Gates and Buffett

Just watched a fascinating show on PBS called Buffett & Gates Go Back to School. It was a forum discussion with a group of University of Nebraska business students dialogging with Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. These two guys are brilliant and rich (worth $52B and $56B respectively) and both are hugely philanthropic (each giving away all of their money before they die). Warren Buffett is fascinating as the founder of Berkshire Hathaway (currently trading at $101,000/share) and Gates as the founder of Microsoft is equally fascinating. The cool thing about the show is that only students were allowed to ask the questions and they asked questions about everything from playing Halo to time allocation to charity to faith. One of the best questions was, "If you dropped a $100 bill on the way out, would either of you bother to pick it up?" The answer from Warren: "If Bill drops a dime on the floor on the way out and doesn't pick it up, I'll pick it up." I'm fascinated by these guys and it's so amazing hearing them in a candid setting like this. The other, "Mr. Gates, I received an e-mail saying that if I forwarded an e-mail 20 times, I'd receive $10k from you. Where's my money"? The special is like An Evening with Kevin Smith without the profanity.

Another nugget came out of the discussion what kind of employees they look for. They spoke about the ideal individual in an organization that stands out for them and how rare those are with the combination of these three skills:

1. Great individual contributor
2. Great leaders of people
3. Great at strategy
4. Combined with working at something you love doing at an organization you feel good about.

Two Great quotes from Buffett about philanthropy:

"I personally think that society is responsible for a very significant percentage of what I've earned. If you stick me down in the middle of Bangladesh or Peru or someplace, you find out how much this talent is going to produce in the wrong kind of soil... I work in a market system that happens to reward what I do very well - disproportionately well. Mike Tyson, too. If you can knock a guy out in 10 seconds and earn $10 million for it, this world will pay a lot for that. If you can bat .360, this world will pay a lot for that. If you're a marvelous teacher, this world won't pay a lot for it. If you are a terrific nurse, this world will not pay a lot for it. Now, am I going to try to come up with some comparable worth system that somehow (re)distributes that? No, I don't think you can do that. But I do think that when you're treated enormously well by this market system, where in effect the market system showers the ability to buy goods and services on you because of some peculiar talent - maybe your adenoids are a certain way, so you can sing and everybody will pay you enormous sums to be on television or whatever -I think society has a big claim on that."

"I don't have a problem with guilt about money. The way I see it is that my money represents an enormous number of claim checks on society. It's like I have these little pieces of paper that I can turn into consumption. If I wanted to, I could hire 10,000 people to do nothing but paint my picture every day for the rest of my life. And the GNP would go up. But the utility of the product would be zilch, and I would be keeping those 10,000 people from doing AIDS research, or teaching, or nursing. I don't do that though. I don't use very many of those claim checks. There's nothing material I want very much. And I'm going to give virtually all of those claim checks to charity when my wife and I die."

The Planet Earth

If you have High Def TV, you need to make sure you're TiVoing the show Planet Earth on Discovery Channel HD. It's a 10 part series that shows the most amazing footage I've ever seen about various parts of the earth and animals. The Pole-to-Pole episode showed a great white shark launching 15 feet in the air in slow motion with a seal in it's mouth. Another part showed a pride of lions hunting and taking down an elephant. It's not just animals, but different geographies from volcanoes to mountains and the ocean floor. Emily and I have been watching this together and she loves the animals.

Fight Video

Here's the video from the fight Nate and I saw at the Wing's game the other night. Thanks to big ted for turning me on to HockeyFights.com which has the fight description and video for every fight in hockey, including this one.

From Noel:

“You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”

- Anne Lamott

Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work - this is a gift of God.
Ecclesiastes 5:19

Huge Fight at the Wings Game

My friend Mark invited Nate and I to go with he and his son Josh to the Wings game. Chelios reveived an award for the most games played by an American born player. Even more exciting was the huge brawl at the end of the first period. Nate got to see his first big center ice, throw-down as the Wings bench roughed up the rest of the Mighty Ducks line.

Nate and I at the Wings Game

They gave out Red Wings hand towels tonight and Nate and Josh were waving them like crazy every chance they got. At one point, the two of them made it up on to the big screen at the game which they were both excited about.

Em Loves Animals

My five year old Emily has helped me get what Jesus calls us to when he said to love other people the way we love ourselves. Emily loves animals. Any kind of animal. She will try to pet and play with any animal she sees, no matter how big or small. We've had to teach her to ask the people if she can pet their dog, so as soon as she sees someone with an animal, her first words are, "Hi-can-I-Pet-Your-Dog" as fast a you can imagine - almost like it's one word. It doesn't matter how mangy the dog is or how ugly it might look, you can sense from the way she approaches each dog that she sees as if it's the most amazing, special creature she's ever seen. She pets them and talks to them in such a loving, gentle way and they seem to lover her. When I see the way she looks at the dogs, treats them and interacts with them - I get a sense for how we're called to treat others, and I smile.

Ear Wax Removal

My ears create enough wax to stock a candle shop. I've discovered that BIC pen caps (the kind that has a curved lip on the sitck off the cap) are really the ultimate for cleaning them out. Noel turned me on to these places that takes the place of a pen cap. Amazing. In heaven, there will be one of these places on every street corner.

Em's Early Birthday Present

This is what happens when you combine running over you daughter's bike with some quick thinking: An Early birthday present. I can't be the only Dad whose ever done this.

Diana and Cathie on Guitar Hero

Nate and Trevor Playing Guitar Hero

Emily and Sprite

We went over to the Kohne's tonight for dinner and wine tasting. Mark and I rocked out to the game Guitar Hero while Em was fascinated by their bird, Sprite.

Navigation by Gary

The TomTom GPS application on my cell phone has the ability to put different voices on it to give you directions. They've added celebrity voices like Mr. T and John Cleese (Monty Python), which are both pretty amusing. I just got an e-mail today explaining that you can now download a Gary Busey voice for your TomTom GPS. What kind of person would want someone as messed up as Gary Busey telling them where to go?

Emily is riding a two wheeler

Her cousin Matthew started riding a two wheeler when he was only 3.

The bible of Cool

Nate and Maddie have decided they want to be baptized and will be on April 1st. I was looking around Zondervan for kids bibles and i came across this one, which had this fantastic description:

Based on Luke 2:52: "And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men," this Bible helps boys become more like Jesus mentally, physically, spiritually, and socially-smarter, stronger, deeper, and cooler.

I found it funny at first - thinking of Fonzie style cool. I guess if you define cool as counter-cultural, than Jesus was all over cool - just without the leather jacket and thumbs-up - "eh..."

Tommy 'The Hit Man' Hearns

Pistons v. Sixers from the 10th row

Spelling Bee

Yesterday and Today were Maddie and Nate's spelling bee's at school for their respective grades. Maddie came in 5th for her grade overall and Nate came in 3rd place out of all of the 4th graders. In third place, Nate is an alternate for the regional spelling bee should one of the other two kids die. I was looking for some side bets with other parents, but couldn't find any takers.

Wii Age

Sure beats my previous age of 77.

"To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it."
-G. K. Chesterton

Hokey Pokey

Doing this read-the-bible-in-a-year thing means you have to trudge through books like Leviticus, which can be pretty painful to read. I came across this in Leviticus 14 which just might be the origin of the Hokey Pokey. I can't figure out why some people say the Bible is confusing:

14 The priest is to take some of the blood of the guilt offering and put it on the lobe of the right ear of the one to be cleansed, on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot. 15 The priest shall then take some of the log of oil, pour it in the palm of his own left hand, 16 dip his right forefinger into the oil in his palm, and with his finger sprinkle some of it before the LORD seven times. 17 The priest is to put some of the oil remaining in his palm on the lobe of the right ear of the one to be cleansed, on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot, on top of the blood of the guilt offering.

Love, Reign O'er Me

I just heard Pearl jam's version of The Who's Love, Reign O'er Me from the the new Adam Sandler/Don Cheadle flick Reign Over Me. IMHO, the vocals are at least as good as Roger Daltry's. Amazing song.

Tags: The Who, Love Reign O'er Me, Pearl Jam, Roger Daltry, Reign Over Me

Will, Mark, Eli and I went to see the movie 300 on Saturday night. One of the best movies I've seen - as good or better than Gladiator or Braveheart. The cinematography is just amazing in this movie. The 300 Spartan soldiers were in amazing shape, like nothing you see on TV. Check out this article and video on the workout these guys did - the same kind of stuff we do at Triad in the mornings - bands, medicine balls, bear crawls and other crazy stuff - but no tractor tires. The difference is that we do it for an hour a day, they did it for five.

Kevin after one Margarita

Red Wings v. Bruins

My brother Dan got tickets to the afternoon Red Wings game and brought Kevin, my Dad and I along. The Bruins captain, #33 Chara is a freaking giant at 6' 7". The last game I went to was called five minutes in after Yuri Fischer went into cardiac arrest on the ice. The Wings were up early but couldn't score in the secind haf of the game. Small world, I saw Chuck Harmon at the game. We headed over to Mexican Town for dinner.

What I learned in Napa

"Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine." -- Fran Lebowitz

American Idol Top 12

Ryan Seacrest: "America has spoken and Sundance, you will not continue."
Nate: "America's stupid."
Me: "You're part of America."
Nate:"Ok, everyone in America except for me then."

Kohne Loves His Girly Drinks

At dinner last night, I must have missed Mark ask the waitress: "What is the most feminine drink that you have involving whipped cream that I can drink through a straw."

PARC

After working at Xerox for ten years I finally got a chance to visit our Palo Alto Research Center. This the same PARC that's famous for developing the GUI, Ethernet, the Laser Printer and other huge innovations. I was with a customer and had the chance to hear about some of the latest innovations, including Transient Documents, a reusable paper where the content disappears over time and can be re-printed multiple times. PARC has recently been spun off as an independent self-sustaining research entity, but it still does a lot of work for Xerox and still has brilliant researchers focusing on document technologies and their adoption. It was interesting to hear from one of their anthropologists today in terms of how they deal wiith the cultural shifts to get people to use new technologies.

Academy o fart

The San Fran Academy of Art signs are all over downtown. One of .y coworkers pointed out that the sign looked like it said 'Academy o' Fart' and I couln't see it any other way afterwards.

Pier 39

A street car named desire

I've been in Frisco a bunch of times, but never rode a cable car. It was full so we ended up hanging on the running board as we flew down the ridiculous hills. We'd pass by cable cars in the opposite direction about six inches away. We grabbed some seafood at Fisherman's wharf and then headed back downtown.

Pole Position

The video game pole position, as done with real people.

Monkey Business

I'm a big fan of monkeys. Everyone's seen the monkey smelling himself and then passing out. I found a site with the top ten monkey videos ever. Good stuff.

Dirtball

As the waitress came to bring me my food at lunch today, a 2 foot long planter dumped in my lap and on the table in front of me, spilling a huge amount of dirt and flowers all of me. Our table was near the kitchen and someone had pushed the microwave, which had behind it this large flower planter, which in turn dumped all over me. Did people feel sorry for me? No. They were too busy getting out their camera phone to take pictures. Sad.

Napa

It was beautiful weather in Napa yesterday. We hit four vineyards (Whitehall, Pine Ridge, Stags Leap Vineyard and one other) and got to a point where all I wanted was a Budweiser. The beauty of being with Ted is that he's a member at a number of the vineyards, which means they break out the reserve stock and pour pretty generously for the tastings, until we're ready to move on to the next stop. After a while, all of the wines run together and our teeth were all purple the wine.

The scenery in Napa is amazing. (It's even home to the famous Windows XP background, bliss.) You have these Mediterranean-like rolling hills and plains that are covered with grape vines. You can't swing a dead-cat without hitting a vineyard in Napa, and people get a little carried away with wine. I now know more about how wine is made and how to taste it and what to look for. I know that I still can't fully appreciate a great bottle of wine, but I can at least tell the difference between Boones Farm and the good stuff.

Whitehall Vineyard with Mark and Ted

Mark and I got in to our hotel in Napa last night about 3am. The woman in the room next to me was having fun, so I didn't get to bed until about 4. Ted came out and met us and took us out to a few vineyards where he's a big shooter, or as he likes to refer to himself, a whale.



We're headed back into San Fran for meetings over the next two days and I'm on the red eye Tuesday night home.

Nate's Basketball Game

Cathie's parents and Will and Monaca came down to watch Nate's game today. The girls mobbed Monaca and Will was left in the corner.

iLike

I've been playing around with iLike, an iTunes communal plug-in that lets you share what you listen to with your friends, in a musical-MySpace kind of way. You can actually listen to parts of songs that your friends are listening to as well. It sits in a side-bar and shares what your favorite songs are, favorite artists and recent listens. The downside for me is that it pulls statistics off my iPod and iTunes, both of which have lots kids songs on them and are listened to frequently. Don't be surprised to see Kidz Bop and Barbie as some of my favorite songs. You can add me as a friend via my dave_kurt @ yahoo.com e-mail address.

Nate's Birthday Party

Nate had a bunch of friends come over last night to spend the night for his birthday. His birthday was at the beginning of February, but he held off on his party so that his buddy Austin's hockey tournaments were over and he could attend.

I took the boys to Laser Tag and then we went to the Dollar Tree so they could each try and buy as much candy as possible for a buck. We grabbed pizza and then they came back for ice cream sundaes and video games until about 2am, when I finally got them to crash.

One gift that Nate received seemed to be an empty box. He pulled off the ribbon, which was connected to a string of 20 $1 bills, all connected. Cool idea.

Will

My friend Will is participating in Relay for Life to raise money for cancer research. He's dedicating it to my Mom and Bob's Mom. You can click here to sponsor him. If Will dies from the exercise, he will have gone out doing something good.

Conversations with Emily

Cathie is on a field trip with Nate, so I'm working, while loosely supervising Emily, trying to make sure she doesn't destroy herself or any of our pets while she freely roams around the house. I came upstairs to make her lunch and had the following conversation with her:

Emily: "Dad, Baily (our guinea pig) things I'm his Mom."
Me: (half listening) "Ok. Great"
Emily: "I talk to him, I listen to him, and I understand him."
Me: "You understand what he says?"
Emily: "Yep. And I lick him on his head."
Me: "You lick him on his head?"
Emily: "Yep. With my tongue. That's what Guinea Pig Mom's do."
Me: "Guess you're right."

Paging Ima...

Overheard at the airport in Tulsa:

Paging Ima Dick. Paging Ima Dick. Would Ima Dick please pick up the yellow courtesy phone?

I giggled like a school girl. I heard a collection of these that a couple of guys did at Heathrow,