Sometimes the Best Gifts are Free

I’ve never been someone to have a long birthday gift request list. I’m not a techie eagerly awaiting the new iGizmo and I’m not a golfer dying for a new putter or driver. Gifts are wonderful to receive, but I’m a big believer that the best gifts aren’t bought at the mall, or even on Amazon, but come from somewhere inside. They don’t have to be wrapped in fancy paper with shiny ribbon and a bouncy bow. They should simply be real.

The same goes for Hanukkah, Father’s Day and even my Wedding Anniversary. For example, Father’s Day was last week and I didn’t even have to tell Mrs. Dude what I wanted to do that day. The only present I wanted was to spend the day with the three people who made it possible for me to be an honoree: my wife and two sons.

I didn’t want a fancy brunch at some overpriced restaurant. In fact, I wanted the opposite, a brown bag lunch, and I wanted it at my favorite place in Los Angeles. It’s possibly even the place I moved to LA for, even though I’d never been there before I actually moved: the beach.

I slept in last Sunday morning until 8:30am (which is better than a gift – it’s practically a miracle) and joined my family for cereal and milk, just like every other day whose name ends in a “y”. We loaded the car and traversed our favorite canyon toward the beach. The weather was due to be perfect, as I knew the company would be.

We arrived before noon and played ‘til after 4:00. Hard to imagine anything better than running down the shoreline, holding hands and having fun with my boys. Actually “fun” doesn’t even do justice to what we shared that day. Perhaps bliss or perfection is more accurate. Whatever it was, it was all I wanted and needed. As the sun began to fade, we packed up our gear and headed back over the canyon to reality.

There was one more thing I wanted that day, to show the Little Dude how to throw a slab of meat on the BBQ. A tri-tip that weighed in at a hair over a kilo was going to be my carnivorous treat for the day. We’d already prepped it, so grilling didn’t take more than a half-hour.

Still, I showed him how to baste, flip and rotate the slab that was making my eyes jealous of my mouth. We’d used a special rub and sauce from Arthur Bryant’s in Kansas City, which I’d heard raves about forever, but never actually tasted until that day. It was worth the wait. The tri-tip came out perfectly and my day was complete. I had everything I wanted, which was really nothing at all. Just a day with my favorite trio, at my favorite place, followed by an amazing meal. I couldn’t have asked for a better gift.

Oh, and to cap the perfect day: Mrs. Dude made my favorite dessert: a ginormous homemade cookie cake slathered in buttercream frosting. Boom. Mission Complete.

Special thanks to Lee Jeans, who sent these matching Smoke Camo Compound Cargo shorts (and that awesome BBQ sauce!) for the Little Dude and me to rock together.  I’ve hardly taken them off since. 

Daddy & Toddler Motorcycle & Big Wheel tee shirt set by Daddy & Company.

Disclaimer: We received these clothing items complimentary and were not compensated for this post. 
All opinions expressed within are my own, for better or worse. The beach rules. Seriously, 

I Got a Job (or How Going to Dad 2.0 Changed My Life)

I got a job.

Rather, I should say, I got a new job, as I already had several jobs both paid and unpaid. The most important and lowest paying one, Father, is easily also the most grueling and most worthwhile. But earlier this year, I decided to look for an additional new challenge.

Something that I could get excited about doing every day and be proud to share with people I meet.

Something that would get me back to being a professional people-person. And not just people in diapers.

Though overdue, I procrastinated the search knowing that it would likely be a major challenge I “didn’t have time for”. Or that’s what I kept telling myself. But then a magical thing happened. I found inspiration in possibly both the most, and also the least, obvious place for me: Houston, Texas.

One only eats things like this in Texas. 

Since I live in Los Angeles, what in Houston could make a loyal West Coaster decide to change his life? Beside good Bar-B-Que, of course. The Dad 2.0 conference. When I attended the second annual conference early this year, I wasn’t sure exactly why I went. Beyond the opportunity to meet and spend time with an amazing group of writers from around the globe, I knew there had to be another reason. Turns out, it was finding a new life path.

At that conference, I spoke to several great Dudes who each inspired me in their own ways. They are all tremendous writers and even better people. So I wanted to thank a few of them for their incredible support, encouragement and friendship of this Dude.

·         Jim Lin: Though I don’t remember the exact dialogue, I’ll never forget Jim’s “Three-Headed Dad” speech where he literally proved just how many hats Fathers really do wear.  Sure, we are parents to our children, and as I mentioned above, that is easily the most important hat we wear, but it’s the other hats we wear that shape us as parents, spouses, employees, consumers and more. Jim’s inspiration extended beyond the conference as I sought to blaze a new trail toward the future.

·         Alan Kercinik: I’d never heard of Alan’s blog before his address at the conference and was quickly blown away by some of the observations this advertising guru presented to a motley crew of Dads. Approachable and open-minded to helping some Dude he’d similarly never heard of before, Alan’s encouragement led me down the path to where I am today.

·         Ron Mattocks: Ron’s practical advice as a Social Media professional gave me the courage to look for new options and really try to find my way toward something great. Ron gave me great inside information that I was able to utilize in my search process. 

·         C.C. Chapman: C.C. gave an inspiring keynote at the inaugural Dad 2.0 in Austin last year and we became Facebook friends sometime after that. When I introduced myself in person this year in Houston, there were two things I wanted to talk to him about: a book and a tattoo.  Just before the conference, I’d noticed a picture on C.C.’s Facebook feed of a tattoo he’d recently gotten that said “Not All Who Wander Are Lost”. That quote was familiar to me from my days following the Grateful Dead, as I remember it emblazoned on t-shirts at Dead shows in the early 1990s. I discovered that it’s a J.R.R. Tolkien quote from Lord of the Rings, and is something I’ve thought a lot about during the last few months of my quest. 

      The quote was apropos when considered alongside C.C.’s book that had been recently published before the conference, Amazing Things Will Happen. I asked a little about the book and C.C. generously offered to send me a copy, which he promptly did and for which I am extremely thankful because I am happy to report that, just a few months later, amazing things have happened to me. Not only did I find an amazing new career, but I found one with a company that respects families and encourages its employees to be active parents via extremely flexible work schedules. For this, I am grateful. 

You  might be wondering why I am telling you about this stuff that really doesn’t fit into the greater parenting theme of this blog. The reality is, without this blog, I never would have gotten the job. When I started writing this blog 2+ years ago, the shoot-for-the-moon goal I had in mind was to parlay it into writing for television. A friend encouraged me to start a blog as a way to keep practicing my craft while building a portfolio. So I did, and subsequently discovered this incredibly supportive community which I’ve developed through Social Media. My blog’s Social pages are not the biggest, nor will they ever be, but they are strong enough that they have led to amazing friendships and opportunities, like attending the Dad 2.0 Conferences. And they led to a Management position for an established Social Media company that works with some of the largest corporations in the world, who I am already working with after just a few weeks.

To quote the great poet Robert Hunter “Once in a while you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right.”

It’s true, C.C., amazing things can happen.

I’m living proof.  

I highly recommend that you grab a copy of C.C.'s book. 

You can find "Amazing Things Will Happen" here on Amazon. 

And if you don't already know the Dudes mentioned above, click the links on their names and check out their great blogs. Trust me. 

Pop's Day Contest Winners

Hope you had a great Father's Day weekend. As expected, I spent Sunday at the beach with the family. The weather was perfect and the crowd was minimal, i.e. it was a fantastic day. 

That is until I once again burned the slab of beef ribs I tried to BBQ for dinner. (Side note: does anyone know how to BBQ beef ribs without them turning into charred sticks?). Dinner was followed up with my delicious homemade cookie cake, featuring Mrs. Dude's special frosting made from scratch. 

Yes, I ate most of it. Especially this most appropriate piece: 

And among our beach snacks were PopChips. This week was Salt & Pepper, one of my favorite combinations and quite complementary to our turkey sandwiches. 

But beyond reading about my eating habits, the real reason you're here is to find out who won the big Pop's Day Giveaway.* So without further ado, the big winner of a VIP 6-pack of tickets to the Eat See Hear screening of her choice with seats in PopChips "Fashionably Late" section PLUS a month's supply of PopChips is: @TheBigDebowski

And the 2nd prize of a month's supply of PopChips chips is @whithonea. Not too shabby. 

I will notify both winners via Twitter and they will have 24 hours to get back to me, or else another winner will be chosen.**

Thanks to @PopChipsLA for sponsoring this great contest and everyone who participated!!! 

*Winners were chosen by a random number selector: Mrs. Dude. She had no idea what she was picking, and chose the numbers from ranges I provided, assigned by when comments were left on my original blog post. 

**Even if you didn't win, you can still buy PopChips. They're really good. 

Disclaimer: I was sent enough PopChips to feed Luxembourg in exchange for organizing this contest. And I've eaten a ton of them. All opinions expressed here are entirely mine, for better or worse.