Gnip Gnop and the lessons of history

History does repeat itself. One of Sydney's birthday presents was Gnip Gnop...a game that lives in familial infamy for me. You see, when I was five or six, I had the notorious reputation of being a really poor sport. An exceptionally sore loser. At the first sign of my imminent defeat, every board game usually endured my rage in the form of a fling across the room. If these moments were frozen in time, you'd probably see a hundred snapshots of me amidst a burst of airborne Monopoly money or Risk dice blurring from left to right -- two little hands and a red face assaulting Operation.

I'm not particularly proud of this legacy. Despite the repeated chidings that no one would ever want to play with me if I continued my ways, I'm pretty sure it took me two or three years to snap out of it.

One of the darker moments of my competitive Sith training involved Gnip Gnop. Parker Brothers first introduced this evil excuse for a "board game" back in the '70s. If you've never played it, the concept is simple. Two players oppose each other, armed with three neon ping pong balls and three large buttons, separated by three small rings and a plastic-domed sphere of torture. The objective is to maul your buttons as quickly as you can to catapult your three balls through the rings to your opponent's side before they do the same. What begins as a polite session of casual taps and "oohs" and "ahhs" rapidly devolves into a blur of sharp fists and slurred curses of "my buttons don't work" and "this game cheats!"

After losing for the umpteenth time to my brother nemesis, one day I simply snapped. I have a very vivid memory of stomping up the basement stairs, stalking Jeff with wrath in my heart and Gnip Gnop in my hands. Reaching the top of the stairs with the game extended high overhead, Jeff's eyes met mine. He sensed my sinister intent. "Don't do it," he cautioned. I had a moment of decision. I recall it distinctly. Eyes wide and wild, I surveyed the fork in the road at which I found myself.

I chose the low road. As in slow motion, Gnip Gnop left my hands, and slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God. Splintering the game into dozens of pieces against the brick fireplace, narrowly missing my brother with the throw, I knew I had gone too far. Sunk too low.

I don't remember much after that. I'm sure the ensuing hours were filled with countless beatings at the hands of my brother, endless sobbing in my room (punctuated with several door slams), or both.

So, here's the point. Emelie had her first run-in with Gnip Gnop this morning.

I have recognized since she was about a year old that Emelie is genetically predisposed to follow her father into the dark side of the Force. Her perfectionist ways, fear of failure and kneejerk rage are all-too-recognizable to me. Just like Darth Vader should've never been presented with his first light saber, Emelie's hands should have never made contact with the three Gnip Gnop buttons. Let's just say her indoctrination was...painful.

But you see, I understand the Gnip Gnop pathos. I feel her pain. Gnip Gnop is like a metaphor for life encased in 40 cubic inches of plastic anguish. On one level, you see three big, harmless buttons and three round, colorful balls -- where's the possible harm in that, right? But soon, you feel like getting those balls through the hoops requires the physical and mental prowess required to split atoms. Not only are you confronted with the speed and accuracy of your own tortured blows, you need to cope with the galactic anti-matter of your opponent's orbs. Every action seems counteracted by equal and inordinately aggravating reaction. Soon, the sensation of your striking hands numbs to a mindless, soundless ache as you transcend place and time to find yourself in an obsidian little corner of your soul, deliberating if you should descend further into madness or seek out the enlightened path of calm and reason.

Fortunately, Emelie's first foray into Gnip Gnop world didn't result in broken pieces, limbs or spirits. After several moments of repose and reflection, and the all-too-familiar advice that "no one will want to play with you if you act like that", Emelie pulled it together. After she took me aside to convince me to play a different game with her, assuring me that she "had settled down now", I couldn't help but feel more deeply connected with my youngest daughter. I'm confident someday she'll come to terms with her inner demons, as I once did, and become at peace. There will always be the tension of perfectionism, but she will find solitude in the universe.

It just won't have three buttons and three ping pong balls at either end of it.

It's me-o from Reno

Greetings and salutations from Reno. It's my second day here in the Silver State (isn't that what they call Nevada?) and I'm infatuated with the idea of blogging from the road. We got in last night, and after a 20-mile diversion into the mountains surrounding Reno compelled by faulty Mapquest directions, we landed at John Ascuaga's Nugget. Sounds like an Italian with kidney stones, I know.

We got checked in and into our rooms about 10pm last night. I'm on the 10th floor overlooking the pretty uninspiring Reno skyline...actually the bastard stepchild of a skyline. Daytime revealed a pretty bland, brown, frontier-esque panorama. There's some snow on the surrounding peaks, but the temperature's been 61 for about a week, so there's none accumulated in town. Actually, our wandering nomad drive last night took us amongst some pretty amazing mountain cabins, reaffirming my affinity for mountains versus beaches.

The hotel here is pretty nice...with the casino not too overwhelming of a presence. Of course, I haven't ventured down there too much. I got to bed relatively quickly last night, coming off a 3-hour sleep the night prior. Jason, the cameraman I'm here with, got some blackjack time in, but the call of gambling has never resonated with me.

We spent a full day of shooting today, the first few hours at the main exhibit floor witnessing their opening ceremonies. The convention is for Hanger, one of the world's largest manufacturers of orthotics and prosthetics. We're doing work for a spinoff division. The opening ceremony was military-themed, featuring five amputees from various branches of the military...four were wounded in Afghanistan or Iraq. Their short speeches were quite moving, and, in just a few words describing how they were injured, really brought home the sacrifices being made over there. I think everyone was touched.

After that, we set up camp in the company's PR director's suite, where we interviewed some company figures and some patients who use their product. I won't go into great length, but we've been the almost-exclusive force in launching the marketing front of Innovative Neurotronics. You can view some of the work at their Web site...designed by us, written by us, and featuring a 3D animation of ours.

In the afternoon, we went to a local patient care center and recreated a patient consultation, witnessing some before and after footage of a patient using the WalkAide product. Good stuff and met some nice people.

Tomorrow, it's some more of the same and fly out at 7:40pm.

Tonight, there was a reception for the event. Pretty much this entire resort has been inhabited by Hanger employees, and the draw of the reception and/or the casino was pretty appealing...for about five seconds. The bigger draw was my room, ESPN, my iPod and room service. I'm such a hermit. The room features wireless Internet connectivity, so I'm able to get some work done and write this stupid little blog entry. It got me wanting a better laptop and a camera that I could use to download pictures directly and include in my blogs from the road. Not that I travel a lot, but the immediacy of that editorial seems pretty cool. I actually was uncertain if this laptop even had wireless. I plugged it in last night and noticed the little indicator light on the base of the monitor. Sure enough, I enabled the wireless connection and *BING* I'm online. $11.99 for 24 hours. Pretty damn cool, this technology stuff.

Now if I could just play Warcraft here, my homebody geekness would fully blossom.

Here's to a good day of shooting on Friday and a safe trip home to my ladies in waiting.

Walking back down to the rock

Recently I've taken to characterizing my professional life as that of the myth of Sisyphus. In case you don't recall it by name, I'll give you the Cliff Notes version (in a fashion I'm sure any mythology expert would have convulsions over. Here's a better synopsis by one of my favorites, Albert Camus.)

Sisyphus was condemned to an eternity of pushing an enormous rock up a hill. As he would struggle under back-breaking effort to push the rock to the top, his efforts would be rewarded with the rock plunging back down the hill. Time and time again, Sisyphus would walk back down the hill to put his weight behind the rock and push it to the top, knowing that he would soon repeat the entire process.

The thing is, Sisyphus soon found that his only joy in life was found during his hour-long returns back down the hill. And in those moments, he found solitude and true consciousness.

Kind of a severe optimism. The best of making the best of a rocky situation.

Such is my own struggle with workload, deadlines and family balance. And every Sunday night, I stand at the bottom of the hill, stretching sore mental muscles, steeling my resolve and preparing to put shoulder to stone. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy what I do, and work is going tremendously well. Still, the perfectionist in me struggles with getting everything done right, on time and with an adequate amount of time to validate my own decisions. Sometimes, that time for reflection doesn't exist and it causes me a certain amount of cognitive dissonance. Sometimes it's exhilarating to plunge into this growth headlong. But when I fear it borders on recklessness, I get uneasy. I suppose if it was recklessness, I wouldn't even be pondering the issue. By acknowledging my concerns and keeping them present, I work to ensure things don't get out of control.

Last Friday, I was in San Jose on an ad pitch. This week, I will be in Reno for 2.5 days on a video shoot. These two instances are reflections of our growth and the exciting projects we have underway, but they also expose the challenges of being out of the office. I trust my staff. But every minute of every day (particularly recently) necessitates some decision or action on my part. And being out of the office makes me tense, I admit. At any given moment, I'm prioritizing three or four things, and trying to communicate answers to any number of employees or vendors. All while trying to be attentive to the moment. When I'm out of the flow, I feel like the plates I've been spinning will begin crashing to the floor.

On a deeper level, I guess I'm grappling with the belief that someday I'll push the rock over the top of the hill and feel a sense of accomplishment...or completion. Thing is, I know there will be another hill just ahead. And I need to become at peace with the fact that it's not the destination that matters, but the journey.

Links to chain

Two interesting sites to pass along to you. My previous rave about the Google Maps thing was only partially warranted. It was amazing in its own right, but check out Google Earth. It's a separate application you'll need to download but it takes Google's satellite imagery to, well, another level. Absolutely mesmerizing.

Then, for a more mundane subject but an experience no less entertaining, check out Gotripoffs.com. Found out about this today. This is a pet project of one of our design contractors. Seems he created and mans this site dedicated to documenting companies and people that rip off the "Got Milk?" campaign. I already knew it was probably the most replicated and mutated advertising slogan of the past 100 years, but this site truly proves it. I guess people send in photos from all over the place. My hat's off to Tim McMahan.

Check both sites out. Got time?