Quote of the Day

"The victory condition, the highest goal you can achieve, is to make your children exactly as f***ed up as you are."
-- Jerry Holkins, Penny Arcade

Fitness

One of my goals as a potential father is to instill a desire for physical fitness in the kids. It was never really discussed around our house; my brother and I participated in a few sports in Jr. High, but neither of us were very good at it. The term "athlete" was not in the top 10 words one would think of to describe us. But we were teenage boys, fairly active anyway, and not getting fat on our own, so the subject of fitness was sort of taken for granted.

That's why it came as a surprise to me at the time (but shouldn't have) when I woke up one day at 25 years of age and 50+ pounds overweight. I didn't really do anything about it for another 10 years, and now I deeply regret all that time I wasted as a fat guy, especially during my 20's. So among other things, I'd like to give our kids some pro-fitness ideals; not in the idea that they're going to be participating in varsity-level sports (though it's fine if they do), but with the idea that physical fitness is a thing worth pursuing for its own sake.

I work out regularly (5-6 times a week) doing the P90X and similar workouts, but I've never been much of a runner. I do like getting on the bicycle though, something for which I haven't had any time since moving into our current house 2 years ago. So this past weekend, with the wife-unit off shopping, I decided to dig out the ol' WalMart special and put 10 or 20 miles on it (wound up being 20 -- /flex).

After pumping up the tires and packing all my essentials into a little handlebar bag, I took off in a random direction with no real plan except "go that way until I get tired of it, then turn". It was 95 degrees out, but I'm used to that kind of weather, so that wasn't a big deal. All my time in the gym ensured that the effort didn't really bother me either.

What did bother me though, was my rear end. I didn't realize it was possible to get saddle sores from a bicycle. By the end of the ride I felt like I'd been whacked in the crotch with a 4x4, repeatedly, for the last 2 hours.

Does not make a good seat

I always kind of smirked at my dad's insistence on a big cushy bicycle seat, figuring I was tough enough to handle the bar of hard plastic that comes with the average WalMart special, but I'll be darned if I didn't wave the white flag right then and there. I ran off to the local sporting goods store and found a nice cushy seat and mounted it on the bike straightaway. Apparently my butt has aged less gracefully than the rest of me (in just the last 2 years!), because that new seat is the bee's knees. And after the wife-unit tried it out, she bought one for herself.

As a result of my little adventure though, she's gotten a renewed interest in going for bike rides as a way to spend time together, and I think it will carry forward into the kid-future. I'm still working on just how much I want to play "father as gym coach" and force the little rugrats (well, at least the teens) to get off the couch and do some P90X with the old man. That aside, I can definitely see bicycling -- especially with the distances and difficulty we have in our local area -- as being a good start to communicating the fitness ideal.

Hmm...

Somehow I don't think DHS would endorse this particular method of child-rearing...



...even though it looks like the kid is having a ball.

November 23, 2004

I was up late, reading a random mom blog (see list, bottom right), when it struck me:  My World of WarCraft account is older than your kids.  For some reason that amuses me.

I took the day off work when it launched (see date above) to buy it and start playing.  I got in about an hour or so of play time before the servers crashed and stayed down for pretty much the rest of the day.  It was worth every glorious minute.

Yes, I am a huge nerd (see photo).  I am already torturing my wife with talk of getting the kids to play Dungeons & Dragons with me.  I think she's planning to soundproof the living room so she doesn't have to listen to it.

I realize that there's a pretty solid probability that the kids won't dig D&D.  To my horror, they might actually be one of those other types... the kind of folks that I try to avoid.

You know...

Sports fans.

I'll hang myself from that bridge when I come to it.  But in the meantime, I'll sit and daydream about little Steve or John or Billy or Katie or Jen or Alicia or whatever their names are...

...sitting around a table laden with miniatures and maps and polyhedral dice...

("Dad!  Tell him to leave my dice alone!  He's gonna suck the luck right out of them.")

("Stop touching your sister's dice.  And would it kill you to print out a new character sheet from time to time?")

...being huge nerds with their dad.  Co-nerds.  Slaying dragons and fighting wizards and torturing mom with talk of experience points and trips to the game store.

Or if they're not into role-playing games, maybe I'll be able to build a rapport over comic books.  As long as they follow the house rules and only read Marvel, of course.  DC Comics will be cause for time-out.

("What is this?  Green Lantern?  Go to your room!")

("Aw, man!  Tired of reading about mutants...")

At the very least I should be able to rope them into Words with Friends.

Conversation in the Office

Me: "OK, maybe six is a tad excessive. But four... four is the sweet spot."

Boss, walking in: "Four? Kids? Are you nuts?"

Me: "No, I'm talking about how many monitors one needs on their computer. For kids, the sweet spot is three."

Boss: "WRONG. Never have more kids than adults. You're outnumbered, like General Custer. The only way that changes is if one of the kids is an adult."

Me: "So what's an adult, for these purposes?"

Boss: "Eighteen years old."

Me: "Oh, so since your son just started college, you're getting ready to start on another one."

Boss: "No way in hell. My daughter starts driving next week, and after that, I don't have to be responsible for taking anybody anywhere. You think I'm going to screw that up?"

Me: *laughing*

Boss, to coworker I was originally talking to: "Tell him. Most of our lives as Dads is spent driving someone somewhere to do something. Nothing but driving kids here and there and everywhere."

Me: "Sounds awesome."

Boss, drily: "Yeah. Awesome."

Parenting 101...

... as told by the writers of Cracked.com.

5 Ways to Avoid Your Terrible Parents' Mistakes

Seriously bad language. You've been warned.

It does, in its rather crude way, highlight a lot of what keeps me awake at night. It's not that my parents were terrible parents, it's that I fear making huge mistakes like terrible parents do. I'm probably not unique in this regard, but I've got a lot of time to think about it since I'm not simultaneously in the midst of trying to be a parent while worrying about the quality of parent that I am. It leaves a lot of cycles free for wondering just how badly I'm going to screw it up.

I wonder if Calvinists are allowed to listen to this...