Xerox Guys Weekend

Two weekends ago, we had our annual guy's weekend up North. It's something we've been doing for the past 7 or 8 years. Guys from work fly in from all over the country and we get together to eat, drink and be merry, with some golf and corn-holin' in between.

This is tight group of guys. I've worked with some of these guys for 15 years (3 years at a previous company). We support each others careers and help each other out wherever we can. Many of us have worked for each other and it's half the reason we love our job. I just can't remember the other half.

It turns out that I'm a ninja in the game of corn-holing. This is way different than the kind of corn-holing my brother Jon does. This involves bean-bags and holes. I am as good at this game as I am bad at golf.


We stay at Bill's cottage up in Gaylord and we get some work done in between. There's nothing like looking around and seeing 9 guys with their laptops cracked open.

No caption for this picture. It's just plain odd.

This is the part of the crew. Kohne stayed back because his skirt was too tight.

We always mix some golf into things.

This little fella (he's 4'2" tall I think) trained me fresh out of college. He was a sales guy at my first company, ASG, and he and Ron showed me the ropes. Mike and I golfed together this year. He felt it was safer, as last year I ran over him with my cart.

I'm a pretty horrible golfer to say the least. Maybe I shouldn't have based my technique off of Happy Gilmore. At least I amuse myself.


This drive was my best shot of the day. I was 350 yards, so I figured I needed a picture.

This was one of the best years yet, even though Newton couldn't join us.

Panther Gold Video Game Night

On Friday night, our church hosted a video game night for Nate's football team. We set up four video game systems on the big screen and had a bunch of tournaments throughout the night with Halo, Mario Kart, Madden and Guitar Hero.

At one point, things broke out into an all out game of close quarters every man for themselves dodge-ball. At first I was amazed that no one got hurt or ran out crying, but then I remember that these guys are football players.

It was a great night and a cool chance for our church buildilng to make itself available to the community. It was a good chance for the parents of the players to meet Joe and Michael. Thanks a bunch to Michael, Evan, Rodney and Brad who helped set everything up and run the tournaments.

Cedar Point

Cathie, Nate, Maddie and I went to Cedar Point on Sunday. Nate and I went last year and this year we figured Maddie was tall enough and loved Coasters enough to go. We got there at 11 when the gates opened and had a perfect day. We didn't wait in any lines longer than 15 minutes, which was perfect. Almost.

When you have no lines, it means you ride on a lot of rides. Without time to recover. When I was younger, I could ride these things all day. I felt like an old man having to take dramamine and advil just to make it through the day. The first ride we rode was the Maverick, last year's new coaster. We all agreed that it was the best ride in the park. It was smooth and had speed and propulsion. We ended the day by riding on The Demon Drop, which even for a 25 year old ride, was still a good time.

Here's a video of Cathie and Nate on the Top Thrill Dragster. If you've never seen this ride, it's amazing and fast. It accelerates up to 120mph in the course of a couple of seconds and shoots you up 400 feet. The whole ride lasts about 13 seconds.

This is The Scrambler, the ride that knocked Cathie's tooth out in high school. She's had the tooth replaced and even though we live in South Lyon, she still keeps it in for the most part. Maddie was tall enough for every coaster and she loved them all. Even the ones she was a little scared on, she quickly overcame and went on again.

We were all whooped by the end of the day, but it really couldn't have been much more perfect.

Nate's Career Test

Growing up, my parents always told us that they didn't care if we grew up to be garbage men, as long as we were the best garbage men we could be. In school, Nate took a career test. His results, in order of their fit were:

1. Boxer
2. Model
3. Fashion Designer
   
4. Garbage Man
5. Hockey Player
6. Big Time Wrestler
7. Nuclear Physicist
8. Football Agent
9. Soccer Player
10. Maid
    

Nate brought the instructions home and we were able to try it out. Maddie took the same test and ended up with the following:

1. Venture Capitalist
2. Film Director
3. Documentary Producer
4. Orchestra Conductor
5. Music Video Producer
6. Website Designer
7. Art Appraiser
8. Choreographer
9. Investment Banker

You can try it too via www . bridges . com. (Use site id# 0028688, pw:slms and click on Choices Explorer). Let me know what your results are.

Tackling Drill

Sunset run at Kensington

Golfing in Gaylord

Flying Home

Crazy Balloon Animal Hat Guy a O'Hare

Rainy Day Football

Saturday's football game was wet. Soaking wet. The only people I heard complaining were the parents sitting in the stands. The rain never let up and seemed to keep coming down progressively harder. I sat in the stands under an umbrella trying to take some pictures.


Without lightening and thunder, Nate's team played and Maddie's team cheered. The girls had so much energy and such big smiles on their faces, I was impressed that they kept it up.


It's so cool to see Nate improve week over week. He's getting a lot better at his overall offensive and defensive awareness - knowing how to be at the right place at the right time: not biting on the reversals, knowing how to run to where the ball's going to be instead of where it is. He continues to get better at blocking and tackling and as a receiver. He had a beautiful pass thrown to him in the end zone was tackled about two seconds before the ball could get to him. Nate couldn't get a pass interference penalty called to save his life.

Twilight Practice

Haircuts to Remember

I first saw this picture and couldn't figure out who this boy was.
Turns out it's my sister back in 2002.

When I'm Old

I've been thinking about who I am today and the kind of person I'll be when I get to my 50's and 60's - when I'm an empty nester and a grandpa. I don't think it's something that suddenly happens when your kids leave the house or you become a grandparent. I think I'm on a certain trajectory right now with all of the decisions and priorities I make now shaping who I'll be at that point. But hey, I could be way off. I'm not there yet. These are based on no one person in particiular, but a cross-section of people I've seen do things really right, and really wrong - all probably doing the best job they know based on how they were raised and the card's that life has dealt them.

I figure I'll pull this list out in 20 years and make sure I'm still on track. Here's what I'm pretty sure of so far:

1. I'm planning on never trimming my already vast ear hair so I'm one of those old guys with a shrub on the side of my head.
2. I will wear lots of plaid shorts, goofy hats and hawiian shirts. No big change there.
   
3. I want to use the extra time to serve others. I want to use the knowledge and wisdom that I hope I'll have attained at that point to make the world a better place. I want to value the downtrodden, the least of those.
4. Instead of dying with lots of money and stuff, I want to go out having been generous and helped as many hurting people as possible.
   
5. I want to continue to stay connected with my family and make my siblings and nieces and nephews a priority. We get together for any conceivable reason right now and I hope that never stops. I want to still call every family member on their birthday, and continue to call all of my siblings on a regular basis.
   
6. I want to have lots of great traditions in my family and honor and prioritize those.
7. I want to be very connected with my kids. As my kids are older, I want to have the kind of relationship with them that is deep and mutual. Friends of mine talk about their relationship with their parents being one of the closest in their lives where they talk on a regular basis. I want to have that with my kids. I want to call my kids often and have them call me. I want to be involved directly in their lives and not think I'm connected just because I know what's going on in their life through a blog.
   
8. I want to make my grandkids a priority. I will not get so busy in my own life that my grandkids become an afterthought and I end up disconnected from them. I don't want to be the grandparent whom my kids say to their parents, "Do we have to go over to go see Grandpa Kurt?" Cathie's tells me stories of how much time she would spend with her grandparents growing up, including Saturday breakfasts, and even now you can see how much she loves spending time with them and they love spending time with her. That's the way I want to be.
   
9. I will stop driving when I'm the guy going 55 in the left-hand lane.
10. I don't want to grow old mentally just because I age chronoligically. I want to be the old guy who still lives life to the fullest. I want to keep doing new, exciting things and pushing myself to the limit, even when I'm old.
11. When I die, I want to go out big rather than aging gracefully.
12. I don't want to live in a self-centered universe. I'll never be that important or that interesting and I'm not worth being the center of my own universe. I want to be other-centered, seeking to serve and offer grace to those around me instead bitter condemnation to others.
    

Most importantly:
I don't want to let my life get so "busy" with stuff that seems important (and in the big picture, really isn't) that I lose sight of the truly important things. Check out Pancreatic Cancer victim Randy Pausch's last lecture on Time Management for a great perspective on this.

Running

I went for a run this evening at Kensington Park, doing the eight mile loop, and I loved it. After months of training for my half marathon and 10k, this run was completely different than any run in a while. Every time I've run for the past four months, I push myself. I'm constantly checking my watch, my pace, my speed and my cadence - trying to measure and be just a little better than the last time.

This run was different. I ran the loop without checking my watch, running at whatever pace I wanted, not beating myself up for slowing down to walk while I got a drink (I still haven't figured out how to drink something while running without getting most of it in my nose). It was nice to not be pushing myself to the point that I was hating what I was doing. Instead I ran and enjoyed it. I ran and took in the scenery and the sounds. The lake was beautiful and glassy as the sun was setting. I saw deer, ducks and cranes (the bird kind and the construction kind).

My run reminded me of the line from Olympic runner Eric Liddell in the movie Chariot's of Fire:

I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.

It was a cool time to think, reflect and enjoy. Most of the time when I'm running so hard that I can barely breathe I don't do much of any of those

Ted's Body Double

As we hung sat at Frank and Erica's wedding, I had to do a double take on the Pastor. The guy was a slightly older and much more socially acceptable version of Pugsley (aka Ted).

Quealy Wedding

On Saturday night we went to Cathie's cousin Frank's wedding. (Small world: my Mom knew Frank's Dad Tim, who passed away last year from a heart attack, back from when my Mom worked at Eddie Bauer). This wedding was a blast. We got to see Cathie's parents who we don't get to see too often, her brother Ed and wife Stacy and Cathie's Grandparents, who are up from Texas.

Cathie's grandparents are amazing. They're in their mid-80s and you'd never know it. They've going on 62 years of marriage and it's so cool to watch the two of them together. On a side note, they were going through a set of videos and found a copy of our wedding video (I had accidentally erased the only copy of our wedding video about 16 years ago when we were first married). They were so excited to surprise us with this as an anniversary present. They hung out and watched it with us, and it was so cute to see them sitting together as her grandpa scratched her back.

They've always been like another set of grandparents to me, treating me like one of their own since I started dating Cathie 20 years ago. I love talking to both of them because they've both got such great stories about life. One of Cathie's uncles is a professional comedian, with a good chunk of his act coming from his stories as a kid and of his parents.

Cathie's cousin Jenny (Frank's older and much, much shorter sister) was in town from California. Cathie and Jenny grew up together and had a great time hanging around and dancing.

The most amusing part of the night was watching Cathie, Maureen and Jenny dance, which got even better when Cathie's grandparents joined them. Susan and Kevin were kind enough to watch the kids, so I picked up the kids around 10 and Cathie kept the party going until the wee hours.

Emily's Failed Stuffed Animal Storage System

It worked great until I mistook the fan switch for he light switch.

Mudbowl 2008

Yesterday was our 12th annual mud bowl. My Campus Life leader Patti invited me to the first one my freshman year in high school and when I started our junior high youth group this was our big kick-off event. Maddie came and brought her friend Maddie. The girls went in with the group of younger kids, who did a nice job of stirring up the mud.

We had cancelled it last week due to weather and the weather ended up being ok. This week we knew that thunderstorms were on their way and we figured we'd go ahead with it anyways. God took care of the weather and it held out until the last minute, at which point the sky's let loose.

Nate brought a bunch of buddies and they amused themselves with the porta-John while they waited. Only a group of middle school boys could amuse themselves with a porta-john.

Nate had a blast this year and ended up with mud in ever orifice of his body.

Because of torrential downpour over the past week, the mud was in rare form. We came up with a new event that would never be sanctioned by an insurance company. We piled (or squeeged) the mud into a pile and did flips into it. No one died, so all is well.

I love the fact that the pastor of my church was in the middle of things with us. The fact that Joe used to teach junior high says a lot about him. This picture probably says even more about him, but maybe more in a Jim Jones kinda way.

These are the leaders that made it happen. If you look closely, you'll see the rain coming down around us. It was a great day and everything went well.