Awesome and nostalgic

When I was younger, I had a toy that I particularly like playing with. It was great for teaching mechanical and electrical principles for kids not quite ready for erector sets and powertools.

All the electrical and mechanical parts are contained within sealed plastic cases, so it makes it very easy to snap things together and see how the parts inter-relate. I find it is very good for promoting free, creative play with all the different components.

The company has stopped making them, but they are available on ebay. Go search for 'Capsela toy' and you will find loads of options. I recommend the Capsella 1000 series.

Refinement

I had the grand unveiling of the art/book/cardgame/coloring book just before I left for Beirut. Thank you express shipping, but could you look in to being cheaper? Thanks.

I was not overly thrilled with the reception. I didn’t do well enough with the ‘show don’t tell’ angle with the book. Version two will focus more on stories about the individuals, rather than a description. I’ll save extra details for the Parent’s Guide.

Which reminds me, there is now a Parent’s Guide. Nearly universal feedback showed that I needed a companion volume to help parent s understand how to present the content in a way that really reinforces the values that are being taught.

This also brings me around to the next point, which is that each figure will be labeled with the attribute that she represents. For those new to the concept, the point of this product is:


To show that attributes like strength, leadership and integrity are gender neutral by teaching kids about women who have successfully integrated them into femininity.

The set involves a basic memory game for the 3-5 year old range, and a more complicated set of rules dreamed up by yours truly. Point being to use the game as something to reinforce the image recognition, value association, etc. Multiple sensory systems and all the jazz.

I’ll be running test prints with an office out here to refine my approach for the future versions.

I will be supper Buddha - twice as fast!

I get in to podcasts.  All kinds of useful goodness in there.  These few weeks, I've particularly enjoyed podcasts on Buddhism.  Except for one teeny thing... 

Buddhist experts tend to talk v.e.r.y. s.l.o.w.l.y. 

Fortunately, Steve Jobs has the problem solved.  My iPhone has a lovely little button that lets me speed up the playback  (or slow it down (but who would want to do that?)). 

Presto, chango and I'm headed toward patience, enlightenment, and living in the moment twice as fast as normal.

You will now laugh uproariously at my folly

As this blog has practically petrified from disuse, I am bemused to announce that I have signed on to be a regular (ha!) contributing author on a soon-to-launch website. Every Wednesday I’ll write a column on teaching culture to kids. Yeah, me right? Must be because of my mad blog updating skillz.

Fortunately for me, I get to re-use some of my previous entries.

Said entries were the bait that I used to lure the site owner into letting me join the party. This is what we in the business call a “portfolio”. You may bask in my awesome.

Except not really, because I never post.

Moving on.

MA and the future heirs to my copyrights will be back in town this weekend. I am so excited for them to be back, I can hardly stand it. There are going to flowers and candy and bubblegum and giant hello kitty balloons and other such manly things awaiting them at the airport. In preparation for their arrival, I’m washing sheets, clothes, floors etc. to get our vast estate in suitable shape. Ultimately, this is much harder on the washing machine than it is on me. Plus, it gives me something useful to do to wile away the hours.

Fun fact, I washed my bedsheets last night and to dry them, I put the fitted sheet outside on the drying rack – set to Beirut August Extra Hot, and the flat sheet over the couch – set to Can’t That Air Conditioner Work Any Harder? Shock of all days, the one inside dried out in about an hour, and the one outside was still wet. I thought the heat/ocean breeze would overcome the humidity and dry it out. Strangely, this is not so. Consider yourselves warned.

Not quite single

Given the summer vacation plans for my kids (spending boodles of time in the US).  I end up hanging around in Beirut all by myself.  This has caused some contemplation of whether or not this actually counts as 'single guy time'.  Ultimately, I am inclined to conclude that it really isn't, because I haven't really switched my life over to how I would spend my time single.  Instead, it's more like an emptier version of married life. 

Hence, this comic seems oddly relevant:

I don't get to see it (yet)!

Speaking of books, I was profiled for a book last year, and the printing process has at last compelted!  The author has been kind enough to send me a courtesy copy, but as it is in the US, and I am not, I haven't seen it yet.  MA says it turned quite well.  I look forward to seeing it.

This is the short story

For the few people who are still hanging on to this blog by RSS, I've got a few updates for you to explain my disappearance.  Following the immutable law that blog activity is inversely proportional to interesting life activities, I was having a lot of fun this last month.

First up in my catch-up posts is a project I'm very excited about.  I've been trying to find books, games, and other resources that depict the type of gender roles I want to promote (death to the Wynx!).  There really aren't very many, so I decided to take matters into my own hands.

I've teamed up with a very talented artist (who is also a good friend) to create a packaged set of images of female characters.  This will eventually take the form of a a memory game (for young kids), a card game (for 8-10s) and a companion book that explains the backstory to all the figures.

The project is coming along very well!  I'm just getting the first sample images back from the warriors/queens/goddesses series, and I've decided to link to them here:

http://cedarseed.blogspot.com/2010/06/sketches-for-card-game-on-theme-of.html

The first set will be back from the printers close to the end of July, and the expansion pack (featuring the Muses and counterbalancing figures) will follow in August.

Plus, the bonus is that we are even including each family member in the pack!  Each one of us will represent a different element from the 'Avatar: Last Airbender' series.  How cool is that?

I can't wait for the final versions!

For those of you who might be curious, here is the complete list of the characters who will be in the pack:

Basic Set:

Queens:  Cleopatra, Catherine the Great, Queen Victoria, Wu Zetian,

Scientists: Margret Mead, Ada Lovelace, Marie Curie,  Wangari Maathai

Warriors: Joan of Arc, Tomyris, Chand Bibi,  Unniyarcha

Gods:  Athena, Isis, Durga, Oya

Family:  4 of us…

Expansion:

Muses: Calliope, Clio, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia, Urania

Demons:  Succubus, Medusa, Vampire, Furies

Evil:  Lamia, Baba Yaga, Yuki-Onna, Lilith