I have very vivid memories of my mom and dad making up batches of fake blood at night.

My entrepreneurial spirit happened all day long because I got to think of things that kids would interact with. I was in front of my customers for 6-8 hours a day. I got to see what they like, what they don't like, what they connected with, and most importantly, did they learn something from this?

We are really battling, today in the U.S., keeping science education in the forefront at the elementary level, and that's where the research shows that kids get interested.

Prior to inventing the Geyser Tube toy, dropping a stack of Mentos into a bottle of soda was not always an easy task. The Geyser Tube makes it easy to get a perfect launch every time at heights of 30 feet or more. Tell me... who doesn't like to see soda shooting 30 feet into the air, all in the name of science?

My mom was an opera singer, and she gave up her career to raise a family. But she also taught my sisters how to sing.

The truths are universal: Every kid knows fear. Every kid knows family and friendship. Loss, love, laughter. Everything else is just detail.

Most children - I know I did when I was a kid - fantasize another set of parents. Or fantasize no parents. They don't tell their real parents about that - you don't want to tell Mom and Dad.

I grew up in a family in which no male upstream from me had ever finished high school, much less gone to college. But I was taught that even though there was nothing I could do about what was behind me, I could change everything about what was in front of me. My working poor parents told me that I could do better.