MormonDaddyBlogs

Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation

April 28, 2012 By Scotty Taylor

Motivation can be a four-letter word, especially when you want to do something and you know you should be doing something, but things get in the way.

Chas Hathaway is an author, musician, blogger, and Mormon father of four rambunctious munchkins, all under the age of 7. They are, as Chas calls them, “A Blast.”

He shares his thoughts and talents at his website: Overtones and Ice Cream Cones, The Blathering, Chattering, and Musical Clattering of Author and Musician, Chas Hathaway.

Check out his thoughts about how he stays motivated as a husband, author, musician and dad on his post: Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation.

Filed Under: Featured, Music, Writers Tagged With: Chas Hathaway, music, writer

My Peeps

April 7, 2012 By Dennis

Going off the rails a little bit for this one, in that it’s a post by a Mormon mommy (gasp!). But it is, frankly, too good to resist, and it has a nice little message for our Mormon daddy community, too.

Kacy Faulconer speaks beautifully of what it means to be enmeshed in a ward of her “peeps,” fellow Lattter-day Saints, with all their weirdnesses mixed in with their beautiful acts of kindness. (My favorite line: “Every ward has a few weirdos and if yours doesn’t–it’s you.”)

“Peeps in my ward plan parties for me that I don’t even want to go to like they are some over-eager friend. But then I go (begrudgingly) and it’s fun and good. I used to plan those parties for them and they came (begrudgingly) and it was fun and good. Left to my own devices I would stay home and do nothing (don’t get me wrong–this is not without merit) but sometimes a little nudge to do more is OK. You can’t anticipate what you’re going to get from these peeps because you don’t always know what you need. I didn’t know I needed a frozen chocolate drumstick with nuts from my gal-pal/80-year-old neighbor yesterday but as it turned out, it hit the spot quite nicely.”

This Easter season, Kacy’s post, which you can read here, hit the spot quite nicely.

Filed Under: Featured, General, Writers

MDB Spotlight: 3 more posts you don’t want to miss

March 31, 2012 By Dennis

This week, MDB featured a post, called “I’m a Mormon and I Don’t Watch Fox News,” which served as a timely reminder for the need for civility and respect for those who may share your chapel but not your politics. While we’re speaking of Fox News, there’s another MDBer who not only watches it, but is frequently an invited guest on Fox News.

In a recent post, author Jason Wright gives an intriguing description of the five hours that are required to generate a 3-minute interview segment in Behind the Scenes of a Fox News Appearance.

When I visited a new website, called Mormon Explorer, one word popped into my brain: genius. It’s an innovative site that is designed to facilitate connections between Mormon families in their travels throughout the world. The idea for Mormon Explorer began two years ago when Mormon dad Jeff Paul took his family on a 3-week adventure through a number of European countries.

“With two kids (one and three years-old) on a student income (or lack thereof), we had to be creative in how to stretch our budget to be able to experience the best Europe had to offer. We quickly identified our nightly hotel costs as the largest and most manageable expense. We experimented with the different options available; budget hotels, hostels, and staying with friends (some whom we met at church and others through online communities). By far, our most memorable experiences from the trip were the evenings we spent in the homes of strangers, sharing meals and sharing stories.”

Read more about the creation of this site in Mormon Explorer – Uniting Through Travel.

I hope I might be forgiven the self-indulgence of highlighting Will People Come, Ray?, but it is for a good cause. As a Mormon daddy, I am witnessing one of my daughters who, in addition to working full-time as a Special Ed teacher at a local high school and taking a full load as a Master’s degree candidate at BYU, is doing her best to generate funds for her school’s new Best Buddies chapter.

Best Buddies is an organization that seeks to foster meaningful friendships between kids with special needs and mainstream kids.

My daughter has been doing everything she can to help fill the auditorium for a benefit concert. It will feature a terrific line-up (The Whits and Allred). If any of you are in the Provo area on April 7, I hope you can join us and bring the family. (There’s a $2 discount if enter promotional code “buddy” at the Get Tickets Here box at her online ordering page.)

If you do, please say hello. It would be a pleasure to meet a fellow MDBer.

Filed Under: Featured, Film/TV, General, Media, Music, Writers Tagged With: Dennis Agle, Fox News, Jason Wright, Jeff Paul, Mormon Explorer

Erik Orton

January 20, 2012 By Dennis

Erik Orton began writing and producing theater while a student at BYU, where he graduated in 1998 with a degree in Arts and Media Music, with a minor in playwriting. He was raised primarily in Germany and the suburbs of Washington D.C. In addition to producing and directing a number of plays, Erik has also written a number of works, including the musical Berlin.

His blog, simply called Erik Orton, covers a variety of his musings, all written with a certain style that suggests he could do this writing thing for a living.

Erik and his wife, Emily, live in New York City.

Filed Under: MDBer, Media, Music, Stage, Writers Tagged With: Erik Orton

How did the Chicken Cross the Ocean?

January 16, 2012 By Dennis

For many of us, a big, scary thing would be writing and producing a musical. For Erik Orton, a writer/director/producer in New York City, it takes a little something more.

Erik’s big, scary thing is sailing around the world with his family. Not on an ocean liner. In a sailboat.

He admits that it is a daunting challenge. And when faced with such a daunting challenge, Erik and his family are breaking it down into what they like to call “chicken steps.”

“Here’s how we’re starting out: our children need passports for this undertaking. Getting passports is less scary than sharks. So…getting passports is what we call a chicken step. Next scary thing: how in the world are we going to pay for such a ludicrous undertaking? We don’t know exactly, but why should that stop us? What we do know is that we have a lot of stuff around in our apartment that we don’t use or really need…certainly not on a boat. (That’s my wife’s idea. She’s just dragging me along.) What if we sold all that stuff and put it toward passports? Small stuff, but it’s a start. That’s a chicken step. Starting to get the idea?”

Erik was raised primarily in Germany and the suburbs of Washington D.C. He graduated from BYU in 1998 with a Bachelor of Arts in Media Music and a minor in Playwrighting. He began writing and producing theatre while a student. In addition to producing and directing a number of plays, Erik has also written a number of works, including the musical Berlin. Erik and his wife, Emily, live in New York City.

MDB would like to welcome Erik Orton to the blog. Be sure to read Erik’s post, Chicken Steps.

Filed Under: Featured, Stage, Writers Tagged With: Erik Ort, Erik Orton

The Father-Son Journey

May 15, 2011 By Dennis

It’s clear Seti Matua loves this journey called life. Indeed, he’s chronicling his in a blog called Le Folauga, Samoan for The Journey.

You’ll find a lot of passion on his blog about everything from his strong feelings about adults who screw up sports for their kids (he’s against that) to diaper bag thievery (he’s against that, too).

In addition to being a rugby coach, Seti is a former editor for a number of publications and is now a free-lance writer. He writes frequently on sports as well as the Pacific Islander/Polynesian community. He especially loves to write about when those two worlds combine to produce the likes of NFL stars Troy Polamalu, Haloti Ngata, Jonathan Fanene, Ray Feinga, Rey Maualuga and Aaron Francisco.

But perhaps nowhere is his passion more evident than in his love of his family, as evidenced by this post about his recent experience interviewing his boys in Father-Son Time Gets to the Heart of the Matter.

Seti and his wife, Jennifer, live in Utah, where they are raising their five sons. Welcome to MDB, Seti.

Filed Under: Featured, Sports, Writers Tagged With: Le Folauga, Seti Matua

Breakthrough

April 27, 2011 By Dennis

When last we left Jared Garrett, a writer in search of publication, he had decided to quit.

Not in the sense of hanging up his writing gloves (on the other hand, gloves have never been the most helpful tool in the writer’s toolkit), but in the sense of quitting his quest to get published as soon as possible.

Instead, Jared decided to focus his efforts on improving his craft as a writer, something within his control, leaving the timing of when the rest would follow to forces not entirely within his control.

Since quitting, Jared has made a number of unexpected breakthroughs, from ideas for a series of novels to an idea for a new blog.

And he’s working on putting the ideas into play. Including the new blog, which he calls NotThisButThis, a series of rough sketches presenting contrasting ways of approaching life, one of which is definitely better (no spoilers here; you’ll have to figure it out on your own).

Catch up with post-quitting Jared in A Plug in my Brain as well as his new blog NotThisButThis.

Filed Under: Featured, Writers Tagged With: Jared Garrett, NotThisButThis

Eagles Live

April 26, 2011 By Dennis

A live feed from the nest of a family of eagles in Iowa? Precisely the kind of stuff the internet was made for.

Among thousands of others (yes, that’s 71K+ watching online as this was written), the feed has captured the attention of MDBer Josh Weed. This mesmerizing display of reality TV internet-style has served up more than a few life lessons for Josh, such as one he learned from what he calls the lame stick moment:

The Mommy eagle, not knowing quite what to do with a random stick, just kind of shoved it to the side. But what she didn’t realize was that she trapped one of the babies by the neck so that it couldn’t move. At this point, I had grown attached to the little guys… I was actually kinda starting to stress out. I was talking to the screen. “Mama eagle. Hey! (tap tap tap on the computer screen) You moved the big stick onto your baby’s neck. Baby is contorted now and not moving. He seems pinned to the ground. He might be dying. Hello? (tap tap tap).

Catch the life lesson (beyond putting large sticks on your children’s necks) delivered to Josh courtesy of a nest of fledgling national birds in Life Lessons Learned from Eagles (and while you’re there, you can watch the live feed on Josh’s blog to pick up a few life lessons for yourself along the way).

Filed Under: Featured, Professionals, Writers Tagged With: Josh Weed, The Weed

Moonlight Serenade

April 25, 2011 By Dennis

Young children have a way redefining a parent’s definition of a good night’s sleep. When once in the time B.C. (before children) anything less than a solid eight was a rough night, those miniature midnight marauders can make a parent grateful to be able to string together a pair of three-hour naps before dawn.

As the years go by and the midnight bad dream/need a drink/bathroom help interruptions become fewer and farther between, those experiences can actually become fond memories.

Newcomer to MDB Dale Lott recounts a sweet memory of his 3-year-old daughter’s lunar encounter in Moonshine and Little Things.

Dale’s blog is Editorial Bent, fitting for a corporate editor. He and his wife live in Utah and are parents of five.

Welcome, Dale, to MDB.

Filed Under: Featured, Writers Tagged With: Dale Lott, Editorial Bent, media, writers

Funny Bugs

April 21, 2011 By Dennis

When it comes to parenting kids with chronic medical conditions, it can be a particular challenge for the dads. Our tendency is to want to fix things, and when the thing can’t be fixed, it can throw us.

Our wives, bless them, typically step into high gear as the primary caregiver, which can be demanding at the best of times, but even more so when there are chronic medical conditions.

But for the men, sometimes the best thing we can do is to try our best to be upbeat and supportive.

A splendid example of this is Cameron Moll’s recent post, Funny Bugs. Cameron lives in Sarasota, Florida, with his wife and four sons. His 7-year-old has Type 1 Diabetes.

Among his many talents, Cameron is a designer. (When you get a chance, be sure to check out his design of the Roman Coliseum using type!)

Cameron is using his talents, as well as his love as a father, to create in his limited spare time a family project called Funny Bugs, a non-profit site that will give kids with Type 1 diabetes a place to have “a fun, educational, and social experience for managing their diabetes.” The official “chieftain” of the project is Cameron’s 7-year-old, who inspired the design with his sketches (pictured above).

As a designer, Cameron includes in his post some technical details that went way over my head, but what comes through crystal clear is a father’s love. Don’t miss Cameron’s post, The Making of FunnyBugs.org.

Welcome Cameron Moll to MDB.