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Top 10 List of Geek/Nerd Things To Do This Year

Family, House, Internet, Magic The Gathering, Nerdery, Parenting, TV/Movies/Music, Uncategorized, Work No Responses »

Jan 162012

One of my goals for 2012 from a previous post was to learn obtain some sort of new geek/nerd skill, trait or as I’ll add; notch to my geek utility belt. I’ve been pondering what that item should be and was torn. I’ve decided first of all to add this as a constant annual goal. This came clear to me as I ended up with a list of possible items for this year. I ended up broadening it to ten items. Some might be a little lamer or easier than the other, but this is the first year and it might advance over the years. I’m also open to suggestions from readers…if there are any out there.

I’m open to geek/nerd activities that allow me to involve my two younger sons Quattro and Mace.

Here is the list.

Build something with a solar panel. I always wanted to build something that uses renewable energy. May it be a Lego robot that travels across the picnic table or get a solar power kit from Harbour Frieght and wire up all the external house lights.
Learn how to splice fiber cable. This one would be tough since we don’t carry the necessary tools at work and could be an expensive project to make mistakes in. Playing with small strands of glass sounds like too much fun though. My skills at crimping Cat5e and Cat6 cables as sped up this year and comes in handy when you want to make clean precise cable runs. Continue reading »

Goals or Resolutions for 2012

Adventures, Disc Golf, Family, Fishing, Friends, House, Internet, Nerdery, Parenting, Sports, TV/Movies/Music, Uncategorized, Video Games, Work, Xbox 360 1 Response »

Jan 012012

A new year is upon us and who knows it could be the last according to the Mayans. So, on the positive side of that doom and gloom, we only have to make a list of new year resolutions one more time. I hate calling them resolutions. I’m not trying to resolve some behavior or attitude. I want to accomplish something, yes. It makes it sound so much better than a resolution. A resolution makes it sound like I am an overweight, racist, cold hearty, unhealthy schmuck and I need to resolve or abolish an attitude to either stay alive, keep my marriage, or regain state custody over my kids.

So enough with that. This is what I want to get done this year. (We won’t discuss my progress from last year because I barely did a damn thing on that list. I’m going to keep track of my resolutions via a great app called Wunderlist.

-Stay well under 200lbs. [Optional goal is 180lbs.] (This has been my goal for the last couple of years and been successful.)
-Complete 2 certifications for work.
-Play more disc golf.
-Disc golf in 2 new states. (I try for one new state a year but I missed 2011.)
-Go fishing with the kids more.
-Take the kids camping.
-Get all the rooms on the first floor painted.
-Insulate 2 of the 3 crawlspaces.
-Replace the ceiling fan.
-Replace the garbage disposal.
-Replace all electrical outlets and light switches.
-Expand the garden and hook up a rain barrel system.
-Build a compost pile.
-Decommission one of my servers.
-Write 12 blog posts to this blog or any reincarnated form. (Actually 11 if you count this one.)
-Hook up a surround sound system in family room.
-Earn Xbox Gamerscore of 13500.
-Read 10 books.
-Learn a new geeky/nerdish trait or skill.

I keep making this list longer and longer. I should probably stop now or my end of the world will really be depressing since I might not complete most of these when the world implodes next December.

Becoming a Geek Dad

Adventures, Family, Magic The Gathering, Nerdery, Parenting, Video Games No Responses »

Apr 282011

As a dad you can always instill certain beliefs and ideology and hobbies onto your kids. You might not mean for it to turn out that way, but they are such a helpless mound of clay ready for your kneading. We, as parents, tend to do in conscientiously…sometimes. I’m always for trying to push my kids in a certain direction as long as I am not narrow minded or don’t mind them choosing against it. I’ve done the typical root for this sports team, play this sport, do this, try that. I wouldn’t say I pushed lil Eddie into playing a trumpet but I helped him choose the instrument I played as a kid. He could of picked the saxophone like he originally wanted, but he didn’t like sucking on the reeds.

Anyways, a lot of stuff I push on my kids to do has its own level into geekdom. You could analyze it all you want and tag watching and rooting for a specific sports organization as a level of geek. (Especially when the fan starts spouting out statistics, strategies, and historical revelations about the game or team.) The more wide range of stuff I introduce my kids to, I realize that I am that geek dad. I think I am more of a geek now than I was 2 decades ago. Good thing too, I probably would of spent more money and acquired more stuff lying around the house if I did this when I was single.

A lot of the stuff I pushed or encouraged on my boys would of come naturally as they usually do for young American boys. You know the typical superhero, video game, Pokemon, and war. Sure I helped guide them along by taking them to comic book stores, introducing them to video games other than shooters (jRPG), Magic the Gathering, and old fashion strategy board games. My wife and I also helped them pick out good literature from Star War novels, Harry Potter, Eragon, Lord of the Rings, Kingdom Keepers, and others. (Eddie reads so many books that I may have to buy him a Kindle. We have three huge bookshelves filled with books.)

We do puzzles, models, science experiments, etc. We watch Discovery and the Science Channel. We go to museums to see exhibits like King Tut, Star Wars, Pirates, and Narnia. (All social exhibits at Ben Franklin Institute over the years.) I try to explain the technologies I deal with at work. We build things. (We once took all their Hot Wheels tracks and built the longest raceway that spanned two rooms.) Lil Eddie and I almost stayed up all night playing video games.

I can’t wait for this summer to start some new projects. We got The Dangerous Book for Boys, which has a few projects in there. Plus Eddie has some other book with all kinds of cool stuff from making Zombie makeup to laser pens. I’m also considering getting the Geek Dad book series which outlines a lot of other fun projects.

Don’t worry. No matter how much reading and imagination they use, they still play sports and are a huge hit with the ladies. Which is good, no matter how geeky they become, they are not living in my basement. (I have plans for my basement…that’s my domain!) Now excuse me while we get fresh water for our dinosaur plants.

Bringing Back Family Game Night

Family, Magic The Gathering, Nerdery, Parenting No Responses »

Apr 172011

It is time to put this back on the table. The tradition of a weekly family game night. A night where there is no TV, no Netflix, and amazingly, no soccer practices or games. A night where we all sit down and play one of our numerous board, card, or dice games. Either all 4 of us or 2 or 3…I’d say 5 but our cat, Matilda, only messes up the game boards or chews on the cards.

It’s time to brush up on my chess skills to take on lil Eddie. He is at that age where things just click on their own. He is building his own strategy and I can see in his face that he is planning ahead. Soon, I’ll have to increase my skill level so he does not beat me all the time. In chess, he has awhile to go to beat me. That was one of my games back in the day. Magic The Gathering, we almost break even when we play. I would say I win about 60% of the time.

It is time to start adding to our game shelves. It is that yard sale season. Anyone out their having a yard sale or getting rid of games, let me know! I need to get out their and find some missing classics for us. Some high on my list to find is a bigger chess set, Risk, Stratego, Mastermind, Othello, and Axis and Allies. Eddie’s been eyeing some non-traditional games that I am not accustomed to. Mainly games he sees at our local comic shops. You know the one’s that have instruction manuals as big as Cisco training text book. No not the one where you have to dress up, but I’m sure a d20 is needed to roll something.

I’m not against trying new games. Never have been, I just never had the chance or the close immediate friends that were also into it to play. It’s one thing to teach a friend Mancala or even Risk for the first time but trying teaching a game from TSR to anyone, especially when you have no clue on how it is played. Actually, I owned Marvel Super Heroes RPG. I read the manuals, tried to play practice games, but I do not think I was doing it right. I knew some kids that lived close by that probably were into it, but I didn’t know or didn’t bother to find out. Not because I thought it was nerdy or anything. I had my own nerdy things out in plain view that it didn’t matter to me.

Pretty soon our game shelves in the family room will be packed and it will be time to thing of our basement project. We want to convert the basement into a huge game room. It’s a big open space and there is already a poker table and air hockey down there. I want to add another long rectangle table, my desk, data cabinet for a server or two, couches, TV, shelves, and of course a small bar.I’m not going for that over the top media room, sports themed pub, or an over-the-top fantasy room (although his ideas go along with a lot of the decor styles in our home).

*On top of the games, anyone getting rid of 4-6 wooden chairs for my poker table?

Did I disable cable TV yet?

Family, Internet, TV/Movies/Music No Responses »

Mar 262011

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, my family and I were going to experiment with streamed content to our TV in the hopes to cut down our monthly bills and eliminate mindless TV watching of shows we don’t care about but since it is the only thing on at this time slot we will watch it. So, did I cut the cords with my cable provider RCN? No. Why? Cause it would of cost me more with RCN if I got rid of TV and just kept Internet and phone. Sounds ridiculous? You would be right. Granted, I knew there was a discount for having all three services bundled with them but I didn’t think the discount ran this deep.

So, I called an RCN rep to discuss my bills. At the start of this I had premier TV package, 10Mbps Internet, and unlimited national phone and was paying $131 a month before taxes. After telling the rep I wanted to eliminate cable she ran through some options with me. I knew this was coming since they need customer retention. She first offered lowering my cable to standard HD and added the two year price lock which would drop me to $91 a month before taxes. Sounds good. So what if I got rid of TV and returned their DVR box and kept Ineternt and phone? That would be $112 before taxes. Crazy! So, of course we kept cable, lost a lot of channels that I don’t watch but the family does. (They will survive. They have been loving the Netflix.)

I have not picked up my Roku yet. Netflix on the Xbox 360 is serving its purpose so far.

If you are looking at lowering your bundled TV/Internet/Phone bills, call them up and ask questions about dropping the TV portion. They will either give you new customer rates or some sort of promotional code. You too could drop 25% off your monthly bills with them.

Family Entertainment Experiment for 2011

Family, Internet, TV/Movies/Music, Uncategorized 1 Response »

Jan 082011

This year we are going to be trying a new media front. A new means to bring outside content to us. We are tired of the high cable costs we spend. It wouldn’t be so bad if the channels had decent stuff on during the times we watch TV. Most of the shows my wife and I catch are always off the DVR.

What are we paying $70 or more a month for? We watch the same content over and over when we aren’t using the DVR? Reruns of The Office, My Name is Earl, Suite Life on Deck, iCarly, etc. We pay for 300+ channels where we probably only watch 10%. Sounds like a big old waste of $840 a year. What how much…? I think smoking is still cheaper than cable TV.

We are looking into set top boxes to deliver online content to our TV. Something usable, easy, and reliable. Something that supports Netflix (which is everything these days), Hulu Plus, Pandora, and options for user created content. Those are just the necessities. The big players in my search are the Apple TV, Roku XDS, or Boxee. Apple TV is too limited for me. Being what some claim “Apple Fanboy”, I do not own enough IOS devices to make it worthwhile. I’ve heard great things about Roku and they are half the price of the Boxxee. The Boxxee design and awkward cube look is quite the conversation piece. However, content options and price points it will be a Roku XDS in the near future.

Two big downfalls, sort of, is teaching everyone how to adapt to a non-cable provider way of watching TV. My wife is leery on new technology. The other is lack of sports. I don’t watch a lot of sports these days. I can get my soccer fix with ESPN 3. Football is going to be my biggest loss. I guess with the money I’m saving I can walk down to the bar and watch. Or I’m coming over to your place to watch the game and drink your beer. Or pay the premium fee to stream hockey games. (Experiment begins after Super Bowl next month.)

My quick cost numbers is $100 for the Roku and about $200 a year for Netflix and Hulu which means a savings of over $500.

Plus, we are hoping that if we have more structured content to watch, we might watch less of it. We definitely won’t be watching the same rerun sitcoms between 10PM and midnight anymore. (If we do need our Office fix, we will just stream it from one source or another.) Might even free up more time for video games and board games.

Goals or Resolutions for 2011

Adventures, Disc Golf, Family, Fishing, Parenting, Sports, Video Games, Work, Xbox 360 1 Response »

Jan 082011

It’s that time to throw out what I plan on doing this year. Some are either carry overs from last year and some are on going goals for every year.

Roll overs from last year:
-Get all the rooms on the first floor painted.
-Stay well under 200lbs. (Optional goal is 180lbs.)
-Complete 1 certifications for work.
-Place 1st in a disc golf event.
-Disc golf in a new state. (Likely candidates this year is Massachusetts, Maryland, or Virginia.)

New ones:
-Ride bike more. Not for exercise but more for pleasure.
-Start saving for a Disney trip.
-Go fishing with the kids more.
-Use all my vacation days wisely.
-Insulate 2 of the 3 crawlspaces.
-Replace the ceiling fan.
-Replace the kitchen sink.
-Mount TV on wall and purchase surround sound.
-Decommission one of my servers.
-Pay off student loans and computer.
-Earn Xbox Gamerscore of 10000.

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