From the mouths of babes..

One of the most amazing things about being a parent is having the oppourunity to watch a human mind develop. It absolutly fascinates me. Everything that my 19 month old son does, he is learning. His speech is getting much clearer and now he is hitting what I would call the parrot stage. Everything he hears he trys to repeat. For example whenever he gets dressed he runs all around the house yelling, "Cute!" and waiting for us to dote on him.

Given this situation it is really interesting to find out the words that his mother and I must use often without even realizing it. "Whoa!" (one of his favorites) "Cool", "Neat", "No!"(that one is a given) and so on. None of those are really remarkable, but it fascinates me, by how quickly he learns them and is able to use them in the correct context.

Everyday is a new surprise and I only wish that I could learn as fast and as well as he does. (Let's just hope that he won't pick up on some of the rarely used "undesireables" that are muttered every so often, espically when one plays Halo.)

Nerd, Geek or Dork???

I was on Digg at lunch today and found this test. It is to tell you if you are a geek, nerd or dork. Yes apparently there is a difference. After answering the questions as honestly as possible, here are my results...

Joe Normal

43 % Nerd, 39% Geek, 34% Dork

For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions

You scored less than half in all three, earning you the title of: Joe Normal.
This is not to say that you don't have some Nerd, Geek or Dork inside of you--we all do, and you can see the percentages you have right above. This is just to say that none of those qualities stand out so much as to define you. Sure, you enjoy an episode of Star Trek now and again, and yeah, you kinda enjoyed a few classes back in the day. And, once in a while, you stumble while walking down the street even though there was nothing there to cause you to trip. But, for the most part, you look and act fairly typically, and aren't much of an outcast.
In any event, fairly normal.

THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST


So who would have thought, I am actually normal. All of this time I thought that I was a geek. hmmmm!!!

Halo Again!

Since the completion of school, I have found a few small spaces of free time here and there. I have taken this oppourtunity to play a few games of Halo with my brother-in-law and over 500,000 of my closest friends. That's right I have taken to playing Halo on Xbox live. My brother-in-law got me hooked and now I am one of the mindless rabble.

I don't play alot (by my standards anyway) and I am not particularly very good. But I do enjoy it. When the time comes to play I eagerly don the headset, and bask in the luminescent glow from the T.V. I anxiously await the start of the game, gripping the controller tightly in my sweaty palms. Then it happens, joy the game has begun, and I quickly get killed. Over and over again as my frustration grows, I am erased, sometimes I am successful in taking others with me, sometimes not. (By the way most of the time I am getting schooled by some prepubescant with a severe vulgarity problem.) Then the thought inevitably arises, am I really having fun? Why do I keep submitting myself to this? Frustrating as it is, I can't seem to give up.

This same senario also happens on the occasion when I have the chance to play a round of golf. This morning, was such a time and soon after we started, I found myself wondering, why it is that I really like this game? I am terrible, I loose lots of balls, what is the deal? The only bright side that I can figure is the fact that I am at least outdoors and enjoying the world around me.

I know that I am probably not the only one who these kinds of things happen to and I can only hope that I am drawn to these things because they are difficult. In the difficulty I find the excitement. If the games were too easy then I would be bored and have no need to continue playing. On the flipside, if the games are very difficult then I revel in every accomplishment and savor every victory. I guess deep down this is the philosopy of life, and the reason that we all get out of bed everyday and rise to meet the challenges of life. Carry on my friends...

Oh yeah for a few of you Halo geeks that might read this, here are some lyrics that a good friend of mine wrote to the popular Sound of Music tune, These are a few of my favorite things....Lyrics