Category — Mom and Dad Toys

Well the week is over and I have had a number of people comment and wish to participate in the project. I will be sending out kindness coins this week and posting the serial #’s so that we can all track them. I also came to a decision to keep the project open indefinately. So if you missed the first week, it’s not too late to jump on board.

I am sending out kindness coins to anyone who comments on these postings and wishes to participate. The program works by registering a coin on the Kindness Project Website and I then mail them to any participants. When someone does something nice for you, you pass the coin on to them and ask that they enter the transaction on the website. I will post an update whenever a transaction for the coin is entered.

So leave a comment and I will contact you to receive a coin…

Help spread Kindness

I found a way to add traffic to your blogs and can’t believe the number of hits I received in a couple of days. It is in Beta mode and access can be obtained only with an invitation. You gain credits by surfing other blogs and the more credits you receive the more your blog gets exposure. Email me and I can send you an invitation.

This weekend the family and I visited a small mom & pop store for some items we needed and while being run up at the cash register, I saw a display of these “Kindness” coins. While waiting for my total, I read the display and was spell-bound. The way it works is that you purchase a coin and register it on the “Kindness Project” website. Each coin has its own unique serial #. Once someone does something kind for or to you, you pass the coin on to them and ask them to add a comment on the website and pass it on to another person.

The shop owner saw me contemplating whether or not I should purchase the coin, so he just gave it to me for free. His kind act is the first entry for this coin. I am looking for volunteers to accept the passing on of this coin and others. Please comment to this post and describe something kind that you recently did and I will send coins to anyone who wants to particpate. I will open the offer for one week and it will end Sunday evening March 12, 2006. Below is a summary from their website of the project:

The Kindness Project aims to prove that you can have an exponential effect on the spread of kindness around the world. It’s simple - when someone does or says something kind, no matter how small, you give them a token. Taking a few seconds to pass on the token empowers you to brighten someone’s day. The tokens are passed from person to person, again and again, turning the world into a kinder place. Can you imagine how you would feel if you received a token yourself?

The beauty of the Kindness Project is that not only do you get to make a difference in someone’s day by giving them a token, but everyone gets to track their token and read about all its adventures. Be a part of the Kindness Project by passing on your own tokens!

Remember, comment and describe your kindness and we will see where this takes us.

Update: Since some may be uncomfortable sending me their mailing address to receive a free coin, please purchase one from the site and leave us the serial# in this post so we can all track them.

I got this in an email today and thought it was hilarious

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning … uphill BOTH ways .. yadda, yadda, yadda.

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they’ve got it!

But now that I’m over the ripe old age of thirty, I can’t help but look around and notice the youth of today. You’ve got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia!

And I hate to say it but you kids today you don’t know how good you’ve got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn’t have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

There was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter … with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

There were no MP3’s or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio (that is the truth) and the DJ’d usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! Man I hated when that happening. It always mixed up my mix tapes.

We didn’t have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that’s it!

And we didn’t have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, a collections agent, you just didn’t know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn’t have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with
high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like “Space Invaders” and “Asteroids” and the graphics sucked ass! Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! … Just like LIFE!

When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn’t see, you were just screwed!

Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu and no remote control! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on!

You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel and there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I’m saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards!

And we didn’t have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove or go build a frigging fire … imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid Jiffy Pop thing and shake it over the stove forever like an idiot.

That’s exactly what I’m talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You’re spoiled!

You guys wouldn’t have lasted five minutes back in 1980.

PalmInfocenter.com: Palm Says 3 New Treo Smartphones in 2006
Palm CEO Ed Colligan stated in todays Palm’s earnings conference call that Palm will announce three new smartphones next year, in addition to the Treo 700w. Read on for more details.

“We’ll roll out the Palm Treo 700w smartphone based on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, and we’ll announce three additional new smartphones during calendar year 2006.” said said Ed Colligan. During the conference call he further stated that these new models will debut with new industrial designs and at different price points. They will also implement next-generation radio technologies.

Colligan also stated that one of these models was designed specifically for a large international carrier and may not ever see a US release.

This announcement confirms earlier rumors about new Treo products in 2006. That report stated Palm plans a Treo 700p (similar model as the 700w running Palm OS Garnet) as well as two new designs code-named “Hollywood” and “Lowrider”.

The Organized Parent Storefront

A nice website with lots of cute organizing products for parenting.

Website describes the founding below:

“In 2003, company founder Stephanie Vozza had an extraordinarily disorganized week. After making a second trip to her second grader’s school to drop off the sack lunch he needed to bring on a field trip, she sat in her car and wondered: Why could she easily juggle a dozen projects with a dozen clients and a dozen deadlines before she had her children, but she couldn’t remember to pack a brown bag lunch?

That’s when the idea for The Organized Parent was born. And our mission is simple: To make your job easier by offering stylish products that make you feel more professional and in control of your daily tasks. Just like you do in the workplace.

DVR/PVR TIVO Ownership Increases

Two years ago my cable bill was going up and my co-workers talked me into switching to a satellite service (Dish Network) that included a recordable cable box like TIVO. Just like you, I said that I don’t record TV now, so why would I pay $5/month for this service. Having a recordable TIVO/PVR/DVR box will change your life forever.

It is so easy to set a program to record that now 90% of my TV watching is something that I previously recorded. It is so convenient to set up what shows you want to watch and then when the baby goes to bed, you can watch at your leisure. Now we have three recordable boxes and can’t live without them. I promise you. It will change your life for the better and if you ever stay at a hotel, you will go nuts without it.

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A buddy of mine at work and I came up with this list of things to do last spring during bad weather. He has 3 and I only have 2, but it has helped a number of times for us. Most are local Dallas, TX activities, but I am positive that you can find something similar in your own area.

1. Children’s Museum (Most major cities have one dedicated to children)
2. Kids Wing of the major Art Museum
3. Aquarium
4. Movies (A no brainer, but we can get more creative than this)
5. Science Museum (Great adventure for kids)
6. Toys R US Jungle Gym (In the TX summer heat this is a must)
7. Merry Go Round at local mall (We have a couple of malls who have installed these)
8. Roller Skating
9. Bowling
10 Build A Bear (A chain found in malls, you can take all afternoon deciding on the many choices)
11. Paint N Party (Arts store where you can pick your piece, paint it and they fire it)
12. Chuckie Cheese
13. Main Event (Similiar to Chuckie Cheese or Dave & Busters)
14. Dave & Busters
15. Bookstore (Barnes & Noble or a half-priced one)
16. Library
17. Ice Cream

The key to this list is to have it handy because you never know when you are going to need it. If you have something to add, please comment.

Most who know me know that I use a palm pilot PDA religiously to organize my life. I started using them several years ago when I was using public transportation to get to work. Like most people at the time, I kept a work calendar at the office and a personal calendar at home. But when I started taking the bus to work, I needed to know what I had on my calendar at work so I could determine if this was a day I needed to drive or dress in a certain manner.

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I was watching my morning news program where I saw a home organization expert discuss how she organized someone’s study. On a bookshelf I saw a rack of plastic cases that seemed to contain collections of photos. It was sleek and neat and I just had to find our more. Like most people of have 1000’s of old photos thrown in a box. It was a very cute way to display and organize a group of photos for visitors to see. I tracked down the organizer and forwarded me to imago products that offer both the photopods and the racks that hold them.

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