Is this like rock, paper, scissors?

Glenn's Bathroom Pictures

When the Xerox crew visited my friend Glenn's house, we all shared their guest bathroom. Specifically, we noticed that the pictures on the wall over the toilet were still the same that came with the frames.

Without Glenn knowing, we printed out pictures from the weekend and placed them in the frames. It took him a few days, but he figured it out eventually, and has left these amazing pictures up permanently. Zoom in to see some quality photos of the fellas.

Perfect Michigan Fall Day (for about 30 minutes)

This weather represents everything I love about Michigan Fall. Too bad we've only had about 30 minutes total of combined crisp warm days, sunshine and fall color. The rest of the day ended up overcast.

I'm waiting for a nice day (Wednesday?) to head out to Kensington and get some pictures of the fall colors.

First Place Harvest Party Trunk Design.. I think

We had our annual harvest party at church today, including the fifth annual "Trunk or Treat". People went to great lengths to decorate their trunks, with costumes, activities, prizes all around their decorated trunk theme.

Our Pastor, Joe and his wife Joanne, had a "Pie the Pastor" trunk theme:


Someone else had a human whack-a-mole theme. All very impressive. Cathie would normally be the person who would think of decorating. With her out of town, I felt proud that I'd remembered to bring the girls costumes and a bowl for the bag of suckers Cathie had bought earlier. With no real decoration theme, I quickly came up with the amazing theme of the "Blue Ultra Lounge 3000", which I'm pretty sure would have won, had I stuck around a little longer to claim my prize.

At least my trunk didn't look like this:

I think I get why the father ran...and why you'd put a sheep on your shoulders

Today, I understood why the father ran, and why you'd put a sheep on your shoulders. At this moment, I'm so filled with joy in my heart that I can barely contain it. Let me start at the beginning - about 10 years ago.

I've been working with the youth group in my church for around 12 years. In those years, I've gotten to know hundreds of kids, lots of who are grown up now - even married. I stay in touch with a lot of them through facebook, some through church and some not at all. As I've been going through cataloging my pictures in Picasa, I've seen kids that I'd forgotten about. I've called some of them to check in on them and keep up with others through their friends. There's a part of me that feels responsible and hurts when I hear about my kids making bad choices, no matter how long they've been out of my youth group.

Junior high misfit kids have a special place in my heart. I like the soul-level misfits.... For some reason, my favorite kids are the ones who don't know or don't settle for the easy church answers, the ones that don't get how to behave in church or treat others in a "nice" way, the outcasts or the hyper-popular who think they have no space or need in their life for Jesus, the ones who are too cool to be a part of a youth group.

There was a girl ten years ago who was like this in my youth group. She was full of junior high girl drama, a cheerleader, insecure but with a great heart. She stopped coming to Crossroads after junior high, and I never saw her again. She was one of the girls I would always ask about as I'd talk to other kids her age that I stayed in touch with and it was sad to hear what was going on with her.

Joe came up today and told me that she was in church today! I ran over to see her, giddy at the idea that she'd come back. My heart lept to see her. She's 21 now. The kids and I sat next to her and we caught up. I was so excited to see her there today. It made these two parables come to life for me...

"Suppose one of you had a hundred sheep and lost one. Wouldn't you leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost one until you found it? When found, you can be sure you would put it across your shoulders, rejoicing, and when you got home call in your friends and neighbors, saying, 'Celebrate with me! I've found my lost sheep!' Count on it—there's more joy in heaven over one sinner's rescued life than over ninety-nine good people in no need of rescue. Luke 15:4-7

Seriously, I felt just like that... Ok, I didn't try and throw her on my shoulders - because I'm pretty sure that's just a metaphor...

She seemed a bit ashamed to be there, like she felt out of place, like she would be condemned for having left to begin with. The other story that came to life was the prodigal son... This is the parable of the son who turns his back on his Dad, goes off and sows his oats and comes back ashamed, awaiting his father's condemnation. Instead he's greeted by a father who is ecstatic that his son has returned:

"When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. The son started his speech: 'Father, I've sinned against God, I've sinned before you; I don't deserve to be called your son ever again.'

We're going to feast! We're going to have a wonderful time! My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!' And they began to have a wonderful time.

I texted friends after church, and called a few to share the great news. My friend Ken Buck pointed out the value in being a part of one church over the long haul - being able to see people come back like this. I probably sound goofy gushing like this. At some level, it affirms what I sometimes have a hard time accepting about youth ministry: it's not my job to fix and save every kid that comes through our group. We get to put some of the puzzle pieces on the board, but in the end, God has the cover of the puzzle box and knows how it's going to turn out.

Anyone else have any good prodigal son type stories in their lives?

Freezing Cold Football Weather

Interesting Article on Facebook's Data Center

Facebook's got big 'ol data center with over 25 terabytes of data every day for the daily log files.

The motivation of failure. Life=Risk

On a lunch date with my little Emily

Guys Weekend Snapshot

I've worked with some of the same guys for over 15 years and developed close personal friendships with a group of them. We started getting together for a few days every year to hang out, golf and catch up about nine years ago. The group has expanded a bit, but over the past 5 years or so is pretty much the same group of guys. It's a group that genuinely enjoy hanging out together. Some of the guys have been the other's bosses at one time or another, but it doesn't really change the dynamic of the group. I count these guys as good friends - willing to step up and help in times of need, personal or professional.

This get together was exactly what I needed. I laughed so hard, so often on this trip. Maybe it's because we've all worked together for so long and traveled together for work so much, but we all get together so well. There was no "that guy" that annoyed everyone else the whole time. People weren't above messing with you when you fell asleep first or crushing against the window in the back seat when the car took a sharp turn in your direction. Everyone helped out and everyone took care of everyone else, and would mock you at the slightest turn or dumb thing out of your mouth. Great times.

We normally do our gathering up in Gaylord at Bill's place, with people flying in from all around the country. Glenn bought a house in Clearwater Beach, right on the Intercostal water-way and it wasn't too tough of a call to head down to Florida. The weather ended up being about the same as Michigan in the end - maybe colder.


When we arrived, it was about 92 degrees. Within about 6 hours a huge cold front came through and dropped it down to about 75 degrees. It ended up getting as cold as 40. It was actually warmer in Michigan. Most of the guys flew into Tampa, a few of us had customer meetings down in West Palm Beach and drove up from there. The only upside to the drive was experiencing my first "Five Guys Burger" on the way. Greatest burger in the world - hands down.

We woke up early on Friday, all set to go deep sea fishing for the day. The same weather front that produced the cold, also produced big winds and big waves. The captain said he wouldn't take us for our own safety. I think he was just hungover and wanted to go back to bed on a rainy day.

Instead, Glenn took us out in his sailboat into the Intercoastal waterway. It was a beautiful view of the houses in the area.

A couple of the guys were fishing off the back of the boat when a pelican decided to take the bait. We had to reel him in so Glenn could release the hook from his mouth. Newton volunteered his shirt to grab the bird. He flew off, happy as a can be. Newton ended up with a bloody shirt.

Newton and I claimed the front of the boat, and as we headed towards the ocean, the waves got big and we had a great roller coaster ride. We couldn't sit still for long, so we headed up the mast to launch in to the water.

The only downside to jumping in from the mast are the wires, the boat below that you have to clear, the big waves and the really fast currents. Other than that, no problem. Neither of us died, but neither did it again either.

After the boat ride, most of our activities consisted of eating, playing cornhole (see below)

With cornhole, it turns out I am a ninja. I can pretty much blindfold myself and get a beanbag in the hole. I was told many times that I should go pro and I am considering my options.

We watched a lot of football and baseball (by a lot, I mean I have never watched that many football games in one long weekend) and then throwing Kohne in the Ocean on his birthday. On the topic of Kohne... Everyone gradually asked him for his iPhone, glasses, etc until he was completely sea-worth. What a group of friends we are. He took it well.


On the last night, we headed downtown to Clearwater for the Jazz Festival. Aaaron Neville played Sunday night, whom I've only seen on a Saturday Night Live City Court with Aaron Neville and then as the theme song for the Fisher Price Little People song the kids watched when they were younger. The song drove me nuts and the kids would sing it over and over to torment me. It was actually a pretty good show, ending with a Bob Marley cover and Amazing Grace.

Thanks again to Glenn and Rebecca for opening their house up to us and for explaining to the neighbors why guys were jumping off the dock at midnight.

Cornholin in 20mph winds

Ron is a Dancing Machine

I've watchd this 20 times and I'm still laughing just as hard each time.

Weather is too nasty to fish, so let's set sail

Goodbye 35 degrees, Hello 89 and Sunny

Emily & Natalie

Running with Nate

Nate and I are going to run the Turkey Trot 5k on Thanksgiving Day. Nate has the build of a runner, and a very natural form. We started running before football earlier in the year to get in shape and went out yesterday for a run on one of his off-practice days.

I wanted to run a 5k course with him to see what kind of shape he was in, figuring we'd run and walk some. We set out at an 8 min/mile pace and never stopped (except for five seconds to tie his shoe, after which he sped up so that his avg time wouldn't reflect the pause). Nate has great form, and I couldn't believe the kind of shape he's in from football. I know they work the boys hard, but was amazed at how far he went based on most of what the team does is sprinting.

As we got onto our block, he took off ahead of me at a sprint. I'm by no means fast, but I should be able to keep up with my 12 year old, or at least catch him, since I run a lot. Nope. He smoked me. I'm so impressed at the sheer will-power Nate shows with the stuff he does - refusing failure as an option.

Nate's 3rd Football Season almost at an end

Nate's only got two games left in his third season of football. It's been so much fun as a Dad watching him learn the game, learn to play on a team and to grow as a person. His team this year is 7th and 8th graders, with the maximum weight being 215. Nate weighs 80lbs but he makes up for it with raw heart.

He's not the biggest or the fastest guy, but he works his tail off and is willing to go up against anyone and put a hit on anyone he can. As you can see from these pictures from lats Saturday's game, he ends up going against some big 'ol boys. The Dad's on the team and I joke that some of these kids must drive themselves to the game they're so big.

I'm so proud of Nathan and the way her perseveres. The difference between what's expected between the 5th/6th graders and the 7th/8th graders is huge. The practices are brutal and would make most in-shape adults throw up from the intensity. He's been playing corner and wide receiver this year and keeps getting better and better.

I'm Addicted to Picasa Tagging

I installed Google's Picasa 3.5 photo editor/manager about three weeks ago. The big new feature in 3.5 is that it has facial recognition and tagging, which previously had only been available via the Picasa Web Albums, but not the desktop client.

Picasa starts going through your pictures and extracts all of the faces in like sizes and has you start to tag similar faces. From there, it will start to identify groups of faces below a certain confidence level and let you confirm whether it's the correct face to person match. The more you do, the smarter it gets.

Once you've got your pictures tagged, you can search by combinations of people and events. I could search for pictures of my Mom and I, or find vacation pictures of Cathie. When you look at a given photo album, it will show you everyone in that album, allowing you to go directly to that individual. I've used iPhoto, and I like this more. The cool thing iPhoto allows that this doesn't is syncing to your iPhone by person, instead of just by album.

I've got over 50k pictures, and about 200,000k faces across those pictures. I'm amazed at the way it identifies and pairs them up with the correct people. It does well across ages, profiles, lighting and picture quality.


My biggest problem is that I've become addicted to tagging the pictures. It presents these to you in small groups as it identifies them, silently taunting you to "just tag the next group of pictures", at which point it presents you with an entirely new batch of faces. The other part that makes it fun is being able to go through old pictures and see how people have changed. Check out this link to see a collection of about 3,500 headshots of Madeline that I made just for fun.

The Birdmen Base Jumpers

My Dad sent me this video clip from 60 minutes on the wing-suit birdmen. These guys fly down mountains at 140 mph, flying a few feet from the cliff walls to give them a relative sense of their speed. Looks amazing.


Watch CBS News Videos Online

Capital City Half Marathon Recap

A couple of weeks ago, my brother-in-law Kevin and my step-sister Kristin ran in the capital city half marathon. There were around 1,500 people running in the race, the biggest I've ever been in.

This was my second half marathon, after doing the Portland half-marathon last year, which I finished at a pace of 1h58m at about a 9 min/mile pace. I swore I'd never do another half marathon after that race, but here I was. My goal was pretty ambitious: I wanted to shave about a minute per mile off my pace at an 8m/mile.

Kevin had been training for his triathalon this year and was less focused on just the running, so he decided he'd got for a different pace than me. Cathie, Maddie and Nate, my sister Susan and family and my Dad and Judy were there throughout the course to cheer us on. It made such a huge difference seeing them, giving me a great burst of energy.

I ran the first 10 miles at about a 7:55 pace, going strong. I ran in front of the 8 minute/mile pace guy and my goal was to keep my heart rate below 165 bpm for the first half of the race.

At about 10 miles, I experienced side cramps that I'd never had before. Ironically, this is something Nate had experienced when he and I ran and it was Tiffany who taught Nate and I how to breathe through it. It went away after about a mile, but that mile was brutal. At that point the 8 min/mile pace guy passed me and I just wanted to keep him in my sights to hit my target time. By the end of the race, my heart rate was the highest it had ever been at 186 (previously 181 at the end of my last 10k). Every turn I was hoping was the last and I had nothing more to give when I rounded the last turn and saw my family waiting for me, cheering me on!

You can see part of the runkeeper race here. It crapped out part way through when I got a text message from Eli, which started, "Hey, you're probably in the middle of your race..."

It was cool having my Dad there, as he was the one who got me started running years ago when he would take me out with him on his morning runs. I didn't take to it then, but my Dad was always a great role model around exercise in terms of getting us involved with him in biking, skiing and running.

I'm still not there to want to run a full marathon. Maybe someday. This year's training was far better than last year. I felt like I trained more at a pace of what I wanted to do, instead of rigidly following a training schedule. My speed was helped in a big way by doing the sprint relays in my training, and the Playmaker's Running Form class took away my soreness related to my form.

My next goal is to run a 5k with my son. We're training this month to do it.

Maddie's 2009 Cheer Competition

Maddie's team got a gold medal for Pom and a silver for Cheer

Afternoon cat nap for Em

Best Letter to the Editor EVER in the South Lyon Herald

The best part about our local newspaper, The South Lyon Herald, is the letter's to the editor. About a month ago, there was a letter from a guy who spent about 1,000 word lamenting his van that burned down. It was odd and boring, but amusing in it's own way.

Today's paper had a response to the guy's story about his van. It is fantastic. My theory is that anytime you bring Hilter into your argument, you've already lost. Check this out. Sheer lunatic genius:

I read the letter headlined "Van will be missed" in the Sept 10 Herald, but I cannot in good conscience echo the sentiment, or provide any condolences. The writer of the letter may miss his van, but I can bet the earth will not. I say kudos to the flames that rid the world of one more gas guzzling mechanized earth destruction device. The letter's author may not be happy, but the planet is ecstatic.

The author discusses all the precious memories of times spent in the van, but what about hte future generations that will not have the chance to make the same memories? That van, and other vehicles like SUVs, trucks and the despicable Hummer, are doing their best to leave those future generations without a planet to make memories on. You had that chance, but at what cost? The cost of our comfortable climate as you, and your whirling death machine, prodded us ever closer to becoming Venus II.

The author discussed 15 years of memory spaning things stored inside the van. The letter leads one to believe that things like paper, and plastic products were strewn about that van. How many others ended up in landfills? How many animals lost their habitat whenever that van was cleaned? The things he talks about as memories sound like trash to me. The noble flames that destroyed the van thankfully destroyed that polluting garbage, too. At least some things won't end up festering in a landfill.

I urge everyone not to accept sob stories about vicious things. I'm sure Hitler had a few sad things happen to him in his life, but I sure don't want to hear him whine about it. Billions of people are at risk of death from a runaway greenhouse effect. I ask all the Herald's readers to stand up, and let it be known that we won't tolerate perpetual pollution peddlers like vans and SUVs. If you see a person driving one of those vehicles let them know you disapprove. Don't be mean, don't be rude, and try to avoid the one finger salute. Give them a stern disapproving lot, and make sure they know that they are destroying the planet just so they can drive their unnecessary gigantic greenhouse gas spewing death pods.

Adam Gjokaj, Salem Township

Em, Colleen & Ashlyn at the Hannah Montana concert

Where the Hell is Matt?

This is an amazing video I found that was filmed across 42 different countries. This guy dances as well as I do.

Daddy Daughter Date for Chinese Food

Em's a cat

Go State!