Laid-Off Dad

Pops schools a weasel

Here in Ann Arbor, it's a lot easier to get involved in pickup basketball at the gym. In New York, there's always 800 people waiting for a court, and they're either really tall and fast and skilled, or they'll elbow you in the nuts for a rebound. Here, you can usually find a good game, with regular-sized, courteous humans, and you don't have to wait long for it.

Yesterday I got to the gym and started shooting hoops. I love shooting hoops, because that's always where I've done my best thinking. I've been doing that since I was seven years old, at my grandparents' house across the street, just shooting and thinking. It's one of my favorite ways to spend Alone Time.

At the other basket, a bunch of younger guys were playing 3-0n-3. And I noticed that 1) they were each younger than I by probably 20 years, and 2) there were really terrible. They were chucking airballs, dribbling off their feet, colliding with each other unnecessarily. And calling ridiculous fouls. But they were playing, after all. They were active Americans who were not obesely waddling to the fridge and back, and for that they should be saluted.

A little while later, one of them had to leave, and another saw me at the other end of the court and asked me to fill in. And I told them No, because I didn't really feel like it. This is my Alone Time. I'm older than you, and this is what older people do. I'm gathering these things called "thoughts." Leave me alone.

I couldn't say that, of course, so I made up some lame excuse: I wasn't wearing my knee brace. Which is a total lie, because I've never needed a knee brace. And that might have been all there was to it, until he fired off the coup de grâce:

"C'mon, Pops. We need a sixth."

I stood there, processing what this little snot had just said to me, my toes curling in my shoes.

Pops.

It was a good-natured Pops. But still: POPS.

A whole lotta cheddar makes your nethers feel better

Movember 2011 is over, and moustaches are dropping off lips all over the world, to the delight of irritated spouses and frightened children. It's been an amazing month for the Dad 2.0/Man of the House/NYC Dads Group/DadCentric /DadLabs team, which over those 30 days raised just over $19,000 (and irritated a lot of spouses and frightened a lot of children).

But were we done? Bah, I say.

Right as Movember was starting, Kristen Chase forwarded me an e-mail from a firm representing Philips Norelco. And over the next couple of weeks, PN had heaped another $15,000 onto the pile, and the Stachetacular Shave-Off was born. Which just goes to show: it's not what you know, but with whom you've been kicked out of a karaoke bar for bootlegging vodka.

Below is my contribution, which, if I had any editing skills, would be about a minute shorter: 

If you're interested in owning or gifting a SensoTouch 3D, PN is offering a $30 rebate here.

Thank you, Philips Norelco. For the donation, for the shavers, and for amplifying the opportunity for Social Dads to do a lot of Social Good. 

Dad blogger manly man

Have you seen? When Babble launched a slew of dad-based content, dad blogging got a huge kick in the ass. And when Disney came along and bought the whole shebang-a-bang, that kick just got super-charged from a large, ovoid yellow foot. Suddenly, I'm co-employees with John Lasseter and Erin Andrews AND Iron Man AND Kermit the Frog, and thinking that would be one helluva poker game.

My most recent post for Babble is this one about how much more useful dad blogs are than say, laddie mags that measure your worth by your golf handicap or tolerance for Jagermeister. Real adult men iving their real adult lives need to tell their stories, and it makes me happy to know that, somewhere in the vast murine galaxy, there is a little star populated by dad bloggers who suddenly write from the most powerful media platform we've ever enjoyed.

(It's as manly a piece as I've ever written, I suppose, given its SEO-friendly webtag that also happens to be the title of this post.)

And speaking of powerful platforms, I want to thank all of you who have contributed to the Movember Dadblogging Team co-titled by the Dad 2.0 Summit, Man of the House, the NYC Dads Group, DadCentric, and DadLabs. Thanks to your enthusiasm, we reached the $12,000 mark just a few hours ago. It does my heart good to know that so many people can come together to use Social Media for Social Good in such a meaningful way--and stick it to those punks on Team Austin, who've got 52 more guys than we do and are still eating our exhaust.