The Post Christmas Tradition

I am sit I was reflecting on our Post Christmas traditions. I can guarantee you that they are not what you may be thinking they are. Sure there were the near weekly Saturday parties where we surround ourselves with friends, and then Christmas Eve and Christmas day where we spend time with both parents and In-Laws on a predetermined Schedule. Those are the great traditions. But the ones I am referring to are far more menial and far less enjoyable.
These events leads to Our Family's first Less honored more hated tradition. The After Christmas Cleaning, slash Stuffing, slash eBaying (this last one is new this year and hopefully will make my wallet fat and happy). After having two Christmas' My Family have for some years now been able to fill the back of our Van with gifts from Grandparents, and we love every ounce of them, but that is about 60 square feet of space a year. My house does not get that much bigger every year so it is my job to find places to put it. If the thought of putting it in the closet came to mind, that is out of the equation. I have enough kid’s clothes to put a boy or girl in clothes from newborn to 3T. Six 30 gallon containers to be exact, and this year I had to get creative to get it all to fit in that. I have always admired the Spacebags, but heaven knows they are out of my budget (at least in the quantities I need). So I did the Poor man’s Version, 2mm thick plastic trash bags and a Dyson. All I can really say is Wow, I cut down the space they take up by at least half, but MAN are they heavy bins now.
Then there is the most loathed of Christmas traditions. For some reason far beyond my comprehension about this time of year Isabelle starts to get a little sniffle, which turns into a cough. Then Caleb gets a runny nose, followed by a fever, and a cough, and some time in between or after those events Jen gets it too, but gets the adult version. Last year I wasn't so lucky and I caught it as well, but this year I am adamant about not getting it, washing my hands, not sharing food, taking running dives from their Grenade like Sneezes. I am doing just about everything short of Lysol showers and drinking straight vinegar (Dave Touse taught me that trick). This is the winter illness tradition, and I despise it. I cannot honestly say if I hate it because it puts a crimp in cuddle time with the kids, or because it always happens when I take extended time off, thus removing my Wife's ability to function on a level where I can leave for a ride of extended length and time.
So here I sit on Sunday morning, instrumental hymns playing inspiring thoughts of eternal greatness, the thoughts of last year where we missed over a month of going to church haunting the present and a half cleaned… Oh let’s be honest… and a Destroyed house. So much for cleanliness is next to godliness, at least not for a few more days. I secretly hate my mom for teaching me how to clean and liking the result, I have to have things in order, and that can get frustrating. But I digress; I am sitting taking care of Kids, spouse, and house. I love them all, but boy do I need a really good Ride and a Vista to help bring this all back into perspective.

What Kind of Geek are You?

I found this a bit back but feel it TOTALLY appropriate. It is a cartoon from Scott Johnson @ MyExtraLife.com. It is a list of a few of the more popular Geeks. I am a combination of several. Click to see a bigger picture.

The Late Blooming Geek

For the Vast majority of my life I have accepted the Label of Dork, Nerd, and Geek. I wear them as a badge of honor; to be different should be celebrated. It has not been until a more recent time in my life that I have developed in to a more mature geek. What I mean by that is for the majority of my youth I was a Swimmer, a Surfer and a Scout. Sure I could be pegged for being a nerd just on the last one alone, but I didn't have the anti-social-nobody-gets-it-but-me obsession that seems to typify and categorize the atypical Geek. Some a Trek-ies, some are Star Wars nuts, Some Dwell in a land of Dwarves and Elves. For me though It wasn't until after I was married that I identified my obsession, in fact my wife introduced me to it.

To cut to the quick my anti-social-nobody-gets-it-but-me obsession is Mechwarrior (slash Battletech, slash Macross, slash Robotech). Some Great 3D renderings can be found HERE. While it is true that many of the previous titles mentioned began their rise to glory about 1984-85 it was not until I was Fifteen (1995) that it came into my world. My Dad for one reason or another (most likely to test out all 16MB of ram on his new computer) got a computer game Called Mechwarrior 2. The games premise was 30 foot tall walking tanks and a mission of destruction. Seeing that I was a 15 year old boy and very much into destruction the game was a perfect fit.

I played that game to death, Jade Falcon/Clan Wolf, Who cared they all blew up the same. To me it was a screen a joystick and hours of fun (and of course I used cheat codes; heat buildup sucks). I played that game and its first expansion Ghost Bear's Legacy till I had memorized every pixel of the map, and every preprogrammed guard rotation. Then I was blessed with Mechwarrior 3. All hail the intro Movie! (Those get me hook, line, and sinker every time) I was amazed at the improvement in graphics and customization ability of the individual mechs. I loved all those technical details, but alas about then I was 18 and also had a huge love of the ocean and my car which lead to Surfing more and playing video games less. Little did I know then I had found my obsession.

Skip five years into the future (All hail the time warp story mode) and I am a happily married man, and found to my great surprise that Mechwarrior 4: Vengence has been released! I bought it and firmly planted my backside into a familiar setting of Screen, Joystick, and Things to be destroyed. All Hail the Intro Movie! That one alone has spurned Battletech movie rumors for 5 years, But I digress. This time the images were smooth and the glorious 3D shapes had texture mapping, and the landscape looked much better than the bad math test in geometry it had been.

After a few weeks (possibly months) My lovely, very astute wife, noticed that I had been playing the game endlessly and after my complaints that I had trounced the game made mention that these were not just video games, but they were also a book series. "Silly wife, I don't read books." I am pretty sure that was my response verbatim. Boy was I in for a shock. I had for the longest time tossed the idea aside especially after looking at the cover art. How could this book be interesting if the covers are that pastel and totally 80's technology based. “Never judge a book by the cover” or so they say. Here I was, geek in geekland pointing out flaws and having reservations.

But, There was one book cover that caught my eye. Mechwarrior Dark Age: Ghost War. I was not a reader, but boy did that book change my mind. The descriptions of the smallest things blew me away. I love Michael Stackpole’s use of descriptive imagery, and the characters, Oh the characters! They were not the hastily gathered ill talented voices from the game. They felt like living, breathing, struggling people. (Sometimes I wish I could have gone back in time and handed myself the first book and really encouraged me to read it.) By the first bar brawl, I was hooked. I got that book about 6 months before my son was born and read as much as I could till it hurt. I finally finished it in the Labor and Delivery room about 2 hours before my son was born. That was the first time I had EVER read 250 plus pages.

My ticket to fully fledged geekdom via the Battletech universe had begun at the ripe age of 23. I had missed the train in High School, but I found the source of my inner geek. (More to come)