This past January, Abigail had her first experience with the theater. Her high school was staging a production of Little Shop of Horrors, for which she auditioned and got several parts. Given her expressive and dramatic nature, I fully expected her to really cotton to the experience, and was not disappointed. I have a bit [...]
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Posted 04 February 2011
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Family
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This past Friday, I got to be a part of my Mom’s wedding. It was a remarkable and beautiful occasion — beautiful for most of the usual reasons: two people pledging themselves to love and care for each other until their bodies fail them in the task, a community of loving and supportive friends, and [...]
The kids’ Christmas Lists are coming late this year because I had a wicked hard time (that’s for you, Yankee friends) getting them to sit down and write them out. Once I did, they had enormous difficulty coming up with items to put on them. This initially frustrated me until I realized: They’re having a [...]
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Posted 14 December 2010
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Family
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One of the reasons I enjoy my good friend Barry Brake so much is his penchant for wandering off into what one of his friends calls “Barryland”, a mental space characterized by enthusiasm for and serious contemplation of things that most people would gloss over. He recently recorded what may be the first rendering of [...]
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Posted 14 December 2010
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Music
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I don’t often post mere links to other people’s essays here, but The Need for Beauty mirrors some of my own thoughts and challenges as a parent and a creative person so nicely that I couldn’t pass it up without pointing more folks towards it. Well worth a read, especially for people who fall into [...]
I’m a fan of agile practices in programming, and encourage my team to work along agile principles as much as possible. One thing that has always been tricky about that for us, however, is that we don’t really match the usual profile of a software team. Most agile teams (at least in the literature) are [...]
As I’ve discussed the idea of using game mechanics to help focus and motivate people with friends over the past year or two, I’ve received some tepid feedback at times, but haven’t been able to really grok the concerns they have expressed. Sebastian Deterding, at the recent Playful 2010 conference, does a brilliant job of [...]
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Posted 08 November 2010
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Games
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There is a growing movement of people who are learning on their own, rather than relying on institutions of higher learning to provide the necessary structure and opportunity. The Internet has begun to provide access to information with ease and rapidity never before seen in human history. As a result, people who are interested in [...]
The series of events: We offer to look after our neighbor’s dog while she’s away. Our neighbor deposits her keys with us and leaves town. Liam’s friend Noah comes over to spend the night with us. We go have spaghetti dinner with friends down the street. Liam, Noah, Maggie and I return to the house [...]
I have family and friends who are terrific at making some really cool stuff. And while much of it looks great in situ, sometimes I want to take a photo that shows something off all by itself, with no background to distract the viewer from the subject of the photo. You know, like this: To [...]
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