i’m both a Dad and a nerd, what else do you expect from me?

emily.
Honestly it all started innocently enough. Some friends on Facebook were posting this video from Google.

Its part of Googles Chrome stories they started telling online a short while ago. If you haven’t checked out the rest of the Chrome videos I suggest you do, they are clever, fun and like “Dear Sophie” emotional.

I’m not one for being overly emotional, yet this video stung me in the right places, my love for my daughter Emily and technology. The understatement that this video was just another few minutes spent on You Tube would be just that, an understatement.

Upon completion as I attempted not to get all choked up at work. I fired up my .ca registrar and secured my kids personal .ca domain. This got me to thinking. As a parent I’m often thinking of ways to introduce technology into my kids life in a meaningful way. I’ve long been saying that Emily will learn to type not on a keyboard, but in fact; the visualization of what a keyboard is. Her concept of computer input isn’t necessarily a mouse, but the gestural nature of iPhones and iPads. But lets save that for another post. Back to grabbing digital usernames, emails and domains for kids who don’t really understand what they are.

The concepts of email addresses, .com’s and twitter handles escape kids. However, as a parent should you collect these things when they don’t matter to your kid so that when they do you can have them ready? For me I am going to say yes. Maybe for selfish reasons and obvious reasons but reasons none the less.

yourkidsname.domain
It’s true, Emily has no real daily use for having her own domain… or does she. Shortly after registering her.ca I found myself with options of what to do next. It’s true that in her future she might not have much use for her own personal domain. But what if she becomes famous? What if she becomes a photographer and wants to show off her work. In 10-15 years from now will she go to register a .ca and not be able to since somebody else did before her? I believe that the investment now can prevent what happened to me… I don’t own my own .com, I do own my own .ca (thankfully I’m Canadian) If I only had the foresight to grab the .com before somebody else. It’s a silly regret yes, but one that for 20$ a year I can nab up for Emily. Even if she never uses it, I know its there.

emilys playtime cards

For now her domain will serve as a way to get in touch with her parents and subsequently her. Emily recently finished her first year of school, and while its nice to have phone numbers for parents I barely know, she connects mostly with her peers via paper notes. So why not make a little paper note with her email on it so parents can arrange playmates. You say an email for a kid? I digress, this first year of school was full of firsts and one thing that has changed from when I was a kid was the birthday invitation, now I’m RSVPing via email to kids parents and having lists of gift suggestions emailed to me, this is perfect and seemingly so perfect for parents of other kids. Why can this extend to emailing kids about playmates? It should.

Your kid on a social network.
For now, Emily is absent from any other network online save for twitter. My reason for this is that I want to use twitter as her way of learning to compose messages to a void, get her comfortable with posting short bursts of her personality. It might break some rules along the way but that doesn’t seem to have stopped even some of the twitter founders from getting their own kids on twitter. Plus it took close to 15 minutes to get a proper handle for Emily. Who surprisingly was quite picky as to what would pass and not pass when it came to deciding on a username.

What next?
For me the big crux for getting Emily online was having an email, sure I could have set up a gmail account for her (and I still might) but I like the personality that comes with having your own domain. Granted the nerd in me will eventually route her email through Google apps ;)

I think for now she’s pretty set up and I’ll enjoy the years ahead when I know that I’ll be collecting usernames along the way, just in case. More importantly I’ll really enjoy the collection of memories she gets to create and that’s the magical part for me, most parents would agree.

Mars Edit

marsedit.jpg

SO i’m going to get back into blogging. Mostly since I rarely remember what I’ve done from day to day. SO i figure if I get an offline blog editor then that might help me out. I’m lazy after all and if you know me at all I’m a sucker for new apps as much as I am for gadgets.

let the good times roll.

identity crisis.

evolution
Throughout my travels online, I keep running into the above image. I’ve seen it in blogs, and through my RSS, I’ve even seen companies using it when they post new job positions. It got me thinking. I know that my range of experience is a bit more complex then most. I’ve dubbed my situation “deep pockets” since I know a lot of stuff about a great many things. My small boutique experience at Helios, taught me that I needed to be flexible and open to learning the tools ad-hoc on a per project basis. Amassing block of information along the way similar in fashion how I used to collect Lego when I was a kid. Using said block on each new project always adding to my collection and moving forward.
apps
I quickly realized that my bag of tricks sometimes overshadowed jobs I was applying for, or in some cases wasn’t specific enough for some people in one area. Was I spread too thin? Did my new found love for motiongraphics keep me from progressing in flash actionscript? Did my love for code overshadow my design abilities? What I have found is that my skill sets shift as I use one more than another. What I’ve forgotten in AS3.0 I relearn quicker each time I have to dive back into heavier scripting projects. My patience for rotoscoping goes up the longer I keyframe my way through a piece of footage, and my designs get tighter and more true to my ideas the more I spend time in photoshop/illustrator. This floating approach has its benefits and its weaknesses and for now I’m left wondering if its better to focus on one thing and let some slide by the wayside or spend enormous amounts of time and effort to keep myself sharp in all situations.

I’ve given some thought to focusing on one thing specifically, determining that one thing has its hardships since I love every aspect of what I do, and while most things are equal spending time with one more than the others makes me feel like I’ve stopped feeding one of my pet fish (i don’t have any pets) would that fish just die? That’s something I’m not prepared to accept. Then there is the part of me that wants to learn more, heaven forbid that I want even deeper pockets than I already have. The though of getting into new things is intriguing all the time, I know it spreads me thin but at what cost. When does the quality of what I produce lessen enough to make it not a good product due to having my hands in too many pots? What happens when I’m expected to do it all on the time line of 8 people doing it separately? And would staying with these pockets of mine satisfy me the way I need them too? Will these new found skills add to my love of what I do day in and day out, or will it just add to the burden of being a guy who can accomplish alot?

I’m open for suggestions, i’m debating with myself the merits of focus vs loving everything. I find both appealing just not sure I can handle both. Maybe I can… but who knows.

john mayer

Srsly, I’ve always viewed john mayer as a poor mans dave matthews, since the first time I heard him. However his twitter has redeemed him as a person for me as I own 0 albums. This morning brilliance struck again via his twitter.

Kudos john you made me laugh.

p.s. read from bottom to top… I’ve numbered them for you.

mayer

AKQA x NIKE x me

akqa_video
Around September 24th, i was perusing my facebook page and noticed that AKQA had posted a new video. Seing that I’m a fan of theirs I had added their Facebook page as a favorite of mine. The video was to celebrate their winning of 5 separate agency of the year awards. You can check the video here. Now I enjoyed this video and in proper Facebook form I hit that little like button, and I even left a comment “Everything about this reminds me that people still make nice stuff, camerawork, color correct, soundtrack, DOF. Thanks and congrats.” Not many people left a comments and as of this writing 87 people had liked the video. No biggie right?
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