Susan surprised me yesterday with a night out on the town to celebrate our anniversary. As of next Tuesday Susan and I will have been married for thirteen years, but since I'll be out of town in Kansas City, Missouri for work next week, Susan decided to plan something special the weekend before.
After dropping Mason and Morgan off at Granny's, our first stop was the Skirvin Plaza hotel in downtown OKC. The Skirvin is super fancy; it originally opened in 1911 (just four years after Oklahoma
A few weeks ago while we were in Chicago, Mason lost his Nintendo DS. I hadn't let him bring it into any museums or restaurants, so I just knew it would turn up at one of our relatives' homes. Sure enough, a week after we got back, Uncle Buddy found Mason's DS out on the back porch. "It only rained once," grandma said, positively. Three weeks after it went missing, Mason's DS arrived today in the mail. Mason is one happy (and lucky) little boy, and he can once again join the other DS holders at
I had hoped to type up a review of last week's Weird Al's concert last night, but something else has been on our minds (and dripping from our brows) over the past couple of days.
Our air conditioner broke. Again.
So far we've had our blower replaced and our compressor replaced. The fan outside was still working, which pretty much covers all the parts of a home air conditioning system. Susan and the kids returned home from Tulsa on Saturday to find the house hovering around 85 degrees. Ou
August 9th, 2008 marked the fifth annual Oklahoma Videogame Expo in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The show took a year off in 2007, but made a strong comeback this year.
[ OVGE -- PRESHOW ]
My weekend actually started on Thursday after work when Mason and I hopped in the truck and drove three hours north to see Weird Al live in concert (review coming tomorrow). The two of us stayed in Wichita Thursday night and drove back to OKC Friday morning, at which point I started packing and loading for OVGE. I
I spent a couple of hours last night packing for OVGE. I'm at the point where I have way too much excess videogame crap. It's time to get rid of some things. For example, the Sega Dreamcast has four controller ports. Theoretically I need four Dreamcast controllers, in case three people magically show up and we decide to play a four-player Dreamcast game. (We interrupt this blog entry with a blast of reality; no one has ever shown up at my house ever and wanted to play my Dreamcast, much less thr
This past weekend at Penn Square mall, Nintendo had a display of twenty Nintendo Wii kiosks demonstrating Wii Fit. For my non-gaming readers, Wii Fit is a pressure-sensitive accessory for the Nintendo Wii that looks a lot like a bathroom scale. While standing on it, gamers can shift their weight and control videogames. When I stand on it, it says things like, "get off me fatty."
Wii Fit comes with a variety of games that fall into four categories; Yoga, exercise, exercise games and balance
Over the weekend, the Yukon Review ran a feature article about me and my upcoming book, Invading Spaces. Below is a shrunken copy of the article; click on the picture to make it giant-sized.
Speaking of newspapers, the Minco Millennium has offered me a weekly slot in their newspaper. Minco, Oklahoma has a population of ~1,800, according to Wikipedia. If you are one of the approximately 6,714,590,143 people on the planet who do not currently live in Minco, I'll be simulcasting (simulpost
This past weekend the kids ended up with invites to not one or two but three separate birthday parties, all around the same time, all on the same day. One party was scheduled for Saturday at 2pm, the second was an hour later at 3pm, and the third began an hour after that at 4pm. It was obvious that we couldn't attend all three parties, and the ones at 2pm and 4pm were for family friends, so we ended up skipping out on the 3pm party (it was for one of Mason's daycare friends) and attended the fir
The Oklahoma Electronic Gaming Expo (OEGE) was held on April 26th, 2008. After the show, I threw a gaming party at my house (PIX). There were lots of consoles, computers, and arcade games to play with, but one thing I couldn't figure out was how to keep people entertained during dinner (pizza!). The idea I came up with was rotating through a few gaming-related DVDs. I thought I'd toss out a list of my gaming/computer-related DVDs. You might be interested in picking some of these up; likewise, if
I love running across arcade games in the wild. The sight of a Ms. Pac-Man sitting in a laundromat or a Galaga machine tucked away in a bowling alley still bring a smile to my face -- so imagine my surprise when I ran across three arcade games, two pinball machines, and two skeeball games ... at Burger King!
I'd seen the machines in the Burger King just off of I-40 and Mustang Road from the drive-thru, but only recently went in to check it out. By the looks of the store's layout, what is cur
Left Chicago just after 5am on Saturday and rolled into Oklahoma City Saturday evening around 7pm ... it's easy to forget just how small kids' bladders are. Susan split the driving 50/50 (maybe more) with me, which made for a more enjoyable trip. Last month for Susan's birthday I got her a new GPS for the van. The GPS worked awesome in Chi-town, and the 6.5 million points of interest it comes pre-programmed with are pretty thorough -- it even had the Oasis Beef Hut.
Susan attended some work-
Last night the fam and I along with Grandma O and Aunt Linda had dinner with the mob -- at least that's what we were told -- at Lorenzetti's Restaurant. Apparently there are two Lorenzetti brothers, Carlo and Livio, and each has his own restaurant. We ate at Carlo's. I hope Livio doesn't shoot us.
We were told that many of the Italian restaurants in Chicago Heights were/are mafia owned and run. Chicago Heights has a long history with "the outfit" and it would not surprise me to learn that th
We arrived at the hotel around midnight last night, setting a new record for the longest trip to Chicago. I've done the trip in just over 11 hours before, which is pretty good for 800 miles. Yesterday it took us 15 hours. When I made the trip in 11 hours I only stopped once or twice. Yesterday I quit counting stops at around twelve. Just to get an idea, we stopped at four different McDonald's alone.
We're staying in a Comform Suite but the suite is not so sweet. It's decent and clean, but it
Invading Spaces is complete. So let it be written, so let it be done ... or, something like that.
Completing the book has been very hectic, and I remember Commodork coming together much the same way. Even though it's only been two years between projects, my life has changed a lot during that (relatively brief) span. My kids are getting older and more demanding of my and Susan's time; as a result, finishing Invading Spaces felt like more of a sacrfice than Commodork did. Other than the writin
This week, I've been working double shifts. From 7:30AM to 4PM, I've been doing my normal work duties (and what a week it's been). From 4PM-midnight and beyond, I've been putting the finishing touches on my new book, Invading Spaces. This last writing push has made me not want to blog much this week, but I thought I owed it to everybody to know where I've been.
My original goal was to finish the book by the 1st of July; that date came and went. My drop dead date was this past Monday; that's
Morgan went to school with a blue shirt, green shorts, and pink shoes. Please choose one of the following reasons:
A - Today was 80s dress-up day.
B - Both I, and Morgan, are color blind.
C - Susan is out of town.
If you guessed "C", you nailed it. 100% for you, please give yourself a scratch-n-sniff sticker as a reward. Susan's in San Francisco this week for a GSA conference. While Susan's out of town, my days go like this:
6:30am - Wake up, shower, get dressed.
7:00am - Wake kid
While both videogame consoles and home computers allowed owners to play videogames, home computers also gave creative kids and adults the ability to create their own. Through BASIC and other languages, home computer owners were able to create their own games. Unfortunately, many young programmers found out the hard way that creating a game from scratch was rather difficult.
Out of this need, a new genre was born -- the "construction kit." The first one I remember seeing was Electronic Arts'
Long time blog readers know that for us, the Fourth of July means participating in the City of Yukon's annual Fourth of July Children's Parade. The parade is also a competition with three categories: most patriotic, most creative, and best costume.
Susan, the kids and I entered floats in 2006 (the Rocketship) and 2007 (the Birthday Cake). In 2006 we won "best costume" and in 2007 we won "most creative". Not to sound cocky, but I ended the 2007 blog post with the following prediction: Next y
Mason has discovered Guitar Hero III. I have owned Guitar Hero for the PS2 for a while now, and have had Guitar Hero III for the Wii for several months. Mason tried it when I first got it, found it too hard, and discarded it. Apparently, one of the Mason's teachers has been bringing their Xbox 360 up to daycare along with Guitar Hero, and now he's hooked. He's played Guitar Hero at home every night this week.
Guitar Hero has four levels; easy, medium, hard, and expert. I beat the game o
Cake? Check. Presents? Check. Eyepatch? Check.
This weekend Morgan turned three years old, and this year her birthday party had a theme: Princesses and Pirates.
When your kid's birthday party has flyers, you know you've gone too far. Actually, Morgan's party had not only flyers, but games, craft tables, food, and activities for all the little princesses and pirates, most of whom came in costume. One of my favorite games was "Pin the Eyepatch on the Princess." My videogaming friends
Here are three mini updates, all with pictures.
I had a very successful writing session down at the cabin. I'd say when I left I had somewhere around 20% of the book done and I now have around 80% written. Thank you to everyone who answered my slipshod poll. The reason for the question about Amazon was this: when I sell books through my own website for $15, a little over 50% of that is profit. When I sell books through Amazon for the same price ($15), the profit margin is less than 6%.
My old lady got a little older today. Happy 35th birthday, honey!
Morgan turns 3 this Saturday, but her party's Sunday. Morgan's having a Princesses and Pirates birthday party. Everyone (including, unfortunately, mommy and daddy) are dressing up for the shindig.
Morgan has requested a "doll" cake. So far we've taken two stabs at it. The cakes are coming out okay but the dress designs leave something to be desired. On the left is the one Susan did last week; one the right is the one I di
My dear Susan has blessed me with a mini-sabbatical -- a two-day stay at a local lakeside cabin. The cabin is small, off the beaten path, and quiet; exactly what I need to finish up work on my second book, Invading Spaces. In order to make my self-imposed August 9th deadline (the date of Oklahoma Videogame Expo) I need to submit the book to the publisher/printer sometime in July. How soon I finish the book determines whether or not I get to see a hard copy proof before I order the final products
Episode 5 of You Don't Know Flack tells the story of Boss BBS, an old BBS I used to call back in the Commodore 64 days -- until the day it mysteriously disappeared, and I heard the sysop's name on the 10pm news ...
You Don't Know Flack - Episode 105
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I had several people ask me what I got for Father's Day. While I did get a few things (including a neat digital photo keychain and two tickets for an upcoming Weird Al concert), what I really got was two kids who wanted to hang out with their dad, and a dad who wanted to hang out with me. Everything else was just icing on the cake.
Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there. I hope you were able to spend time with your sons/dads yesterday.
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