Credit: Google Images

The summer months are a time when we dads get to spend a little more time with the family because the kids are out of school. Yes, it’s a little more taxing on the family agenda (and your wallet), but it’s well worth the money and time invested.

This year, my kids created a summer bucket list that included a variety of one-day and multiple day events that looks more like the ultimate kid’s wish list as opposed to something more manageable like trips to the park and hanging out at the pool.

Regardless of the activity, us geek dads see these activities and trips as a way to get our geekness on. In addition to the obvious, photography and videography, there are a slew of geeky ways to keep your trips and events organized; catalog the content you capture and create; and, share your mini-tribe’s experiences with friends and family with the help of social media.

Getting Started

Once the kids have thrown down the gauntlet, you need to start strategizing; where to go, when to go, how are we going to get there and what are we going to do once to arrive. From a planning stage, Google Maps will be your best friend. My kids decided to add Story Land to their bucket list; a family-oriented theme park that’s in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and has been around for roughly 58 years. Before we booked a hotel, I buzzed over to Google Maps to check out locations in proximity to the park. We ended up booking at the Red Jacket Mountain Inn as it was kid-friendly and about seven miles from the park.

With Google Maps, I created created a “place”, pinpointing where Story Land and the Hotel were located. I added directions from my house to the hotel and finally to the theme park.

I didn’t stop there, though: We needed to find some places to eat as well. I quickly punched “restaurants” into Google Maps and was treated with a plethora of results. I clicked on the ones that I thought the family would be interested in and added them to the map. The best part is that Google Maps provides reviews by consumers for an unfiltered snapshot of potential eating spots.

Now, with the help of my Samsung Infuse, I can bring up My Places in Google Maps, and have all the trip details at my fingertips. And, if we want to head a little further up North, we can plot out a trip to Santa’s Village.

With the help of Google Maps, I’ve been able to plan all of our short and long adventures, not only for directions courtesy of the built-in GPS in my mobile devices, but also to scout different places we might want to check out.

Booked, Now What

Once a trip has been planned, you have to start strategizing in terms of the “stuff” you and the family are going to need in terms of your basics and amenities. In addition to cloths, bathing suits, towels, etc. theres a list of things that can easily be forgotten like Q-Tips, floss, bug spray, etc.

For list building, I find that Evernote does the trick. My wife will create the list using her iPhone, share it with me via the app, which I can then add to and send back to her with my thoughts, additions, etc.

In addition to list building, you might also have paperwork that you need to bring with you, such as receipts from reservations that you PDFed. You might also need some things for work that you have to check in on in between dunner and bedtime. In that case, I’d suggest Dropbox, which is your personal server that can be accessed from any iOS, Android, Mac or PC-based device. Yes, you’d rather not have to do work, but it’s better to leave your stuff in the cloud as opposed to taking your briefcase with you.

Are We There Yet?

So now that you have your trip planned, check-lists completed, it’s time to hit the road. GPS devices will be your guide, but portable DVD players and even tablet devices will be your savior in the car. The proverbial “Are we there yet?” question is guaranteed to get asked by the kids. Make sure you have a stack of DVDs or tablet devices that are jammed with their favorite movies. If you can swing a couple of portable devices — even an iPhone or Android mobile devices — bring some headphones. The last thing you want to do is hear cartoon songs for a three hour road trip. If the movies fail, be sure to have a number of mobile/tablet games on tap to keep the kids occupied.

If you’re into location-based services, you can tell your friends and family that you’re heading on a journey with Forecast, a Foursquare-type of mobile app that does exactly what the name says it does — forecasts your plans.

Paparazzi Time

Once your neck deep in bucket list activities, it’s of course, your job to capture the moments with your paparazzo skills. Whether you’re a dad that is a DLSR type or a slim point-and-shoot like the Canon PowerShot S95, ensure that you have extra batteries and CF/SD cards. The biggest issue I tend to have is that I want to bring a variety of lenses and additional gear with me. The last thing anyone wants to do is slug around 75 pounds of gear, though, so what I find comes in handy is LowerPro’s Slingshot line-up of bags. They are compact, yet feature enough slots and compartments to carry what you need, keep it snug up against you and be “out of the way” as much as a camera bag can be. The best feature is the ability to sling it towards the front of your body so you can quickly exchange lenses, grab your video camera, etc. It also acts as a stabilizer as you’re able to rest your elbow on the bag while shooting.

Of course, snapping all those pictures and HD video clips will mean that you’ll need someplace to put them. Not everyone wants to lug a laptop or Mac with them on vacation, so I’d suggest an iPad with the Camera Connection Kit. Not only can you dump photos and videos to the iPad, but with the help of iMovie (for iPad 2), you can create some short segments that you can post to your social networks and share with friends and family.

Don’t overlook your handheld device either. With apps like Instagram, PicPlz and others, you can quickly grab bucket list memories and share them in real-time, especially if you’re using location based tagging features.

Also, you don’t have to be the only one taking pictures. Why not get your kids involved? If you’re using the DSLR, you can use an old point and shoot and get your kids snapping away. Be sure to check out a site called PhotoJojo (specifically the message boards) or a site like Kidzworld before you head out on the trip so the kids can get some of the basics of photography down.

Of course there is a slew of other apps, gadgets and services that can make your assault on the kids summer bucket list fun, organized, cataloged and best of all, enjoyable for you and your family. What suggestions do you have?

Got a couple extra bucks floating around? Need to fill some down time during the summer months with a little gaming? Well, Steam has dropped their Summer Sale on the gaming world, running from yesterday until July 10th.

There’s a slew of daily deals on individual games and packs as well as complete publisher packs at a pretty steep discount. For example, Telltale or Valve’s games, including Portal 2, are available for $49.99 each (a steal).

There are roughly a dozen or so companies featured in the sale with about 25% off or more, which translates into some serious savings for just about anything you might want from Steam.

Some of yesterday’s deals featured:

• Bit.Trip Beat (75% off)
• Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II: Retribution (50% off)
• Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West (85% off)
• Toki Tori (75% off)

In addition to the deals, there are “camp activities” for you to do. Basically, you’re tasked to earn specific Achievements in select games. Players will earn a prize ticket that can be cashed in for downloadable content for certain games. Prize tickets also provide you with a chance to be 1 of 100 people to win the top 10 games on their Steam wishlist.

Head on over to Steam and check it out. What are you buying?

Photo Courtesy of Dogfish Head Beer

Sam Calagione is a regular guy; he’s married, has two kids and loves beer. The catch, though, is that unlike many beer-loving dads, Sam actually gets to make and drink beer for a living. As the Founder and President of Dogfish Head Brewery, Sam is living the dream — literally.

What started out as the smallest brewery in the US, Dogfish Head has grown into one of the most successful micro-in the country. As a result, the company has built a fan-base that draws parallels to Apple Fan Boys (maybe not in size, but at least in an affinity for the brand).

During a recent phone interview, Sam discussed how Dogfish bucks the traditional beer-advertising method, the brand’s use of social media, traveling the world to find the right ingredients, technology and gadgets, and managing the work-life balance with his wife and two kids.

Unlike big brands, Dogfish Head doesn’t leverage gimmicks or big splashy advertising campaigns to promote their product, according to Sam. They let their customers do the talking.

“We don’t like to do much with traditional advertising. We predominately drive brand awareness through events and social media to get the word out,” Sam said. “We want to get people to the source of Dogfish [referring to the brewery in Delaware] so they can understand what we are all about. We hope that the experience turns them into evangelists.”

Of course, not everyone can take the road trip to visit the brewery, so Dogfish relies heavily on the Word-of-Mouth impact that social media has with consumers.

“Even before social media existed, we’d spend a lot of time literally talking to our customers. When we opened in the smallest brewery in 1995 and had the restaurant, we were able to control the message yet be authentic on a human scale. We would talk to customers about what made the beers special and how they complemented great foods,” he said. “With social media, the same principles exist but the dialogue is amplified. Tools like Facebook and Twitter enable us to have very real conversations with our customers and get valuable feedback on our products.”

In fact, because of their social media efforts — which are managed by his wife Mariah — the company has developed further marketing initiatives to help with the one to one dialogue with consumers. Today (July 1), Sam said, the company would be rolling out a “new experience” on their corporate website, Dogfish.com. (I pried, but he wouldn’t give up the details).

At the end of the day, however, the dialogue still circles around beer and that’s where Sam’s passion lies.

“We realize that there are a ton of great micro-breweries out there and we want to celebrate every single one of them. We know that our customers are the types that like variety. That’s why we don’t worry about competition,” Sam said. “For us, it’s all about collaboration and developing innovative products that the brew-lover will like.”

Dogfish has partnered with a slew of breweries around the world, including Sam Adams, Sierra Nevada, Short’s Brewing Company, Three Floyds Brewing and many more. Regardless of the collaboration, Sam says, it’s all done with the craft beer drinker in mind.

“The craft beer drinker is promiscuous. They tend to have a dozen or so beers that they will always keep in their rotation. We just hope that Dogfish is one of them,” he said.

To keep the creative juices flowing, Dogfish literally will go to the end of the world to find the right ingredients for their next brew. Their latest concoction, called Ta Henket, was created to incorporate the ancient ingredients and techniques described in Egyptian hieroglyphics. According to the website:

It was brewed to 11.4Plato with Emmer (an ancient form of wheat) and loaves of hearth baked bread and flavored with dom-palm fruit, chamomile, and zatar. Fermentation was carried out by a native Egyptian saccharomyces yeast strain captured by Sam during a recent trip to Egypt.

Ta Henket is scheduled to hit shelves in the fall.

Because of his worldly travels, you’d expect Sam to travel with a bunch of gear to capture the experience.

Think again.

“All I really need is my iPhone 3Gs. I can do what I have to do with this phone as I have access to email, texting and all the information I need about our business at my fingertips. It does have a cracked screen and I think it’s time to upgrade,” he laughed.

As for technology in the brewery itself, Sam talked about the tour experience and how they are going to be filling in wait times with game — specifically iPad gaming.

Do you remember the iCade (created by the brains over at ThinkGeek.com)? You know, the mini-arcade shells that you could slide an iPad into. Well, the iCade was initially an April fools joke, but because of consumer response, the company decided to actually make them. When the iCade was available this Spring, Trey Bowden, Dogfish’s Information Technology Manager, bought one for the company. In fact, the iCade will give the roughly 7,200 brew-fanatics that visit the brewery every year something to do while they wait for their turn to get a guided tour.

For a company that’s been in business since 1995, having that many people come visit the brewery is quite astounding and shows how the Dogfish has grown in popularity with consumers.

However, despite the company’s success and how Sam has become the recognizable face for the brand, he’s still a down to earth guy who loves what he does just as much as he did when he started out and enjoys all the benefits of being a husband and dad to his two kids.

“I have 140 or so working beside me who are critical to growing this business and making sure we’re headed in the right direction. And for each of us, it’s very important to have that work-life balance in order to continue doing what we love to do,” he said. “For me, I want to continue to do what I do best and that’s creating events to bring people together around our brand as well as creating new and exciting brews. However, I make sure that I schedule time away from it all so I can spend as much time as possible with my family.”

While Sam does work with his wife, they try to keep the brew talk at the dinner table to a minimum. Though, admittedly, he said it’s pretty hard — especially when his kids (11-year-old son and 8 year-old-daughter) aren’t into it yet.

“Working with my wife is great. There’s always stuff we take from work and talk about at home. Often times we’ll be at the dinner table, talking about the next batch of 120 Minute IPA for example. Yea, the kids get a little tired of it, but hopefully someday they will carry on the tradition,” he said. “My kids have their own passions — my son wants to be a professional skateboarder and my daughter wants to be a fashion designer. And that’s totally cool. Maybe someday they will be interested in brewing and will carry on the family legacy.”

Family business or not, to Sam, Dogfish is still all about brewing good beer that people enjoy. There’s where his passion lies. That’s what he loves to do and his advice for those dads out there who are thinking about brewing their own beer is: “Do your homework. Keep it simple at first. Then, put your own finger print on it on it. Follow your own style and enjoy it. Cheers!”