Nate: "Dad, why is that guy on the kick-off team named Gay?"Later on the kick-return when Nate was about to tackle me with the same player.
Me: "No idea."
Nate: "Look Dad, I'm gay."
Me: "Wow."
Emily: "Mom, if you're going make me clean my room then I'm going to sleep in this box."
Cathie: "You're going to sleep in a box? Ok."
Emily: "Mom, if you make my clean my room, I'm going to be sad and wear this box on my head the whole time."
Cathie: "Ok. You can be sad and wear a box on your head. Just as long as your room gets clean."
Addressing the graduating class of emory university, tom brokaw said: You have been hearing all of your life that this occasion is a big step into what is called the real world. What, you may ask, is that real world all about? What is this new life? Ladies ahttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifnd gentlemen of the class of 2005 at Emory, real life is not college; real life is not high school. Here is a secret that no one has told you: Real life is junior high.
The world that you’re about to enter is filled with junior high adolescent pettiness, pubescent rivalries, the insecurities of 13-year-olds, and the false bravado of 14-year-olds. 40 years from now, I guarantee it: You will still make a silly mistake every day. You will have temper tantrums and you’re feelings will be hurt for some trivial sleight. You’ll say something dumb at the wrong time. And you will wonder at least once a week, “Will I ever grow up?” You can change that. In your pursuit of your passions, always be young. In your relationship with others, always be grown-up. Set a standard, and stay faithful to it.
tom brokaw, emory university commencement address
A recent survey shows most Americans are uncomfortable going more than a day without the internet; online activity also lessens the amount of time people spend having sex and socializing with friends face-to-face.
Cathie had small group last night and decided to get dressed up in this fancy pants-suit, complete with swank ear-rings, shoes and boob-shaped-purse. Her friends had gotten her this nifty outfit for her 37th birthday, figuring she should start dressing her age.
We left on Saturday morning for our fifth annual Xerox guy's weekend. We started five years ago with a local group of guys who worked together, heading up to my friend Bill's place to wake-board, eat, drink and golf. We've now got it to the point where people fly in from all around the country. We're a team that all work virtually, many of us who've worked together as long as 13 years. This is a time to get together to just hang out, have fun and solve the company's problems.
Newton flew in from Alabama and apparently brought his wife's pretty flowered suitcase. Bill continued his role as the the grill-master as we ate like kings with a giant beef-brisket. Today we're heading out to golf, eat and hang out some more.
We kicked off the year with a huge crowd at our first Chaos meeting, over half of the kids being brand new sixth graders, who I think a blast. Being their first Chaos meeting, they got to pick from the box of crap, which is a collection of dollar store junk that they seem to love. One of the 6th grade guys picked out a set of decorative plastic nut cups. He held on to these the rest throughout the meeting, including in our small group breakout time. In our guys small group, we were talking about the types of things you have to leave behind to follow Jesus where one of the kids shared the obvious thing: nut cups.The boys were wetting themselves laughing at this idea and every time anyone said 'nut cups', the guys kept laughing harder and harder. Every time I used the words "nut cups" they assumed I had no idea why it should be funny. That's the beauty of having a sixth grade sense of humor.
While I was waiting for my Dad, I called Mike to find out where to eat. I brougt him a free lunch of some nasty chinese food and I ended up visiting his house so I could see his new pool. I'm pretty sure he loves it more than Jesus.
Poor, poor Eli. I have embarrassed both him and his family. As usual, Eli was crushed by me in this past weekend's fantasy football league 165 to 123. Eli is the consummate football fan who understands the game inside and out and knows all of the stats off the top of his head. This makes it even more humiliating for him to lose to a novice like myself, a guy who can barely spell football. As a side note, my brother Dan is embarrassing the family with his beating from the Rays family, 198 to 120. Eli could have beaten him, I guess.
Wow. Bad year to be a Michigan fan. I smiled watching my alma-mater Michigan State defeat Bowling Green and saw Michigan get trounced by Oregon. These stats on ESPN were fun to look at. Since MSU has historically started strong over the past few years, enough to get my hopes up, and then tank in the second half - I need to enjoy this while it lasts.
Nate's team played Hartland today and lost 0-15. The team played really well, but got off to a slow start in the first few minutes when Hartland had a couple of big plays and scored quickly. The team played well after the first five minutes but had a tight time scoring due to a few turn-overs. At least they played better than University of Michigan (but then again, so did the 3rd and 4th graders who played before Nate's team). (This picture resulted in an incomplete catch, and the pass-interference on Nate wasn't called).
Nate had strained his achilles tendon in a scrimmage on Thursday and I didn't think he was going to better by today. After a ton of ice and steady ibuprofen for a couple of days, I was pretty impressed that he was ready to play today. He's got two guys out right now with busted ankles, so keeping everyone healthy is the challenge right now.Nate keeps getting more and more comfortable out there and continues to love it. He's still playing mostly at cornerback but got a chance to play on offense today as well for the first time, playing tight-end. 
In some circles, my friend Bill is known as The Sausage King of Chicago. The man loves sausage. Bill was adamant that I try his sausage dish last night. My friend Greg loves the sausage as well and was also trying to force feed me.
Amanda Eileen Haase was born at 8:48 am September 5, 2007 to our good friends Ted and Sherry Haase. She is 7 lbs 13 oz and 19 inches long. Thankfully she only has her father's hair, yet her mother's looks, personality, demeanor and temper. Ted will not let her date until after she has graduated from college. Her big brother Ethan is thrilled to have a baby sister to look after. He'll be bossing her around in no time, if he's anything like his Dad (which we're praying he isn't).
I asked Ted if he'd thought through all of the nicknames with Amanda (I'm looking for Amanda Hug-n-kiss) and he hadn't. Sad.
Our friend Sherry Haase is delivering their baby today. Ted, her husband, I'm sure, has been harassing the doctors to no end. If they're smart, they'll drug him.
My did a fantastic job cooking the pork tenderloin today. Instead of cooking the moisture out, he took it off at the right time and it was delicious.
On her way out, Monaca thanked my Dad;
"Thank you for the best pork ever."
The girls (and my Dad) sat around looking through Monaca's wedding scrapbook. This is a book of pictures of pictures of ideas she wants for her wedding. Will LOVES looking at this book. The men chose instead to shove firecrackers up our butts and squat over an hibachi.
Will and Monaca were very, very late today to my Dad's labor day party. Will very much appreciated the 27 calls he received on the way, including the one telling him that my dad required a bottle of 18 year old single malt scotch to make up for it (pictured here).
We were going through a collection of papers my Mom had saved over the years. We came across this letter from Supreme Court Judge Clarance Thomas. I'm pretty sure it had a pubic hair on it. (I thought this was so funny I told this same joke 5 times)
Em and Maddie kept coming down tonight after they'd already been tucked in. They were told that the next time they came down they'd get a spanking. 20 minutes later Em came down with a big 'ol grin on her face and a book shoved down the back of her pants.
I'd told the kids the story of how I'd done something similar to my Dad when I was a kid, except my Dad didn't know about the book before he'd given the spanking - and he used his bare hand. I probably shouldn't share the stories of how I tried to rappel out my window as a kid using a rope attached to my dresser.
On Sundays we have a pretty informal time. During Joe's message we break out and meet in a medium size group. We spend time checking in on what's going on, what movies we've seen and often have a question of the day (today's was an easy one: "What's your favorite cereal") and give the kids a chance to introduce themselves. We do a lot of laughing, connecting and occasionally learn some stuff - not all bible related. Today we got on the subject of how soy products give you really bad gas and talked about the time where John F. Kennedy told Germany that they are all Jelly Donuts. We also touched on the story where the prophet Elisha had God maul a bunch of kids for making fun of his bald head. (Seriously, it's in the bible in 2 Kings 2). The composition of this group is so cool. Two of the kids in the group I've known since the day they were born and a couple others since they were a few years old. Some of the kids who sat in this same circle with me in sixth grade come back and hang as well. The high schoolers come with us periodically and are so cool to the junior high kids, which seems to be such a rarity in the real world and such a cool thing to witness first hand.
You may sense my excitement as you're reading this. I just noticed it. Frankly, it took me by surprise. I've been so busy in life with work stuff and family stuff that Fusion starting up took me by surprise. I've been doing junior high youth ministry for about 12 years. I started doing it with a group of parents: Brad, Sue and Nicki - all who became very close friends of mine. Our leaders now consist of our old youth group kids, which I love. They still come to church and sit in the circle. Today we spent a few minutes laughing about what they were like in sixth grade, which was funny for the new sixth graders to hear about these college students being equally weird way back when.
Have you ever had one of those where all of the elements are just right and you want to lock it in your brain like a snapshot? This was one of those moments. We went out last night to celebrate Cathie's 37th birthday with the Girards, Niemis and Schultzs. We went to the Zuki Lake Tavern for dinner and setup on the upper deck. The weather was prefect, it smelled like the lake, we were laughing and having a great time, Eli and I were splitting a bucket of ice cold Corona beers and Jimmy Buffett's Son of a Son of a Sailor was playing. It was a perfect summer day.
