Playing front porch dodgeball with the kids delivered these sweet little prints across the beaded planks. I couldn’t resist a quick photo between rounds…

Seriously, how awesome is it to randomly find this in your girl’s notebook?

Back in late 1997, Gabo Mendoza single handedly changed the course of interactive communication forever when he unleashed Gabocorp.com (archive removed!) upon an unsuspecting design world. Flash had been around for a short time, but nobody had ever built an entire site with it. In fact, I’m not sure anyone had even thought to…except for Gabo Mendoza.

If you were designing back then, I’m sure you remember Gabocorp. TechRadar lists it as one of the 20 websites that changed the world – right up there with Wikipedia and YouTube. My team and I were working with Authorware, Director, and After Effects in those days, so Gabocorp’s super-smooth vector goodness blew our minds. I mean, it blew everyone’s mind. We wanted Flash. Badly.

By January of 1998, we finally convinced our manager to order a copy of Flash 2. When it arrived, my dear friend Tim Sisco and I huddled around my PC and began to play. We naturally tried to build something similar to Gabocorp, and spent about 30 minutes making what was basically a Flash doodle (turn your speakers on and see below). Don’t get me wrong, it’s horrible – but this new platform had set us free. Tweening from color to color, mixing multiple audio tracks on the fly, and running things full screen felt like magic. It was crazy. The world would soon grow tired of Flash sites, but you gotta give Gabocorp credit for propelling the Internet several giant steps forward.

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The snow came, and the snow went. It was that simple, but it helped to make what I’m sure will become one of the most memorable weekends in our family’s story. Charleston’s first snowfall in over 20 years crashed the party on Friday, blowing everyone’s mind in the process (look at that frozen marsh below!) Our kids hadn’t really ever seen snow before, and are still recovering from the madness. On Saturday, Jen performed Serenade with the Charleston Ballet Theatre, which was her first time on stage since 2002 (what a rock star!) Sunday was Valentine’s Day, and Monday was Presidents Day. Seriously, I need another weekend to recover! But hey, what did Ferris Bueller say, “Life moves pretty fast…”

The rest of this DJ kind of looked like Sammy Hagar.

Last weekend, we got to spend some family time together at the studio. The kids always seem right at home on the marley, and I wonder where their feet will take them. Here’s a shot of Zoe and her mom…

First off, a huge happy new year to you all!

Today at lunch, Jen, Cooper, Graham, Zoe and I sat around our kitchen table, writing down all of our favorite things from 2009. It was fun reading them out loud, hearing what we had in common, and telling stories from throughout the year. Being a huge geek, I naturally thought a word/tag cloud might be the perfect way to visualize the year’s goodness, so I went to Wordle.net – because  they rock.

Here’s the 2009 Norman Family Favorites Cloud:

Have you ever seen a purple Lego brick? Seriously, think about it. Have you ever seen one?

A couple of years ago, my friend Rachel gave us a big box of Duplos. We love Duplos, and this batch came with a few regular Lego bricks trapped in the nooks and crannies of the box. I happily integrated the entire lot into our family stash, and went about my business.

Over the next few months, this 8×1 purple brick kept turning up, and eventually it caught my eye. We have thousands upon thousands of Lego bricks, but only one of them is purple. How could this be? Lego bricks are some of the most creative, thoughtful, brain-growing toys out there. Had they simply neglected to make purple bricks? How rare are they?

Apparently, purple Lego bricks ARE very rare! As this Yahoo Answers thread indicates, the missing color has definitely been noticed by fans. I’ve learned that most of the purple bricks in existence probably came from a Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Bus Set. One observant brickhead noticed the purple cone lampshade in the Sunshine House Set. The color is noticeably absent from the Lego online store, so clearly there is some kind of concerted effort to keep purple bricks oppressed – right?

Hey Lego: Set the purple bricks free!!! People want purple Lego bricks, so why not make it happen? I mean, look how happy this woman was when she found some in a Chicago store.

Until Lego can make it happen, feel free to bask in the glory of my 8×1 purple Lego brick:

Growing up in the 70s and 80s, I certainly collected my fair share of hilarious baseball card photos. All those mustaches, blue uniforms, weird hats, and funky locks are half the reason I’ve kept them around all these years.

The other day I found some of my old football cards, and they all seem to have less-than-ideal photos as well. Like the baseball cards, the photos all seem to be casual snapshots from games and practices.

Today’s cards all have perfect photos, and I imagine designers have quite a library to choose from. But not back in the day. Nope, they were just looking for a semi-decent photo that showed the player’s face and number. Whatever was found first, worked.

That’s how I imagine poor Arthur Whittington ended up huffing and puffing for his 1981 Topps Football Card. Instead of busting through the seam on a 3rd and 3, the Raider’s running back was featured sucking oxygen on a hot Oakland afternoon.

Do you think he cared? I mean, today’s players flip out if their Madden player rating dips below 90…can you imagine what would happen if their card hit the shelves with something like this? Publicists would get eaten for breakfast!

Last week I spoke at the 2009 Conference for Nonprofits, and one of my presentations was called 50 Social Media Tactics for Nonprofits. Organizations often have social media channels developed, and are just looking for ideas they can use to engage their followers. This presentation is a roundup of 50 things nonprofits can do on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, StumpleUpon, etc.

Over the weekend, the boys and I were at our favorite old climbing tree near the observation tower at Palmetto Island County Park. That day we were joined by this little red mushroom, who was pretty happy to see us. Anyone know the species?

It’s been a while since I’ve linked back to my nonprofit tech blog, Webby Things. It’s been hard lately to find the time to eek out posts on a regular basis, but I truly love working with and helping nonprofits. If you’re into that sort of thing, here are a few posts from the last couple months you might want to check out:

• 9 Simple Things Everyone Should Know about Twitter Hashtags
• Find Your Local Social Media Club
• 6 Dogooding Webby Things Your Nonprofit Should Check Out
• Power to Your Peeps! Real-time Fundraising with Twitter
• 15 Clay Shirky Quotes That Blew My Mind at NTC

There. Now maybe I’ll get off my butt and actually finish the dozen or so drafts I’ve written. In the meant time, be sure to check out some quality dogooding tech musings at NetWits Think Tank, Socialbrite.org, or Beth’s Blog.

Since the ’80s, I’ve been using the primitive Campmor catalog as my defacto guide to outdoor gear. In recent years, my purchases have moved online, but I still love getting that tissue-papery off-white zine. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to see a giant callout to the @Campmor Twitter account, but there’s still something that doesn’t feel right about it. Should we really be plugged into the Campmor marketing machine when we’re on day three in Bryce Canyon? Hmmm, on second thought, this Twitter addict thinks maybe we should. Have a great weekend everyone!

We love our resident banana spiders, and each summer we chart their progress as they move around in search of the perfect spot. Back in July, a giant female setup shop in a vast expanse of empty space near the marsh. She built her web about five meters above the ground and is still there as I write this. She attracted 2 males and a female, who together patrolled a giant swatch of our backyard airspace  for the better part of 2 months. I’ll miss her when she runs from the cool temperatures to come, so today I made sure to take a photo of our banana spider of the year.

Last Friday I spoke on the social networking panel at the Charleston Green Business Expo. It was part of the Charleston Green Fair, where I also exhibited for Go Green Charleston. I always love having a chance to talk social media with excited people. I like to remind everyone that listening to an audience is probably more important than broadcasting to them. Listening really works, and can help you make smarter decisions.

I used these slides for an eight minute into on listening. I’m not sure how well they hold up without me ranting, but here they are nevertheless:

I totally dug this massive aisle of bobbleheads in Chinatown, SF.

What problem can’t be solved with social media these days?

Our neighborhood was having trouble communicating, working together, and behaving like a true community, so we turned to Ning.com to help us improve that.

Using Ning it took only minutes to create a full-featured social network complete with groups, discussion forums, an event calendar, blogs, and photo sharing. After a few tweaks, neighbors were invited and The Longpoint Commons was born.

I’ve been working with online communities for years, and Ning has always impressed me with how easy it is for people to use. It seems like everyone who signs up immediately begins to write blog posts, join groups, or just build out their profile. A volunteer brigade, neighborhood crime watch group, and resident meetups appeared right away. It’s clear that social media makes it easier for busy, family-oriented suburbanites to connect. It really does take a village, and technology can make the village really hum.

Ahhhhh, tree frogs and bokeh make for nice bed fellows…

I still have not read Chris Anderson‘s book Free: The Future of a Radical Price, most likely because it is still sitting in my Amazon cart. The book examines the economy of free, and how it is evolving in today’s market. Whenever he speaks on this topic, as I saw him do at SXSW, he always gets grilled about why the book itself is not free (pssst, it is if you want to read it online). It’s not free because Chris needs to feed his family, who are apparently eating really well – Check out the price increase for “Free” that awaited me when I logged in today:

And yes, I’ll probably still buy the book!

There was no Big Ben, but I couldn’t help think of that line from European Vacation every time I walked by the Canadian Parliament building. Sitting in downtown Ottawa, this is a great building and property to wander around. I really dug the feral cat colony back near the river. More pics on my Flickr page.

Rays, beams, streaks – call ‘em what you want, they are always nice to see. The boys and I ate dinner with this evolving show off in the distance, partially obscured behind a thunderhead over James Island. We thought they were cool because they went up instead of down – maverick sun beams.

We always seem to have praying mantises in the yard, which makes me happy. Last night while I was fixing the Sirius antenna, this friendly guy kept checking me out. Eventually, he jumped onto my shirt. I gently set him down, got my camera, and came back out. He then crawled right onto my hand for a few pics – what a trooper.

Previous blog posts about praying mantises living in my yard:

• A Mantis Among Us
• Mister Mantis

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These lanterns caught my eye near Chinatown on my latest visit to San Francisco. You can check the rest of my pics in my SF set on Flickr.

My friend, who has a sweet job at the local NOAA office, sent me this sea level analysis of my house and immediate vicinity. I’ve always wondered exactly how low our property sits, especially when high summer tides roll into our backyard. This color overlay shows elevation, with red being lower, and green being higher.

My house is dead center in the image below, and the elevation of our lot ranges from 4.3 to 6.5 feet above mean sea level.

Things are still getting back to normal after an inspirational trip to the 2009 SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin, TX. I spent 4 amazing days learning, talking, and building relationships with my fellow social media hipster doofus web geeks – oh yeah!

I got my photos uploaded to Flickr last night, so I went ahead and made an Animoto clip for the photostream impaired (music by Lake Trout). Enjoy!