This post brought to you by my favorite brother-in-law

On our recent trip to Florida I stayed up late one night talking to my favorite (also, now: only) brother-in-law, Sean. Earlier he and Liz introduced us to Dexter (which was pretty intriguing, if you think about the main character like a ghoulish-Batman-type crusader), and then Sean and I got talking about Sean’s business. Usually when people (like my former, unfavorite brother-in-law) talk about their business, what I hear is “I love money and myself and I think you should get out your checkbook and take advantage of this special one-time offer.”

So I love Thoreau and can’t imagine selling Scentsy, but things get more complicated when you have a sneaking fondness for Ayn Rand and a natural desire to feed your kids and maybe someday take them to Europe. (I should probably lie and say I daydream about distributing condoms in sub-Saharan Africa, but really I want to see the seven hills of Rome again).

Sean has his own business doing web-development stuff, and he’s a fantastic project-people manager. In kindergarten terms, he plays well with others, acts as a leader, and has a long attention span. He’s also good at making a profit. He knows how to value his time, his work, how to motivate others and how to sell what he orchestrates. He’s a good entrepreneur/businessman, in other words.

He’s also a good role model for my husband, who is strong on the substance but sometimes lacking in the confidence/valuing department. I would say that Dick is too good or above the selling necessary for sucessful freelance work, but then I think about Sean and how he combines the substance and the confidence and I think that Dick just needs to learn to charge more for his time, to shmooze his abilities just a bit more, and  then I won’t have to get frustrated every weekend when I’m sure that Dick is slaving over wordpress conversions for three dollars an hour instead of yelling at Spot to stop whacking her sister. Why do I have to do everything?

Sean’s company, HD Interactive, is experimenting with augmented reality, which is weird, and kind of cool, a cross between regular reality and virtual reality (not that I think we need more than one reality, but since we’re already there, might as well combine ‘em). With augmented reality, you print out special markers that your webcam recognizes and that prompt the program to incorporate whatever it is you’re holding up for the camera. Instead of interacting/directing your computer through the keyboard, you “talk” to your computer through the webcam. Kinda Star-Treky, huh?

If your kids are like mine (meaning they like to shove papers in your face if you don’t immediately pay them all the attention they crave), you should check out Sean’s We Can Play Hangman and I Can Learn My ABCs. In both games, kids direct the play by holding letters of the alphabet in front of the webcam. Kids really go for seeing themselves on the computer screen and telling the computer what to do next. Susan especially liked Hangman, she wanted to play again, but this time with a girl instead of a boy on the gallows. No separate but equal at our house.

Sean also has a new online chess application, Chessjam, though I’m embarrassed to say that I am probably not refined enough to appreciate the finer points of Chess. (I’m afraid UNO is more my speed). But if I did play chess, I would totally play it online with Sean’s new game, and I’m only half saying that because he paid me.

Finally, I am suggesting that Dick track his freelance project hours with Sean’s WorkWatch program, so we can finally settle the question of whether he would make more moonlighting at the local Wal-Mart.