the rest of my life!"

Either I, or Susan and the kids, or a couple of good friends drive Lynn to the cancer clinic which is about a 15 minute drive. There is no scarcity of those who want to help and we appreciate each and everyone of you. The treatment takes less than 10 minutes.

Susan made a brightly colored paper chain (like they used to put on Chrtistmas trees) with a bible verse or words of encouragement on one side and a design drawn or colored by Gabe, Allie and Ben on the other side. It's hanging in our den so when Lynn comes home from treatment, she removes one link. There are 10 links left. Who's counting? We all are!

Once again, we thank God for each of you. Your prayers, cards, e-mails, and other acts of kindness are overwhelming. Hebrews 13:5

In all of the classes I took to get my Computer Science degree from MSU, I learned all sorts of things that I'll never think about again. One of the things I hated and barely got was Finite State Machines. It's a way to model reactive systems, specifically around application design and compiler design. Here's some of the models we used to have to map out:

Today, I was in a conversation at work that actually brought up the concept use of Finite State Autonoma, and I felt like a whole part of my brain had been unlocked and had suddenly been fulfilled.

12th Annual Memorial Day Party

Today was our 12th annual Memorial Day party. It started with three couples (Mike/Micky, Noel/Grace and us) and a kid (Lindsey) and it's grown into 30+ people. The theme was Hawaiian, but my sister mistook that for Middle-Eastern, apparently. Noel is always bringing back the latest fashions to Michigan, and was quick to tell us that this look is all the rage in Germany. He kept yelling out, "Now is the time on Sprockets when we dance", and asking us if "we'd like to touch his monkey". Weird.

It was super-hot, so naturally, we had lots of squirt guns, water balloons and a slip and slide. Rather than get himself wet, Will was able to stay dry using Ethan as a human shield. If you look closely, you can see the water balloon splashing on Ethan's chest as it breaks.

As always, we had lot of food and people even got creative with their stuff. Noel and Susan were very pleased bringing this watermelon to life. They named it "Jon" in honor of my brother who couldn't make it. Every year, my brother Jon manages to wet himself at some point during the party. This year, Dan picked up the torch and ran with it (you can't help but be impressed by that farmer's tan).

One of the best parts of the day was that my Mom was able to join us for most of the party. She was feeling good and hung throughout the day.

You can see all of the pictures from the gala here, in the Kurt Family Gallery.

Side by Side

If you look closely, my boss Anne Mulcahy is right next to Dane Cook on the cover of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people of 2006. This is ironic at many levels since many of my co-workers listen to Dane Cook, and one of them recently put himself in an ackward moment because of Dane. I'm guessing Dane and Anne have never met, although there was an "incident" cause by to a co-worker by the comedy of Dane.

Tags: Anne Mulcahy, Xerox, Dane Cook, Time Magazine

Will loves his Opera

As I'd mentioned earlier, on Thursday, Will and I went on a man-date to see X-Men 3. I forgot to mention that on that man-date, Will made an "Actually..." statement, haughtily comparing X-Men 3 to an opera. He didn't explain why the comparison, he never mentioned which one, just compared to all of them apparently. (I've seen The Who's Tommy Rock Opera and the Phantom of the Opera, and neither was anything like X-Men 3.) Will goes through phases, and it looks like he's in a new opera phase. He'll be joining opera clubs, reading opera books and using the Opera web browser. Expect him to be comparing all sorts of thing to opera from now on: Potato Salad, Immigration Issues, Coffee Tables... You name it. Be patient with him. His next musical phase will involve show-tunes, if you know what I mean.

Lebbon Party Pictures

I posted pictures from the Lebbon Memorial Day picnic here, including more pictures of Ed's nipple clips.

Mr. Mom

Cathie took off yesterday afternoon to Saugatuck, MI with a few friends for the weekend, so the kids and I are doing the weekend solo. Last night we had football practice and I brought Emily along with us. She was playing with the other coaches daughter having fun, but I couldn't figure out why she kept yelling over telling me that her feet were dirty. With practice still going on, I yelled back that it wasn't a big deal. By the time practice was over, I figured out what was going on. Emily had found a mud puddle and pretty much covered herself in it. We got to the van and I couldn't find any towels, so I stuck her in a large plastic bag. Yes, I put her in a bag. She sat in her car seat with her lower torso in a bag. We went and picked Madeline up from her friends and Madeline cut to the chase, with the words that every solo-Dad loves to hear, "Dad. You put her in a bag. That's kinda weird. Mom wouldn't do it that way." It didn't stop us from getting ice cream and staying up late watching a movie.

This morning, the kids let me sleep in, we had a big breakfast and left to go on our Grandparent-Marathon, covering a total of 7 grandparents of various generations. We headed to Dewitt and hung out with my Mom and Dad (Grandparents #1 and #2). We hung out, talked, and played baseball in the back yard. From there, we went a couple miles over to Cathie's parents (Grandparents #3 & 4)for a big Memorial Weekend party. Cathie's Mom's parents (the kid's Great Grandma and Grandpa Dunckel, #5 & 6) are up from Texas and were at the party along with a bunch of Cathie's family. (Even at 5, Emily's a little slow on the uptake with the whole grandparent thing... She hasn't quite figured out that they have names. She refers to them as: Grandma with the pool, Grandma without the pool, Grandma from Texas and Grandma without all of her fingers). The weather was beautiful, and the kids swam for 5 hours straight until we all were fried. Emily kept finding person after person to play with her by going up to total strangers and asking "Will you play with me." including Cathie's Aunt Maureen (who Emily referred to as "Grandma's Sister"). My personal highlight was my brother-in-law Ed doing a flip with two giant parrot nipple clips attached to him.

My father-in-law just got a new giant inflatable hamster wheel. It was almost impossible to actually stay on the thing for more than a second, but it worked great for target practice. We took turns seeing who could hit it from the farthest out from the diving board.

Cathie's parents asked the girls to stay for the weekend, so Nate and I headed home to begin our days of bachelorhood. We stopped at my Grandma Smith (Grandparent #7 and the one that's missing a finger... Emily really doesn't get the finger thing. She still prays at dinner time that it will grow back) and spent some time there. My grandma took the time to say "I told you so" about her Tigers, who she's a huge fan of and has been telling me since 1985 that they'll be great again. A friend of hers pulled some strings and is having her name announced at the Tigers/Yankees game tomorrow as one of their biggest fan, who still doesn't like the Yankees after all these years.

We came back home and began the "Night of the Y chromosome". We stopped and got some pizza, grabbed out caffeinated pop and hooked Halo 2 up to the big screen and proceeded to kill a lot of alien scum. After lots of candy and other assorted junk food, we're still up and going strong, nursing our sunburns. Cathie is back tomorrow, so tomorrow is house cleaning day. We learned last time that it doesn't pay to try and keep the house clean as we go. We do the dishes as they get dirty and save the rest of the house cleaning for the last minute. Should be interesting with just Nate and I around to clean.

Morning Workout at the Triad

Over the last 3 years I've been working out with Kirk (pictured above, sleeping) at Triad I've almost thrown up three times. Throwing up at the morning workout is more common that you'd think, especially thre first few times people come to the workout, due to the intensity. Of the three times I've almost lost it, one of them was when I was trying to keep up with one of the Cleveland Browns Linemen, the other two were doing the exercise we were doing this morning. I hate this exercise. Today was my day off and if I'd known we were doing this particuilar exercise, I'd of slept in. The exercise goes like this: Two giant rubber-bands about an inch thick and ten feet around are tied together. People pair up and each person puts one around their waste, and we do fifty-yard dashes with the guy behind them acting as an anchor drag. You then turn around and do another fifty yard sprint back, switch and act as an anchor for the other guy. Each person does 5 sets of 2x50, rests and then we do it again, rest, and then do two sets backwards, which is 3 times harder. I went home and went back to bed.

Update: I talked to Brad later today and told him about the workout. After complaining about how I'd ended up paired up with Kirk, he told me that last time we'd done one of these workouts, I'd missed it. He told me the story of how he'd gotten paired up with Kevin (Cleveland Browns). Kevin could run the 50 with Brad as an anchor as if he wasn't even there, running them faster than Brad could keep up with, even trying to hold him back. Brad on the other hand couldn't budge Kevin and had to have a 300lb guy as his anchor.

X-Men 3

Will and I went to see X-Men 3 last night at a sneak-preview, thanks to tickets from my neighbor. The movie was excellent, probably the best of the three. I'm a huge fan of the X-Men comic book series, and this was huge and very well done. If you're going to see it, stay until the end, once all of the credits are done. You'll be glad you did. It changes the outcome of the whole movie.

Will got me a BK Lounge t-shirt for my birthday. I had two people complement me on the shirt today. One at Crapplebee's (while celebrating Justin Girard's birthday today) and the other in the library as guy was chasing me down to tell me he liked the shirt. I don't get a lot of people chasing after me and yelling my name in the library parking lot. I returned a su-fi to both of the BAMFs.

Emily is a Kindergartener Today!

Today was Em's pre-school graduation.

Her proud brother and sister got to skip school and come see her graduate. All three of our kids went to the same pre-school and had the same pre-school teachers, through South Lyon Co-Op Preschool. We love the place. Throughout the years the kids were there, Cathie and I got to work in the kids classes on a regular basis and watch the kids do their thing up close. Having our youngest finish pre-school is a little sad, seeing her grow up and all, but I guess that's bound to happen. Unless we hold her back a couple of years, like my parents did for my sister. Come to think of it though, that was for academic reasons.

The Soul Patrol Wins!

The whole family watched American Idol tonight. Everyone but Nate was rooting for Kat to win. We got to see new parts and angles of Kat tonight. Meatloaf looked like he was going to die and sounded pretty horrible. He seemed to spend a lot of time staring at parts of Kat. I thought it was sad that more people voted in last nights Idol than in any presidential election. If only we could vote for the president on the phone.

I started this year as a snob, thinking that I was too good for the show. I gotta say that im hooked. I found it funny to how many guys I talked to didnt want to admit they watch the show, but do.

Life is hard

Our friend Rich's Dad passed away on Sunday from pancreatic cancer. We've been praying for him and following his progress. Please take a sec right now and pray for Rich and his family right now.

Surprise!

Today was Jason Shinn's surprise birthday party. It was a great surprise party, except for the surprise part... But we fixed that. The kids and I showed up at 7:00 per the instructions and oddly enough, saw that Jason was already there, which doesn't typically happen in your run-of-the-mill surprise parties. Some of the plans had gotten botched, so we decided to improvise. It seemed appropriate to periodically yell "Surprise!" to him throughout the party, which I did 20 or 30 times. We hung out, played Ultimate Frisbee and ate birthday cake. A lot of people don't know that Jason is a lover of fine contemporary christian music and cherishes his collection of WOW Christian Music CD compilations. We were able to add the one missing disc to his collection that he's been longing after for quite some time:

Blair has a blog!

My brother Jon always had a crush on Mrs. Garrett from the TV show Facts of Life. Although my Facts-of-Life crush was on Jo, I would have married Blair if Jo died (and if I could have gotten married at age 10). Blair (Lisa Welchel) has a blog. Mrs Garrett, Jo and Blair were touring around NYC pimping their new DVD release of the TV show. You can read all about it on Blair's blog. (Please note that her blog is even less interesting than MC Hammer's)

Top 10 Reasons Why It's Better Not Being CEO

I'm a big fan of Scott McNealy (ex CEO of Sun Microsystems, after being replaced by CFO Jonathan Schwartz - as reported in the San Jose Mercury News. You’ve got to love Scott McNealy’s sense of humor.

10. “I don’t have to apologize for stuff I say to Wall Street.”

9. “I’m no longer on the most overpaid CEO list.”

8. “I just say, ‘See Jonathan on that.’”

7. “I read The Hockey News without guilt.”

6. “I shave even less often.”

5. “I don’t have to sign the SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley) certification anymore.”

4. “I have someone to blame now.”

3. “I can sell my last business suit.”

2. “Jonathan doesn’t golf, so I guess I gotta do it.”

1. “My new office is VERY close to the men’s room.”

Apple's Mecca

Apple fans now have a direction to face when they pray, with the opening of their new glass-cubed Apple Store in New York City. Check out this time-lapsed video commemorating the first 24 hours the store is open.

Emily

This is the part that even though I'm not trying, water gets in my eyes.
--Emily to Cathie, while watching a sad part in the movie Milo and Otis

Turkey Jerkers?

This morning while working out we got to talking about summer jobs. One of the guys at the workout, Tommy, described his summer job working at a turkey farm. His job was counting the male turkeys as they would go through the line in order to be serviced (these guys were called "turkey jerkers" to manually retrieve their semen. If the job wasn't funny enough, he told us a story about how they were running into problems with having sample rates of 105% until they figured out that after being "serviced" once, the turkeys would get back in line for a second time for more.

Broken Heart

After getting a punishment the other day, Emily walked up to Cathie and handed her this picture she'd drawn.
Cathie: "Oh, is this a picture of you and I?"
Emily: "No Mom, it's a picture of you, and my heart that you've broken by being so mean to me."

Not bad for age 5.

The next Manny Legace?

Nate and I went to Nate's buddy Austin's hockey game yesterday afternoon, where Austin was playing goalie (the same Austin that the Dad's of the neighborhood were taking shots on in street hockey on Saturday). Austin had a huge game and Nate and I had fun cheering him on while he was in goal.

Football Pictures

I took pictures at the game on Saturday, trying to catch some good action shots of all the kids to give them as gifts for our last game. Those of you who haven't had a chance to get to one of his games this year, his last one is on June 3rd. You can see some of the pictures of Nate here.

Old Man Hockey

It started out as Nate and Austin playing Street Hockey against myself and our neighbor Terry. Austin's Dad Scott threw on his skates and the three of us skated around helping Austin practice his new position at goalie. Nate moved on to something else and the three old men spent about a half hour taking shots on Austin. It ended up as one-handed-hockey as the Dad's tried to quench their thirst with a beer in the other hand.

Cheer Competition

Maddie had her cheer competition today and was really excited about it. Her team did great, but didn't place again. She took the loss a lot better this year than last time, where she was devastated by it and it took her two days to recover.

My Mom and sister wanted to be there, but couldn't so here's the video of it for their enjoyment:

Win #2

We won our second game today, and again, my defense held the other team scoreless. We had 3 interceptions and a safety. Nate got the MVP award for his tackle for a safety and a huge play he made on a big breakaway play the other team had. He turned it on like I'd never seen him do and ran a guy down the entire field to make the play. The team has really jelled and they're playing great. We have our final game in two weeks.

Bob's Surprise Party

Friday night was my friend Bob Ray's birthday party to celebrate his 45th birthday. Bob, aka Chauncey (because of his obvious likeness to Piston's basketball great, Chauncey Billups), was genuinely surprised and overwhelmed by the whole deal. Bob in a connoisseur of fine tequila, and we got a chance to sample some of his finer wares last night. Unfortunately, Bob was not immune to the curse of the surprise party. Bob is a guy who love people and loves to have a good party with his family and friends, which is exactly what this was. We watched the Pistons game as we celebrated Bob, hanging on the edge of our seats during the final 1.2 seconds.

You can see all of the pictures from the extravaganza here.

If you make a bad pinkie promise, Jesus won't like you
--Emily, Age 5

"It was this big..."

Emily, describing to me the size of the foot long hot dog she ate yesterday

Direct from Hell... Spinal Tap

I came across this picture from a couple years back where I ran into a guy from the movie This is Spinal Tap:

On our cab ride back from dinner, we got talking about the movie This is Spinal Tap. Our cab driver over heard our conversation and yelled out, "Hey, I was in that movie". There's a scene in the beginning where an MC introduces the band (see script), yelling "You want it right, direct from hell, Spinal Tap!" Turns, it's him, Patrick Maher. He proceeded to tell us the story of how he got the job, how much he got paid and a bunch of other things about the story. Never got around to how he ended up driving a cab. He was a nice guy with some great stories.

Tags: This is Spinal Tap

RELEVANT MAGAZINE

Great article from RELEVANT MAGAZINE, based

“If Christians in the US would be quiet for a year and only do good works, that would be evangelism. Our actions are way behind our words.” —Dieter Zander

...just think about how a seeking world would respond if we started living out in detail what we spout off so easily. Now, that would be radical. That would be attractive. That would transform this world.

I Pity the Fool

I bought my TomTom GPS Navigator a while back to work with my Treo phone when I travel. The navigation software will tell you where to go, using a few different voices - British, Australian and American. There's a new software package called Navtones that delivers navigational voice commands from the likes of Mr. T., Burt Reynolds, and Dennis Hopper. The software delivers step-by-step directions, just like the A-list celeb’s are in the car right next to you. It’s currently only compatible with a small handful of TomTom products, although it works with the TomTom Navigator. (Hear a sample of T right here.)

Tags: TomTom Navigator, Navtones, Treo, Mr.T

My friend and co-worker Bill and I went mountain biking today out in Holt. Some business men hold meetings while golfing, Bill and I do it while biking. We're able to solve most of the company's problems on the trail, which was wet and nasty.

(Bill did not wear his favorite tights this time, as shown above. Much to Bill's chagrin, this picture was somehow distributed around work. Darn camera phones. Bill is much taller than is shown in this picture.)

A smart person would think to themselves, "Boy, there's been a lot of rain lately. The trails might be muddy and submerged." Apparently, neither Bill or I are smart people. We hit a ton of mud and water on the trail, but dealt with it. We got to the point that normally runs a couple feet off the river to find that it no longer is next to the river. It was in the river. We were riding through 6 inches of water at a point that if we stopped and had to put our feet down, we'd be soaked.

We met up with our friend and self proclaimed seventh-son-of-the-Lama, Noel. He suggested the place and took us to a resturant that caters to the elderly. He showed up in a very fancy pair of shoes, shirt and necklace and looked like he was all set to bowl. He explained to us that bowling, shoes and necklaces are all very popular things in Europe, and in 2 years leather-velcro bowling shoes will become popular in the states. These shoes would normally have been $733 but Noel got them for $33. In the picture below, you can see Bill looking longingly at Noel's European fashion.

Tags: Holt, Mountain Biking, Noel, Fancy European Shoes

I subscribed to Amazon's S3 service a while back, but couldn't find a good app that to integrate it into my desktop to use easily. S3 gives you some pretty raw capabilities for storage, but nothing that easily translates into something easy to use for the average joe. I received an e-mail from Amazon the other day pointing me to a bunch of applications out there that provide desktop integration. I played with all of them and settled on Jungle Disk. It sites on your desktop, takes your account info and allows you to treat S3 like a drive I can use for storage.

I'm storing 40GB of data on S3, backing up images and documents, with about 2GB of data throughput per month and only paying $6/month. Amazing. Think about what it would cost to have a secure, redundant data environment that you know you're not going to lose. If my house were to burn down, the first thing I'd grab after taking my kids, would be my computer with our digital video and digital images for the past 5 years. I'm throwing my document archive out there, but I haven't found a way to easily update and sync with those dynamically. I think I can use Microsoft's SyncToy to sync up my file system up with S3.

Tags: Amazon's S3 Service, Jungle Disk, Microsoft SyncToy

I have two Tivos: my Hi-def Tivo upstairs and a hacked Tivo downstairs. A couple years ago I added a 200GB hard drive into the downstairs tivo and installed some hacks on the tivo for additional functionality. Nate somehow managed to fill about 300+ hours of it up with shows, so instead of deleting each show individually, we thought we'd do a quick wipe of the Tivo. Apparently, that's a bad idea with a hacked tivo. Go figure.

I ended up pulling out the 200GB 7200RPM drive and threw it onto my desktop (giving me 1TB of storage now), for $25 ordered a 40GB drive off eBay already loaded with the hacked 6.2 DirecTivo environment and threw it back into my box. I'm working at setting a RAID 0 environment with my disk so I don't have to worry about losing my data. I've also taken 250GB of external disk and thrown it on my macMini for video processing. None of this makes the world a better place, but when others are talking about building decks and new bathrooms, I can talk about overhauling my in-house IT infrastructure.

Emily and Corbin

We're watching our friend's new-born baby today while his Mom is in school. Emily is loving this and wants a baby just like Corbin as a baby brother. Emily and Cathie are having a blast, and working at home, I get to pop up periodically and hang out with the little guy.

Skype

This is cool. Skype (a VoIP/IM client) is now offering free Skype to US-based phone calls, meaning you can now use the Skype client to call people on the phone. There are toolbars you can get that allow integration into Microsoft Outlook so you can dial right from a contact. I can sit in front of my laptop in my office or at a hotel, look up a contact, hit a button and call the person over my laptop. The only downside is that the caller ID comes up with a funky number and unknown name. Otherwise, it rocks.

Tags: Skype

My blog is a mimicry

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

Oscar Wilde, De Profundis, 1905

(Ironic that I'm quoting someone about quoting someone, eh?)

Tags: Oscar Wilde

Reason #379

Reason #379 why I love working with middle school kids:

Flag Football

We won our first football game on Saturday. We've been progressively getting better, including the defense, which I coach. My guys (and 1 girl) held the other team to a shut out and only gave up one first-down. Nate had a big game with a big catch, a big run for 40 yards, a big catch (which in this league is pretty rare) and a tackle for a safety along with a few other tackles. Win or lose, the league is about teaching the kids how to play the different positions and having fun, which we do. (My friend Mike would be furious with me for taking that kind of attitude with the team. His kids get a beatin' when they lose or don't win by enough.)

Dinner

For Mother's day, Cathie had the choice of any cuisine, either going out or ordering in. Cathie pondered for hours and ended up choosing Chili's followed by Ritter's for frozen custard.

Logitech Harmony 520 Remote

I got the Logitech Harmony 520 remote for my birthday from Cathie's parents yesterday and I spent last night getting it setup. This thing is phenomenal, half for the technology and feel of the remote, half for the way you set it up. The remote hooks up to your computer through a USB cable and has a web based software interface that helps you set up the devices. Once you setup the devices, it has a wizard based system that allows you to configure the remote to perform a series of tasks. My A/V system is pretty complex. To perform a given task, you typically have to grab 3 or 4 remote to get the job done: Change the video source, the audio source and activate multiple devices. I now have it setup with the press of a single button to Listen to music via my mac, watch tv, watch dvd's and watch VHS tapes. Very cool technology. Thanks Mom and Dad Lebbon!

Tags: Logitech Harmony 520

Happy Mother's Day!

Today we're celebrating mother's day for Cathie. It's her day, starting with breakfast in bed, made by her very own children (while Emily carried up the newspaper. She's our lazy child)

Madeline meticulously cut up the fruit salad while Nate made the french toast and arranged the plate to look exactly like his Mom.

The kids gave Cathie her gifts after she enjoyed her breakfast, including a decorated plate and poem from Madeline, a coupon book from Nate and a personalized bag with Emily's hand-prints on it. I framed a bunch of pictures of the kids for her (you can see it in the lower left hand corner of the picture above)

The ground rules for the rest of the day are this:

• No fighting or arguing
• Keep room spotless
• Let Mom relax
• Anytime anyone finds a mess, they alert the rest of us and the kids and I clean it up immediately.
• Dad gives Mom all the lovin she needs
• Mom does not cook, clean or do anything productive.

I think my wife is the greatest Mom in the world. I really do. She is the standard by which I measure every other Mom. She had a great Mom to learn from and she's doing a great job continuing the tradition. She's is the most patient, kind, loving, fun, humble Mom I've ever seen. I constantly learn from her how to be a better parent and a better person.

Multi-purpose Lebbon Function

Yesterday we celebrated a combination of my Birthday, Emily's birthday, Mother's day and Stacy's passing the bar exam.

The whole family hung out, exchanged gifts and got ready for the big finale. The picture above shows Stacy holding a clock, engraved with her dream: 1-800-Call-Stac. As we were hanging out, we heard an ambulance drive by and Stacy's ears perked up, one of her new ambulance chasing super-powers that she now has as a lawyer

We all got to witness Stacy whooping on her husband and my brother-in-law Ed. She showed all sorts of moves, including this scissor lock which had Ed crying for mercy.

My new Headset Case

My friend Kathy from work has had a Bluetooth headset for a long time. I'm pretty sure she's lost quite a big of sleep trying to figure out how to carry it around in a way that wasn't overly goofy. She began trying to walk around with it clipped to a piece of yarn around her neck. I mocked this. Two weeks ago we were in all day meetings in New York when she pulled out her latest carrying case: a red silk bag. After each use she would daintily place it in the bag and lovingly pull the ties shut. She mistook my mockery of this bag for envy, and last week I received three different bags for my headset in the mail along with a note, guessing at how tough of a time I'll have choosing the right the bag to my outfit. I am now using this baggie for my headset and everytime someone asks me about it, I tell them about my good friend Kathy and the piece of yarn she used to carry her headset around with.

Statistical Relevance

I just read this on Noel's blog and laughed pretty hard. It's regarding the site of some woman who placed me into her hall of shame because of some of the games I was doing with my youth group and branded my friend Joe as the devil incarnate. For a while, I set about trying to reference her site as often as possible, in order to show up as having a statistical link for search engines in order to entice the Ingrid's readers over to the dark side. Here's Noel's post:

As most of you know, I read a lot of blogs. Some I agree with, some I don't. One that can be a tad controversial is Slice of Laodicea. Sometimes I agree with this site, often I don't. That is neither here nor there for the purpose of this post. Today, while I was searching their site, I had my "Blogger Web Comments" window open, and what to my wondering eye should appear? My friend Dave has the most recent 5 posts that link to the page I was on. Click here for the visual proof:

Mission Accomplished.