PMS Buddy

I'd been trying out how to create a system like this for myself via my iPhone and then my brother Dan shared this site with me. It's called PMS Buddy and it lets you track the cycles of that someone special in your life. I can't be the only guy in the world that figures it out after a given altercation, and then when I do connect the dots, I'm so proud that I announce that I understand it's the reason for her mood. That never goes over well.

PMSBuddy.com is a free service created with a single goal in mind: to keep you aware of when your wife, girlfriend, mother, sister, daughter, or any other women in your life are closing in on “that time of the month” - when things can get intense for what may seem to be no reason at all.

I've had worse days...

We packed a lot in yesterday after our meetings closed out. We went to The Gun Store - a gun shop that allows you to shoot an amazing assortment of automatic weapons. We went with the Coalition package which allowed us to shoot an M249 SAW, an M16 Riffle and an M9 Pistal.

They gave you a series of targets and let you go to town on these things with full automatic. Amazing.

We then headed over to the stratosphere where we did some of the rides at the top of the 1000 foot tower. They've got a series of ridiculous thrill rides that hang you out over the building, spin you on top of it and then shoot you off of the building. At one point as we went up the Big Shot, we were level with two F-16s flying nearby. Cool.

We then headed downtown to Fremont Street. We checked out the Golden Nuggest in the Golden Nugget. It's the largest nugget of gold on display. It ended up changing my luck at the tables. We then went and got some $1.99 shrimp and then played a lot of craps at the $3 table and ended up doing pretty well.

We headed back to the main strip and hit some of the other casinos to close out the night. My brother Jon loves slot machines and I found the ideal slot machine for him with this Dukes of Hazzard machine. He would like this even more than the eBay machine.


I've had my fill of Vegas. I'm done for another couple of years here.

Best Slot Machine Ever

Vegas

I've been out at Vegas this week for kick off meetings. We stayed at the MGM Grand, which is a great hotel, but huge and requires you to walk a mile inside the hotel to go anywhere. Vegas is pretty dead. The hotel rate was $61/night and there just weren't a lot of people around. The $61 got me a great view on the 27th floor.

I had the wonderful opportunity to dress exactly the same as a couple of co-workers during the event. Ron and I both had on the same shirt and pants here, and on a different day, Kohne and another had the same shirt as me

We went to see the Cirque de Soleil show Ka. The Cirque franchise is normally an amazing show to see. This was a $100 nap for just about all of us. It was huge and visually stunning, and it had potential, but just not much sizzle.

It's been a lot of very late days. Our sessions go until 6 followed by team dinners and more meetings and then getting up early and doing it again. I've been running on 3-4 hours a night all week. It's gonna catch up at some point.

Got a little captain in ya?

My friend John always travels in sweats and turtlenecks. When we get
to the airport he magically appears in these clothes. My guess is that
he wears these under his clothes at all times, kind of like superman.
John as a scientist at PARC (Xerox's famous research center) and we
joke that he was the guy who let the inventions of the mouse, the GUI
and Ethernet slip through our fingers.

Oddest slot machine concept

This would be me...iPhone Addict

Headline should read: ""Wow, this is amazing. I'm bearing witness to a truly historical moment. Hmmm...seems like the perfect time to play a game of Bejeweled on my iPhone."

Bedtime Stories

I was laying down with Emily, trying to pick out a book to read. The conversation went something like this:

Me:"How about 'Wocket in my Pocket?'"
Emily:"No way, Dad. That book creeps me out. What if there really is stuff hiding all over. The one that scares me the most is the one under the bed."

We finally settled on a book, "The Lorax" by Dr. Suess. As we were reading it, Lola (our dog) jumped up on the bed. Emily started joking with her about how she wished she had "disposable" thumbs and could read a book like we can.

Daddy/Daughter Bowling

Em and I went to a Daddy/Daughter Bowling event today with her Girl Scout troop. The Mom's put this whole deal together, including flowers for the Dad's to give to the girls, stationary for the Dad's to write letters to their daughters and pizza. It took me a few frames to bowl better than most of the 2nd graders there, and luckily I pulled it out with a few strikes at the end. Em's best game was a 74.

After bowling, Em and I headed over to the pet store across the way and spent about a half hour holding and playing with pretty much every dog in the shop. She wanted to take each and every one of them home.

Em after eating a chocoate drumstick

Hotel for Dogs

I took Em and her friend to see the movie Hotel for Dogs todaoy. The woman who sat behind us talked non-stop to her four year old son. There was one scene where the brother and sister were going to be separated into different foster homes and the brother started tearing up. I then overheard this conversation:

4-year old: "Mom, why is that boy crying?"
Mom: "Because he's a crybaby."

New York, New York @ the Russian Samovar

I was in New York this week and had dinner in the City. One of the guys with us introduced us to this Russian Samovar, a very old-school, traditional Vodka bar. The walls were lined with these giant vats filled with vodka and various fruits and vegetables. They served straight flavored vodka, which was great, but potent.

25 Random Things

I was tagged by a friend with one of those, "Share 25 random things about yourself." In theory, my whole blog is a collection. I started my blog about 4 years ago. I've had 3,647 posts since then. You could say I've got 3,647 random things out there. Here's 25 more:

1. I started with computers when I was ten. We had a TRS-80 color computer with a tape recorder setup with it. We would type in programs from magazine's and I learned to program by debugging them. The computer was plugged into an outlet that was controlled by a light switch, so periodically someone would accidentally flip the switch and kill all of our work.
2. I went to Catholic school for one year - first grade. It was mutually agreed upon by the Principal and my parents that this was not the best option for any of us.
3. My administrative assistant at work went to elementary school with me. We figured this out in a conversation as we did the "where did you grow up" and slowly narrowed it down to the fact that we were in the same elementary school and same classes.
4. I have met two presidents and shaken their hands: Gerald Ford and George W. Bush
5. I was once detained for touching the constitution when I was in high school and visiting Washington d.c.. It was an accident and took place in the National Archives. I was detained and questioned.
   
6. Cathie and I dated my senior year in high school and all through college, except for a 3 month break, soon after which we got engaged. I proposed to Cathie near Wells Hall next to the Red Cedar River. It was a rainy day and Cathie held the umbrella as I got down on one knee. We were later married in the MSU Alumni Chapel.
   
7. I have seven computers in my house. Two desktops and five laptops.
   
8. I have a collection of about 500 CDs and no CD player. I've ripped them all to MP3s and store them on a central server in my house and play them on my stereo through my Mac computer.
   
9. I am addicted to my iPhone. One of my new years rosolution is to keep my iPhone in my pocket when I'm with my kids and be more present with them.
   
10. I met one of my best friends, Will, when he was engaged to my wife's cousin about 18 years ago. They are no longer together, but Will and I are still great friends.
    
11. Cathie and I lived in Married Housing our first year of marriage in a 400 square foot apartment. No one around us spoke english. We had a giant wooden box in front of our house that Webb Smith helped me build. We store all of the valuables in the box that we couldn't fit in our apartment.
12. I had a pet snake in college. It was a ball python named Leviathon, Levi for short. It escaped in my apartment one day and I never found it. This was slightly after we had gotten a kitten and I was afraid the snake would eat the cat.
13. I hate cats. I owned one in college and Cathie and I have owned three. The first one we had a neighbor accidently release to the wild when, the second went to "live in a farm" and the I'd be fine if current one we've got released himself into the wild.
14. My wife is one of the few that doesn't mind my smoking cigars. She actually bought me a humidor for my birthday 13 years ago.
15. I love watching TV. Some of my favorite shows are Scrubs, American Idol, The Office, Heroes, Mythbusters and Dr. Drew Celebrity Rehab. I never claimed to be deep.
    
16. I've worked out of my home for the last 12 years that I've been with Xerox. Most of that time has been spent traveling quite a bit.
    
17. I spend at least 6 hours a day on the phone in my job. I have a wireless headset so I can move around while I'm talking. It has a mute button so I can use the facilities while on conference calls. I've almost never not had the mute button off when it should have been on.
18. I read a book or two a week. I went from buying books online to getting through our local library. They've got this web interface and they e-mail me when the books are in. It's genius.
19. I love photography. I've got zillions of pictures both film and digital. I've been converting the film over to digital slowly, but it's expensive. I've got my pictures backed up on multiple systems at home and off-site through online backup.
20. I was in cub scouts, Webelos and Boy Scouts growing up. I made it up to being a life scout, only a merit badge and project away from my eagle scout. Thankfully, my brother Jon and I learned that anyone can buy an Eagle Scout badge on eBay for $5, making us both honorary Eagle Scouts
21. I've read the bible cover to cover twice in my lifetime. My Mom used to do read it every year and did it for 20+ years.
22. I love music and would love to be able to sing well. Unfortunately, I have a pretty horrible voice and almost no sense of rythm. I've taken guitar lessons and really want to learn to play, just not badly enough to make it important enough to schedule the time.
    
23. Before last year, I'd never run as a form of exercise. I set my goal to do a half marathon in under two hours, which I accomplished. I had my goal for a 10k at a pace less than 7m30s and I accomplished that also. My goal this year is to complete a triathalon.
24. I used to be able to complete the rubic cube, even with my toes. I participated in a local competition where I scored a time of 20 seconds and won a prize for it. My brother Dan taught me how. I would lube the inside of the cube up with vaseline so it would turn faster.
25. My favorite cereal is captain crunch with the crunchberries. I just wish someone would find a way to soften it enough so that it didn't shred the roof of my mouth.

Northwest Blows

I can't stand Northwest Airlines. Their customer service is perhaps the worst I've seen and at every interaction they somehow make you feel like an inconvenience. I've never experienced such consistently bad service from flight attendants, customer service phone reps and the gate agents. I get the sense that they really believe that I am lucky to have their airline to fly on. Maybe it's just me, or maybe everyone I know refers to Northwest as Northwurst (not to be confused with knoxwurst).

I mentioned earlier some of the pain I was going through around my World Perks Elite status. The dumbness of this was put into perspective relative to my friend's recent loss of his house and stuff. I contacted NWA today to find out what had happened regarding my status upgrade and was once again give the run around. I had been told by the Worldperks group to call customer service, who told me to send in a letter. I sent the letter in (4 times, because they kept claiming they didn't receive it) and was never contacted. When I called in, their response was to call the Worldperks group where the whole thing had started.

Northwest had originally told me that because of erroneous information their agents had provided me, they would "take this into consideration" around my status at the end of the year. The agent proceeded to tell me today that "take into consideration" doesn't really mean anything. They offered me a "Challange" to get to my elite status that seemed great at first. Simply fly five round trips of a certain class in the next 90 days and I would receive the status I had earned. Since I have flights booked the next five weeks, I asked her to take a look at what it would take to upgrade those flights. The average ticket of the correct class would run about $1,200 (as compared to the average of $250 i had paid). Amazing.

I didn't say this on the phone, but my hope is that as Delta assimilates Northwest, they apply their customer service skills to the company and purge themselves of the NWA attitude and people that make Northwest such a customer unfriendly company.

Fasting

I've been trying to fast once a week for a day over the past few months. I'm trying to focus on this as a spiritual discipline to focus on my dependence on God and to try and retrain my body and how it controls me. Dallas Willard defines disciplines as this:

A discipline is an activity within our power--something we can do--which brings us to a point where we can do what we at present cannot do by direct effort. Discipline is in fact a natural part of the structure of the human soul, and almost nothing of any significance in education, culture or other attainments is achieved without it. Everything from learning a language to weight lifting depends upon it, and its availability in the human makeup is what makes the individual human being responsible for the kind of person they become. Animals may be trained, but they are incapable of discipline in the sense that is essential to human life.

I'd love to say I've been pretty consistent, but the reality is that I've been better at making excuses than actually doing it. It's not always fun, so I don't make it important. In the end, I know how good it is for me, and once I get some momentum, it becomes a good rhythm in my life.

When I get into a good rhythm of doing it, it gets easier. It's one of those things where it's easy to make excuses, especially with the holidays that went by and all of my travel for work. When I'm doing it consistently, I notice that I'm less driven by and much more aware of my urges in terms of what I eat, drink and respond to others. It starts to reprogram my reflexes instead of turning to something where I find comfort like food, dessert or a glass of scotch, I turn to God. I'm a guy who is very driven by my appetitites and fasting is one of the key disciplines for me to help retrain myself away from looking to the wrong appetitites to satiate my desires.

Nate's First Wrestling Meet

Nate had his first wrestling meet on Sunday. Neither of us really had a clue what to do or where to go. The meet was in Dexter and there were about 30+ people from Nate's team there.

The team has these down to an art form with everyone on the team signing up for food and doing a mini-pot-luck at the event. At the beginning of tournament, each wrestler gets their list of bouts and then waits for their time to wrestle. You can with either win a pin or with points over the course of 3 1 1/2 minute rounds. Each wrestler gets to wrestle at least twice, and more based on how you do. It turns out that one of Nate's coaches went to school with Cathie in Lansing. Steve Potter ended up coaching Nate through a couple of his matches.

Nate had the normal "first time" butterflies. His first match, he lost by one point and then got ready for his second match. He had to wrestle a girl in his next round, which is a tough way to go for any guy. It's really a lose/lose situation. If you win, you get the "yeah, but you beat a girl" line from other guys. If you lose, you get the "You got beat by a girl?" stuff. One of the guys on Nate's team was able to easily top Nate's story when he explained that he had to wrestle a one armed girl. I watched as one kid went out to his match against a girl, turned around and refused to wrestle her, forfeiting his bout.

Nate won his second match against the girl, pinning her at the beginning of the second round. He won his third match and then wrestled for fourth place. He lost the match by two points, which his coach believed were given in error. Against all of Nate's opponents, he did great and really could have won the two he lost very easily. Nate took fourth place in his group and was disappointed he didn't do better.

It was a long day, getting out of there after 3. Nate's been enjoying wrestling and it's a good experience for him - learning to go head-to-head with another person.

5th Grade Spelling Bee

Maddie participated in her school's 5th grade spelling bee. There were
19 kids and the words got tough quickly. I remembered just how bad of
a speller I am without spell check. By round five it was down to the
final two, which included Maddie. The two of them went back and forth
for about ten more rounds until the winner was decided. Maddie missed
the word telegram. We're very proud, but I'm a bit disappointed that I
didn't win any money this year.

What I meant to say...

Ever had a moment where you meant to say one thing and said the other? Me neither.. Except for this time. We had been watching our neighbors on The Biggest Loser with our kids and then later watching the weird dating show Momma's Boys, a show about guys dating smoking hot girls with dominant mothers. Cathie and I were cuddling, when I started sweet talking:

What I meant to say: "I love you. I think you're more beautiful than any of the girls on Momma's Boys"
What I said instead: "I love you. I think you're more beautiful than any of the girls on The Biggest Loser."

Oops.

Burnin Down the House

If you haven't heard, my friend Jason Raitz and his family had their house burn down yesterday. They lost everything they own. There were no injuries to Jason's family or James, Jason's brother who lives with Jason. Jason and his family live around South Barrington area where Jason is employed as a youth pastor at Willow Creek church.

You can read the article in the paper here, which focuses more on the fact that it's Bill Hybel's house instead of the fact that 6 people lost their home and all of their possessions. They have renters insurance, which will take care of some of the stuff, but they're essentially starting from scratch with nothing more than the clothes on their back.

This is crazy to imagine, being a kid especially, and losing everything you own - everything from school, every toy, your matchbox car collection, your baseball cards, your cool t-shirts or a special gift from your grandparents.

If you don't know Jason or his family, he's one of the best guys in the world, no exaggeration. Jason has had so much crap happen to him over the past five years, stuff that would probably make anyone one else bitter and angry. Instead, Jay and his family continue to be humble, grateful and pursue God passionately.

Please pray for the Raitz family, for their kids and the impact of the loss, for the Raitz's housing and their stuff. Here's some stuff for the kids:

• Becca (9) - Arts and Crafts stuff, paint brushes, scissors
• Bobby (7) - Nintendo DS or any video game stuff
• Zach (5) - Nintendo DS or any video game stuff
• Maddie (1) - Stuffed animals and baby toys, farm animal play set

The family could use gift cards or money to help them get through this. Long term, they have to refurbish everything they own so kitchen stuff, furniture and spandex (which Jason loves to wear, particularly in pink0.

This is just a proud, bragging parent moment, but I'm going to share it anyways. I was talking with the family about some of the things we wanted to do for the Raitz's, including the boys, who lost their Nintendo DS's. Nate immediately volunteered to give Bobby his DS, which made me about as proud a dad as I could be.

You can also check out this Facebook group where people are posting details on how to help.

Odd Week

I've been traveling this week - Monday/Tuesday in New York, Tuesday/Wednesday in Chicago. I'm in a new job this year, one with a new team within a new organization. I went from a management role in my company to a job where I had no direct reports, which was a nice change for a while. I'm back to managing a team and having to work with them to get everyone to the next level.

I like both roles. It was nice to be an individual contributor again, begin responsible only for myself, being focused, and being able to deliver results, because I was mostly only dependent on myself. We went through a fairly major reorganization, as we're prone to do in Xerox, and I ended up with a my second choice for a job in the new organization. Even as a second choice, I ended up with probably the best boss amongst all my options, in a group that really wanted me and even went out of their way to give me what I needed to be successful. As part of the horse trading, I was able to get Mark Kohne, a friend of mine and guy I hired a few years back, on my team. There's a certain serenity to having a guy that knows you inside and out and will call you out if need be.

Anyways, I'm back to traveling a fair amount as I'm having to work with my team across the country, evaluate where everyone's at and try and find new opportunities for everyone. I was in New York for meetings on Monday and the meetings all day today in Chicago. We got into the airport Tuesday night to 0 degree weather and it went down hill from there. As we sat in meetings today we saw the delays at O'Hare grow to over 4 1/2 hours. Since O'Hare airport has a personal hatred of me, we made the call to stay over and fly out early tomorrow morning. There are few things worse than waiting around all night in an airport after a long day of meetings.

Mark and I were able to get a great deal at the Conrad Hilton downtown, one of the nicesr, more chic hotels I've stayed at, comparable to a "W" Hotel. My room had a 50" flat screen on the wall, a glass shower, a "pillow menu" and they did complimentary shoe shines.

I stayed here last night as well, and even the seven different types of pillows couldn't give me a good rest. I got to bed about 2AM and About 3:30AM I was awakened by my phone ringing. It took me a while to figure out that it was my phone and that it was 3:30AM. I got out of bed, answered it, only to hear a voice in the phone, and outside my door say, "This is hotel security. Your door was not fully shut." SLAM. Nice way to wake me up there, fella.

For my future recollection, I had dinner at Ben Pao restaurant tonight off Rush street, which was even better than P.F. Changs. Wow, was this place good. Great service, but waaay better food.

We're flying out at 7AM tomorrow and then I'm heading back to New York next week, but back in time for Madeline's spelling bee. One of hte highlights for me this week has been my calls from Maddie. She's called me around 5 each day to ask me how my day has been and see how things are going. It's such a kind, thoughtful call that it means a ton to me.

Let Your Light Shine

I'm hesitant to write this next post, because I don't want it to come across as me tooting my own horn. My goal isn't to look good on this, but more to get you thinking. Maybe I'll accomplish neither. Who knows?

We've got neighbors on one side of us that we barely know and barely see. They talk to us more than anyone, but that's still not a lot. One of them works as a pilot flying the small jets for Northwest while his girlfriend is an airline mechanic. They work weird hours and come and go in the middle of hte night.

I started off at the beginning of the winter shoveling their driveway and sidewalks anytime I did our own. They're not home, so I've been doing it anonymous. I figured that if I got home at 2am, the last thing I'd want to do is spend another hour shoveling my driveway and sidewalks. Throughout the winter, I've continued to do this. They're never home and I don't think think they have a clue who does it. I honestly hope they don't find out it's me.

I'm wondering what other areas of my life I just need to shut my mouth and love people better with my actions. I'm sure my siblings and friends would have all sorts of suggestions on the topic of where to shut my mouth - except my singing, of course.

One of the things I love about my church is our reputation. We're not known as the church with the best coffee, or the hippest music or the biggest building. In the past, this would have killed me. I wanted to be the cutting edge church with the edgy music, cool video and hip messages. There's nothing wrong with those qualities in and of themselves, but that can't be it. If you ask people today in our community, they our defining quality is that we're a church that loves people really well. Today, I'm at a point where I love that reputation. It's exactly what I want my church to be known for.

Matthew 5:16:

Now 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.

Laid Back Saturday

We got a lot of snow today. 10 inches, maybe?

Wasn't really too productive of a day. Emily and I went out and shoveled the driveway and then the kids and I went sledding.

I came back and fixed a couple of things around the house (new dimmer switch, light fixture and shimmed my sweet new milk-carton/duct-tape/plywood laundry shelf) and then Em got a hankering to play games.

She wanted to play every game in the world. We played 5 games of speed, a game of war, a game of go fish, 8 games of sequence and a game of My Pretty Pony Memory game. This is Em's love language and it's a fun bonding thing between us. She's great at games of logic and memory and beats me frequently.


We hung out tonight, made a big thing of popcorn and watched the movie Ratatouille, via NetFlix movies on demand with the new Xbox 360 Netflix interface.

Microwave This!

Thanks to Marko for this cool site with video of just about anything you can imagine being microwaved: deoderant, gummy worms, eclairs, glue, cake foam... You name it.

As Odd As They Get

This is my brother Jon on New Years Eve. It's a small taste of the fun we have. My brother-in-law Kevin put together this nice little Montage that truly captures my brother Jon.

I'm a Nerd?

Emily: "A boy at school called me a nerd."
Cathie: "That wasn't very nice. Why did he call you that?"
Emily: "He said that people who have glasses and are smart are nerds. Plus they will get a pimple."
Cathie: "A pimple?"
Emily: "Yep, a pimple. I don't want to get a pimple!"

Being Sick Sucks

Wow. I'm in the process of getting over being really, really, really sick. It was a day from hell. It began about 1am on Wednesday morning waking up feeling nauseous and things went down hill from there. I didn't know which end to have in the toilet for the next 12 hours or so. After a few false starts, mid-day on tuesday I was able to keep food down. What made it worse was that my body ached so bad I couldn't sleep. I didn't touch e-mail and pretty much sat in bed and watched movies online with Facebook (I watched most of season 1 and 2 of the show weeds). I would have been downstairs watching TV, but I am still being shunned by my wife due to my illness.

My wife has locked me in my room and followed me around with a can of lysol to make sure I don't infect anyone else. With her luck, everyone would get it right after I leave for New York next week.

Everytime I get sick like this, I think of my Mom, who went through multiple rounds of Chemo without whining. I'm pretty sure this is the sickest I've been in five years. My wife claims I say that every time I'm sick, which isn't very often.

Anne Mulcahy is More Influential than Bill Gates

I know I'm going to get lambasted for this, but Anne Mulcahy is more influential than Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt or Steve Jobs. She comes in at #4 on Tech Republic's top 10 most influential leaders of 2008.

Anne has turned around the fortunes of the company that was once synonymous with the photocopier. Mulcahy instituted strict financial discipline including major cost costs, while also ramping up Xerox’s services business, pushing innovation with expanded research and development efforts, and growing its footprint in emerging markets. Ironically, Xerox consultants now show companies how to save paper and reduce the number of printers - often by replacing a bunch of HP printers with one big machine from Xerox.

You can read more about the Less Paper Office here.

I know I'm getting old when I start to use one of these

The Washing Machine Debacle

We bought a new washing machine. For the record, it was not a Christmas gift for Cathie. I've had to learn the hard way the fact that appliances do not count as Christmas gifts. To my wife, the Washing Machine is the equivalent of my cell phone. She cares about the features, the capacity and the style because she uses it virtually every day. After a ton of research, we bought a top of the line GE front loading washer with the four year extended service plan.

What I didn't buy was the $250 drawer that this sits on top of. it's about $10 in parts and provides you with an ergonomically correct height so you're not bending over as much. INSTEAD, I took four plastic milk crates, duct taped them together and placed a piece of plywood on top of them. This has been the source of great mockery.

The real fun started when I went to hook up the water to the washing machine. The original hoses for my old machine would not reach so I had to disconnect them and hook up the new hoses. The cold water hose came off pretty easily, but i needed to get my pipe wrenches out for the hot water hose. Bad idea, in hindsight. I gave it one semi-gentle turn and the entire pipe broke off. Hot water was spraying all over the laundry room as I ran to try and shut off the hot water. It turns out, I have no hot water shut-off valve. I'm not sure if this was a conscious decision when Kevin and I replaced the hot water heater, or not. I was able to turn off the inbound spigot to the hot water tank, which slowed things down a bit. I then had to turn off and drain my hot water tank in order to not have it all trickle out my laundry room floor.

I mopped up the water and then looked at pipe that needed fixing. Could I have fixed the pipe? Probably, but most likely very badly. I was set to call a plumber when Jeff volunteered to come over, claiming it was a ten minute job. Jeff came over yesterday and amazingly fixed it in ten minutes. (Thanks a bunch Jeff. I owe you.)

Em and I Watching a show about Sitka Deer

New Years Eve Celebration

In a season of changing traditions, we held New Years at Jon and Beth's this year. It was a lot of fun, with the typical "each person brings a drink to pass" deal. Dan had a second failure with his grasshopper martinis. They were the color of used engine oil and tasted only slightly better.

New additions this year included Stulie (Stu and Julie, Kevin's sister) and their 12 kids. You can see how much they both love Jon, as Julie is telling him he's number 1 in this picture.

As always, our musical talents reigned. We had Guitar Hero world tour for the Wii, where Jon is pretty sure he sounded even better after a few drinky-poos. Dan sounded much better on the drums once we took the sticks away.



I love this picture of the four original Kurt kids (not including the interlopers, as my Mom would call our spouses). Jon has made great strides, and they became even greater after a few drinks, to bring Kevin into the fold.

One of the highlights was the "Dog's Pile on the Uncle Jon" game that I initiated. He had no chance with 15 kids piling on.

"Crazy Cat Lady" Anne Veltema (who the Cat Lady character from the Simpsons is based on) was there as well. We made her sit with all three dogs on her lap to see if we could convert her from her cat like ways. (She owns 12 cats).

We headed to bed around 1:30. The kids faded sooner, actually asking to go to bed throughout the night.

At some point, my Dad decided that it would be a good idea to show up at 7:45am on New Years Day. I'm not sure what made him think this was a good idea, but he was pretty confident that it was the way to go. I suggested that we setup an 800 number for future situations where he comes up with ideas like this and needs some quick feedback. He quickly informed me that he'd been told by multiple family members that it was a bad idea, yet he showed up at 7:45am. I love my Dad, but I'm pretty sure this is either a sign of senility or being cantankerous. Maybe both. I love my Dad, but question his common sense at times.

Originally, I was not going to post any pictures until Sarah Labella started using Picasa to share pictures from the event. I am posting, but just not making any reference to Sarah in my post. For the record, Mike Koch was there and as always, I was touched by him.

You can see the rest of the pictures here.