I bought a yoyo in the same week I read Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind. I bought the book two years ago but my sister took it away, to the Hinterlands, which shares the space-time continuum her dorm room and the planet of misplaced ballpens occupy. It returned from the journey with age spots, so I assume time runs differently over there.
One of the most interesting takes on the book is on PresentationZen. I didn’t know Garr Reynolds existed before googling A Whole New Mind. So, one more blog for me to follow. I am supposed to give a “Presentation 101” talk in the office any time this year. (This decade, my schedule willing.) Methinks it will be easier – and faster – to just order the Presentation Zen book.
The yoyo. I walked into Hobbes and Landes looking for a Bop It for Lucien. They had Mimobots, model soldiers and a shelf of dog toys, but no Bop Its. A video was running on the Active Toys display, so I watched. Minutes later, I was hypnotized into buying a high-tech yoyo. Oops, [YO]2. Following high-tech product nomenclature conventions, Active Toys took a simple toy name and added brackets and a superscript.
I played with the yoyo all day at work. It came with a tricks CD, so I watched that. I have been practicing looping, alternating between my left and right hands. I am surprised at how addicting it can be, learning a new skill. I tied the string to Lucien’s tiny finger last night and he ended up walking the dog. Just the walking part, not the spinning part – unless I stand him up on a chair, the string’s too long for him to actually use the yoyo.
I don’t have a labyrinth to walk (in a Whole New Mind, labyrinth walking is said to quiet the mind and free the right brain to do some thinking on its own), but I can pack the yoyo.