Teaching Little Geeks: Happy Father's Day!

A proud Geek Dad Moment: Halloween 2013

In addition to being, as defined by Urban Dictionary, a "dude" or "man" but "with a much cooler zen-bohemian a d/or streetwise hipster attitude," (Daddy-O), I am an actual biological "daddy" as well, as most of you readers know, so I wanted to take a moment to wish all the dads out there a Happy Father's Day.

This year, I'm unfortunately not going to be able to spend the day with my wife and daughter. They left town on Friday afternoon to spend the weekend with my in-laws in the San Jose area of Northern California. Many of you might be asking, "Why didn't you go with them?" and the answer is that because my wife is a very cool and loving person who knew that I wouldn't have much interest in sitting around while the rest of the women in the family attended my sister-in-law's baby shower. I did my part, however, by buying a Flash Onesie and some Batman socks for my soon-to-be nephew. Geek Dads are cool like that.

So, for me, it's been a bit of a bachelor weekend, going to my local pub on Friday night to catch up on some World Cup games but instead being subjected to hundreds of screaming soccer fans during the NHL Finals. I did get to try to cool new IPAs (new to me, at least) as my pub is currently holding a Summer IPA Festival with about 20 different IPAs on tap in addition to their regular tap list.

Yesterday I was taken in by my friends for game day and dinner. We played Lords of Waterdeep, which I've played several times before, but never won. Yesterday I "won" although technically another player, a young woman named Kathy, won according to the actual rules. She and I tied in terms of number of points, and also coincidentally tied for most money, which is supposed to be the tie-breaker. The second tie-breaker, according to the rules, is most cubes (which represent Fighters, Clerics, Wizards, and Thieves) and by that accounting, Kathy solidly beat me. However, before we started playing my friend Cal said that the house-rule he likes to use is that whoever has completed the "Domesticated Owlbears" Quest can use that as the ultimate tie-breaker card and I had completed that Quest card because it matched my strategy to do so (it's an "Arcana" quest and my Lord of Waterdeep card gave bonus points for each "Arcana" card completed).

We also played a game called Smash Up, which was new to me but it seems like a fun, quick, "gateway" game (good for people who don't normally played strategy board games). Part of the appeal is the fun theme of the game - there are eight factions: Tricksters (leprechauns, goblins, etc.), Robots, Aliens, Zombies, Pirates, Ninjas, Dinosaurs, and Wizards. Each player picks two factions and that because his or her "army" used to capture bases that provide victory points. I ended up with Aliens and Zombies which was a fun combination but ultimately lost the game to my friend Raellen.

Cal and Raellen provided some awesome beer and wine, as usual, and I also brought over a couple of bottles of Stone "Enjoy By" (7/4/2014) IPA, which was really good - very strong pine scenes on the nose but much more mellow on the palate.

My daughter, Joy, about 3 days old.
Nearly 5 years ago (July 2009)

Today while my wife and daughter are gone, I'll be going to the Dodger game with my dad. They're playing the D-backs so there's a good 30% chance they might actually make a decent showing this game. They're been a bit of a disappointment this year considering the amount of money spent on the team and the amount of talented players on the roster.

The rest of my weekend so far has been taken up with playing some video games on my old PS2 (yeah, I'm still playing PS2 - video games really aren't my thing), catching up on some movies on which I can turn up the volume much higher than normal, and of course reading this week's allotment of comics.

I wish all of you out there a Happy Father's Day - let me know in the comments below how you ended up celebrating.

Cheers!


Hanging: Home office (laptop)
Listening: "Well, You Needn't" by the Miles Davis Quintet
Drinking: Black coffee