Seth recently wrote a post called The non-optimized life.

If you haven’t seen his blog, you wouldn’t call it optimized by any stretch of the imagination. He rarely posts a picture, and when he does it is only to illustrate his point.

He doesn’t allow comments and he doesn’t use excessive links.

He’s a busy man, and it’s a wonder that he blogs at all, let alone daily.

He uses social networking in ways that maximizes his exposure without wasting his time.

This highly successful marketer/business man/author has taught this Daddy Blogger something very important:

I like to think that I’ve optimized my life by using Twitter to update my Facebook, or using Social Oomph to broadcast that I’ve written a new post every two hours on the day it’s posted.

But I still write all of those posts. Each message, even at 140 characters or less, represent time. Time I could have spent with my wife and kids. Time I could have been using improving myself.

My wife and I have discussed these ideas since I began this blog a year and a half ago. I’ve justified that time countless ways. It increases traffic, I’m making friends, it benefits my writing by helping me write quickly and directly.

As life moves forward, I see these justifications less as explanations and more as excuses. Actually, not just as excuses, but procrastination from doing the real work. The real work of finding myself and my family living lives that we can all be proud of.

Blogging and tweeting will slow, but the quality bar will be raised. If you enjoy what you see here, please subscribe to my RSS feed, because I won’t be telling you every two hours that I’ve blogged. Hopefully, I’ll find a voice worth listening to, and like Seth Godin, optimization (i.e. begging you to read me) will no longer be necessary.

You’ll just want to be here.

I’m about to hit ‘publish’ on this post at 11:00 pm on the Saturday night before the final game of the World Cup. I’d say when it comes to non-optimization, I’m off to a great start!

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An Idiot’s Guide To Australia

When I found out that Justin’s step-daughter Kat had earned the chance to visit Australia as part of People to People’s Student Ambassador Program, I thought wow, that’s pretty darn cool. What a wonderful opportunity for a young adult to experience the bigger world and export good will to such a culturally rich country like Australia. Almost makes me kind of jealous.

Australia is, like, one of my most favorite countries in the world, right next to Chad and Turkmenistan (they really don’t get enough credit). In fact, you might even consider me something of an expert on the topic given my Wikipedia-like knowledge of the place. So, for Kat and all you readers who might one day visit, here’s a few tidbits that might prove to be useful during your trip.

Australia lies in the Southern Hemisphere, which is why it’s winter occurs during our summer and vice versa. (It’s also why the toilets spin in the opposite direction after you flush.) It is the smallest of the continents in land mass, and boasts a population of an estimated 22 million people who reside primarily near the mainland state capitols.

The earliest inhabitants of Australia were known as Umpa Lumpas, and they can still be found living in the bush country of the island’s interior. Umpa Lumpas are typically small in stature and enjoy singing, dancing and playing instruments such as the didgeridoo. They are also well known for their mastery in making fine confectionaries. (Their Everlasting Gobstoppers are to die for.)

This wild area, commonly referred to as “the outback,” is also where Danish Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke established a coffee plantation in 1913 which later, using the pen name Isak Dineson, she wrote about in her now famous memoir entitled Out of Africa.

Schwarzenegger was quoted as saying, "Good on ya, extra prisonahs!" as he saluted the early Australian colonists.

Following its discovery by Sir Isaac Newton, Australia was colonized by convicts and felons who had been freed under California Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger’s early release initiative aimed at reducing prison over-crowding. Australia remained a colony until 1986 when humble, screen actor Paul Hogan using the alias, “Crocodile Dundee,” led a successful rebellion resulting in Australia’s birth as a Commonwealth. His rallying war cry, “That’s not a knife. This is a knife!” became the country’s official motto.

Crocodile Dundee ruled benevolently until 2001 when his popularity began to wane following an adventurous visit to Los Angeles. Eventually he handed the responsibility over to his charismatic nephew, Steve Irwin the Crocodile Hunter, who sadly was killed by a mentally unstable stingray with a strange obsession for Jodie Foster. Currently Australia is presided over by the Crocodile Hunter’s daughter, the much beloved Bindi Sue.

Let’s see, what else? Oh, the country’s national anthem is, “I Come From a Land Down Under” written by the patriotic group Men At Work who were inspired by the sight of the Australian flag still flying over the capitol, Sidney, after invading Californians tried to burn the city to the ground.

Economically, Australia is very solid. Their chief exports are shrimp, barbies and an odd-looking shoe known internationally as Crocs which were modeled after the bill of a duck-billed platypus.

Australia’s cultural influence has had a great impact on the world, especially here in the United States. Few realize, for example, that in 1989 an exchange student from Melbourne attending the University of Texas at Nacogdoches taught fellow classmates how to crush over-sized beer cans on their forehead which lead to a national craze in fraternities all across America.

We can also be thankful for Australia’s artistic contributions which includes a long list of unparalleled actors and actresses such as Errol Flynn, Hugh Jackman, Heath Ledger, Nicole Kidman, and Tina Turner whose breakout performance in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome has become legendary. Also worth noting is the interpretative dance troupe Thunder From Down Under, now one of Las Vegas’ top shows, and a must see for any family that gets the chance.

I could probably go on, but at this point, I think it would only be seen as bragging. Besides this is more than enough for Kat to use in impressing the great people of the Australian Commonwealth. I hope it serves her well. (*see note)

One more thing. In support of Kat’s trip, I’d like to donate a copy of my book Sugar Milk which is filled with even more fun facts about, not just Australia, but for Chad and Turkmenistan as well. At the end of this post, Justin will explain how you can win a copy of this very handy book by helping Kat with her needs for the trip. I’m thinking she will make a way better ambassador to Australia than I ever would. Your support will be greatly appreciated I’m sure. Thank you.

*Note: This post has been thoroughly denounced by the Australian Department of Tourism.

W O W! Thanks, Ron!

So. How can you get your very own autographed copy of Sugar Milk? How can you win the book that founder of The Good Men Project Tom Matlack said ‘captures the real American Man of 2010, and the American family, with honesty and humor not found in the stick figure portrayals so prevalent in popular culture.’? Keep reading and I’ll tell you!

• Donate to Kat’s trip. Yes, I am asking for money, but you decide the amount. $1, $5, $10, more. It’s all good. Each donation earns you an extra entry in to the contest. Simply use the Chip-In button on your right. If you have already donated, thank you very much, you’re already entered.
• Bonus Points (be sure to let me know in the comments after you complete each entry):
  • Share and share alike: Share the contest on twitter with a tweet that sounds something like ‘I just helped a smart kid get to Australia, and got a chance to win an autographed copy of Sugar Milk! You can too! http://su.pr/1MLwsW‘
  • Blog Australia: Write your own blog entry about Australia and why you support Kat’s ambassadorship. Post the link in the comments here.
  • Give us some sugar: Have you read and reviewed Sugar Milk? Post a link to your review here in the comments and let others know why they NEED to own this book!
  • Stumble and Digg! Stumble or Digg this post and comment here. If you followed the su.pr link, there’s already a like button at the top of your screen! Easy!

I’ll end this giveaway on Thursday, May 27. I’ll use random.org to choose the winner, and announce the winner here next Fatherhood Friday!

I’d like to thank you all for your help. A very special thanks goes to Ron Mattocks for the donation of the book, and the amazing guest post. You’re the best!

This post brought to you by Dad-Blogs' FatherHood Friday. Be sure to swing by for all the other great Dads and Moms who love to share their lives online!

I am not alone.

Silly Daddy was/is created by Joe Chiappetta of North Riverside, Ill. I found some interesting facts about Silly Daddy over at the Geek To Me blog at chicagonow.com:

• Silly Daddy is the longest running comic about a family by a father. (It hit it’s 500th comic in November.)

• Mr. Chiappetta is continuously exploring new tools for the trade, consistently using a Pocket PC to create his comics, as well as being the first cartoonists to explore comics made on a mobile phone, calling them ‘telephonics’.
• Every comic at Silly Daddy is fully accessible to the blind or those with low vision. Every comic posted has described narrative that assistive technology software such as JAWS or ZoomText can read to the viewer.

I would like to take the time to thank Mr. Chiappetta for being a pioneer not only in webcomics, but in the world of dads chronicling their lives online! I hope I am worthy of crawling in your shadow, sir.

One more sidenote on Joe Chiappetta, he has also written an all-ages space opera called ‘Star Chosen’. Check it out!

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I’ve already detailed here how I’m putting more effort into developing a webcomic based on the very family I hope to make proud, so I hope it will not come as a surprise that my blogging will become less frequent as I focus on my webcomic.

I still absolutely love Daddy Blogging, and I will continue to do it, but I feel that now’s the time to pursue my very first passion: making cartoons.

It feels odd. I haven’t seriously picked up a pencil for probably 10 years! And now the ‘pencil’ is on the computer screen. I hope you all will join me on this journey of rediscovery for me, but be forewarned: I will be first and foremost drawing cartoons that I enjoy. Sometimes, it will deal with parenting or marital issues that are near and dear to all of our hearts, sometimes I may go off on some geek tangent. (In other words, it’ll be a lot like this blog!) But here is my promise to you: I am going to have FUN! Hopefully, I can pass on to you a little enthusiasm for the artform known as comics, or if you want to sound all high-falutin’: ‘Sequential Art‘.

I appreciate your understanding, and I look forward to any constructive criticism or just plain jeering and heckling you may have.

One more thing before I leave you today: Have you looked in the mirror lately? Have you become who YOU want to be?

This all came out of me looking into that mirror and realizing that I didn’t want to be a ‘wannabe’ or a professional admirer. I didn’t want my kids to see me looking wistfully at a comic in print or on the web with a tear in my eye for what might have been.

Have you achieved your dreams? Have you given up? I refuse to believe that it’s ever too late. Find that thing that gets you going. Whether it’s a career change or simply an exciting new hobby, but stop cheating yourself and find that thing. I wish you the best of luck on your quest, as I step off of my soapbox.

I’ll leave you with my newest completed cartoon (click for larger image):

A funny thing happened at the park...

Incidentally Calli already gave me feedback on this one: she’s disappointed that I didn’t draw the entire playground.

I would love to hear about your passions, and whether you’ve achieved your dreams! Please feel free to share in the comments below!

This post brought to you by Dad-Blogs' FatherHood Friday. Be sure to swing by for all the other great Dads and Moms who love to share their lives online!

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Blogging.

Why? What’s so important that I feel I should set my alarm and get ready for work early so that I can sit at the computer and write about my family and my life?

I find it soothing. It relaxes me. If I don’t get to do this, I feel like I might explode.

Crazy, huh?

But the other day I found a bit of insight in an essay by Ray Bradbury:

‘I have learned, on my journeys, that if I let a day go by without writing, I grow uneasy. Two days and I am in tremor. Three and I suspect lunacy. Four and I might as well be a hog, suffering the flux in a wallow. An hour’s writing is tonic. I’m on my feet, running in circles, and yelling for a clean pair of spats.’

The quote is from a book I just started reading by Bradbury entitled ‘Zen in the Art of Writing‘.

Darn it, Bradbury’s right.

A lot of my readers are fellow writers and bloggers, so the above probably comes as no surprise to you. Late at night something awakes you, and you feel that hot, burning sensation rise from the base of your neck to the back of your head. That Thing under the bed that compels you to get up and jot something down or fling open your laptop.

Maybe it happens in the middle of the day, when you’re in the middle of some menial chore. That little voice that creeps in to your consciousness and whispers, ‘Have I got a story for you…’

The zen in blogging is that there is a certain freedom to having your own space to create and be discovered. You not only get to exorcise whatever demons may be plaguing you, or share your triumphs, or simply rant about things that you love and despise, but you also join a community. You find kindred spirits who actually enjoy looking at pictures of your goofy kids! We as bloggers, see in other bloggers a bit of ourselves. But we also quickly learn that in our similarities we are each unique individuals, with our own gifts to share.

Blogging is about creating something, but it’s also about sharing, writing to be read, and in many cases, reading to be read. I don’t know that anything else with this much power has existed before in the history of mankind. No one is telling you not to, more often than not, you’ll find encouragement. There’s no publisher telling you you’re not good enough. If a post isn’t good enough, it’s up to you to click ‘publish’.

You’ll learn from the feedback whether you were received well. If not, do you care? What are your goals for your blog? Are you trying to make money? Then maybe you should care about your audience. Are you just having fun? Then you’re getting the most out of this crazy fun hobby, and the audience doesn’t matter. If you keep honing your skills, they’ll catch up…

I’d like to leave you today with one final thought from Mr. Bradbury:

‘Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me.

After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together.

Now, it’s your turn. Jump!’

See you in the blogosphere…

Today’s kids are spoiled. They can have cartoons 24-7, on demand, no questions asked. Here at Howefitz Blog, I’d like to start  a tradition of making Saturday morning an event again. Cartoons belong on Saturday morning!

Please excuse the crudeness of the above comic. When inspiration strikes, I have to get it down on paper. Since discovering the blogging lifestyle, I now feel like I should share everything online…

If you follow me on twitter, you’ve probably picked up on the fact that I’ve been geeking out on my favorite webcomic, Hijinks Ensue. In fact, I went back to the beginning earlier in the week, and got to the end late last night.

If you’re not familiar with HE, it’s a ‘Geek Webcomic’. Creator Joel Watson has effectively cartooned himself and his friends, and four times a week, he draws strips of himself and his friends poking fun at popular culture and each other.

So it got me to thinking: My family cracks me up every day. My wife consistently provides just the right words that convey what we were both thinking. In short, my family would make a great webcomic.

Not willing to wait for the Wacom tablet I just ordered cheap on the internet, this first strip was penciled on actual paper with one of those wood sticks with graphite inside, then scanned in and ‘inked’ in Artweaver using just the pad on my laptop. When I actually launch the strip, I plan on using color, and between now and then I’ll figure out how to draw a straight line.

The strip shouldn’t interfere with the sporadic schedule of the normal Howefitz Blog, so don’t fret, fair readers. If anything, I’m hoping the comic will enhance the entire Howefitz Blog experience!

If you can’t wait for me to get my act together, I plan on posting early design sketches on my Facebook Fan Page for Howefitz Blog. If you’re not a fan yet, what are you waiting for?

So what do you think? Is the Daddy Webcomic Blog the wave of the future? (If I have my way…) or am I just being silly?

I am not beyond a redesign, however. Look for changes in the not-too-distant future…

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The Sunday Sermons here at Howefitz Blog are generally intended to explore the philosophies and religions of the world, and to hear your take. Today I’m bending the rules a little, but still discussing a way of thinking that our entire world is possibly embroiled in: that of complaining.

On Thursday, I told you about my attempt at going 21 days without complaining or making excuses. If you missed it, it’s at 21 Days. No Complaints. No Excuses.

I have gotten a lot of positive feedback through the comments and on twitter.

This led me to create a facebook fan page for this very idea. I would invite anyone that has joined me on this journey to fan the experiment and share your experiences.

As for my results? Let’s just say that Thursday was 4 days ago, and I am on day 2 of actually not complaining. That may be because it’s my second day off of work.

Who doesn’t complain about their job, right? That’s where I’ve found that it’s the easiest to break down. I don’t care how much you love your job, you’ll find things that you don’t like. I think this stems from the fact that in most jobs, it’s a team effort, with people making up that team of various skills/competencies. Someone’s bound to do something wrong, or as you would perceive as wrong. Maybe they’re lazy. Maybe they just don’t know.

If you’re not where you want to be in life, stop and ask yourself what the root cause is. Don’t be so quick to blame anything outside yourself. Every where you look, everything is changing. It’s how you deal with that change that matters.

In case you haven’t noticed, this message is just as much to myself as it is to anyone else. I feel like getting this off of my chest, letting the world know how I think, is a form of cathartic release. I can now begin to change myself.

The journey is far from over…

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So to bring this discussion back around to me, (isn’t that what blogging’s all about? ) my wife and I have thought long and hard about changing the name of this blog. No one really knows what a ‘Howefitz’ is, much less a ‘Howefitz Blog’. Incidentally, ‘Howefitz’ is an amalgamation of my last name, ‘Howe’, and my wife’s maiden name, ‘Fitzgibbons’. We talk about opening a toy/comic store all the time, and a long time ago when discussing a name, one of us (neither one of us remembers who) suggested ‘Howefitz Toys and Comics’. The store still has yet to exist, but the name Howefitz has become my online handle far and wide across the internet.

When I started this blog, I had no idea what I was going to write about on a regular basis. I had to find a niche, and it really didn’t take all that long. So my wife and I have been discussing a new name that reflects the niche that I’ve settled in to: Daddy Blogging. As I walked around this meeting of hopeful, Australia-bound teenagers and their parents, I realized that none of the other parents had babies on their shoulders. Kids Calli’s age were even non-existant in this ballroom meeting place filled with the parents of teenagers.

It must have sunk in to my wife as well, because on the drive back up the mountain, she suggested calling the blog ‘Diplomas and Diapers’. Before that she had suggested ‘College and Diapers’, but college is still a couple of years yet. The reason we’re both leaning toward a name that reflects the ages of our kids is that we feel this situation is somewhat unique. We are experiencing a broad range of parenting situations simultaneously because of the gap in our children’s ages.

Now, when I think of names for characters for my fiction, or blog names, I do some research through the Google. A quick search this morning netted not a lot that matches ‘Diplomas and Diapers’, but I did find articles and even a day care called ‘Diapers and Diplomas’, which are sources for teen pregnancy and the day care is for the children of teens that are going to school. Hmmm… I also found a Mommy Blog called ‘Diapers to Diplomas‘, which is a stay at home mom’s effort to catalog ideas to use in every stage of parenting.

So ‘Diplomas and Diapers’ is close to an existing blog’s name, and could make people think of teen pregnancy, something for which, thank goodness, I have yet to have any experience with. Am I overanalyzing? What would you call a Daddy Blog from a dad that has a teenager and babies in the house? Maybe I should have some kind of contest…

This post brought to you by Dad-Blogs' FatherHood Friday. Be sure to swing by for all the other great Dads and Moms who love to share their lives online!

I’ve spent all morning working on today’s post, well, the bits of the morning where I wasn’t taking The Teenager to school. Then there were the times I was holding the baby, which is a chore, let me tell you. Every time I hold that warm little snuggly body against me I can’t help thinking that I’d much rather be in front of my glaring blank white computer screen instead of throwing the baby in to the air and hearing his sweet, genuine giggle as I tickle under his ribs with my nose. Who wants that?

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah! I’ve spent all morning on a post that I can be proud of. This is not that post. I’ve decided to postpone that post until next Fatherhood Friday in order to do more research and obtain further photographic evidence.

So for today, please enjoy this peek in to my random fatherly brain, and I promise, next week will be a post more worthy of your precious time.

• My wife is the best editor/reviewer that I could ask for. She is the one person that I would allow to give me advice on my writing. She nails it every time, and is the reason the real post for today is postponed. I felt like something was missing, and she filled in the blanks. Man, I love her.
• Pandora just played Richard Strauss’s ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zoroaster), Tone Poem For Orchestra, Op. 30‘, which was the theme for ‘2001: A Space Odyssey‘, and I had to stop what I was doing and turn it up. I lowered myself to the level of my desk and imagined my laptop was a monolith. It did not, however, make me more cosmically aware. It just wanted to tell me not to use teeth whiteners or drink acai berry juice. The search for cosmic enlightenment continues…
• Last night, my considerate Calli gave my wife an astute warning about the window sill: ‘Don’t touch that,’ she said, ‘I put a booger there.’ She’s so thoughtful!
• Tristin’s asleep in his bouncy while still holding tightly to his knobby bouncy ball. He’s so cute!
• My wife hasn’t missed a day on the Wii Fit since we started, while it just yelled at me for missing four. My Mii is now sentenced to wear a hoody to sweat it out. Come on, Wii! I’ve been busy!
• We’re still wrestling with exactly the right punishment for Kat after she dented the wall with the Wii remote, and then didn’t tell us… Any ideas out there?
• I am pleased and honored to announce that I have 42 fans on Facebook after starting my fan page four days ago! Thank you all for the support! If you haven’t fanned me yet, there’s a convenient badge on the right for you to do so! My hope is that the page will add another level of interactivity to this blog, and sometimes I’ll be using it as a testing ground for upcoming posts, so be sure to check the discussion board! (Hint, there are a couple of discussions up now…)

Aaaand… my brain just stopped working. Hope all is well with you, and have a great time reading all the other Fatherly posts on this Fatherhood Friday!