Reading Railroad..

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have a fairly addictive personality. After school ended last summer and Crystal reintroduced me to the library, I dove right in and started reading books like crazy. Crystal suggested that I keep track of the books that I read, and that kind of appealed to me, so I did it. The only problem is that with me being a geek, I took it one step further and made a spreadsheet with graphs and everything. As I finished a book the other day I religiously updated my spreadsheet and then glanced at the totals, I was actually surprised to see how much I have done since the beginning of the year. *****Brag Alert****** Since January 1st I have read fourteen books totaling 5564 pages. ****** End Bragging ******

I realize that this represents a significant amount of time but I try to limit myself to times when Crystal and Beepers are either sleeping, or otherwise occupied. I really enjoy it and I am excited to see how much I can accomplish before the year's end.

Digger Dan!

I love having bragging rights.

Beepers loves construction equipment

Camping in Zion Easter weekend. There were reports of Superman in the area.

Hiking in Zion

For some reason Beepers loves green peppers and if anyone is using them to cook for dinner watch out it might turn up missing.

Already an expert climber

My Pursuit of Happyness

One of Crystal's friends wrote on her blog many of the things in her life, that define happiness. I think it is amazing at how subjective this subject is, but that is what makes it so fun to talk about. Every person can give the canned answers on what happiness is to them, but when you cut through all of that, it is simply stimulating to find out what makes people truly happy. So here goes....

• Happiness is staring into the eyes of my son and seeing the pure light and energy shining through.
• Happiness is solving the problem that has been puzzling you all day, and jumping out of your chair and yelling for joy!
• Happiness is to know that I never have to be alone.
• Happiness is the smell of Crystal's hair.
• Happiness is the quietness and crispness of the early morning air.
• Happiness is good food and even better company.
• Happiness is eating more Otter Pops than I know I should. ( Just one more. )
• Happiness is fresh bread from a German bakery.

"That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest."

Henry David Thoreau:

No place like home...

Once again today, I proved the point that I am in fact a geek. I saw the following doormat and laughed like a madman.



I want to find one of these for our house, but Crystal said no!

The other day I had a similar experience when I found a Dilbert cartoon particularly funny, and I went to show it to Crystal and realized that she didn't know or want to know about SQL databases and why the joke was funny. I guess that humor is also a byproduct of what we individually learn.



Edit: As requested here is the Dilbert cartoon.

Halo 3 Video

This looks so cool. I really like the bubble shield and trip mine stuff. And being able to do replays in slow motion, pure bragging enjoyment. Awesome. I can't wait to play it.

And yes....I am a geek!

Jurassic Farce

The other day I got home from work and Crystal was cooking dinner. I chased Beepers around for a few minutes and then I needed to look up something on the computer. So Beepers went off and was playing by himself. A few minutes passed and then there was an extremely loud noise that sounded like an explosion followed by static and noise. Crystal screamed and it made me jump in my chair. It only took a few seconds for me to realize that Beepers had turned the volume up all the way on the stereo and then turned on the radio tuner. I jumped out of the chair and ran towards the stereo as a frantic Beepers was running in the opposite direction screaming. I turned off the stereo and went to get Beepers and comfort him. It took a while to calm him down, but he finally stopped crying when Crystal came and comforted him.

The next day I was at work and Crystal called me. She said that she had used the stereo so that Beepers could watch his favorite show, Curious George. As soon as she opened the cabinet that held the stereo, he pointed at it and said, "Scary Dinosaur!". I guess that a dinosaur growl was the only thing that he could associate the noise and fright that he had experienced the day before. It's an interesting connection, but I am sure that he understands it quite well and still has a little bit of fear in him.

Hopefully it will be a while before he gets the courage to mess with the "Scary dinosaur" again.

The Powers of Observation

Often when I go to public places I like to sit and "people watch". That is I like to observe people, when they aren't really aware of it, and can act normally.(No I am NOT a peeping Tom! Out in public situations only.) Sometimes it's crazy what people will do. The most infamous of which is what happens to us when we get inside of our cars. We have a great sense of privacy in cars, which doesn't really exist. There are windows all around and unless you have tinted windows, everyone else can see you. Most often this only amounts to a small amount of embarassment, such as when you have finished a rousing rendition of Weird Al's "White & Nerdy", and you turn your head to notice the person next to you is staring. Some even suffer the worse fate of getting caught trying to dig out that last elusive booger. Luckily, I haven't been a part of or witnessed anything more serious than that.

Anyway, my original point was on observation. I love to watch Beepers and see all of the stuff that he has learned, just by watching. The other day Crystal told me that he was sitting in the living room and was playing with a clothes hanger. He was sliding it across the floor and at the same time starting saying, "Debit Card". I can only guess that he has learned this from countless trips to the grocery store. I guess that I really need to be careful not to pass on some of my lesser qualities to this great observer. So whatever you do, just remember someone might be watching....