My Super Bowl Sunday: How My DVR Makes Me A Better Father
This has more to do with the Daddy than the Startup, but this is how I spent Super Bowl Sunday. About 4 am, our oldest daughter comes into the room. “I don’t feel so good.” Great day to come down with a cold! She didn’t wake me up, because this is about the time the baby is placing her breakfast order. While the missus took care of the baby’s breakfast, I put the oldest back to bed. So started the manliest day of the year.
There was a time when Super Bowl Sunday meant friends, food, beer, and some football to top it off. How times have changed. Instead of the 12 hour Fox Super Bowl Pre-game show, we get Disney Channel and Noggin at our house. Handy Manny is more interesting than Terry Bradshaw anyway.
Lucky for me, I got my daughter into watching football. We sit there for a bit on a Sunday afternoons, and she hangs out with dad and does her touchdown dance when either team scores. Don’t get me wrong, we don’t watch a whole game (or even a half) but we have a good time for as long as her attention span allows. She really likes the Fox football player robot, too. Thank goodness for DVR.
I record the games I’m interested in, and watch them at night, when everyone is asleep. You’d be surprised. You can watch a whole game, every play, only fast forward the commercials and between-play mulling around, in about an hour and half. Just remember to set it to record about a half hour extra, or you will find yourself missing the end of an exciting overtime game on occasion.
I was lucky tonight. Startup Mommy had things well under control with the baby, and my daughter has a vested interest in the game. It seems the main characters in the animated movie Madagascar, are called the New York Giants, by someone at some point in the movie. She has a team to root for! That and she said that it wasn’t fair that the Patriots won all of their games. Apparently everyone is supposed to get a chance to win. What do you want? She’s four. I thought I would wait another few weeks before I teach her the harsh reality of life. We actually got 3 quarters of very inconsistent watching in. (I’m in Phoenix so things got started around 4:30). It worked out perfectly. The Giants scored to go ahead just about at my daughter’s bed time. So I hit pause, my daughter satisfied that the Giants were ahead, and went to read some books and put her to bed.
After she fell asleep, I went back to watch the end of the game. I’m from Miami originally, and a very big Dolphins fan. Sorry if I just lost some readers. The very first football game I got to see live, was Jets vs Dolphins, in the Orange Bowl, during the 1972 season. That’s right, the STILL, only remaining perfect season. Like I said, for me, things worked out perfectly. A perfect end to a perfect day.
How did you get some game-time in ?
Love the video tutorial… I am really enjoying the information you are sharing. As a entrepreneurial father of 3 what do you think of working from home as a start-up vs. renting? Any ideas on how to stay sane and do this?
@ Mark,
That is the $million question isn’t it (or at least $400-$1000 x 12)? I have done both, and I can tell you that if you have small kids at home, and the money, having a quiet office to go to to get things done is definitely a plus. You can do it from home if the budget or other reasons make that the best choice for you. You’ll need to find a quite place you can work when things get too loud at home, like a library or quiet coffee shop (assuming you have someone else there taking care of the kids!). You got me thinking, so look for this as the subject for a future post.