Currently Reading: The Name of the Wind

The Name of the Wind, Book I of The KingKiller Chronicle: Day One by Patrick Rothfuss (Amazon.com Link)

 

25 Ways to Just Be with your children

Reblogged from Awesomely Awake:

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My own image of my children on their Leap Pads the first day they received them.

It’s not easy being a parent. No matter if you work outside the home, inside the home. No matter if you have one, two, three or fifteen children. No matter if you have a small house in a big city or a big house in a small city.

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The above preview is from an awesome blog. Please visit it and let the author know how much you like the post. As for me, this is my thought on the article:  I work too much. I'll never hit the lottery because I don't play it, so I work. Long hours. Hours longer than they should be, but that's another story. The pay is nice and the over time adds up quickly. But it comes with a price. I admit that it didn't really hit me until the last year or so when my boy actually made a comment about me always having to work. That's when you know you are working too much. Some people are so obsessed with having money in their bank account or large bills in their wallet. I just want my boy to remember the time I spent with him after I'm gone, not that I was always at work.

Excuse Me While I Vent

I had a nice long post just minutes before that you missed. It would have been around two or three pages long if printed out, and jumped around so much I’d have to hand out a road map so you could keep up. Instead of posting that long, meandering blog article, though, I figure I would just put on my big-boy pants and “man-up” to the situation.

What situation?

Well, about 12 years ago, my doctor at the time diagnosed me as having depression. I was going through a rough patch in my life and was down and out emotionally. I went to work one night (I worked 3rd shift) and had to leave because I broke down and just started crying. Not very manly, I know, but I have always been a bit emotional – I just cover it up with sarcasm when speaking and walk around with a serious looking frown on my face, which normally steers people clear of me. Anyways, that wasn’t a good night. Shortly after that I visited my doctor, and thus began my adventures with various anti-depression prescriptions.

One thing I am is hard headed. I also don’t like to admit I need help when I really do. So, after several months of taking the anti-depression medications, when I would start feeling better, I would ignore the doctors advice and stop taking the pills. This would work great for a while, but then I would eventually fall back into the same routine where I’d start having issues coping. The problem since that first break down though is that instead of crying, I become extremely agitated, angry and have some pretty violent thoughts. My blood pressure shoots up, my head feels like it is going to explode because I have so much going on inside my brain – thought wise – and it can’t or won’t come out. All these thoughts are bouncing around and bumping into one another and as I keep adding to them the space starts filling up until there seems to be no room to move and it feels like I’m ready to burst.

For those that have never experienced depression to this degree, I know I must sound like a maniac. I’m not, really! I’m married, have a wonderful son, have a good job that I love and even work with one or two people that I can tolerate for short period of time. But even though I know how my cycle goes – from pill, to feeling better, to no pill, to doing great right back to depression again – I still do it. I don’t know why. I tell myself each time that I will continue to take the medication no matter what, but then one day I’ll forget. I’ll take it the next day and say it won’t happen again. Then I’ll forget again, and so on and so forth until it starts becoming hard to concentrate, which is the first sign that I’m losing control. But even then I don’t act. For some reason, I always put it off and wait, hoping it will turn back around and get better.

Which is where I am at right now. I (I know, there are a lot of “I”s in this blog post. I’m sorry. Doh! There I go again. Ack! Stop it!)

I am at the breaking point for the first time in two years. My wife is going to schedule me a doctor’s visit tomorrow – well, actually later this morning – and then I’ll have to explain to the doctor I haven’t seen in two years why I haven’t been taking my medicine. Oh the joys! But it works. And even though my fabulous wife doesn’t believe in “depression” as an actual illness, she acknowledges that I do have my moments. She tells me it is in my head, but that a stronger person could deal with it and not let it affect them. Maybe, but all I know is that I know how I feel, and it isn’t something I can just push away and forget about. For the folks that can stand up and say without a doubt that depression is another illness that doesn’t really exist, I say to them that they are lucky they had never experienced it. It can be a scary thing if you don’t know how to maintain some iota of control.

But, here I go turning this into another big blog post. I’m not one for long blog posts, especially about something serious and so personal. But I needed to vent about this because, if I don’t get it under control soon, I can honestly see me losing my job. So, please, if you pray, I’d like to ask you to add me to your prayers. If you don’t pray, then at least send me some good thoughts. I’d appreciate either or at this point. And thanks for reading my blog post – assuming you’ve made it this far. If you think I’m nuts, I’m sorry to ruin any notions you might have had about me. If you already know me and knew I was nuts to start with, then you may be even more surprised by the fact that I have opened up a bit here. I normally tend to keep to myself about things like this, instead expressing myself through self-degredating humor or sarcasm. All I can say is, sometimes I’m a great actor. I can pretend to be happy when I’m not just because I don’t want to bring anyone else down.

Good night, folks. I’ll see you later.

Related articles

• My Secret Demon (onegratefulgal.wordpress.com)
• Depressed? (onbeingmindful.wordpress.com)

Top 10 Things I've Learned from Living with a Nerd

Reblogged from Inspiration Files:

These days, nerds are everywhere. Twitter profiles proclaiming oneself as a nerd abound. Ironic nerd eyeglasses have been popularized by celebrities and adopted by the masses. There’s even a nerd dating website, and I swear at least one of your colleagues is on it. I wouldn’t even be surprised if Nerd candy made a comeback. Blue tongues for everyone!

No longer confined to dusty basement computer labs and all-night LAN parties, one would imagine that the great 21st century nerd outage would result in all of us getting a little smarter when it comes to all things techy.

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Ran across this on Freshly Pressed, so you probably have, too. But it is well written and worth a read :) And you might even learn a thing, or 10.

You Just Don’t Find Neighbors Like This Around Here …

Hired to impregnate neighbor’s beauty queen wife; fails after 72 “sessions”. This needs to be made into a movie, now. – Imgur.

The link above will take you to the news paper clipping that is from Germany. It details how a man and his beauty queen wife were unable to have children because the man was sterile. So, he pays their neighbor $2500 to impregnate her. Please, click through and read the rest, you won’t regret it.

This Weekends Entertainment Rundown

This weekend I continued my quest to clear out the movies that have been sitting in my Netflix queue for awhile. I also broke down and finished watching the last two episodes of Spaced. Here’s a quick rundown.

Spaced, Season 2 (7 episodes) – Spaced follows a two friends who pretend to be a couple in order to rent a flat. They are both struggling for better jobs and have off the wall experiences with their small group of friends.

To refresh your memories, I started watching Spaced at the recommendation of a friend and co-worker. If you are familiar with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost – well, they are part of the ensemble cast here. Seasons 1 and 2 each consisted 7 episodes each. I flew through the first 7 and then tried to space (no pun intended) out the second season. I love this series. It’s love for pop culture and the way it plays to the fanboys of the various genres of film, game and comic culture is brilliant. I am sad that the series ended and that there will probably never be another one, but I am also so glad that I got to experience this show and these insane, lovable characters. I don’t highly recommend something often, but I highly recommend you check this out if you are into the geek/nerd culture.

Daybreakers- A virus has swept across the entire world and turned 98% of the world population into vampires. These aren’t blood thirsty insane vampires – they’re still “human” in their ways, as they have jobs and work, our government is still in tact and they shop,

Cover of Daybreakers

take the subway, drive cars, etc – they just do it at night. One company, ran by Sam Neil, harvests real humans for their blood. The problem with this is, humans are nearing extinction and the blood supply is running short. Enter a top notch hematologist who wants to find a cure for the virus and save everyone. Turning the vampires back into humans is not profitable, therefore he isn’t exactly looked upon favorably. Ethan Hawk plays our hero hematologist, and he just so happens to run into a group of humans who trust him and share what they know about a possible cure. The only problem with coming up with a cure is trying to give it to people that may not want it.

Daybreakers is one of the movies I wasn’t too sure about when I added it to my queue. I am pleased to say I enjoyed it! It has a well written story, elaborate mythos, developed characters, a good plot and not such a happy-go-lucky ending, yet a semi-depressing happy ending all the same. Good vampire flick, lots of blood and some really good action sequences.

The Perfect Host – stars David Hyde Pierce and a bunch of other people I’ve never heard of. Pierce is most memorable to me as playing Miles, Frasier’s snooty brother on Fraiser many years ago. The Perfect Host is an independent film about what happens when a bank robbery goes bad and the robber decides to hold up in a man’s house on the eve of a dinner party. This is one trippie movie, folks! David Hyde Pierce is fantastic, especially when he breaks it down to At the Carwash. The shark may have been jumped just a bit by the filmmakers throwing in four separate twists at the end. The first two I honestly did not see coming at all. But by the time the last two were presented, it was a bit predictable. Good movie, great acting, eerie story and some twists and turns near the end.

Courageous – from the same folks that brought us Fireproof (a film about marriage and faith) comes Courageous. Courageous is a film about fathers and faith. The film revolves around 4 police officers and an unemployed man down on his luck. The film is about fatherhood, what it means to be a father and focuses on the duties that fall upon fathers. It is actually a really good movie with a fantastic story. The story, in my opinion, was so good that I didn’t even acknowledge the usually poor performances in faith-based films. Of course it is also open for bashing due to people feeling the need to assault these types of faith-based films, but it really is a decent, heart-felt film with lots of humor and compassion.

Over all it was a great weekend for movie viewing in my house. No rotten tomatoes here.

Growing Collection

Doing our part to make the gaming industry prosper.

Time to Whip Out My Man Card

The thing about being a guy is that people expect you to do certain things. Hang a television wall mount, for example. Install an under the counter cd/radio. Cut a hole and put in a pet door. These things require power tools, therefore they are man-jobs. Oh, and don’t even get me started on plumbing or electrical work. I will say that I’m smart enough to steer completely clear of electrical work because, well, I like living.

I have to say that I do not know how to do most of these things. If it involves anything more than a hammer and a screw driver, I’m clueless. It’s new to me, but I’m learning. Mostly I am learning because we are now home owners and, by golly, someone has to do the work! The money tree doesn’t produce enough bills to call someone every time something needs to be done, unfortunately. So thanks to my mom’s boyfriend, one of my wife’s uncles, and on occasion her grandfather, I have worked on our plumbing, installed a pet door, even did minor wiring and installed a new dishwasher. I have even disassembled and worked on our washer (we did end up getting a new one a couple of months after that, but I prolonged the life just long enough).

And now, today, as I pick up a power drill and sort through to find the bits necessary, I once again whip out my man card and check off two more new abilities. Todays projects involve hanging an lcd television in our son’s room and installing an under-counter cd/radio for my wife in the kitchen. Easy, I’m sure, but two more things I’ve never done before. But I’m learning.

So, unless I collapse the house, blow something up, drill into a pipe or wire that we have to evacuate over … I’ll see you next time, a little more manlier than before. I’ll leave you with a hearty “Arr-har-arrr” Tim the Tool Man Taylor grunt.

A Link to the Past Article from IGN

Came across this article from Jeremy Parish at IGN.com concerning how Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past compares to later incarnations. I agree 100% with the writer in his views and opinions. This game was one of the few I played nonstop and loved.

Article: How is Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past Different From (and Better Than) Its Sequels? by Jeremy Parish

Barnes & Noble Offering “Free” Nook w/ 1 Year NYT Subscription

I originally saw this post on Facebook this afternoon. Barnes & Noble is offering the fantastic deal of a free Nook Simple Touch or a Nook Color for $99 if you agree to a 1-year subscription to The New York Times. The NYT comes with a $19.99 a month subscription. Excuse me while I explain the math as I see it.

1) The Simple Touch Nook is $99 regular price. The Nook Color is $199. The Nook Tablet is $249.

2) A 1-year New York Times digital subscription is $19.99 per month. That’s 19.99 x 12 = $239.88, and not including any sales tax that is probably going to be tacked on as well.

So, to get a free $99 Nook, you are going to spend $239.88.  OR, to get $100 off a $199 Nook, you are going to spend $239.88.

I have two suggestions that trump this offer.

1) Take the $240 you are going to spend on that NY Times digital subscription, buy you a $99 Nook Simple Touch, then apply the remaining $141 to a gift card and buy you some books for that new Nook.

2) Take the $240 you are going to spend on that NY Times digital subscription, buy you a $199 Nook Color, then apply the remaining $41 to a gift card and buy you some books for that new Nook.

3) Take that $240 you are going to spend on that NY Times digital subscription, put $10 with it and buy you a $249 Nook Tablet. No money left over for a gift card toward books, but you have the higher end Nook and can stream movies, music and applications faster.

The only problem with my suggestions, of course, is if you actually like and want the New York Times delivered to your Nook device. If that is the case, then I suppose you could look at it as either 1) getting a Nook free or 2) buying a Nook and getting the NY Times at a discount. I still prefer my options, though, but that’s just me!