Geek Dad

Luke took his first tentative step yesterday and naturally (Luke being Luke) he did it on the concrete porch outback. 'Cause you know, that way he can maximize the chance of really hurting himself. He immediately sat back down again, and crawled to his destination, but he definitely took a step.

Of course, everyone says not to compare your kids to each other, but walking -- like talking -- is one of those milestones you can't help but compare. Jordan started walking three days before her first birthday, and it seems like Luke's following a similar trajectory, given that his first birthday is June 14.

Articles like this one piss me off. Men have been hammered for years about not taking an active role in their families, about putting job above family, and all the standard guilt trips that could take you to the Moon and back if only you could clock the frequent flyer miles.

The thing is, guilt trips aren't needed -- in my experience, Gen X dads generally want to spend time with their families, and make job decisions that reflect that. Unsurprisingly, those choices effect their yearly income. So when this story -- which is about the decline in median male income from $40,000 in 1974 to $35,000 in 2004, I just to scream.

I've got two vacations lined up for Summer 2007 -- one short, one long -- and hopefully a few lazy weekends I can spend ready books on the back porch or down the shore.

As a result, I've slowly started to compile my summer reading list, and I'm looking for suggestions from readers, as well as comments on what you'll be reading at the beach this summer.

Here's what I have so far:

I love it when a geeky plan comes together. A few weeks ago I heard a story on the Geek Acres podcast about a grade school teacher who installed Ubuntu Linux on a bunch of iMacs that had been donated to his school. I have a lime-green G3 iMac at home that's been running Mac OS X 10.3 … but is just crying out for experimentation.

HeroPress -- a blog that describes itself as "a celebration of all things geek" -- has an interview with me as part of its ongoing "Six of the Best" series.

It's been months since I last wrote about my son Luke, and what an eventful couple of months it's been! Luke learned to crawl at around 6 months and started pulling himself up shortly there after. Now, at 11 months, he's starting to "bridge", moving from one item to another in a precursor to walking. Along with this new-found mobility has come a desire to explore everything … which means we've had to start baby proofing in earnest.

It's hard to find good geeky clothes for babies -- oh, I was able to get a "newbie" onsie for Luke just before he was born, and they do have a few other shirts of note, but it's telling that they lump their dog clothing in with their kid stuff.

Aside from that, it's mostly an vast, unending forest of pastel dinosaurs, teddy bears, butterflies and assorted too-cute animals. If you're lucky you might find a good astronaut or rocket outfit, but those are the exceptions.

Getting ready for a baby is one heck of an adventure. Here are a few of the lessons I learned when preparing for the arrival of my kids. I know I've got a few geek dad readers out there; feel free to add your own tips as comments.

CNN had a blurb today about a new federal study that reveals no benefit to deploying computer-assisted learning programs for students. It's a malnourished blurb written by the Associated Press but to me it illustrates one of the things wrong with education in America -- namely that people believe there is some silver atom bomb that will solve our problems.

Hat-tip to Joystiq for this Reuters story which notices that hey, parents like to game ... and they're likely to get their kids to game as well. They dub these strange creatures "Nintendads" since many grew up on Nintendo systems and are now happily doling out $250 to buy Nintendo Wiis for their kids (and themselves)

Way to catch on to a trend that's been going on for at least a decade folks! Every gamer dad I know has been breaking out their old gaming systems (what, you think we traded those in?) to educate their children on the wonders of old-school gaming. The Nintendo Wii, which allows you to buy those old school games and comes with the convenient "physical exercise" rationalization provided by Wii Sports, just lets them do that with a spiffy new gadget.