Family Meeting Agenda!

Do you wish you were so organized that you actually had an agenda for your family meetings? Really? take a close look.......

Family Meeting Agenda

September 24, 2011

Stop taking/wearing Caitlin’s jewelry

Chores: Pick up dog poop BEFORE mowing lawns

Farting contests must be held OUTSIDE

Please throw up in the trash cans

No more deviled eggs until the farting contests move outside and people only throw up in the trash cans. *STOP feeding Max deviled eggs: An unwilling farting contest contestant is an unhappy contestant. Contrary to popular opinion, he does not “Like being gassy”. Plus he does not understand when the contest starts and stops so he keeps farting everywhere.

How about now? Still wish you were me?

I thought not.....

70 ingredients?

What is going on here? The McRib is DELICIOUS, right up to the point where you find out that there are 70 ingredients, and only one of them is "RIB". And not rib in the sense that you would get from a fine summer day and a BBQ. No, more of a shift on the floor of a meatpacking house kind of rib. The official term is "Restructured Meat Product".

You know what they make sausages from? That stuff went into sausages; this is the stuff left over from the stuff used to make sausages. Not a good visual image. But then again, it is delicious.

What a face!

I love this picture! The little guy in the center has one of those priceless faces that kids sometimes make. He has what we call an "Expressive" face, but the expressions change so fast that we rarely catch them on film. This is one of those rare times when we did. Enjoy!

It's gonna be a better year

All I can say is it will be a happier Black Hole now that the QB situation is getting fixed. We didn't waste any draft picks on goofballs, we made a good trade, and Al did not hold a press conference. I am one sanguine season ticket holder. (look it up, or ask Charlie...).

Who knows- by the time I am online tomorrow morning, only one of the above may be a Raider.

"Pavlov and the iPad" A children's fable

Once upon a time, Pavlov ordered an iPad. Blah Blah Blah. The gist of the story is that I salivate and run to the front door every time I hear a truck coming near my street. Yet, like the good dogs in the underlying reference, I have no iPad in hand. But that...ohhh! is that a truck I hear?! Gotta go!

All my greatest fears....

This is awesome! A water slide, high over the shark infested ocean, hanging off the side of a cruise ship!

Let me see:
Fear of heights.: Check!
Fear of open ocean (think lost at sea): Check!
Fear of being eaten by sharks in said open ocean: Check!

Why take three different vacations to face my greatest fears, when I can accomplish the same feat with just one activity? And I can experience them all right in front of my family! Heck, they can even get the crew to capture it on video so I can relive it forever (backed up properly on digital media, and then up to the cloud on YouTube and Google of course).

And if I act now, I can add 100 points to my Disney Vacation Club membership and get four cruise tickets for free! God bless America! I can face my fears, for free, in the luxury of a Disney Cruise Vacation package. What a great time to be alive (falling from heights, from a cruise ship, to be lost at sea waiting to be eaten by sharks).

Book it, Danno!

Today's mission: Tolerate your twin brother.

I said it with a straight face. Seriously. And sternly. STERNLY.

That said, I have to face the fact that I am sending two battered boys to school today- they beat the snot out of each other, and I wasn't there to stop them. I think they were expecting me to break them up, but I was busy holding up the boxes that would have crushed me had I refocused on them. Too bad. When I resolved the box issue and got back to dealing with them they ramped up their battle- leading me to think that they didn't really want to fight (or at least not ferrociously) but were puting on a show for my benefit. Imagine living IN THE CAGE with two UFC fighters; that's what it's like for us. A family of six, locked in a cage with two of the family members locked in mortal combat.

They aren't even out the door yet and the battle is on again.

Perhaps some basic training (to learn to wait for the bell) so that they don't loose points in fights that go to the judge's decision. Parenting!

A day in the life....

Tom Brady (TOM BRAY-D)

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and supermodel Gisele Bundchen (jih-ZEHL' BUN'-chen) have welcomed a baby boy.

God, it's great being an American. No need to explain how to say Tom Brady. Do you think somewhere in the world there's an article that reads:

MIDDLEOV, Novhere. – New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady (TOM BRAY-D) and supermodel Gisele Bundchen have welcomed a baby boy.

Violate my Computer dad!

What parent doesn't want to wake up at 6AM on a holiday to the pleas of an online addicted child who wants yet another game validated?! I know I do! I sent him downstairs to make himself something to eat with the promise that I would be right down. I lied. He finally convinced me that he wouldn't stop until I got up and did my job (football has taught him the concept of "jobs" and "roles" but he only sees the value when it applies to us, his parents....).

Fine. Rot your mind. Just don't come crawling to me when your liquefied brains ooz out your ears.

Using SocialText in the enterprise

Putting Web 2.0 to Work

View more presentations from ross.

Managing a "Line of sight" manager

Why dogs bite people

If someone dressed you up like this, wouldn't you bite them? what is the thinking here? Isn't it bad enough that the poor puppy is small enough to be crushed with one misstep? That his fur is less than perfect? I feel bad for him. I wouldn't dress up like that myself (might have in college; no clear recollection).
On the other hand, if this little guy has soiled the cut loop berber one too many times...bring on the borg-dog costume!

Incoming call

I was in the Las Vegas airport waiting for my flight home when "incoming call" appeared on my blackberry. A call from one of the twins. My kids mostly text, so when they actually use the phone function on their phones (?!) I am always filled with anticipation and dread, but mostly dread.

"Dad?" "Where's the snake stick?". For those of you who don't know what that is, it's a broom handle with an aircraft cable attached that has a loop in it. The cable runs through a hole in the end so that the cable can be pulled tight and make a noose around a snake. Good tool for our area, as we have Diamondbacks. We have one stick in the backyard, and another one by the garage door.

"Why?" I asked. "There's a snake in the house" was his answer. "Where's mom?" (Really important to get a clear picture of her state of mind. Might not have to get on the plane, if you know what I mean). She was out, and the snake was in, so I gave him the following instructions:

1. Get the stick.
2. Get the snake.
3. Get rid of the snake.
4. Put away the stick.
5. DON'T TELL MOM!

It turns out it was just a normal snake, and it was escorted out, but the critical part of the story is that mom doesn't find out. I don't want to move again.

Sex and Drugs and Rock & Roll!

I saw a rough sketch of this @ http://thisisindexed.com/ and thought it would be a great visio exercise. It speaks to me as I drop the kids off at parties. Really reduces the guilt about lurking down the road in a darkened car watching to see if any kids show up with a keg like object.

Mobility AND Collaboration!

This is the "Seven Man Conference Bike". It rocks!

In the future, these devices will be commonplace as corporations discover that there truly is a convergence of Mobility, Collaboration, Sustainability, and Employee Wellness. This cutting edge tool was featured on last night's Tonight Show. Once again, Conan stays on the bleeding edge!

Not to mention putting an end to those team building exercises where you fall backwards into your teammate's open arms. What says "I trust you" more than sitting backwards while riding through traffic while trucks zoom past you .

You know you want one.

Motivation!

And yet we continue to support an outdated model.

"I'll take the 1 TB drive... and that shotgun"

Gotta love Fry's Electronics. Where else in the world can you get a combo like this? Not even Costco has these two items; I checked. I know, sad, but hey.... Speaking of love, who doesn't love the advances in storage? A Terabyte! For less than 90 bucks. I remember not too long ago you had to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to get that kind of storage. And that was for NAS. Not all sitting by my feet. Warms the heart. I am feeling too good about it all to go into a rant about how much storage there really is on the " 1 TB" drive (the discrepancy is more than my five year old laptop had in total). At these prices I don't really care. Besides, if I get really torqued, there's always the shotgun. Just have to pry it from my son's hands.

Fun fact: Dogs learn the meaning of sounds quickly. Be it the sound of the dog food bag being opened, or the toilet seat being lifted, or whatever else interests them. Add the sound of an Airsoft shotgun being racked. They now know that it's time for them to hide out under the bed. Not that he shoots them. but the whizzing and the plinking of the pellets makes them nervous. But not me; I am wearing eye protection. And I have a machine gun. Take that!

What happened to the Chewy Nougat Center?

According to PopSci's Aug issue, page 27, the center of the Milky Way has the molecules responsible for the flavor of raspberries. I was under the impression we were a nougat galaxy (with nuts of course), but we may well be a jelly.

This changes everything.

I wonder how the world's religions will react to this startling news... Does God, in fact, like the fruit filled ones better, and we should be looking down on the chews and hard candy galaxies? I don't know what to think.

Insulted by my son's GPS

While traveling Atlanta, I had occasion to use my Blackberry's GPS. I used it until the battery died because I am a man and I do not ask for directions, or navigation assistance- even from my wife. When mine died (phone, not wife) I used my son's phone. Putting aside that I didn't have GPS when I was a kid, and had to ride my bike to school (two miles each way, uphill, both ways, and was happy to do it) let alone have GPS (Apollo 11 didn't have GPS for cryin' out loud, and they went to the moon) I started using his. What was I going to do? Stop and ask for directions?!

GPS was apparently programmed by friends of my wife, because it started in in a remarkably similar fashion with progressively more and more irritating comments escalating as follows:

"you are now off course"
"you are continuing off course"
"you have not corrected your course"
"replotting new course based on your new position"
"you are significantly farther from your destination than when you started"
"you did not properly execute the recommended course change"
"are you incapable of following directions"
"is there something wrong with you"

and finally (as if SHE can take directions).... "please put your wife on the phone"

Fine. Let the wife deal with the phone. I'm getting out of the car. Pardon me; Minivan. How degrading.