About This Stay at Home Daddy Blogger

I did this blog the first couple years the old fashioned way. I just created a bunch of static pages. I’ve now moved up to a standard blog with comments and such. This is just to make things easier for me and encourage more posting on my part. I also wanted to increase the interactivity level.

Just found out my secret nick name among my surf buddies is Goldilocks. What a stupid nickname, where the fuck did they make that up from? Dude it doesn't even make sense!

Just found out my secret nick name among my surf buddies is Goldilocks. What a stupid nickname, it like totally doesn't even make sense.

Here’s some questions that I think my imaginary readers may be wondering.

Q: Why no proper names? You always refer to your daughter as “daughter”, yourself as “dad” and your partner as, well, “partner”.

A: I made a decision early on to create a bit of privacy. Now it’s pretty easy to figure out who I am but I wanted a bit of anonymity as I’ll be writing about my family. Personally, I don’t care about my own privacy. However my daughter’s too young to even understand what I’m doing, nor has she given me permission, so she’s deserves a bit of privacy. My partner knows exactly what I’m doing but does not like attention, so no photos of her. I don’t refer to her as my wife because we’re not married and don’t plan on to. For the most part I’ve followed my privacy policy fairly well.

Q. How long have you been NOT married? Do you live together? How does that work?

A. As of June 5th 2009 it’s been 23 years. We live together, own a home together and live just like you’d expect any happy long term couple to live. Which means we bicker and fight and get on each others nerves, but in the end it’s all good. We’re just not married that’s all.

Q: Your oldest post is from September 2007, why so few posts? Shouldn’t you have like a hundred by now?

A: My favorite blogs are the ones people really put some time into. I don’t really care what you had for breakfast and I’m sure you don’t care what I ate either. I write when I have something to say. I also tend to write in bursts. I have a backlog of essays that I’m editing so they get posted when I finish them. The more serious the subject matter the more time I need to reflect.

Q. I read your home page but what’s the REAL reason you’re doing this.

A. The home page introduction is correct but it left out some important parts. One of my motivations is having an easy and familiar way to collect my thoughts and reflect on my life as a parent. I know over time, many things will fade. With each passing year more holes will form in my memory. If I write them down now, I know I won’t forget them. Secondly, I enjoy reading memoirs and I know one of the most valuable benefits of reading about another’s experiences is realizing you’re not alone. I want someone to read my blog and go “hey, I have the same problem, I thought it was just me”. This is especially helpful when you are trying something unorthodox. It’s good to see examples of others doing the same thing. Do I think my insights and methods are all that special or unique? Not really. I’m just better than most at articulating them. It comes naturally for me to break things down and organize them into little essays. Which is great in print, but I communicate this way in real life too, and that can get annoying even to myself.

Q. Where do you live and what do you do?

A. When speaking to locals I say I’m one block from Soquel Village. To everyone else I just say Santa Cruz. Since Santa Cruz is by far the largest and most economically and culturally dominant city in the county, it’s just easier. Plus, all the towns run together around here. If I turn right out of my neighborhood I’ll pass through Soquel Village and then into the town of Aptos two minutes later. If I turn to the left I’ll be in the city of Capitola in 30 seconds and then two minutes later I’ll be in Santa Cruz. I’m five minutes from the beach and five minutes from the Redwoods. 30 minutes south west of Silicon Valley, an hour and ten minutes south of San Francisco and 45 minutes north of Monterey. Yep it’s pretty nice to live here and the waves are phenomenal. What I do is work, surf and spend time with my family. I’m a self employed, stay at home dad who’s a kick ass graphic designer. So if your start-up needs some rock solid product packaging design that will fly off the shelves, a high performing and intuitive website design that will get found in the search engines, or some stunning print advertisements that will break through the market clutter, then contact me now. And if you like how I said that, I also write copy and develop names and tag lines for businesses both large and small.

File Under: Being a Daddy Blogger – Writing a Dad Blog – Self Employed Dad Blog – Stay at Home Dad Blog