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Things I Love About the Internet - Part 1

Tech Tuesday

Everyone is always talking about all the bad stuff online. I know that’s the job of the news agencies - they get paid to scare us - but millions of people still travel to cyberspace every day.

There's got to be a good reason, right?

The reason in some cases is hard to figure out - cyberbullying, online hate crimes and destructive websites come to mind. I suppose it's all a part of the human experience and at least we can actively choose not to visit those portions of the web we find disturbing. I find some peoples obsession with TMZ.com disturbing so that proves it's all a matter of relevance.

For all the current and potential pitfalls and dangerous information to be found, there are several reasons I am a huge fan of the internet and in some cases, don't wish to remember all that well what life was like without it. In the next series of posts I will be discussing those reasons starting now with:
Like-Minded People.

A Road Trip to Mexico, Perhaps?

Family Friday 

So far this summer, my family has gone on a camping trip and made plans to visit New York City to see  my sister and extended family. Both excursions will only last the weekend, unlike our week-long stay at the beach. That trip will serve, as it has for the past several years, as our main vacation for the summer.

I think it’s about time we start planning more adventurous excursions.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no plans to give up our week along the Delaware Shore. But my boys are finally old enough where expeditions no longer have to be planned around nap schedules or strict meal times or even bed times. They also are old enough to appreciate the places to which they’re being dragged. Heck, I’m willing to finally take them to Disneyworld because they’re old enough to remember the fun they would have there.

My elder son has even expressed interest in visiting places abroad. A student at a Spanish immersion school, he has said he’d like to go to Mexico one day “because I love their food and speak their language.” He also wants a trip to Hawaii, a state his aunt has twice visited and speaks of often. And both of my boys have talked about going to Yellowstone to witness the geysers they learned about in their summer camp’s science class.

Of course, part of me starts waxing nostalgic for the vacations I took as child. Our family always took one long road trip every summer. My dad would lower the middle seat of our station wagon, line the newly-elongated luggage compartment with blankets, and then wake me and my sisters up to load our bags. Once the car was packed up, my sisters would snuggle in the back seat and resume our morning sleep as my dad would begin a drive that would seemingly last forever.

Chicago, Chicago -- An Instant Classic

Fatherhood Friday

Did you ever have one of those days where a number of small good things added up to one set of great lasting memories? Last weekend the family and I went to Chicago for the day and while nothing extraordinarily memorable happened I kind of feel like its one of those days that will make an imprint.

The impetus for the visit was a Cubs game. Last year around this time I wrote about a friend who honors the memory of his father (who was a diehard Cubs fan) by watching the Cubs play on his father's birthday. I was fortunate enough to join him for the first time last year in Milwaukee and was glad to make it two in a row.

Two factors made it more special. First, I'm a lifelong baseball fan but had never been to Wrigley Field before. Second, my seven year old son has been getting into baseball lately so I was able to take him with me. The weather was great, the baseball atmosphere was great, seeing my old friend was great and even though I've taken my son to games before it kind of felt like the first time.

After the game we caught up with my wife's college roommate, who I'm also very close with and who I think my seven year old might have a crush on. We were excited to celebrate her engagement! One more bit of good news that made for a great day.

Afterwards we met my wife's cousin and wife and their newborn for dinner. We're really close with them yet we realized it was the first time we had gone out with just them i.e. no extended family. Again, nothing extraordinary - just a really nice time on top of a really nice time.

We skipped out on dessert since it was already close to bedtime for our two year old and we had a 90 minute drive in front of us. We figured he'd be asleep before we left the parking lot. Boy, were we wrong.

There must have been some caffeine in his beverage, because he was wired like he's never been before. For 90 minutes straight he kept singing any song he could think of, only stopping to point out trucks. Which, on the interstate, was every 12 seconds or so. At one point Frank Sinatra's "Chicago" came on the radio. No joke. The two year old thought this was the greatest thing ever and for two days that was all he sang, even though the only words he knew were "Chicago, Chicago."

I imagine that anyone reading this besides my wife (and maybe my mother-in-law) would likely find this to be a pretty mundane story. And that's okay. The point is that I bet we all have days every once in a while that maybe don't have a lot of extraordinary pieces but become "instant classics." Its even better when you recognize it right away.

 (Photo credit: http://content.artofmanliness.com/uploads/2009/06/baseball.jpg)

iPhones on the Baby's Brain

Image by Lyn Millett via Flickr

Technology Thursday

I'm a fan of Moms Rising. They appeal to my sense that focusing on individual behavior and situations is not nearly as important, if you want to make a positive change in the world, as focusing on policy and the structural incentives that drive individual behaviors. As i've written before, I'm also a big fan of my iPhone. And our two-and-a-half year old is pretty savvy with the iPodTouch/iPhone. So I was interested to read this recent post about the potential health risks of cell phone technology and the risks of using phones as a pacifier. 

Frankly, I am not well-read on the science, here (and the piece is suggestive, but vague on specifics), but my practice even with my own cell phone accords with the general tenor of the implied suggestions in this post.  If you're worried about potential health risks from wireless communication devices, I'd sum up my advice as follows:

First, for the grown-ups and older kids: don't talk on the phone a lot; certainly not for long periods of time while holding it up to your head. And don't wear one of those Borg-like devices that hooks around your ear and stays there all day.I really loathe talking on the phone anyway, so this is not a problem for me.  (It's not that I don't like talking to actual people - I'm up for sitting for hours in a coffeeshop and catching up, anytime; but I believe phone conversations are useful for only a very narrow type of interaction, and otherwise are more trouble than they're worth.) In fact, there are complaints that the iPhone is not a very good phone even though it does many other things wonderfully. It's been fine in the area I live, in my experience, and also, what? People still use phones? Typically, if I need to use my iPhone for a call, I'll use the speaker phone or a headset and microphone.

Second, when it comes to use of the phone by your children, especially young children, smart phones are no different than other electronic gizmos.  You need to monitor the kiddo's activities carefully and limit screen time.

Preliminary iPad Report

Image by Lyn Millett via Flickr

Technology Thursday

I have owned an iPad for 5 days. Here's a preliminary report. It's not magical but it is really pretty cool. At the moment, I predict it will serve 4 main purposes for me: casual browsing, games, reading, and movie & tv watching.

Casual Browsing.
For purposes of scanning email, Twitter, the web, checking in on Facebook and reading the news, it's just great. I do all these things on my phone, but the experience on the iPad is far superior. And I've already downloaded The Economist and Financial Times iPad apps, yes, adding these pubs back into my already overloaded reading queue, but still useful.

Games.
There was a great article recently about casual gaming and I seem to be squarely in that demographic.