Making Chainmail

I've decided to make a set of chainmail. Ever since high school, I've known people who had either made or were making a set and I'd always wanted to give it a try. Finally, last weekend, I went and bought the equipment and materials that I would need to get started.

I've read about how to do it extensively and it was just a matter of getting started. Here's what you need to make chainmail:
- Wire. I chose 14 gauge aluminum wire. I plan to also get some copper, brass and maybe colored aluminum wire in the future to add some color and style to the armor.
- Wire cutters. Choose good, strong cutters with a nice grip. You'll be using them a lot to cut the rings and you want something that will last a long time and be comfortable to use.
- Steel Rod. You'll use this to wrap the wire around to make the rings. I bought a 4' long rod, but I might suggest a 3 or 2 foot rod instead as it can be hard to wrap the wire by yourself with that long of a rod. My rod is 3/8" in diameter, but I've read about people using other diameters.
- 2"x4" board. You'll build a contraption with the boards to hold the rod while you're wrapping the wire around it. I had some scraps in my garage that I used to build mine.
- Drill. You'll probably need this to build your contraption and also to help you wrap the wire around the rod.
- Gloves. You'll want at least one glove to protect your hand while wrapping the wire. Don't use gloves that have a rubber grip as it will stick to the wire and could get your finger stuck in the wrapped wire. Believe me that this hurts a lot.

I'm not going to go through all the steps, there are tons of tutorials out there from people with more experience. If you're interested, go check some of them out.

I started with the plan to just make a bracelet for my daughter, but it turned out to be so easy to make a chain that I just kept on going. My first attempt at wrapping the wire didn't go very well, I almost cut my finger off when it got stuck in between the wire and the steel rod when my gloves stuck to the wire and pulled my finger in. Ouch. Also, I had trouble keeping a constant gap, but I didn't have to throw away too much of my first attempt. I made 103 rings in my first attempt. I haven't had a second attempt yet, but I think I'll get to 115-130 or so rings when I do.

Here are shots of my progress. Stay tuned for updates!

My wire wrapping contraption

My first attempt made 103 rings.

My first two sets of five rings.

Connecting those two sets.

My first chain!

Basegolf

I've been trying to get my kids exposure to baseball by hitting whiffle balls and tennis balls to them at the park. Well, the other day they weren't interested in running around and chasing balls, so they decided to play at the park. I didn't want to do that, so I started hitting the whiffle ball and tennis ball around the open space at the park.

After a while I started to make a game of it. I hit the tennis ball as far as I could, then tried to get the whiffle ball to it in as few hits as possible. It hit me that this goal was the same as golf, so I started making a few rules and came up with Basegolf.








Here's what you need to play:
1 baseball bat
1 whiffle ball per player
1 tennis ball

I'm using an aluminum bat, I don't know how a wooden bat would effect the game since I don't own one. If you try the game out with a wooden bat, let me know how it works out!

The rules are simple and designed for solo or group play.  The game is best played in a large space with some obstacles, but probably not a heavily wooded area.

You start the game in one corner of the area you intend to play in.  Make sure all players know what the out of bounds, or foul territory will be as if they hit a foul ball, it will cost them a stroke.  You may decide, however makes sense to you, who goes first. That person will take the tennis ball and hit it as far or close as they want.  The tennis ball is the "hole" that the players must hit their whiffle balls to.  Players take turns "teeing off" by throwing their whiffle ball into the air and hitting it towards the hole.  Then, the players farthest away from the hole take turns hitting until everyone has "sunk" their whiffle ball.  A whiffle ball counts as getting into the hole when it is within a bat's length of the tennis ball.

Once everyone has finished the hole, the next player will hit the tennis ball from the point it landed for the prior hole.  If the tennis ball is in the middle of the play area, and all players agree (or a judge if you have one), the hitting player may chuck their whiffle ball in any direction and hit the tennis ball from where their whiffle ball lands instead of from the spot of the prior hole.

Putting: You can putt by leaving your whiffle ball on the ground and hitting it with the bat.  I've considered making a rule about how you can't putt unless you're on the "green", but I haven't decided what the definition of the green would be.  If you have an idea, leave it in the comments.

Foul balls: As I mentioned before, the play area has a boundary.  Balls hit outside of this boundary are considered foul and cost the player a stroke.  They will drop the ball at the boundary where the ball left fair territory for their next stroke.  This changes a little for the tennis ball.  Instead of a plain drop, the player must make an underhand throw from the boundary.  This still causes the player a stroke.

Whiffs, Strikes and Biffs: If you don't know, a whiff is when a player misses hitting the ball when they throw it up to hit it.  This is a strike.  When you get three strikes, it costs you a stroke.  A Biff is when you hit the ball and it goes less than 10 feet.  This is a strike and you must try to hit the ball from where you started.

Finishing the game: The game is done when the players want it to be done.  The players can agree beforehand on a number of holes, or you could play the standard 9 or 18 holes like in golf.

Scoring: Count the number of strokes it takes each player to sink their whiffle ball in the hole.  At the end of the game, the player with the fewest strokes wins.

Par: I consider Par an optional rule as it can be hard for a group to agree on what the par should be on a particular hole.  It would be easier if you have a judge, I guess.

Strategies: I've considered a few strategies as I was playing by myself.  One, hit the tennis ball as close to foul territory as you can without being foul.  This has risk, but could be good if an opponent hits foul trying to get to the hole.  Two, utilize obstacles to make getting to the hole harder.  Also risky, but if you're confident in your skills, might be worth it.  Three, bunting or "pitching" can be a good tactic when you're too close to swing away and too far to putt.  Leave any other strategies that you come up with in the comments!

I've played Basegolf a few times by myself, but I think it would be fun with a partner or group.  One warning, I've already broken one whiffle ball in half with my aluminum bat, so that's something you've got to watch out for.  Try out the game and let me know if you enjoy it!

Geekonablog News

I can't believe that I haven't posted since April 23rd.  It doesn't seem like it was that long ago, but I guess that I've let things go around here for a while.

Well, let me tell you what's been going on in my life.  In April, I started on a new team at work, which I mentioned in my last post.  We're creating a new web page configuration app for the new web platform that Best Buy (me included) has been working on for over a year.  You may have noticed changes to Best Buy's product pages, I had a hand in that work and now I'm on the team that is going to allow more pages to go to the new cloud-based platform by having a tool to configure those pages that isn't based on the old platform.  I know that this description is a little hand-wavey, but I'm not sure how much I should be sharing.  I figure that just mentioning I'm doing this work is safe enough.

Since April, my family and I have gone on two vacations.  The first one was with my family and...my family.  Meaning the family that I started with my wife and the family I was born into (mom, dad, brother, sister and her family).  We stayed at a cabin that my sister found online.  It was awesome!  Fishing every day, hanging out, playing games, relaxing.

The second vacation was camping at the Hayward, WI KOA.  We stayed there three days and two nights with some friends.  I've stayed at that KOA and the Hixton, WI, and I would recommend either of them for anyone looking for a good time.  They have plenty of activities and they are reasonably priced.  We stayed in a small cabin (basically four walls and beds).  When the kids grow up a little, we'll probably try it with a tent.

Other than that, it's summer, so some more fishing, swimming, working in the yard, etc.  Busy, busy.  I have missed writing here and writing stories.  I've been wanting to get back to some of my serial stories (Uroth, Candy Land, maybe even Thaw Deal).  I've also wanted to do more Chuck Wendig challenges, but haven't had any weekend time to do those.  Look for something (hopefully) soon.

In the non-fiction realm, I think I might write a post about Pair Programming.  I used to be against the concept, but my new team does it and I think that I can see the benefits, but more on that when I write that post.

Table Top Day

Along with millions of other gaming enthusiasts, I celebrated International Table Top Day recently.  I love playing games of all types and I've been playing board games since I was little.  When TableTop began on Geek & Sundry, I loved it.  I already liked Wil Wheaton a lot, but having him play some of my favorite games with other geeky celebrities was awesome.

I'll be the first to admit that I don't play board games as much as I'd like, but I think that's part of the point to International Table Top Day.  The point is to take time out of our busy lives to celebrate games and to get together with our friends to play our favorite games or to try new games with new people.

My wife and I decided to stop by The Source Comics and Games for Table Top Day because I'd heard that John Kovalic was planning on being there.  We went there and played a new game that we ended up liking enough to buy.  It's called "Hirelings: The Ascent".  It's kind of the reverse idea of the typical "dungeon delving" game.  You play as one of the hirelings of the heroes that delved into the dungeon and you're trying to escape after the party has all died.  You have the heroes' equipment and you use it to evade the monsters and get out of the dungeon before the dragon's fireball catches up to you.  It was pretty fun and we got to play with the game's creator.  I think we'll try it out with our five year old pretty soon.

The highlight, of course, of Table Top Day to me was meeting John Kovalic.  I've been following him on Twitter pretty much since I joined it and on Facebook for quite some time.  I love his art, Munchkin and Dork Tower.  Meeting him was awesome and he was so nice.  We chatted a bit about the game he was playing, about Apples to Apples and Munchkin.  He told my wife and I about a Disney version of Apples to Apples that we're going to try to find to play with our kids.  Plus, I got to get my picture taken with him AND he signed our copy of Munchkin and Apples to Apples!

Table Top (the show) has increased my already great love of games.  It's made me aware of games that I didn't know about before or made me interested in games that I wouldn't have thought I'd be interested in.  Table Top Day has done the same thing for me with a special interactive component.  I went to a great store that I don't go to often enough and bought a game that I tried there.  It was a great Table Top Day and I'm looking forward to the next one!

Inside Apples to Apples

The cover of my newly signed Munchkin box!

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little... Pancake?

I don't often post about my personal life, but I decided that this was too cute and funny not to share.  My daughter, who is now 5, likes me to sing "silly songs" at night for bedtime.  Her favorite song is "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Pancake", though sometimes she suggests different objects for me to sing about.  For example, Benny (her brother), Daddy, Teddy, Miss Fishy (her fish, who is a boy, btw), etc.

Here are the lyrics for "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Pancake":

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Pancake

How many can that little man make?

Up above the plate so high

With some syrup in the sky

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Pancake

How many can that little man make?

This song often starts a short discussion about how many the man can actually make.  Most of the time the answer is 10,000; which he sometimes shares with his friends, unless they are dead or he wants to eat them all himself.  When he does eat 10,000 pancakes himself, he will explode, of course.  That many pancakes is too many for one person to eat, obviously.

Just a few of the 10,000 pancakes.

These discussions are very fun and show her creative and storytelling side.  They remind me of "Written By A Kid".  I can imagine the man making 10,000 pancakes and getting ready to deliver them to his friends to either find them dead, or to decide to eat them all himself and explode.  Sometimes her stories vary wildly, too.  He once fed them all to everyone in town, another time he fed them to all the animals.

Her creativity and ability to tell a story about what she's thinking about make me one proud daddy.  I can't wait to see what she's going to come up with next.

DIY Climbing Wall

In our backyard we have a pretty nice playset that has been estimated to be at least ten years old and maybe even older.  As such, some parts of the playset are in need of repair or replacement.  Last year, we re-stained much of the structure (some of which looked like it hadn't been stained before) and tightened all the bolts.  This year we had our sights much higher.

The old ramp

The ramp into the playset was starting to fall apart.  Years of water and ant damage were starting to get us worried about the safety of the ramp.  Since I've always liked rock walls, we decided to replace the ramp with a rock wall entrance to the playset.  For our kids' birthdays (both in July), my mother-in-law ordered a rock wall from the original manufacturers of our playset.  It cost $600 and didn't quite fit our playset since it's so old.  We decided to return it (the installer took it back instead of installing it) and decided to build our own.  Along the way, I learned a lot about what to do and what not to do.  Hopefully, this helps some of you if you are ever in this situation.


I started with a basic design in mind.  I would have two 4x4 supporting posts and several boards to mount the climbing holds onto.  I bought:

• 2 - 8' long 4x4 posts
• 2 - 8' long 2x12 boards
• 2 - 8" long carriage bolts w/washers, nuts and caps
• a 1/2" drill bit (I didn't have one that big before)
• sandpaper for my sander (I had run out)
• a 4" paintbrush for staining
• climbing wall hand holds

All of this stuff cost less than $150.  The other supplies I already had were:

• a circular saw
• a small sander
• wood screws
• a drill (with drill bits)
• wood stain
• a hammer
• a small level

Day 1 - Sunday evening.  First, we went shopping and bought the wood.  When we got home, I started by measuring the opening that the old ramp was waking up and cutting the 2x12 boards to just under that width.  Next, I measured the height that I wanted the posts to be and I cut those out as well.  I started sanding the boards and posts, but ran out of daylight.


Day 2 - Monday evening.  We took my kids to get the bolts and handholds.  Getting the handholds was the hardest part.  First we went to REI because I know someone who built a climbing wall and they had gotten their holds there, but apparently REI recently stopped carrying them in there stores (sold online only).  After that we called: Fleet Farm, Gander Mountain, Home Depot and finally, Menards.  Generally, I'm not a big fan of Menards, but they did save us from having to order the holds online and having to wait to finish building the wall.  So, we bought the hand holds and bolts there and went home.  I finished sanding the boards and put a first coat of stain on the boards and posts.  The stain is very quick to dry, so I got to start assembling the wall.  I used wood glue and wood screws to put attach the boards to the posts.

The wall after the second coat of stain

Day 3 - Tuesday evening.  I started by putting a second coat of stain on the assembled wall.  After that coat dried, I removed the old ramp from the playset.  It was then that I discovered the colony of ants living in the base of the ramp.  After the ramp was out of the way, I dug out some of the rocks where the bottom of the wall would rest and put the wall in the opening.  I drilled the holes for the carriage bolts through the wall's posts and the posts on the playset.  After securing the bolts, my wife and I started deciding where the hand holds would go.  Attaching the handholds was very frustrating.  The screws that came with the holds were the worst quality that I'd ever worked with.  They would strip almost immediately if I put any more than the minimum amount of torque that my drill had.  If you have a choice, avoid climbing wall handholds made by PlayStar, Inc. out of Janesville, WI.  Or, use different screws as they ones provided are horrible.  Once the handholds were attached and secured, I tested each of them by briefly hanging some of my weight on them.  None of them budged, so I okayed a test climb for my daughter who was eagerly waiting to use the wall.  You can see the results, below.

Daughter, Kate, first time climbing wall

Overall, I'm very pleased with how this turned out and very satisfied to have saved $450 over the price of the manufacturer's climbing wall.  Plus, I always enjoy building things myself and getting to use my power tools is always fun.

Attached and awaiting hand holds

Attaching hand holds

After handholds attached

Random Pictures

In honor of having my best month on the blog ever (in terms of page views), I've decided to post some cool pictures.  If you're not interested in this kind of stuff, feel free to skip it.

The first item isn't a picture, but rather a video of my daughter signing the Mahna Mahna song with me.  Every now and then I hear her signing it, which means that I've raised her right.

This picture is Link from Link to the Past made out of Perler beads.  I've made quite a few 8-bit characters from them, but this is one of my favorites.

This is a portrait that Kate, my daughter, drew of me.  Pretty accurate, I think.

My wife and I saw this deer in our backyard the other day.  Pretty awesome!

This is a small walking trail near our house.  Kate had just said, "We're on an adventure!"

I was behind this Lotus in traffic the other day.  You don't realize how small they are until you're close to them.  I don't think that I'd even fit inside!

These are my kids looking at the penguins at the Minnesota Zoo.

More Perler bead characters that I've made.

Hope you enjoy these pics.  I'm working on a story that I'll post here in the next few weeks, or, if Chuck Wendig posts another interesting story challenge, maybe you'll see on of those on here soon.

Goodbye 2011!

Well, these are the last few minutes of 2011, so I thought that (like most other bloggers) it was time to write up a year-end blog post.  Considering that I don't read most year-end blog posts, I don't expect a lot of people to read this one, but I'll continue nonetheless.

This year has been a great year for me and my family.  My wife and I took a great vacation, we bought a new house, I got a new job, and we got a new car.  That's just the short list.  I've written about each of these things in this blog.

Of course, there's always some bad that comes with the good.  This year, my wife found out that she was Hyperthyroid.  She went in and got a radiation treatment to calm down her thyroid.  It turned out to have calmed it down too much and turned her Hypothyroid.  So, now she has to take a pill every day for the rest of her life.  It's been difficult for us and particularly for her.  Of course, it could be worse, so we'll get through this.

For myself, like I said, I got a new job.  So far, I'm happy with the change.  Also, I've been doing this thing called Story a Week.  I've been a little lax during the holidays, but so far, I've written 40 stories and I LOVE doing it.  Most of my stories fall into part of one of a few story arcs that I've been working on.  That wasn't my plan when I started the project, but overall I'm happy with what I've done.  In my opinion, the experience has really improved my writing.  It has also allowed me to share with you all some of the stories that I've had floating around in my head.

So, now's the part where I make some resolutions.  It's also the part I hate the most about New Years.  But, it's a tradition, and I do like the sentiment of it.  So, here's a list of resolutions from me:
-I will finish a novel this year.  I have a few started, and I could probably turn some of my storylines from Story a Week into novels.  I'd also like this to be separate from my attempt at NaNoWriMo this year.
-I will get healthier this year.  I've already started this by joining the YMCA and I've even gone a few times in the two weeks we've had the membership.  I have medium-high cholesterol and I'm a little bigger than I'd like to be, so that's pretty much why I'd like to do that.
-I will be less crabby this year.  I've been turning into a crabby old man and I need to stop that before it's too late.
-I will attempt NaNoWriMo again.  I can't do much worse than the 3,000 words that I got to this year.  I think that I know what I need to do differently; I need to do my research first and write about something that flows easier.

I think these are attainable goals.  Plus, this year I've documented them on my blog, so I have more motivation to stick with them.  Hopefully.

Return to Java

 If you read my blog, you'll know that I just started a new job last week.  The new job is using Java and I've spent the last week getting re-familiar with the language and tools.  It's been a week of reading a lot of text books and using Eclipse heavily for the first time in several years.

The first thing that I've noticed again is how versatile Java is.  This week, I've played with some server side code, technical layer type code (API to a database) and client side code (web servlets, okay, not really client side, but web side anyway).  I get more and more excited about using Java again every day, even every hour it seems sometimes.  I've already got big plans to build a game engine and other stuff like that using Java.

When I started with Wyde, I had those same big ideas, but it just wasn't viable with the tools available.  First, just to develop with the IDE, you need a license.  That's fine if I'm using my work laptop, but I don't think that Wyde would have liked me getting a limitless license on my personal computer.  Plus, I'd have to compile it down to C++ using Visual Studio, which I didn't have access to on my own PC.

Man, Java is so much easier.  The best IDE (Eclipse) is free.  Most of the other good tools and frameworks are free.  Google has server space for your apps that is free.  Once again, I can't state how exciting this is.

Now, don't get me wrong, working for Wyde was one of the best experiences in my life.  I learned a lot about projects, business, insurance and myself during my time there.  I know that I can lead teams, run and participate in projects and design components in a larger application.  All of that I learned at Wyde.  Even if my knowledge of Wyde's proprietary language isn't particularly useful, the technical, personal and management skills that I learned there are invaluable to growing my career.

I think that I'm getting a little off topic, so I'd like to conclude this post by giving you all a link to my AppSpot and saying that you should check back there often.  Right now it's just a little "Hello world" app, but soon it will be so much more.  I'm planning something big that I hope you all will enjoy.  I will, of course, keep updating my blog with updates to the app that I'm building, but more frequent updates will come from my Twitter or Facebook pages.

Job Change

Those of you who know me personally probably have heard the news already, but here it goes: I've started a new job!  This time it's for real, unlike last time.  :)

The decision to leave the company that I'd been with for nearly five years was a difficult one.  There have been many frustrations over the years there, but the number one reason that I chose to leave (at least at the start of the process) was travel.  I've been travelling almost constantly for work for five years now.  I've had a couple of slow periods where I would get to stay home for a month or two, but overall, I'd say that I have spent about fifty percent of my time with Wyde on the road.  By itself, travelling isn't that bad.  I do enjoy visiting new places and meeting new people, but with a family (and especially two small children), travelling is very taxing.  Now, don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that my family makes it hard to travel; I'm saying travelling makes it hard on my family.  I just couldn't live with it any longer.

The other thing to understand is that I wasn't looking for a new job.  One of the things that I hate the most in life is job hunting!  When I graduated from college, it took me ten months to find a job in my field!  Ten months!  Granted, that was at a particularly tough part of the recession, but the hardest part is getting your hopes up and then being rejected.  I couldn't count how many times I heard, "we're very interested," or, "we'll be in touch," or any other saying that leaves a candidate with hope just to have it all come to nothing.  A couple of times I had been told that they wouldn't give me a formal offer right away, but that I would get one within the week, but never heard back from them.  Well, I'm getting a little off topic here, so I digress.

My point is that I wasn't looking.  I've been getting a call from headhunters about once a quarter for the past year or two and I would go through the motions, maybe have an interview or two and then not hear anything.  I took it all in stride, not getting my hopes up for any of it.  This last time, about a month ago, I had another head hunter call that went a little differently.  The recruiter handed me right off to the interested company and they wanted to interview me right away and in person.  I was, unfortunately, out of town, but they were cool and we scheduled for the next week.  They acted fast and got me an offer the same week that I had the second interview.  Now, I'm not going to go into the details of what happened next, but there was a counter offer and then a counter-counter offer and I ended up accepting the new company's counter-counter offer.  That's another thing that I wasn't trying to do (get a bidding war over me going), but it's nice to feel wanted!

So, what's different now that wasn't when I'd gotten other interviews?  Well, for one, the new company has a different outlook on what it takes to be a good developer.  They feel, similarly to how I feel, that if you know the theory/concepts of object-oriented programming that a language is easy to learn.  It's surprising to me how most other companies don't grasp that.  I hadn't done Java programming since college and this company was willing to take the risk based on my interview and hire me as a Java developer!  I was amazed!  Another reason is that I am more experienced now than I was out of college.  Duh, right?  Well, I didn't really fully realize that until I started talking to this company and they asked me certain questions that a newbie might not know about.

You may have noticed that I haven't mentioned the name of my new company.  The reason is that I'm not sure how they would take me writing a blog about this whole thing.  Maybe after I've worked here for some time I'll share with you all that information, but for now I'll keep it quiet.

Another main benefit to switching jobs is that I get to work using Java again.  I've been reading training manuals now for a while and the more I read the more I remember why I liked Java.  It's also made me realize how important a good design is to having a successful product.  I'm just going to leave it at that.

So, it's exciting news!  At the same time that I'm sad about leaving Wyde and leaving the friends that I made there, I'm happy for this new opportunity to return to Java and do something different.  It's a good opportunity to grow my skillset and to see how other companies do this consulting thing.  Also, yay for no travel! :P

PS: It still amazes me that Word likes "travelling", but Firefox wants it to be "traveling".

Speaking Out With My Geek Out

As you all know, I'm a geek.  I wear that label proudly.  The word is in the name of this blog, after all.  In high school, being a geek or a nerd was a bad thing.  I didn't have a problem with my status, but I know a lot of people who did.  I've written a couple of posts in the past about being a geek or a nerd.  You can read about the differences (if any), and my own growth as a geek.

The reason that I'm writing another post about my own geekiness is for the Speak Out With Your Geek Out event.  I gave a couple links in my last post, but here they are again.  I think that geeks are quite vocal about our pursuits already, but I think that this event is designed to have us unite in our passions.  Passion for our hobbies/jobs/etc. is part of what makes us geeks.  Some put being smarter than other people as being a part of being a geek or a nerd, but I don't like that.  It puts us on a pedestal that I don't always think applies to all of us.  In fact, I think that there is a little geek in all of us.  Isn't there something that you are passionate about?  Is there something that you're willing to argue about for hours?  Then you might have a little geek in you.

A lot of people would either take offense to that, or let that bother them.  I say, own it!  Be proud of yourself!  I value my geekiness and it's part of what makes me, well, me.  I think that I've had pretty good self-esteem throughout most of my life and I think that it's good to feel good about every part of you.  I own my geekiness and I think that this is an integral part of the event.  Speak out with your geek out!

That brings up why geeks, in general, are so vocal about their hobbies/interests.  We're a passionate folk.  We love what we love and like to share it with others.  Sometimes this is received well, but other times we are derided for it.  This whole event was inspired by an article that a blogger, who will go unnamed here, wrote that derided a Magic player for his hobby.  Now, I've been known to be a little judgmental in my old age (btw, GET OFF MY LAWN), but I try not to be.  You shouldn't judge others by their perfectly healthy, normal and legal activities.  If it makes them happy, why is it your business to judge them for it?

That being said, I think that being a geek is becoming more mainstream.  I don't want to sound like a hipster here (I was a geek before it was cool), but I might end up doing that.  With the rise of superhero, popular science fiction and fantasy movies, things that were typically geeky are getting more popular.  Look at vampires.  True blood, Twilight, etc. are turning something that was the subject of geeky literature and roleplaying games into a mainstream money making machine.  And that's what it's all about.  The movie and television industries have found a way to turn these items into profitable ventures.  I, for one, applaud them for it.  I'm happy to have them producing fantasy/science fiction/superhero movies because they'll be better produced and better quality.

So, to wrap up this post.  If you're a geek, be proud of it!  If you don't think you're a geek, look within yourself and see your inner geek.  Don't shy away from it, accept it.  You might see that you like to identify with the geek culture that is evolving.

PS: Blogger, geekiness should be a word.

Critical Hit - MC Frontalot Concert Review

When I heard that MC Frontalot was coming to town, I was so excited.  I've enjoyed his music for years and I'd wanted to see him for quite some time.  Front was the first nerdcore act that I came in contact with through the GeekDad Hiptrax podcast.  The song was "Wallflower".  After that I soon found "This Old Man" and "It's Pitch Dark".  I quickly became a lifetime fan.

My wife agreed to go with me, which turned out to be totally awesome.  She was great company and enjoyed the atmosphere and the music.  We got there early and waited at the Spring Street Tavern (the club was in the basement).  We spotted Front walking around, which was cool and unexpected.

As the door time approached, I got more and more excited and the bar got more and more crowded.  They started allowing people down the stairs and Janice and I were second in line.  We paid our entrance fees (only $7 each!).  Right in the door was the merch table and I bought Solved! (before it's official release!).  I was excited to listen to it.

The first act came on a little later.  It was a band named "Trendy Trendy Space Vegans".  I originally thought they were called "Trendy Tranny Space Vegans", which fit into their attire (the sax player wore a bra on stage).  Their sound wasn't bad, and they did have a sax player, which I liked.  The lead singer had a lot of vocal range.  I'm not about to go out and buy all their music, but I'd listen to a couple of their songs if I happened upon them.






The next act was called "Valley Meadows".  They were an unlikely rap duo.  The shorter gentleman is a substitute teacher (I know because they rapped about it).  We didn't get much information on the other guy (except that he's divorced, they rapped about that too).  I thought their flow was pretty good, but they were rapping over borrowed beats and didn't write enough lyrics to last the entire song.  A couple of times they had to ask the DJ to cut the beat off after they'd finished their rapping.  I liked their rhymes and if they get their act a little more polished, they could put on a really good show.

The next act was Brandon Patton.  I'd heard the name before, but I didn't really remember where.  It struck me though when he took the stage that Brandon Patton was none other than Bl4k Lotus, MC Frontalot's bassist.  He was the real surprise of the concert too.  He played a set with an acoustic guitar and it seriously rocked.  He got the crowd into it with a Paula Abdul song of all things.  When he played a drinking song by the Pogues, the place practically vibrated with energy.  It was amazing.  I don't know how he did it; he played his own set and then went on to play a full set with MC Frontalot.  The man must have a ton of energy.

Front's set started out with a high energy version of "Tongue-Clucking Grammarian".  The way that the entire band got into the music was hypnotizing.  It was clear that the four of them are doing something that they love and truly enjoying performing the music.  They played three or four songs from Solved! after that with an older Front song or two mixed in.  I don't stay up late all that often, so before the MC Frontalot set began, I was getting pretty tired, but all of that melted away when they took the stage.  The band's energy was contagious and the whole set was a lot of fun.  When they played "It's Pitch Dark" and "Goth Girls", the crowd (me included, of course) really got into it.  It was truly amazing.  They finished their set with a two song encore featuring "I Heart Fags", which was dedicated to Minneapolis because we were recently named the gayest metropolis in the country; and the PAX Theme.  They merged in some elements from another theme quite popular with the geek crowd, but I'm not going to spoil it for those of you who might be attending PAX this year.  Let's just say that it sent shivers down my spine when they started playing it.

I've been to concerts before, but mostly in large venues with larger than life bands like Metallica and Megadeth.  The smallest venue I've seen a band in was when my wife, a friend and I went to Reel Big Fish at the Quest club in Minneapolis.  It was a two-story club with a large stage and large floor.  It was also a great concert, but none of the other concerts I've been to had the intimate feeling that the Frontalot concert did.  My wife and I managed to stand front (no pun intended) and center.  I have no trouble in saying that this was the best concert that I've ever been to.  I don't think that I'll ever go to another coliseum or festival show again, but I'd happily go see any of my favorite bands at a small club again.  MC Frontalot definitely scored a Critical Hit against Minneapolis last Friday.

Hawaii Vacation

What can I say about Oahu except that it is totally awesome! Well, lot's of things, really. This post will recount some of our vacation and tell you a little about the island.

As many of you know, my wife and I recently went on a vacation to Hawaii, in particular the island of Oahu. Oahu is mostly known for being the home of Honolulu and Pearl Harbor, but it definitely has a lot more to share with visitors than just that. I will talk about that more below. It was my first time to Hawaii, but Janice had been to Maui some time ago, just after we had started dating, so I didn't tag along.

Below I'll talk about some of the activities we did (I would recommend ALL of them), and some of the things we didn't do for various reasons. There will be a couple of pics for your perusal. My wife planned most of our adventures using Go Hawaii. Some of them we just planned on our own and they turned out to be a lot of fun that way too.

So, we arrived on the evening of Friday, February 4th, just in time to see the sunset from the airport. Needless to say, we didn't do much that night. The next day we had our submarine ride planned for that afternoon, so we spent the morning on the beach. Our tour was with Atlantis Submarine, which Janice found on the Go Hawaii site. We ordered online ahead of time and got a discount that way. The submarine tour with Atlantis Tours was totally awesome! We saw several artificial reefs created by the University of Hawaii and Atlantis themselves. There were a lot of fish and we even saw a sea turtle. The tour guides told us that they have seen dolphins and whales on the tour before.




Sunday, we planned to do Pearl Harbor. They sell tours for this, but we decided to forego that and do it on our own. We took the public transit bus from the hotel, which only took forty-five minutes or so (we stayed in Waikiki). Once there, we were free to roam about at our leisure, which wouldn't have been true if we had purchased a guided tour. Some of the tour was a bit sad; there's a video about the attack and the whole monument is a somber place. The Arizona is still leaking fuel oil into the harbor even after almost seventy years. We visited the Arizona Memorial, the Bowfin (a WWII submarine) and the USS Missouri (where the surrender of Japan was signed). If you know me, you know that I love history, so I had a ton of fun at Pearl Harbor.




Monday was another ad hoc day. We decided that we would rent a car and drive to the North Shore of Oahu. When I mapped it out, the shortest route was straight through the middle of the island to the North Shore, but when we picked up the car, the guy from Enterprise who processed our rental told us that we should drive up the east side of the island on our way to the North Shore. He said it would take several hours (and it did), but that it would be worth it (and it soooo was). He gave us a map of Oahu with a route colored in and we followed it almost exactly. It was an amazing and utterly beautiful drive. Along the way we stopped at the side of the road countless times to take in the view and take pictures. Once we reached the North Shore, we stopped at Waimea Valley and swam under a waterfall (the water was cold, but worth it!), then we stopped at a town called Haleiwa where we ate dinner and shopped a little. It was getting dark, so the during drive back through the mountains to Honolulu and Waikiki we didn't see much, but that was alright, we'd seen quite a lot of beautiful scenery that day. It was hard to believe that we could drive one hundred and seventy miles on a small island like that!


For Tuesday evening we had a Luau planned. We returned the rental car in the morning and spent the rest of the morning on the beach. The Luau was purchased online in advance, so we got a discount. They picked us up at a shuttle stop in Waikiki and drove us out to the west shore where the Paradise Cove Luau would happen. It was a lot of fun, the guide on the bus was hilarious. They had fun activities planned and a big buffet too.






We didn't have an activity planned for Wednesday, so we decided to buy Janice some snorkel gear and head out to Hanauma Bay. The bay is amazing! It was formed from a volcanic crater and has a natural reef in it that the state lets people explore snorkeling or using scuba gear. They have snorkel gear for rent (which I used since I wear glasses). We took two disposable underwater cameras with us (which we used up within an hour). This is another thing that you can do with a tour group, but there's a city bus directly to the bay from Waikiki, so we decided to save a lot of money by doing it ourselves. We had such a good time snorkeling that we came back Friday morning before we had to leave for the airport.




Our Thursday activity was the one that I was looking forward to the most ahead of time. We purchased a Bike & Hike tour online ahead of time (for a nice discount). Basically, they drive you up one of the mountains and you coast down on a mountain bike. Honestly, it was beautiful and exhilarating, but there wasn't much pedaling involved, which kinda disappointed me. For the hike part, they drove us up to the edge of a forest reserve and we hiked up a trail that the company maintains through the jungle. It was a difficult hike, but totally awesome! At the middle of the hike was a two hundred foot tall waterfall!


Oahu is a beautiful island with a ton of activities to do. We didn't do nearly everything that we might have while we were there. One of the things that we missed was the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet, which our Luau guide told us about. Janice had wanted to go, but it's only a couple of days a week and we couldn't fit it in. I had also wanted to visit Chinatown, but it was another thing that we just couldn't fit in. The Honolulu Zoo also called out to me, but they didn't seem to have anything special that I couldn't see at other zoos, so we skipped it. There's also the Polynesian Cultural Center, which I'd heard a lot about, but after listening to some tourists and locals (and seeing the price), we decided to skip it.

It was a very good trip and one of the best vacations I've ever had, and not just because we didn't have the kids with us. I look forward to returning to Hawaii one day, though we'll probably visit one of the other islands instead since I hear that each one is unique.

First External Plug!

Hello dear readers. I just discovered that I've been plugged on one of the blogs that I read regularly, Hipster Please! I'm very excited about it. You can read the post here! Z, you rock!

Favorite Websites

I haven't posted in quite a while. My wife and I have welcomed our son into the world and now that it's been over two months since he's come, I feel ready to renew my interest in continuing this blog. I'd like to apologize for my absence and I hope that it doesn't detract from any enjoyment anyone has had from reading my blog.
As my first back to blogging post, I thought that I'd give a quick rundown of some of my favorite websites that I regularly visit.

Geek Dad Blog - A Wired blog that I found that talks a lot about being a geek and being a parent (they have a lot of female contributors, regardless of the name). A lot of the posts I find really interesting and many are direct corollaries with my own life as a geekparent.

Hipster Please - Hipsterplease is a website I found after I subscribed to the GeekDad podcast. Every other GeekDad podcast episode is dedicated to geeky music. This website is the blog for one of the contributors of the GeekDad hiptrax podcast episodes. It shares a lot about music and most of it is geeky music.

Lego365 - I recently ran into this photo blog and I find that it's full of awesomeness. I looked at every photo in one single sitting because I couldn't wait to see all of them. I just wish that the writer of this blog would continue his work past 365 days.

Facebook - Yes, I like Facebook. I enjoy keeping in contact with friends from all over the world and follow their lives by glancing at what they are willing to share on their facebook pages. While it's true that many people can be truly annoying with constant updates, unending comments on everything, etc.; I still find it a rewarding and fun website.

Kongregate - This is a site dedicated to hosting flash games. It's also a major time sink for me at times. Many games have acheivements attached to them and each user can collect these badges and earn points to gain levels. While levels don't do anything for you, it's really a competitive thing for me. I like going into one of the chat rooms (you can chat while playing) and being the highest level user in the room (I'm level 40 currently, almost 41).

Woot - Kids Woot - Shirt Woot - Woot is really awesome if you're looking for a good deal on random stuff. They sell a new item every day until the end of the day, or it sells out. You do have to watch out though because some of the items are labelled "Refurbished". I haven't bought any of those, but I almost did when I saw a Quad-core computer for $399.

Dr. Horrible - This is the most awesome musical that has or ever will be made. You can watch it for free on hulu, but I paid for it on iTunes because I wanted to support the idea of independent online studios like what Joss Whedon was trying to do when he came up with this.

Penny Arcade - If you haven't heard of Penny Arcade, then I feel sorry for you. Just kidding. It's a web comic that's been going for over a decade and is full of win. Read some of them and you'll be hooked. In my humble opinion, it's the best web comic I've ever read.

So, those are the sites that I like. Feel free to leave a comment listing some of your favorite websites.
Favorite song of the moment - RickRoll + Mario by I Fight Dragons. Awesome live song with some chiptunes thrown in.