Some cool coworkers and I started a group called Mixed Bag and sang “Lean on Me” at the DDCE staff meeting.

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Hank is a long-time friend of the family. My mom has a lot of his art, as do my sister and I. When I was at NYU I got to know him, sometimes sitting for him. Hank is a hero of mine for giving his whole life to his art.

Hank called me this morning, left a message saying to search for him on YouTube, someone had done a video portrait of him. Here it is.

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Ladies and gentleman, I am proud to present the world premier of the best damn video I’ve made to date (with great help, beginning to end, from Earl). This is my No More Shitty Gigs manifesto and pledge:

No More Shitty Gigs

No more sitting in my cube beneath the zombie lights
Where the light is too white and the walls are too tight
I need to go outside and a get big fresh breath of air
But I can’t escape the screen and my butt’s glued to the chair

No more standing on a stage beneath a TV screen
No more trying to sing over the coffee steam machine
No more waiting hours just wait for hours more
In some far off remote hope that my foot gets in a door

No more shitty gigs I’ve played enough for one life
No more shitty years it’s high time I decided
Let’s go for a walk, I’m gonna take show outside
‘Cause it’s my show and I decide where it will go
It’s my show and I decide where it will go

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As a geek dad this caught my eye: Agile programming for your family?! Make your family a self-managing team.

Feiler’s 3-plank Agile family manifesto

• Adapt all the time
  • stay flexible
  • don’t listen only to ‘experts’
  • hook up with new ideas
  • be open minded
  • let the best ideas win
  • weekly family meeting, 20 mins. ask
    • What worked well?
    • What didn’t work well?
    • What can we all agree on to work on this week?
• Empower children
  • stop ordering your children around
  • enlist them in their own upbringing
  • they come up with punishments and rewards
  • plan their own goals
  • set weekly schedules
  • evaluate themselves
  • succeed and fail on their own terms
  • less what they do wrong, more on what they do right
  • give them the tools to make themselves happy
• Tell your story
  • as bedrock context for adaptability
  • preserve the core
  • define mission, core values, family mission statement
  • tell story of family, where we came from
  • difficult situations overcome
  • family strengths and successes
  • retell the positive and overcoming negative stories
  • make a family manifesto

Happiness is not something we find, it’s something we make. Greatness is not a circumstance, it’s a choice. What’s the secret to a happy family? Try.

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My superfriend Jenn took some great shots of me down by Waller Creek on the UT campus a few weeks ago. Here are my favorite of her favorites.

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I’ve been working on this ska/punk manifesto for a month or so. Earl correctly suggested that it should be the soundtrack to the promo video we’re gonna make. Here’s my second draft of two verses and the chorus (45 secs for the video).

No more sitting in my cube beneath the zombie lights
Where the light is too white and the walls are too tight
I need to go outside and a get big fresh breath of air
But I can’t escape the screen and my butt’s glued to the chair

No more standing on a stage beneath a TV screen
No more trying to sing over the coffee steam machine
No more waiting hours just wait for hours more
In some far off remote hope that my foot gets in a door

No more shitty gigs I’ve played enough for one life
No more shitty years it’s high time I decided
Let’s go for a walk, I’m gonna take show outside
‘Cause it’s my show and I decide where it will go
‘Cause it’s my show and I decide where it will go

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One of Anais’s classmate’s moms works at the Blanton. She just sent us this wonderful photo, taken a few months ago when we took Anais and their photographer was snapping pics.

The post Family at the Blanton appeared first on Jason Molin.

Maile, Anais and I went home to DC for Presidents’ Day Weekend. As you’ll see here, Anais and Casey made pancakes, played upstairs with the door closed, did backflips, rode the subway, played ball, and went to the Museum of Natural History and saw the giant squid, among other things.

The post Anais and Casey, 3 in DC appeared first on Jason Molin.

Maile asked me to write a Valentine’s day song for Anais this year and here’s what I came up with.

You see a star out of the car as we’re driving by
You yell out star and point out where each one you find
Stars adorn your avenues and so now mine
My oh my, Anais Sky how your bright eyes shine!

You’re my little fox, peeking at the possums
You’re my little bear, heeding where the honey’s hid
You’re my little mouse underneath the table
You’re my little fish doing backflips

You always say, Daddy an A! and I see the sign
You see the tower every time it’s on the skyline
You spy with your little eye some tricky little find
My oh my, Anais Sky how your bright eyes shine!

Have you never seen a dog wearing pajamas?
Have you never seen a giant squid wearing a bib?
Have you never seen a baby with an umbrella
holding a frog like a little kid?

The world is new and new again for you my friend
And so for me it’s new again and again and again
Thank god for what you see in me, through Maile’s eyes and mine
My oh my, Anais Sky how your bright eyes shine!

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