The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Archives for December 2011

Life Lessons Learned On The Soccer Field

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מגשימים מגרש כדורגל- The Soccer Field

Life lessons learned on the soccer field is the sort of sterile headline that I tend to hate but I can’t think of anything better to describe this past weekend. Let me set the scene for you.

My son’s team was scheduled to hit the field at 7:30 am on Saturday. Due to several games having been rained out this season the playoffs and championships were set up to be played on one day. Normally they might do the playoffs one week and then follow up with the championships the next but that couldn’t be arranged this time around.

Instead they were told that they might play a total of three games. Win the first game and advance to the second game. If they won the second game they would advance to the championship game.

Saturday morning I walked him to the field and we talked about what to expect. He told me that he was nervous and that the boys thought that they would win the first but that the second didn’t seem likely. I told him to take it one game at a time and remember that anything can happen. My answer wasn’t complete bullshit. I believe what I said. I have experienced it personally and seen it happen at multiple levels but I can’t say that I really expected to see what I saw.

The boys came out flat during their first game and didn’t play well at all. With two minutes left in the fourth quarter they were down 3-1 and it looked like the season was about to end. Anxious parents on the sideline shouted encouraging words and pushed them to keep fighting. They didn’t have to win to make us proud but if they were going to lose we wanted them to go out on a high note.

But sports are filled with moments and this was when lady luck waved her wand. We scored…twice.  With the season on the line we somehow tied it up and forced overtime. Apparently our boys like drama because at the end of the first overtime the score remained tied and we went into the second overtime and came out the other side still tied.

The rules dictate that you can’t go into a third overtime so they moved into Penalty kicks and both sides went through the lineups and then we managed to pull it out.

I can’t describe how much pleasure I got out of watching the look on their faces when we tied it up and then again when we won. My son’s eyes sparkled and his face was glowing. I told him how proud I was and then we walked home to rest for 40 minutes because we had another game. Resting time came and went and then boys played another team right into two overtimes but this time managed to pull out a victory without resorting to penalty kicks.

That gave us another hour of rest and then we ran back for the championship game but that fickle bitch named  Lady Luck decided to bestow her charms upon another. The boys were gassed and they just didn’t have it. But there is no shame in second place and the smiles upon their faces when they received their medals was like an early Chanukah gift.

What Did They Learn

One of the things that I love best about blogging is that it provides a chronicle of the lives of my children. That is really why I provided that recap of the games. It is for me so that I remember the day.

But for you who want to know what they learned I share the following. I say that they learned that sometimes being part of a team demonstrates that you can be part of something bigger and greater than you as an individual. They learned that there is truth and meaning in saying “don’t give up” and that adversity doesn’t mean failure.

They learned that we have more control over our own destinies than some people give credit for. History can be changed. A team that you beat you once isn’t given an automatic win the next time you see them.

And for one moment in time these 11 and 12 year-old boys tasted something rare and sweet. It really was a beautiful thing to watch.

Sunday Morning Reading

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Blogger Brunch
Image by isthisREALLYmylife? via Flickr

Been a while since I last put together a wrap up post so I figured that it is time to give those who aren’t watching football something to do. Here are some recent posts to read

And just because I love you all here are a few more links:
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Reciprocity In Blogging Part II

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One of the most effective ways to drive traffic and increase comments on your blog is to blog about blogging. I sometimes think that there is no other topic that bloggers love to write about than blogging.

It doesn’t matter if you call yourself a dad blogger, tech blogger or business blogger, write about blogging and the comments will come.

One of my favorite examples of this is a post called Reciprocity in Blogging. Every day without fail my stats show that tons of people are reading it. Today I am going to write about it again but with a slightly different twist. Today we’ll talk about other social media platforms.

But before we do that let me reset the table with an excerpt from the first post:

Many bloggers are fans of reciprocity in blogging but I am not one of those. Commenting on my blog isn’t a guarantee that I will read or comment on yours. The converse of that is true as well. I don’t expect that every blog I comment upon will lead to a comment on mine.

I haven’t changed my position regarding blogs and blogging. However when I look at Twitter I take a very different approach. On Twitter I expect more interaction and engagement. On Twitter I expect people to respond to Tweets that I direct to them just as I expect to respond to those that are directed to me.

The nature of the platform and the way that it works is different than on a blog. I don’t call myself a social media expert or a guru but after all these years I know a few things about it.

Social media is about being social. It is about engagement and interaction. It is about discussions, dialogue and thinking. It is about people. Twitter works better when you use it for dialogue than strictly for broadcasting messages.

If all you do is post links you end up creating a lot of noise that people begin to ignore. On a blog you can wax rhapsodic about various topics and you have a greater chance of creating engagement than on Twitter.

I attribute that to the difference in character limitations. When you only have 140 characters to work with there are some messages that don’t translate well. A blog isn’t limited like that. There are other challenges but that is not one of them.

Twitter is formatted to be similar to a giant conversation. That is why it doesn’t work as well for the link broadcasters. They don’t engage and consequently people begin to ignore them. They remind me a bit of the people on the bus/subway who sit there talking to themselves.

They may be normal. They could be wonderful but the impression they give scares others away.

If you want to make Twitter work for you start talking with and not to others and good things will happen.

What do you think?

There Are No Jewish Christmas Trees & Santa Isn’t Real

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Eleven years ago I would stare at my pregnant wife’s belly and wonder whether we were going to have a boy or a girl. I’d put my hand on her stomach and talk to the baby inside and promise that I would do everything in my power to give him or her the best life they could ask for.

When December rolled around and we started the ‘baby watch’ I really began thinking hard about all of the things that were going to come along with being a father. Part of that process for me included trying to think of really hard questions and how to answer them. Looking back on that time I can’t help but laugh at some of it.

Call it anxiety, nerves or whatever you want. I was terribly excited but I did wonder how some of it would go in real life.

Midway through the month one of the men in my office told me that he thought it was so cool that my children would get to celebrate with a real “Jewish Christmas tree” and that he was jealous that I would get to play Santa Claus.

I looked him in the eye and told him that there are NO “Jewish Christmas trees” and that I wouldn’t teach my children to believe in Santa Claus.

He told me that if I did that I was depriving my children of something special and that he thought I was wrong. I shook my head and told him that they would never miss it because it is not our holiday and that it was ridiculous to suggest that. As you might imagine the conversation had gotten a little bit heated and neither one of us was interested in backing down.

When I look back at that moment I see exactly where and when we trampled on each others beliefs and had I to do it over I might handle it differently.

It isn’t because I have changed my mind. There are NO “Jewish Christmas Trees” any more there are pregnant men. I know that some people disagree with this and that there are Jews who put up a tree in their home. That is not something that I can get behind or support. It is a hot button issue for myself and lots of others but there isn’t a way to spin it.

It may not be for me or my place to judge but I have more respect for the members of the tribe that are honest about it. If you put up a tree call it what it is. Don’t call it a “Chanukah bush” because it isn’t and it never will be.

But Santa Is Fun

My former colleague was more irate about my refusal to teach my children that Santa was real than about the tree. He told me that he thought it was terrible and that if my kids went to school and said he wasn’t real they would wreck Christmas for others.

I told him that I would teach my kids not to talk to the other children in school about it but that was as much of a compromise as I was willing to make on the issue. If my memory is accurate he didn’t speak to me again until well into January.

After a decade of parenting I think that I have a better understanding of some of these issues than I did. The joy and innocence of a child is precious and I have done my best to protect it for my kids. I expect no less from other parents.

Yet I can’t say that I feel guilty about teaching my kids that Santa isn’t real. It is not my responsibility or obligation to do otherwise. I am their father and my job is focus on passing along the values that I see as important and my religious traditions/beliefs will not be trampled on.

All that being said I can’t remember a time where any of this was a serious issue. No one has ever said anything to me that suggested that a problem has been created because of this. And my children have never felt like they were missing out.

I think that in part it is because I haven’t ever taught them that one is better than the other. When they have asked me about other religions I have always told them that people are entitled to believe what they want provided that they aren’t hurting others because of their beliefs.

And thanks to our neighbors we have had many opportunities to enjoy a tree in their home. It smells great and looks pretty- but it doesn’t belong in our home.

Dear Nintendo I Want This Car

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A working version of Mario Kart.
A working version of Mario Kart.

Last month I made a special trip down to the LA Auto Show to see the cars and to hear a special announcement from Nintendo about some new cars that were built for them. I liked the picture that I shared with you but it is not as cool as the video below.

And with Chanukah around the corner I figured that it wouldn’t hurt to ask Nintendo to give me my own Mario Kart.

The Definitive Guide To Being a Dad Blogger

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Read, Write at Coco Momo

They say that if you ask you shall receive and I have certainly seen that happen to me. An unnamed publisher is paying me a very handsome sum to write The Definitive Guide To Being A Dad Blogger.  If you ask me what I am happiest about I would tell you that it is a handsome sum of money and not something ugly and meaningless.

Or maybe the thing that makes me happiest is that I get to write the Definitive guide and not some cheap unauthorized knock off.  Hell yeah, Jack doesn’t roll with imitation Kate Spade bags or fake Rolex watches. I am so damn cool and suave that the Three card Monty scam artists won’t let me play because I always take their money. Not only that, but the valets pay me to park my car.

How do you like them apples.

Damn if I haven’t gone off on a tear again. I am taking the blogosphere by storm punching out high quality posts that are stamped Grade A. If these were steaks you would call them Kobe and pay exorbitant sums to eat my meat. But I am all helping the common man and woman which is why I provide these words free of charge.

How exciting. How novel. How different.

Some of you are probably wondering how I was discovered and what kind of mojo must reside in my pants pocket. Well I have to tell you that you can’t buy the sort of mojo I have and it is not because I swing to the right, left or center. It is because I am a proud American who has pulled himself up by his bootstraps and created an empire out of a mound of cyber dirt.

My kids walk tall at school and tell all their friends that I am a blogger and then they just smile. Fortunately their old enough to pronounce the word because there was a time when they said that I was a booger and that creates an entirely different sort of image than blogger.

I have so much street cred at that school that the mean mom mafia hides from me. No teacher, parent or student dare cross me because I am armed with a laptop, internet connection and fingers of fury. From my post at the coffee shop I can heap copious amounts of scorn down upon their deserving hides.

Sadly the fine folks at Maybach haven’t figured out how important I am. They don’t take my calls or return my letters and consequently you folks won’t get to read the review of my week driving a Maybach. But I see that as a good opportunity for the other automotive companies to step in.

Drop me a line and we can talk about how this mighty keyword stuffing, SEO hating, semi anonymous dad blogger can take your car for a spin and then write an amazing review that will make people want to buy your vehicle for their own magical mystery tour.  Come correct and do the right thing so that I can do the write thing. Together we can create a Revolution that won’t go Helter Skelter.

Stay tuned to this bat channel my friends and watch as I work my magic. Witness and wonder the majesty of my blogging might which I of course take ever so seriously.

Linkbait, it is whats for dinner.