The new season of Crank Yankers just started.  If you've never seen it, it's a show that makes crank calls and uses puppets to act them out.  Sounds odd, I know, but it's great.  It's got some great characters and then lots of guest stars.  The season premiere had Ludacris calling his manager and telling him he wants to change his name to "Peanut Head".  The character in the picture above is Ed - Jason's favorite. 

I'm watching Bubba Ho-tep.  It's a B-Movie staring the king of B-movies, Bruce Campbell about what really happened to Elvis.  It's about an elderly resident in an East Texas rest home, who switched identities with an Elvis impersonator years before his “death”, then missed his chance to switch back. Elvis teams up with Jack, a fellow nursing home resident who thinks that he is actually President John F. Kennedy, and the two valiant old codgers sally forth to battle an evil Egyptian entity who has chosen their long-term care facility as his happy hunting grounds.  I ways always a big fan of Brisco County, Jr.

I did the message in church last sunday.  I've been pretty down about it since.  I didn't dwell on it 24/7, but had a pretty heavy feeling about the whole thing.  I processed it, prayed about it, and let it go as I was heading to the airport on the way to do a presentation in Milwaukee. 
 
I heard from some people that they enjoyed the message I gave, but I didn't.  The content was alright - I was probably a little too broad and not deep enough.  I can deal with that.  Talking with a friend today, I think I figured it out.  I think I judge a lot of the success of the message based on how an audience responds.  I do this with public speaking in my job and at church.  On Sunday, the crowd was flat, I got no response, and I think that really impacted my delivery of the whole message.  It threw me off and I had a tough time recovering.  I'm not sure what to do with that.  I know that God's big enough to work through my imperfections, but I like to have conversational interaction with the audience when I'm speaking.  When they stare blankly at me, I take that as feedback.  Bad feedback.  I'm new at this church teaching thing.  Guess I'll figure it out as I go.
 
I just found out I'm teaching in August.  Something I have no clue what to do with.  Has to do with the road of faith.  There's a great section on faith in Blue Like Jazz that likes faith to Penguin Sex.  Maybe I'll talk about Penguin Sex. 

I just finished Blue Like Jazz - Non religious thoughts on Christian Spirituality.  This is one of the only books that Noel has told me I need to go buy.  I did and I love it.  It's one of the best books I've read in a long time.  It's written in a very conversational way, with some great stories wedged in.  I'm not sure how to describe what exactly it's about, though, but it made me think about a lot of the ways I look at the world and myself.   He talks a lot about his life in college, his friends, and the way they treat each other.  He's got a really fun collection of friends - one of those guys that seems like he'd be a great guy to sit down and talk with.  As I was reading the book, I kept thinking that my mother-in-law would really really like the book.  Not sure why that came to mind, but I was laughing at stuff I in this that I thought she would laugh at.

Crummy day - but at least I don't have cancer.  I got up around 5 (front desk forgot my wake-up call) and took a shuttle to the airport.  I got there in time for my 7AM flight, but it broke.  I go from getting in at 9AM EST to 12:40 PM EST.  I can deal with that.  Not great, but not horrible.  That flight then gets delayed.  They ship me 500 miles west to go east.  I fly to Minneapolis and catch a flight to Detroit, getting me in around 3.  At least I was in first class.  Apparently some guy threw up all over himself back in coach. 

I've been in Milwaukee since Sunday and I've learned a couple of things.
#1 - I don't like German food.  We've eaten at two different German resturants - both of them fairly renound, and both blew.  Comon - who eats Saurkraut Strudel?  Nasty. 
#2 - Milwaukee means "City by the River".  I learned this from my cab driver today.  My new resolution is to start trying to interact in some small way with the people i come into contact with when I travel.  I started talking to the people sitting next to me and my cabbies.  My cab driver on Sunday tried to convert me to Islam.  The one today was from Nigeria.  He's been here for 28 years and learned the meaning of hte word "Milwaukee" from a book about Jeffrey Dahmer.  Why did he read the book you ask?  He used to manage the building that Jeffrey Dahmer rented a room in and for some reason that book described the origin of the word.
 
Went to the casino tonight.  Won $325 in blackjack.  I've got a 7AM flight and a 5AM wake up call.  I'm home tomorrow and I'm on vacation next week.

I made it back from rochester, ny today without incident.  I passed the exam and I'm now a certified green belt candidate.   Yee-haw!  I'd booked an earlier flight today and got out on before the Blue Angels started their practice.  There's an airshow in Rochester this weekend and they shut down the airport for a couple of hours to allow them to practice, cancelling and screwing up a whole bunch of flights.  Most of the people in my class are probably still in Rochester right now.
 
As I was walking through the airport today, I heard the announcer come on and say "Will Ivan Gay, Ivan Gay please come to Gate 69".  This of course sounded like "I've been gay".  No idea if it was real, but it was funny.

These Wedding Announcements are real and hilarious.

One more day to go. Hopefully I can take my Green Belt certificiation exam this evening and have it done with. That's right, I said Green Belt. The Six Sigma methodology ranks the various levels of expertise by belt-level. Yellow Belt, Green Belt, Black Belt and Master Black Belt. There's all the funky sociological hierarchy to go with it. The master black belts push around the black belts, and they in turn like to tell the green belts what to do.

I heard two great stories today:
One of the guys in our training is staying at the same hotel I'm at. He walked into his room last night and found a rabbit sitting in the middle of his room. Pause for a second, how strange would that be? Anyways, he tried to shoo it out, but it kept hiding in the room. He woke up this morning, and there it was again. He took a towel and tried to open the door and move it out of the room.

One of my co-workers families just got back from Huntington Beach, CA where they camped near the beach. The kids earned money throughout the week burying dead seals on the beach. The DNR guys would pay them $10 for each dead seal they buried in the sand. Go figure.

I started reading Blue Like Jazz last week on Noel's insistence. I don't think Noel has ever "insisted" I read a book. He was right on this one. Reminds me a lot of Anne Lamott's book Traveling Mercies. Lots of loosely connected stories and thoughts on faith. A little more serious than David Sedaris, but it definately has a lighter side to it.

Training has been brutally slow. I had a great night going out with a bunch of my co-workers last night for dinner. We went to a biker bar in downtown Rochester, NY - the Dinosaur BBQ. Good stuff. I laughed a lot last night. I really needed that. Working virtually with a team has it's upside, but we really need these times to connect, bond and spend time together. I'm looking forward to my team meeting in August. My team plus a few others that have dotted lines to me will be getting together in Vegas, which was the most central meeting point for all of us.

I can't believe it's only Wednesday, though. I'm going to spend some more time tonight refining my message a little more for Sunday. I went to the gym this morning with one of the guys I work with and did something funky to my hamstrings while squatting. Guess I should warm up like Kirk always tells me to.

I went biking on Friday at Maybury State Park with Joe. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time riding and talking. We didn't break any speed records, but Joe got to try out his new bike which finally has front shocks on it.

Friday night Cathie and myself went out with Matt and Anne for dinner. We met up later with Jason and Jess to see Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burghandy. (Go to the site with your audio turned up). I laughed so hard at this movie I had tears in my eyes at one point. Better, funnier movie than Dodgeball. I won't try and go into a complex review here of themes and symbolism, but I'll say that it made me laugh - hard.

On Sunday we had a huge celebration at church. Jason came up with the great idea to build an altar to celebrate, similar to what the Isrealites used to do after God would do huge things for them so they would not forget. We started with placing a huge stone down for paying off a large debt to the schools. People then came up and added to it with their own stories of what our church has meant to them. All of the kids were in the service and about 40 minutes into it were getting a little restless. Luckily, there was a playground right outside the school, so Carole and I took a bunch of kids outside to play and tried not to lose any of them, so they didn't go nuts in there. We then topped it off with a big picnic at Island Lake Park. J and I threw together the picnic, and it didn't suck too badly. We had lots of weiners. Hundreds of them. More than we needed.

Sunday evening I had to fly out to Rochester, NY for training this week. The training goes from 8AM - 6PM with the shortest number of breaks for the shortest duration I've ever seen. I got back to my hotel room about 9:30 to check e-mail and had over 100 waiting. Who could these things be from? Most of my team is in the training and most of the sales team that my group supports is in this class. Go figure. I spent the rest of the night finishing up the first draft of my message for Sunday.

Interesting quip from a Salon.com interview with Larry Flynt, Publisher of Hustler Magazine:
Salon.com: You were born-again for a year -- doesn't every Christian feels like a sinner?
Larry Flynt: Unfortunately, I think most of the country is manic-depressive from time to time. That's when a lot of these "born-again" experiences are brought about. If someone has a religious epiphany, he can't go to a family member or a neighbor, he goes to the local church, and he winds up being caught up in the system rather than get counseling and good medication for his problem. I know what it's like. I've been there. I've seen the visions. Heard the voices. I can understand why people are so dogmatic about their religion. Hey, if it helps 'em get through the day, more power to 'em. I just don't want them imposing it on me.
…Everybody in America finds Jesus, you know. [Laughs.] It's no big deal. It's figuring out why you found him that's the problem.
Salon.com: Was there a single moment when the Holy Ghost touched you, and that was that?
Larry Flynt: Oh yes. It was with Jimmy Carter's sister, Ruth Carter Stapleton. I just started seeing visions. And hearing voices. And talking in tongues. It was some weird experience. I knew that I wanted to hear from a good shrink what had happened. That's who I sought out. I've been fine ever since.

These are hilarious pictures from Relevantmagazine.com's recent time at the CBD (Christian Book Distributors) Conference.

I'm back to work tomorrow. I'm in town all week, with the possibility of doing a day trip to San Francisco on Friday. I'm out of town Sunday - Friday in beautiful Rochester, NY at Six Sigma training and then in Madison, WI at NACUBO Sunday - Tuesday.

Jason and Will now have airsoft guns. Will came over for dinner and we shot each other for a while in the yard, but I have two different guns - one's fully automatic with 100 shot capacity, and the other only fires one shot at a time. It was pretty unfair. We went up to Galyans and picked up guns for Will and J and came back and had a full-out war around my house. You can unload your entire hopper in a matter of seconds in full-auto mode. We'd basically run around the house, trying to pop out and hit each other at as close of range as possible. I learned what temptation is all about as Cathie and I, J and Jess and Will all sat around watching the movie Dogma tonight. Will lay there in my love-sack and fell asleep. What a great way to be woken up by an airsoft gun on full-automatic. I resisted. My hand was shaking as I wanted to pull the trigger, but I didn't. I'm sure this will escalate until someone gets badly hurt. Hopefully that someone is not me.

Funny thing. Since I taught at church a few weeks back, I've had a few people say to me - both directly and to other people, how suprised they were by my teaching. Not by it's content, but more-so the fact that they didn't think I had it in me. The concencus was that since I run the Jr. High Youth Group, that I've got a Jr. High depth of spirituality and maturity. Probably a lot of truth to that.

Those people that know me know where I'm at in life and who I am, so hearing this didn't really bother me, but at one point in my life it would of. I'd much rather be underestimated than overestimated. Just like Spiderman.

Fairly new Software that i'm using and I can't do without:

X1 - E-mail and file search engine. ($99)
Mozilla Firefox plus related extensions and themes - Awesome browser that can be very customized with functionality and interface, and it's not made by Microsoft (Free)
Java Web Album - Creates web-based photo albums for digital pictures. (Free)
Evil Lyrics - Ties in with your media player and displays the lyrics to whatever music you're playing (Free).

We had our annual July 4th picnic yesterday with my family (pictures here). We have a great time that normally involves lots of squirt guns, water balloons and food. This year, we spiced thing up a bit with airsoft guns. If you've never used these, this is what my Grandmpa's holding in the picture. We tried to get her to shoot Jon, but she wouldn't. They shoot plastic pellets that hurt, but don't break the skin. As long as you're wearing eye-protection, you can have some fun battles with these. I got the chance to shoot Jon a few times, and then we headed up to Gander Mountain to get more guns.

We had the squirt guns out this year, but not the same degree as usual. Jon tried to soak Cathie, and she relentlessly chased Jon down and soaked his pants - front and back. Jon then sat around commando the rest of the evening while his stuff dried. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to nail him with the airsoft gun - without the extra layer of protection that underwear povide.

Most years, the family ends up going that night to the firworks in Meridian Township. Last night, because of the on-and-off rain, and the potential of rain, we didn't end up going, although some in the family did. We went back and forth most of the evening on what was going to happen with the weather, and in the end, we chose not to go.

Thanks to Jason for this great public service announcement by our favorite Anchorman, Ron Burgundy. Stay off drugs, read the bible... What more is there to say?

Ryan, Meghan, Erin, Anne, Matt, Jason and Jess came over last night. We hung out, barbecued and then we broke out the fireworks. Once it got dark enough out, Ryan, Matt and I had a Roman Candle battle. We went into the back yard where it was pitch black, lit them at the same time, ran to different parts of the yard, shooting the roman candle shots at each other. Picture this: It's pitch black until you're temporarily blinded by the roman candle fireball shooting out of your tube. Until this point, you're pretty much guessing where the other guy's at, until yous ee it light up the area he's in and you adjust your aim. Meanwhile, one's coming back at you and you're trying to dodge that and not take one in the eyeball. This was a great adrenaline rush, dodging balls of fire.

I read in the paper yesterday that 9300 injuries occur from fireworks. Jess is now a number. An errant bottle rocket went crazy and bounced off her, nicking her arm enough to draw blood. Didn't explode on her, didn't kill her, but it was clearly enough to add to the statistics.

My day started out kinda rough. I had a 7:30 AM interview with a candidate at the Cracker Barrel in Brighton. My alarm went off at 6:30 AM as planned. Next thing I know, it's 7:30 AM and I'm scrambling. Nothing like being 20 minutes late to make a great first impression.

I headed down to Toledo today and picked up some fireworks while I was on conference calls. I've got a four-day weekend ahead of me - should be fun. We've got a bunch of friends coming over tonight to hang out and tomorrow we're probably going to Cathie's folks to swim. Sunday we're doing the fourth of July at my parents. We typically hang out all day and then go see the fireworks at night. No big plans for Monday and Tuesday.

I've started running Firefox instead of Microsoft's Internet Explorer. It's faster, cleaner, and doesn't belong to Microsoft. Plus it gives me the small satisfaction of using open-source software and in some small way sticking it to Microsoft.

My brother in-law Ed, and his wife Stacy have started a blog. You can check it out here. Stacy's going to be over in England for the next couple of months studying law, and she'll be keeping a log here of what's going on.

Just got back from seeing Spiderman. Better yet, I saw it in Hot Springs, Arkansas. The theatre was exactly as you'd imagine it. The movie was phenomenal.

I'm on my way to Hot Springs, Arkansas by way of Little Rock. I'm on a tiny jet both ways - so no first class. I've managed to reduce my inbox from 300 e-mails down to 42! Seems silly to get such satisfaction out of something so small, but even a hamster probably feels he's making progress on his wheel.

We rented the game Spiderman 2 for PS2. Great game, fun to play - the web swinging part of it is much improved from the first game.

Nate and I were watching a special on the making of the Spiderman 2 video game. Afterwards, he told me, "Dad, I want to have a job where I test games for bugs. I'd be able to play video games all day long."

That's my son, Nate. Behind him is a cherry tree. He got the great idea to use the cherries to make war-paint. He painted his face and arms. I sent him up to take a shower. Cathie goes to check on him, and he says "Mom, I don't need to take a shower. These work just fine." He'd taken the clorox bathroom counter wipes and was rubbing them on his skin to get the cherry stain off. My son is a great example of why the label has the warning "Do not use on skin". Boys are still 1,000 times easier to raise than girls.

Just read an interesting quote from an article in the print version of Relevant Magazine, discussing the "third way" of the Gospel as an anecdote that resolves the tension between liberalism and conservatism:
Jesus was more conservative than today's conservatives, because He thought that no one at all escapes the charge of being a great sinner. He recognized that sinners are not just hte drug-dealers and pornographers, but also the decent upright citizens who you'd let babysit your kids, but who have the same heart of darkness as ever other fallen person. Yet, Jesus is more liberal than today's liberals, since He is not scandalized by any kind of sin. Modern liberals are inclusive at the surface, but deeply offended and distrustful of people with traditional belief systems. These are the liberal's pariahs, the ones they smirk at, or, at best, patronize. But Jesus didn't smirk at anyone - He ernestly dealt with people who were deeply different than Him - not to leave them where they were, which is also the liberal tendency, but in order to redeem them.
I think there's a lot of truth in that quote, but I'm not sure what to do with it. Thoughts?

I can't stand Michael Moore. In the same way that Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura can be mean to people Michael Moore comes across in the same way, all while doing it under the guise of documentary-type reporting. I'll probably still see the movie at some point, but everything I've read from both sides of the coin are very negative.

I came across this interesting article on Michael Moore's new movie, Fahrenheit 9/11Unfairenheit 9/11 - The lies of Michael Moore:
To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery

Jason did the message/sermon today at church and did an amazing job. Here's the context: Jason's been gone for the past two weeks, at camp for the past week. He comes home drained mentally and physically with his voice gone to give his first every all-J message on Child Like Faith. 10:00 last night he's over at my house still tweaking what he's going to say. My prayer for him was that God would come through and save the day, like Superman always used to do. He blew me away - both God and Jason. In J's weakness, God was huge. The content and the delivery were phenomneal - lots of stories, which J is great at telling, but a message that you could tell J was passionate about. I was really proud of him. I'll try and make it into an MP3 and post it on here.

We made it back today from camp. We got the kids up at 7AM, which was a chore in itself. We loaded them up by nine and were on the road. They were beat. I was beat. I'm glad to be home.

Jason (Shinn) is teaching tomorrow. He's as beat as all of the leaders and has the joyful job of teaching tomorrow morning. He's over now and we're trying to hone his message. It's on child-like faith and is excellent.

This is a friend of mine, Matt, one of the leadres from camp. He's not retarded.
Two years ago, he got hit in the eye with a water-baloon and ended up with cyclops vision. This year he woke up at four in the morning with a bag of poop on his chest. Yet he keeps coming back because he loves kids. Go figure - I mean, it was poo.


This is Chris. Chris is a Youth Pastor in Ohio. He's got an amazing faith, one where he just expects God to show up and do huge things. This is the closest thing that I can figure to what Jesus meant about child-like Faith. Chris doesn't think anything is too little for God to worry about. He and I are pretty different people, but we both have the same passion for youth ministry. Chris's kids think he's equally amazing.

I heard a great story today and I verified it's authenticity. There are multiple camps going on at Kenyon College where we're at this week. One of them happens to be a Mime camp. I hate Mimes. Why anyone would want to learn how to be one is beyond me. Anyways, a kid from our group saw the sign and he walked into the class as if he were a part of the group. He participated in all of the mime exercises and actually learned miming stuff, just to see if he could. The guy saw such promise in him that he invited him back to the next class he was doing. He then found out the guy wasn't a part of the group and I guess Mimed kicking him out. As I said, Miming should be a lost art.

Wow, what a day today. The last day of camp is always wild - full of lots of emotions and connections. We started the day off with worship and session - kids were pretty wiped from a late night last night. After session we had The Battle of Helms Deep. As you can see from the pictures, it was a huge battle. The game took place on a huge hill, with our team defending the flag. Each team had thousand of water balloons and flour bombs (panty-hose filled with flour about the size of a tennis ball) and water noodles to use as a sword. Once you got wet, the flour stuck like nothing else. The air was filled with flour like it was smoke. I'm still finding this gunk in different orfices of my body. Is it okay to eat a flour buger?

Chris, Shawn, Mark, Mike and I then went to play paintball. I took out lots of kids, but got lit up myself, all three drawing wounds drawing blood. It was a great time.

The highlight of today was our youth group time. We messed around for a few doing a tradition we've had for a while - seeing which group could build a human structure that could reach the highest. We then sat in a circle and shared our favorite moments of the week. This is where the paycheck for this week comes. Kids talked about the relationships they'd built, the way their views had changed about people, growing closer in their walk with God, their intimacy with Jesus and most of all the worship. A number of our kids talked about how they went from being people who didn't sing, to having their hearts touched by the worship and really connecting with God at a heart level through music. I was so proud of our kids as a I sat there looking around at them. A lot of these kids I've known since before sixth grade and I've seen them grow up. I started to tell the kids what I was thankful for and got pretty choked up. I'd seen these kids treat other people well, grow, change and laughed with them.

The band ended up the evening with an amazing set of worship which kids really responded to and connected with. Again, the band was amazing. We then went down and played dodge ball, where I messed up my arm throwing. I kept throwing after I hurt it, which it turns out was a bad move. It hurt to the point that it was numb. I ate lots of advil and the pain seems to be subsiding.

Tomorrow, we're moving out. We're having the kids clean their rooms tonight or else they can choose to wake up at 6:15 AM to clean up and get to breakfast by 8 all packed and ready to go. If they clean up tonight, they can sleep in until 7. Funny, most of them are cleaning tonight.

We're all beat, especially the leadership team. We've all had 5 hours of sleep max and we're ready to head home.

I was able to fit 15 people in my room this evening. We had a card tournament, Chris Rays won. I think he cheated. Badly. At church camp none-the-less. I think that makes baby Jesus cry. The kids are stiting here as I'm updating my blog, putting the latest pictures on-line (You can see them here) and wanted me to share the following messages:

Greg Morgan says "I miss you mommy"
Chris Rays says "Way to give Billy the Xbox"
Jim Jeffrey says "Hi Mom. You were right, I did steal that stuff."
Evan Cornell says "Dad, don't touch my stuff when I'm gone."
Shawn Goldman says "I need more underwear."

I had a two hour nap today, so I'm going to be up late. Jason didn't get a nap like I did. He was hanging out with some kids instead, answering questions about God. Fool.

These are some great friends of mine who I do Youth Ministry with. John, Jason and Mark. We come from totally different church backgrounds but each person has an amazing heart towards kids, and that heart comes out in the way they lead kids.

Here's what I keep in my pockes while I'm at camp at all times:
Advil, Camera, Cell Phone, Camp Schedule, Gum, People's lost keys, a Pen, Change, My water bottle, My money.

Apparently everyone else has figured out this thing about pockets as well. We've all got cargo shorts with lots of pockets, and life is grand.

I've been bragging for a long time that my dollar store was the best. I was wrong. I love dollar stores, and found one worth making a 4 hours pilgramage to. We all bought tons of useless stuff, with each kid asking at least one person the question "How much is this." Jim Jeffrey turned it into an art form, asking it 5 or 6 different ways with a completely straight face.

I posted the pictures online from yesterday. They're here.

Another late night last night. I got to bed around 2AM, Jason around 3AM. We had a blast yesterday with most of our group going canoing, kyaking or tubing in the afternoon. The weather's been beautiful and the kids have been awesome. You'll notice from the pictures that most of them have gone from being individual pictures of kids to group pictures, because the kids have really connected with each other. The worship band is amazing and it's been great to see the kids really connecting with God through the worship times we have each day.

Cathie took off today. It really recharged me to have her and the kids here with me, but I was torn a lot of the time between how much time to spend wtih them verses the kids. It's a really tough balance that I haven't figured out yet.


Tim (the bald one laying across everyone else) took off yesterday to head down to Mexico as part of his new job as a youth pastor at a church in Port Huron. We miss him already. I'm so proud of our leaders. We have Jason, who leads with the heart of a servant and with a heart of humility, Sue, who is so laid back and whose authentic love for the kids and God just leaks out of who she is. Jess has such a spirit of fun balanced by a deep knowledge of God and an amazing love for kids. Kasey, Matt and Zach have a very special place in my heart, as they were my very first kids in our youth group - when our group was only 5 or 6 kids total. I'm so proud to see where they've come today as people, leaders and christians. Plus, they get my sense of humor. Always a plus. The common theme, which I've always believed is the most important in youth ministry, is that the leaders like the kids. This is a team I would do anything for.

Bobby Rays and I had a pretty interesting experience sitting in the emergency room last night. He'd cut his leg and we wanted to see if it needed stiches. Midnight in a small town hospital is great. We saw a convict brought in with cuffs, waist belt, and leg irons who happened to look just like Jess! By the time we got back, our pizza was cold.

Late night. Still not in bed yet. Jason Shinn and I spent a while tonight for our kids, our leaders, and ourselves. We're toast if we don't.

I then sat around until past 1 AM with the other leaders talking. It's such a diverse group of guys - backgrounds form Baptist, Evangelical, and Non Denominational. Some that I might not ever associate with outside of this - but you've got a group of people with the same heart towards kids, and it draws us all together.

Just got back from Walmart. We have an annual tradition of making a midnight run to WalMart where the guys stock up on everything - mostly stuff they don't need. They get everything - squirt guns, wrenches, candy, beef jerky - and this time - light sabers. Lots of light sabers.

Another great day with beautiful weather. No rain, not too hot, not too cold. We had a great sesion this morning (I'm in the Jr. High sessions) followed by team activiites. Our groups are broken into 16 different teams and the teams compete in all sorts of goofy, but fun games (see pictures for details). My team had to play a game with two-by-fours involving problem solving to get our group across the "hot lava" (note for concerned parents - the hot lava was actually grass). We lost badly, but had the most fun doing it. After lunch we had our first "Buck Wild" event - a two hundred foot slip and slide followed by afternoon options - swimming, canoing, golfing, ultimate frisbee, vollyball, etc. After that was our "Deeper" sessions - a time where the kids can go to a different hour long class on topics like worship, music, faith and friendship. We had dinner followed by our youth group time. At our Youth Group time we discussed the age old question - "If you were in a vat of vomit up to your neck, and someone was throwing poop at you - would you duck?" Think about it.

Cathie and the kids came up to visit today and are staying through tomorrow. I haven't been gone long, but I've already missed them and it was great seeing them. I've been coming here for 8 years and this is the first time Cathie's had a chance to see what it's all about and the people that I've connected with. She's gotten to know a lot of the guys like Ken Buck, Phil, Tim, Jason and Jess indirectly, but this is the first time seeing it all in context. Cathie and the kids are staying at a nearby hotel - I'm still with my peeps in the dorms. I'm not smart. It's late. More tomorrow. Day 2 pictures are up.

We made it here without a problem. We ended up taking a few extra vehicles because the two school busses were overfilled with luggage. Sue and I drove separately and for the first loooong hour and a half we drove behind the busses. Once, on a down hill slope with the wind at our back, we got up to 54 MPH. It was exhilarating. We rolled in around 4:30 PM and went to orientation. The kids quickly unpacked and headed over for dinner. After dinner, we had our first session. Sessions consist of announcements (which I get to do), worship and a speaker. Crossroads worship band is leading worship, and they sound amazing. Full lights and concert setup. There's a speaker for both the high school kids and the junior high kids. I'm hanging with the Junior Higher's, who have an amazing speaker - Jason Rates. He's a phenomenal story teller and has a great message on how important these kids are to God.

The first night is always a little funky as kids find their places, burn off their energy from the bus ride and get to know the campus and the schedule. We played a wicked game of dodgeball last night for a few hours and then headed back to our dorms. I found that few things feel better than a lot of sweat mixed in with a sunburn. We got to bed around 1AM last night and had an early start this morning around 7:30 AM.

We've had some technical difficulties so far - so I'm updating all of the pictures over a dial-up modem. It's a pain. Until I can get the ecrossroads.net site updated, here's a link to the pictures.

I was woken up this morning with breakfast in bed, and some great gifts from Cathie and the kids. The kids each wrote down why they loved me as their dad and Cathie framed the three notes. They were awesome. Cathie got me a great 5 man Eureka tent.

Friday night, Cathie and I went out with three other couples (Mark/Jen, Justin/Lori, Dan/Mel) for dinner and then to see the movie Dodgeball. The movie was hilarious if you go in with the right expectations.

On Saturday we went to Cathie's parents for Father's day and spent the day lying by the side of the pool barbecuing. My whole family learned about the joys of why we use sunscreen. We all got fried. On our way out the door, Emily got bit in the face, just below her right eye, by Brandon - Cath's parents cocker spaniel. It's old and not used to kids. I think each kid has been bitten by him at one point or another. We cleaned it up, put a band-aid on and didn't think much more about it. On the way to meet Will for a beer, I got a call back from my sister-in-law Beth (who's a Dr.) telling me we should probably take Emily in to the emergency room to have it looked at. I went back home, picked up Emily and took her in. She was great and the doctor's were nice. The irrigated the wound, put some salve on it and gave her a perscription for antibiotics. The hospital had to file a report on the dog, which meant the Dewitt P.D. would have to stop by my parents house and check out the dog. Hopefully it doesn't bite the police.

I was out in Pittsburgh yesterday for an executive level meeting with a customer of ours. I'd packed a suit, and went to get dressed and couldn't find my tie. I called Cathie and it turns out I'd forgotten to put my tie in my suitcase. No big deal. I can survive without a tie. I then went to put my shoes on and noticed they were two completely different shoes.

Just installed this Internet Explorer plug-in that enhances the search results from Google, called MoreGoogle. Pretty cool so far.

I've started reading Rennovation of the Heart again. My first time through I made it about 80% of the way and then petered out. What an amazing book on spiritual transformation. Dallas Willard is really freaking smart.

I'm going to be teaching at Crossroads again on July 11th on more of the Sacred Romance series, dealing with the larger story that we're a part of. Short of the overall theme of the sacred romance that I talked about a few weeks ago, this is one of my other favorite ideas from the book. It deals with the larger story of existence, of salvation and God's desire and passion to be in a sacred relationship wtih us. The downside is that we often choose to live in stories that are too small for our hearts, which are made to live in the larger story that we're often unaware of.

It's been a great week being home, but I've been working like crazy lately - partially trying to get things squared away for being gone next week at Camp, partially because things have peaked at work. I'm in the process of getting my team squared away - I had one new person start last week and I'm trying to hire another new person soon. This gives me a pretty green team with huge potential, but it requires a ton of time to invest into them while the rest of the world continues turning.

It's great having the kids home from school for the summer, being able to hang out with them, take a break whenever and see them. It really helps reduce my stress. I've also tried to get back into my workout routine, working out with Kirk a few days this week, and eating right as well. All that'll get thrown out the window come next week, but oh well.

Gotta love these nice, summer days.

Pretty uneventful weekend. Cathie and I went on a date Friday night to see the movie The Day After Tomorrow. The special effects were amazing, but the premise of the movie blew. The premise was that our use of fossil fuels was causing global warming, and that every ten thousand years an ice-age would occur because of this. They even had a nice, shaming part of the movie where Dennis Quaid looks to the camera to ask if we'll learn our lesson next time around. I reccomend going to see this movie for the first 45 minutes of special effects and then leaving.


On Saturady, the Kurt girls got together to work on their scrapbooks, so my brother Jon came over and hung out for the day. We didn't do much productive, except go to the park and hang out. Suprisingly, none of the kids got hurt (severely) while playing with my brother. Saturday night, I had some guys come over for a last minute texas-no-limit hold-em Poker tournament.


Sunday was paintball with our youth group. I learned two valuable lessons that day:
1. Just because a guy on your team has $2,000 in paintball gear, it doesn't mean he's all that brave or can play paintball all that well.
2. If you some kind of horrible allergic reaction that causes your eyes to swell up and your skin to break out in rash, don't try and create your own "allergy cocktail". I ended up mixing 2 24 hour claratin, 2 benadryl and some sudafed to hit all the angles. The rash went away, I could breate again and my eyes stopped watering, however I lay awake this morning from about 2AM - 5AM, when I finally got up to make some productive use of my time.

I made it back from California this evening. I started off with 340 e-mails in my inbox, and was able to pair it down to 18, all while watching three episodes of 24. I felt such a sense of accomplishment out of this, only to get home, sync up and have 50 new e-mail messages (in a 5 hour window) followed by 11 voice mails.

I borrowed the first season of 24 from my boss, and I'm loving it. Will put it best when he described it as "TV Crack". I can't stop watching it. Great show.

It's 2:30 AM and I just got into Orange County, CA. I flew out on Monday to Kansas City, had meetings for the past two days. After a dinner with a business partner of ours, a few of the guys I work with headed out to the Casino and played some blackjack. I broke even. I flew out Tuesday evening through Houston. Storms in Houston made things a little dicey trying to get a connecting flight, but I made it by the skin of my teeth. Continental's first class seating, service and food beats the heck out of Northwest's. I sat next to a guy who decided he needed to sing along with the soundtrack on the movie he was watching. Loudly. It was akward, but he was a nice guy. I've got meetings all day tomorrow, dinner tomorrow night with part of my team and then I'm flying back home on Thursday morning.

On Friday night we all hung out at "Camp Bartlett". The kids school hosted a camp-out where people could setup their tents (or motorhomes) on the playground of the school. The whole family went, but only Nate, Madeline and I camped out. They had a moonwalk, karaoke and all sorts of fun activities for the kids. That night, the firemen came and had a bonfire. They built the fire wearing their fireman gear, pants, jacket, everything. They used a bottle of lighter fluid and flares, and couldn't get the fire started - all while 200 people looked on. Pretty akward. Eventually, they got it going - but hey, they're supposed to be able to put the fires out, not start them, right?

It was a great time with the kids, except forthe sleeping part of it. It turns out that we slept about 50 FEET from a train, which happened to go by about FIFTEEN times that night. I slept horribly, not to mention the three of us were trying to fit into a 2 man tent.

On Saturday, we had some friends over to barbecue.

Today was my day to do the message at church, the topic was "The Sacred Romance: The Lost Life of the Heart". I didn't accidently say the word "breast" or have my fly down the whole time, so how bad could it have been? I really enjoyed pulling it together, doing the research on it and doing a full-blown message as opposed to some of the smaller teachings. All-in-all, I probably put about 20+ hours into this whole thing. I had a couple of weeks to get ready for it, so it wasn't too bad. I felt pretty good about it - I did the best I could and God filled in the gaps. You can listen to a copy of it here (16 MB MP3 file)

I was down at a vendor sponsored golf outing down in Ohio yesterday and I was reminded why I gave up golfing for the most part. I golfed horribly to the point that it was embarassing in the beginning. Nothing like golfing with three guys you don't know, stepping up to the tee, and and for the first 3 holes sending the ball 10 feet in front of you. As the game wore on, my game got a little better, but overall, it wasn't that much for. The social aspect was great. I think I was able to bring team down overall as the day went on. My bad golfing became contagious, and the fact that I really didn't care all that much caught on. If nothing else, we had a good joking around about bad our golf games were. Overall, we finished last in the entire scramble. The only semi-redeeming thing for the day was that I missed the longest drive by 5 yards. I whaled a 260 yard fluke drive that just happened to go straight as an arrow on the longest drive hole, and it didn't quite make it. The fact that I could hit a ball that hard and straight once in my life felt good, though.

On the way home, I was filling up my car with gas and I heard music, the band rush, playing the song Subdivisons. Rush is one of my all-time favorite bands that I've seen in concert four times. Turns out they were playing in concert across the street at the amphitheatre and I could hear them crystal clear. It goes down in history as the best experience I've had filling up my car with gas.

Great "kids say the darndest things" story...

My 3 year old Emily was sitting at the dinner table yesterday and asked "Mom, where's Jesus?" My 5 year old daughter quickly responded, "He lives in your heart, Emily." Emily quickly lifted up her shirt, looked, and said, "No he's not." Madeline tried to clarify, "He's in heaven." She looked up, and quickly shot back "No he's not." So much for faith like a child.

We had our annual Memorial Day party. It started small as a collection of two sets of friends from out of town (Thompson's and Heikkenen's) and it's grown to be a pretty big bash, where Cathie keeps telling me to stop inviting so many people. You can see all of the pictures here.

This mask was worn by just about everyone there.

This will henceforth known as the "Great Lemon Bar Fiasco": When I coordinated with everyone on what to bring for dessert, I think I used the example "Bring something LIKE lemon bars". Three people brought them. We had the husband tied to each lemon bar maker do a taste test, and see if we could put them in the akward situation of saying that they're wife's lemon bars were not the best.


This is Heidi (Jess's sister), Beth (my sister-in-law) and Erin (Beth's sister). We thought they were pretty much interchangable.

Cathie went to Chicago on Friday morning with her Mom and Madeline on a girls shopping weekend, so Nate, Emily and I are going solo. Friday night, Nate and I did a guys night. We played cards, watched the world series of poker, watched x-men, drank pop (caffinated even), ate pizza rolls and stayed up late.

Saturday was a pretty lazy day where we just hung out for a while, not doing much productive. Jay and I worked on our message for Sunday and then Will, Jess, Heidi, Jason and I hung out last night.

The message went pretty well today. Jason and I did what we wanted to do, and it went pretty smooth. There were no horrible screw-ups or things that in retrospective we'd of radically changed, so I guess that's a good thing. You can listen to the message here. The beginning of the message starts out with this video clip, without which you might be kind of confused.

I've got to start pulling stuff together for the message next Sunday, which is me going solo. I've got the content together, I've just to go put it in some kind of order and write it out.

We can all sleep well tonight: Singapore has lifted it's ban on chewing gum. Read more here:
Before Singaporeans think about unwrapping a pack of Wrigley's Orbit gum that's just started selling here - and only in pharmacies - they must submit their names and ID card numbers. If they don't, pharmacists who sell them gum could be jailed up to two years and fined $2,940

Can't help but smile when I look at this picture. 

I got signed up as a beta-tester for gmail - Google's e-mail system. Great interface, with 1 GB of storage. So far, I like it. I'm guessing it doesn't allow any kind of POP access, though. The interface isn't as mature as Yahoo, doesn't have any of the toolbars or thick client tools to access it, but it's new, and based on google's track record, should be great eventually.

Will, Brad and Ted took me out for Sushi last night for my birthday. We gorged ourselves. The also got me a bottle of 18 year old Glenlivet Scotch.

My brother Jon thought it important that I clarify an earlier post. Justin and Lori did in fact join Mark, Jen, Cathie and I in celebrating their birthday. Jon did not feel it was clear. He also asked that I add some kind of cross reference to him and a picture. I've given him both.

I was originally going to be doing the message on the topic of Drawing closer to the heart of God this week as a part of a new series entitled The Sacred Romance. We decided to shift the start of that series to after memorial day, and this Sunday, do a different topic. Jason, Dan and I spent time today putting together this Sunday's service, which includes a team-teaching that Jason and I are going to do on the irrational act of discipleship. We're going through the story of the disciples, a rag-tag group of guys who have been immortalized in stain glass, but in reality were a bunch of average joe's who somehow kept their eye on Jesus in the midst of doing and saying some dumb stuff. This should be a great message, and I'm looking forward to teaching with Jason. We have a good time up front and our relationship comes out in how we work together, based on doing youth ministry for the past two years.

It was a weekend of Birthday parties. We went out with Mark and Jen to celebrate Justin and Lori's birthday on Saturday. We had a great time at Mongolian Barbecue, to Starbucks, and then to see Dan/Buck Enterprises play a couple songs at a Skate festival they were playing at.

On Sunday we celebrated Jason's birthday, starting with luring Jason on stage under false pretenses about doing announcements only to have the whole church sing Happy Birthday to him. I shared with the church how much Jason loves a good hug (the man hates anyone invading his personal space in general). He estimates he got about 50 hugs that day. That night, we had a suprise party at our house under the guise of watching the Simpsons season finale. Matt & Anne, Ted & Sherri, Jess, Jason Monstrola, Nate and his wife, Meghan, Tim, Cathie, Myself and Will were there. When Jason walked, in, he got hit hard with Silly String, largely in the face and crotch. Typically when Silly String comes out of the can it turns into string. Not this stuff. It came out as propelled liquid goo that stuck to whatever it came into contact with. Not in a good way. It was a good time. We watched the final Simpsons episode and then watched a couple episodes of one of my favorite shows Wild Boyz.

We're starting a new series next Sunday called The Sacred Romance, Drawing Closer to the Heart of God. I'm doing the first message in the series, which is a stretch for me. I've done brief teachings during our Sunday service and longer stuff for the kids in our youth group, but never the whole 30+ minute message on Sunday. The topic I'm doing is one that I'm very passionate about, which is the reason I was asked, and probably the only reason I'd agree to do it. It's probably something I'll thrash on most of the week trying to make sure I've got it down. I started doing a mind-map of the subject, trying to visually lay out what I'm going to talk about, which helps. I don't think it'll be great, but it probably won't suck either.

What an amazing storm yesteday. I called it an early day yesterday we headed out to go see Shrek 2. On the way to pick up Nate this huge storm came through and a huge tree (five foot in diameter) came crashing down 100 feet in front of us on the road. After seeing Shrek, we went to Chucky Cheese and then just hung out afterwards. We've got a pretty laid back weekend, which is nice after being gone for five days.

It looks like I'm home all next week. Cathie and Madeline leave on Thursday night to go to Chicago with Cathie's mom. They're going to hit American Girl and the Miracle Mile.

We're taking the kids to go see Shrek 2 this afternoon.

I got into Chicago about 5AM this morning, took a cab to my hotel and then crashed until about 10:30. I had meetings all day and we're going out to dinner. I've got my senior leadersihp team meeting through Thursday and then I fly out thursday afternoon. Think we're going to take the kids out of school on Friday as a suprise and go see Shrek.

Great article: Vaseline Man Can't Slip Cops about a man who covered his hotel room with 14 jars of vaseline, and then himself.

Erik Larson turned me on to this cool app - the
Google Deskbar. It's a google search bar that lives on your Windows XP Toolbar and pops up a window with results. Cool interface, very efficient.

I got up around 5AM this morning, worked out and had some grueling meetings all day long - contract negotiations fry me. Afterwards I went over to Fisherman's Wharf for some fresh seafood. I'm sitting at the airport waiting to fly out at 11:30 PM PST.

So I flew out to San Francisco on United today.  The plane was huge and much nicer than Northwest, but I got pimped on the meals.  Maybe I haven’t flown coach for a while, but they charged me $10 for lunch on the plane.  And as always happens, O’Hare stuck it to me.  We ended up sitting on the Tarmac for an hour and a half before taking off, on-top of the 4 ½ hour flight we had in front of us.
On the flight, I watched the movie Final Destination.  Bad movie overall, but it starts out with this horrible plane crash scene.  Looking out my hotel room right now, I can see the sun setting behind Treasure Island and the Golden Gate Bridge.  It’s really beautiful.

I'm reading a bunch of books in parallel right now:

Traveling Mercies : Some Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott is a bunch of related stories about her journey of faith that are really well told, kinda feeling like you're sitting down having a beer with her hearing them.


The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive
by Patrick Lencioni is a parable that teaches some great business acumen. By putting it in the form of a story, the concepts stick with me way better than reading it in a dry academic way. Great book, part of a series of three.


The Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer to the Heart of God by Brent Curtis & John Eldredge. I read this book 7 or 8 years ago and it rocked my world and my faith. It opened up my eyes to living the Christian Faith from my heart instead of a bunch of tips and techniques to happy living. It gave me a new set of eyes to view my relationship with God, seeing myself in a whole new light. Figured I'd read it again.


Managing The Professional Service Firm by David H. Maister. This is pretty dry and academic, but it's helping me think through my new job a little more strategically instead of just responding to things as they're thrown at me. I'm really trying to focus and prioritize what I'm doing, and needed something to help me get a better handle on things. David Maister's love for himself comes across in this book. Our company had brought him in to do a workshop around professional services and his self-love came through at that workshop as well.

I need some fiction to throw in there right now. I've got the new Vince Flynn book on order at the library. Any suggestions?

I'm flying out to San Francisco later this afternoon. Since I'm Gold Elite on Northwest, I've been upgraded to First Class this year on every flight except one. For this flight, I'm on United. The next closest flight on Northwest was $1,300 more, which I couldn't justify. I was really hoping to get Northwest because of my flight schedule: I fly out today, I've got an 11:25PM flight tomorrow night from San Fran to Chicago, which gets me in at 5:00 AM. That gives me a few hours to get to my hotel and sleep before my meetings in the afternoon. I fly back on Thursday.

The nice thing about all the plane time is that I'm able to crank through a lot of back-emails. I've got about 400 that I need to sort through.

Ya gotta read/watch Will Ferrel's commencement speech given at Harvard. Funniest part (stolen from Noel's Blog). Read it here. Watch it here (Forward to 1hr 25min).

So my gift to you, Class of 2003, is to tell you about the real world through my eyes, through my experiences. And I'm sorry, but I refuse to sugarcoat it. I ain't gonna do it. And I probably shouldn't use the word "ain't" during this day in which we celebrate education. But that's just the way I play it, Homes.

Graduates, if you will indulge me for a moment, let me paint a picture of what it's like out there. The last four or, for some of you, five years you've been living in a fantasyland, running around, talking about Hemingway, or Clancy, or, I don't know, I mean whatever you read here at Harvard. The Novelization of the Matrix, I don't know. I don't know what you do here.

But I do know this. You're about to enter into a world filled with hypocrisy and doublespeak, a world in which your limo to the airport is often a half-hour late. In addition to not even being a limo at all; often times it's a Lincoln Towncar. You're about to enter a world where you ask your new assistant, Jamie, to bring you a tall, non-fat latte. And he comes back with a short soy cappuccino. Guess what, Jamie? You're fired. Not too hard to get right, my friend.

A world where your acting coach, Bob Leslie-Duncan -- yes, the Bob Leslie-Duncan -- tells you time and time again that you will never, ever be considered as a dramatic actor because you don't play things real, and are too over the top. Amazing! Simply amazing!

I'm sorry, graduates. But this is a world where you aren't allowed to use your cell phone in airplanes, during live theater, at the movies, at funerals, or even during your own elective surgery. Apparently, the Berlin Wall went back up because we now live in Russia. I mean just try lighting up a cigar in a movie theater or paying for a dinner for 20 friends with an autograph. It ain't that easy. Strong words, I know. Tough talk. But more like tough love. Because this is where my faith in you guys comes into play, Harvard University's graduating Class of 2003, without a doubt, the finest, most talented group of sexual beings this great land has to offer.

Thursday night I went out to see Van Helsing with Will and Mark. The big mistake here was going to the 9:45 PM showing. The movie was good, well, what what I saw was good. I slept through at least an hour of the 2hr 25min movie. Ever time I woke up, there was another action scene. Good, cheezy comic book type action, bad acting, but a fun movie. Sure beat seeing the Punisher.

Interesting article dealing with the fact that this is one of the first movies or books in a long time that shows the Catholic church as a positive force in the world, instead of focusing on them being a corrupt conspiracy.

We had Madeline's dance recital today. Tickets were $10 each... What a racket. The thing was TWO HOURS long and had at least 30 different groups of kids doing their numbers in different costumes. Other than seeing Madeline do her dance, the best part of the recital was when a group of 40-something moms came out on stage dressed as Indians and did a hip-hop dance. Will and I were sitting next to each other holding our hands over our mouths and shaking uncontrolably as we watched them do a dance-off against a group of 10 year old girls dressed like cowboys to the song "Cherokee People". Apparently, this is how the west was really won - through competive dance between the cowboys and indians.

I got a chance to go mountain biking yesterday for the first time this year. It was a little muddy, but beautiful. Great day for it and it felt good. I met a friend of mine who happens to be a co-worker of mine (Bill) at the trail, we rode and talked and then had lunch.

I just got back from seeing the movie Van Helsing. Will, Mark and I went to the 9:45 showing. Mistake. I literally slept through 75% of the movie. The parts I did see were pretty over the top. In a bad way.

I went to high school with this guy. This is an interview with Rob Bell, pastor of Mars Hill, the church my brother Jon goes to in Grand Rapids.

Cathie and I went out on a date last night. We went to P.F. Chang's for dinner and then to see the movie Mean Girls. Great movie about a home schooled girl who is brought into public school and has to deal with a totally new world. Hilarious movie, written by Tina Fey of Saturday Night Live fame. Kinda reminded me of the movie Heathers, but not quite as Dark.

THis is a really interesting interview with Madeline L'Engle, who wrote the A wrinkle in time series. She has a unique perspective on stuff. I don't agree with it all, but her personality comes through in the interview.

We had our big Survivor season finale party last night. Every survivor season we have a group of friends come over every Thursday night. This season included: Cathie, Myself, Jason S, Tim, Phil, Meghan, Jess, Will, Anne, Matt, Katie, Jason M and Sheri as the regular attenders. We're really not that big of survivor fans. We spend most of the time mocking the show, rewinding, pausing and finding humerous stuff here and there. The best part of it is hanging out together each week. People show up around 8:30, eat and talk for about half an hour, watch the show eventually, watch another show (Wild Boys, I want a new face, or Viva La Bam) talk some more and then call it a night around 11.

We had a big thunderstorm last night so we let Emily sleep in our room. When we came up to bed, we found Emily looking like E.T. - surrounded by her stuffed animals.

I'm in town all week! No travel. When I'm around on Mondays I try and work in Madeline's kindergarden class. Today I got a chance to plant Lima beans with the kids. We made it fun. It's great in small doses, but I'm not sure how Sheri, their teacher does it ALL DAY LONG. I'd go nuts. She's got some tough kids in there and she has amazing patience with them.

This is a great application called EvilLyrics. Not sure why it's called what it is, but here's how it works. As you play songs your media player of choice (WinAmp, Windows MediaPlayer, iTunes or or MusicMatch), the application automatically pulls up the related lyrics, does guitar chords, album cover art, amazon information, and lyrical meanings.

I'm in the middle of reading two different books: Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World by Henri J. M. Nouwen and The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive by Patrick M. Lencioni.

Life of the beloved has been a tough read for some reason. A couple friends have raved about the book, but I can't get into it. It's some great broad concepts, but nothing yet that jumps out at me or connects to me.

The Four Obsessions is a great book, of three written by Leciconi, all told in a parable form, which for me, helps the concepts stick a little easier. This particular book tells the story of two executives and an individual who works for both and contrasts the impact of these four obsessions between the two different leaders.

I've got the new Vince Flynn book Memorial Day on order at the library. I need some good fiction reading.

I'm still in Kansas City, coming home this afternoon on the 3:30 direct flight. It's beautiful down here, 90 degrees with very little humidity. Madeline went to the Doctor on Monday and was diagnosed with strep throat. I've now got a sore throat and I'm assuming the worst. It looks like I'm home all next week and I can't wait. I gave up a customer entertainment event at the Indy 500 in order to have a complete week without travel and I had to push back on an overnight trip to California,k but so far, so good.

This is nuts. A construction worker had six nails driven into his head in an accident with a high-powered nail gun, but doctors said Wednesday they expect him to make a full recovery.

I went to see the movie The Punisher tonight with a couple of guys from work. I was looking for a mindless movie that wouldn't require much thinking. I ended up dumber for having seen the movie. I was a big fan of the comic book growing up, but this didn't capture the spirit of the comic book, plus the acting bad. John Travolta's acting was horrible to the point of it being funny

This video is hilarious. The dubbing is seamless.

For everyone in my ELP class who uploaded their pictures, I've posted the pictures here.

I'd been travelling quite a bit and doing a horrible job of balacing my priorities. Actually, I was doing a decent job of balancing all of them but my family. I was fitting them in in tiny little chunks whenever it was convienent. Even when I was talking to them, I was only half way there, checking e-mail, with the TV on - Continuous Partial Attention. When I got back, I found that Cathie and I were horribly disconnected. We had a talk that was pretty painful (for me) to realize what I'd been doing. Last week when I travelled, I decided to put Cathie and the kids first - chunking off a big block of time where I turned off the TV, my laptop and just spent time with Cathie and the kids, on the phone. What a difference in our connection when I got back.

This past week has blown. I've had stuff blow up at work, with close friends and in my church. Thankfully, Cathie and I worked through our stuff last week. I was tapped by the end of yesterday. Spent the past two mornings reading through Isaiah 40:
Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

Jason and I have had a number of discussions about whether there was any redeeming value in Tarantino's Kill Bell series. Jeffrey Overstreet's review of Kill Bill - Vol. 1 and Vol. 2:
The moral drama, the choices and the consequences, the speeches about identity—unlike the violence, these are presented in all seriousness in order to get us thinking more than other genre pics usually do.

Life will go on. The voices of the Simpson's have been resigned!:
The actors who provide the voices for Homer, Bart and the rest of the cartoon stars of Fox TV's "The Simpsons" will return to work this week with twice as much "D'oh" in their pockets, having won a new contract collectively valued at $33 million a year.

The first concert I ever saw was Jefferson Starship in Lansing, MI when I was in 6th grade. Turns out, I shouldn't bothered. This article in USA Today claims the album 'We Built This City' ranks as the worst record ever