Time for an Update

Wow… it’s been almost a month and the turn of events our lives have taken were never something we imagined possible only a few short weeks ago. If you’d have told any of us in my family that we’d be known world-wide for something, we would never have believed you. It’s just not something that happens to normal people. Looks like we were wrong about that, I guess. Right after all this happened to us, we were bombarded with media requests, talk show requests, and interview requests on every available medium imaginable. Almost overnight, my daughter and I were tweeted about, Facebooked about, blogged about, written about, and more. We, or more specifically, I, was loved, hated, admired, despised, raised onto a pedestal (way undeserving), and kicked while I was down. We’ve dealt with everything from malicious users posting our home address on the Internet to telephone stalkers, to North … Read the rest…

Response Video: Oli White – Viral Begets Viral

My family and I have seen some of the response videos made on YouTube over the last two weeks, and still have hundreds yet to see. Some we really support and others, well, not so much, but I wanted to take a few minutes to thank the guy who made this video. Just like I didn’t anticipate my video going viral, I don’t imagine Oli imagined his response video possibly being the catalyst for hundreds and hundreds of Chuck Norris jokes either.  I don’t know this guy, have never met him, and know nothing about him except what I’ve seen on his YouTube video, but I wanted to take a minute to thank him. Oliver, While I can’t tell from the video (shown below) if you were serious in your response or just made it as an off-the-cuff response to my own video, I can honestly say that nothing anyone … Read the rest…

From one Parent to Another – Protect Your Kids

Lots of you out there have seen my page about eBlaster and I would LOVE IT if you’d share your stories of using the program so other parents out there can see how it’s helped you and your family.

I’m going to share some other stories from others, posted from the eBlaster webpage when I get the time, but I feel it better to start with my own. This is too long to put on the eBlaster page on our site… no one would ever read it, so I’m giving it it’s own page here.

Why Even Do This?

After my video went viral on Facebook and I refused to do press interviews I started receiving emails from the press asking me to answer questions. I agreed to do it in public on my Facebook wall, so my words couldn’t get twisted up or taken out of context. I got lots of press requests, a ridiculously high amount, from the USA, Canada, Germany, and a ton of other countries. To date I still haven’t been able to respond to them all. There just isn’t enough hours in the day.

Read the rest…

Response to ABC Network

This is my response to ABC’s newest list of quesitons regarding the video post. Thanks again to ABC Network for sending them!

1.)Your video has been viewed millions of times, was it your intention for it to garner so much attention or was it meant to be shared on a smaller scale?

It was meant for two audiences:

First, it was meant for the Facebook friends she has her own age that thought “Hey, that’s so cool that you stood up to your parent’s that way. That’s awesome!” I wanted them to know in no uncertain terms that she didn’t get away with it.

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Will you go on Television, ever?

I won’t pretend for a moment that I don’t fight the urge to say yes every time the networks call. A couple of days ago I was nobody. Now, stations are calling me and giving me my choice of news networks, my choice of anchors, and a whole variety of other things to entice us to come. I literally has one major network call me and tell me they don’t care WHO it is I want to speak to, if we’ll just talk to them and give our thoughts they’ll find that person and get them on the phone for an interview. I’ve had phone calls with people I never thought I’d ever get the chance to meet, people my entire family would find fascinating to meet, but now isn’t the time for us to do it. I’m not making a flat-out stance against television news. But when this is … Read the rest…

Response to Dr. Phil

Two days ago, the NBC Today show with Matt Lauer hosted Dr. Phil via satellite for an interview to gather his response to the YouTube video I’d posted about my daughter, Hannah. To be fair to Dr. Phil, I kind of asked for it. Two days earlier I posted the following on Facebook:

Dr. Phil: You've GOT to have taken a running jump way outside the bounds of sanity 
if you think I'd subject my family to your show. You've called almost EVERY day
and you're now trying to track down my wife at work? Dude... NO. I can save you
the studio expense of flying us out there. Your version is "I'm an
uneducated over-aggressive father who doesn't understand how to raise my kids
and you think my daughter simply MUST require years of intensive therapy for
being subjected to such torture as losing her laptop."
She doesn't need therapy, but she would by the time you finished with her!

Having had the chance to reflect on it a few days, I’ve decided that wasn’t the smartest thing to have said to a national media presence with the education and fan-base Dr. Phil has. Nevertheless, I seem to be learning repeatedly something I’ve been telling people forever; once it’s on Facebook, you can’t take it back. In my defense, people on national television have entire panels of people who are paid to stop them and say “No, you absolutely shouldn’t say that.” I am sans that particular advantage, so I’m just doing the best I can to muddle through.

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Media Response to WSOC-TV: Charlotte, NC

This is a repost of my response to WSOC-TV in Charlotte NC. To see the original post, complete with all the comments, click here.

To Jason Rice from WSOC TV here in Charlotte:
Thanks for addressing your questions in email and thanks for understanding that it took me a couple of hours to get a response together to them. Here are the answers:

1. What is it like knowing that 26.5 million people (as of Friday afternoon) have watched your video?

Answer: It’s still surreal to me and to my family. I had a guy today in the McDonalds drive thru line toss me a thumbs-up from across the parking lot. We have received letters from almost every country on the planet. It’s crazy. I just don’t understand it. A few people have stopped me in the mall or in public as far as 200 miles from home this past week to say hi. Others snap pictures when they think we’re not looking. The online response though… it’s been simply amazing. I had no intention for this to happen and no idea that it possibly could.

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Legal Shield

I’ve spent the last four or five days being careful NOT to do exactly what I usually get on Facebook JUST to do: -Promote my business -Promote my wife’s business -Promote other businesses I support. -Promote my book -Share stupid photos -Promote charity fund raisers when I can. -Post stuff that attracts more clients -Post stuff that I find funny. -Post stuff that makes me angry. -Post stuff at 2 AM because I can’t sleep. In a couple of days, whether the world at large has moved on or not, I’m going to.. and we’re going to. I’m going to plug Twisted Networx like I’ve been plugging it for the last five years on Facebook. I’m gonna share funny pictures of my kids and my dog (though I guess I have to be a lot more careful what I post now I suppose). A lot of my posts ARE public … Read the rest…

Media Response to Anita Li, from the Toronto Star

This is a repost from my Facebook wall post on February 11th. If you’d like to see the comments made on Facebook, click here.

Media Response to Anita Li, from the Toronto Star

Since you took the time to email us with your requests like we asked, I’ll take the time to give you an honest follow-up response. You’ll have to forgive me for doing so publicly though; again I want to be sure my words are portrayed the way I actually say them, not cut together to make entirely different points.

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