Day 864: Grayson & Skype

There are three things in this world that amaze me: Grayson, Gilliam, and Computers.  And what’s even more amazing is how they all interact together.    

My father worked for IBM most of my life and our first personal computer was introduced into our home when I was 4 years old.  I was trained on DOS and I never had a computer with Windows until I was… I want to say I was in high school.  Probably high school.  I remember running a Bulletin Board System in Middle School on a DOS based 386 Clone with a 10 Megebyte hard drive and a 14.4 baud dial-up modem… all of this before the internet took off. 

Needless to say… when it comes to computers I have mad skills.  Well, not really.  I’m pretty rusty.  When I left computers to peruse theatre I got behind the eight-ball.  Technology moves FAST!  However, some things haven’t changed… like problem solving on a computer is still the same.  It’s logical… and with a basic understanding of hardware and software you can fix most issues.

So… I started playing on computers when I was 4.  BUT, I was probably eight before I started using it by myself… and even then it was only to play ‘Montezuma’s Revenge’, ‘Bruce Jenner’s Decathlon’, ‘Pac Man’, and ‘Tetris’.

And now… Grayson is 4… and how is he using the computer?  Well… he’s called me on Skype all by himself a couple times.  So… I think he’s doing pretty good.  Lol! 

Now, don’t get m wrong, we don’t really give Grayson unsupervised computer time.  We always cue up the things he likes to do: watch Scooby-Doo episodes on youtube, play games on PBS Kids.org, play Disney’s ‘Club Penguin’, and hooked on phonics.  That’s about it… but over past couple years his confidence with the computer has increased and he’s really good with a mouse and the touch pad. 

And now that he’s calling me on Skype, I am simply amazed and proud.  Well… truthfully, he’s not really calling me as he is calling me back.  You see a few times I’ve tried to call and no one answered.  Then a few minutes later I get a call… this is pretty normal regardless of who is calling me… with two kids how could you ever expect Serena to get to the phone on time?  But, a few times when the answer, I only see Grayson.  “Hi dad, mom and Gilliam are in the kitchen making dinner.  Wait a minute, I can’t see you, can you see me?”

“I can see you buddy… do you know how to turn on the video do you can see me?”

“Yeah, I know.”  And then I watch him looking at the screen very thoughtfully… I see his wheels turning… and then… his eyes light up with excitement.

“I see you!  Hi dad!  I was just watching ‘The Cat in the Hat’ and then you called!  So I called you back.”

It’s a warm feeling.

Day 863: Stay At Home Because You’re Well Day

Sweet Lord in heaven!  It’s ‘Stay At Home Because You’re Well Day! 

Listen folks, I’m a big believer in taking mental health days.  And your mental health is just as important as your physical health!  Do you have sick days accumulated?  Take one.  Don’t go crazy… but taking one sick day when you’re healthy from time to time can be refreshing.  But do it in the middle of the week.  Don’t do it on a Monday or a Friday… if you play hooky to extend you weekend you should take annual leave.  I’m talking about mental health sick day.  Those should be islands of time… taken on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.

Better yet, pull your kids out of school for the day to stay home with you!  It’s just for one day; they’re not going to fall behind.

Sometimes you just need a day at home or a special day with your kids.  Playing hooky with your kids is the foundation for some great memories.  You can go see a movie with your kids anytime, but I guarantee they’ll always remember the time took off work to take them.  ;)

Oh, and take advantage of today because ‘Stay At Home Because You’re Well Day’ is on a Tuesday.  Celebrating it this year will be a lot more fun than celebrating it in 2013 and 2014, trust me… no one needs to play hooky on the weekend. 

Day 862: Movie Map…

I’m from ‘Deliverance’… where are you from little piggy?

Day 861: The ‘Truthiness’ of Santa Claus

As a parent, Santa Claus seems to be quite the funny character.  Now, I’m not talking about encouraging our children to sit on a strangers lap… or asking our kids to except the idea of that stranger entering our home while we sleep… or even enabling a man who is clearly a diabetic… or well on his way to becoming one by leaving him cookies. No, those are the ‘norms’ of Santa Claus we’ve learned to accept… what I’m talking about is the ‘truthiness’ of Santa Claus. 

 I see many of my friends struggling with the idea of introducing the concept of Santa Claus to their kids and their issues usually stem from two different arguments:

“I don’t want to lie to my kids; I want them to trust me.”

“Why should I give all the credit to some fat dude in a red suit?  I bought the gift, my kids should thank me.”

Now, I understand where both arguments are coming from… but I don’t agree with either. 

First, I don’t’ believe Santa Claus is a lie.  Is he an over marketed embellishment of the truth?  Yes.  A lie?  No.  St. Nicholas was a very real person.  He was a priest who pioneered a way to make Christmas more accessible to our children.    And frankly, making religion more accessible is a good thing, right?  One of the key ways this is accomplished is by reenacting traditions.  And the tradition of St. Nicholas giving gifts is an excellent way to open a dialogue regarding the true meaning of the day.  The legend of Santa Claus is simply an evolution (or intelligent design) of St. Nicholas.  Asking our kids to believe in him isn’t a lie… because his spirit of generosity was and still is a very real thing.

Second, why shouldn’t we get the credit for buying our kids Christmas presents?  It’s our money, right?  Well… for those of you who feel this way... I think I should remind you of something.  Christmas isn’t about you.  It’s not about Santa Claus or St. Nicholas either.  You know what it’s about.  Christmas is different.  If you really want to get all the credit for gift giving, why not choose a different day?  There are 364 other options.

For me, the beauty of Santa Claus is that he’s both a tool and a lesson in humility.  Being able to give anonymously without a ‘thank you’ is something we should all do more often.  And who is more special and dear to our hearts and deserving of an anonymous gift than our own children?  Without Santa Claus, this act would be impossible… and the joy and excitement on my boys faces Christmas morning is all the credit I need… and it’s all the credit I should ask for.

I just wish adults still believed in Santa Claus… but you know what?  I bet they do believe in one way or another.  As I said before, the spirit of generosity is very much alive… and Santa Claus is an excellent tool for giving anonymously.  Do you have a friend or a neighbor having a tough year?  I bet you do. 

Send them a gift… nothing expensive… something simple… just something that says ‘I care’.  And sign it ‘From: Santa’. 

Trust me, you don’t need the credit… and it will be worth it.

Day 860: ‘Microfundraising’, A Lesson in Following Through With a Good Idea

While enjoying a frosty cold adult beverage with Jimbo, my brother-in-law, almost five years ago, we were overtaken with a moment of inspiration.  What started as a funny thought quickly rolled into a way to revolutionize fundraising at a school/non-profit and small business venture level. 

Our idea started simply enough, “What if we could get every American to give us a quarter.”  Sure, some might call that panhandling… but what is fundraising?  What is soliciting venture capital?  Call it what you will… but it’s all panhandling.  Not everyone with a great idea has access to the big fish that has the money to invest… some times; people only have access to loose change… and the idea of giving away loose change is something most American’s can live with, thus, our idea of ‘microfundraising’ was born: solicit little from a big pool, rather than lots from a small pool. 

We quickly abandoned our idea of building a website to soliciting quarters for our own personal gain… because…  well… because we couldn’t figure out how to accomplish two things:

1. Why would people come to our site?

2. Why would people be compelled enough to give us a quarter?

So, our idea quickly morphed into something a little bit bigger in hopes to generate more web traffic:  Create a website where other people who are in need of money/capital could solicit quarters… people wanting to get out of debt, make a movie, travel around the world in 80s, or buy all new musical instruments for their high school band.

Then, to answer the question, “why would people be compelled to give’?” we turned our idea into a competition for status and prizes.  Because as we all know… people like status and prizes.    Give more, win more.

Well… as most seemingly interesting ideas steaming from a couple of beers, it didn’t go very far.  We didn’t really get any further than registering a domain address… although Jimmy and I had a fair amount of experience designing websites, neither of us had the skills to design the type of site we mapped out… and we couldn’t afford to hire someone to do it for us… we were living in a proverbial Catch-22.  However, I’ve kept the idea in the back of my head for when I had the capital and time to invest.

So… why am I telling you this?  Am I just giving a good idea away?  Not really.

You see, a few weeks ago Time magazine published an article profiling the 50 greatest inventions of the last 10 years.  The 3^rd invention profiled is only a year and a half old… and it’s called www.kickstarter.com.  And it’s pretty much the same idea Jimmy and I came up with five years ago.  And after doing a little more research, there is already, at least, four copycat sites that have popped up.  So… it’s safe to say the market is saturated.  Although… none of them are doing quite like I had envisioned. ;)

Now I know how Nikola Tesla felt.  DANG YOU MARCONI!

Day 859: The Christmas Bicycle

For all of my readers that have kids… have you ever stopped and thought about how different your parents treat your kids’ verses how they treated you growing up?  I’m mainly talking about presents… and if you’re tempted to reflect on this difference, I would advise against it.

This whole Grandparent spoiling thing is very new to me.  Simply put, my Grandparents weren’t in the position to spoil.  I am one, of about, twenty-eight grandchildren on my mother’s sides and one, of about, twenty-three grandchildren on my father’s side… my Grandparents would have needed to be multi-millionaires to spoil their grandbabies… and they certainly weren’t millionaires.  Now, to their credit, both sets of Grandparents were really good about treating their grandbabies equal… so none of us were spoiled… at least to the best of my knowledge.  I really have no idea.  My grandparents were from Baltimore and I grew up in Atlanta.  Shady things could have happened.

 Anyway, this year for Christmas my parents decided to get Grayson a new bike.  It had been on our list of things to get him and my parents volunteered.  Awesome!  Santa can now focus on getting Grayson the Millennium Falcon instead!  (Shhh… don’t tell anyone).

But then… then I started thinking about the time my parents bought me a new bicycle.  I’m pretty sure I was in the fifth grade… or there abouts.

Growing up I had inherited my dad’s childhood bicycle.  It was yellow… made of steel… and it had cement tired.  I remember riding that bike most of my childhood.  At some point, my brother got his first 10 speed.  I don’t remember if he bought it himself or if my parents bought it… but all I remember is inheriting my brothers old dirt bike.  Now, I should point out… my brother is six years older than me and when I inherited his bike… it was too big for me and really beat up… and the yellow cement monster was too small for me... and really beat up.  But, I had no other options. 

Finally, somehow, I wore down my parents and they agreed to buy me a new bike… which turned into such a long and odd ordeal that, if I had known, I would have kept the yellow beast.

Over the course of the next week, my father took me to every bike shop in the Atlanta Metro area.  The quest was less about finding the bike I wanted and more about finding out what my options were within the price range my father was willing to spend.  I can’t blame him really… but he tried to hide his frugality by claiming the process was a ‘learning experience’ for me.  This was the first of many epically long ’learning experiences’ my father drug me on.

Now, my father is a very smart and shrewd business man… but when the ‘right’ bike turns out to the $80.00 6-Speed we saw in the ‘Toys R Us’ Sunday circular before setting foot in a single store… the only lesson I’m ‘learning’ is how valuable my time is.

And I still think it was odd for my father to take me to ‘Toys R Us’ to buy the bike, talk a stock boy into putting the bike together, and then leave me with the guy in the ‘Toys R Us’ warehouse to ‘learn how to build a bicycle’ while he left to run other errands.

So, yeah… they ordered Grayson’s bike sight unseen off Amazon.  Then again… we all know it’s the Grandma’s that spoil our kids.  ;)

BTW: To all of my Baha’i friends, I wish you a very peaceful ‘Day of the Convenant’!

Day 858: A Hungry-Man Thanksgiving

Well folks, I’m still not 100% sure how I’m going to spend my Thanksgiving Holiday today.  On Halloween I felt a slight twinge of loneliness… after all it was Gilliam’s first Halloween.  So now, here we are.  Thanksgiving… and I’m feeling a little more melancholy.  Today is a day that I can feel every painful minute of the last four (plus) months I’ve been away.

Prior to today, I have spent one Thanksgiving away from family… but that was back in college.  I was in rehearsals for a show and didn’t have the time to drive home so my roommates and I hosted an ‘orphans’ thanksgiving for a bunch of our friends and professors.  But college is a different animal.  College is a time when you’re trying to claim your own independence and the definition of ‘family’ blurs.  I may have been away from my actual family, but I was dining with my theatre family.

Now, I have a family of my own… and the definition is no longer blurred.

Sure, in the last four month I’ve fostered some very close friendships.  Friendships that will undoubtedly last for quite some time… as I’ve said in the past, a friendship is defined by a shared experience… and serving in Pakistan is certainly that.  However, friendship is no longer a replacement for family.

So, yes, the American Club is cooking a delicious feast for all of us lonely souls today… and all my new friends are hosting countless ‘orphan’ Thanksgivings around town… but… you know what I really want to do? 

All I want to do is stay home, heat up my Tyson’s Hungry-Man Turkey Dinner, turn on Skype, and share a meal with my family… I’m a man of simple tastes.

But don’t you worry about me… as the song says, ‘I’ll be home for Christmas’.  ;)

Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers!  And whether you are American or not… today would be a good day to give your family a hug.