Good Friday and Good Night

Having tweeted all day I honestly don't see the appeal outside of helping my swiss cheese brain remember stuff.  I'll probably not tweet again unless some significant occurs.  Like "OMG there's a UFO n da street.  Alienz r 4nic8ng w/the neighbor's dawg." significant.

But I promised an annotated version of my tweets, so here we go:


And we're up and running. Laundry and dishes both in their magic cleaning boxes. Lex is potty training today. Fingers crossed there. So I was a bit on the slow side getting up and didn't actually get up until everyone else in the house was up.  Cute Fan Girl got Lex started on the potty and I dragged myself up after Loki was ready to get up.  Started the whole clean the house process (which didn't get as far as I had planned) by starting laundry and dishes.

Potty attempt #1 & 2-SUCCESS!- Lex was successful on his first two (and ultimately only two) potty sessions this morning.  When he woke up from his nap, he had zero interest in using the potty.  Later, he did sit on the potty, but no action.  I'm hoping that this process continues to go smoothly.  This weekend will be a big step I hope!

Is it wrong that I'm nervous having Lex sit on my lap? Potty training is so nerve wracking.- I was so nervous he was going to wet himself and me, but luckily it didn't happen.  As he sat there he "drew" a house using stickers to make the outline.

Kids are dressed! Maps are printed! Hopefully, my local hunt stays local. Mom is getting a local kielbasa and making local chicken salad.- I was fully prepared to trek as far as needed to get the items on my list.  The milk and eggs weren't the issue, it was the seafood.  Ultimately, Cute Fan Girl stopped off at Whole Foods and saved me the hassle.

Lex: Me Sean. Me Sean.- Lex got himself dressed this morning.  Khaki shorts that rode down on his hips, a t-shirt and sunglasses.  He comes walking into the living room declaring that he was his Uncle Sean.

And we're off....- Left the house about 9:30.  A little later than I hoped, but oh well.

Milk n eggs. Not what I expected.- The Farm Store wasn't what I expected.  Also, I made the mistake of not putting Loki in the stroller so I had my hands full.  I'm sure that if I had, I would have had better success looking around.  But I got the eggs and milk and peanut butter cookies.  We saw the token cow.  All the other cows must have been in the barn, but the kids got to see the cow and a cat.

Going to the fish market on Good Friday. Not the smartest choice.- Up there with a toy store on X-Mas Eve, a florist on Valentine's Day or the Hallmark section of a Target about 4:30 PM on Mother's Day.  It was jampacked.


Don't tell a 3 year old you're going to a fish market. He wants to bring Nemo home. Lex thought we were buying a fish for his aquarium.  He did get excited about seeing the lobsters in the tank.


No luck on the local fish front.-  Considering how busy it was I didn't get a chance to really talk to the guys working behind the counter.  They had Gulf shrimp and Maine lobster, but the sources of the other fish were unknown.

Does eating at Burger King negate the whole sourcing locally concept?-I know it's horrible to feed them fast food, but at this point it was past noon and I had little desire to go home and make lunch.

Home...lunch is done and we're getting ready for naptime. Which works out nicely, cuz I need a nap.- Today was a good nap day.  Two of the last 3 home days Lex hasn't napped.  Today they both napped and I got some much needed quiet time.

If it smells like lighter fluid, do you really think the burgers will taste good?- Really, the only tweet I'm proud of.  Now that the weather has turned nice, the folks in the basement apartment pulled out their grill and made Kerosene Cheeseburgers.  Someone has a heavy hand when it comes to the lighter fluid.  If it smells that strong, I can only imagine what biting into one must be like.

The rest of the evening went tweet-less.  We made Shrimp and Pasta and a garlic bread.  Lex helped us cook and the food was delicious.  After dinner, Lex & I went for a walk as he tried to learn to ride his bike.  He doesn't quite have the pedaling concept down yet.  We came home and decorated eggs for Easter.

All in all a very Good Friday and now I bid you a good night!  Or in tweet speak Gud nite!

Long Live The Blue Beetle! (Spoilers for Blackest Night #8)

Wednesday saw the arrival of 3 books I was eagerly anticipating.  Some time ago, I had sent off my complete run of Blue Beetle (1986-1988) along with his DC debut from Secret Origins #2 to be professionally bound into two hardcover volumes.  Library Binding, a company based in Texas that I found about from Collected Comics Library, did a great job.  Incidentally, if you're a fan of comic books in general and trade collections in particular, you should give the CCL a listen.  Chris Marshall does a great weekly podcast and he has a complete release schedule of collected editions that stretches from 2006 out into 2011.  My bound editions of Blue Beetle arrived Wednesday and I couldn't be happier with them.  They are both bound in blue imitation leather with a metallic blue font to mimic the Blue Beetle's color palette.  I'm kicking myself for not splurging and getting the ribbon markers, but the next books I get will have them.  I had the comics bound as is, so they are complete with front & back covers and ads.  I think next time I may make the effort to separate the books, discard the back covers and as many ads as I can.  I may also group the front covers together as a feature section in the back.

Wednesday also the release of Blackest Night #8, the final issue of DC's blockbuster mini-series.  As a DC fan, I was very happy with the story with one exception.  Without getting into too much spoiler detail, a host of characters who have been killed off over the last 10 years were resurrected as a result.  There were a number of notable exceptions, but none (to me at least) as glaring as Ted Kord.

Ted Kord, the Silver Age Blue Beetle, was murdered by Maxwell Lord in the events leading up to Infinite Crisis.  In the years leading up to Countdown to Infinite Crisis, Ted (along with his ever-present sidekick Booster Gold) had become a laughing stock.  None of his fellow heroes took him seriously and despite several editorial attempts, neither did comic book fans.  Countdown to Infinite Crisis followed Ted as he tracked down a mysterious organization that was targeting super-heroes.  Ted was in top form and discovered his former Justice League cohort Max Lord was behind the organization.  Ted refused to help Max and Max murdered Ted.  Ted has since shown up in issues of Booster Gold, when Booster had traveled back in time and rescuing Ted moments before he was to be murdered.  When they returned to the present time, they found that Max Lord had managed to kill or enslave the majority of the world's superheroes.  Ted realized that his death was the key to stopping Max Lord and taking a time machine he traveled back in time sacrificing himself to save the world.

Ted returned again in the form of a Black Lantern raised from the dead to fight Booster Gold.  Booster, along with the Modern Age Blue Beetle, defeated him using technology developed by Ted Kord.  In the course of this, Booster discovered that someone had accessed one of Ted's secret hideouts in the recent past; something that only Ted could have done.

With the absence of Ted from the resurrected heroes in Blackest Night #8 and the hints dropped, I can only hope that it's going to turn out that Ted has somehow managed to return using his brain and time machine.  Hopefully Ted will be back-either as the Blue Beetle or a mentor for the next generation of heroes.

Milk, Eggs & Fish

Easter is 3 days away and tomorrow the kids and I will venture out to get milk, eggs and fish for our 100-mile Easter celebration. We have a lot to accomplish and I want to share the fun and excitement of our hunt. I will be tweeting our escapades on my Twitter account: So point your tweet-thang at whoknowswhynot. I'll also be posting an annotated version tomorrow night right here.

Like Father, Like Son?

A tip of the hat to Cute Fan Girl  who already blogged on this topic, but I needed to put my thoughts out there.

My relationship with my dad is tortured at best.  I am the only of 3 blood children who speak to him.  Both my brother and sister severed ties with him over 10 years ago.  We have never had what one would call a healthy relationship with our father.  In hindsight, I can see that my dad probably didn't know what he was signing up for when he became a father.  Most of my childhood memories of my father aren't what you would call Norman Rockwell moments.  Not to give anyone the wrong idea, they aren't Law & Order moments either.  They just lack a certain father-son element.  in no particular order, here are my top 5 childhood memories involving my dad:

1) Saturday morning drives- Every Saturday morning my dad would take us (my sister, brother &I) to my grandparents in Ludlow.  He would drop us off there and then go out for coffee with the Boys.  No, not those Boys.  Just his childhood friends who all still lived in Ludlow.  We would watch Saturday morning cartoons with my grandparents (I vividly recall the 10 Little Super Heroes episode of Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends) and then play in the yard with my grandfather.  Baseball, water rockets, balsa wood airplanes.  We would have lunch and then my dad would pick us up and bring us home.

2) Friday Night Poker nights- My mom worked nights as a nurse for most of my childhood.  So Dad watched us.  Friday night was Poker Night.  Most Fridays that meant a baby-sitter.  If we were lucky enough to have Poker Night at our house, I would get the chance to stay up late and watch bad NBC shows (again, a vivid memory- this one of Manimal) while my dad played poker with his buddies.

3) Buying me a comic book (This one surprised me once I started researching it)- I was in the hospital several times as a child.  One of the times that was an overnight stay, my dad bought me some comic books.  My memory is very sketchy as to when this occured, but I do remember two of them being Micronauts #36  and #37.  How can you forget a cover like that?  I had no idea who Nightcrawler or the X-Men were.  But I had Micronaut toys, so I was happy.  If he bought it for me within the first 6 months of it being published, he very well may have bought me my first comic book.  I have always remembered G.I. Joe #2 as being my first comic book having swapped a bag of marbles for it.  But G.I. Joe #2 came out 6 months after Micronauts #36.  So I may have my dad to thank for my comic habit.

4) Fishing- One of the only "Father-Son" memories I have is fishing with my Dad.  We fished a lot and it was usually just my dad & me.  I wasn't very good at it and don't really have any passion for it, but it did make an impression on me.  I recall my Zebco 404 rod and catching a rainbow trout.  We had a small boat that we took out on Hampton Ponds in Westfield, Mass.

5) My Dad's Chair- My Dad had a La-Z-Boy recliner that was "his chair".  After dinner, he would sit in that chair and read the newspaper, watch TV and fall asleep.  Most of my "at home" memories of my dad are him in that chair.  Or asleep and my sister and I rifling through his pockets for lunch money.

So, all-in-all, with the exception of fishing, I have no Father-Son memories from my childhood.  I don't remember him being at my little league or basketball games.  He never showed me how to change the oil in a car.  He spent less than one hour trying to teach me how to drive before giving up (taking me on the Mass Turnpike as my very first driving lesson ended with me panicking as we were almost sideswiped by a tractor trailer)  He never showed me how to shave.  He just wasn't there.

So what brought all this on?

My dad and step-mother visited the kids this morning.  It's their first visit this year and the second since the middle of last summer- the 49 mile trek from Western Mass being something akin to Odysseus's travels after the Trojan War.  I'm told that getting through customs at the Worcester Airport is a bitch.   But I digress.  They arrived at 10:30 AM and were laying the groundwork for their departure by 10:45 AM.  Can't leave the dog alone for too long.  But again, I digress.  Lex was very happy to see his grandparents, but I honestly think Loki didn't remember them.  Loki wanted nothing to do with them; often staying two rooms away from them. Lex ate up the attention, but I could tell from my Dad's demeanor that it was too much for him.  He made a couple of comments about Lex being active and gave me a pitying look as I attempted to help Lex with potty training.  I realized that he was absent for most of my childhood (through what I can only assume was callous disregard-he didn't travel for work, never worked overtime, wasn't (as far as I know) a secret agent and hadn't moved out of the house; he just wasn't there) and didn't understand that this is the way toddlers are.  After dispensing presents and some idle chit-chat, they left.  Total time of visit: 61 minutes.

Some random observations:

• They spent 37 1/2 seconds visiting for every day they hadn't seen them.   
• A leopard could have gotten pregnant, carried her cubs to full term and given birth in the time between visits.
• They were here 6 minutes longer than the commute to get here.
• The amount of time since their last visit is equivalent to 20.7% of Loki's lifespan thus far.

I sometimes worry that I'm not being as good a father as I can be; but compared to my "role model" I have to admit that I am doing a pretty good job.  

Man or Myth?

Santa Claus.  The Easter Bunny.  The Tooth Fairy.  Dads who parent.

Mass media would have you think they're all fairy tales.

NORAD tracks Santa. The Easter Bunny will be hopping across the world this weekend.  The Tooth Fairy got some screen time in Hellboy 2: The Golden Army.  But Dads who parent?  Nada.

Parenting magazine until just recently went as far as stating their magazine covers "What Matters To Mom"  Do things not matter to Dad?  I am constantly bombarded by media messages that imply that Dads don't parent so I have created this blog to let the world know that things do matter to Dad.  Here is another Dad who is also making the effort.

So enough about why.

Who am I?

The long of it:  I love comic books, Star Wars, role playing games, strategy games, military history, alternate history.  I own over 500 books ranging in genres from the classics to sci-fi to history to "tin foil hat" concerns.  I work for LEGO.  I go to the library at least once a week.  I can debate the merits of the JLA over the Avengers.  Not only do I know there's more than one Green Lantern, I can name more Green Lanterns than there are states in the US.

The short story: I'm a geek.

I'm a dad of 3 kids who I hope inherit my love of all things geeky.  Their names reflect my geeky roots.  My eldest daughter (from my 1st marriage) Gabrielle Clio (aged 9) gets her middle name from the Greek Muse of History. My son's name appears as  Alexander John (aged 3) on his birth certificate, but has been called Lex since before he was born.  Yes, he is named for Lex Luthor.  My wife is a huge fan of comics and we decided early on that we would raise an evil genius.  When our 2nd child, a daughter, came along, I mentioned that had we known how mischievous Lex was going to be we should have named him Loki.  The name took and we cemented her status as Geekiest Child Ever by adding the middle name Chihiro for the little girl from Spirited Away.

This blog will chronicle my journey as my wife and I raise the Next Generation.  In the coming posts, i will properly introduce you to my 3 Geeks-In-Training.

State of the Resolution

As January disappears down the highway known as 2010, I thought it would be good to look back and see how my resolutions are faring:


1) Continue losing weight.  Doing pretty good here.  Down 7 more pounds for the month of January.
2) Exercise.  Haven't really done much in the way of exercise.  Couple nights of Wii Sports Resort.
3) Read more.  Finished one book (Star Wars: Death Trooper) and I'm halfway through my second (Don't Know Much About The Civil War) 
4) Research my family tree.  Found my great great grandparents names off my great grandparent's marriage certificate.
5) Write a novel (or a collection of short stories).  Haven't started to write, but I have been brainstorming some ideas.
6) Re-connect with my peeps.  We hung out with Kevin & Brent (Kim's brother and husband) for game night and we have plans with the Kindnesses in February.  Would love to start a RPG night once a month.   
7) Censored. Ask Kimberly.  =)
8) Adopt a comic book character.  I have collected every issue of Blue Beetle's run from 1986-1988.  I've read Crisis on Infinite Earths which was BB's first appearance in the DC Universe.  Next step is to send the complete run of Blue Beetle off to get bound in a hardcover collection.
9)  I need to cull my pull list of monthly books and wait for the trade.  I did not purchase a single new comic book in the month of January.  
10) Start saving.  Haven't saved a dime yet, but with tax return season and bonuses coming, this will change.
11) Win Store of the Year. Had a staff meeting last night to re-emphasize customer service standards.  I personally got secret shopped this month a scored an almost perfect 104 (best possible score with bonus points is 108)
12) Blog about it all. This marks my 11th blog posting in January.  Not great, but not horrible.


All in all, I'm quite happy with my progress.  I just need to read a bit more and start writing.  We'll see how February goes...

Space Zombies! (spoilers for Star Wars: Death Troopers)

Just finished my first book of 2010.  Walking through the library last week, a Star Wars novel caught my eye.  Having read every single Star Wars novel (including the Young Adult titles) published between 1978 and early 2001, I considered myself a huge fan of the Star Wars novels.  What happened in 2001, you ask?  That was when the first novel set in the prequels was released. It was with some trepidation that I picked up Rogue Planet by Greg Bear.  I had been throughly disappointed by the Phantom Menace movie and was worried that it would carryover to the books.  It did.  The book was as lifeless and dull as the other prequel material.  It was the last I would read of any books set before A New Hope.  I still dutifully read the post-ANH books and thoroughly enjoyed the beginning of the New Jedi Order series set 20+ years after ANH.  But that series dragged on and on and on and well you get the point.  21 books in all and by the end I was burnt out.  I was done with Star Wars books.  From 2004 to the present, I returned to the Star Wars twice.  The first was Timothy Zahn's Allegiance which was a great read.  It triggered a slight renaissance in which I re-read the X-Wing series of novels.  Set after ROTJ the X-Wing novels follow Wedge Antilles and the rest of Rogue (and later Wraith) Squadron.  They're fun light reading (what I call popcorn books).

So, when Death Troopers caught my eye, I was surprised that I stopped to look at it.  Reading the dust jacket I got the impression that it was a zombie story set in the Star Wars universe shortly before ANH.  From the dramatis personae, it appeared that the book followed none of the characters from the movies.  that intrigued me, so I picked it up.

I started the book the night before I left for a two day car trip to Baltimore for work.  Let me be clear, it was a zombie novel set in the Star Wars universe.  I wasn't expecting (and nor did I get) literary fireworks.  I did get a good popcorn read for the first half of the book, but it quickly left a funny taste in my mouth.  The story revolves around an Imperial prison ship being stranded in space and coming across an abandoned Imperial Star Destroyer.  The Imperial Star Destroyer had been transporting a biological agent that infected and then killed the crew and transformed the dead into zombies.  Halfway through the novel, one of the main characters (an Imperial Doctor with a heart of gold) realizes that any prisoners in solitary wouldn't be infected.  She devises an antidote and heads down to solitary where she releases the two prisoners-who just happen to be Han Solo and Chewbacca.  I was actually annoyed that they were shoe horned into the book.  It made no sense.  This book is set in the period just prior to ANH and here are Han & Chewie in a prison barge and the Millennium Falcon had been impounded (and subsequently auctioned off) by the Empire.  Han is completely out of character, not acting like the self absorbed scoundrel that he is in ANH.  The ending of the book leads a lot to be desired.  The action gets wrapped up too quickly and through no action of the main characters.  The zombie threat isn't really dealt with, it's just left to drift in space.  Han and Chewie exit stage left after stealing an Imperial shuttle during their escape and selling it.  Han graciously gives half the credits to the other survivors (something I can't see the ANH Han doing.)  We're left to believe that Han is able to parlay that money into somehow tracking down the Falcon and re-buying it.  Really?

All in all, it was a decent read; the first half was very suspenseful and well written, but once Han & Chewie show up, the novel starts to lose it's focus and by the end I was glad it was done.  Perhaps the author was using the novel as an allegory of the literary Star Wars genre.  The first 25 years of the novels were lively, but since the introduction of the prequels, they have been lifeless and soulless creations that just don't know they're dead.