Geek Dad

Luke's growing up fast, and quickly leaving behind his inventive toddler speech. I decided I better jot down some of his classic Lukeisms before we forgot them in the mad rush toward preschool.

I'm doing the bachelor dad thing while Sue's away at a PowWow this weekend, so I figured it'd be a good thing if we started off our day with some exercise. I packed some zucchini bread and milk for the kids, loaded up the wagon our baseball mitts and Lucas, then walked to the Cosmic Cup for morning coffee while Jordan road her bike. Coffee in hand, we walked back home, deposited the bike in the side alley, then walked down to Nevin Park for breakfast under the trees.

After that the kids and I ran around on the playground equipment and swung on the swings, taking occasional breaks to play catch. All in all, a good start to the day, the only downside to which was the whining from Jordan about how tired she was on the walk back home.

It wasn't a hard work out, as things go, but it got my heart pumping climbing the hill back from the park, and tired out the kids so I think we can declare mission was accomplished.

I finally got some new LEGOs: The AT-AP Walker. It's a 392 piece set featuring a cockpit that holds two clone trooper mini-figs. We probably won't get to it during the week, but I expect that Jordan and I will crack open the box this weekend.

I went to my first-ever baseball game with my dad last night, as we watched the Lehigh Valley IronPigs take on the Buffalo Bisons at Coca-Cola Park in Allentown, Pa.

It took us a while to get there, seeing as how I'm 36 and he's 66, but it was worth the wait. The IronPigs are the AAA affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies, which means they're one step down from the Show. The new stadium reflects that; it's a first-rate, beautiful stadium. I doubt there's a bad seat in the house; we had field-level seats down the first-base line and even we had a good view. It was also cheap; tickets were $9 a person, and even with the entire family there -- my parents, Sue and the two kids -- the whole thing end up costing me about $60.

It was fantastic being there with the kids, sitting in foul ball territory with Jordan, gloves in hand, waiting for fly balls to come soaring our way. None came close, but it was fun to watch and wait all the same. Jordan was half-crazy with excitement about being at the game, and while she got a little wild at the end, she loved it. It was a good trial run for going to a big league game -- like watching the Mets at Citi Field next year.

One of Luke's first words was "elmo". No, not the Sesame Street character. He rarely watches TV, and when he does, it's not Sesame Street. No, "elmo" was his word for truck. Cars he calls go-gos (no doubt from the many readings of Go Dogs Go he's enjoyed) but trucks have always been elmos. In recent months, he's mixed this up. Dump trucks? Dumpy elmos. Big trucks? Bumpy elmos. No matter how many times we said otherwise, trucks were elmos.

Until last week. When, while walking up the stairs to his room, he decided to call them trucks, and keep calling them trucks. They're simply not elmos any more. Infact, if you say "elmo", he corrects you and says "truck".

All of this is part of his toddler word explosion. Car. Grass. Green. Money. Bike. Blue. Saint. Move. Play. The words just keep coming, as do the combinations, as he tells the dog (that'd be saint) to move, points out blue trucks, and exclaims that he wants to play on his bike.

No formal exercise today, but I did spend the afternoon at a pool party with the extended family, and managed to swim a couple of laps while playing with Jordan and Luke.

I didn't get any formal exercise in today, but I did spend seven hours walking, running and swimming around Dorney Park and Wild Water Kingdom with my daughter Jordan. The consensus on Twitter seems to be that spending a day running around an amusement park with a five year old counts as exercise, so I'm claiming it for OOF.

The Gods of Geekdom have heard my prayers. Or at least Hallmark has. After years of giving us dud ornaments (the Scorpion from Star Trek: Nemesis) and more so-so ones (how many variant Enterprises do we need?) they have finally released the Star Trek ornament I've wanted most:

The Reliant.

I'm back from the island. No, not the Island but rather, an island on Lake Champlaign on which our family friends own a cabin. We headed up there last week for a five days of sun, water and mosquitos, and while I can't say it was particularly relaxing, it was a lot of fun.

As I write this, I'm in a Holiday Inn in New Hampshire. I don't have a laptop with me, but I've got a stack of Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition books next to me, and a review due Sunday night. A few years ago, I'd have been doomed, but now I've got access to the net via the hotel's lackluster Windows XP machine. The machine itself doesn't have Microsoft Word installed, but again, no problem: the net has what I need, or more specifically, Google does.

Sitting in Google Docs is a copy of my review, and with a few clicks, I've got the document up in front of me, cursor eagerly awaiting my input. I won't finish the review tonight (especially if I keep breaking away to Nuketown to write spontaneous blog posts) but that's ok. One quick save, and my Google Doc's updated, and ready for me to pick it up again once I reach my sister's house.

Laptop? Who needs a freaking laptop?