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Got an email that "Meltwater is transitioning to a new broadcast and podcast monitoring partner, Kinetiq, to better serve our customers’ evolving needs."

I have no experience with Kinetiq. Are they high quality?

Just saw a Santa post on a separate topic, and thought I'd share my experience with breaking the news to our kids. Everyone has their own approach (and I know some don't even do the Santa thing, which is cool too), but I just thought I'd share ours in case anyone is looking for ideas.

I have 4 kids ages 11-26, so they're all in the know at this point on Santa.

When we break the news to a kid, we tell them:

Santa isn't a real person. Santa is someone who represents things we focus on during Christmas: kindness, generosity, things like that.

Santa is what we are all supposed to be like. So really, I'm Santa and Mom's Santa. But also you're Santa. We're all Santa.

Now that you're ol

Maybe this is common sense for most of you, but it was an epiphany for me about 15 years ago.

When I was a young dad, if I spotted my kids doing something wrong, say stealing a cookie, I would often handle it like this:

Me: "Jimmy, did you steal a cookie?"

Jimmy: "No. I didn't."

Me: "Jimmy. Don't lie."

Jimmy: "I didn't steal a cookie!"

Me: "I saw you steal it, Jimmy. I know you're lying. Now you're making the problem worse.

And on and on.

At some point, my wife asked me, "He already did something wrong. Why are you trying to trap him into doing something else wrong?"

She was right. Instead of dealing with the problem of stealing a cookie, I was turning everything into a test ab

I know there aren't a lot of parents of teenagers here, but I'm interested in thoughts (and just want to vent a little too).

Just got back from a meeting with my son's principal and vice principal. He keeps skipping school.

He's always upset at us for not letting him skip, and he gives us the old "Everybody else's parents let them skip," line. He goes in streaks where he attends well for a month or so, but the last few weeks he has skipped school 3 full days and some half days.

The school administration was FANTASTIC about helping us find solutions. He's not a typical kid who skips, in that he's very engaged in class, gets good grades, teachers adore him, he has a lot of friends. Outside

My oldest (26) and his wife are expecting! I get to be a grandpa while being a dad with three (17, 16, 10) kids still in the house.

It feels a little surreal. They had my wife and over for dinner last week for my birthday and gave me a present with the ultrasound and baby clothes and a nice note inside. Then we broke the news to the kids on Saturday by all doing an escape room together and having the ultrasound photos in a lockbox at the end.

There's nothing like watching your kid grow up to be a great adult, marry a great partner and just navigate life better than you ever did at his age.

We don’t care if they are the most annoying people on earth when they get a sliver of success. We don’t care that they simp for their division opponents to root for them. They are human beings whose team just suffered a catastrophic and supremely embarrassing loss the first time this millennium and most of the last millennium that they showed any semblance of relevance.

Any joke posts or comments joking about Lions fans will be removed and the user will potentially be banned. No exceptions.

Edit: the language regarding potential bans was unclear so it has been corrected

Just wanted to share a very positive homework night. Last night it became clear my 10-yr-old daughter is way behind on reading her "Book Battle" books for her team. She's a good reader, but she doesn't read for fun.

After supper she said, "I want to do something tonight."

Me: "Go read 20 pages of your book."

Her: "Later! I want to do something fun tonight."

Me: "OK then. How about you and me make some hot chocolate."

Her: "YES"

Me: "And we turn on the fireplace in the family room."

Her: "YES"

Me: "And we get super cozy blankets on the couch."

Her: "YES!"

Me: "And we snuggle and each read our own books."

Her: "... No. ... Argh. OK fine."

She turned on the TV and found some at

I like fixing up old hand tools. I found a Stanley Bedrock 604 with nothing but surface rust for $5 last year at a flea market. Cleaned it up, oiled it. Replaced the stump handles with some rosewood ones from some other old Stanleys I had bought for parts. It's my go-to smoother now.

Anyway, I had a cool old chisel that I had cleaned up, flattened and sharpened and made a new handle for out of some apple wood from the tree in my front yard. It was great.

However, I had 2 others the same size that I used most of the time, so I didn't really need it. I gave it to a neighbor who needed one. He used it to pry out nails, and it's all beat to shit and chipped up now.

Anyway, it's heartbrea

When my kids hit that age where they can start to do some things, but they struggled with pouring themselves milk (4 or 5 maybe?), we used to put a small cup of milk in the fridge on Friday nights. When they woke up Saturday morning way earlier than we wanted to be up, they poured themselves bowls of cereal and then took the cup out of the fridge and poured it in the bowl for themselves. Turned on cartoons.

Eliminated the "I'm hungry! Can I have breakfast?" on weekends. Usually gave us another 30-45 minutes in bed. Plus they always felt v grown up to be handling things themselves.

Wanted to share a proud parent moment from last week.

We took a family trip to Nashville with three of our kids (the fourth is 25, out of the house and married). We picked Nashville because our 17-yr-old boy is really into music and plays the guitar.

Our last night, we went to Rudy's Jazz Room, and they had an open jazz jam going on with some really talented musicians. My son, with no prompting from us at all, asked someone if he could borrow a guitar and play. The guy lent him his guitar, and my son went up and played a song with the band. Did a solo and everything.

I was surprised and amazed and so damned proud. He was floating afterwards (especially when some good-looking gal came up

This was a nice read about some of the advantages of ADHD for a leader in the workplace.

I have often found myself feeling bad and thinking about what I "could have been" if I didn't have ADHD or if I had found out before I was 40. So much guilt and shame and feelings of unfulfilled potential.

In recent years, I've tried to pay more attention to the gifts that ADHD has given me. If I didn't have ADHD, those would go away along with the challenges. My quirky hobbies, my chatty personality, my ability to pivot and handle a crisis, living in the moment, etc.

Even some of the negative things. For insta