Long time, No see

I met up with a friend of mine who was in town for the week to grab a cup of coffee. I'll call him Paco. I hadn't seen him in probably a year, but he's one of those friends that when you sit down with, you immediately connect with again. Paco has seen some pretty tough times in his life and had pretty everything taken away from him. He's a guy who is wired to encourage others and some times needs to be encouraged, and I've been had the privilege of being one of those people for him.

We met at the Panera, the sight of some pretty painful meetings in the past as we'd navigated some tough times together over cups of coffee. Even though life keeps throwing my friend some pretty crazy curve-balls, I've seen Paco go through huge growth through it all. He's more grounded in his identity and his relationship with God than I've ever seen him. He's at peace with who he is called to be and how he is wired up. As he shared with me some tough times that he and his family are experiencing, I laughed and told him that if I were him and had read my blog posts about my struggles to get my Northwest Elite status, the first words out of my mouth would be "F@## Dave Kurt and his Northwest status".

We sat there talking for 2 1/2 hours about our lives, our jobs, our careers and our families. At one point Pedro spoke some words to me that caught me completely off guard, made my lip quiver, shut me up and brought me to tears. I don't want to share it here, but it was one of those things that I will lock away in my heart forever. I left my meeting with Paco with this feeling in my chest that I can't describe, but his words were this huge gift, maybe one of the best I'll receive all Christmas (except for the hand-painted piece of wood from my kids). I wanted to write this all down because it was such a huge deal for me, I wanted to share it in part and also capture it so that in five years I can go back and revisit. Writing it down, I'm not sure that it was something that could really be shared without being in my head.

Musicals

Cathie, Maddie, Em and I went to see the musical Wicked last night at the Detroit Opera House. It was Cathie's second time seeing it and my first time. Cathie had gotten the tickets from a friend and they were a bit high up in the balcony (fifth row from the back).

I really liked the Wicked. If you've never seen Wicked, it's the back story around the Witches and a bunch of other characters in the Wizard of Oz. I liked the music, but even more than that the story and how they linked it with The Wizard of Oz. The story and the mood of the whole thing was fun. Cathie and I were ranking the different musicals we'd seen and here's my list:

1. Les Miserables - My all time favorite. I don't think anything will ever take this off the top of the list. I love the music and the story in this more than all the others combined.
2. Rent
3. Wicked
4. Lion King
5. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
6. Cats
   
7. Phantom of the Opera
8. Moving Out
9. Miss Saigon
10. Chorus Line
    

Chore Chart

When I was growing up, we used to have our family cleaning day after school on Friday. We'd all kick in, take a few chores and clean the house with my Mom. In addition to that, we had different jobs like emptying the dishwasher, clearing and setting the table. Occasionally, I'd open my yapper one to many times and get an extra batch of chores, like cleaning the kitchen for a month after dinner. In hindsight, I learned to clean and do it right. It doesn't mean I liked it, or that I love cleaning now, but at least I know how.

I had a roommate in college who had no clue. I remember one time I came into the kitchen to find three feet of suds coming out of the dishwasher like something out of bad Brady Bunch episode. It turns out he had filled it with dish soap instead of dish-WASHER soap. Another time I walked into the bathroom in my socks and slipped on my butt. It turns out he had cleaned the bathroom floor with lemon pledge, turning the tile into slippery glass.

A few months ago we instituted a formal chore system. We'd been pretty inconsistent with jobs and how we had the kids doing their chores so we wanted to institute a little more structure in the whole process. After talking to a bunch of friends and family members, we had a family meeting and came up with our chores and agreed to the rules, putting together this Chore Chart that hangs on our fridge.

The first few weeks were a honeymoon period where they loved it. After that, it was a little bit tougher. We're still trying to tweak things, like changing the date and incorporating spot bonuses. We had a follow up meeting where the kid could change up their chores and it seemed to go pretty well.

Our hope is that we can get our kids to learn how to do the work, do it well and do it consistently as part of their participation in the family. I'd love to say that our kids are perfect and that we've been consistent, but I'd be lying. We're hoping that by going through the pain of this now, our kids develop the right work ethic in part due to this. Hopefully this is one of those things they look back on and thank us.

I am not the biggest loser. They are.

This is kind of cool. Our neighbors are on the upcoming season, starting January 6th, of The Biggest Losers. Ron and his son Mike will be on the show. The crew is here at 9am tomorrow to film some local footage. I'll likely walk around without a shirt and my torso painted green so that I'll be easy to spot in the show. More info in this article in the Grand Rapids Press.

The Dirty Mustache Dancers

My sister-in-law Kris put together this amazing video of The Dirty Mustache Dancers.

Let it Snow

We got a boatload of snow last night. Thankfully, I got a snow-blower, which was a tough decision. My Dad grew up on a farm with a farmer's worth ethic. His motto was, "Why would I need snow blower when I have three boys and a daughter who doesn't help much around the house?" Until now, I've lived the same motto, shoveling my driveway, even though I only have one son.

My wife explained that it seemed that everytime I traveled in the winter, it would snow and she would be stuck shoveling the driveway. My wife also tends to have a bad memory. This fall, I broke down and bought a snow-blower. Used. From Jeff's neighbor for $75. With today's snowfall, I was pretty happy with my decision.

Northwest Status & Job Stuff

I'm at the end of my travel year and as I'd mentioned earlier I'm still short on my NWA elite status tier by about 6,000 miles and 7 segments. I wrote Northwest a letter (which you can read here) looking for an exception. We'll see how that goes.

At the end of my life, I'm pretty sure Jesus is going to ask me this question: "Dave - about all that effort you put into your frequent flyer status: Still happy with that decision?"

This ended up being one of my slowest travel years in a long time, which I enjoyed. I talked earlier about my job change and where I stood with it. My new job will get me back to traveling full force.

I had a good heart to heart with my company's senior management that made me feel pretty good about how I'm being valued and where I'm going with the organization. As I've gotten to know my boss, I'm starting to get more and more excited about this year. I was able to negotiate getting a friend of mine that I'd hired 3 or 4 years ago back working for me, which is nice as well. I'm trying to take time off over the next couple of weeks during the holidays because I know things will be nuts starting in January. We've got a kick-off in Vegas, which should be a great time. I haven't been there since Willapalooza.

Why I like Delta

Northwest has begun it's merger with Delta airlines. 99% of what I fly is on Northwest, and this gives me a lot more options. Maybe it's the culture of Detroit rubbing off on Northwest, but I've always thought that for the most part, Northwest Airlines has the grumpiest flight attendants and gate agents around (except for Marge). Delta people seem to be much friendlier and willing to go the extra mile.

Here are some other positives and negatives about flying Delta:

• Have a bottle of water waiting for you when you get to your seat in first class. They also offer you a bottle of water for the road at the end of your flight.
• They have TVs in the back of the seats that have TV and HBO on demand.
• They let you pay for drinks on the plane with your American Express card.
• They offer you a snack in coach
• They let you turn on your portable electronics at 10,000 feet instead of waiting 20 minutes into the flight.
• They show the first class upgrade standby list up on the big screen
  

The only real advantage that Northwest has over Delta is that Northwest's mixed nuts have cashews and Delta just gives bags of peanuts.

Nothing on her plate can touch

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

Every year we've gone as a family on the Friday after Thanksgiving out to a tree farm to get a tree. For whatever reason, that didn't happen this year. I hung lights last week in the freezing cold and going out and hunting for a tree didn't sound too appealing. We'd even considered buying a fake tree for the first time ever just to avoid the hassle.

Yesterday we figured we had to get it done so we bit the bullet and went to a nearby tree lot. The trees were actually fairly nice and reasonably priced, but we didn't have the fun experience of tromping through the snow and mud to cut down the tree and bring it home.

The guy at the tree lot was a little old man who told us waaaaay more than we wanted to know about the trees, about watering them and securing them to your car. In between all of that, he was able to work in his view of the auto industry and how he had predicted this through his own personal research years ago. I refrained from telling him that he should have shorted the stock and made millions.

We got the the tree home and in the stand. We have this funky stand that I purchased years ago that has a single spike sticking out of it. The place we typically go to drills the tree for you and it all works beautifully. I tried to drill the hole myself and created way to big of a hole. The result was a tippy tree that had a tendency to topple. Today we'll hang the ornaments and start decorating the house.

Iraq: What I remember

Take 10 minutes and look through this set of memories on Iraq. Each picture has a caption describing the related memory. Cathie's Uncle posted these on Facebook recently and I was mesmerized going through them. The pictures are beautiful, but the combined with the description, they paint a really thoughtful view of what it's like over there.


I'd posted this last year when he got back from Iraq in a situation where he almost died and his friends did:

David had some amazing stories, but the one depicted by this piece of glass below was wild. The piece of glass on his mantle was the same piece in the picture in the lower left hand corner. He'd been in this vehicle with two others when they were hit. Only he and one other guy survived. The glass in this picture is about 4 inches thick and saved him.

Which is it? Sharpton or Rangel?

I was at Laguardia airport on Monday standing in the Elite line waiting to go through security when I noticed someone a few people in front of me. At first, I was pretty sure it was The Rev. Al Sharpton. I was reading the paper later on and came across an article on Senator Charlie Rangel.


Charlie vs. Al

Any ideas? Which is it?

Be the Change

Last week, Cathie participated in our local high school's "Challenge Day" (see the related article). Cathie is in the picture, on the far left middle.

Anyways, it was an all day gig where they brought together a disparate group of students to interact, addresses common issues including cliques, teasing, harassment, stereotypes, racism, bullying, violence, homophobia and other pressures, and teach the students to "Be The Change" by breaking down those barriers.

I talked to Cathie afterward and she loved it. I heard something in her voice I hadn't heard in a long time. Cathie used to work for Big Brothers/Big Sisters pairing up kids with mentors and this reminded her of how much she enjoyed that.

One of my very own kids from church, Katie Green, who happened to be the person who invited Cathie and I (I was traveling) to participate was quoted:

Green, who attended the program in the past, said this year's was the most intense yet, and "everyone was united by the end."

But she also knows that a one-day program isn't a sure fire solution. The students may act like they have changed for a short time, but for some of them, the old stereotypes come back into play.

That is where the Be The Change group comes in. Green and Roberts are two of the members in the group that takes pride in being leaders in the school.

"Convincing people is hard, but we want to keep this feeling going all year," Green said.

Becoming Gold

As I'd mentioned earlier on the plight of my travel statues, I'm fretting a bit about hitting Gold on Northwest. We can all discuss the pettiness and self-centeredness of this all in the big scheme of things, but that's another conversation. I'm stuck at 43 segments and Northwest has chosen to hose me.

Even though Northwest and Delta are merged together, they haven't merged their frequent flyer programs completely. There are two ways I can get to Gold - one being by earning 60 segments (everytime I get on a plane is one segment) and the other is by hitting 50,000 flight miles. I'm at 43 segments and just found out that my segments flown on Delta do not count. This is very bad news.

I looked at my options, one being to purchase a ticket to fly to Honolulu and back to earn the 10,000 miles I need. Being on a plane for 22 hours straight, not to mention the lay-overs is not all that enticing for me, unless i'm in a coma. The second option was to get the segments I need, which is only slightly less painful. I've got some travel for next week, and what could have been done in 3 segments, was booked in 8 separate segments (and I managed to save my company money in the process). It will be very painful, especially if there's any bad weather or delayed flights, but it will get me close. My past experiences of having tried this tell me that it's absolutely not worth it and I will be kicking myself half-way through the trip.

I talked to customer service at Northwest and they told me I've got a shot. Business travelers are the last ones that Northwest was to tick off, especially one like me that books most of his travel days or the week before. If I can get Northwest to recognize the 10 segments I flew on Delta this year, I should be in good shape. Once this dilemma is solved, i can move on to worry about more important things like poverty, orphans and social justice.

On a side note, I am very pleased to see Obama already throwing out some of his dumber campaign promises. I'm all for this kind of 'change'.

Big Old Plate of Will's Birthday Sushi

I am the walrus

No Idea

Steve Jobs Thinks You Are a Loser

This clip from the Simpsons is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time on the show. It mocks the typical Apple users blind love for Steve Jobs and all that apple sells, which is funny to me. Although I own several apple computers and an iPhone, I don't qualify as I run Linux, XP and Vista.

Date Night with Maddie

I'm a bad Dad, traveling during the 'Donuts with Dad' (aka 'Shame
parents into buying books from the book fair') event at their school.
Maddie and u went to our favorite Chinese place having our favorite
dish: General Tzo's Chicken.

Latest Emilyism

People that are Japanese like to kill whales. I learned that on Animal Planet when I was watching the show Whale Wars.