: ) means happy birthday

I pulled a little prank on Rubi for her birthday this year.

 

After bringing home donuts and bagels for breakfast, I brought in her “gift” in a small gift bag. The little kids saw me doing this and grabbed their homemade cards for her too. She happily read their cards, enjoying their creativity, then turned to the small gift bag I handed her. She opened it up to reveal possibly the dorkiest t-shirt I could find for her: a bright yellow shirt with a huge emoticon smiley on the front, the ever present “semicolon parenthesis” all over the internet to denote a happy face.

 

Rubi took it graciously. She didn’t cry, she didn’t act sad at all over getting a cruddy gift from me.

 

Then I took her to lunch at Red Lobster.

 

Later, at her parents’ house after dinner as we neared the time for her to open her present from them, Alexander and I snuck out to the van and brought in her real presents from us. I love surprising her like that!

 

The kiddos got her some stuff from a local kitchen supply store: a decorative candle-holder thing to set on the mantle or a shelf that she had pointed out to us recently, and a couple of kitchen gadget thingies she’s been saying she wanted.  I also ordered her a snazzy art book she’s been asking to get for a couple years.

 

I love putting a smile on my wife’s face. And she looks good in the dorky yellow shirt with a smile on that too!

 

 

 

: ) means happy birthday

Life as geeks

This is weird. My wife is almost a better geek than I am.

I'm proud to be a geek but I've never really been an active geek - participating in the culture, attending cons, etc. Mostly due to time constraints. When Rubi and I got married, she was so not a geek, and I suppressed my own inner geek a bit in order to focus more on growing a marriage and eventually a family. I still had a Star Wars poster hanging in our home, but that was about it (I still have that poster hanging in our home). Now that the kids are old enough to, well, be real people and not just crying pooping machines, I can let my geek hang out a little more.

What's cool is that apparently, over the years my inner geek has slowly influenced Rubi and turned her into an almost full-fledged geek. She's still learning some of the more esoteric aspects, but has embraced the life; playing computer games, hanging out in forums, attending cons, and writing about it for a living. 

She may argue the point about whether or not she was a geek before meeting me. She played Mario Bros on the NES when she a kid, watched Blazing Saddles with her parents (and quoted from it). Perhaps she was just repressing her own inner geek until marriage and family made her comfortable enough to embrace geekdom. Her arguing that point is kind of like arguing if Star Wars is better that Star Trek.

We need to work on her a bit more though. There are times when the kids and I are just a bit too geeky for her.  The other day at Target, Alexander and I got into a mock fight with a toy sword and battle axe.  When I later told Lizzy about it she was offended we did that without her. Had Rubi been there, depending on her geek level that day, she might have grabbed a sword and participated or she might have pretended she didn't know us and walked away. I think sometimes it's better for all of us if she pretends she doesn't know us. Someone has to be respectable in this family!

Then there are times when she'll find something on the internet that is so incredibly funny and geeky that she'll call me into the room to share it with me and we'll both just about pee ourselves from laughing so hard.  And no one else on the planet would find it anywhere near as funny as we did. Or she'll walk into a room full of quiet kids each going about their own tasks and say "Hey! You just lost the game!"

Ah, that's the life. Of geeks! And I'm glad it's my life.

Life as geeks

Where I've been this week

It’s been an interesting week so far. This will be my first attempt at documenting some of the more interesting things I’ve seen this week.

 

I first took a visit to an unusual bar, populated by many people who should not have been there! That was pretty cool, in my opinion.

 

Then an author I read described how he’ll watch certain movies to the end if he finds them while flipping channels. I don’t flip channels that often, as we don’t subscribe to cable in our house. Hello? It’s the internet age: There are too many different ways to watch the TV shows I want to watch, when I want to watch them, without being tied to the sofa at a specific time on an arbitrary day decided by some network exec that makes way too much money. /rant

 

Being an introvert (not shy, introvert – there’s a difference), I struggle to mingle and get to know people. Apparently, getting out and mingling with other geeks can help.

 

Someone else who apparently needs a different kind of help: some lady who apparently doesn’t like books, but really likes condiments.

 

Then I had a nice blast from the past about the elementary school I attended. I also saw a trailer for movie me and the kids definitely need to see! (Though I think the 3D thing is silly.)

 

I love to read, so this might be handy for me.

 

The eyeglasses I wear darken when I go outside into sunlight to protect my eyes. Now there are windows that darken when it’s warmer outside to keep heat out. My house needs those!

 

Also?  Want!

 

Here are a few good rules to FB by. Here are some other ideas, too. (Those last three I went to find after seeing the first linked article.)

 

I plan on taking the family to see Toy Story 3 at the drive-in tonight, and I’m sure most of these will blow right past us!

 

Have a great weekend, and Happy Father’s Day!

 

 

 

Cross posted to Still No Update?! and The Bayer Family Blog.

 

 

Where I've been this week

It's June Already?!

Seems like this year just started, but here we are half-way through it already. School’s out for the kiddos and they started VBS this week.  Lizzy is getting so grown up she attended a manga/anime con out of town this past weekend with a friend and she’s volunteering at VBS instead of attending. 

 

Rubi is still kicking gaming-journalism posteriors in her job, and I’m still …here.  My ankle hurts. . I’m back on my “normal” shift at work, which means I’m working when normal people don’t and family events become problematic. But at least I’m not working overnights!

 

I added a new blog to our family “network” of blogs as a sort of clearing house for our stuff.  I’ve posted a bit recently at my book review blog too. I’m going to try to post more often here, there, everywhere

 

 

 

It's June Already?!

UPDATES
I've joined Smaller Indiana and Linking Indiana even though I rarely update. If you didn't notice, I tweet occasionally as does Rubi, and am on Facebook. I'm trying to find the time to make it to the Evansville Social Media Club meetings, but real life keeps preventing me! (Their first meeting in February, I broke my ankle shortly before the meeting and couldn't make it. The next month, I was still on crutches and couldn't see climbing the stairs up to the meeting room, April I had a meeting at work - now it's May and I think I might just make it!)

WORK
I'm considering trying to get my department at work to embrace Twitter and/or Facebook. I'm working on an email to my boss trying to hit the selling points. We'll see.

THE FUTURE
I'm still considering a Still No Update?! Podcast, and contemplating content. And I'm trying to convince Rubi I need a laptop ASAP before she gets a netbook.

READING
Some good news for myself: I made a trip to the library the other day to pick up a single book for Rubi, and came home with a huge stack of books for myself! My TBR pile was non-existent, now I have plenty to read for awhile! Though I'm not sure if any of it will be worthy of reviewing at Sporadic Book Reviews, as it's just fluff that I want to read.

WHERE WE'LL BE
I'll be attending the National NENA conference in Indianapolis in June, and Rubi and I will be attending PAXPrime in Seattle in September.

(crossposted to Still No Update?!)

Really?

Headline from the Houston Chronicle: Some scholars fear we're losing religious meaning of Easter

 

Really? Losing the meaning behind a “religious holiday”? Or any holiday for that matter.

 

I thought Easter was all about candy, and peeps, and a gazillion kids scrambling across an open field to find as many plastic eggs as possible to get more candy. There’s a religious meaning behind all that greed? Easter is about the death and resurrection Jesus Christ?! He died to atone for my sins so I wouldn’t have to? Where’s the greed in that? Was there a bunny involved?

 

What about Christmas? That’s just about getting more stuff isn’t it? You give me nice shiny wrapped gifts under a dead tree on Christmas, right? Wait, what? That holiday is about Jesus too? Why does he get two holidays? Isn’t it all about me getting more stuff from a fat man with magical flying wildlife?

 

Oh! How about Halloween? More candy! This time, with door-to-door begging included! What? That’s really a festival celebrating the thinning of the veil between this world and the otherworld allowing the dead to reach through? Really? I thought it was all about greed again.

 

What about Memorial Day, The 4^th of July, and Labor Day? Those are all about getting a day off work and getting drunk in public, right? You mean those days have meaning apart from kicking back and relaxing?

 

Oh I know! Election Day! That one is about getting a day off of work, right? SCORE! No? I have to go somewhere and vote for people I’ve never heard of?! We’re supposed to vote in politicians to represent the people to the government! But once elected, they do whatever they darn well please without considering or caring what their constituents want, as long as it makes them look powerful.  There’s that greed again.

 

I fear it’s gone way beyond losing the meaning of Easter.

 

 

Really?

Whoops, forgot a title

I'm killing time while Rubi finishes up working for the night, and found an interesting meme at Kristen's blog. Figured I'd do it to pass some time.


1. Share one random item that has special meaning to you.
The pics of our wedding. We have nice big book full of wonderful pics of us and our families.

2. How old is the oldest pair of shoes in your closet?
My "work" boots are over 11 years old.

3. Did you buy Girl Scout cookies this year? If so, what variety?
Rubi and the kids did. They got something with Lemon Frosting, the square things with chocolate frosting on the bottom, and I think they bought thin mints.

4. Do you know how to ballroom dance? If not, would you like to?
I do not. Sure I would.

5. Were you a responsible child/teenager?
...ish. More so than many of the other kids my age.

6. How many of this year’s Oscar-nominated movies did you see?
Maybe 2. Up and Avatar. Don't think I saw any others that were nominated that I know of. Oh wait, I saw Transformers 3 and Star Trek too.

7. If you’re going to have a medical procedure done, such as having blood drawn, is it easier for you to watch someone else having the procedure done or have it done yourself?
I don't understand the question.

8. What is your favorite day of the week and why?
My day(s) off.

9. Do you miss anyone right now?
I miss Rubi! She's having a crazy week at work. I've even had three days off and we've been in the same house! Actually, she's running around behind me now doing some housework and getting me things - but mostly this week, she's been hold up in her office cranking out story after story.

10. Do hospitals make you queasy?
No. Hospital bills, however...

11. At which store would you like to max-out your credit card.
I don't have a credit card... okay okay, I get it: Walmart.

12. Are you true to the brand names of products/items?
No.

13. Which is more difficult: looking into someone’s eyes when you are telling someone how you feel, or looking into someone’s eyes when he/she is telling you how he/she feels?
Uh... probably the first.

Whoops, forgot a title