by Michael Sheehan on February 28, 2007
in General
I’m taking a side-step from my usual “tech” posts to write about the “dad” side. This is a strange situation that I’m trying to understand. Here is the scene: my oldest daughter is invited to a birthday party with “Jenny” that has a start time of 5:30 and going to either 10:30pm or overnight (for a sleepover). Unfortunately, our daughter is double-booked with another birthday party that starts at 6:00 (one that was accepted earlier because the 5:30 one had a late invite sent out). My daughter really wanted to go to the sleepover, so my wife asks “Jenny’s” mother if our daughter could come just for the sleepover (a bit later).
It was the response back from “Jenny’s” mom that really floored me, and I quote:
I’m not comfortable with that idea. I think this is a great chance for sharing lessons on commitment. I hope N. understands.
Huh? Ok, what’s the lesson here? Or lessons? First, is my daughter going to really understand the idea of commitment? Or is she going to think that “Jenny” didn’t want her to come? Or that “Jenny’s” mom doesn’t want her? Does that give N. potentially feelings of rejection. And what is the deal with the mom not being comfortable with the idea that my daughter wanted to come to the party, albeit late? N. likes the girl and wanted to participate in her party.
Frankly, I’m surprised by this sniping comment. It was short and curt. It doesn’t offer any redeeming qualities or any attempt to work something out. Is this the type of parent that I would want my daughter to have any interaction with. And while “noble” in this mother’s attempt to “teach” a lesson, I wonder how these and other lessons are being taught to her own daughter. Whatever. I cannot control how others decide to teach or parent. I can, however, control how I parent and the lessons I teach.
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by Michael Sheehan on February 28, 2007
in General
The great Web2.0 company, NetVibes, that I have been using for some time now as my homepage for ALL of my computers has released a really great new theme called Coriander. It brings the look & feel to a more Web2.0 feel (e.g., rounded corners & “shiny colors”) but also adds some nice functionality like the ability to resize your columns as well as the ability to scroll through your feeds that don’t appear. If you resize your columns, you have the ability now to add another column (e.g., make 4 columns). Double-clicking the column sets it back to the default.
New Theme Alert!
Here are some screenshots that NetVibes has posted on their site:
New Theme:
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by Michael Sheehan on February 27, 2007
in General
I just found a great new way to post to my blog, via a service called IMified. This is my first post using this service. I will probably research it some more and then write a bit more information about how to use this service. This is handy if you are on the road or on a cell phone. More later!
Ok, so the first paragraph was posted using IMified (but I added the URL link). However this is a great service for people on the run, stuck at an airport with only a mobile phone and their IM service or just wanting to do a quick post. IMified offers other hooks as well. It was launched in February 2007 and is privately funded.
New Site to watch!
They offer hooks into various other services including:
- IMified Notes – ability to save notes
- IMified Reminders – have automated reminders IMed back to you
- IMified ToDos – have a to do list on your IM
- Hooks into Other Services: [click to continue…]
This is really a nicely designed theme. It has a series of built in Sidebar widgets, clean implementations of style guides and all sorts of nice eye candy.
It also has built in paragraph classes for specific tags.
The site is located here. It seems to have quite a following. I’m slowly starting to get some of my old customizations back but they are very finicky.
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