- Wow. 50 dollar annual fee is the ONLY charge on this credit card for the past 12 months. 1. Maybe I don't need the card. 2. FIFTY BUCKS? #
- Another Irish Drinking Song (Da Vinci's Notebook) http://t.co/uKbSOrH #
- CCP announces new forum, World does not End: http://bit.ly/h1H0qw #eveonline #tweetfleet #
- Just explained Mandelbrot Set and it's importance to coworker. Me… explaining math theory. Thank you, @jonathancoulton. #
- Just found out that next Friday's deadline is actually Friday-*after*-next's deadline. The happiness, she knows no bounds. #
- So… that thing where we all wear our old, ratty, college sweatshirts to work today? That was actually some *other* building? Oh… good. #
- Franken wants a balanced war budget (http://j.mp/fqslzd) – I like this guy so much. #
- My thoughts exactly… (http://j.mp/gAZ1A7) – Love this. #
Tweets for the week of 2011-04-03
- Afraid to Watch the News, Millions Turn to Fox (http://j.mp/fdbhxz) – Heh. #
- Who’s the Biggest Loser in E-Books? (http://j.mp/hzP7Jq) – Need to remember to discuss this math with a couple agents I know… #
- HUMAN GOOGLE: I need some kind of freeware flowchart software. Suggestions? Basically looking to make some workflow yes/no if/then stuff. #
- Least I Could Do: 2011-03-29 (http://j.mp/h75tIv) – Sean and I have many things in common, mostly in our affection for a certain lady… #
- I can no longer eat animal crackers without thinking about The Stand. #
- 3D printed "thorn dice" (http://j.mp/e5Ghmh) – Want. So. Bad. #
- *googles "treating baby with a head cold"* *grumbles* #
- My Droid2 is kinda hot, and not in the "I am ready for your make-outs" kinda way — more of a "why are my fingers blistering?" way. #
- Little Man's first head cold is… about as much fun as I remember. #
- My actual Twitter page's filled with vapid little 'inspirational' RTs. "Huh. Didn't see those on Brizzly…" Oh. Right. RTer is muted there. #
- Skateboarding is a Crime, Skateistan (http://j.mp/hW1EeE) – Love, LOVE, the look on the kid's face. #
- Happy Useless, Trite, and Unreliable Internet Day! #
- Okay fine: TritER. UnreliablER. You people and your ACCURACY. #
Tweets for the week of 2011-03-27
- A weekend with all my favorite kids. http://flic.kr/p/9rPuH1 #
- *dusts off Twitter* Sorry if the feathers tickle, people, but it's for your own good. #springcleaning #
- On Turning 40 (http://j.mp/eBouaK) – "No, you just DO that now…" #
- Naming my Mabari warhound "Templar", while personally amusing, does not bring clarity to the virtual battlefields of #dragonage2 #hindsight #
- RT @GeorgeTakei: Former SNL star Victoria Jackson thinks Glee is turning boys gay. I think Victoria Jackson is more to blame for that. #
- Why hasn't someone done an ME2 hack for the Dragon Age TTRPG. Provide for me, internet, sheesh. #
- Mass Effect 2's still my favorite Bioware thing, but DA2's good. Every voice actor in video games from now on should be Welsh. Just saying. #
- Least I Could Do: 2011-03-25 (http://j.mp/fas3v9) – This is, in fact, how I greet all visitors. Even the guy selling roofing this afternoon. #
- Why Bioware Deserves My Money (http://j.mp/grlk7b) – Man I love Bioware. #
- This is what I did last night. RT @strolltomordor: Azz vs. Durin's Bane. Amazing shot by @doycet http://ow.ly/4mNiq #
- With @maureenjohnson in residence, TRAINING has begun. Trixie begins her early morning STARING exercises. http://flic.kr/p/9tqXSN #
Tweets for the week of 2011-03-20
- At the movies with @DaphneUn, sans children. How did this happen?!? How can we make it happen again? #
- Went to see The Adjustment Bureau. Good movie. I find it fascinating/sad that Philip K Dick struggled so much as a writer. Timeless themes. #
- I've always hated daylight savings time, but never so much as when I have a newborn's schedule to reset. #shootmenow #
- It's the 'small' in Japan that hurts. Husbands looking for wives. Parents looking for kids. They are living my nightmare. Breaks my heart. #
- PLEX for Good: EVE Players Donate In-game Funds to Real-world Disaster Relief (http://j.mp/e9vdMu) – MMO Reporter. #
- Pretty decent night with Sean — once asleep, he tends to stay that way — the GETTING to sleep doesn't always gel, though. Rough evening. #
- In which Tolkein talks about… today. http://amzn.com/k/9SOWAZKROM7I #Kindle #
- What a fantastically shitty little day. #
- Coworker brought in Lucky Charms. And milk. And bowls. #pinkhearts #orangestars #yellowmoons #greenclovers #bluediamonds #awesome #
Letters to my Kids: What I Think About Space, Science, and Traveling Faster than the Speed of Light
The world is a crazy place. Unexpected things happen all the time, and while I may plan to be around to have the Important Conversations with my kids, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. Or today. I could choke to death on the ham sandwich I make for lunch. These things happen.
There are things I want my kids to understand about me — what I think about the Big Questions like life and death and religion and Faster Than Light Travel and why it’s important that Han shot Greedo first. I hope I get the chance to have those conversations, but maybe I won’t, so I’m going to write them some letters.
And I figure I’ll put them up here, so there are as many redundant copies as possible.
What I Think About Space and Traveling Faster than the Speed of Light
Tweets for the week of 2011-03-13
- RT @apelad: Sleep is so boring. They don't even have internet there. #
- Well, the good news is I remembered to preorder Dragon Age 2. Umm… twice. Oops. #
- RT @ChuckWendig: "Lies Writers Tell." To themselves and their loved ones. Any sound familiar to you? http://bit.ly/hfU5vr #terribleminds #
- Nigh perfect sausage and crawfish gumbo for lunch today. And now, delicious foodcoma. #fattuesday #
- I've been thinking and talking about this topic a lot today, and I find myself in love with this logo: http://bit.ly/ibwVA0 #
- Word-making today. Lots of making the clackity-noise, as they say: http://bit.ly/aZnVbJ #
- Comic book picture frame (http://j.mp/ia1mwZ) – Yeah. I pretty much want 23 of these. #
- Messing around with Doodle.com – scheduling for when you're working with enough people that coordinating gets stupid-hard. I like it! #
- Going to play Pilgrims of the Flying Temple tonight. The masters are handing us *several* letters. We must decide who to 'help' first. #
- Wow. Almost two hours on the shortest of the 'Do:' letters in the game tonight. Very fun; can't wait to write it out. #
- Pity @weedatheevil and @cyface, who endured a blast of geek babble tonight. House/baby-ridden = chatter has built up a month of pressure. #
- Good News Day: found out Kaylee got into a k-12 charter school even our friend who teaches in public schools suggested she try for. #
- Random Average: Actual Play of Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple — “Swallowed Whole” http://bit.ly/el1w0p #
Tweets for the week of 2011-03-06
- Okay, @bafadam and @LuciasM, you've played Dread, right? Dread gave me ideas for Yikerz, which is basically Jenga, backwards. #
- Related: in what genre(s) does repeated activity of the same type (combat, romance, etc) guarantee eventual badness? (DRYH is not a genre :) #
- I take a perfectly innocent and fun game (Yikerz!) and do unnatural RPG things to it. Come see! http://bit.ly/e0Koor #
- Random Average: Yikerz: the game, and mulling over an RPG hack http://bit.ly/hHTwyg #
- General consensus tonight was that I pick on my son a lot. Still, if I weren't so tired it wouldn't be as funny, so really it's his fault. #
What’s up, Februa– err… March edition
My life has been roughly analogous to that tired duck cliche: churning madly beneath the surface, but kind of boring and not blogging very much up above. Let’s see if I can’t provide you with a clear view of my feathery, web-footed underside.
Daddy
Obviously, this is the most important news. Sean Douglas was born on January 25th, which mostly explains my lack of internetting during February.
I’ve walked the Daddy Road once before, and while much of it is familiar, every kid is different, and there are all kinds of Sean-shaped cul-de-sacs and loops and trails and dead-ends that I’ve got no previous experience with whatsoever. Still, Kate seems to think I know useful tricks and baby-optimized kung-fu, and I hate disappointing her, so I soldier on.
I’m tired, obviously. Neither Kate or I can really work on anything for extended periods of time without interruptions unless our counterpart takes one for the team for awhile.
And it’s undeniably awesome.
In a nod to parent nerd solidarity, I’ll mention that I was very disappointed that I really had no record (or clear memory) of the first few months of Kaylee’s life, other than a few crappy cellphone pictures, so I’ve endeavored to find a better way to outsource my exhaustion-depleted brain for Sean’s early days. I’d originally bought a nice calendar/notebook to use as a journal (because who doesn’t love to have an excuse to buy another nice notebook?), but in the end the solution we’re actually using is the nerdiest: a private Twitter account on which Kate and I both post notes about our day-to-day challenges (and retweet relevant stuff from our main accounts to capture that information as well), which is then compiled and archived in a blog (again, private).
The end result is a dated journal of thoughts and notes that we can access and update from pretty much any device we own, including our kindles. There may have also been some early use of Google Docs spreadsheets to track feedings while we performed them, but I’m not saying.
Dayjob
Kate was sure that as soon as Sean was born I’d get a non-contract, long-term job offer, simply because that would be the point were it would finally be convenient for me to be home.
Kate’s very smart. I did in fact get an offer the day after Sean was born — a proper job at a place I’d done some short contract work in the past, so that’s kinda cool.
Health
I hit an age milestone in February, took stock of my condition, found it moderately functional, but in need of a tune-up, so I’m back to tracking my calories using Livestrong and hitting the elliptical whenever the very idea doesn’t make me weep. I don’t know if it’s doing anything other than make me feel better — I’m fairly certain that’s enough.
Gaming and Entertainment
Pretty much none of the gaming we did prior to 1/25 has survived impact with the diaper genie. Basically, most of those activities required (or benefited from) larger chunks of mutual uninterrupted time than we currently have available; other things have swept in to fill that void for a time — things that can be enjoyed in snatches, abandoned in mid-play without serious consequence, and still produce the dopamine kick I rely on such things to generate. Solutions for this include EVE Online, Parallel Kingdom, and (just lately) a crash course in the wonderful comedy television stylings of Community — oh my god that show is funny. If you’ve ever played Dungeons and Dragon (it’s Advanced!) or know someone who has, you owe it to yourself to at least watch the AD&D episode (do it soon before it falls off their ‘recent’ list).
(Speaking of AD&D: I don’t know if I have an immediate solution for the current lack of face to face gaming, but I have high hopes for Yikerz. We shall see.)
Unfortunately, we have time to watch Community DVDs because our DVR harddrive died and took with it entire unwatched seasons of Fringe, Walking Dead, Leverage, Chuck, and… I dunno. More.
Online/Writing
I’m not entirely (or even mostly) silent on the internet. I’m writing regular columns for MMO Reporter and somewhat less regular things for Green Dragon Inn. Of course I tend to do most of my casual online chatter on Twitter, which is one of those go-to places to visit during a 2am feeding.
There continues to be book-related news that I can’t really talk about yet.
I’ve got a pile — an actual pile — of things I want to write about, including more Letters to My Kids, but right now… well, while I certainly could find the time to write them, I choose to spend time on other equally-important things for a little while longer.
That’s it?
That may be it — I’m more than a bit hazy in the graymeat-memory-head-area thing, so I’m sure I’ll remember something else soon. Until then, let’s revisit this nerdrage-inducing image that never fails to make me snicker.
