Featured Blog: Flagrant Disregard

Our featured blog is Flagrant Disregard, written by John Watson. Flagrant Disregard covers John’s life as a married guy with kids which he sums up as “I’m the John Watson that blogs about vomit. I’m John Watson the dad.” He’s also John Watson the entrepreneur; and talk about busy, John has his hands in several businesses (see below) and freelance web design.

I really like Flagrant Disregard even though I only came across it recently. Why? I like the combination of dad, entreprenuer, and tech guy. It reminds me of Good Morning Silicon Valley written by a guy who changed diapers that morning. His posts range from family matters, to the scourge of Snap.com (which I wholeheartedly second), to what is probably my favorite post in awhile which compares punishment for illegally copying a Netflix DVD with other more serious offenses. (Or a least, what you thought were more serious offenses…)

Clever Parents: Seeing as how we just found out you aren’t John Watson of John Watson Chevrolet in Ogden, UT, tell us about yourself.

John Watson: I’m a father of two. I knew next to nothing about young children when our first was born. I’d never held one. I’d never changed a diaper. Total rookie. Fortunately my wife comes from a large family so at least one of us knew what we were doing. Today I consider myself an expert toddler and infant wrangler which is, of course, several years too late, but that’s parenting.

I keep busy. I’m an entrepreneur and I’m self-employed as a freelance web developer (*cough* hire me .). My businesses include: bighugelabs.com (a photo entertainment site), letterpop.com (the coolest build-your-own newsletter in two clicks site), christianaudio.com (the best christian audio book store on the internet), and photodoto.com (a photography resource site). I work out of a home office which I share with the family. And of course I blog.

Photography is also important to me. I consider myself a serious hobbyist and my photos have been published in a number of places, most recently JPG Magazine Issue 7. I’ve done freelance photography work but I don’t have the energy or time to turn it into a full-time gig.

CP: Who is your favorite TV parental role model?
JW: I don’t actually watch a lot of television. I don’t know. It’s a toss-up between Mr. Rogers and George Bluth, Sr.

CP: When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
JW: A fighter pilot. But by high school, that had morphed into “absolutely no clue whatsoever” which is where you’ll find me today. Anything I can hope for myself is inconsequential next to how I hope my children will remember me: a good father.

CP: What’s your favorite activity to do with your children?
JW: Story time. Sitting together, reading in a quiet room, with no other commitments or pressure. And eating ice cream.

CP: What’s been the most challenging part of fatherhood?
JW: Getting out of bed each morning, knowing that you’ll have to do it all over again tomorrow. I’ve often said that I wished I could stop the kids from aging when they were two or three so I could enjoy that time better. I’d still like that so it’s an interesting balance between never wanting it to end and wanting it to be over yesterday. It’s crazy, but again, that’s parenting.

Another challenge has come from working at home. My office door is always open and I actually re-built my workspace recently so I could share it with my kids. It’s useful to be able to help our daughter with her homework and do my own work at the same desk. Balancing work and daddy time has always been a challenge but I found that closing the door to my office just wasn’t reasonable for anyone, especially the kids.

CP: What other parent blogs do you like? What non-parenting blogs/sites do you like?
JW: parenthacks.com, daddyzine.typepad.com, daddytypes.com, lifehacker.com , makezine.com, techcrunch.com, slashdot.org, xkcd.com, it goes on and on… I’m subscribed to 130 blogs which I can barely keep up with.

CP: Best movie you’ve seen in the last 2 months?
JW: Let’s see… Netflix rental history… Ah! The one that stands out, probably because the whole family had such a good time watching it, was the 80s mini-series version of Around the World in 80 Days with Pierce Brosnan. Not the Jackie Chan version. It was originally a mini-series so it’s 270 minutes long. Quite good for three nights entertainment and the kids were both on the edges of their seats for the cliff-hanger endings. For grownups, Snakes on A Plane was just plain * fun* to watch.