My Face Forgot its Pants!

The past four and a half years the area of my face below my nose and above my neck has stayed reasonably warm. I first grew the goatee because, during my first year of teaching, I was regularly mistaken for a student. I could be in front of a class in a 3-piece suit and tie teaching, and a student runner would walk in, look around the room in a bewildered daze and ask, “Where's your teacher?” For me to truly come into my own as a respected professional, I needed facial hair. Part of me thought about the Tick's immortal words during the episode That Mustache Feeling, “Rugged, self-assured, adult...these are the words who describe a man who wears a mustache.” Growing the goatee was a right of passage that marked me, in a very real way, as an adult, a professional, worthy of the respect due a man of my years.



That was then. Now, it's summertime, and with Jackson a pretty good fixture whenever I'm seen in public, people take me for an adult anyway. I guess you could say I don't need a goatee when I have a baby.



Except I do. I look funny and naked without it. Regrowing starts today.

Just keep swimming!

Jackson loves water.

Okay, except for when he hates it.

This scary dichotomy was on our minds as we drove Jackson to the neighborhood swimming pool earlier this afternoon. Armed with swimsuits, SPF 50, blankets, lemonade, apple juice, swimming diapers, and our inflated sunshade floaty, we were ready to experience swimming come hell or high water.

Well, today, he loved water! He wasn't real happy in his floaty at first, since it kept him from getting into the water the way he really wanted to. I took him out and Jen and I passed him around in the pool. He LOVES when I dunk my head and blow bubbles. It will really make me sad when I can't be the funniest person in his life.

Later, I figured out how to use the floaty to full effect: Speed. Jackson likes going fast, so getting behind his float and pushing off of the wall, making him motor-boat around was another big hit, plus it kept me from having to dunk my head every three minutes.

Swimming is thirsty work!

Also: Pool=Tired which is good when getting Jackson to sleep at night. That said, it is less good in the hours before bedtime, as he was a fussy little dude for quite a while.

Lesson learned: Swim early in the day as an inducement to nap-time or late in the day as an inducement to bedtime. Middle of the day or late afternoon=BAD IDEA.

Happy Anniversary

Oh white wave, crowned with laurel, soothe me here
And wash me in your waters, cool and pure.
Cascading o'er my heart each year-by-year,
I love my days of swimming more-and-more.
Five years I've spent relaxing on the strand,
Three years before I longed to feel this sun:
And eight years later, still I hold your hand
And feel the peace of knowing you're the one.
Even when the hurricane winds blow
I know that we can weather any storm.
Even when the tides of life are low,
The sun will rise again and keep us warm.
These fourteen lines will never well express
The love these past five years' daily possess.

Sweet Ginger Evans

When my dad was a boy, he knew what a soft drink was: Grape Soda, Coca-Cola, Dr. Pepper. They were sweet, they were cold, and they were satisfying. His grandfather used to break out, from time to time, Buffalo Rock Ginger Ales and my father was quite certain that if Dr. Pepper was a soft drink, this was a Hard Drink. My dad's memory of this ginger ale was that it had a bit of a KICK,

Well, my father has found his Ginger Ale with a kick again, and he has certainly turned it into a Hard Drink in honor of his grandfather.

1.Red Rock Ginger Ale (with crushed Red Pepper for Kick!)
2.Evan Williams Honey Reserve
3.Ice

It's not too far off from the traditional Seven Year Itch, but the kick of the Red Pepper combined with the smooth sweetness of the Honey Reserve Bourbon is really satisfying.

Dungeons and Dragons

DISCLAIMER: This is a Nerd-Post all about Dungeons and Dragons. It assumes you know a thing or two about Dungeons and Dragons. Please skip this if you don't. You will definitely be bored.

I'm no stranger to DMing. I've been an avid table-top RPG player since sometime in 2000, and that experience started as a DM. Before that I played HeroQuest (as a DM), played a number of computer/console RPGs, read many Lone Wolf CYOA books, and LARPed. Role-playing is a bit of a life-long passion for me.

The thing with DMing is that it takes a lot of time and effort. Me? I'm usually pretty busy, so whenever I find myself in the DM seat, I have always tried short-cuts to get the sessions going. These short-cuts have made my DMing not as good as other DMs I've known/played with, but most of the time my games are fun, if a bit short lived.

One of the things that immediately interested me in DnD's 4th edition was the supposed focus on making the DM's life easier. As I read the Monster Manual and Dungeon Master's guide, I started believing that I could do this whole DM thing sans shortcuts.

The prep-work was easy. I created a spreadsheet to help me calculate my XP budget and keep track of my monsters. I set-up the PCs as militia within an ancient Elven City who start with a simple smuggling bust and uncover a plot to depopulate the elven lands. Picking monsters was easy. Designing interesting encounter spaces to compliment the monsters and create interesting combats was just plain FUN. I didn't really have to worry about PCs bringing out some unusual/overpowered/unclear spell/feat/item/power and wrecking all of my plans like I would were I Dming Mutants and Masterminds, Star Wars, or DnD 3rd edition.

Unfortunately, my session was a 1-shot, so getting detailed characterization from 3.5 hours of a session wasn't really possible. The 4 sets of stats we had as PCs each brought something interesting to the encounters. We had
1.A grapple-build fighter who could move enemies all around the battlefield
2.A Greatbow Seeker who could lock-down enemies from hundreds of feet away.
3.A pacifist Cleric who could heal like nobody's business and debuff enemies to uselessness
4.A Monk who could go anywhere and could move enemies to his best advantage.

In conclusion, this taight me a few things about DnD 4ed:

A. I can totally DM it and not go crazy trying to challenge any PC/make fights interesting.
B. Fourth edition PCs are all SO different a fights play out very differently depending on the types of PCs you have running. I think this edition will offer many years of interesting gaming. A good thing too, considering the money and time I've put into it.

Happy Birthday Jackson!

We've celebrated one year with Jackson. And celebrated. And celebrated.

Which is fine, because there has been a lot to celebrate. 6 teeth (hard fought, every one), more haircuts than a one-year-old should have to endure, 365 nights (not all entirely sleepless), and one really good, really fun baby boy named Jackson.

His first birthday party was everything a boy's first birthday party should be: full of awesome toys, awesome friends, and awesome food. His Very Hungry Caterpillar cake satisfied a Very Hungry Boy, with red icing smeared across a Very Happy face.

Day two of the festivities, Easter, was just as eventful. This time we celebrated with family, drowning in even more toys, more love, and more fun. Overall, a very good celebration.

Really, between these two awesome parties, this one amazing little boy, and all of these wonderful friends and family, there was really only one downside: the party favors.

Now, I managed to not get one. Generally, I like to get the stuff that everyone else gets. I am as American as anyone that way, I guess. This time, however, the party favor was a nasty stomach bug, and we managed to be pretty generous with it. By last count, the birthday boy, his mommy, 3 of his 4 grandparents, all of his aunts and uncles, plus 3 of our friends managed to get our little “favor,” and seeing it first-hand, we did no one a favor.

Shared experiences are a special way to bring groups together, and the aftermath of Jacksonpalooza weekend was certainly a shared experience. Maybe it's because I was the only one not leaking out both ends early the next week, but having such a momentous plague marking your first year of birth both makes the celebration memorable and must be some kind of good omen. While Jackson may be some kind of Harbinger of Doom, I prefer to read the Sign of the Plague in a different way. That sickness, spreading so rapidly to so many households simply shows how close the people who love and support my son are. I say that's a very good sign.

Happy birthday!

Today I turned 29 years old. In one year, as far as I can tell, I will be turning 30. I know that's just a number, and not, in the grand scheme of things, even a very BIG number, but to me it seems like a milestone of sorts.

The past couple of years have been full. They've been full of problems, worries, and nightmares. They've been full of joys too: most notably the birth of my son, Jackson, but there have been other big deals in there as well. So often these past two years life has seemed like TOO MUCH. I'm starting to think, just maybe, life is just like that: TOO MUCH. Here is my plan:

For the next year, before the end of the day in which I turn 30, I want to focus on 30 exciting, often life-changing, or just plain positive things that will happen in my life. I will write about each one as it happens, or after it has happened and post my musings to this space. I hope that focusing on the wonderful things this year has in store for me will take the TOO MUCH that life has seemed like to me at times, and turn it into SO MUCH. The quantity of life may well be the same. The viewpoint, however, will be so much more satisfying.

Some of the things on my list I know will happen in the next year. Some of the things on my list I hope will happen in the next year. The rest of them? I just think they'd be neat things to do, and I'd like to do them this year. They are in a vaguely chronological order that I have absolutely no intention of keeping to.

My List:
1.Celebrate my son's 1st birthday
2.Finish rebuilding my new back porch
3.Visit a museum
4.Celebrate my wife and my 5-year wedding anniversary
5.Make and eat my own BBQ ribs
6.Explore the entire walking trail at the new local park
7.See my son walk
8.Take my son swimming
9.Spend a day in Athens, Georgia in which I eat 2 meals
10.Watch all 6 Star Wars films within a 2-week span of time
11.Take my son to a zoo or aquarium
12.Beat a video game
13.Shave my goatee
14.Grow a new goatee
15.Play an entire game of Settlers of Cataan
16.Go to a concert
17.Try a new alcoholic drink
18.Discover and read the entirety of a web-comic (not one of the ones I am already pretty familiar with)
19.See either a professional laser show or fireworks display
20.DM a Dungeons and Dragons game in person
21.Visit Tuscaloosa, Alabama
22.Spend an entire week at the beach
23.Read a new (to me) Shakespeare play
24.Go to a football game
25.Sleep in a hotel
26.See a play
27.Volunteer in some capacity for a political campaign
28.See half of next year's Oscar Best Picture nominees
29.Throw a non-birthday party
30.Write a blog about 30 big events in my life, before I turn 30.