My wife and I went to a friend’s house one night and we were thinking about some fun stuff to do. Normally I always keep a deck or two of cards and an Ultimate Frisbee in my vehicle no matter where I go. But you can do a lot better by creating your own Entertainment Grab Bag.
The following is a short list of activities which could occupy anywhere from 2 to 20 people. You never know how many are going to show up, so plan ahead.
Everything mentioned will fit into one regular sized bag. Whether it’s a back pack, cloth sack, or duffel bag is up to you. I prefer a duffel bag or back pack. You can zip everything up, and they are easy to carry. Just leave everything in your bag and whenever you leave the house, throw it in the trunk or back seat. You’ll always be ready for a good time.
Ultimate Frisbee ($10.00 at Wal Mart)
Anybody can throw a frisbee, and if you have enough people you can play a real game of Ultimate Frisbee! My favorite sport.
2 – 4 decks of regular playing cards ($5.00 anywhere)
There is almost no end to what can be done with cards. Google the rules to any card game you want to play, there are thousands! Or have everyone help build a huge card castle!
Uno ($10 at Wal Mart)
Come on! Who doesn’t like Uno?
Twister ($20 at Wal Mart)
Take it out of the box, roll up the board and put it in your own bag.
Scene It DVD Game ($30 – $50)
You can buy any of the Scene Its: Friends, Disney, Nickelodeon, etc… Again, remove the board, pieces and cards from the box. Put the pieces and cards in a zip lock bag, or small box, and put them in your Entertainment Grab Bag.
6x Washers ($3 at hardware store)
Play the regular game of washers without having to lug around the huge wooden boxes. Just use a can or Tupperware from the house you’re visiting, and put it in the middle of any square you can make. Use duct tape, or a cookie sheet. You can even chalk one on concrete, or spray paint one on the grass!
5 or 10 Good Movies ($10-$20 per DVD)
You might want to rotate this selection. It’s always a good idea to keep old favorites around, but keep some new-releases handy too. To save space and organize, get a small CD wallet and put your DVD’s in here instead of lugging around the jewel cases.
Any Other games that can be used for multiple people.
Be creative. Just think about what will easily fit in your grab bag, and go from there. If you start having to carry extra stuff, or even more than one bag, it will quickly become too much to manage. Just one bag will give you plenty to do.
Add in new games as you think of them. Print off a few new card game rules and carry with you. Change the movies you carry. Most importantly, ALWAYS keep your Ultimate Entertainment Grab Bag with you and enjoy the fun!
SMART goals are:
Specific: Wanting to lose weight is not a goal. Wanting to lose 15 pounds is a goal. Setting a goal which is not specific immediately dooms you to failure.
Measurable: “What gets measured gets managed.” Dr. Peter Drucker. Losing 15 pounds is easily measured. Earning $10,000 more than last year is easily measured. If you pick a goal which cannot be measured, you will not know whether you achieved it or not. More importantly, if you do not measure your goal, you will not achieve it!
Attainable: Do you only weight 100 pounds? Then losing 15 is not attainable, unless a second goal is to be unhealthy. Picking impossible goals will paralyze you and instill unconquerable fear. Worse, you are setting yourself up to fail.
Realistically High: You will know a goal is attainable, but realistically high, if you must change in order to achieve it. Setting goals that you will achieve anyway will not give you an sense of accomplishment. If you will lose 15 pounds or earn $10,000 more by continuing to do what you already are, they are not good goals. Push yourself, but don’t push yourself over.
Time Sensitive: Losing 15 pounds is a good goal. Losing 15 pounds in 4 weeks is a better goal. Set times to your goals. Never leave them open ended. Know what you must do every day to achieve the goal by the time chosen.
WHY specifies a goal should be:
Written: Write it down! Having your goals on paper forces you to look at them every day. Post them at your desk, on your wall, or on the front/garage door.
Harmonious: Wanting to be debt free before the end of the year, and wanting to purchase a new car are not harmonious goals. Any leadership book will talk about alignment. Your goals must also be in alignment with one another. Make every goal you set work together. This will also provide symmetry guaranteeing all your goals will be met.
Yours: This is the most important. If your spouse wants you to earn $10,000 more this year or lose 15 pounds you are far less likely to do it. Pick goals that you really want to ensure success. You have to want it!
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Want someone to bounce ideas off of?
Want someone to ask about your goals?
Leave a comment, or email me eb at ellisbenus.com
Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It’s intended for … anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.
Arduino can sense the environment by receiving input from a variety of sensors and can affect its surroundings by controlling lights, motors, and other actuators.
This phenomenal little device is going on my wanted list immediately. A computer has always merely sat in it’s own space and could do very interesting stuff displaying results on it’s monitor.
NOW! Your computer can actually sense the world around it then interact with nearly any object in meat space. We are a far cry away from a robot making breakfast and taking out the trash, but this was too cool to pass up posting.
Read Arduino’s Getting Started Guide and start playing!
I just received this as a forward, and actually read it.
What I want to know, is how can everyone read this and comment on how ridiculous this story is, when there is so much truth presented here?!
This is more of a rant post, but please comment with your opinions.
Have you seen Idiocracy? In it you glimpse our future, and this story foretells our doom!
Old Version:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool so he laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed but the grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
Moral of the Story: Work hard and be responsible for yourself!
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Modern Version:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool so he laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving. CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast.
How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing, ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green.’
Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house where the news stations film his group singing, ‘We shall overcome.’ Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper’s sake. Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid claim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share. Hillary and Barack go on national television agreeing that the plight of the grasshopper is the fault of George Bush.
Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Directive, retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, since he has not enough to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.
Obama gets his old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Bill Clinton appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients. The ant loses the case.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government-provided house the grasshopper occupies (formerly the ant’s house) crumbles because the grasshopper doesn’t maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow.
Shortly thereafter the grasshopper is found dead in a drug-related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.
Moral of the Story: …
Since May 19th, my first day commuting to work via bicycle, I have put almost 300 miles on my bike.
In the article about my pedal-power commute you read that a mere $350 was invested in the bicycle. Maintaining this free ride is of prime importance. Luckly, for the bicycle repair do-it-yourselfer Alex Ramon launched his website BicycleTutor.com.
This list of tutorials is going to expand, and on Alex does take Requests, but here are 33 of the tutorials offered at BicycleTutor.com right now. Enjoy!
If you too are currently commuting by bicycle, please let me know in the comments.