Give the 'Net credit

On my 38th birthday, I rant about sneaking food into the movies, stopping for commercials on the DVR, the benefits of SEO and the newest etiquette rule for Facebook status updates.

We’ve all seen counters for pregnancies or big trips or graduation. Why not create one that commemorates something really important and is often forgotten in the middle of all the gift-buying hubbub? If you don’t like that one, try one of these from the wealth of other religious organizations that offer them.

The Mormon Church has added a wealth of other resources to its Christmas page to help us remember. I especially appreciate the site’s nod to citizen journalism. It asks visitors to share how they have brought Christ into Christmas.

It took a 10-hour drive with my inlaws in the care for me to realize how important it is for journalism professionals and academics to listen to the audience.

Posts like Buccigross give me hope that the expense of youth hockey and sacrificed weekends will be worth it, more so than even if my son played baseball, football or soccer. Hockey seems to teach children a different skill set. One of Bucci’s colleagues Barry Melrose has said a couple of times that hockey is more of a team game than any other sport, and at least in Canada, young players are taught to value team achievements over individual accolades. In a me-first, status-updating world, I think the concept of teamwork is receding from our minds, but it has not lost its value.

staying home the last two days and watching children while my wife shuttled one or the other or herself to a doctor’s appointment has not been a picnic. I almost missed my goal of blogging every day because I haven’t seen the Big Board O’ Blog Topics that hangs in my office. In all seriousness, I have to give my wife a lot of credit. She has said before, and now I believe her, that going to work each day and dropping off the kids at day care would be easier.