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Leave a comment Posted on book review, marriage, parenting, Uncategorized

Growing Up Social: Family Friendly Book Review

As my regular readers of Family Friendly Daddy Blog already know, my family is building a house; closing date in January 29th, 2015.

In the process of planning out the rooms, my wife and I have decided that while we will have a TV in the bonus room, we won’t have one downstairs in the living room; or any other room.

That means in order to watch TV, you actually have to walk upstairs and isolate yourself. Therefore, the temptation is greatly reduced to walk in the door and veg out without spending quality time with other family members.

I believe it’s “little” decisions like that which contribute to health family communication and relationships.

Growing Up Social: Family Friendly Book Review

A few weeks ago while reviewing a car here for Family Friendly Daddy Blog, I was sent an iPad and an iPhone to use in conjunction with the vehicle’s 4G LTE capabilities.

I should point out that I’m of the American minority; we have no smart phones in our household. My wife and I both have “dumb” phones instead.

The main reason is because we’re not willing to pay for a data plan. We are on a family plan with my parents and pay a monthly total of only $30 per month. Again, that’s total; not per person.

But even if it cost us no extra money per month to own smart phones, I still wouldn’t be excited.

Here’s why:

I fully recognized that my family’s life is hurried enough. My wife and I both work; our son is in school all day. The commute time in Nashville is longer than the average large city.

We don’t need more interruptions or distractions in our lives. I feel that if we owned smart phones, it would only add to the anxiety.

Sure, I get the irony in the fact that I run this blog from a cheap ASUS laptop and a dumb phone. I was the official daddy blogger for Parents Magazine for 3 years and never once touched a smart phone.

Of all people, I should own a smart phone… or at least want one. But I don’t.

I won’t deny the fact that having a smart phone for that week made certain things more convenient. However, I found myself getting frustrated that I couldn’t use manage my blog with the same ease as a laptop.

Plus, I don’t like knowing that I can check my email or Facebook at any time. I’d rather just “shut it off” during the day.

Growing Up Social

With that being said, you could imagine I would easily like this book…Growing Up Social, by Gary Chapman (The 5 Love Languages) and Arelene Pellicane (31 Days to Becoming a Happy Wife).

The book causes you to ask yourself, “Is technology bringing your family closer together or driving you farther apart?”

Growing Up Social teaches the five skills that every healthy child needs to master: affection, appreciation, anger management, apology, and attention:

The Skill of Affection – How do you show real love to another person?

The Skill of Appreciation – How do you cultivate a grateful heart?

The Skill of Attention – How do you focus and be a good listener?

The Skill of Anger Management – How do you express anger in a productive way?

The Skill of Apology – How do you mend a relationship after you make a mistake?

The focus is raising relational kids in a screen-driving world. So relevant!

And one lucky reader will win a free copy of this book today…

Just be the first person to post on the Facebook wall for Family Friendly Daddy Blog (not a private message), asking me, “Did I just win Growing Up Social?”

If you’re the first person to do so, I will respond by saying yes… After that, I will follow up by getting your address to give to the publisher so they can send you your won copy!

Update: A winner was found within just a few minutes of this post going live. The giveaway portion is now complete.

Did I just win Growing up social????

Family Friendly Daddy Blog

Thanks for reading today! And remember, I’ll be giving more books away; so stay tuned…

“Disclosure (in accordance with the FTC’s 16 CFR, Part 255: ‘Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising’):

Many thanks to Propellor Consulting, LLC for providing this prize for the giveaway. Choice of winners and opinions are 100% my own and NOT influenced by monetary compensation. I did receive a sample of the product in exchange for this review and post.

Only one entrant per mailing address, per giveaway. If you have won the same prize on another blog, you are not eligible to win it again. Winner is subject to eligibility verification.”

7 Comments Posted on People, Storytelling, Uncategorized

dad from day one: My Big Secret is that Parents.com has Chosen Me as Their Official Daddy Blogger- Now Introducing “The Dadabase”

Six months.

The picture above was cropped for my new header.

One of my favorite movies of all time is the so-relevant-to-real-life Marley and Me– which is based on the autobiographical book of the same name. The author and main character is John Grogan, a newspaper columnist who captures his everyday life in stories in his column.  The first time I saw Marley and Me, I remember thinking, “That would be so cool to have such a widely read column.” Around the same time, in 2009, my wife bought me two “how to become a writer” books for my birthday.  I had the inspiration and the guidance, I just didn’t have the right story topic yet.

A year later, my wife and I found out we were going to have a baby.  The idea came to me to become the only dad in history to document my fatherly thoughts and perspective every single week on a blog, starting with the beginning of the pregnancy.  So on April 13, 2010, I wrote my first “dad from day one” entry.  And today, technically, I write my last.

From this picture I sent in to the Parents.com staff, they designed my new logo.

Here’s why: Parents.com, the website for Parents magazine (first published in 1926), has decided to pick up my daddy blog series; starting today, right now, at the conclusion of this post with a link.  “Dad from day one” is being rebooted into something much bigger, yet it will still be faithful to its roots.  (And I’ll still be writing my “nonparenting” posts here on NickShell.com).  I decided to go with a new name for my daddy blog that I felt will be most appropriate, since I’m the only daddy blogger for Parents.com’s new featured blogs.

I needed some help coming up with the perfect name, though.  So I recruited the help of my facebook friends, and Diana Jung Taub had the idea to play off of the word “data.”  I added the word “base,” then my wife gave me the official article “the.”

I liked the idea of Jack’s hand holding on to my finger, a symbol of fatherly strength.

The Dadabase will pick up right where “dad from day one” is leaving off.  But whereas “dad from day one” has been a weekly series (I wrote at least one post each week for it), The Dadabase will basically be a daily series.  I am contracted to write a minimum of 4 posts per week and can write a maximum of 25 each month.  If I write the maximum, which predictably is what I am planning to do, that’s around 5.5 posts per week.

With Parents magazine’s already existing paid circulation of 2 million people and a total readership of 15 million people, my daddy blog is about to hit an instant growth spurt- a pretty big one.  I’m good at keeping secrets (I’ve known about this since March as I’ve been in a nearly daily contact with the editors up in New York City) but I’m so happy to finally share the news with you, my faithful readers.

My little blog is growing up, just like my little boy, who this whole thing is about in the first place.

Okay, welp… it’s time to shut down the lights in this little place and move all my stuff to that high rise apartment in the sky.  I’m movin’ on up- and I’m taking you with me.

Enter:  The Dadabase.

(Click on the the underlined phrase above this sentence to be transported there, it’s the link…)

14 Comments Posted on Nostalgia, People, Recaps, Storytelling, Uncategorized

Why Home Improvement is the Most Popular Least Jewish American Sitcom Ever

Are there any Jews in Home Improvement?  I don’t think so, Tim.

Did you know that May is officially Jewish American Heritage Month?  On April 20th, 2006 (my 25th birthday), President George W. Bush proclaimed that the month of May would be Jewish American Heritage Month from then on.  So this year for the 5th ever Jewish American Heritage month, I’ve decided to highlight America’s least Jewish sitcom ever, in order to contrast just how much Jewish people have affected our cherished American entertainment.

Obviously, the most Jewish American sitcom is Seinfeld.  And Second Place goes to Friends.  But on the opposite side of the spectrum, one might expect the least Jewish American to be an African-American sitcom- like The Cosby Show.  But of course, Lisa Bonet (who played Denise Huxtable) is half Jewish. Coincidentally, she was briefly married to Lenny Kravitz, who is also half Jewish and half black. Even more coincidental is the fact that Lenny Kravitz’s mother is Roxie Roker, who played Helen Willis on the sitcom The Jeffersons, who in the show was married to a white man, just like she was in real life (to a Russian Jew, Lenny’s father).

But other popular African-American sitcoms were still largely created and carried out by Jews.  Like Family Matters: no Jewish actors, but the show’s producers were: Thomas L. Miller and Robert L. Boyett.  Not to mention the fact that Family Matters was a spin-off of Perfect Strangers, a sitcom about two unlikely roommates and cousins, who in real life are Jewish.  So even if none of the actors in a sitcom are Jewish, you still have to consider the producers, the writers, and even the origin of the sitcom.

After much exhaustive research, I have discovered that the most watched yet least Jewish sitcom was definitely Home Improvement (1991-1999). None of the actors were Jewish.  Not Tim Allen (nothing about him is Jewish), not Jonathan Taylor Thomas who played Randy (physically he could almost pass as a Jew), not Taran Noah Smith who played Mark (Jewish sounding first and middle name), not Earl Hindman who played Wilson, nor Richard Karn who played Al.  The main creators/writers were not Jewish.  Home Improvement was not a spin-off of a Jewish influenced show.

There was a close call, however, in the casting of Tim’s Tool Time co-host. Originally, there was no “Al Boreland”, but instead, “Glen”, played by Stephen Tobolowsky, who was definitely Jewish. But his prior commitments caused him to lose out on the role.  Sure there were special guest stars that were Jewish, like Rodney Dangerfield and Penn & Teller (Teller, not Penn, is Jewish).  And Brad’s character briefly dated a character named Jessica Lutz (assumed Jewish because of the last name), though played by non-Jewish actress Michelle Williams. Lastly, one of the executive producers was Jewish; Elliot Shoenman, but he was only there from seasons 4 through 8.

But if it’s that much trouble to point out any Jewish influences on a sitcom as popular as Home Improvement, then I see no way around it: Home Improvement is the most popular least Jewish sitcom ever.  And making that discovery is one of the ways I can help celebrate Jewish American Heritage Month.  I’ll leave it to all the other bloggers to point out the more obvious, influential Jewish Americans like Albert Einstein and Mark Zuckerburg. As for me, I’m here to focus on the petty stuff.

Below are some more exciting and entertaining posts I have written about Jewish entertainers:

Movie Guy, at Your Service: The Social Network (Plus, Which Actors are Jewish)

The Ethnicity of the Cast of The Wonder Years (Plus, Who Did the Voice of Kevin Arnold as an Adult?)

The Ethnic Backgrounds of the Cast of Friends and Seinfeld (Yes, Most of Them are Jewish; Even Matthew Perry)

The Jewish Influence on American Entertainment

6 Comments Posted on Spirituality, Storytelling, Uncategorized

Osama bin Laden is Dead and All I Can Think About are My (Still) Unresolved Convictions on Capital Punishment

It seems that this morning is an appropriate time to sort out my thoughts on concepts like “kill or be killed” and “deserving to die”.

Reading my Facebook friends’ comments the hour after Osama bin Laden was announced dead taught me two things: 1) They are glad someone finally caught him and killed him.  2) They are proud of our U.S. military for doing it.  As for myself, I feel the same way.  I also am somewhat comforted by the assumed concept that it’s morally okay to have wanted this man dead, and that we collectively as a nation do not feel any guilt for Osamba bin Laden’s death.

I would feel the same sense of relief knowing other antichrists were dead, had I lived in their era; the most obvious example being Adolph Hitler.  It’s my observation that while most American religious and political groups have no concrete collective agreements on capital punishment, it goes without saying that if a man is responsible for thousands of lives being lost in a war or political action which he led, then that man deserves to die.  And I agree.

What I am confused about isn’t whether or not we should want evil war tyrants dead.  The thing I have unresolved convictions about is the much smaller scale version of men like Osama bin Laden and Adolph Hitler.  What about serial killers who only kill 20 people, as opposed to 2 million?  How high does the body count have to get before the killer “deserves to die”?  Where is that conceptual line drawn that causes our American society to agree that a man needs to be killed?

I understand the inescapable concept of “kill or be killed”, as it applies to both war and self-defense.  What I find fascinating/confusing is knowing when it’s “okay” to kill a criminal, after he committed a horrible crime.  A month after a man killed and raped a dozen people, it is no longer self-defense or “kill or be killed”.   Once that murderer and rapist has been captured, can we kill him?  If not, would it be any different if he was a member of the enemy army in a war?

Probably, because it’s my observation that war justifies killing people who “deserve it”.  But when that same evil man who deserves to die is not fighting our nation as a whole, but instead is individually picking out individuals to kill and/or rape and he is not associated with al-Qaeda or Communism or a being a Nazi, we suddenly are reluctant to collectively agree to place them in the electric chair and remove them from our society to keep them from hurting anyone else.

Despite trying to understand my own beliefs and convictions on capital punishment and self-defense for over a year now, the death of Osama bin Laden doesn’t help much in removing the blurry haze clouding my mind on these issues. And maybe this is as clear as it will ever be in my head.  What do I believe?  I don’t know for sure.  What do you believe?

If this post was the least bit interesting or fascinating to you, I invite you to read its two prequels, by clicking on the titles below:

Capital Punishment, In Theory: Do You Support the Death Penalty Enough to Do It Yourself?

Self-Defense, In Theory

Leave a comment Posted on Recaps, Storytelling, Uncategorized

dad from day one: Southeast Tornadoes April 2011, Part 1

Week 23 (5 months).

Jack, helping us survey for storm damage this morning.

Thank the Good Lord, we were spared from the damage of the violent tornadoes this week.  Granted, I’m writing this from inside a Starbucks across the state border, in Rome, Georgia.  That’s because currently, it is my understanding, that most of Northeast Alabama is without power and Internet.  Sadly, nearly 300 have been confirmed dead because of this week’s storms in the Southeast- not to mention all of the homes, businesses, and churches that have been destroyed.

Our next door neighbor's front yard.

I came home from work yesterday and at ate an early dinner with my family, and as I finished my last bite of dinner, the power went out.  Thinking the power would eventually come back on, we spent most of the next four hours in the bathtub.  By bedtime, it was safe to get out of the tub, but still no power.  This morning when I woke up I learned by calling my dad that there was no need to show up to work since the whole city was without power  too.  We are expecting to be without power for five days.

We salvaged what we could from the refrigerator and made it our lunch.  After we leave Starbucks in a few minutes, we will pick up some nonperishable groceries to last us until the beginning of next week.  I am extremely grateful that all my family and our homes were not damaged by the storms, but I can’t help but constantly think about and pray for all those who were not so fortunate.

Even if our power wouldn’t have went last night, the constant weather coverage would have prevented us from watching our friend Diana on Wheel of Fortune.  So we just watched on YouTube a few minutes ago: