A Tale of Success and of Not So Much Success

Yesterday, I finished reading the book "Endymion" by Dan Simmons and figured this would be a good time to discuss the progress I've been making on my resolutions.

Obviously, the "read a book a month" is coming along nicely, as I've finished ten days before the end of the month and have already started reading the sequel, "the Rise of Enydmion" by Dan Simmons. It seems likely that, if I continue to put at least a moderate amount of effort into making the time for it, I should be able to read about one and a third to one and a half books a month.

The "do the dishes like someone suffering from an obsessive compulsive disorder" is also coming along magnificently well. Without conscious thought, I've expanded the dishes to include making sure that there is always coffee ready or ready to be made. Additionally, though to a lesser extent, I try to keep the counters in the kitchen clean. I think I will have to analyze this further and see if there are other, obvious areas I could expand into.

With regard to the "make a meal per week" goal, I've been doing well enough. The first week I made the vegetarian chili and last week I made taco chicken, both in the slow cooker. This week, we might not have much opportunity to eat much of the food, so I am purposely holding off. I might start trying to plan on immediately freezing some portion of the meal so that during weeks like this, I can still eat a healthier meal.

Something that hasn't been going well at all is the "make the phone calls" resolution. While I have made a number of them, such as to the cable company, there are a good portion of them that I know would be time consuming and finding time during the day is not a non-trivial task. Mostly, I will try to use time during lunch for these calls, since I often go home for lunch and can have all the information I need handy. This doesn't work well for the calls that I know will take too long to do during lunch. I think I need to start planning on making a marginal number of these calls during breaks at work, otherwise I don't see how I will ever make them at all.

"Exercise once a week" is, technically, a success. However, I often so dread expending the effort that the workout is a bare minimum. The problem, again, seems to be with scheduling and when it is being scheduled. Typically, after I put Katy to bed, I'll go into the basement and run on the treadmill for a bit, and / or use the weights. I think that I really just don't like working out that late, but see no hope for correcting it; the concept of getting up early to workout is unfathomable to me. I might just need to try to adjust my motivations.

"Write more" is ho-hum. I am easily writing at a more regular interval than I have if compared to years passed. However, I am also clearly not posting at the goal number of three times per week. This comes down to wanting every post to be of great substance and hesitating if I don't have a truly worthwhile subject. I also pause knowing that it will often take a lot of time to write that meaningful post. I think the easiest solution is to come up with a plan for what type of stuff I will post about at different times during the week.

The "Better Attitude" is a hard one to judge. I have been more open to visiting others and going to parties, but I am not aggressive about pursuing additional opportunities. This resolution might just be a feel-good wish. I either need to more clearly define what I want to accomplish, or abandon the resolution. I'll consider what I really meant this for this resolution and will decide what should be done about it.

Thus, there are several clear winners, some clear losers and a number of in-betweens. Although, the effort of tracking and making strides toward these improvements, especially continually coming back to them and re-evaluating them provides at least some positive effect: persistence.

The Motivational Morning

Although I sometimes have a hard time waking up and getting moving, there is a part of the morning that I love. Regardless of how the previous day went, walking from my car to work, with the sun overhead, I get a sense of newness: a sense that anything is possible and that I will accomplish the unaccomplishable this day.

Sure, it doesn't mean anything: I still have crappy days now and then, but it doesn't change the pleasant contentment and optimism for the future that I feel at that moment. And, maybe it does mean something; starting the day with a positive outlook has to affect productivity.

I wonder if I could artificially manufacture the conditions that cause this inspiration. This morning, it was sunny, cloudless (or mostly clear) and very cold, with snow blanketing the ground. I had just dropped my daughter off at her school / daycare and had a pleasant and loving goodbye. But, the feeling really struck me during the short walk from the car to the office. Maybe it is the scenery, which might explain why so many people seem to enjoy the inspirational scenic posters.

The Right Stuff

This winter, Kendra, Katy and I will be going on a ski trip to Colorado with Kendra's father and brother and their families. I'll likely have much to chat about regarding that once we return, so I will leave the actual trip for a later post. What I am interested in discussing now is proper equipment.

For most of my life, my attitude with regard to various activities was the "good enough" approach. Meaning, I'd get the bare minimum to participate and would fuddle through the best I could. Somehow, this made me cooler.

Lately, I've come to realize that there might be a reason to invest in the additional equipment. If someone who does something professionally uses some piece of equipment, and I am not as talented as they are, wouldn't it make more sense for me to make sure I am equipped similarly?

For example, for this trip, I am very interested in snowboarding. Though I have never snowboarded before, I am buying a helmet and wrist guards. While there may be some thought that it "isn't cool", I look at the pros and see that they take these precautions, and they likely fall much, much less than I am expecting to. And, really, how cool am I going to look falling down, anyways?

Also, being properly equipped means that I can attempt things that I might normally be timid about. Stuff on the snowboard is one example. Another is when I went rollerblading, I always wore a helmet, wrist guards and knee pads: I also wasn't afraid to try spinning stops and other things that might not be a good idea without the proper gear. When I go mountain biking on trails, my bike has front shocks; when I would go on my old bike, going downhill would be killer, and now it is no big deal, allowing me to go faster and still have more control. To me, then, having the right stuff means being able to participate in the full experience.

Resolution Report

The first week of the new year is now complete and it is time to do a brief evaluation of how the resolutions are going. As long as I keep them in the front of my mind, I think I should be able to keep on course to complete them all successfully. As I suspected, some of these are easier to do than others. And, after only one week, it is hard to tell how well some of the longer termed goals are going.

One of the easier resolutions to evaluate is the first one, Procrastinate less: Do the dishes promptly. This one is actually one that I started doing as soon as I thought of it near the beginning of December. Surprisingly, this one has turned out to be fairly easy and more rewarding than I would think it would be. I clean my dishes as soon as I finish with them and I find myself aggressively monitoring the sink for the dishes of others.

An interesting side effect is that I seem to pay more attention to other things that I notice need to be done on a regular basis. For instance, when I see a basket full of laundry (that Kendra was kind enough to do for me) I would previously leave it endlessly, to the point where I would dig around in the several baskets that would collect when I would need clean clothes. Now, it is easier to notice that there are clean clothes to be put away, and I will do it right then instead of waiting till later.

Some things, however, are still purposefully left until later. They tend to be the things that I really, for whatever reason, just don't want to do, now or ever. At the time I am delaying, it isn't as obvious as when there are dishes to be done, but I am starting to notice more. Avoiding things I don't want to do leads into the next topic nicely.

Take responsibility for my life: make any and all phone calls is something that is hard to judge so early in the year. Only recently, near the end of this last week, did it become something for which I actually have a task. Making the phone calls, specifically in a short time frame, is something that will also help develop my anti-procrastinating skills, as well as helping with discipline: specifically, dealing with the phone calls that I really don't want to have to make will help with the discipline to do things anyway, without regard for my personal desires. I have two phone calls that I need to make right now, but it really isn't viable to do during the weekend, so it will have to be done either today or Tuesday and I'll be able to more accurately judge after that. Although, I did take care of a letter that needed to be written; while this isn't technically a phone call, I did take the initiative to write it because of this resolution.

Reading more is pretty easy: I've been trying to make time after I get into bed to read for about an hour before going to sleep. Although, it has required a change, in that I now have to go to bed earlier than I would like. Another easier one is the working out once a week: I really didn't want to do it, but I was able to make myself run on the treadmill once last week. Both of these also help with discipline.

A slightly harder one is Eat Better: making a healthy meal once per week. I really don't have many ingredients, or know many recipes. However, Sunday I helped make some vegetarian chili with Kendra and I am going to count that. My short term plan is to make it weekly myself until I determine other recipes we can make. There is a taco chicken recipe that we also like that I will probably throw in there as well. The ideal would be to introduce some of the elements in the chili to Katy separately to determine if there are any allergies that we don't know about.

Write More: post thrice weekly is also a more complicated process, since it is easy to run out of topics and there is always the temptation to put it off until later. Something that helps is to start the topics as soon as I think of them and just save whatever I have until when I was planning on posting. Also, saving lists of things that I'd like to post about helps me remember for later. I only got the two posts in last week, but think I'll be more successful this one.

Better Attitude: Seeking out activities is a tricky one to judge. I've been agreeable to going to parties and outings with whomever and cheerily greeted and looked forward to having Kendra's mom visit for Christmas. I think I am doing OK, but will need to put effort into planning some of these outings/visits. Maybe I will see about setting up a visit to Mike's as he suggested in the comments.

To summarize, after the first week, I think I am still on track with all of my resolutions and hopefully will be able to expand them as I planned.

Katy's First Movie

Monday, the last day of 2007, I convinced my daughter that it would be OK for her to continue her vacation and hang out with me instead of going back to school for a day. Mom had some things to attend to, so I suggested to Katy that we go see a movie. She thought that sounded like a good idea so we went to the 12:00pm showing of Alvin and the Chipmunks.

This was a big deal because Katy had never been to the movies before. She has watched her TV shows and movies on DVD at home, but we didn't think she'd be able to sit still long enough to watch a whole movie. She surprised me.

When we arrived, the previews had already started, so I carried her to a good spot and helped her with her coat. Then, I let her sit in my lap. She was enthralled by even the previews, so I suspected that this was going to be a fun experience.

She wanted to sit on her own chair for awhile and was very cute in the over-sized chair. She sat there and snacked on her Froot Loops and Christmas sugar cookie and enjoyed being able to put her juice in a cup holder. When she was done eating, she wanted to sit on my lap again.

The movie was OK, but it was a great experience because of Katy. She was clearly so happy to be there; at several points I could tell she was happier beyond words because she would suddenly turn to me and give me a big hug and a kiss without saying anything.

Something funny was that she had made a picture before we went to the movies, folded it and asked me to put it in my pocket. When the movie was done, she asked for the picture and just wanted to hold it in the theater.

I carried her to the car and was asking her if she liked it. She didn't want to leave and wanted to go again. In the car while we were leaving, I asked her what her favorite part of the movie was, and she said that it was going to the movies with Daddy. I had first mentioned that my favorite part was going to the movies with Katy, but it still is a very sweet thing for her to say, and she did seem truly sincere.

We wanted to go see Enchanted the next day on the first of the year, but the timing didn't work out, so we waited until the weekend. We went to the one and only showing of "Enchanted" at11:10am on Saturday. Although Katy disagrees, I think it was a better movie than the Chipmunks, and it was fun to have Kendra get to see how excited and happy Katy was about seeing a movie. We popped some popcorn for Katy (since her allergies wouldn't allow for us to purchase any for her) and brought some more Froot Loops and juice. I brought coffee for me.

I think I am ready to make going to the movies a weekly occurrence. Kalamazoo 10 only charges $4 per ticket for a matinée or $6.50 per adult for a night showing, so it is cheap compared to other places.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Wintersday

This time of year provides one of my favorite and most interesting yearly gaming experiences. Last year, I discovered there is a yearly change made in Guild Wars, one of the online games I play. Several of the towns in-game are altered to be covered with snow and the fictitious holiday of "Wintersday" is celebrated. There are several holiday festivities added to the game, including special quests and items. My favorite part, however, is the PvP Snowball fights.

To play in the Snowball Arena, as it is called, you chat with one of the "Wintersday Priests" and are then transported to the arena gathering area. When you click the "Enter Battle" button, you are randomly assigned three other members to your team and a random side to represent in the snowball fight. All the normal skills used by your character are replaced by the special snowball skills and you are tasked with delivering 5 presents to your team's avatar before the other team can.

The key to this PvP competition is that it is all random. You will likely not know any of the players on your team, nor on the opposing team. You have no say about which side you are playing for. You cannot pick which character classes you want to be teamed with. The luck of the draw determines all of this for you.

I haven't played a lot of PvP prior to the Snowball Arena, and started playing only after exhausting all the other single-player Wintersday festivities last year. However, once I began, I understood the fascination with PvP.

If you lose, you are returned to the waiting area. If you win, the previously random group stays together and plays another round against another random team. If you find a team that you "click" with, you can string together an insane number of wins (my highest is 34, but during one of my runs, someone on my team said his highest was 87 wins in a row).

What interests me is the feeling of comradery that develops between a group of strangers. After you win 10 in a row, everyone knows where to go, what to look for, where to be, all without the benefit of communication: you can only type to one another, which is unlikely during a round, and there is only a short 15-30 second break between rounds. When a team clicks, the hive-mind that occurs really is uncanny. You start to trust in strangers in a very short period of time.

I played a lot of games that I either lost or only won because the other team was more inept. But, when I found that winning team, the feeling derived from that unrehearsed, spectacular show of single-minded teamwork. I haven't played much PvP prior to Wintersday, but I think I will have to participate in some of the regular PvP now.

Multi-Step Solutions to New Year's Resolutions

Every year, I like to put the effort into self-improvement via the tradition of New Year's resolutions. Of all the things I've blogged, my yearly resolutions is easily the most consistent topic. The one post I really think is worthwhile is the one from three years ago that describes how to create an effective resolution; I've re-read it before I started writing this post and my old words have helped me re-think and re-form some of my goals that were a bit off-target.

That said, I am modifying my strategy a little this year. Instead of a focus on a few, more lofty goals, I've decided to be less choosy and select a larger number of resolutions; however, I made a trade-off to keep things balanced: I've reduced the quantitative expectations, with the inclusion of incremental goals that can be accomplished in each category.

What I've considered first this year are the elements that I'm interested in improving. I want to procrastinate less, take on more responsibility for my life, read more, eat better, exercise more, write more and have a better attitude. Each of these qualitative desires I matched with a basic improvement that is not lofty and should hopefully be easily accomplished. They are as follows:

1. Procrastinate less - This is something I consider to be a matter of training. If I can train myself to be aggressive about not leaving things till later for one particular task, it should be an easier transition to recognizing tasks that don't get better when left for later. My training task is to do the dishes: I will never be done with a meal until all the dishes are out of the sink and in the dishwasher. If the dishwasher is full, I will put soap in and run it. When the dishwasher is clean, I will empty it. If there are things left to dry that are no longer wet, I will put them away. This isn't anything complicated, but it should be an easy way to train myself to not leave things till later. At this moment, upon establishing that routine, I will focus on never putting somewhere "just temporarily" or at least having a plan for when it will be put away. The formation of this secondary goal will be left until the success of the first. Success will be determined by the length of time dishes remain out of place: if dishes are put away routinely for three months, without being left out for longer than necessary.
2. More Responsibility for My Life - Before I was married, I was responsible for all aspects of my life, including health care and bill paying. If I payed a bill late, or didn't bother taking the time to choose the most effective health plan provided by work, it only affected me. Once married, my wife had a higher standard and more demands regarding both these, as well as other, areas of responsibility. Her solution, which I did not object to, was to take full responsibility for nearly every aspect of the home. From finances to cleaning, she took responsibility. She has done an awesome job, but it hardly seems fair that she should bare the burden of the entirety of our life together, as well as our child. Deciding how to make an effective difference in helping with this burden can be tricky, since there can be a steep learning curve in some areas of household management. However, there is a series of tasks that I know I can do that will help ease the burden, and I know Kendra will offer no resistance to this specific help. Since I know that this is her least favorite part of dealing with stuff, I intend to make any and all phone calls necessary for arranging things, fixing things, or even just making simple queries. Kendra hates having to talk to these people and, while I don't enjoy it either, it seems like something I can do without as much dread. To succeed at this task, I will need to make any requested phone call within 48 hours, and do so for three months without lapse. The next task in this series will need to be determined; once I prove my effectiveness at this, I am certain I can persuade Kendra to help me expand my responsibilities.
3. Read More - Reading is a pastime that I've always enjoyed, starting in my youth. As many people find, once you are out of school and have a full time job, reading for enjoyment is something that oftentimes goes by the wayside. While my goal from two years ago to read a book every two weeks is extreme for someone who barely reads, to read one book a month should be a much more achievable goal. The success requirement for this task is simple: once twelve books are read in 2008, I have succeeded. The next increment will depend on how long it takes to succeed. Ideally, I'd like to try to double it, shooting for two shy of my original reading goal.
4. Eat Better - When I was originally losing weight, I knew that the changes I would need to make would be significant. Thus, to try to keep it as simplistic as possible, I put no limit on what I would eat, only caring about the number of calories consumed in a day. Doing so, I was able to lose 50 pounds eating carefully measured portions of hamburgers with fries , hot dogs and pizza. Now that I have established a calorie counting routine, it is time to look at the types of food I am eating and to improve upon it. Currently, Kendra and I scrounge for ourselves and eat a lot of instant meals (frozen meals, chips with cheese, burritos, hot dogs). My goal to eat better will be that I will plan and prepare a healthy meal once per week. To do this will require so forethought to pick a recipe and ensure the ingredients are available for the chosen day. As this is another reoccurring task, the success of it will be measured across a three month period. Once a meal being prepared weekly is established, the next level will be twice a week.
   
5. Exercise More - Part of being healthy includes eating better, but regular exercise is also a necessity. Currently, I have no established exercise plan: I had tried to exercise thrice weekly for awhile, but it was more than I could keep up with and haven't done so for several months now. An easy starting place will be to exercise once per week, including both strength and cardiovascular routines. Again, this will be measured across three months. The next level will be twice weekly, either splitting and intensifying the two types of routines across two days, or doing both routines twice weekly.
   
6. Write More - Every year, the lure of NaNoWriMo attracts me back to my desire to become an author. And, every year I barely make a dent in the novel I attempt to write. Part of this, I think, comes from my lack of practice with creative writing. While I am already trying to do this, I am oficially declaring my goal of posting to this blog thrice weekly as a resolution for next year. If, over the course of three months I determine I am successful, I will declare specific days that will have posts, and maybe add an additional fourth post.
7. Better Attitude - I tend to already have a pretty good outlook on a lot of things in life. However, I still fall into unnecessary negativity at times. My way to improve this is going to actively seek out involvement with others (parties, visits and the like) regardless of whether I instinctively am attracted to such engagement. Additionally, I will go with a positive outlook and look forward to it. This is a trickier resolution to judge, so I will put a minimum requirement of one such engagement per month. I will also have to evaluate my success on a case by case basis. This isn't so much a pass/fail as a how good can I do resolution.

That should do it for 2008's resolutions. While there are a much larger number than I have previously suggested, the difficulty level is realistic and promising. We'll see how it goes. I encourage anyone who does happen to read my blog to use the comments to discuss and share their possible resolutions.

The Perception of Time and Time Trials

The way time is perceived is known to change, varying on the task at hand. Typically, if it is an enjoyable activity, the time flies by. Conversely, if the task is less enjoyable, time progresses at a snail's pace. In my life, I have encountered enjoyable activities that take less time than I would assume. There are two example of these activities, and both involve Katy.

When I was signing Katy up for swim class, I was surprised that the classes lasted a measly 30 minutes. "What could possibly be taught in such a short period of time?" I wondered. At the first class, I learned that thirty minutes was exactly the right amount. It didn't feel like the class dragged, and yet it seemed that Katy had an opportunity to learn and do a large variety of activities in the water. Even the five minutes of play at the end was just right.

Another activity that we recently experienced our fair share of was Bounceland. Katy was invited to two parties, both structured the same way, with a week between the two. The first part of the party is an hour of bouncing, followed by some time after to eat cake and open birthday presents. The number of times you get to go on the bouncy slides in an hour is much more than you would guess, if you didn't really think about it. An hour was plenty, but I thought it was going to feel short.

These misperceptions about how long was enough caused me to reflect on other things that occur in my life and how long I believe them to take and how long they really take. Already, considering these different things has helped me to either do things that I previously avoided because I thought they took too long as well as looking for ways to reduce time on things that I thought weren't taking that long. The big item I considered was showering.

One way to categorize those who shower is by time spent showering. Really, it seems like there are two groups: those who are quick and are on a mission to get clean, and those who are slow and forget why they entered the soothing, blissful warmth. I am in the second group. Since I know that I might take a little longer in the shower than I thought, I decided to start tracking how long it takes, followed by time trials.

I needed two showers today. This morning, it took 29 minutes in the shower, plus another 12 to finish getting ready. Tonight, I decided to try to stop lolly-gagging and go for a best time. It only took 8 minutes in the shower, with another 4.5 minutes to finish. The point is that often all it takes to improve the time of something is to realize how long it is taking and then trying to change it.

Per Mike's Request

During Thanksgiving, our friend Mike did a magic trick. I recorded it with my new camera and he requested I post it. So, here it is:

GameTap has Servers

One of the video game community websites I visit, Evil Avatar, has a forum that I frequent. While a variety of topics are discussed, the most common theme involves video games. In the weekly "what are you playing this weekend" thread, over a course of a number of weeks, I would see various people post about such-and-such a game on GameTap, a service that charges a monthly fee to access their collection of video games. I knew what it was and assumed it was not for me.

Finally, after seeing it mentioned a number of times over several weeks, I decided to give the free option a try. A selection of approximately forty games are available to play at any time and are supported by ads. Essentially, you would choose the game you wanted to play and click start and then watch a 30 second commercial. It was pretty painless, actually.

After seeing the sheer number of games available, I was impressed. And, it wasn't simply a bunch of old games; while there are a good number of the older games available, there are games from 2007 included as well. What finally sold me for the pay service was that, after hearing my co-worker Rob talking about Overlord for the XBox 360, I saw that it was available for play on GameTap. Their promotion includes the first month for $0.99, so one Saturday night, I gave it a shot and was hooked.

If that wasn't enough, they even host "Myst: Uru" an MMO for Myst that has the same gameplay as the original, but allows you to play with others, too.

Since then, I have played a huge number of games. The nice thing is, if you get tired of one, or the game just sucks, there is none of the gamer-obligation to get your money's worth: you can just move onto the next one. I payed for the discounted full year, about $54: about the price of one new game. I have easily played my money's worth.

The best part is that I constantly remind my co-workers of my love for GameTap. I think, deep down, they really appreciate it.

The Work Necklace

I went to Best Buy with some co-workers one day during lunch. While there, waiting in line for Rob to buy Rock Band, I noticed a box full of Loco-Roco (little smiley face guy) key chain-type things (or Christmas ornaments, even) that were listed free. So, knowing my daughter like I do, I grabbed one for her.

A couple days later when I remembered that I had it, I gave her the little guy and she was happy with it, just as I expected that she would be. There wasn't a clip or ring to attach it to anything, though: just a small nylon cord in a loop. So, I grabbed one of her bead necklaces and looped it through itself to tie it onto the necklace. She was happy with that and wore it for the rest of the day.

Then, before bed she decided to hang it on the bathroom doorknob by the door to the garage and called it her "work necklace". I wasn't sure what she meant but was glad she was happy with it.

The next day, she called it her "work necklace" again and put it on in the morning before going to school. It occurred to me what she meant: I wear a badge on a cord around my neck for work and leave it on a hook by the garage door when I get home. She is duplicating my "work necklace" habits.

So, now we both put on our work necklaces every day before I take her to daycare and I go to work. How's that for adorable?

The Inevitable Conclusion

This year, I once again attempted NaNoWriMo with the hope of completing a novel during the month of November. This year, like all previous, I did not even come close. Previously, I had a hope of finishing: this year, I did not. Forgetting about NaNoWriMo until the day it begins, not having an idea for a story, and not spending any time thinking or working on it make for an effective way of not completing it. Really, I treated like a poor resolution: wishful thinking without any plan as to how to make it happen.

On a seemingly unrelated note, replacing the toilet paper is something that everyone has done at some point or another. For a long time, when I needed to replace the paper, I would simply grab a roll and haphazardly replace it whichever way it happened to be aligned. Somewhere along the road of life, it was pointed out to me that there was a "correct" orientation for the roll, with the end hanging from the front instead of behind, the idea being that it is easier to find the end when you can see it. The two methods seem similar to resolution efforts, with the haphazard being the wishful, whatever-comes-to-mind manner of thinking them up when compared to the directed, planned, carefully evaluated method.

The toilet paper analogy can even be taken a step further. Not only is there a correct way to orient the rolls, but it is critical to never overlook the quantity available on hand. Purposely thinking about and ensuring that there are always two extra rolls in addition to the one in the dispenser is like the planning: making sure your environment is aligned with your goals. Running out without a backup is like the random method of not really setting yourself up for success.

Now, it isn't a dichotomy: there are a number of partial successes and a degree of doing some things right while overlooking others. That can be a trouble with analogies; in making things simpler to explain, there comes the temptation to assume the analogized subject is also simple. Making sure you have toilet paper on hand and that it is easy to access from the dispenser is a really easy task when a little thought is put into it. Making sure a resolution, or goal, actually is setup to succeed is, often times, less concrete.

Back to the opening topic of NaNoWriMo, if I had taken the month of October to come up with a good concept, create an outline, think through the characters' personalties and motivations, and decided what times of day I would write and what areas of the novel I would write first, I would have had a much better chance of success. It is definitely something I will keep in mind for next year.

Swim Class... without that Pesky Swimming

Katy still loves swim class. On Monday night, she excitedly was talking about getting to swim the next day. When I dropped her off at school, she we excited about it. When I picked her up from school, she was still excited about it; a teacher even mentioned that she had been talking about it all day.

So, imagine how happy we were to discover that it was "Safety Day" at swim class.

Don't get me wrong: learning about water safety and the proper way to wear flotation devices and to behave around a body of water is worthwhile. It's just that the age of the kids in that class doesn't lend itself well to being denied something they were desperately looking forward to.

The only time spent in the water was at the very end, when they jumped in with the life jackets on (Katy was able to put hers on by herself!) and swam on their backs. When they reached the edge of the pool, it was time to get out and class was over. Katy came to me and made it clear she wasn't ready to go. I asked if she wanted me to dip her in the pool and she agreed that that was good enough. After dipping her about ten times, she was good to go. I apologized for her not being able to really get to swim like she wanted and said that I would have warned her if I had known. I also mentioned that she should be able to do a lot of swimming next week like she had been planning to do; she seemed cool with that.

FAT Fest and the Turkey Experience

After a slower start than I wanted due to needing to run into work for a little bit, Katy and I made the Thanksgiving journey that so many Americans make this time of year. We only hit a little traffic on our trip on Wednesday afternoon and it took an extra hour to get from Kalamazoo to Grandma & Grandpa's house in Sterling Heights. She is amazingly patient and becoming such a big girl: at one point near the end of the trip, she told me she "had to go potty"; I asked her if she could hold it and she was able to make it all the way to her grandparents' without needing to stop.


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After a quick potty break, we went to Katy's favorite restaurant, Red Robin; she has a lot of food allergies, but we discovered that she can eat the fries and she discovered that she loves them. We played a little bit back at the house and then it was bedtime. David, Jenny and I ran off to David's house and played "Guitar Hero III" and watched "Flight of the Conchords" for the rest of the evening. A good time was had by all.

On Thanksgiving, Davey and I went back to the 'rents. We all had a good day playing with Katy, watching football (on DVR so we could skip commercials and the boring parts), eating and just generally enjoying one-another's company. After bedtime, once again, the three siblings went to Davey's place and played GHIII and several board games. The entire trip, I had been making good use of my new digital video camera, which I will write about in a later post. Some of the videos are pretty amusing.

On Black Friday, Jenny had to work (after the rush so it isn't too bad). David and his friends have been playing an annual game of football on the day after Thanksgiving for about eleven years now, and I decided to join them after my long hiatus. The game is called "FAT Fest", which I believe just stands for "Football After Thanksgiving". In the past, when we were young and stupid, it was full-contact tackle football; now that we are old and less stupid, it is flag. For the first time ever in FAT Fest history, another group of players also wanted to play on the field we were using. So, we ended up playing us vs. them. It was a little anxious, but it ended up being much closer than the feared blow out and we only lost by two scores (7 touchdowns to 5 touchdowns).

Now, the plan is to run out at 4 and catch the new movie, Hitman. It hasn't gotten very good reviews, but I like the game enough to watch it just to see a movie with my bro and dad. Afterwards, we'll likely have dinner (probably turkey, if I had to guess) and then hang out with David's friends who are in town and can stop by at his house to play.

Right now, the plan is to leave on Saturday after lunch, but Katy has been begging to stay until Sunday. I guess I'll just play it by ear. So far, it has been a non-stop fun time.

The Joys of Being Evil

One of the perks of my job is the interesting people I work with. Several of us do a lot of things together, including the obvious, such as lunches, and the not as obvious, like bike riding. One of our popular activities is Game Night.

Game Night, or Geek Party as my wife is fond of saying, started over a year ago, when my co-worker / friend, Rob, and I started playing D&D with our boss / friend, Tom. He ran a standard 3.5 campaign, with a couple of homebrew rules, in a custom world that his friend had created ages ago.

As time went on, our projects expanded and the number of contractors we had expanded as well. Another three of the guys from work joined Game Night, for a grand total of six of us. Eventually, the pressures of work increased, and the expectations of family life increased, and we found we had gone six months or so since we had gathered to game.

Since then, we have rectified the situation. And, we have expanded our original scope. We've tried superhero RPGs, a D20 future campaign, a Shadowrun campaign, a D20 Modern Arcana campaign and an Iron Heroes campaign. Some of these were more interesting than others, but all were fun.

On the nights that we cannot all gather, and with as many members of our gaming group as we have it is not uncommon that someone is missing, we normally play a board game of some sort. Recently, someone suggested that we play a quick drop-in campaign, one where it goes on when people are missing and it isn't big deal. We decided that this one would be our first evil campaign.

As mentioned, we've tried a wide range of games. However, they all share the common theme of the players as heroes, trying to save the world in some way, shape or form. The game we were to play would occur in the same fantasy setting as our first D&D 3.5 game, but with the key difference being that we were the bad guys.

We played level 6 human Half-Fiends (ECL 10). It played very different from normal. In the past, we've rushed headlong into any problem we encountered; this time, we were not content to simply beat the enemies, we had to do it in a thoughtful, no-good-nick manner.

The story was simple enough: the sons of a devil of some power on the evil plane had come of age and were to prove their worth, via the completion of a mission or two of their choosing, from the selection provided by dear old dad. We had three choices: rid the plane of the lesser devil that had been contending for power and becoming a nuisance to Dad, drive off the paladin spreading his do-gooder ways throughout the land, or destroy the bronze dragon.

Immediately, I wanted the paladin. Not to simply drive off or kill, but to corrupt and own as a plaything for evil. However, it occurred to us that the lesser devil might be an easier target. Then, I hatched a fiendish (or Half-Fiendish, in this case) plan. Instead of attacking one or the other, we'd use them against each other.

I forged a document, an official letter in the name of our father, requesting the service of the devil and promising a piece of the domain. All that was asked for in return was his assistance in the destruction of the paladin. He fell for the forgery, bought our bluff and eagerly accompanied us, even providing the teleportation needed to reach the paladin. During the battle that ensued, we all weakly, and half-heartedly, 'assisted' the devil in his attack on the paladin. When they had both done sufficient damage to one another, and the devil appeared ready to retreat, we ambushed him, feeble-minding him and backstabbing him to death. Then, we Held the paladin and nearly finished him, too; if only we had taken the time to remove the Helm of Teleportation. So, the paladin lived to see another day. I took solace in the fact that he had already begun to act as our instrument of destruction.

For a quick, drop-in campaign, we decided we were into it enough to decide we were going to play it the next time we met, too. We had a slow start, and not much happened, but this game is easily the one in which we have done the most planning and strategy. It looks like it might be our "sleeper-hit".

Katy Swims with the Fishes

This Tuesday was the third week of Katy's swim classes at the Y. As mentioned earlier, now that she is agreeable about Floatie, she is completely comfortable in the water. It is awesome and amazing to me to watch her being so excited about being in the pool; at the start of class, while waiting for the other kids, she will push off the wall and swim and spin around in the water whenever the instructor's back was turned. It was amusing.

She is very excited about it and puts all her effort into swimming, even if her form isn't the best, yet; occasionally, when using her arms, she forgets that she has to point her legs behind her instead of in-front and will be stationary for a little bit.



For the past two weeks, she has been using only one of the two yellow arm-floaties and is very fast in the water. She is good at jumping into the pool, even though she thinks she needs the teacher to hold her hands out for her. She loves to watch the older kids and try to duplicate what they are doing. And, the swimming: she is a swimming champ.



I am, obviously, very proud at how well she is doing and what a good swimmer she is. What I find interesting, however, is that it seems that her affinity for the water is a part of her; she has always loved the water, even in baths, even if it gets in her eyes, even if she accidentally goes under for a little while. So, while I am proud, is there really any true reason to be so? Kendra and I didn't do anything special that would encourage her love of the water, at least nothing I can think of. So, it really seems like there is no good reason to be proud, but I am anyways.

Our Journey through the Candycane Forrest

Katy likes to do a lot of different things; she likes reading, and coloring, and cutting, and lots of art-type stuff. One of the things that she hasn't done a lot of is playing games. She has had Candyland for a while now, but every time we would "play" it, explaining the rules or showing her how it worked was beyond her attention span; she would be more interested in putting the little pawns on their corresponding colors than actually playing.

This Sunday, Katy and I played her first game of Candyland. Once I got her to understand the rules, she was very excited to draw the cards and move the guys. She picked the yellow pawn and I chose the blue. I am happy to report that she completely crushed me. Even so, she was a very good winner and even helped me draw cards and move my guy all the way to the end so that I could "win" too. I am looking forward to continued gaming with her; maybe next time we can try "Arkham Horror." ;)

She also expressed a desire to work on puzzles, something else which she doesn't frequently do. Kendra and I had a hard time getting her to understand the concept of how to find the edges and how to figure out what goes together. I had some better luck with encouraging her to look at the picture on the box and then deciding on some part to try to put together. Doing it that way, she easily put her Curious George puzzle together by herself. She is getting to be such a big girl.

Coding Horror and the Lessons It Teaches

Coding Horror is a website I recently discovered through Jason, one of my friends from work. Jeff Atwood, the blogger who runs Coding Horror, writes about a number of different computer related things, many of which are of direct interest to me. A word of warning: if you aren't a developer / computer person, your interest in the site will be limited.

One of the things he wrote about recently was his success with his blog and what the trick to having a successful blog is. The part that struck a chord with me was the frequency: he suggested that you pick a scheduled number of posts and stick with it.

After reading this, I realized that I had been neglecting my blog; while I do not write about a specific topic, and the audience I really write for is mostly just myself, I felt that I would benefit from the discipline of writing a predetermined number of times per week. Additionally, I do enjoy writing and story-telling and a schedule would encourage me to take the time to do something I enjoy.

Two weeks ago, I decided to revamp my blog and also picked a posting schedule: I am posting three times a week, preferably on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Thus far, I have not missed a day. I think part of my success comes from several things: the first is that, with a schedule, I now have a target posting deadline in mind, and I will start a day or two before I actually post; this gives me plenty of time to formulate an idea for a post and to fill it out in time to meet my schedule.

The second is that I only write about one thing per post now; previously, I would notice that I hadn't posted in a long while and try to cram everything I had to say into one post. This would leave me without anything to say for the next post, and there would be a large gap between posts, again.

The third is that I am less picky about the final result. I don't mean to say that quality isn't important, but not every post has to be a perfect dissertation on a topic of utmost urgency and importance. I am much more likely to post now that I don't feel like I need to be profound.

The Happiness Known as the Coney Dog

I live in south-western Michigan, specifically in the Portage/Kalamazoo areas, but I am originally from the east side of the state, moving here from Ann Arbor and growing up in Sterling Heights. A common restaurant, one that is easy to take for granted, is Coney Island.

For those of you who are not from Michigan, when I talk about Coney Island, I am not talking about the amusement park in New York. Instead, I am talking about a restaurant that serves hot dogs with chili and cheese on them, as well as chili-cheese fries. Almost universally, these places are owned by people of Greek heritage and will also server Gyros (pronounced "year-ohs.") And, while there are chains of these places, like "National Coney Island", there are a number of them that are independently owned and named things like "Phoenix Coney Island," "Koney's," or "Kirby's Coney Island."

For whatever reason, the "Coney Island" concept just hasn't caught on in Kalamazoo like it has on the east side. So, I was thrilled when I saw a place called "Coney'Z" off of Romence. I was able to convince the guys that we needed to try it for lunch, promising gyros would be available.

"Coney'Z" is a very small restaurant, with a very limited amount of space. There were about ten closely packed tables/booths, and the store itself was sharing space with the cafe next door. The food selection was pretty limited, too. There were no gyros, but there were "sliders", described as being like the White Castle ones. And, of course, there were hot dogs.

I was happy with my Coney dog with cheese and chili cheese fries, and it seemed most of the group was happy with at least portions of their meals. It seems like a place we will visit again. I am happy for this little place, but it really isn't like the Coney Islands from back home.

I also tried some chili-cheese fries at Nisker's recently, but wasn't really impressed; their regular fries are decent enough, but the chili and cheese they add really doesn't do it for me. So, I'll keep looking for my stand-in Coney dog and chili-cheese fries place.

It's that NaNoWriMo Time of Year Again

Something that I've taken part in, or at least tried to take part in, every year for the past three of four years now is the NaNoWriMo: the National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in one month, specifically November. What you end up with is not necessarily the greatest novel ever. It might be a bit short. It will likely need a lot of editing. It is, most likely, a rough draft. But, to get those 50k words written would be a huge accomplishment.

Last year, I think I've come the closest I have ever been. The problem I ran into, however, was that I couldn't find a direction for the story; it was about time travel, but I wasn't sure what I was trying to do or say about it and I hadn't placed any limits on it. If you've never tried it, writing a story about traveling through time / stopping time without any limits on its frequency, while the actual time traveling is trivially easy, is extraordinarily difficult. I also didn't have a good idea on how to handle the repercussions of changing the past and how it would affect the future. Would it split the universe? Would it simply change the present? I didn't know, and the story died right there.

This year, I think I've learned a bit about what not to do. I don't have a strong idea about where I want to go with this new story, but I've had a number of different ideas over the years and some of them just keep nagging me. Specifically, the concept of a special hammer won't let up. So, I have a start, and 536 words written. It isn't much, but hopefully it will be enough to give me something to think about and try to figure out where to go from here.

For those of you who are mathematically inclined, to stay on target requires approximately 1667 words per day. As this is the fourth day, to be on schedule requires 6667 words by the end of the day. So, only 6131 words left for today. Already, it isn't a very promising performance for this year, but I'm going to stick it out, anyways.