June 13, 2007 by phillip.

I’m sure at sometime in your life you’ve probably heard the phrase, “Sometime you need to just stop and watch the grass grow” or something similar. This phrase speaks of the nature of human beings being in so much of a rush and caught up in the monotony of life that they don’t stop and just breathe it in. A long time I learned that I was totally burning myself out on the way to success. I had my first child at 19 and the second at 21 but that was not going to stop me on the course that I had planned out. With children and mother in tow I set on a course with an unbreakable spirit.

This spirit can become your greatest ally in your battle but as I got older I realized it can be your greatest weakness. I was hell-bent on becoming the IT director of a company since I was inspired by one early on. My focus was too narrow though. Like a racehorse my rider (in this case my wife and children) could see that I could definitely still win the race in a landslide victory. The only problem was that my rider was falling off the horse and in a state of peril. Needless to say, I slowed down to spend more time with family and still won the race under my time limit.

In slowing down to watch the grass grow I devised a game that help pass the time. I would sometimes sit with people and instead of throwing popcorn to the pigeons I’d throw nickels and dimes to the humans. I called it “people feeding”. You just sit and watch all the people going by in a crowded walkway and toss out a coin and see who’ll pick it up. I found a perverse amusement in the person that showed their desperation in order to get the coin even though they probably had a pocket full of dollars.

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June 13, 2007 by phillip.

What’s new today is the refreshing attitude of a child.  That can actually be new everyday.

I have 4 children ranging from a teenager graduating from High School to a 5 year old girl that wants to play with Barbies.  What I must highly recommend is letting your children get their feet wet starting early on in their lives.  I must admit that my house is more teched out than most however, even when my older children were young and we didn’t have all the toys we play with now I used the same philosophy.  Get them to using your computer starting at age 3.

Now, now.  Don’t be scared.  All the spreadsheets won’t get erased during a game of Hannah Montana on Disney Channel. I would warn you though to make sure to move most if not all of your links or programs that are on your desktop into folders elsewhere on you computer before letting them run wild.  Browsers crash or get minimized by accident sometimes and there are all those great pictures that they can move or delete.

Here’s some good ideas:

For young children:  www.pbskids.org , www.noggin.com, www.disneychannel.com, and of course www.barbie.com .

Preteens:  www.cartoonnetwork.com, www.math.com,  kids.yahoo.com and www.discoverychannel.com

Trust me.  HOURS of wholesome entertainment and learning that can keep them occupied and mentally stimulated.

Two caveats though.  Your kids do need to get out and play and not sit at the computer all day.  Secondly, PLEASE make sure to run anti-virus and spyware/adware scans often.  You don’t want pop-ups coming up while your child is focused on the right thing only to see half naked girls or a casino.

Posted in Something to know, Cool Net Tricks | 1 Comment »