Shirts for Skittles!

It's Destination Imagination time again. My daughter's team has once again qualified for Globals, which means fundraising for them and the other teams from our town. We've got a great selection of t-shirts on sale to help raise funds: 

Those are two I think would be of more general interest. We also have four shirts with more of a town-centric or in-joke feel:

Please take a look at the shirts and buy some for yourself, your friends, and your families! If you can't buy shirts, share them on social media platforms! Links for sharing are available on the site: https://www.bonfire.com/store/bedford-ma-destination-imagination/

You can read more about the Bedford MADI program and our successful run at states this month on the Bedford Citizen!

My daughter, the illustrator

I'm excited and proud that the book my daughter illustrated is now available for purchase!

Moldyrocks and the Three Bears by Jared Koyle and illustrated by Ada Cooprider. 

While remaining true to aspects of the original story with beds, chairs, and porridge, this unique story offers a delightful twist to the classic tale—Goldilocks and the Three Bears. This is the story of three clever sisters, princesses, who discover that to preserve the kingdom they were forced to leave, they must defeat their own queen. Together, with magical stones from a mysterious hare, the sisters set out on a journey that will reveal their ultimate destiny. Along the way they are introduced to a glassmaker, a wood worker, and a rope maker. The sisters learn that by giving away something personal, they receive more in return. They must also lose their way before they can know the true direction they are to follow. Then, just as it seems the evil queen Moldyrocks will reign forever, the combined patience and ingenuity of friends and family saves the day.

Available for purchase from these fine retailers: 

Alpha Book Publisher: 

Ebook

Paperback

Amazon

Ebook

Paperback

Barnes and Noble 

Ebook

Google Books 

Ebook

Google Play 

Ebook

Fundraising ideas for Destination Imagination Global Finals

My daughters got lucky and fell into a great Destination Imagination program at our town. Not everything has run perfectly, but we have been extremely blessed and are now preparing to head to globals for the second time. A large part of that preparation right now is fundraising. The move to Kansas City seems to have made it especially more expensive this year. My daughter's team seems to have had a lot of success with fundraising this year so I wanted to share some tips from what I've seen (mostly from the outside):

• Year-round fundraising. Ideally, fundraising occurs all year round and not just during the month or so between states and globals. The problem with this is what to do with the funds if you don't actually make it to globals? Our town has a non-profit that supports the DI program. Money accumulates with that organization so that it's there when a team does make it to globals. That's the theory, although I realize there's a lot of details in the implementation which I do not know.
• GoFundMe. We got tipped off to this during our first trip to globals and we're using it again. The site does take a fee off the top, but it's worth the cost in the ease of use. A lot of successful fundraising has to do with reducing friction for those who want to donate, and GoFundMe does a great job of that.
• Business sponsorships. Our town has a culture of working with local businesses to provide support for various things. It really does take a village. I realize that demographics and culture might make this a less viable option. Remember that it's a culture that has to start sometime and somewhere, so why not with supporting DI? You can even sweeten the deal by mentioning how you will display your gratitude for the fundraising. 
• Business fundraisers. This is another side of the previous item, but maybe more palatable for businesses. We have a number of restaurants in the area that will do proceed sharing nights. For example, 20% of the proceeds from orders at Ginger during April 23rd were donated to our town teams heading to Global Finals. I admit that the owners of the restaurant have a daughter on one of the teams, but I've seen other organizations do similar things with a local pizza place. It makes sense: you drive traffic to their restaurant and so everybody wins.
  
  
• Bonfire. We did a t-shirt fundraiser for the first time this year and it took off like gangbusters. Part of that came from a particularly popular design by the older sister of one of the team members, but even our less popular shirts did well. Obviously you want some kind of original design that will sell well, but that's a little like saying "buy low, sell high" on the stock market. 
• Cookies. A different organization we participate in uses selling cookie mixes and doughs to fundraise. We are dipping our toes into that a little right now, although I cannot report on the results for us yet. We have noticed success elsewhere with selling cookie doughs or mixes. It takes some time to create and deliver the goods, but the supplies are actually pretty cheap and yield a good return for what you sell. I've seen a similar approach done with pizzas. 
• Share. Share on every social media platform you have, and then do it again. Specifically, I am thinking of Facebook and Instagram. If you use Twitter, tweet early and often. Same with Pinterest. Even go for Reddit, if it fits. I am not sure about LinkedIn as a platform for this, but I tried it. I am not a Snapchat user so I did not use that myself, and the same goes for Whatsapp. I probably should have. Once you have the GoFundMe or Bonfire or whatever set up, market it on social media over and over and over again. 
• Individual emails. Email your family. Email your friends. Email everybody you know. Probably don't email your coworkers, but if they have an off-topic channel or list or forum, put it there. Don't spam people (email them repeatedly), but a single reach out shouldn't bother anybody. Ask for donations, but also ask for them to share with THEIR networks.

While it's great to score a big raise through these efforts, it's really more about eating the elephant: one bite at a time. Good luck and have fun!

Looking for dinner tonight while supporting some great kids?

Looking for a great dinner tonight and a chance to support a great Destination Imagination team? 

Visit or order take-out from Ginger today, Tuesday the 23rd. 20% of the proceeds go to Bedford DI! 88 Great Road, Bedford MA. 781-271-9988.

We have other ways to help support my daughter's  Destination Imagination team, the Skittleworms! They have qualified for and will attend the global competition this year. They attended two years ago and placed third in the world for their event. In addition to the hard work of preparing for their competition, we are all actively fundraising to help finance the trip. You can also help in any of the following ways:

• Visit the GoFundMe site and donate: https://www.gofundme.com/the-skittleworms-take-kansas-city. That's probably the easiest way to make a direct contribution.
• Check out the three awesome t-shirt designs we're selling:
• Women of science: https://www.bonfire.com/women-of-science/
• Bedford, MA: https://www.bonfire.com/bedford-01730/
• Creativity is contagious: https://www.bonfire.com/creativity-is-contagious/
• Interested in facilitating a corporate sponsorship? Please email me and I can get you additional information. 
• Sharing is caring! Please share these opportunities on social media and with your own networks. Most of the sites have sharing buttons: just click and add a few words! Extra points for sharing on networks without buttons (i.e. Pinterest, LinkedIn, email)!

The Skittleworms on TV

As I mentioned previously, my daughter's Destination Imagination team is currently fundraising for their trip to Globals. We are very proud of her and her team. You can support them here:

https://www.gofundme.com/send-the-skittleworms-to-globals

They were interviewed on Bedford TV last week (at 38:15 of the program).

My wife and daughter also opened an Etsy shop as part of their fundraising effort:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/AdabunArt

Please check out the GoFundMe page and the Etsy shop, then share on social media!

https://www.gofundme.com/send-the-skittleworms-to-globals
https://www.etsy.com/shop/AdabunArt

Send the Skittleworms to Globals!

Please take a minute to visit the GoFundMe page for my daughter's Destination Imagination team. Donate if you can, but please at least share on social media even if you cannot. Thank you very much!

https://www.gofundme.com/send-the-skittleworms-to-globals

Ride against cancer

One of my daughter's friends asked for donations toward her dad's bike ride against cancer. Please take a minute to look and donate if you can.

David Sachs's Ride

Survey results

Thank you to all who participated in my survey for my lesson in Elders Quorum on June 2nd. This chart provides one summary view of the results:

You can still see the survey online at http://bit.ly/10f5fsi and look at some pie charts of the results http://bit.ly/15Lkxhs. Any data miners among you can look at the raw and anonymous data http://bit.ly/18Fb2hr.

Mawidge

Please help me collect information for a Sunday School lesson on 6/2 by taking this survey: http://bit.ly/10f5fsi

Tangled

I took my family to see Tangled today. It was awesome. My kids were a little bit aware of it, but my wife prepped them good this past week with YouTube previews. They were very excited. I love Disney, and I loved The Princess and the Frog, but their animation studio still has a ways to go before it regains my complete trust in their quality. Pixar has it still, Disney Animation does not. Rapunzel Tangled, however, helps.

I was also a little worried about the movie because of its name. I had first heard about it and seen a clip back in 2004. Back then it was still going by "Rapunzel," which is what it really should be called. However, Disney was apparently disappointed with the reception by boys of The Princess and the Frog, so they tried to fix that with this movie. I am not sure what was wrong with Princess and the Frog. Maybe they made the prince too weak/negative. I don't know. I was worried that they would compromise in order to appeal to young boys. No need to worry. Still a great story, and still should be called Rapunzel.

I was a little worried about my kids "freaking out" at the scary parts, which is what they have done with any modern movie they've watched that has a decent plot. Surprisingly, my eldest managed to not freak out. I do not know if this is because she is maturing or if it is because the movie is not that scary. There is really only one scary part, and it is pretty low-key. That didn't stop my youngest from spazzing, but at least the oldest one did fine.

The villain in Tangled, Mother Gothel, may not rise to the upper echelon of Disney villains, but I did find her compelling. She is interesting for two, slightly related reasons. The over-arching quality is immense selfishness. She has found the proverbial fountain of youth and wants to keep it for herself. Part of that is keeping Rapunzel locked in a tower as her "daughter." However, since Gothel is selfish she is also abusive. The abuse comes as emotional abuse, which is a bit unique among Disney villains. I like it, and it made me think a bit about the things I say when I am "joking."

The songs were short but great. I liked the animation style and thought the story was compelling. The characters were also great, with Rapunzel and Flynn both being a great balance. Rapunzel is young and naive, but part of the film's journey is her learning she is perfectly capable of taking care of herself. Flynn is a self-absorbed thief, but he shows depth in the end and is not a shallow and helpless pansy (like Prince Naveen in The Princess and the Frog). The favorite line from my kids: "They can't get my nose right!"

In keeping with the lame posts of this week, here are the three trailers for Tangled to finish this one off:

Trailer 1

Trailer 2

Trailer 3

My escape from video game addiction

My guess is that half of you are saying "when were you ever a video game addict?" while the other half are saying "what do you mean 'escape?'" I like video games. I grew up on King's Quest and Space Quest from Sierra. My favorite games were/are the Final Fantasy series. In college I picked up Half-life and Starcraft. I eventually broke down and got a Wii in graduate school. The game flavor I currently enjoy is that of tower defense games such as Plants vs. Zombies.

One type of game I have religiously stayed away from is the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). Strangely enough, I actually played the first one of these to come to the market: The Realm. Well, "first" depends on your definitions, but it was definitely groundbreaking and one of the first in the genre as we recognize it today. It was put out by Sierra. Since I enjoyed Kings Quest I decided to install the demo and see what it was all about. I played it for a while and then never played another MMORPG again. That was my escape from video game addiction.

At the time I did not think much of it. In fact, I think the decision was mostly financial (I didn't want to pay the subscription fee). I do remember noting that the game would be dangerous for me since it did not have a clear end point. The newest Final Fantasy game may take a while to beat, but eventually you have done pretty much everything. There are even a finite number of side quests. Those games also do not have any of the social compulsion found in MMORPGs. I have a personality that would get sucked into these MMORPGs and have a hard time coming out.

This is not to say that I do not play video games. I do play video games. However, I mostly play off-line. During my freshman year of college I played a bit of Starcraft and Half-life on-line, but I stunk. Although there can be some concept of teams in those games, that is primarily individual play so there are not the social pressures normally associated with MMORPGs. Not to say that those pressures do not exist outside MMORPGs. Counter Strike wasn't really big yet (Half-life had just barely come out), but I had a roommate during my senior year that played Ghost Recon nearly 24/7 as part of an elite team.

A "gaming" addiction can also form from much more benign "games." I have given up all fantasy sports other than Tournament Challenge for March Madness. I found that reading the stats, forming a team, and hands-off battles games felt very similar to a role-playing game. Although each season had an end, during the season there is no end to how often you can tweak your team. This meant I could endlessly crunch numbers and sink time into it. Not good, so I decided to stop playing. The difference with March Madness is that players just pick the brackets once and then the rest is hands-off.

Why bring all this up? I was listening to The Internet Safety Podcast a few weeks ago and the host, BYU's Dr. Knutson, interviewed Brad Dorrance of ExGamer.net. Brad's website has been down, but he is also affiliated with online gamers anonymous. They talked about game addiction and made a number of great points. I like Dr. Knutson's podcasts in general, although he sometimes interviews in order to solidify his positions instead of in order to gather information. You can get some idea about his positions from the Ensign article he co-wrote, Just a Game?. I find myself agreeing with him most/all of the time, and when I think I don't agree I often realize he's right when I think about it later. He seems to be in line with Elder Bednar's counsel. Can't go wrong with that.

Subscribe to The Internet Safety Podcast. Read about gaming addiction in social science, psychology, and theology. Chances are very good that you will have to deal with this at some time to some degree, either directly or indirectly. Now please excuse me while I try to get to some deeper dungeons in MAngband. j/k

Thank you so much for-to playing my game!

One of my best parenthood moments came when I realized my firstborn enjoyed watching me collect stars on Super Mario 64. She still loves to watch Mario jump around and get the stars (although she does NOT like it when I die repeatedly). I finally succumbed to getting a Wii after watching her adore Super Mario Galaxy when some friends brought over their Wii.

Fast forward a couple years: Super Mario Galaxy 2.

I actually found this game to be a great improvement on the original (which was pretty good to start out with). The original game has 242 stars, but the second 120 stars are just repeats using Luigi instead of Mario, and the last two are just glorified cut scenes. Yes, I got all the stars. A couple weeks ago I got all the stars in Super Mario Galaxy 2 as well. However, the second 120 stars in that game are hidden in the levels and thus not as redundant as in the first game. Also, the last two stars come from a "Grand Challenge" galaxy that is easily the hardest level in the game.

Here's proof of all 242 stars in Super Mario Galaxy 2:
I tried to just find this picture on the net, but the only one I could find was badly focused and in a foreign language. Since the Wii doesn't allow for exporting pictures to email, I had to just take a picture myself.

Full disclosure: I did not beat either Super Mario Galaxy game by myself. During both games I had my wife helping out as the second player. This helps immensely. I may have eventually been able to beat all the levels without her, but I more likely would have given up and moved on. During Super Mario Galaxy 2 I had my kids watching and helping too (that is actually helpful when we looked for the hidden green stars).

The Bit

I am sad today.

Yesterday my pregnant wife started cramping. It got so bad that this morning we went to the ER. A few hours later we left the hospital knowing that my wife's pregnancy was coming to an end, and a baby would not be the result (she's only 14 weeks). It is very sad that we will not get to know the Bit.

The Bit is the nickname we gave the person that was growing in my wife's womb. We did not know its gender yet. We preferred to give it a neutral name over referring to it by "it" until we find out its gender. We were very excited about the Bit and looked forward to meeting it.

Where does the name come from? A bit is a binary digit. It forms the basic unit of information in computing. Eight bits make a byte, and bytes make up memory. A gigabyte is one billion bytes.

The pictures at the top of this post come from the movie Tron. A mainframe computer in that movie pulls real people into the digital world. One of these people comes across a bit, and it looks like object above.

Like most movies, Tron took some artistic license (okay, a lot of artistic license). In the movie, a bit can be neutral, negative, or affirmative. Contrary to the movie's depiction, a bit can only have two values in computing.

The Bit was on, but now it is off.

I will miss the Bit.

I am sad today.

Meet Princess Tiana at Disneyland

My kids love The Princess and the Frog. We did not watch it in the theaters when it came out, but we rented it from a redbox and then proceeded to watch it a bazillion times over the course of a weekend. When the kids found out they would be meeting the Disney Princesses at Disneyland, meeting Tiana became a "must do."

The problem is that meeting the Princesses at Disneyland is a bit of a pain. Luckily, I had been prepared for the state of affairs at Disneyland, thanks to Disneyland Vacation Tips. However, we beat the system a bit with Tiana. She comes out in New Orleans Square every hour or two and alternates between singing a bunch of songs from the movie and doing a meet-and-greet. She does both of them. We first ran across her by accident during one of her singing shows. We were walking towards Big Thunder ranch and heard the songs. We followed the music and found her here:




View Larger Map

Unfortunately, there were a ton of other people there too. However, we decided to come back later for the meet-and greet. Well, that did not happen, but we tried again on another day. We started by asking the information booth at the end of Main Street. They initially told us that Tiana was not performing in New Orleans that day. Luckily, we had seen her earlier and knew that was incorrect. They then studied their books and determined that the next meet-and-greet would be at 5:30 pm. At 4:45 pm we were in between rides and decided to head over. The information booth had also told us that perhaps we could meet her around the corner from the New Orleans bathrooms, in an alcove near the caricature artists.

We went over there and did not find Tiana. However, we did find one of her band members. I stopped him as he was going up the stairs and asked him when the next meet-and greet was going to be. He said it would be at 5:00 pm. Good thing we came by early! We went over to where we had seen her do the songs earlier and sat down on the steps. We were the only ones camped out. Eight minutes later, Tiana and crew came marching out. Her "handler" came right up to my kids and asked if they were there to meet Tiana. When we answered in the affirmative, she said that they would get to dance with her! So she finished coming out, danced with my kids, talked with them, and posed for pictures. All the while other people started gathering and some girls started trying to interact (but were herded into line by the handler).

What are the lessons learned?

• Know where the princesses will be and get there before they are actually there
• Don't trust the information booth with the success of your trip
• Castmembers in the act will actually know what is going on, so ask them

Here is a nice interactive youtube video (click on things to see other videos) about New Orleans Square. There are apparently a number of other shows that I did not see that involve Tiana. However, that is one of the great things about Disneyland: there is always more to do and see!

The Princess Who Saved Herself

Jonathan Coulton is releasing songs again. I just went by his blog and found this post about his new song: The Princess Who Saved Herself.

I think it is a must-have for parents of little girls. The is living independently in a castle, tames a dragon, rejects a self-absorbed prince, redeems a witch, and starts a band (with the dragon and the witch). Definitely a lot cooler and positive than the typical "I'm a helpless princess who needs saving" stereotype.

So go get it. It is available on a charity CD, "he proceeds of which benefit the Haitian People’s Support Project. It’s an amazing list of artists." The whole CD is kid's music, but if you want to just buy the Coulton song then you can find it here.

College savings and 529s

One of those things that everybody knows they should do but may still not do is backup their computer files. Another one is parents saving for the children's education. I recently just started funds for my kids, after delaying for a few years and not knowing how to start. Here are some useful resources I used during the process:

• The college savings plan became much more concrete after listening to episode 25 of Jumping Monkeys. I listened to that podcast on the TWiT network before it went off the air. It may have been my favorite podcast, possibly behind TWiT itself. Episode 25 talked about saving for college, 529s, and had a guest from Freshman Fund. Which brings me to. . .
• Freshman Fund is a website designed to help people save for college. In particular, it makes it easy for friends and relatives to donate to your child's fund. It also suggests plans for you based on the state where you live. For example, I live in Massachusetts, which has no tax advantage for using their fund so it makes since to pick a fund from any other state if that state's is better. I ended up NOT using this site, though, because I did not like having my kid's birthdays so publicly and easily available.
• I started looking at 529s after hearing about them on Jumping Monkeys. They described them as "the hot new thing," but I think they aren't actually that new. 529s appealed to me because they were easy to set up, use, and maintain. It took me half an hour to set up accounts for my kids and start saving.
• The question then becomes: "How do I pick which 529 to use?" In addition to looking on Freshman Fund, I found a number of good resources:
  • Morningstar regularly publishes a "five best" and "five worst" list of 529s. I found one from 2009 and one from 2007.
  • The website savingforcollege.com has a lot of useful material. In particular, I liked their 5-cap ratings and the overall plan performance rankings for 2009
  • Kiplinger also has some useful 529 resources. in 2009 they put out a list of the best 529 plans, including a state-by-state guide of what to do.

The important thing is to start now. Starting seemed very overwhelming to me because I thought I would make the wrong choice and lose money to fees and such. However, picking a good 529 just takes a little research and then they are super easy to set up.

4-year-old meets baby corn

4-year-old meets baby corn
Originally uploaded by zorgum314

This evening we had some take-out Chinese food in honor of Chinese New Year. One of the items came with baby corn, so we gave some to our daughter to try it. She tried it. Eventually she asked to be excused, and since she had eaten most everything else on her plate we let her go. I then examined the baby corn more closely and saw that she had tried to eat it like normal corn. I imagine this may be a common problem, but it is still funny nonetheless.