Trapper Markelz

The old swing days

A while back, my old dance partner Tracy Hogan put together a DVD of some of our rehearsals and dances. I wanted to get a few of these online so they are part of the public record. Watching these over again really makes me miss it... the fun... the challenges... the friendships... and being that in shape!

Here is a piece that Tracy and I choreographed together. Jeep Jockey Jump.

32 and counting...

I had a birthday yesterday... 32 years old and counting. This was the first year that I can remember that I did not know how old I was. I had to do the math from 1977 to now. This entire year I thought I was already 32... so I guess this means all last year was essentially a "free year". Now that I am actually 32, it is like I get a do-over... not that I want one... last year was pretty rad.

Hannah was more excited about my birthday than me... leading up to it she fought back the urge to spoil my present... and talked about the Oreo pie that Maureen was making that I asked for. I am not much of a cake guy (another thing Hannah is unable to understand... "Dad, do you like cake yet?"), so I opted for a pudding pie of some sort... because I like pie... and I like pudding.

All in all it was a great birthday. I worked most of the day... always big things in the works at gamerDNA... which makes me feel lucky. Nothing worse than dull moments... and those are something I get very few of these days. The weather also turned really nice in the evening... which allowed me to stand on the porch and be where I was for a moment.

So 32 years in to this thing called life... no complaints.

Just think... take my current age... double it... and I still have 1 year until I can retire... things are just getting started!

Starting to enjoy the mini-van

Maybe...
Originally uploaded by Markelz Family

A few weeks back, we bought a mini-van. Which raises an important question... should I use the world like "minivan" or like "mini-van"... I am sort of digging the hyphen.

I can't say I was excited to bring home this kid-mobile... but as soon as you get into three-car seat territory and you ever hope to go anywhere with a friend, you sort of need to make the jump. We looked at every option... and sure... there were some third row options on SUVs and cross overs... but if you did that, you couldn't even fit a stroller in the back... so we decided to stop fighting it and own up to our awesome life... I mean seriously... we have awesome kids... they deserve a big-pimpin party van.

We went with the Honda Odyssey... primarily because I have owned a Honda before... and everyone we know here in Boston drives a Honda van... so we figured we would join them. It is a 2009 EX... no real crazy fancy features or anything... but the automatic opening side doors is pretty hot... and it has all sorts of neat little "surprise" features like built in sunshades for the kids... and storage compartments galore.

The other day we took our first "official" family van outing... we drove to a big-box store... bought shelving... and I didn't even sweat trying to figure out how to load it into the cavernous back end... I even parked next to another mini-van and felt like I should give the head nod to the driver like we were now in the brotherhood.

Oh and this thing has like 8 cup holders... and they shoot out at you from all directions so you can have a red bull, a medium Dunkin Donuts Coffee, a few bottles of water and an assortment of sippy cubs handy. I am in beverage wielding heaven.

The Universe of GamerDNA

Jon Radoff, the CEO of my company gamerDNA just did a massive interview at Obsessable.com. It is LONG and informative... it covers all of our major features... touches on a few older ones... and also hints at a few major changes that we are working to deploy as I type this.

It is pretty easy to forget how much we accomplish month to month (and in aggregate) when your head is so buried in the trenches. Every month when I prepare my board presentation, that often gives me a chance to peek up for a moment and realize how far we have come... but I also can see how far we still have to go!

In the end, interviews like this will be fun to hang on to years from now. This interview at Obsessable is a great snap shot of where we are and I am really proud of it all reading through it. 

I do warn you, the interview is huge. Grab a cup of coffee... and settle in... or you can skim it:

With the gaming social network space becoming pretty crowded these days — including sites like former Napster founder Shawn Fanning's Rupture (sold to Electronic Arts for an undisclosed sum between $15 and $30 million last year), former Xfire founder Dennis Fong's Raptr (check out our interview with Dennis here), Ugame based in the UK, WeGame focused around a client tool enabling gameplay video capture and sharing, and others — what does gamerDNA, originally founded as MMO social news and guild hosting site GuildCafe and galvanized into a bigger entity thanks to a $3 million venture investment from Flybridge Capital Partners, bring to the table that's different? We discovered a few key points during the interview, among them the Discovery Engine that takes a few different factors including gameplay history, the results of personality quizzes, and traits directly identified by gamers to create a gamer profile or "gamerDNA" that aims to identify something salient about you as an individual player, in order to better connect you with new games you might enjoy across gameplay platforms as well as with other players like you to connect with and share some of those game experiences with.

Read more

It is always fun to see all the features laid out like they are in the article. Makes me really amazed how far we have come... all of that we have accomplished in 10 months... and much more that isn't shown there. A pretty fun ride

The Go-Giver by Bob Burg & John David Mann

In this awesome economy, optimism tends to be a very tough thing to come by. You have to work at it ever single day. When you pay your bills... when you pay your taxes... when you sit on the bus... it is easy to focus on the fragility of all our situations. To combat this, I have been seeking out some fables... nothing like a good optimistic fable to make your day!

Reading Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist reminded me about the power of fables. I have read a few good business fable books in the past and while walking the stacks at the book store I remembered how optimistic they can make you feel. A few business fable books that left an impression on me:

• The Millionaire's secret - Man chases his dream to write a movie script
• The Wealthy Barber - How to get rich slowly

So I happened upon The Go-Giver by chance... and after reading a few pages in the beginning, It seemed worth the read.

The premise of the book is simple. There are five rules that define success and they are all based around giving... it isn't ruining it to say what the rules are... you have to read the situations in the book to really get how they apply:

1. The Law of Value - Give more value than you cost
2. The Law of Income - Affect as many people as you can
3. The Law of Influence - Always put others first
4. The Law of Authenticity - Always be yourself, no matter what.
5. The Law of Receptivity - Always be open to receiving

Reading over those they might invoke a "duh" moment... but that is the proof of a good fable... it reminds you to think about things you might already know.

For me the most interesting law is #4... because it is easy to not really know who you are and what you stand for... and it is easy to give up on yourself because you don't trust that who you are can make you successful... so you set out to emulate or alter your behavior in ways that go against that gut instinct that makes you.... you. #2 is also interesting because it sort of explains why movie stars, sports athletes, etc make such huge salaries... they have a huge impact on large numbers of people through media.

Anyhow... this is a super quick read... a single evening... but well worth it as we all think about how we position ourselves and our talents in an uncertain economic reality.