Best Panthers Volunteer Job Ever

Social Media is moving at the speed of light

Got this video from Shinn.. Very interesting, especially the ramifications around the documents and communication overall. Communication seems to be speeding up, our lives moving faster. I'm just not sure my life needs to move any faster.

Final thoughts on dead parents and dead dogs

I've been told I'm a bit oblivious at times - glossing over details and over generalizing a bit. It's a nice way to say that at times, I'm a bit clueless about things, until I live through them. As dumb as it sounds, I'd never understood what a monumental thing losing your parent could be. To a degree, I figured that everyone's parents died eventually and people had been dealing with this for years - how bad could it really be? I learned the hard way just how difficult and life changing this was when my Mom got pancreatic cancer and died. Out of that situation I developed a whole new level of understanding and compassion for what it's like to lose a parent. In hindsight, I went through a similar epiphany over the past few weeks when my dog died. I know it sounds weird to compare the loss of a parent with that of a dog - but bear with me.

I remember a couple of years ago, one of my boss's dog died. I went through the motions of saying how sorry I was, but there was a part of me that was thinking: "Really? It's a dog - come on, time to get over it." I thought the same thing to a degree when our friends dog Guinness died: "You really need to grieve for 40 days and write that many blog posts about a dog? Comon - it's just a dog!"

Fast forward to a few months ago when I started setting the stage for the kids that our dog Riley might not be around forever. She was slowing down and showing signs of wear, but I really hadn't thought the whole thing through myself. About a month ago when my wife and the kids were out of town, Riley got sick and I took her to the vet. As I sat in the room waiting for test results, I imagined having to tell the family when they returned that Riley had died. She didn't, but I didn't know at the time just how close it would be. This is when reality started setting in for me that Riley wouldn't be around forever and it would be a much bigger deal than I had ever imagined.

On Monday when Cathie took Riley in and I got the text message from Cathie "Bad news. Brad (our vet) will call you to explain" reality set in even further. I knew we had a week left, best case, and my wife and our three kids all started dealing with the end with greater intensity as the week drew to a close. I cooked eggs and chicken for the dog, I catered to the dog, we all spent lots of time giving her hugs and the kids grieved in their own way with tears and caring for her.

Here's what I came to understand, and I'm sure this isn't a major revelation to most people who've lost a dog (or a parent for that matter):
Riley was with us for 13 years, from the beginning, involved in virtually everything our family did in some way, shape or form. She was an animal, yes, but she had a personality as distinct as any of our family members. She was connected to each member of my family, and even many of our friends, in a way that transcends the fact that she was a dog. I mean I'd talk to Riley and she understood things. I'm not talking philosophy, but she would show joy, remorse, shame and I swear she'd occasionally roll her eyes at me. That kind of connection made it a whole different deal for me than losing a guinea pig, snake or cat (not to mention that I can't stand most cats and I'm an avid dog person).

If you've never had a dog for this long, or if you hate dogs, or had a mean one - it might not resonate. I know for a fact that there are a ton of people who have lived this and get it in a way that I never did prior to this week. I received more tweets, facebook messages, facebook comments, blog comments, cards, phone calls and e-mails expressing understanding and compassion for what we were going through. It was something that would have seemed like overkill or just surface sentiment in the past - but was huge to me, and something I want to pass on to others going forward as they go through this. I also want to say thanks to the many of you who reached out with kind words to me and my family over the loss of our dog. Your kind words meant a lot.

I've dealt with my share of major events in my life: death of family members, miscarriages, addictions, betrayal by friends, and more. Now I add to that list the death of a dog. I'm not comparing their magnitude. I'm simply comparing the fact that all of these things made me someone more capable of understanding other people's pain and made me more able to love others than I ever could before. Things have all sucked in the midst of them, but I can point to places where I've been able to reach out to people around me and walk with them and find common ground in our wounds. Maybe this is what James was talking about when he said this:

Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way. - James 1:2-4 (The Message)

The pain, as crazy as it sounds, has been a gift in the end. Don't get me wrong. The event itself was not the gift. The pain that resulted from it and the learnings that came out of it was the gift. It showed the cracks in my life and matured me. Those who know me will be quick to point out that I've got a long ways to go before I can be, as James says, "not deficient in any way".

G.I. Joe with the Kung Fu Grip

Nate and I went to see the G.I. Joe movie. I'd heard pretty horrible things about it, so I had low expectations going in. I actually enjoyed it - at least more than I did the Transformers 2 movie. I didn't expect good acting, but I was hoping for a good homage to the original cartoon and action figures - a "Kung Fu Grip" and "Knowing is half the battle" reference. I got both.It was non-stop action without much character development, but the weapons and technology were pretty cool.

The members of G.I. Joe had these great things called accelerator suits for which they pretty much stole the ideas from Nate and I. When Nate was little, I used to tell him stories when I'd lay down with him for bed time. I'd make the stories up based on what he wanted to hear, and we came up with the character called "Gun Man". Gun Man had this cool mechanical suit where different weapons would pop out of, and would give you super-strength. I'd tell Nate stories about him, as gun-man, in this suit, saving the world.

This was when Nate was in his super-hero phase of growing up. My favorite story was when Nate wore his super-man pajamas underneath his clothes when Cathie took him to the store. When he got home, Cathie noticed he had two sets of clothes on and asked him why. Nate explained that just in case the store was robbed, Nate could change into his superman outfit and save the store.

Don't set your expectations too high for the movie, but you can feel a little famous knowing that you know the two guys who came up with the idea for the accelerator suits.

Our Honeymoon

Cathie and I were out last night and were reminiscing about our honeymoon.  Seventeen years ago today was a Sunday and we woke up from our hotel room on the corner of Grand River and Hagadorn in East Lansing.  We headed over to my parents for brunch and to open some of our cards and wedding gifts.  We took out every dollar of cash from the cards and then Cathie's parents took us to the airport.  This was a huge trip for us.

We were 21 and young.  I was in my senior year at MSU and Cathie had just graduated.  This was our first trip together, our first plane ride, just Cathie and I, our first everything for the first time as Mr. and Mrs. Kurt.  We had never rented cars, gotten our own hotels or traveled on our own schedule with just the two of us.  

When we got to the airport we were hit with our first dilemma: There was a major hurricane heading towards Miami and we may not be able to get there from here because flights were being diverted.  We boarded anyways, figuring that together, as husband and wife, we could make the best of any situation.  The American Airlines gate agent noticed our shiny rings and probably our post-wedding night glow, not to mention that I was telling the whole world that this was my wife.  She gave us our tickets and we boarded the plane.  We walked all the way to the back of our plane, unable to find our seats anywhere, thinking how much worse than the back could they be.  We asked a flight attendant and she pointed us towards the front.  The gate agent had upgraded us to first class as a kind gesture.  What a start!

We were heading to New Smyrna Beach, South of Daytona.  My groomsman Web Smith's parents had been kind enough to let us use their condo for the week.  We made it through Atlanta and landed in Daytona, excited for the week to start.  We went to rent a car (not easy to do when you're not 25) and again gushed about our new marriage.  The guy upgraded us to a cavalier convertible and we thought we were in heaven.

We made it to our condo, navigating our way there in the times before GPS and Mapquest.  What more could a newly married couple want: A condo in florida, a convertible, a week of being together and doing what we wanted and more cash than we'd ever had on us in our life (probably $800 - which seemed like $10,000 at the time).  We actually hid the cash in a cookie jar because we didn't want to carry that much money on us and apparently because we figured that the elderly community in florida were all cat burglars on the side.

We got to our room and turned on the TV to watch Hurricane Andrew start to destroy Miami as the wind blew around us, but it was nothing compared to what was happening South of us.

Webb's dad had written me a note, explaining to me where everything was and a list of things that a good husband could do for his wife - like go get fresh croissants and fruit for breakfast in bed and romantic restaurants and places to go for a walk.  I took him up on all of his suggestions, figuring he knew what he was talking about.

We went wherever we wanted to go - the beach, the dog track, the mall - all in our convertible, thinking we were the greatest thing in the world.  Cathie and I were reminiscing about a few things last night:

• We went to a mall in Orlando and bought the book Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy, based on the Saturday Night Live shorts.  I would drive as Cathie would read this to me and we would both laugh until we cried.  Genius stuff like, "Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, you'll be a mile from them, and you'll have their shoes."
• My Dad gave us two free passes to the newly opened Universal Studios in Orlando.  
• We walked the beach at Canaveral National Seashore at the end of the New Smyrna point.  As we walked, we saw a dude in the distance on the beach who looked pretty naked - and creepy.  We continued to see more and more of these people - all old, creepy and saggy.  Turns out, we'd wandered onto a nude beach. Ew.  
• We went to the dog track and bet on dogs based on which one relieved themselves before the race.   We even won occasionally.
• We went to restaurants and couldn't figure out why the were so empty in the evening.  Turns out people don't like the hurricane season and old people in Florida hit the restaurants at 4.
• Our theme song for the trip was, Life is a Highway by Tom Cochrane.  We heard this every time we got in the car and we turned it, again, in our convertible as we drove.

We've been on some great expensive and exotic vacations all over since our honeymoon, but as we talked last night, we agreed that nothing compares to this first trip.  We were young, didn't expect much, didn't have much except each other and a cookie jar full of money.   We returned to reality in our 400 square foot apartment in University Village at MSU, but proud because it was ours and knowing that we were doing it together, and had nothing but the future ahead of us.

Cathie's Goal: Michigan Homemaker of the Year

Goodbye to Riley, May she Rest in Peace

Well, today was the day. Riley was at a point where it was time. Nate and I took her into the vet for the last time today. Prior to going, the kids, Cathie and I sat around and came up with a list of the awesome things that made Riley, Riley.

• Whenever possible, she would sleep with her head on a pillow
  
• She would never bite a kid even when she was bit or had her hair pulled by a kid - she just licked back
  
• She let Emily dress her up and lock her in her closet
  
• She always looked like she was smiling
  
• She wasn't afraid to climb on the counter or the table to the food
  
• Chased rabbits and squirrels but never knew what to with them when she caught them.
  
• Had one run-in with a skunk that about destroyed our furniture from the smell
  
• Loved to roll in wild animal poop moments after she had been
  
• Possibly the only Gold retriever lab who didn't like to swim
  
• The only chocolate lab mix I've seen who wasn't brown
  
• More scared of Desiree Defelice and Katie Freier than any dog ever
  
• Adopted by Nicki Workman Family as their honorary third dog
  
• Loved everyone (except Katie and Desi)
  
• At the end, was deaf as a rock. She would start barking when Lola would, but had no idea why
  
• She knew not to sleep on our bed, unless we were gone, and would jump off when she heard our car pull in
  
• Riley would wander the yard without a leash, never going further than she was supposed to.
  
• She would get matting behind her ears and tail that looked like dreadlocks
  
• Riley would wrestle with Lola and put her in her place
  
• She was scared of our kitten Rascal
  
• No matter how long you were gone, she would greet you like it had been a week
  
• She was our doorbell for the longest time when it broke. Riley was the only way I would know that someone was at the door from my office.
  
• Everything tasted better to Riley when it came from the trash can.
  
• Riley would steal sandwiches and pizza slices right off your plate if you walked away
  
• She cleaned up the crums and food droppings from three babies
  
• She knew when I was heading up for a nap and would head up to sleep next to me
  
• She has eaten more choclate than me in her entire life and never thrown up, including a box of Godiva chocolates intended for my grandma
  
• She would sit next to me on the deck during my morning quiet time
  
• She would go room to room at night to check on the kids
  
• She shed enough to make 10 fur coats over her life
  

Here are some pictures of Riley over the years.

Lessons from a Dog

My Dad sent me this set of lessons to be learned from a dog. I wish I could be the kind of person my dog thinks I am. Riley must think I'm amazing based on how she greets me when I come home from a trip, or even leave the house for a few hours.

• When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.
• Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure Ecstasy.
• Take naps.
• Stretch before rising.
• Run, romp, and play daily.
• Thrive on attention and let people touch you.
• Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.
• On warm days, stop to lie on your back on the grass.
• On hot days, drink lots of water and lie under a shady tree.
• When you're happy, dance around and wag your entire body.
• Delight in the simple joy of a long walk.
• Be loyal.
• Never pretend to be something you're not.
• If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.
• When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by, and nuzzle them gently.

My Riley

We've had Riley for almost 13 years. We got her when Nate was a baby, thinking what better thing to add to having a brand new baby than a brand new puppy. Riley is a mix of chocolate lab and golden retriever that we got from a person my Mom worked with at Eddie Bauer. Dumb idea at the time to get a puppy, as it was like adding a second child into the mix. We made it through it all and in the end, it was worth it.

She grew up with all three kids. They learned to walk by pulling themselves up on her. They all teethed by chomping into her. No matter how hard they pulled or bit, she would only lick them in the face until they let go. She's been my buddy for 13 years. Following me around as I work at home. She knows when I'm going to take a nap and lies down next to me. She knows when she's been busted by Cathie for getting into the trash and even pretends to look ashamed.

She's the kind of dog you can let out of the back yard and she'll wander just far enough, but always come back and never go in the road. She's lived through three cats, where even more brutal than the babies. Rascal, our latest, would sit on her hind legs and swat at Riley's face and ears while she would playfully and gently nudge her right back.

Riley has cancer. The kind where she only has a little bit of time left with us, measurable in days. I've known lots of people whose dogs had died. As Maddie told me yesterday,

Dad, I never knew it was this big of a deal for your dog to die. I'm so sad. This stinks.

I agree. My heart is broken over losing my buddy. She's been with us through so much, my kids don't remember a time without her. She's stone deaf, she's old and she's in pain, but she's still my buddy. She has such a special place in my heart. Cathie, Nate, Maddie, Em and I are all broken up about this. We've been enjoying the last few days we have with Riley.

My friend Brad Jeffrey, the owner of Jeffrey Animal Hospital, has been a great friend and vet throughout all of this. He's been a vet for almost 40 years (I'm guesing just based on the fact that he's really old), yet his heart hasn't hardened on the difficulty of this kind of stuff. He's coached us not only on her health, but on understanding where the end is and on dealing with the end with our kids. Thanks Bradly.

Emily's Tree Frog Menagerie

Emily has collected 7 different tree frogs so far. She's feeding them
bugs, worms, moths and anything else she can find.

Posted via email from davekurt's posterous

What was Staring me in the face this morning

As I walked onto my deck to have a cup of coffee, this was eye level
on the other side of the doorwall.

Em is one of the Crossroads Backup Singers

A Parrothead looks at 38

Mark & Diana Kohne and Cathie and I headed to DTE on Thursday afternoon to meet up with the Rays and a slew of others to go see my sixth Jimmy Buffett concert. If you've never been to see Jimmy Buffett, it's an amazing experience where the concert is only 25% of the show. The parking lot is a lot like a Grateful Dead concert (Buffett fans are called Parrot Heads), except done up Yuppy style

I went to my first Buffett concert with my brother Dan about 20 years ago and I'd never heard a single song of his at the time. I'd helped Dan move from one apartment to the other and as thanks, he brought me to the concert with him, Kris and a couple of friends. I loved the show.

This year, we did it up as right as you can do it. We got there around 3ish and Bob had hooked us up with a motorhome. The parking lot was already filling up with some amazing parrot head with some pretty amazing setups. The great thing about the motor-home was not only the shade it provided, but the bathroom (and bedroom), kitchen and electricity.

Bob was kind enough to bring his friend Don Julio who makes some people like flamingos, and love every minute of it. We had a great time hanging out. We brought food, walked around, people-watched while people all around us danced, played beer pong and bag-toss (known in Nebraska as corn-hole).

I wore my favorite hawaiian shirt, which Anne informed me probably the hottest possible shirt I could wear. I'm used to hearing this from the ladies and was surprised when she clarified that my shirt was polyester, didn't breath, and must be sweltering in the 90 degree heat. It made sense after a bit. I was hesitant to take it off based on the amount of mocking I get from my family, but after a while, figured, what the heck.

There were Tiki-Bars like the one above all over the place - well, none quite like the one above. This one seated 13 and could be folded up to be pulled behind a truck and looked exactly like what you'd see on the beach in Hawaii. There were people who had trucked in sand, DJ booths, swimming pools, full size slurpee machines, and about every other thing you could imagine.

We saw some pretty amazing getups - people dressed like sharks, parrots and wild hats. I picture this woman in the sweet home-made outfit to be Cathie in 25 years.

People were really proud of their outfits and loved it when you took pictures of them.

I'm pretty sure this was Will's doppelganger with the guitar.

The Landshark Beer girls were awesome to watch. There were five of them piled on this special golf cart, complete with a landshark fin, trying to navigate the parking lot. The cops wouldn't even try it, but these girls did. They ended up having to try and turn this around and about hit me a few times.

Due to my PayPal concert ticket debacle that had happened earlier, Mark and Diana had no tickets. Mark decided to try and get them at the concert rather than spend a second small fortune on tickets like Cathie and I did. After seeing a few people walking around with "I need tickets signs", Mark figured it'd be a good idea to do the same. We had no cardboard or marker, so Mark made due with a paper plate and pen. He wrote a bunch of cryptic messages on the plates and walked around with them. People would stop him and clarify what "Buy 1 or Sell 1" and "Need 1 Lawn" actually meant. At one point, he got his wife Diana to wear the sign, with a little better effect.

In the end, he got two lawn seats for $100, well under what they were going for online at nearly $260.


You really can't go wrong hanging with the kind of people we were with at the show, and as you can see from the picture, Bob and Anne were setting the bar high. There were some rather amusing people around us, including a couple of um, let's call them 'dancers'. Some huge musclebound guy kept picking them up and having pictures taken with them. Not to be out done - we all ended up doing the same with our wives. None of us even dropped them.

The concert itself was great. Cathie and I had good seats, but I couldn't stop watching the guy in front of me. He was dressed like a pirate, complete with his eye patch and puffy shirt. He was so dedicated to the eye patch that he actually kept it on throughout the entire concert. To make things better, he used an actual telescope to watch the show. How do you watch a concert when you've got "pirate guy" sitting in front of you?

The show was amazing. Unless you've been to a Buffett show, you won't get it ("...don't try and describe a Jimmy Buffett concert if you've never seen it...."). It feels like being in the Caribbean or Key West with an ice cold Corona beer in your hand while sitting on the beach. I think it's part of the appeal of the music is what it reminds you of later.

Cat Fight

My cat and I have an understanding - basically, we agree to not like each other. Occasionally if he wants something, like food, he'll purr and rub against me, but we both know what he's up to. What's earned my cat the most respect from me is the fact that he likes to beat the snot out of my really dumb puppy:

There are worse ways to spend the day

Running Away From It All

I love getting up early-ish and going for my weekend long runs. I've been doing long runs between 10 - 13 miles every other weekend in preparation for the Detroit half marathon. Last year in my training I was pretty much running the rail-trail bike path in town, which got to be pretty monotonous. This year, thanks to Runkeeper (my iPhone's GPS run tracker app) I've been able to head out in some pretty rural directions, without a route or distance really planned, and track my run very accurately (which everyone's seen from my twitter/facebook statues)

I've been running down some unpaved roads around here, back into rural areas i didn't know existed this close to my house. Maybe it's the fact that when I'm on these roads I'm driving 50 mph and don't really take a second to enjoy what's around me. This morning I took these mental photos of corn fields filled with sun-flowers, three horses playing together, a guy training his horse for harness racing all while the birds chirped in the background. Something about it is so relaxing that I barely notice the fact that I'm running and sweating like ccrazy. I listened to a Podcast for the first hour and then was just alone with my thoughts. I spent some of the time praying, other times thinking random thoughts.

I've been trying to slow down my long runs, but I'm averaging around 8 minutes 30 seconds per run with an average heart beat of about 159 bpm. I've been amazed that my resting heart rate is as low as 45 bpm. The heart rate monitor is a nice thing to have, and i'm sure Runkeeper will incorporate it in soon. I think the app also has the ability for you to take pictures and overlay them on your course - I'm just not sure how and haven't really messed with it yet. It's by far the best and most stable app out there so far for running. i swear by it. It's gotten more and more accurate as the iPhone has improved their GPS as well. My friends Brad and Bob use a Garmin watch to track their runs, which does some of the telemetry integration as well for heart monitoring. The downside is that the interface is confusing and the web site isn't very user friendly either.

Ten Random Reasons I'm Madly in Love with Cathie Kurt

1. Even though few would believe it, she has a sense of humor similar to my own.
2. She knows how to communicate things to me with just the smallest look or the lightest squeeze of my hand.
3. She is an amazingly genuine person through and through. To those people she trusts the most, she has a transparency that I envy.
4. She is beautiful not only on the outside, but on the inside. Her beauty touches something deep inside of me. She can look smoking hot even when she's wearing her sweats, no make-up and her hair pulled back.
5. She has a pretty amazing memory and realizes that mine sucks, except odd, random things, and music lyrics. I have 20+ years of amazing memories with her.
6. She has a laugh, the deep laugh that comes when one of the kids does something, she spills something or she's taken off guard by something, and it lights up the entire room. It's the kind of laugh where she closes her eyes, throws back her head and is laughing at herself or something she's seen a friend or kid do. Yet she'll still laugh in a polite way when she hears me tell the same story for the 10th time.
   
7. The things that impress others about me, don't necessarily impress her
   
8. She knows me better than anyone in the world.
9. She has a fun and wild side that those closest to her see, which makes it even more special. Those that know the kind of hip-hop she likes will know that they're in this inner circle.
10. She rarely plug my nose or roll me over when I snore at night.
11. Many of her strengths are my weaknesses, and vice versa. I learn from her strengths and they help my weaknesses.
12. I know from the bottom of my heart that I am enough for her
13. She is amazingly tough, both physically and mentally.
    

Libby and Reagan's visit

My two nieces, Libby (almost 4) and Reagan (2) left tonight after hanging with us for four-ish days (Friday - Tuesday). We had a blast with the girls - going for walks (Libby: "Uncle Dave, I've never been on a walk before."), going to the park, to the animal farm (Libby: "Aunt Cathie, seeing all of these animals has made me hungry"), going to church (Libby: "I got to

The girls were fantastic and my kids loved playing with them. Cathie and I had fun having little ones running around again and just cuddling with them.

We had these two ottomans, which the girls, especially Reggie loved sitting in. We found that they were both very good at watching TV. I'm guessing they got that from their Dad.

Some of my favorite lines from the girls (other than the fact that during multiple times, Libby told Cathie and I that we are her favorite Aunt and Uncle):

Libby: "Uncle Dave, do you like farts?"
Me: "Do I like art?
Libby: "No, do you like farts?"

Libby: "Uncle Dave, at my house, visitors all get chocolate milk before bedtime. I'm a visitor at your house, so I should get chocolate milk now."

Libby: "Nateo Potato, your room is a mess. You need to clean it right now"

One sport Maddie will never play