My PizzaPopolis Complex Explained

Reason #1046 I'm proud of my Dad

My Dad's friend Bakar (the muslim Somalian refugee I'd blogged about eaerlier) stopped by and got a chance to meet the family. You'll notice in this shirt that my Dad is wearing a shirt that says, "I'm Awesome". Now normally in the Kurt family we would joke and mock anyone wearing this shirt. Heck, we'd mock the pope for wearing his silly hat. Before you mock, here's the story behind the shirt.

As I'd mentioned in the other post, my Dad has helped Bakar since he came to this country as a refugee with nothing. He's worked with him to get a job, his first car, cell phone, helped him get Cochlear implants (Bakar is deaf) and braces.

My Dad uses the same skills that made him great at his job to help Bakar make it in America. What would the middle east conflict look like today if Muslims saw Americans giving and helping sleflessly? My Dad is living out what Jesus calls us to by helping the poor and hurting.

Bakar got this shirt for my Dad because this is the best way to express the way he feels about my Dad. He simply thinks my Dad is awesome and thought that this shirt was the best way to express it. Can you blame him? My Dad wears this shirt proudly, and he should. We're all proud of him.

Usher Trip

To celebrate our 18th anniversary, I got Cathie tickets to see Usher in St. Louis.  Why St. Louis?  Because it was recently voted the most violent city in the US?  Maybe... Or... Some buddies of mine down there have connections to get great seats to some of the R & B shows.  Jon and Beth watched the kids for us and we flew out on Friday morning to St. Louis.  Trips like these almost make my travel worthwhile, as we were able to use hotel and flight points to basically make the trip for nothing.

We were picked up by my friend's driver, in their sweet party bus:


We stayed at the St. Louis Downtown Hilton, right across from the Arch.  The manager at the Hilton was kind enough to send us a bottle of champagne in celebration of our anniversary.  Diamond status has it's privileges.

It was freezing cold when we got to St. Louis, so Cathie needed a slightly different outfit.  We walked to the closest clothes store to our hotel to get a new outfit.  The only type of clothes shopping I like to do with my wife is for lingerie (for her) and to pick out something to wear  to an R&B concert.  We passed on this vest for some reason:

We had dinner at Lombardo's and then headed over to the concert to see Usher.

I was clearly in the minority in the concert, as it consisted of 95% women.  It's not my style of music, but I enjoyed the fact that Cathie enjoyed herself.  Miguel opened the show, followed by Trey Songz and then Usher.  I was impressed that Usher can dance ever better than I can.

Here's a quick video synopsis of the concert as seen from my iPhone. We'll see how long YouTube lets me keep it online without editing out the audio due to copyright restrictions:


The girls sitting next to us explained that Washington Ave was the place to go hang out after the concert, so we walked over there and went to the bar.  The first bar we went to we were twice the age of everyone in the bar, so we decided the that the hotel bar was more our speed.

The next morning we slept in.  I ran up to get Cathie a latte and bagel from Panera, but we didn't get out of bed until about 3pm.  We sat around and watched the MSU football game until it was time to head to our Couples Spa Retreat at the four-seasons hotel.


The massages were amazing, and we hung out in the steam room afterwards.  We met up later that evening with a friend of mine that I used to work with, Michelle, who Cathie had gotten to know through Facebook.  She took us out to Sub Zero, a sushi & vodka bar. Michelle has been managing a country music singer, Johnny Henry, and we had the chance to hear his music and meet him that evening.  It was a fun night.

We were picked up the following morning at the crack of dawn and made it back home early.  We met my brother Jon half way in Grand Ledge to pick up three kids who had missed their Mom and Dad a lot:

Thanks again to Jon and Beth for watching the kids, and everyone else who helped out, including Cathy Hannigan & Kevin and Susan!

Amusing things I saw in London

Was this phone ad campaign designed by Will Ferrel? Sounds like it came out of Anchorman.


Why would I want to use a disabled toilet?  I want one that works.


It was this sign that led to the story of Monkey Hangers


This picture was on the front of a recycling bin.  No idea how the shorts on top of the jeans link to recycling.

If you buy a bunch of tea-bags, you get a free monkey.  Wow was I upset when I saw that it was only a stuffed monkey.


Nothing like Coca-Cola with Vegetable Extracts..

Trip to London

I had the chance to head to London for work.  I went out early and stayed at my friend Ben's house in Wandsworth right outside of downtown London. I'd met Ben at a Xerox leadership class in 2004 out in Colorado Springs and we stayed connected over the years.  My flight got in about 8am and my car service took me over to Ben's house, or so I thought.  It actually took me to the wrong place.  In true British fashion, the woman was wonderfully polite when I showed up at her house, with my suitcase early in the morning, and told me there was no Ben there.

I got to Ben's house and we went for a 'proper english breakfast', complete with blood pudding, bangers and mash, tomatos, beans, fries and deep fried toast. The common denominator was that everything had lots of grease and filled you up for your trip to the pub.

After breakfast, we hit the local pub to watch the big rugby match, England vs. Australia.  I've never seen a rugby match.  Ever.  The Patriots and Broncos had just played at Wembley arena the week before, and I had to hear over and over about how slow our american football is.  After watching Rugby, I agreed.  They basically play 80 minutes straight.  No pads, and at least as brutal.  The players are all either tight ends or D-backs.  Big, fast guys who take a beating.  There were some great rivalries in the pub, between countries instead of colleges or teams.  Ben gave up going to this match in order to hang with me.. Nice.

I was amused at all of the little things in town, including the Humped Zebra Crossing.

My friend Ben was kind enough to make up random facts as he took me through town, showing me where the cover of Abbey Road picture was taken, and where Eric Clapton was born.  I did learn a great story about Monkey Hangers.

Ben, Kat and I headed home and watched some quality British TV, including 'The X Factor' and a documentary on one of their boy bands 'Take That'.  Being on a completely different sleep schedule, I got up early and walked downtown.  There were stands setup all over with pastries and I couldn't decide on one, so I got a bunch: all of them fantastic.

We watched the Rememberence Day ceremony Later that morning, our equivalent of Veterans Day, but a whole new level of symbolism.   Ben and I headed out to the market to pick up the makings of a 'proper english roast' so that I could experience a 'proper english sunday'.  The meal was great.  I'd never had parsnips, and would be ok with never having them again.  Over dinner, I was able to get Ben and Kat to record some video for Maddie to work on her British (not English) accent.  Ben made sure that we had 'Spotted Dick' for dessert.  He'd never had it, but made sure that I didn't leave England without it.

I had a great time with Ben and his roommate Kat.  The highlight for me was NOT sightseeing, but instead of getting a taste of the local culture, the pubs, the market, tv and people.  The hospitality was wonderful, and it was a great time.

I headed out that evening to my work event.  Traffic in England is a whole new deal.  Half of the roads aren't wide enough to fit two cars, all of them driving on the left at breakneck speeds.  There are no cops to worry about for speeding, because the cameras track everyone's driving and just send you a ticket for speeding or running red lights in the mail.

The President's Forum I went to was fantastic.  They took 14 of us from around the world and put us in a room together with our executive management team.  The executive team presented out to us on our corporate strategy, career planning and leadership.

They had us workshop a number of issues and report back to management on some of the solutions.  These classes are great for connecting within people in the company and getting visibility in front of our leadership team.

They took us into London one night for fish and chips and a bus tour.  The fish and chips were mediocre at best, maybe because I was car sick after being in a bus for 3 hours.  On Tuesday night, after the class was done, we headed to our hotel over by Heathrow and took the train into town.

We walked for miles and saw 5% of the downtown area, including Buckingham Palace, Westminster Cathederal, Churchill's war room and more. Downtown was still decorated with the poppy wreaths from the remembrance day ceremony.   I got to see the Cenotaph, which if you listen to Pink Floyd, you'd heard of on The Final Cut.

I flew back on Wednesday morning out of Heathrow and got in around noon.  I felt like I had been hit by a truck with the time change.  It was great to be back home and back in my own culture and country.

Football season is over.. Almost

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*Dave*
davekurt.com

What I'm doing on my next flight

Total Eclipse...mid flight from mike escamilla on Vimeo.

Fall Family Day

Maddie's Cheer Team

MSU vs. U of M Game (Spartan Victory!)

Article: Is Facebook Killing our Souls

A couple of months ago, I fasted from all social media: Twitter, Facebook, RSS feds and blogging.  I learned a lot about the pull that social media has in my life.  The first week of fasting I was amazed at how my thoughts are wired around tweeting and my facebook statuses.  I figured out that there's a pretty narcissistic side of me.  I read this article on Relevant magazine article entitled "Is Facebook Killing our Souls" by Shane Hipps and put into words what I'd figured out on my fast:

[Facebook] encourages not just self-absorption, but, more accurately, self-consumption. We become creators and consumers of our own brand. We become enamored by a particular kind of self, a pseudo-self. A self-image controlled in much the same way corporate brands are controlled. Complete with pictures, videos, songs and, most of all, metrics—the number of friends we have, the kinds of friends we have and the kind of associations we have. We endlessly refine, create and consume a digital projection we want others to see. However, we are rarely what we project. This image approximates reality, but it is not reality.

Good to be back in the city

Panthers Victory 25-0!

First Day of School: Then and Now

Cathie's Surprise Party

Tough to believe, but my wife turned 40 this month.  To celebrate the big 4-0, I threw her a surprise party, with lots of help from family and friends.  Thanks to my friend Mark, I actually got the planning for this going about 6 weeks prior to the party, and tried to plan it as the kind of party that Cathie would like. I had no idea it would be so much work and there would be so many details to take care of...

On the day of the party, Cathie's parents came down and Cathie's Mom took her out shopping.  They got a late start and left a few minutes before everyone was set to come over and clean.  Cathie's Dad, the kids and I worked to get the house cleaned and everything ready.  Jon, Beth, Dan, Kris, Tiffany and John came down to help get the house clean and then Cathie's friends Jen & Lori came over with the decorations.  The house was spotless (Cathie's version of spotless, not mine) and the decorations were amazing.  The coolest part was the collage of pictures at the top in the shape of "-40-" that they made.

Cathie was late, but showed up about 7:35, but I think she was genuinely surprised.  We had about 40 people inside and outside, including family, friends and friends from school.

Jackie and her husband Neale came all the way up from Columbus to celebrate Cathie.




My brother, "Thanksgiving Dan" showed up much to my sister-in-law Kris's chagrin, and thankfully, "Surprise Party Cathie" didn't show.  We had beer pong in the garage, and Brad even got his "pointy finger" going.

The evening was made even better as Tiffany brought her brand new boyfriend, John, along to meet the whole family and gain our blessing.  We approved.


You can see all of the pictures in the Picasa album here.