Aloha Friday Archives - Page 7 of 34

Aloha Friday: Cool Down Routine

June 22, 2012 TechyDad Aloha Friday, Summer

The past couple of days have been slightly warm. If you call over 90 degrees "slightly warm." Personally, I’d call it "holy cow it’s boiling outside!" With a heat wave in progress, we’ll be looking for ways to stay cool this weekend. Trips to the playground are likely out. Instead, we’ll find some indoor activities to keep everyone cool and happy. If we do go outside, perhaps we’ll break out the pool and swimsuits. There’s nothing like splashing in the water to help you cool off.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: How do you stay cool when it’s hot outside?

P.S. If you haven’t already, try out my Twitter applications: FollowerHQ and Rout.

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.

Aloha #144

Aloha Friday: Father’s Day Planning

June 15, 2012 TechyDad Aloha Friday, Father's Day, Fatherhood

Sunday is Father’s Day: A day for celebrating dads everywhere. I’d like to share with you the wonderful, grand plan I have for my Father’s Day.

I really would like to share it with you.

Except.

I’ve got nothing.

For the life of me, I can’t think of a good idea. I’d like to see the Avengers movie, but the boys are too young for that and I’d like to spend time with them too. The local amusement park sounds like fun except that all the other dads are likely there too. Fighting my way through crowds to go on a few rides doesn’t sound like fun. We could go out to eat, but I’m not sure where exactly.

At one point, we considered going on an overnight trip to Vermont with B’s parents, but nixed that idea. Good thing too since Wednesday night JSL was up coughing so much that he puked/gasped for air. He went to the ER where they said he has croup and gave him a steroid to help strengthen his lungs. So, at this point, I simply want JSL to be healthy for Father’s Day.

Given that I have no plans, I thought that maybe I’d ~~steal~~ borrow someone else’s plans.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: What are you planning to do for Father’s Day?

P.S. If you haven’t already, try out my Twitter applications: FollowerHQ and Rout.

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.

Aloha #143

Aloha Friday: Stress Relief

June 8, 2012 TechyDad Aloha Friday, Stress, Video Games

A few days ago, I felt like I was at the end of my rope. So many stressful events happened one after another, pulling me in so many different directions that I just couldn’t take it anymore. All I wanted to do was find a dark corner and hide from the world. About the only thing that I felt like doing was playing Lego Batman on the Nintendo DS.

Last August, I wrote about NHL’s and my gaming addiction. Since then, we’ve moved from Lego Harry Potter to Lego Indiana Jones and from that to Lego Batman. I really like that Lego Batman lets you play in "Villain Mode" to help further their evil schemes… But more on that when I get around to reviewing the game.

I’ve found that, when I get stressed like this, I don’t function well. All of my motivation to do that tasks that I need to do disappears. Making myself complete them seems as hard as scaling a mountain.

Instead, I need escape from the situation. Since I don’t have any friends locally, I can’t just head out with the guys. Cooking is sometimes a stress reliever, but then I need to clean up from the cooking which adds more stress. Watching TV will sometimes suffice, but I like being actively involved and feeling like I’m accomplishing something.

Enter video games.

Lego Batman isn’t so difficult that I’ll get frustrated by it. And yet, it isn’t so simple that I feel like I’m not surmounting a challenge. I can play it for a bit, allow my mind to forget all of my stressful thoughts for a time and feel like I’ve accomplished something.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: What do you do when you’re stressed?

P.S. If you haven’t already, try out my Twitter applications: FollowerHQ and Rout.

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.

Aloha #142

Aloha Friday: Wardrobe Malfunction

June 1, 2012 TechyDad Aloha Friday, Clothing, embarrassing

A couple of days ago, I had a very embarrassing moment. One of those moments where you begin to panic that, if people find out what happened, they’ll give you grief about it for years to come. So, of course, I’m blogging about it!

I was at work and had just finished with an important meeting. It had run a bit long and I had drunk a bit too much water to drink so off to the restroom I went. I locked the door behind me and tried to unzip my pants. That’s when my zipper came off. I don’t mean just the "pull tab" portion of the zipper, but the whole zipper "mechanism."

I tried to get it back on my pants, but could only get one side of it back on. In a panic, I texted B from the bathroom to inform her of my plight. Apparently, it gave her and her mother quite the good laugh. (Even in my panicked state, I didn’t take offense to this. They were dealing with JSL puking up medicine while running a 102 fever after a DTAP vaccine. They needed a laugh.) Since B couldn’t help me and since the zipper obviously wasn’t going to get fixed then and there, I weighed my options.

I could walk out with my dress shirt untucked from my pants. This would cover any embarrassing open zipper moments, but it would draw more attention since I never wear my shirt like that. I could walk out with my zipper open, hope that nobody noticed, and keep on working, but I was sure it would pop open at the most embarrassing moment possible. (Lady Luck didn’t seem to be on my side at the moment as much as playing practical jokes on me.)

Finally, I tucked my shirt in my pants (so if I did have more of a "wardrobe malfunction", people would only see my tucked in shirt), tightened my belt as much as possible (to keep my pants in place), steeled my nerve, and exited the bathroom. Then, I walked to my boss’ office and let him know I needed to head home early lest I flash the office. (Just to add insult to injury, I had to walk to my car in a downpour hoping that the work bag I held in front of me would shield my broken zipper from the world.)

My Aloha Friday question for today is: Have you ever had an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction? If so, how did you handle it?

Disclaimer: The "zipper" image above comes from OpenClipArt.org.

P.S. If you haven’t already, try out my Twitter applications: FollowerHQ and Rout.

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.

Aloha #141

Aloha Friday: Social Media Time

May 25, 2012 TechyDad Aloha Friday, Internet, Social Media

The Disney Social Media Moms Celebration was filled with memorable moments. During one of these, a speaker asked if anyone wasn’t on Pinterest. I tentatively raised my hand, but could see nobody else doing the same. Was I the only one who wasn’t yet on Pinterest? Or were the other people just not brave enough to admit it?

The thing is, Pinterest just doesn’t interest me. Neither does Facebook, which I’m also not on. I used to use Google+, but have even scaled that back to the point that I haven’t checked in there in about a month. There are a ton of social media platforms out there, but I’m not on a lot of them. Why? Simple. I just don’t have the time.

I work a day job from 8am to 5pm (approximately). Then, I come home, make dinner, spend some time with the boys and get them to bed. After this, I have about three hours to blog, catch up on social media, read online article/blogs, do some programming, etc. I sometimes use social media during my work day, but I keep that to a minimum. (Mainly, I’ll check in during lunch. Work, of course, always comes first.)

Given my limited "social media time", I feel I have two options. I can use Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, etc. However, if I split my time in so many directions, I’ll likely be unable to use any of them effectively. In fact, I’d likely get burned out from trying to keep up with it all and would begin to neglect other responsibilities.

Alternatively, I can ignore many popular social media networks and focus my efforts on the ones that suit me best. In this case: Blogging and Twitter.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: How many social media networks do you use?

P.S. If you haven’t already, try out my Twitter applications: FollowerHQ and Rout.

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.

Aloha #140

« 1 … 5 6 7 8 9 … 34 »