Birthday Loot

So I had a delightful haul this year.

I got three graphic novels--Checkmate/Outsiders, The Invisibles: Say You Want a Revolution, and World Below--which I will read and probably comment on in my reading list in due course.

From my Wish List on Amazon, I also received an introductory guide to rhetoric and a collection of essays by scientists and engineers predicting what discoveries or developments will dramatically impact our future (This Will Change Everything). These both look very cool.

I received two New York Times crossword puzzle books, one with Tuesday puzzles (easy ones) and one with Wednesday puzzles (average ones) which is about all I can handle at this stage in my crossword puzzle development, though I do enjoy solving them.

My kids got me a set of DC action figures, the new ones that are smaller than the DC Animated style but have more articulation. It was a pretty cool limited edition Battle for Metropolis set they found discounted at Toys R Us, with Lex Luthor in battle armor, four Lexcorp troopers, Captain Marvel, Captain Atom, and Superman. The kids absconded with the figures almost immediately, but they eventually returned them and they are cool.

I did my usual sudden infatuation thing and tracked down a bunch of used, out of print hardcover books for the hard science fiction roleplaying game Blue Planet. I now have the Moderator's Guide, Player's Guide, Fluid Mechanics tech guide, First Colony city guide, Natural Selection planetary guide, and am awaiting the arrival of Frontier Justice, which details law and order. Now I need to make sure that I read the damn things. Odds of me ever actually playing this game? 5%. But if I enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed, say, the Transhuman Space books, then I'll get many hours of enjoyment in the year ahead.

And I received two of the Great Courses on DVD, Building Great Sentences and Games People Play: Game Theory. I hope to start watching these soon, learning some things of interest, and hopefully being able to apply them. If it goes well, I may look to get another of these courses for Christmas.

I think that's it. A LOT of material to read and/or absorb, but I consider that a win-win scenario. Either I don't get any freelance work in the near future and have the free time to enjoy this stuff, or the arrival of so many books leads to a contract offer, the way that washing your car helps ensure that it will rain soon.

Thanks to the wonderful people who fed my omnivorous reading habits! Rest assured that I will bore each of you with the fruits of my reading and researches at some future date.

Family (Mis)Adventures

So, yesterday my wife and I took our two kids to the water park to celebrate my son's seventh birthday a bit after the fact. It was his first time at the big park.

(On the weekend, we had taken him to see his first movie in a theater, Monsters v. Aliens. It was at one of the local dollar theaters and he did a great job. Stayed in his seat, didn't talk through the dialogue or ask an endless stream of questions, didn't ask to go to the bathroom, etc. His only insistence was that he get some popcorn, because "I know from watching movies at home that people in movie theaters always have popcorn.")

He did a great job, enjoying the large wave pool in particular, going back multiple times. Dad, who isn't quite as big a fan of waterparks as his wife or daughter, did okay outside of the big tube rides. Waiting in line a long time for a ride that ends up being over in a flash just isn't my thing. Maybe it reminds me too much of my early sex life, I don't know.

And naturally at the exit of a ride called the Viper, I ended up coming out of the chute backwards and flipped upside down, smacking my head on the concrete floor of the shallow exit pool hard enough to raise a lump, give me a headache, and make me dizzy--but thankfully not enough to cut my scalp or result in a concussion. I also somehow managed to cut my foot. The next hour or so was not so fun-filled for me, but the kids continued to have a good time.

So, all things considered, I took one for the team and my son had a great time.

That night my daughter was helping her mom prepare dinner when she sliced off part of her fingernail while peeling some ginger. Finger bleed a lot, so there was a bit of trauma as that got squared away with gauze and bandaids.

Then this afternoon my son came screaming into the house. At first I literally thought he had severed an artery or set himself on fire. Turned out it was his first bee sting, on the bottom of his foot. He shrieked in my ear for a good two minutes straight (Ow! OWW! AHHH! OWWW!) as I sat him in a chair and my wife brought me the tweezers to pull the stinger out. Then he howled a bit more when she put the baking soda on the sting, and I put some ice on the sting to calm him down.

This evening he said at dinner, "I can't even remember what the sting felt like."

It has been an adventurous couple of days. Hopefully we will all heal up. :-)

Feeling a Bit Better

Got a decent exercise program started, done a few different volunteering things with the kids recently, tried to ease up on the critical self-talk. So I'm feeling a little better.

Facing a tricky decision about my upcoming birthday. I have one of the shorter wish lists that I have ever compiled, which is good. But times are tight, so I have to decide between getting some expensive free weights that will allow me to make increases in very small increments (which I think will be psychologically and physically better for me, making steady progress without overtaxing some of my joints) and getting a graphic novel that completes a series I've collected, a book on language and magic, and a subscription to the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

I can see the magazine subscription and the book as further explorations of my efforts to write (testing a likely writing market and developing my understanding of some topics relevant to my current writing interests), while the weights would be part of my physical maintenance and development. Honestly, the physical side is easier to see gains in, though it is more expensive.

Whatever I do, I'm trying to stick with a clear budget for the year.

In another sense my recent sense of improvement has come from what I've let go of. I haven't been blogging as much or with as much effort, which has been good. When nobody really reads your blog--and only one person reads mine with any frequency--it becomes essentially a journal. And there shouldn't be pressure to maintain that. I started altering how I wrote the blog to make it more accessible to people and the result was that it was more time consuming and stressful to write and I can't say I got any more hits, even from immediate family and close friends.

I think the blog and the website held the false promise of gaining readers and others interested in my ideas. But honestly, there is just too much noise out there on the web. I don't stand out and few people have ever expressed much interest in what I have to say, in part because I'm not blogging about everyday issues or seeking to become a clearinghouse of information for certain topics. So I can understand people not having the time or inclination to look. I don't read that many blogs written by other people.

I think I'll keep making some updates to my web site over time as the urge takes me. But so far the Internet has been kind of a lonely experience.

The Big 4-0

I just wrote a lot of words in a lengthy draft about how I feel with my 40th birthday rapidly approaching. I don't know if I'll post that or not.

Distilled to its essence: I feel like I've lost more than I've gained in the past ten years. Professionally, physically ("loss" here applies in terms of overall health and well-being, not weight), and socially.

The steady state: I continue to have a loving and supportive relationship with my wife. I love my parents and they are a great comfort to me. I'm fortunate to have very wonderful in-laws, which is a blessing many people don't share. I had all these things ten years ago (well, I wasn't married yet, but the relationship was still there and strong) and I would say they have had more ups than downs in the past decade.

The big improvements: The addition of my son and daughter, who are wonderful and interesting people as well as beloved children.

The losses: Friends and family left behind, with no new friends to show for eight years of living here--at least nobody close enough to invite to my birthday party or who would think to send me a card. A freelance career that is wildly unpredictable, provides little professional camaraderie, and pays sporadically in place of a challenging but rewarding career where I had gained the respect of the majority of my peers and bosses. Nagging injuries that assault me everywhere-- shoulder, wrist, ankles, knees, hip, and back--sidelining every workout program I've embarked upon for the past two years. A city, Boise, whose sole advantage over Austin is that the traffic is better here (surprising how far that edge will go to making life more enjoyable, but Boise is just never going to be as cool as Austin). The opportunity to pursue my writing has led to fewer tangible results and more disappointment in my lack of achievement than I expected.

The plan: I'm going to keep searching for workout regimens that my body will tolerate, lowering my sights a bit and trying to include as much stretching as possible. I'm also trying to reconcile myself to a certain amount of aches and pains. I'm going to try to stop beating myself up about the writing, write when I feel like it and read more stuff that I like. I'm going to try to enjoy my time with my kids more. As for friends, I honestly have no idea at this point how to find like-minded folks up here. I think I'd settle for more casual friends. Also I'm going to take a stab at reading some more self-help stuff that I already own and relaxing myself mentally. A lot of it boils down to being more pro-active.

So wish me luck looking on the bright side and enjoying my birthday.