Entertaining Small Children

This evening my wife and I have 4 of our 5 grandchildren spending the night. The youngest is just a hair too young to join the party and so he is sleeping in his own bed across the valley. The children are asleep now and I am free to share some of the wisdom I have gained from the experience.

The first order of business this evening included feeding the children. Anyone with kids between the ages of 3 and 7 know they are the meanest of food critics. Furthermore it is difficult to find a common meal they can all agree upon. Fortunately I had the foresight to know we had two choices: macaroni and cheese or pizza. We decided on a family-size pizza that is half cheese and half pepperoni. The kids loved it. For dessert we made a run to the nearby doughnut shop and picked out a dozen colored with different Holiday sprinkles. Kids loved them.

Next the kids had to decide between a number of different evening activities. Ultimately it boiled down to decorating gingerbread houses or watching a movie. The downside of gluing candy to fake buildings with nasty frosting is the candy. Children like to eat more of it than they place on the tiny structures making it nearly impossible to fall asleep at the end of the evening. I breathed a sigh of relief when they unanimously agreed upon the movie. Now the only decision laid in which movie to watch. My oldest grandson has seen "Home Alone 2" no less than 4 times this Holiday season and his dad is getting tired of watching it. He suggested this movie to his sister and cousins who immediately rejected the idea. He came to me almost in tears and I explained that he needed to do a better job of selling the movie and not trying to force his choice on anyone. It only took 30 seconds for the kids come to agreement and support my grandson's choice. He probably has a role in sales in his future.

We all sat down in front of the television and started the movie complete with popcorn and water bottles. My grandson loves the movie not for the talent of the actors but for the 20 minutes of the criminals getting the snot kicked out them by the young protagonist. My other grandchildren loved the slapstick comedy as well. Unfortunately this left everyone a little slap-happy and not wanting to go to sleep. There is also the effects that blue light has and keeping people awake when you really want them to go to sleep. I solved that with 30 minutes of light acoustic guitar practice to help calm everyone down. For the most part, it worked.

Should you find yourself trying to get cousins to try and sleep at the end of a fun day, remember to feed, entertain, and use music. Now I hope they stay asleep for the remainder of the night.

Christmas Travel

My son and his family are about to leave home and head to the airport to start the long journey to visit my wife and I in Utah. He just texted me and let me know that his 2-year-old daughter has her backpack on and is ready to head to the airport even though they don't have to leave quite yet. My wife and I are equally excited for their arrival.

Should you have family coming to visit you and you are as excited as I am, there are several things you can do to monitor their progress, especially if they are flying. The first thing to do is have the airline and flight information readily available. I have all this information pulled up in a small window that I won't close until they arrive. You can go to the airline website and check the status of each flight leg to see if delays will complicate travel. I just checked my son's flights and so far everything is on time.

The second thing you can do is arm your loved ones with the information on how to set mobile phones up to use in-flight texting. All major airlines now make that service available for free. You may need to use specific texting apps like iMessage on iPhones or WhatsApp on Android devices. Knowing what is required will help you stay in contact during the trip. When I used to fly a lot, I would text my wife as I flew over our house. If she left once she got my text, we would meet at the airport without anyone having to wait for the other. Texting during the flight can also serve as a medium for sending funny flight stories, like when the 2-year-old spills Sprite all over Mom or Dad.

There are also websites that allow you to track flights in real time. If you go to flightaware.com, you can see where the flight is. While the airline may list the flight as being on time, you will be able to see if that is really the case. Sometimes planes have to fight nasty headwinds. Other times, they get nice tailwinds that speed things up. Being able to see where the flight is, eliminates a lot of wondering.

Unfortunately being connected and seeing where your loved ones are during their journey does not speed up anything. If a flight is late, there is not much you can do about it. The only upside to being connected is knowing when a flight will arrive early, which does happen occasionally.

E-mail Marketing

Like most people, I really hate getting unwanted e-mail. It clogs my inbox and instead of making me want to buy someone's product, it makes me hate it. In fact, every day I go through my e-mail and click the "Unsubscribe" link if it is trying to sell me a product for which I have no interest.

Every day I still get about 30 to 40 messages that I never read and just delete. The difference is that the e-mail comes from a place where I may eventually have an interest. For instance, I love playing the guitar and I get a message from Guitar Center and one from Musician's Friend every day. If you ask my wife, I already have too many guitars and so rather than be tempted to buy something that may get me in trouble at home, I just delete the messages without reading them. Every once in a while I discover I need something from a music store and so those are the first places I go to see what is available. Therefore I don't want to unsubscribe from them.

When you are looking to make a purchase, communication of any kind from a vendor that sells what you want to buy is seen as helpful. The rest of the time it is annoying.

A few months ago I received an e-mail from a company that provides a service to me and my wife. It announced that The Brian Setzer Orchestra would be playing in Salt Lake City on December 18th. As my wife and I are always looking for some fun Holiday activities I jumped at the chance to get early discount tickets to the sold-out show. My wife had never heard of them but agreed it would be fun. As we rode home from the show last night, she remarked about how much fun she had. I had to agree that it is one of the best Christmas shows we have ever seen. They even had an ode to the Nutcracker Suite at the end. I leaned over and asked my wife if that meant I could get out of seeing the ballet version this season. She said it counted.

Should you wish to sell your wares via e-mail marketing, remember that most people won't even bother to read your message. The exception is if they are looking to buy exactly what you are selling. Even then, that is questionable. So be careful and screen your recipients meticulously.

The Latest Games

We are entering the 2018 Holiday Season and that means there will be a ton of game releases over the next few months. I know it is only September and talking about the Holidays is a bit early. Those of us in the video game industry have an earlier time frame than the consumers. I'm sure those in retail feel the same way.

Last week Sony released the new Spiderman game for the PS4 and everyone at work has been playing it during breaks. I just got my copy of the game and have yet to play it. The games I am playing have been out on the market for a few months and so I am a bit behind the times. That being said, I am interested in a few of the upcoming games and will probably slot one or two of them in front of Spiderman, even though everyone seems to be enjoying it.

There is one game I played that convinced me to stop watching TV and play video games instead. The sequel will be released towards the end of next month. My hope is that I will finish my current game by them and I will be able to start the new one. Unfortunately I will probably not be done and Red Dead Redemption 2 will have to wait a few weeks before I can play it. Having so many games to play with more coming in the next few months is not really a bad problem.