What a nice week off. We spoiled the kids, I played hard with both of them. Took Swale to see Into the Spiderverse and it was an incredible leap forward in animated film.  It’s the future I’m here for.

Got some great presents, gave some great ones too. Many robots, many cool electronic kits. We’ve got great stuff for the kids, I just need to keep my energy up so I can teach them and guide them into the good stuff instead of zoning out in front of screens. They really come alive for engagement and fall down into a screen if it is available.

For instance – I showed Max some gifs from Bees and Bombs.

Max LOVED them. He keeps asking about seeing more beesnbombs. Eventually we got to watch Daniel Shiffman attempt to make a Bees and Bombs gif on youtube. He sat for the whole thing.

So we got to talk about Sine Waves and when Sam didn’t believe he was listening and understanding, the next morning we got to talk about waves again. Max drew a square wave so we got to talk about the difference and how those sound different – and we talked about listening to square waves, sine waves and sawtooth waves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2uB4nKzGlg&t=266s

He still doesn’t get the time component too well – he’s drawn me a lot of waves with loops in them – but that’s good experimentation!

I tried to blow his mind that this is how all sound works but it’s a bit early to grok that. In other sound news I made a little ditty for a rainy day.

Gave Sam a very weird board game where you play as nurses helping ease a dying man through his final days before the grave. Holding On: The Troubled Life of Billy Kerr feels unlike any game I’ve played before. We are in a story, managing and helping and watching an inevitable decline. It’s not a laugh riot, but we’ve gotten through two scenarios and are going to keep going.

Played around with the list of 2018 codrops and they were great! I really liked a few and thought they should be part of a story – that our paper should do more…

I want to write story about summer and love and the south that starts like this.

This story about work, gender, cable and humanity really moved me.

Sam and I talked about what our goal or theme for 2019 should be and we think Community could be it.

For her, it means building a better network of support, spending more time with our community. For me, I want to find ways to get connected with our broader community and give back.

I want to find ways for us to connect with causes and give more. I want to help our kids engage in the same way. We can find ways to change our criminal justice system, save our environment and make the world better.

Please take a look at the Brooklyn Community Bail Fund and the National Bail Out. The more I think about it, money bail is one of the crucial legs of the criminal injustice system.