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Fate brought me a daughter who wakes up as I do.  That is, not well at all.

It’s especially obvious when we need to get up earlier than usual.  We try all sorts of things like phasing in light, sitting on her bed and chatting, walking around the house with her in our arms or even starting to cook breakfast and frantically waving the cooking odors into her room,  Additional wake-up tips are always welcome!

Rarely does it work.  But today was one of those small miracles that reaffirms that you’re actually doing okay as a parent.  There wasn’t anything special; it was just a combination of all of the above with not being in a hurry. We know we should always allow plenty of time but due to forgetfulness, selfishness or just the random arrows that the Universe chooses to shoot at us, we often don’t manage it.

Playfulness helps… at the right time.  Heaven help us if we don’t realize it’s too soon for playfulness.  Again, she inherited this from me, so it is right and just that I have to deal with it as a parent.  My backlash against being “jollied” is legendary in our family and the subject of some rather amusing photos.  Applied at the right time however, playfulness energizes and smooths out the entire morning.

And there’s not much that beats a good start to the day.

My family loves football and yet I’ve never strong-armed them into playing fantasy football.

Let the strong-arming began with this quick description.

At the beginning of the season:

1. Gather a group of owners.  (10, 12 or more)

2. Determine the ruleset you will use.  This includes how many of each position will make up a team, what statistics will score points, how to determine who is winning, etc.

A sample set of positions to fill on each team:

QB, RB, RB, WR, WR, WR, TE, K, DEF.

A sample set of statistics that would score fantasy points:

For offensive players:

For kickers:

For defenses:

Sample ways of determinng who is winning:

a. Keep a season total of points accumulated.  The owner with the most points wins.

b. Each week owners are matched up against each other (1 vs 1).  The owner who gets the most points that week gets a win.  The owner with the most wins at the end of the season, wins.  If two or more owners are tied at the end of the season, the owner with the most accumulated points wins.

3. In a determined order, owners choose the players who will be on their team.  (the draft)

Each week:

Owners choose which players on their team will be active that week.

After the games are played, statistics are accumulated for the players who were active and translated into points .

Simple strategy:

If a player is injured, they should not be active.

If a player’s team has a bye week, they should not be active.

If a player is receiving less playing time, touches or is in the doghouse, consider substituting for them.

Watch for unowned players who are productive and consider picking them up and dropping someone from your team who is less productive.

Consider improving your team by offering or consider trades with other owners.

Etiquette:

Pay attention, at least minimally.

Don’t accept/offer extremely uneven trades.

My first month of iPhone 3G use engendered a love-hate relationship.

I became hesitant to use 3G, location services or play video & games due to the miniscule battery life.  I avoided installing new apps unless I was doing so through iTunes and had 4+ hours in case of trouble.  Backing up & synching were a trial and filled me with a low-level fear.  Various applications would quit working with no warning.  After a hard-reset, seeing the phone with the the apple symbol in a sea of black for any extended period gave me a feeling of dread.  I did a full restore twice and a wipe & reinstall twice in that time.

And yet, I loved having internet access anywhere I went.  The interface makes you feel like a maestro.  I used phone features that my previous phone may have had, but I could never remember how to engage.   Trips to the App Store felt like Christmas morning.

Being the massochistic early-adopter that I am, I immediately downloaded firmware 2.1.  Caution, meet wind.  Originally, I thought it was a crap update because applications were spontaneously quitting.  I hadn’t restarted the phone after the update.  Voila, no application quits since.

Gone are my troubles with backup & synch.  They are quick; as they always should have been.  This, despite 6 pages of apps with a constant flow of updates and a frequent rotation of podcasts and videos.

Gone is my hesitancy in installing new apps or in obtaining them over the phone rather than via iTunes.  This is potentually bad for my bank account & good for Apple as installing on a whim when you hear of a new app is almost instant.  Whoever said that the App Store is crack may have understated the case.

Gone are numerous small annoyances such as application updates reordering my carefully chosen icon-screen layout.

Battery life is still weak.  Perhaps it is improved, but I still don’t feel confident that the phone would hold up to a full day of moderate-heavy multi-application use.  I couldn’t abide this.  I bought an external battery that plugs into the dock port and provides 80% of a charge.  It’s small enough to carry with me and does not require me to extract the iPhone from its case.  I should not have to do this but it has addressed this concern for me, and I now use the phone without thought to the battery life.

Yes, all of this should have worked correctly in the initial release and I expect the phone to have functionality that is still not present.  Apple not yet releasing the SDK from NDA is disturbing as are the recent application rejections in the App Store for duplicating functionality present in iTunes or Apple iPhone applications.

But I’m happy with the phone and I can’t go back.