Shawn’s Thoughts

“Would you like to see what I do when I go to work?” After I finished peeing all over myself, I raced out to the car. Dad was taking me to LTV (aerospace company in Dallas, TX). I knew he did something with these things called computers, and I had no idea what that meant. I received the full treatment - guest badge and all. I got to sit at Dad’s desk, call Mom (just like he did), and even write all over the walls (two of the walls in his office were dry-erase boards). I got to write all over this cool green-and-white striped paper, and draw funny boxes and triangles using these really cool green stencils that had “IBM” on them.

Then the moment that sealed my professional fate. I got to go into the computer room. Just like the gal in the picture, I got to sit at a teletype terminal, and play a game on the computer. I got to load a tape onto a tape drive, and see where the disk drives were. I was in heaven. The soft hum of the A/C system, the whir of the disk drives, the zzzt-zzzt of the tape drives, the smell of the room - I can remember it all like it was yesterday. The icing on the cake - I got to take a stack of cards from the card punch home with me. Years later, when I found a box of unused cards from an old card punch when I started working at IBM, no one could figure out why I was so excited, and I had a hard time telling them, since I had instantly been transformed back into an over-stimulated 7-yr old geek.

Thanks for making that day special, Dad. I hope the mainframes in Heaven are even more fun. Happy Father’s Day, fellow dads.

I got a hi-pri email from my wife yesterday.  "OMG!  Mal’s on the ESPN site!!!"  Her cousin Mallory is an incredible softball player.  …and a really cool gal.  My daughter loves her to death.  I figured it was a story about all the records Mal’s blown away during her stay at Central.  And then I read this story.  Holy cow, Mal - you go, girl!  It’s really not all that surprising to me that she’d do something like this - she’s just that kind of person.  Really low key, and an amazing athlete.  …and now it’s in the New York Times, too.  …and Kevin Schofield even noticed the story. It’s great this act is receiving a pretty decent amount of attention.  I’d love to see what would happen if this kind of thing happened in MLB.

I’ve been trying to teach my soccer team of 7-yr old girls about the importance of sportsmanship, and now I have an amazing example of it to share with them.  Thanks Mal – see you soon!

Update: Our local TV station picked up the story this afternoon…

Update: Wow. Mallory’s story is getting picked up all over the place. This is really exciting to watch, and couldn’t happen to a nicer person.

• International Herald Tribune
• YouTube has a couple videos now…

Final Update:  Mallory’s going to be on Ellen this week (Wednesday).  It’s so cool to see so many people reacting so favorably to this wonderful story, and to see Mallory taking all this in stride…  Rock on, Mal…

Final Final Update: OK, OK, it’s hard not to want to share every post I can find – Mallory’s such a great example of a true sportsman.  Here’s the last one, I promise – Mallory’s on ESPN.

This is a great idea, and a great project.  Please consider participating in this - it’s quite easy, and supports some great causes.

As Nicole says,

Not everyone has the financial ability to give money to the causes they care about. That is where the i’m Initiative steps in - it enables Windows Live Messenger users to make a difference by directing a portion of Messenger’s advertising revenue to a cause of their choosing.

Wonderful! How does it work?

1. Use Messenger 8.1
2. Add the i’m emoticon to your display name by entering the code of the cause you would like to support (hint: I suggest adding it at the end of your name so you still appear in the correct alphabetic order in your contacts list)
3. Send and receive IMs
4. A portion of the advertising revenue generated by your usage of Messenger will be donated to your cause. So the more IMs you send and receive the more money will be donated to your cause.
5. What are the i’m emoticon  codes and causes?

• American Red Cross –  ready to help, code = *red+u
• Boys & Girls Clubs of America —  providing a positive place for kids, code = *bgca
• National AIDS Fund —  fighting AIDS, code = *naf
• National MS Society —  joining the MS movement, code = *mssoc
• ninemillion.org —  helping 9 million refugee kids, code = *9mil
• Sierra Club —  exploring and protecting the planet, code = *sierra
• StopGlobalWarming.org —  stopping global warming, code = *help
• Susan G. Komen for the Cure —  finding the cure, code = *komen
• UNICEF —  helping kids survive, code = *unicef

Surprisingly, I haven’t seen this Molesine hack mentioned anywhere before… My Moleskines have had a nasty habit of tearing at the spline, probably because until Christmas, that’s where I stored my pen. I was working on another project, and happened to be using electrical tape. I noticed that the tape looked to be just about same width as the spline of both my Moleskines… Viola! An instant “ruggedizer” for the spline! Take a look for yourself below at the before and after pictures… I’m sure I’ll be the envy of all the cool kids tomorrow at school…

If you squint, you can see my use of Eston Bond’s great tip for using colored post-it notes to section off the Moleskine, as well as my spiffy new booksling on the large notebook.

By the way, if you carry multiple Moleskines, you could use different colors of electrical tape on each to easily tell the difference between them all…

Before “Ruggedizing”

After “Ruggedizing”

Technorati tags: moleskine notebook life+hack del.icio.us tags: moleskine notebook life+hack

I’ve been doing some pie-in-the-sky thinking over the holidays, and creating my resolutions and goals for this year…  I stumbled across this quote, which gets me in just the right mindset to do some good thinking…  My apologies to the original author - I don’t know where credit should go…

As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that wasn’t supposed to ever let you down probably will. You will have your heart broken probably more than once and it’s harder every time. You’ll break hearts too, so remember how it felt when yours was broken. You’ll fight with your best friend. You’ll blame a new love for things an old one did. You’ll cry because time is passing too fast, and you’ll eventually lose someone you love.

 

So take too many pictures, laugh too much, and love like you’ve never been hurt because every sixty seconds you spend upset is a minute of happiness you’ll never get back.

 

Don’t be afraid that your life will end, be afraid that it will never begin.

Technorati: resolutions, goals  del.icio.us: resolutions, goals

It’s naptime right now, so I’ve been taking advantage of the quiet time to wander around the Internet looking for advice, since I recently became a coach to a 5 and 6-yr old girls soccer team.  I’ve played soccer for over twenty years, most of it as a keeper.  The thought of trying to corral six 6-yr olds on a weekly basis has been a bit daunting, to say the least.  The coaching experience has been one of the highlights of my life, and I can’t believe how much fun I am having.  The look on each of the girls’ faces as they’ve each scored their first goal is absolutely priceless - it’s an amazing display of self-confidence, pride, surprise, and pure happiness gushing all over the field.

Anyway!  During my search for coaching advice, I found some other great sites I wanted to share:

• ParentHacks.  “daily parenting tips and ideas…”.  It’s like LifeHacker for those of us without a clue trying to raise a child.
• Dad Gone Mad.  A huumerous look at all the things we go through that no Dad wants to talk about. 
• Suburban Bliss.  I haven’t been too far into the site, and it looks prety humerous.

tags: parenting, dad+hacks

tags: parenting, dad+hacks