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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Yesterday I was selling iPhones at work and striking up conversations with the customers. One couple had a one year old with them. He just kept giving me this huge, toothy grin. At least, it would have been toothy if he had more than four teeth! I just couldn’t stop looking at his giggling little self, so I said, “You look awfully happy! Is this going to be your new toy?”

“Noooooooo.” the father quickly replied.

“It won’t be long.” I said. “Leap Frog makes a baby blackberry.” (They do. Check it out!)

We then had a conversation about the dangers of the internet, and more importantly, how you can become anyone you want to be on the internet.

Now, for the most part I think I do pretty well with just being myself online. I’m pretty much the same boring, run-of-the-mill person I’d be of we met face to face.

But for some reason, I feel the need to show off my online life and how I use different apps to achieve excellent daddy blogger status. Any suggestions on how to streamline this process would be greatly appreciated!

Obviously, I write this blog. When I post a new entry, I head over to ping.fm and announce it, which automatically updates my twitter, facebook, and MySpace to let everyone who cares and some who don’t that I just blogged today.

I also write ‘Kids Play On The Net‘. This is a weekly column about kid-friendly websites for education and entertainment over at dad-blogs.com. I can’t pimp that site enough. It’s truly a great place for dads and moms to hang out. When they post my column, it’s back to ping to let everyone know.

MySpace is dead to me. The only thing I do over there is look every once in a while to see if ping updated it. MySpace is targeted at teens, and as far as I’m concerned, they can have it. I still have a couple of friends over there that haven’t come into the light of facebook, so I still have a profile there. Meh.

Facebook is crazy. Not only have I reunited with long-lost friends there, but I’ve also had conversations with writers and artists and people I admire. These are people I’d just stammer at in public. But on facebook it’s just easier. OK, so maybe I am a little different online.

Twitter. What have I not already said about twitter on this blog? Twitter has truly become an addiction. I check it constantly on my phone. I enjoy ‘live tweeting’ my days off and family activities. I enjoy it so much that I created a daily segment on this blog through twitter tools called ‘Twitter Tittelations’ that gives you my daily tweets in digest form. Daily. Is that annoying? Let me know! I thought it was a great way to post daily without typing an entire post, but I may just be fooling myself.

I also have friendfeed, stumbleupon, technorati, and digg accounts, but I still haven’t devoted enough time to those to figure out how to use them.

That’s it in a nutshell: the tools that this daddy blogger uses. Any more I should get into? What do you use?

Kat, age 1 1/2

As I begin to write this, it’s just after 4 am in the Rocky Mountains. My beautiful wife and two children are still asleep. I’m awake on purpose. I set my alarm for this time. This is my favorite blogging hour. Some days, I miss this hour. I hit the snooze alarm a few too many times, or I do get up and get sidetracked by checking email, my twitter followers, Facebook, and MySpace. But today is special. According to Dad Blogs, today is fatherhood Friday.

This is the first fatherhood Friday I’ve had the pleasure to be a part of. I know it will be the first of many. Since this is my first, I really gave some thought to what I would say today. I have not yet read any other blogger’s previous posts for fatherhood Fridays because I wanted to strike out there and make this my own. I’m sure when I’m done with my post today, I’ll explore and see what others have written to see if I even come close to the mark of what others feel and want to see in these blog entries. 

I thought about trying to take one aspect of fatherhood and exploring that, but I think instead I’ll give you an overall picture of what my life as a father has meant to me.

I crowded my way in to Kat’s life when she was only four. I had met her mother, Bobbette, in an art class and within a week we were finishing each other’s sentences. As a single mother, naturally, Bobbette was cautious about who she let into her home. She didn’t want Kat feeling as though men came and went through their lives. Eventually though, I was allowed to come over. At night. After Kat was asleep. 

Bobbette and I were snuggling on the couch, watching a movie neither one of us truly cared about. Without any advance signal, a little toy car rolled across the floor from the direction of Kat’s room. I remember little Kat stumbling out of her room, big green eyes wide with curiosity. Bobbette picked her up and carried her back in to her room. I remember that little cherub face watching me as it was carried back to bed. I already loved her mother at first sight. Could that truly happen twice? I was terrified.

Bobbette’s almost five years older than me. She had Kat when she was twenty, which means that I was fifteen when Kat was born. The same age she is today. At twenty, what did I know about being a parent? I was too in love with Bobbette to run away, and now I had seen the daughter that people had ‘warned’ me about when I first starting looking at Bobbette with longing. I had no clue what I was doing, but now  I realize that no parent does!

Calli, born perfect!

I was so full of fear. I was afraid that I couldn’t support a family. I was afraid I wasn’t the right father for Kat, thinking that I probably acted more like a brother than a father (Something she’s admitted since), because I still felt like a kid myself. A friend of mine who grew up in a home with a step-father who acted more like a brother once told me, “Those are the best kind. Trust me.” I hope so.

We ‘settled down’ together by actually gaining the certificate that says the law officially recognizes what I already knew: that I would spend the rest of my life with these two young ladies. And eventually, along came Calli. 

Calli was the apple of my eye before she was even born. While she was still inside the womb, when her mother and I would cuddle in bed, we could feel her gently caressing us. We knew she would be a loving soul, and she is. She gives the biggest and best hugs. She can also wrestle harder and longer than any little boy I’ve ever met. Her laugh will bring a smile to any broken heart or solemn face she comes in contact with. She’s the light of my life.

They all are, mother and daughters, the whole of my universe. And I’m not stopping there! As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I have a third child on the way. I’m just as terrified today as I was when I first saw those big green eyes staring at me over her mother’s shoulder. But I’m also fascinated, and amazed, and excited beyond words. The things we will all share with eachother, the places we’ll go…

I would not miss this ride for anything…

Kat and Calli sort through their Halloween haul!