Chad Norman

My 1980s G.I. Joe Graveyard

Chad Norman — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 02:16:40 +0000

I grew up in the 1980s, so my memories of playing with toys from that era are filled with Star Wars figures, Transformers, and G.I. Joes. In fact, I often cite the 1980s G.I. Joe line as my last love affair with toys as a child. By the time I was done with them, I had moved on to girls, skateboarding, and punk rock.

I was smart enough to hold on to all of my Star Wars toys, but I guess G.I. Joe broke my heart, so I gave away my collection without thinking twice. My entire stash ended up going to my younger cousin Josh, who lived three hours north of us – and that was that. Apparently he had a good time with them, and passed them along to our mutual cousin Brandon. After he was finished with them, they ended up back in Josh’s garage, where they sat for 20 years.

A couple years ago, my Mom, knowing full well how I feel about old nostalgic things, found them in a musty cobweb-filled box in my uncle Glen’s garage and brought them back to me. Opening that box after about 25 years was amazing! I couldn’t believe how many of the toys were still in decent shape, knowing full well my gender’s propensity to melt, burn, crush, and destroy anything and everything we can get our hands on in our tween years.

3 kids, 3 families, one G.I. Joe collection. Here is how it was returned to me, 25 years later. Not pictured is the Skystriker F14, which is upstairs in my son’s closet as I type this (not sure why I didn’t include it in the pic.). Enjoy!

Just A Few of Our Favorite Things from 2011

Chad Norman — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 03:34:30 +0000

Every year on January 1st, our little family sits around the kitchen table and talks about the highlights from the year that’s just passed. Then each of us takes a peice of paper, and writes down all of our favorite things from the previous year. After that, I type them up, upload them to Wordle.net, and create a tag cloud of the year. I keep saying I’m going to make t-shirts for us, but hey – we only want to look back a little. Onward and upward to a great 2012!

Check out the tag clouds from previous years…

Enjoy!

The Sugar Plum

Chad Norman — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 21:58:08 +0000

I got to shoot a ballet rehearsal during Nutcracker season this year, and caught the Sugar Plum Fairy (my better half) having a good time. Bunheads rule!

MacBook Pro Packaging is the Apple of my Sustainable Eye

Chad Norman — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:04:04 +0000

When you have a MacBook Pro delivered, the nice shiny white Apple box comes inside a less shiny brown shipping box. In fact, the Apple box is suspended inside that shipping box by paper corner pads. While I’m stoked that these packaging pieces are recyclable (Apple does pay attention to the impact of its products), turns out they’re reusable too!

I noticed the spacing between the edges was the same width as Thomas the Tank Engine tracks, which are everywhere in my house. When I put the two together, they fit perfectly…then I thought about how I could use them. Sure enough, they are nearly the perfect height to work with the standard Thomas riser tracks. Very cool, and something new for the little ones to be creative with!

101 Social Media Tactics for Nonprofits

Chad Norman — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 03:00:51 +0000

Whew, that’s a mouthful!

Over the last 12 months, I’ve been writing a (long-titled) book with my extemed collegue, Melanie Mathos. We are thrilled that 101 Social Media Tactics for Nonprofits: A Field Guide will be coming out in February 2012, and I’m sure I’ll write more about here on this blog.

in the mean time, if you’re into nonprofit social media and want to learn more about using it to engage, raise money, and measure your digital impact, pre-orders are available on Amazon.com.

Purple Lego Brick Update

Chad Norman — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 00:38:33 +0000

We found another purple lego brick! In 2009, I blogged about how rare purple Lego bricks seem to be, so my boys were stoked when they found the single round piece above. We have always wondered why purple Lego bricks were so rare, considering they were one of the “main” colors.

When I did my original research on purple Lego bricks, I found many references to the Knight Bus from Harry Potter. I had always presumed my purple piece came from that set via a hand-me-down box we received from a friend. I recently saw the Knight Bus in a store (pic to the right), so purple bricks should be in circulation again soon.

Why am I blogging about this? I would like to see purple bricks included in basic Lego sets and elsewhere! I feel it’s grossly underrepresented in the Lego world. If you feel the same way, let Lego know!

The Tunnel

Chad Norman — Mon, 30 May 2011 23:11:08 +0000

Is it a surprise to anyone that the two-year-old is far more brave than the eight-year-old when faced with the dark, twisting tunnels of Fort Moultrie? What a great place to take the kids on a hot summer day – those bunkers are nice and cool!

Social Media Listening – The Workshop!

Chad Norman — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 00:06:20 +0000

I’m one of those social media geeks that never stops talking about how important listening is. So I often find myself presenting a session on the topic, as I did at the 2010 Blackbaud Conference for Nonprofits. My good friend Danielle Brigida and I followed our session with a workshop where our students built a social media listening dashboard using RSS feeds and iGoogle.

I took the materials from that workshop and created the worksheet you see below. It can help you get a listening dashboard setup at your nonprofit. Feel free to download and use it to learn everything you can about your supporters!

I’ve blogged about this over at NetWitsThinkTank.com, but thought I should stick it here too. Enjoy!

Truth & Salvage Co.

Chad Norman — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 02:44:34 +0000

Took some shots at the Truth & Salvage Co. show in January, and forgot to post them here. Great band, and I swear it’s not because I’ve know Timmy since I was a teenager. His a shot of most of the band. You can see the rest on Flickr.

The Colonel’s Calling

Chad Norman — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 03:09:58 +0000

Loved this old school Kentucky Fried Chicken…