Sit down, keep your mouth shut and your eyes open….

Over the past few weeks I have been putting in quite a few miles for work, 6 different states, 4 different sites, over 3000 miles in about 20 days.  Over this time I have had many hours to reflect on the things around me.  The one thing that I do when I am going to have to travel is to make sure that I spend the morning with the munchkin.  I take the few hours before I get on the road to keep her home from school for a bit and just have time with her.  If she wants to lay around in bed, we do that, if she wants to go get pancakes, we do that.  This is her time to have daddy to herself.

By having this time and then the time on the road I go to thinking about all the distractions we have in life.  I know I have wrote about turning the phone off, playing, listening, and all that before, but this time is a little different.  I got to really thinking about some of the things that we tell our kids; Do it this way, Color inside the lines, write with the other hand….. We try so hard ourselves to conform to society and we push our kids to conform as well.  But why not, to a safe extent, let them do what comes naturally to them.  By just observing my daughter I have seen her emmense ability to comprehend and grasp many different concepts.  The way she figures things out is amazing, the things that she understands at 4 blows my mind.  Then I started thinking about how she is able to do this, she will watch everything that we do and then act that way.  Even though I don’t think she is paying attention sometimes, or she isn’t listening, the actions that come later prove me wrong.  Also in all of the driving, I was listening to some old @Common tracks.  One track jumped out at me, Pop’s Rap II, from One Day It Will All Make Sense.  In the middle of the track, Pops is talking about how when Common was a kid he taught him more than he taught Common, with a few simple words.  It is when we shut up and listen to our kids, that we can learn the most from them.

We have all heard the saying, Out of the mouth of babes, and it is true, the most honest answer that you will ever get is from a child.

When, I was thinking about all of this, I was trying to figure out what God was trying to tell me or if it was just on my mind.  Then Sunday at Church, our Pastor was continuing our current series called Strong.  It is about having a stronger relationship with God, and doing the things that He has told us to do to build that relationship.  This week was about fasting and solitude.  And this really started to hit home, I have fasted before…. Usually when I want God to do something or show me something.  But never to do it just to get closer to Him.  Fasting is all about getting closer to God, it was laid out as something we should be doing as Christians.  It helps us to focus in on JUST God.  It is that time that we put everything else out of our way, and listen to Him.  Just like when we think our kids aren’t listening to us, Are we listening to God?  The example our pastor gave was of when you are listening to the radio, while driving down the road.  You get some stations perfectly clear, no static just pure sound; then as you go on down the road there is a little more static, and more and more and more, until finally you can’t hear that station anymore for all the static and other noise you are picking up.  In our daily lives, it may not be that we are getting farther from God, but that we have too many things fighting for our attention.  Too many things are putting static into our minds, that we think that we can hear God, but we aren’t sure.  It is our uncertainty that causes us to not act on things that He has in store for us, we get nervous, and continue with our mundane lives.

God listens to us whenever we come to Him with our whole heart, He knows what we are coming for before we ever talk to him about it.  He listens to us as if we were the only ones around, we have a direct communication line with him.  He doesn’t get distracted and bogged down like we do.  I know many of us, specifically us dad’s – lets face it we all have ADD; Will respond to our children, out of routine, with an “Uh huh”, or something of the like, when we don’t know what they really said, (We get in big trouble when we take this approach with the wife, who knows the things we really agree too.)

So I challenge you, to take an extra 20 minutes in the morning, to Shut Up and listen to God.  Then take an extra hour with no TV, no phone, no electronic interference, to talk with your kids, talk with your wife/husband/significant other, and just see how things in your life change.  Hey if nothing changes, I just saved you some electric and phone minutes, but I hope things get better.

by corymcglone

Geeking on a budget

Like many people I am waiting for the annoucement that is coming from Geek Mecca.  Will Apple release an iPhone 4s or the iPhone 5?  The web is going crazy with rumors of what is to come, people looking for the slightest change in a website or a picture.  I have found some great articles though on maybe not upgrading your phone.  If your like me and a geek on a budget, take a look at these few articles:

http://technorati.com/technology/gadgets/article/the-iphone-5-announcement-dont-trade/

http://mashable.com/2011/10/04/the-new-iphone-is-coming-and-i-don%E2%80%99t-want-it/

I love Apple, but I also know that I have other bills, and responsibilities.  I would love to be standing in line on launch day, but I just guess we will have to see.

–UPDATE:  Follow live here:

http://live.thisismynext.com/Event/Apple_iPhone_5_event_live_blog

–UPDATE:

New iPod Touch now in white.

iOS5 October 12

  • 1:55 pm “Inside, it’s all new.”
  • 1:55 pm Design is the same.
  • 1:54 pm
  • 1:54 pm “The iPhone 4S.”
  • 1:54 pm “It’s the number one smartphone in the world. So people have been wondering, how do you follow up a hit product like this?”
  • 1:54 pm
  • 1:54 pm “As you know, last year we introduced iPhone 4. It’s a great phone. Despite competitors trying really hard to copy it, they haven’t come close.”
  • 1:53 pm “Next, iPhone.”
  • 1:53 pm
  • 1:53 pm “We going to continue making the world’s best music players.”
  • 1:53 pm
  • 1:53 pm Shuffle, nano, touch..
    —–UPDATE:
    • 1:56 pm Mike Capps from Epic is up.
    • 1:55 pm “To show you what that can be like, here’s the president of Epic Games.”
    • 1:55 pm “We see it scream on games.”
    • 1:55 pm
    • 1:55 pm “It’s dual core graphics, which mean the graphics can be up to 7 times faster than in the previous iPhone.”
    • 1:55 pm “This is an Apple designed chip that’s remarkable.”
    • 1:55 pm
    • 1:55 pm “It has a new chip inside — the A5.”
    • 1:55 pm “Inside, it’s all new.”
1:55 pm Design is the same.
UPDATE:  World Phone
2:03 pm “Next, a world phone. You know that the iPhone comes in two flavors, GSM or CDMA. Now the iPhone 4S has both GSM and CDMA.”
—UPDATE:
–UPDATE —
2:35PM It’ll hit US, Canada, Australia, the UK, France, Germany, and Japan. In the US it’ll be Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint!
2:35PM Pre-orders for the 4S start this friday, the 7th. Available on October 14th.
by corymcglone

These kids just grow up so fast… or My kid is a technophile

Over the past few weeks honestly, my now 4 year old has completely figured out how to work the TV remotes.  TV, Apple tv, DVD, she can start her own movies, pause them to go get a snack, start them over, skip scenes she doesn’t like…  I don’t know why I was surprised, this is the same kid that at 2 1/2 could work an iPhone better than some adults.

Sometimes I think that she is still so little, then she will do something that just reminds me of how much she is growing.  And it is in these times, that I start wondering, am I doing everything I can to raise her right.  Are my wife and I teaching her the things she needs to know.  I mean she has already informed us that when her next birthday comes she will be in Kindergarten.  She has also told us that she is going to marry this boy at her pre-school, but thats a story for another time.  I also try to make sure that I am spending my time with her wisely.  When we are hanging out together playing am I teaching her the life lessons that will be important later on; sharing, helping others out, being a friend.

Too many times in our world today, our kids get put on the back burner.  As I have said before today, we are all workaholics.  We are plugged in 24/7, if you don’t have your phone within reach you feel lost.  You need to check email – work and personal, you need to check twitter, Facebook, G+….  It’s not that we are intentionally neglecting our kids.  We just miss those extra little things that they do.  I have seen many work emails sent at 8, 9, 10, 11 at night, to me this is prime time with my wife and daughter.  Now I will admit, I am guilty of doing this as well, I have my face buried in my phone playing a game or checking twitter, fb, G+, and not spending that time finding out what my wife has going on at work, what my daughter did at school, etc.  I have been making a concious effort the past few months to leave work at work, now there are exceptions, but from 6 – 12 its McGlone time.

You know, I got upset tonight when my daughter was watching Tinkerbell.  She was watching Great Fairy Rescue, and I couldn’t help but get mad at the little girls dad in it.  I know its just a movie, and honestly that is how they probably wanted you to feel, but it was such an example of our American lives, that we put work ahead of our kids.  We let our kids raise themselves and its time for a change.

I know I just one dad rambling on, but maybe another dad sees this and puts it to practice, and passes it on to another dad.  Kids today need their dads to be there for them.  To be in the house, to be in their lives, and to be a man.  There are too many stories out there of guys that leave after a kid comes into the picture, or has never been around.  I heard on the Steve Harvey radio show a couple weeks ago about a boy 19 years old, with 14 or 15 kids with 14 or 15 different girls.  Now I’m not gonna blame one side or the other, but where were the parents?

It’s stories like this that make me pray everyday that I am the father figure that God has called me to be for my daughter.  And I hope that my influence on her rubs off on her friends, and the other fathers out there.

Good night, God Bless.

 

by corymcglone