for all the great culture and recreation and cuisine and entertainment within walking distance of our home, my children's most beloved community amenity is our local fro-yo. i will never be able to verbalize how dour this makes me.

of course in my day, our monthly trips to baskin robbins on College Ave were a for sure highlight of my summer-time youth. and my behavior was just as consiste ...

excerpt from Brain Rules by John Medina

i turned 45 last sunday. i took the friday before off work, not so much for my birthday but mostly to prepare for my everyman wrap party happening saturday night, although i snuck some troy-centric things in along the way, namely burnt butter pasta at the old spaghetti factory for lunch. because of the early prep, the saturday party went off anxiety and issue free. sunday offered more leisure-time and some visiting of friends (some who had a new labrapoodle puppy--i'm now deciding between getting one or two for our home). we then went out for my ritual birthday dinner at cafe natasha and their mystically good beef kabobs. because we had leftover mama nat ice cream pie from the party, we returned home for desert (instead of the usual stop at ted drewes). at the dinner table, my family sang happy birthday and marty and boys gifted me a new bike pump to replace the broken one i've been cussing at for over a year. my twelve-year old daughter then handed me a three sheets of type-filled paper and instructed me to read aloud.
while tempted i will not bore you will all 100 items. here are a few from the start and end, with a few from the middle sprinkled about. if you'll please excuse me a moment. i'll be off crying (again) for a bit.

sometimes our kids become unglued. when this happens, in our home, they are sent to their room. marty has all these calm, mature lines for such moments like, "kids who need to cry do so in their room, my living room is for happy people" or "you need to go to your room until you're able to make good and respectful choices to those around you". sometimes you have to help a child to their room but mostly they go on their own volition.

i find children claiming to be cured of the evils that afflicted them are not as cured as they might think or say. similar to the other baubles in my modest collection of knowledge, it took me longer to procure this particular gemstone than it probably should have. in defense, let me say you too may have been fooled when a cute pig-tailed girl of four calmly approaches you, says she feels all better now and can she go back to playing. one might even applaud their own parental acumen at righting a world that almost went all sideways and screamy. it is only when the small, adorable child rejoins the others, mostly siblings, calmly sits down, carefully selects a block and then brains the unsuspecting mark in the temple that you know a few bad clouds might still be lurking in the folds of their demeanor.

after being burned by this scenario more than once, i created a test for my recently pardoned children. when a freshly quieted child comes to you and gives the "all clear" sign, ask them to come right before you. when they do, stare into their eyes. the stare begins the test. a child not fully ready will not be able to hold your stare for more than a few seconds. they will try but will uncomfortably avert their eyes before long. this child needs to cook in their room a bit longer. for a child that holds your gaze, wait about ten seconds and then carefully place your three middle fingers on the center of their forehead and give them a gentle nudge, a nudge strong enough to push their forehead back about three inches. the cured child will smile and ask what you are doing and why did you just push them in the head. the un-ready child's eyes will flare with contempt and their miniature frame will lunge at you, their small fingers unmistakably targeting your carotid. this child is not ready.

for what it's worth, i've yet to meet the child who can successfully fake their way through the stare and push test.

we are getting ready to re-do our backyard. we began this operation a few years ago, initially by pulling up a fifty year old brick patio whose bricks had drifted apart as much as the alleged super-continent pangea. after preparing to move onto phase two of the project—the grading, tilling, and sodding of the former plot—the children protested loudly. during the work they had found som ...

in the third year of the everyman, to thank my judges, i decided to host a dinner for them. early on i only had five judges and could fit my entire judging panel (and their spouses) around my dinner table. so marty and i (mostly marty for sure) prepared a scrumptious home style dinner and we had a dinner party.

now, the thing i hadn't considered in all this (as there always has to be that one pesky unseen) was something about how i chose my judges. early on i didn't want any overlap in the interest or approach of my judging panel. thus, i carefully hand-picked people who were distinct from my other judges, the only commonality between them being a genuine love for photography. it wasn't until they all stood in the same room looking at one another that the flaw in my dinner-party math came to light. aside from this joint interest in photography, these people did not share a single interest in common.

i had a school teacher, an accountant, a graphic designer, an IT manager, and a guy who sold 50's toys on ebay for a living. these people sat in the living room where the long silences were broken only by short one-word answers to desperate attempts at conversation. when dinner was served the awkward stillness persisted but just played out in the dining room. when we all sat and dishes were politely passed i frantically—in my mind at least—tried to get something started but as i scanned the room any question asked of one was not of interest to their neighbor. someone actually commented about the weather. this is the point i physically felt the desperation of the moment. i couldn't believe a dinner party hosted by marty and i resorted, minutes into the meal, to a mention of weather. fingers slipping from the last handhold, i flailed for something.

TROY
so, what did folks think about the photo that won landscape?

JUDGE A
oh, i thought it was lovely. such a unique take on an often-shot subject.

JUDGE B
lovely? unique? it was trash. i can't believe it placed let alone won.

JUDGE C
i wouldn't call it trash but i thought it maybe shouldn't have placed as high as it did. the clear winner of the event for me was macro/abstract.

JUDGE B
for me it was black and white.

JUDGE D
finally. something i can agree with.

and here or shortly after here the table broke out into the most vigorous discussion our dining room has ever seen. the din from multiple heated and excited conversations that involved various combinations of people moved about energetically and held through the rest of the evening. i was astonished both at how powerful this one shared experience between these greatly varied people could be and how sad it was i didn't anticipate the potential sooner. i'm a dolt.

since that initial dinner, the everyman 'wrap' party has taken place every year, save one given a puke-illness my kids brought home from school. i've had judges skype from italy and i've had judges drive in from tennessee (where i paid for their lodging at a fancy nearby hotel, thus making them feel like a for-real celebrity). the annual wrap parties stand as one of our yearly highlights and one of my more favorite parts of the everyman.

another semi-related story to the everyman deals in the buildup to the contest. in discussing the early motivation to get art, i mentioned going to an art fair and buying some photos for my newly purchased (and bare) home. during the transaction i struck up a conversation with the photog's wife who also served as his manager. she mentioned the newly forming web and their need to get her husband's work online but confessed they were having problems with it. having recently gotten into the game i gave her my sympathy admitting there was a lot of mystery to in using this new medium well, especially in the arts. but i waved my arm towards their wall of photography and said their task was simpler than most as the biggest thing they had to do was stay out of the way of her husband's amazing photography and let the art wash over the user. she conceded to the sense of the approach but gave the oft-used 'easier said than done' in reply. looking over the man's stunning work hanging on the temporary panels of his booth, various treatments for porting the images to the web came to mind. i asked her if she would be interested in an exchange—a web design for some prints (the prints were quite pricey for a fellow who just bought his first home). i added if they didn't like my suggestions they wouldn't owe anything in return. if they did, i would let them determine the quantity and size of prints they felt fair in exchange. she smilingly agreed.

as is the way with true inspiration in a matter of days i had produced a site design i thought would suit them well. i packaged up several screen shots and emailed them to the woman. as is the case whenever you share your artistic creations i sat back and awaited their reaction. none came. not after a day. not after three days. not after two weeks. i obviously took the silence as a solid rejection of my work and will say it injured my confidence in the craft and vigor for the trade more than i'd like to admit. i tried to push the failure out of my mind but the taunting notion routinely skipped through the forefront of my awareness like a teasing classmate.

then on a bored weekend night months later—i said it maimed me to embarrassing degrees—i pulled up the photog's site to try to see what they could like in their present design that my work did not improve upon. after the page loaded i stared at not the faltering design i had looked to replace, but the design i had sent them, albeit a clumsy implementation of it. i stared at the page using my design for several minutes trying to make sense of what i was seeing. i scrolled to the footer and about pages looking for a mention of credit. i found none.

Anger took the Rejection that had been moping around my brain by the collar and threw her out the front door with a flailing kick in the ass. the few times Recognition's bright face dared to knock on the door to celebrate the acceptance of our design Anger turned her away with a rough push in the shoulder.

i talked to marty about what happened. she told me to call them and say that its a sad world when one creative steals the work of another creative and especially after one supported the other by buying their work. i silently listened to marty's prudent advice but instead said things like, "nah, it doesn't really matter" or "if you have to say those words to an adult they won't matter". so i did nothing. well, that's not entirely true. every month or two i'd pull the website up and look at my design and feel the anxiety of emotions that sputtered and flared.

then the email campaign began. every few months i'd receive an email from this photographer announcing his latest prints and inviting me to see them on his newly designed website. to add to it, they even modeled the email campaign using my design. after the third email, i sent a polite request to be removed from their list and the following email exchanges took place. the two things i learned from this ordeal are:

1. every time i get myself worked up over something, it is almost always for naught in the end.
2. when marty is kind enough to offer advice, i should be sensible enough to use it because it is, also, almost always spot-on counsel.

in honor of the everyman release, i'm devoting the week to everyman related matters (that add to details missed in the everyman story told a few months back). today i'm sharing two of the most noteworthy bits of history:

1. the original photograph
i can put hands on every single image ever entered into the photo contest, but miserably, i have lost the image that began it all—the image from chris mcgrath's coffee table taken of his brother in law taking a giant bite from a plum. the only remnant i have from what i sometimes call "the original entry" that sparked it all is from the 1st everyman where i used the image in the masthead.



2. the kottke explosion
then there was the post heard around the web. every time i the tell the story i obviously mention how simple and unadorned the mention that brought the everyman to the world was. jason kottke's wonderful brevity allows me to repeat it, verbatim, in each re-telling. what that pithy three-word link did for the everyman speaks to the power and potential of the world wide web which can still surprise when we see it flex its muscles in ways we weren't expecting.

after we returned from our family ski trip to utah last march i announced at dinner i wanted each person in the family to write up a list of ten thankfuls they had about the trip that we could send to the family who opened their home to us. all three children groaned saying that was too hard. my knee-jerk response was to say that was non-sense given the amazing week we just experienced and that i ...

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. motivation

one last minecraft note related to last week's story. to the obvious question of why, if alex was so excited about this herobrine mansion map, did he not play it before. the reason alex had never played the map before is he had heard that installing such add-ons (e.g. maps, mods, and skins), while a great enhancement to the regualr game play, could sometimes cause computers to crash and since his mom was letting him use her computer to play the game, he didn't want to do anything to mess it up. so even though he ravenously wanted to install the map, this young boy never did so because he did not want to cause problems for his mother who was generous enough to share her computer with him. he instead settled for hearing about it, watching videos of other people playing it, and hoping that one day he might get access to a computer, more his own, that he could install such things onto and not worry about inconveniencing someone.

it's safe to say this boy is slightly more conscientious than i was at ten ... or maybe even forty.

a quick recap. yesterday i talked about making a change in my approach with alex. in short, i made the decision to allow alex's interest to direct our time together instead of me pushing things i deemed more worthwhile for alex and his development (yeah, i know, what a big-time ass). presently, one of alex's premiere interest is a game called minecraft. as a rule, i'm reasonably derisive towards video games believing them to be an unfortunate use of young minds primed and ready to learn real things with a never-to-be-had-again ability or rapacity. in putting aside my agenda and deciding to support my son in his interest, i called one of my best friends, bookguy, who i knew played the game and asked his advice. bookguy defended this particular game saying it was better than most and iterated through the reasons why, a key one being the intensely creative nature of the game which craftily blends lego-like building with dungeons and dragons-like adventure. bookguy also pointed me to a few things to accelerate and amplify our experience.

so monday night, the first night of the new troy, alex helped me install the game on my computer. he then schooled me on the basics and helped me to build, or craft rather, my first house, complete with a roof and bed. i backed away from the computer after night one feeling good about our progress.

on tuesday night i suggested to alex we try to load one of these maps my friend told me about AND to try to get the local network gaming figured out, another bookguy tip. alex inquired about the map and i said i had one in mind. i pulled up the webpage bookguy directed me to and the second it appeared on the screen, alex lost it, and i mean completely.

ALEO
herobrine's mansion! herobrine's mansion! that's the map we're getting?

TROY
i think so. if we can get it figured out.

ALEO
oh my gawd dad! that is like the most amazing map ever made for minecraft.

TROY
that's what i hear.

ALEO
oh my gawd! oh my gawd! i can't believe this is happening. this is amazing!

and happen it did. we got the map installed, the texture add-on in place, and the networking figured out. alex and i, with anthony enthusiastically watching, ran around a mightily impressive world made by some mightily impressive dude. there were lots of excited explanations by alex and re-spawnings by dad (namely because i kept hitting the bad guys with a piece of steak instead of my sword). let's just say a certain corner of our house was much more lively than it has historically been for a routine tuesday evening.

when i later put alex down for bed he thanked me for playing minecraft with him and getting the maps and figuring out how we could play together. he then said, "dad, this was the best day of my life" and from the dreamy seriousness in his voice i felt that he was not embellishing his mood, not one iota.

had you told me on sunday afternoon that i would be experiencing this moment forty-eight hours later, i would have wondered what major life event had occurred. it just turns out the major life event was a quiet ten minutes of thought. i knew i wanted something more from a very important part of my life, i just didn't know it was so close at hand.

but, there is a bad side to this story. the unfortunate side effect to injecting an ok life with a plunger-full of awesomeness is it can make ten year olds curse like a target stock boy. it peaked as my minecraft character dropped into the newly installed herobrine world when alex, awe in his wide eyes, shouted in my ear, "ohhhh! this is awesome!! this is so fricken' awesome!!!"

i would have chastised him, but i agreed.

the last seven days floated more innovative ideas before me than any other week in the history of troy. a few you may have heard or seen as well, assuming you too are not enforcing a news embargo, but a few will be new to you.

item one told of "the coach that never punts or kicks off" (video) but instead runs on every fourth down and only does onside kicks. it seems he read this study by some harvard prof who has the math to support the approach, and this coach has seen a great deal of success from it. i'm confident i'm not the only one wondering if this is all true, as it seems to be for skill levels found in the sub-college ranks at least, i'm left wondering how has no one seen this before?

for the second item, a friend over lunch told me of a teacher at his kid's school who has his students learn the lessons at home via web videos (e.g. what is the pythagorean theorem?) and do their homework in class where, if confused, they have access to the teacher and others learning the same concept. when i mentioned this to marty she had heard of it, being in the industry and all, and said the practice is called 'flipping' the classroom. given all the great web fodder out there, cases in point, i can see this as being a highly profitable approach, especially if it means my kids not having to turn to me for help with things i didn't understand the first time around.

the third bit of inspiration i bumped into came from the mother of one of my former students. she told me that when her three boys were young they got very little television. she policed this in the following way:

• each boy would pour over the weekly television listing that came in the sunday paper where they circled two hours worth of television from the offerings.
• the marked up schedule would then get posted, like on the fridge, for reference. then everyone knew when they had to be home for tv, being the pre-tivo age, and the boys would look forward to their windows of time.
• alternately, and probably more importantly, they could look at the movie section of the same paper and direct their two hours at a theater movie instead of television.

i can just imagine the excitement and anticipation surrounding this ritual and how it would make special something that for must of us has become a completely numb and expected part of life. i'm anguished i didn't learn of this practice ten years ago. i find it beautifully thoughtful, inspired even.

the last item comes from my own desk. perhaps all the innovation happening around me moved me to keep up. the everyday problem i held in my hand dealt with alex and the time we spend together. it's not that our time together is strained, it's just not as vibrant and easy as i would describe my relationship with my other kids. as such, i sat down to reflect on this and inside ten minutes came to the conclusion that i was trying to push alex towards things i wanted him to do instead of leveraging one of his many interests. when i considered how i would feel if someone did that to me, i concluded i would think:

1. that the person was an ass.
2. and that the person might be acting a bit like their own father.

these two lines of thought put a quick end to that. minutes after this epiphany i called bookguy, a fellow i knew to be a minecrafter (minecraft being one of alex's core interest at the moment), and asked for some advice. then, minutes after getting home from work, i sought alex out and after the usual check on the day i asked him if he could do me a favor. being the helpful man he is he of course said yes and gave me his attention. i asked him if he would teach me how to do minecraft like he does. his late in the day expression brightened more than a little bit.

if a doctor's mandate is to do no harm i think a father's mandate could be 'don't be a dick' because who wants a selfish dick for a father. i wouldn't be surprised to learn twenty years from now that those ten minutes of reflection might be ten of the most important minutes i spent in regard to my boy aleo.

those are four examples where things that happen everyday were re-thought and from those re-contemplations, life got changed. these thinking organs we got are pretty dang impressive. so think. think hard. improvement is everywhere.

bella interrupted me doing dishes.

she asked me to log her on to a computer.

i told her it seemed selfish of her to expect me to quit my chore because she wanted to play on the computer.

she thought a moment and offered to continue the dishes, silverware actually, while i got her set up.

i complimented her smart problem solving. she came to the sink, i stepped back and she assumed my spot.

before i left the kitchen i saw her blanching at the task. it looked as though she was just going to bide time until i unlocked the computer and returned. seeing this in the cards i called from the next room that it seemed fair for me to type one letter of the password for every piece of silverware she washed. i heard an exclamation of understanding from the kitchen as well as a clatter of jostled silverware. she counted off the pieces she washed and i in turn wondered aloud why we ever chose such ... a ... long ... password which prompted more clatter and action from the kitchen.

that ole barter system must stand as one of man's finest creations.

anthony and i were walking home from picking up take-out dinner. anthony always walks on any walls or ledges along any route he travels. this particular walk host a variety of such obstacles. on one of the less perilous balancing acts, he came upon this unusual show of artistry. he stopped, taking it in. he commented on how good the 'drawer' did and the beauty of the woman. i agreed. he asked if i ...

last week, bella became the president of her school's national junior honor society. i could spend this time going on about how proud we are of her or how anyone who knew me in junior high, if told i would go on to to have such a child, would have called the notion daft, ridiculous, and silly—students and teachers alike—but instead i'll just share the speech i saw days after the event, an event i didn't even know was happening.

when i asked her about what the role involved she described the meetings, what they talk about and her place in it all. when done and after a brief pause she added that parents weren't allowed to attend. she is smart!

her stump speech.

to the person who expressed surprise that there is enough of a slope in my garage to cause a car to roll out, my garage (house too) is 89 years old and there is nary an even, flat, or straight surface to be found on the entire lot. and should you luck into a proper plane, give it five months and you'll find it is not what it was. that is one of the exciting charms of owning an old home.

the other selling point of an old home is it will never change its status on you-you start with an old home and you'll end with an old home. buy a new one you have to deal with modern constructions schizophrenia of saying:

it's a new home.
it was new when we bought it.
it's about ten years old now.
it was built in the 90's.

before you get to say the magically constant, "yeah, we live in an old home". those who know know my struggle with transitions know what a boon this claim is for me. and i'm not saying it's healthier, i'm just saying it's easier.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. confidence

for me, one of the hardest adjustments of parenthood was having people touching me and my stuff all the time. and when i say this you're probably imagining clean, healthy and groomed humans but that's not always the case. it turns out children prove as slippery as the weather and one day might gift you a beautiful gerber baby day while the next deals you a mucus-plugged nose or diarrhea filled foo ...

i recently shared this Khoi Vinh quote with a young man who works for me that has been in a bit of a funk recently. i told him that this was something i read every morning before starting work to remind myself of the import of my daily effort. i then added that as i've gotten older i've discovered that a lot of design and technology theory seems to be fully relevant to our personal lives too (and near-surely any industry you can imagine). i find the above example to be abundantly and beautifully evident of this observation.

over the last few weeks i've taught alex how to work the stick shift in my car. so now when we we're driving, and he's next to me obviously, i'll hit the clutch and call out a gear, like second or third. alex then moves to action changing the stick accordingly and then acknowledges the change by repeating the gear i called for. i'm struck by the cleanliness and efficiency of our dance which has come about most naturally. we're already so good at it, we're able to insert the calls and responses right in the middle of conversations with only the slightest pause in thought or acceleration.

tuesday morning when i entered the garage to take the boys to school, they were both in the car and waiting for me. one of them had already hit the garage door opener and when i slid into my seat alex already had his hand on the stick ready to go. seeing this i cautioned him to be careful to not pull the stick out of gear when i wasn't in the seat (explaining it is possible to do when the clutch isn't engaged lest he thought otherwise). to his question of 'what would happen?' i explained if the car was parked on any sort of grade, it could start rolling forward or backward depending on the slope. fortunate to the moment, there is a slight grade out of our garage so i told him to go ahead and pull the car out of gear. he looked at me with uncertainty. i nodded and said it was ok. so he pulled it from first gear and the car started slowly rolling forward. alex looked up at me. i said if this ever happened when i wasn't here he needed to pull on the emergency brake and pointed it out. as we talked this through, the car's front end moved out of the garage and began rolling faster due to a steeper grade when exiting. i said, "alex pull the brake". more speed. some panic out of alex. more speed. "pull the brake!" panic. more speed. "pull the brake alex!" his hand reached for it, gripped the handle and lifted up with as much force as his slender arm and coursing adrenaline would allow. the car lurched to a stop in the middle of the alleyway and a few feet from the opposing curb. anthony looked up from his book with piqued eyes. alex looked at me with wide eyes. i held out my gimme five hand. after he slapped my hand i smiled big and complimented the successful handling of his first car emergency. he turned from me wearing that glow of earned pride so special to see in one's children.

wednesday morning when we met in the car for school, both boys asked if we could do that rolling thing again where we had to use the emergency brake. we did.