I finally found a break from the action to sit down and collect my thoughts from the past couple of weeks. I know how much work a new baby could be, but I didn’t realize how much work a preschooler would add on top of everything else. Having my wife home on maternity leave has been a huge help, but that help ends this coming Monday, when she heads back to her clinic and the long hours associated with it. With my wife back at work from 7 am to 7 pm five or six days a week, my older daughter will have an easier time getting back to her routine of activities in the morning and nap time for an hour or two in the afternoon. Getting the older kid back on the routine will help get a routine established for the younger one.
Of course, everything gets flipped on its head when June rolls around, all of the school year activities end, and the summer activities begin. I am planning to start the older kid in swimming lessons and possibly tennis lessons this summer. She wants to learn how to play golf, but she’s a bit small to make it around an 18 hole golf course at age 4. Plus, we’re still working on keeping her eye on the ball, which tennis lessons will (hopefully) improve.
My calendar is about as full as possible during this final stretch of my wife’s maternity leave. This past weekend was Gamicon, the yearly gaming convention where I run the video game room. This year, we had everything from the original Nintendo Entertainment System to the WiiU, along with almost everything in between. The video game room was pretty packed on Friday afternoon and evening and Saturday afternoon and evening. I had to kick a few people out when we closed each evening, which I really haven’t had to do in previous years.
One of the guys that helped out with our vendor table last year decided to come back to Gamicon this year and helped out in the video game room almost the entire convention. He even unlocked one of the convention’s Super NES machines to play both North American and Japanese cartridges. We talked toward the end of the convention about him running a tournament next year during the convention, which I would love (because then I don’t have to come up with event ideas.) It has worked great to have a vendor in the room the last two years, because they carry the burden of programming in the room – I just have to be there to run open gaming and make sure there are no problems with any of the consoles. This year’s vendor was Virtually Competent, an indie video game publisher based in Iowa City. They ran a tournament for a game they designed called Crystal Control and had a couple of other games that they have created on display for attendees to try out. I’ll be asking them back for next year’s convention. They should have some new content out by next February, and it would be great to have them run a tournament again.
Tomorrow, Team Sexy Life will be having its bi-weekly meeting, and we have a lot of things to discuss. We are looking for couples that would like to be interviewed as part of our customer discovery process. Each member of the team is looking for 12 couples to be interviewed in the next month or two. If you have any interest in this, please let me know. Also, we are getting ready for a pre-Venture School workshop in a couple of weeks, to see if we make the cut for the program. I have a couple of articles to read before our meeting tomorrow and I need to put together some talking points from those articles. Also on my agenda are the social media accounts, the new Web site, and our e-mail newsletter.
On Thursday, I’ll be heading to Cedar Rapids for the American Advertising Federation’s Education Day at Kirkwood Community College. I’ll be serving as an industry professional for the day, mentoring current students on Web design and development and other areas where I have some experience. I still don’t feel like a professional – I feel like a guy flying by the seat of his pants, learning and failing along the way.
This isn’t the first time I’ve been asked to mentor students in this area – I was asked to coach a team at the spring semester Startup Games this past weekend, but had to decline because I already had Gamicon on my calendar. I told the organizers that I would love to help with the fall semester Startup Games, and they’ll have me. I’m happy to share my insights from my experiences over the past year or two, but I still would prefer using air quotes when somebody calls me a professional.
Of course, the big event this weekend is Startup Weekend Cedar Rapids, something I’ve been looking forward to attending since they announced the dates. I had so much fun putting together the beginnings of Sexy Life at Startup Weekend Iowa City back in November, and I think this weekend will be just as fun. I am going into Startup Weekend with the same attitude I had for the event back in November – just have fun building something awesome that weekend, and if anything comes from it, all the better. If nothing comes from it, the fun of building and interacting with other creative people makes it worthwhile. Plus, you get a shirt and some awesome food and conversation out of it, too.
Nothing new has come up on my calendar since my last post. Most of my time over the next three months will be devoted to shuttling small people around and working on many projects around the house. I do enjoy getting out of the house and networking with others with great ideas, but it will be nice to have some time where I have to be home with the kids and can work on some of the things that I’ve put on the back burner over the last few months. However, if you have a Web or media project that you’d like to bring to life, I’m accepting new projects now.
Stay plugged into my Twitter feed over the next few days for updates from Education Day and Startup Weekend.