"How Many Licks?" by Jason Kotecki. 30 x 24. Oil on canvas. Original is SOLD. Prints and canvas reproductions available here. How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop? A commercial that appeared on TV when I was a child asked that very question. It turns out that a number of folks have tried to get to the bottom of this. A group of engineering students from Purdue University built a licking machine, modeled after a human tongue, and determined that it took an average of 364 licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. A chemical engineering …
Family
Are You Leading the League?
With the Major League Baseball season heading into the All-Star break, a quick glance at the statistical leaders reveals that I am not leading the National League (or the American League, for that matter) in home runs. Truthfully, I’m not even close. Of course, there is one important detail that probably matters somewhat: I don’t actually play professional baseball. I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s pretty ridiculous to beat myself up for not leading the league in home runs if I’m not a professional baseball player. And yet we regularly feel bad about ourselves for being lousy at games …
An A-Z Guide for Summer Memory Making
Well, it happened. The longest day of the year has come and gone. It’s always a bit depressing for me, because I know that now the days will only get shorter and shorter. (And it feels like summer only just arrived!) I can’t help but wonder if I’m taking full advantage of the warmer weather. After all, a good summer is one that’s jammed with good memories. If you can relate, here are a couple thoughts… First, it doesn’t have to be overly organized. We asked a bunch of people on Facebook for their favorite thing to do outside as a kid, and not one person mentioned anything about an …
Why You Shouldn’t Accept That Promotion
What idiot says no to a raise? Chip Gaines, co-star of the hit TV show Fixer Upper, writes this about his dad in the book Capital Gaines: "When I lived at home, he was willing to forego promotions and advancements at work just to have more time to throw a baseball with me in the evenings. He was teaching me the game, but on another level, he was showing me how to be a man and a father. He taught me the value of investing in one’s family above anything else.” We almost always consider promotions and advancements at work to be the best thing for ourselves and our families. And they …
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How to Not Ruin Your Next Vacation
Ever have one of those vacations that, when it was over, you said, “I need another vacation!”? Sometimes we spend all our time lounging around and feel disappointed that we didn’t see more. But more often, we rush around trying to see and do everything, and wind up returning to work depleted, wishing for a re-do. You’ve taken time off work. You’ve probably invested no small amount of money. Don’t be the reason your vacation fails. It almost just happened to us. Last summer, we got passports for all the kids so we could take a road trip into Canada. Kim and I asked our favorite …
What if You Knew The Numbers?
Kim and I recently took the kids to their first Cubs game. It was a beautiful day, Wrigley Field was as friendly as usual, and we reveled in singing "Go Cubs, Go" after they sealed the win against the Giants. We often see first times coming. We prepare for them and anticipate them with the excitement of a little kid on Christmas Eve. The last times have a habit of sneaking up on us, though. We have a digital frame in our kitchen that rotates old family photographs. I find myself regularly spying an old snapshot of one of my kids and thinking to myself, "She was never that little, was she?" …
What I Learned From Charles Ingalls (This Week)
Our family loves watching Little House on the Prairie. As a homeschoolers, it has been a great way to discuss some pretty big topics with our kids, like alcoholism, racism, bullying, and more. (Confession: I want to be Charles Ingalls when I grow up!) We just finished season four. In the final two episodes (which TV Guide put on its 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time list), the big railroad companies were flexing their muscle to gain more power, engaging in questionable tactics that were putting farmers in rural areas out of business. Walnut Grove, the town where the Ingalls family lived, was …
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Saying Yes to Piggy Back Rides
One of Adultitis’ best tricks — and the one that trips me up the most — is getting us to believe that the most important things in life are merely distractions. My youngest daughter routinely asks me for piggy back rides. Most of the time I say yes. But sometimes I'm tired, or want to keep reading the book I just opened five seconds ago. And sometimes I’m too focused on the latest pet project that I'm convinced will deliver a windfall of profit and impact. The justification for brushing off this minor “distraction” of my daughter pestering me for a piggy back ride is that, in the end, …
The Thing About Easy
Building a business from scratch isn’t easy. Neither is homeschooling one’s kids. Or traveling across the country with them in a small SUV and two suitcases. Which brings me to fireplaces. Our basement has had a gas fireplace, but it’s in a really weird spot in the lower level and we spend most of our family time upstairs, so we’ve only used it maybe twice in the 8 years that we’ve owned the home. After this summer’s basement renovation, Kim and I created a little sitting area in front of the fireplace in the hopes of making it more usable. We also decided to convert it to wood …
Mom Gives Adult Children Unusual Christmas Gifts
I met a fifty-something-year-old guy after my presentation at a conference in Minnesota earlier this year. He told me, "My mom believed that her kids should always get a toy from her for Christmas, no matter how..." I expected him to finish the sentence with, “...no matter how poor we were.” But he surprised me instead with, “...no matter how old we are.” To this day, along with other gifts, she still gets each of her adult children a toy for Christmas. I wish she would have been there, for I would have liked to give her a hug. It takes a wise woman to know that no matter how old …
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