Never, Ever Give Up

Watch this and I dare you to not be amazed: Arthur's Inspirational Transformation

This guy's story basically sums up the title of my blog and my ideal life philosophy. You are exactly who you think you are, no matter what anyone else tells you. Humans are incredible creatures and so few of us reach our true potential. Watch this and think about what you can do in your life if you believe in yourself and really try.

Arthur's story is highlighted from the beginning, in the upcoming documentary, INSPIRED: The Movie. http://www.inspiredthemovie.com and he used Diamond Dallas Page's yoga instruction.

(originally saw this via Jessica Brown on Facebook)

To My Boys

I know none of you can really read this right now (well maybe Brody can), but I wanted to tell you a few things, in case of tidal wave.  I believe placing this information in the hands of google is the safest way to make sure this message survives until the Earth crumbles.

Nothing makes me happier than looking into each of your eyes.  I know now that I never experienced true love until I met each of you.

In each of you I see a unique person so amazing it stuns me.

Brody, you are a kinetic joy.  Like me, I think you will never be comfortable if you are not in motion.  I'm sorry that I constantly ask you to sit back down when we eat dinner, it's just that I don't want you to choke.  Don't ever let anyone stop you, including yourself. Your potential is boundless, explore it.

Clyde, your mind is a laser.  I am constantly in awe of your ability to focus, problem solve, and organize.  I'm sorry that I have to limit your time with the iPad, it's just that I want you to find balance.  Never stop asking questions, and you will never be bored.  And never stop telling those knock-knocks, because life's a laugh and death's a joke. It's true.

Sully, you are as determined as a bulldozer.  You may actually be more persistent than me, which you will find is both a gift and a curse.  I'm sorry that I repeatedly carry you back into your bed, it's just that I want you to get some sleep, you need it at this age.  Keep laughing insanely not only when you take things apart, but also when you put them back together in new ways.  You will succeed in whatever you decide to succeed at, because I know you will never give up.

All three of you are so smart, so talented, and so ... tall.  I am so proud I can call myself your dad.

I've taken a few trips around the sun, and I've learned life can be anything you want it to be.  You will have rough times, you will have smooth sailing; you will be sad, you will be happy; you will face tragedy and you will celebrate. Through all of this, remain true to yourself, and you will triumph.

Here are some things I have gathered that I hope will help you get through easier, like during those cold winters when the corn is all gone and nobody feels like talking:

• Sunshine makes you happy; Rain makes you sad.  Use both of these as needed.
• A good chef keeps their workspace clean; mop up your messes as you go.
• When you are walking, keep your chin up and an eye in the sky.  Most people miss a lot because they forget to look up and around.
• You don't stop running because you get old; you get old because you stop running.
• Reversing any statement makes it sound wiser; but wisdom cannot be reversed.  Holy shit, I just made that up, pretty good right?
• Fear is a mind killer.  Fear is the little death that obliterates. You must not fear. Fear will pass through you and around you, and when it is gone, only you will remain.
• Hug like you mean it, but only if you mean it.
• One drink, one water.  (This will make more sense when you are older)
• If you decide to travel the world some day, for the love of Hank go somewhere tropical and not to a place with 10 months of rain per year.
• If someone hits your car and says not to call insurance because they have a friend that will fix it, call insurance.
• Don't do heroin.  Don't take any opiates if you can avoid it.
• Do some hallucinogens in high school so you can understand how easy it is for your brain to believe in things that don't exist.
• When you are eating a meal, don't multi-task.  Focus on smelling and tasting your food.  Apply this to all quality life experiences.
• A Lannister always pays his debts. 
• Learning Chinese would be a really good idea.
• If you have an opportunity to visit outer space, take it.
• Don't look for happiness from other people or things; Happiness comes from experiences and starts within yourself.
• Massages are real; Chiropractic is not.
• Diets are ridiculous. Eat whatever the hell you want, just eat lots of different stuff and go run and swim and bike and stuff.  
• Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.
• Play to win, but always respect your opponent.
• Even though mom will want to sell them at a garage sale, keep your best toys at all costs.
• Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy fast cars. Driving fast can definitely make you happy.
• Be safe if you drive fast.
• People that can dance are great in the sack.  (This will make more sense when you are older)
• While we're on the subject, learn to play the guitar.  It's so clear to me now...
• ALWAYS ASK QUESTIONS. ALWAYS. Anyone that asks you to accept something on faith is selling something that you don't want to buy (whether they know it or not).
• Nothing lasts longer in human relationships than memories, for better or worse.  Refresh them often.
• Scuba diving is TOTALLY RAD.
• Take risks. Be bold. Make mistakes. Get hurt. Fail often.
• Call your mother.  Tell her you love her.
• The one good piece of advice I got from my own dad: When you take pictures, take them with people in them.  You won't care about beautiful but empty landscape & architecture photos years later.
• Chase your passions to the end of time.

Well, that's just a few things off the top of my head.  I sincerely hope it helps.  If I think of any more, we can discuss out on the trampoline or something.

You each walk an infinite path; all of life's challenges are feathers before you.  

Remember each other, never leave your brothers behind.  Good luck on your journeys.

And know this: No matter what, I will always love you. Absolutely and without condition, I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

Love, Dad

3D Printing for the Everyman

One of the coolest little doodads I stumbled across at CES was Cubify's 3D Home printer "Cube". Looks like they are listing it for about $1300, and for that you get your own mini manufacturing facility at home.  It can create a pretty impressive array of 3D designs, anything you can imagine pretty much up to 5.5” x 5.5” x 5.5”.  





Of course you can design components to make objects much larger than that.  At the show, one of the reps was wearing a chain-mail glove and a fully flexible backpack strap made out of tons of smaller pieces.  I'm imagining loads of practical and entertainment uses for this thing... lose a boardgame piece?  Just remake it.  While you're at it, make up your own board game.  Kids break off a piece of a toy?  Just make another one.


While probably too spendy still for the average consumer today, the trend here is pretty exciting for making small scale physical creation a reality for the average Joe.  I wonder how disruptive this will be to traditional toy industry, when these things get good enough and cheap enough for everyone to have them.  


Here are some other services that offer similar capabilities, mostly via uploading to them for manufacturing (thanks END Games team for pointing these out):

http://www.dimensionprinting.com/ 

http://www.shapeways.com/ 

http://www.ponoko.com/ 

How to Take over the World: Google Native Client

"Christian Stefansen, Google's product manager on NaCl, explained which kinds of applications work well with NaCl. These include, he said, hardware accelerated games, photo editing, 3D modeling, video training software, and computer-aided design. "Anything that you would classify as heavy numbers crunching is a good fit," he said."
http://download.cnet.com/8301-2007_4-57340015-12/native-client-turns-chrome-into-high-end-gaming-platform/

Besides the obvious win for gaming, I believe this will actually have huge implications for OS and software in general... imagine using "Google Photoshop" inside your chrome browser with performance as good as a desktop app, without ever having to install anything.  Your files/assets synched everywhere no matter if you work on your tablet/laptop/phone/desktop... with real time collaboration in everything.

Is Google basically setting themselves up to not only subversively overtake the OS market (by infiltrating and hijacking any OS with chrome), but also to take over the ENTIRE production/development software industry?  You can already can see it with Google Apps vs. MS Office... seems like a logical next step.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I for one welcome our new Google overlords.

A Sad Parent on the Closure of LEGO Universe

In a recent Facebook thread between former members of the LEGO Universe team, someone commented that losing LEGO Universe felt like losing a child.  My response to that was it only takes two people about 9 months (give or take with some crunch time) to make a baby.  Creating LEGO Universe involved over 250 people and over 5 years of development effort.

Hyperbole aside, those of us in the craft of entertainment creation tend to become very emotionally attached to our work.  It is anguishing to see a project fail; it is absolutely devastating to see a project that in almost every respect was succeeding suddenly get killed.

As close as a developer can be emotionally to a game, we often forget that the players that enjoy them can have just as intense of a connection to our brain children. This note from a parent of a child who played LEGO Universe makes me as sad as it does happy... happy to have created something that had such a positive effect on someone out there.

"for all of you at LEGO universe, know that you have been an inspiration to my son and he wishes on a star every night that perhaps it will be saved."

I've heard and read this sentiment many times over in person and on the internet, especially in the LEGO forums.  I will never understand why LEGO Universe is being shuttered.

I want to say thanks to all the parents, kids and players of the game who have expressed what the game meant to them over the last year.  Although it makes me extremely sad to think of the game closing and all the resulting broken hearts, it's really good to know that for it's blink of existence, it made a brighter day for a lot of people.

That's what I live for; my LEGO Universe team created some wonderful lasting memories in a few million brains that will resonate for the rest of the players' lives.  That feels like some small success to me, even if LEGO states the game cannot be a financial one--which I probably also will never understand why.

Great Moments In Daddying

Last night, I sat down for a quick game of Chutes and Ladders with Brody.  We were neck and neck until about half way and I hit a streak of chutes.  I kept getting sent lower and lower, until eventually I lamented, "Aw man, I'll never be able to catch up with you now."
To which, Brody reached for the spinner, gave me a sideways glance and reminded me, "Not with that attitude, Dad!"
So proud of my boy!

How to Defend Your Kids From Sex Abuse: Parents Please Read

This is a touchy subject (and a long post) but one worth spreading information on. With the 5 years of parent & kid research we did on my recent experience working on LEGO Universe, I've realized how important it is to spread accurate information about child safety and dispel myths that can be a dead end waste of concern for parents, or worse cause parents to not pay attention to a real risk. What better time then back to school to share this.

A few months ago I went to a little workshop on sex abuse and kids at Bal Swan, run by Feather Burkower. I have to admit right up front, I really didn't want to go. For one thing it was three hours long. I was expecting it to be a bunch of horribly slow paced cliche warnings and anecdotes that would remind me of going to church as a kid. Tangent: funny how church is so easily associated with this topic, but I digress.

Anyway, the session was actually really good and I came away feeling glad about going. While the pacing was slow, I saw a lot of parents needed to be eased into the topic at hand, there were certainly some emotional points for many there who hadn't had to confront the issue before. Getting past that, I thought Feather's approach was really sound. Her main thesis is that you can't prevent your kids from being in situations where an abuser will have access to them. Her quoted statistics say it is just too likely, something like 

1 in 3 girls are victims of some kind of sex abuse before age 18, and 1 in 7 boys in first world countries. 

Staggering stuff.

However what you can do is empower your kids with the confidence and language necessary to get out of the situation and make any would-be offender back off.

Here are the high level bullet points that I felt were really valuable to me as a dad, separated into techniques and factoids. A few of these I was definitely not doing, or falling into common parenting traps and assumptions that actually can enable an offender much more. Some of the examples are harsh, but important to understand. It may not be comfortable to think about, but its our job as parents to be strong and protect our kids. Take a deep breath and read on:

Factoids:

1. ~93% of  sex abuse happens from a person the child knows and trusts, NOT strangers, factoring in estimates from unreported.
2. As many as 47% of abuse cases are from family or extended family.
3. ~50% of abuse happens from an offender who is also under 18.
4. Estimated 88% of sex abuses are never reported to authorities.
5. Offenders can be family, neighbors, babysitters, religious leaders, teachers, coaches, or anyone else who has close contact with children. 
   1. NOTE: this does NOT mean that all of the people you interact with are going to abuse your child, the vast majority of people in the world are mentally healthy.  The point is simply that you can never predict where an offender will come from and you can't assume that because someone is in a certain category that they won't be an offender.
6. Offenders seek out children that are alienated.  They look for kids whose parents are too embarrassed to talk about sex with them.  They look for kids who need more positive attention from the loved ones in their lives.  Primarily, they look for kids whose parents just don't communicate openly with them.

A Few Techniques 

(these are geared towards younger kids as that's where my family is currently, but for older kids check out the links below):

1. Use anatomically correct language for genitals and all body parts.  Example of why this is important: little Alice tells her teacher one day, "My uncle ate my cookie last night."  Suppose Alice hasn't been taught the word vagina and Uncle has taught her this cute little metaphor.  Now the teacher may actually reinforce abuse by naively saying something like "I hope it was yummy."  Alice now thinks this is acceptable in the eyes of another trusted adult, and the offender has secured another hold on the child.
2. Practice Body Safety Rules and respect personal boundaries.  This means your kids understand every individual in the world has the right to be the boss of their own body.   Great example: Allow your kids to not give grandma a kiss or hug if they don't want to, and instead provide an alternate form of acknowledgment such as waving or just saying hi.  This lets them know it's OK to not be comfortable doing certain physical contacts, and they are in charge of their own comfort level and boundary, not anyone else.  Body Safety Rules can be summed up simply, and they go both ways-for your child and everyone else:
• Touching and physical play are healthy and important developmentally, BUT... we don't touch other people's private parts, and they don't touch ours.  With a few rare exceptions, such as we're at the doctor together and the doctor needs to examine or give medicine. Or if the child is young enough, when mom or dad has to clean them during a bath or diaper change, but only to get clean.
• We don't ever physically harm other people.  Straightforward.
• Practice giving and asking for privacy when appropriate (going to the bathroom, changing clothes, sleeping, etc.)
• We ALWAYS play with our clothes on.  At friends' houses or when we have friends or family at our house, playing naked with other people at a young age is not appropriate and opens the door for abusers.
• We don't take pictures or make movies or drawings of other people's private parts, and it's not OK for someone else to do any of those things with ours.
3. Give your child an out for authority figures, so they know it's OK to say "No" if their safety is being compromised.  This one I used to do all the time.  Example: "OK, the babysitter is in charge, so be good and do what she says."  You've just told your kid that good behavior is whatever the babysitter says, even if it's for example, to touch private parts.  Always let your kids know they can say no to any grown up or person in charge if they are being put in danger or if their body safety rules are being broken.
4. Don't keep secrets.  This one should be obvious but the language used is key.  Differentiate between secrets and surprises.  Secrets make you feel lonely and sad and nervous.  Surprises make you feel happy and bring you together with other people. Most importantly everyone knows about surprises and there is nothing to hide after the surprise happens.
5. Understand age appropriate sexual behavior.  Way too much depth to cover here, see the linkage below.
6. Listen to your kids.  Really listen.  When you converse, it's easy to dismiss your child's seemingly random comments, especially when they are younger.  Try to practice always asking probing questions in conversation with your children, get them to elicit more detail in every conversation you have.  The more they are comfortable explaining their lives to you, the more confident they'll be to approach you if something happens.

Let all the caregivers for your child know all the above and how much you communicate to your children.  

stopitnow.org is a pretty good website with a ton of more detailed information on the subject and actual references on statistics, etc.  

parentingsafechildren.com is Feather Burkower's site, where you can learn more about her background and her workshops.

If you are a parent, guardian, or care provider of children of any age, there is no reason not to be versed in these best practices.  It's never too late or too early to start empowering our kids to keep themselves safe and break the cycles of abuse.  I hope you get motivated to learn more about this subject and share with other parents, so all our kids will be as confident and empowered as possible should the unthinkable ever chance to happen.