I've been playing Starcraft games for almost sixteen years.  I don't know what it is about the game or its story, but both keep me interested and entertained no matter how many times I play through the games.  I've played through the campaigns multiple times, completing them on the highest level and finishing all of the additional awards in the Starcraft II game.

I had liked Warcraft II quite a bit before I was introduced to Starcraft, but once I started playing the latter, the former never really got attention from me again.  There's something about the concept that grabs my imagination, and the gameplay is balanced enough that I enjoy each time I play.  Well, almost every time ...

It was my brother who introduced me to the multiplayer aspect of the game.  I quickly found that while I was able to do very well at his LAN parties, playing on the wide open  Internet was much more problematic.   As I have gotten older, my reaction times have not kept up with the required curve, and I have not dedicated time to practice an hone my skills as my time is pretty limited as is.

Now, playing Starcraft II multiplayer is one of the main ways that I spend time with my brother (who lives a time-zone away).  Much of the time, I enjoy building a strategy with him and facing off against opponents who are more devious than the game's A.I.  Sometimes, however, it's just frustration.

Last night, I had to put up with a couple of harassing players.  I was already on a losing streak, but this just rubbed salt in the wound.  In the second case, we even won, but a member of the losing team made it a point to tell everyone how terrible of a player I was.  I know that it was just the taunting of an immature mind, but it stung nonetheless.  It turns out that he was "griefing" the game anyway.  I am only ranked at silver (which is only one rank up from bronze, the lowest category, where I usually sit).  He had a master ranking (4 ranks higher) but was playing as "unranked" so he could harass lesser players (such as myself).

The problem is that I revert to my lizard brain when I get that frustrated.  I start yelling and cursing at the game.  I yell at my kids if they're in the room.  I pretty much turn into a monster version of myself.  A part of me wants to quit playing the game entirely as I don't like that side of me, but another part says that I need to keep playing so that I continue my quest to learn how to lose more graciously.

I will keep playing.  There is still the third part of the story that needs to come out, and I like getting to spend time with my brother, even if it is virtually.  Perhaps I need to tape a note to my monitor saying "Deep breaths; it's just a game."  One way or the other, I shouldn't let moronic minds determine my own emotions, or make me stop playing a game that I love.

One thing about owning a home, I certainly have learned how to fix things around the house.  From electrical switches, to ceiling fans, to door locks, to plumbing, to minor carpentry ... I have learned a large variety of skills that I didn't plan on honing.  For much of what I do, I have to thank my Uncle Brian who spent a summer month converting a basement space into my sister's bedroom back when I was in high school.  I also have to give some credit to my Webelos leader who taught us rudimentary plumbing and soldering.

Today, I was fixing drawers whose faces had come off.  One of them bore the marks of one of my previous fix-it attempts.  These weren't heirlooms or antiques, so I relied on wood screws to do the job.  It was a brute-force sort of fix-it.

Of the different types of fix-it projects, anything involving fixing holes in plaster ranks as my least favorite.  It's a pain to deal with and I never get it to look quite right in the end.  That these types of jobs often involve painting (which I absolutely hate) only makes  them that much worse.

In a close second is anything to do with plumbing.  I have gotten quite a bit better in this area, having replaced faucets, sinks, and toilets, but these projects usually involve the more swearing.  You know, because swearing scares the parts into working properly.

One project I would like to tackle, but am a bit afraid to do, it to install ceiling fans in all of the bedrooms.  I managed to install one in the dining room, but I had to go into the attic and replace the light fixture with something sturdy enough to hold the fan.  Our attic is filled with the blown insulation.  Even with the mask, and a not too hot day, it was a terribly uncomfortable experience.

The funniest thing about handyman jobs is that, while it takes me forever to get started on one, they usually don't take me that long.  Today's drawer faces have been waiting for me since at least the beginning of this summer, but they only took me about half an hour to finish.  I'd be a lot handier of a handyman if I would just start on the projects.

Another hero of mine has passed away.  Even though the Internet is full of people discussing, mourning, and reflecting on the passing of Robin Williams, I still want to add my voice to those who are expressing their grief at this loss.

For me, like many people, Robin Williams was the crazy uncle of the family.  Unlike many other actors and comedians, there was something about his presence that made him relatable, if off the wall.  Perhaps part of it, for me, was because I started watching him play Mork while I was still rather young and impressionable.  Through Mork, Robin played a naive, yet lovable, crazy person, someone who helped us examine the craziness in our own lives that we otherwise took for granted.

In a way, his characters in my two favorite movies of his, Good Morning Vietnam and Dead Poets Society (whose ending will make it so I might not watch it again), expanded on this identity that he created with Mork.  In both, he is still an outside observer who helps people understand more about life through his wild manner.  In both, he was also a bit naive and surprised by the harshness of reality.

His passing also brings to light the loneliness that so many people feel.  It amazes me how much we, as humans, isolate ourselves even when we are surrounded by others.  In his case, perhaps his talent and energy brought about a bit of a curse for him.  Perhaps he felt like an outsider in reality which is why some of his roles were so convincing.

I'm not going to pull a moral out of this.  He was a great man who will be missed.

This week's Gospel reading has the famous, and often joked about, scene where Jesus walks on water.  Peter asks to join Jesus, but after a few steps, he grows fearful of the waves and begins to sink.  How much this is like my own relationship with Jesus!  I ask to follow Him, but then I falter, afraid of the tribulations that I face.

What encourages me is that when Peter calls out for Jesus to save him, Jesus is right there and lifts him back into the boat.  That is the case for all of us as well.  All we have to do is ask Jesus to save us and He will.  In fact, He's been working at trying to save us this entire time.  It's been our own stubbornness and fear that has kept us from accepting His help, sometimes going to far as to reject Him completely.  Yet despite all of that, He is still there, ready to save us.

Today's sermon was given by a newly ordained priest who spoke about his own difficulties in coming to believe in Jesus as well as what led him to the decision to enter the clergy.  He spoke about selfishly looking for happiness in the places where the world says that we will find happiness, yet becoming miserable instead.  He had family and a support system of friends who were able to help him recognize that all he had to do was ask Jesus to help him.

The first reading speaks of listening for God and expecting Him to let Himself be known through massive winds and earthquakes.  Yet, in the end, God's call is like a the smallest whisper.  He has been with us forever, so long that we don't notice His presence unless we take the time to recognize it.  He's here with me now, helping in ways that I rarely recognize, quiet as a whisper, but capable of quelling the strongest storm.

We had Connor's birthday party today even though his birthday is actually next week.  There were balloons, party games, cupcakes, presents, and other standard birthday elements.  He had a number of his relatives and several of his friends (one whose birthday party followed shortly after Connor's) attend.  It was a good day and a fun party full of pizza, play, and laughter.

I realized that Connor is at the age that he will remember, albeit vaguely, these events.  I remember my birthday party during my kindergarten year, and I am sure that he will remember his.  We are at the point that he will be actively remembering the events that shape who he will become.

This is one of the reasons that I support birthday parties.  They serve as a sort of anchor for our memories, which are otherwise such skittish things.  While I don't perfectly remember one birthday to the next, major occurrences between the birthdays and at the birthdays themselves have helped keep a relatively accurate timeline of my past.

I hope that Connor's party was memorable enough to serve as that anchor.  Hopefully, he will remember the Batman/silly-string obstacle course, the new bike, the table of bubbles, and other elements to remember what it was like to be six turning seven.  Too many people forget their own past and the events that helped shape who they are.  They forget what they were like as a child.  May this birthday party help Connor avoid such a fate.

I am often asked why I chose to go to college in Alaska.  I have, of course, several set answers of varying degrees of importance and truthfulness:

I wanted to get as far from my parents as possible and still live in the continental U.S.  This one is depressingly true, but not a major motivation.  I have obviously changed my view on this as I now live only a few miles from them which places me closer to my parents than any of my siblings.

I was given a scholarship.  Also true, but I actually received better scholarships from a few other schools.  In fact, some of the scholarships offered to me were full-ride scholarships, and that was without my solicitation.  Who knows what I could have qualified for if I had actually put forth an effort.

I wanted to get away from all I was and reinvent myself.  While this is mostly true, and at least partially successful, I was also terrified of the idea of leaving the familiar.  I suppose part of my decision to leave was to challenge my fear of the unknown.

The school had a well-ranked engineering program.  While true about the school, I had no real desire to be an engineer, even though I took engineering focused courses for my first year.  While I tell people that I changed my major after taking the engineering courses, the truth is that I never had a real desire to go through the program to begin with.

The real reason I went to Alaska was because I didn't feel like I belonged in Michigan, or Minnesota, or Illinois, or most of the other places I had visited.  Yet, when I got the envelope from UAF, I felt Alaska calling to me.  For that matter, it still does.  I remember being told by a couple of veteran Alaskans that usually out-of-state college students seemed out-of-place in Fairbanks, but for some reason I seemed liked I had been born there.

Today, we walked around the county fair.  A large part of my mind kept looking around me and feeling out-of-place.  I didn't feel a connection to the people around me.  Even though I was born and raised in this county, I feel like a stranger, an outsider.  While I know the streets, the place is foreign to me.

On our vacation, I kept picturing moving to some of the locations that we visited, but none of them felt right.  Many of the places attracted me more than where I live and work now, but they still seemed slightly out-of-phase with my being.

There are many things that keep me from moving back to Alaska, but I feel a hole in my existence while I don't live there.  Who knows?  Perhaps this is a case of the "grass is greener" as there were certainly times while I was in Alaska that I missed Michigan (particularly my family and the seasons).  Perhaps it's part of a mid-life crisis.  I just don't feel like I belong here.

We just returned from a five day trip into Northern Michigan and I am pretty exhausted.  Ironically, this was the least physically challenging of the five days as it was pretty much all just a drive down from Houghton (and many bathroom breaks).  Still, I am more tired tonight than I have been any other night these past five days.

Five days.  It seems both longer and shorter.  In some ways, it feels like we've been gone for a month; in others, like we just left.  As I reflect back upon the trip, I am amazed at how much we managed to pack into such a short vacation.  Each day was packed with activities (which I plan to share later once I get some of my pictures organized).

It's good to be home.  While I brought my pillows with me, they alone are no substitute for my own bed.  It's funny, we take vacations to break from our normal grind, but in many ways I am looking forward to being back to my routine.  I enjoyed nearly every part of the trip and I loved seeing (and even imagined living near) such interesting sights, but I'm ready to be home.

My sons are bouncing on the beds rather than sleeping in them.  For the most part, we did the same things today, yet they are full of energy and I just want to go to bed.  It's a bit worse today because we ate dinner rather late.  While eating seems to put me into a food-coma these days, my sons manage to find whatever bit of sugar that might be in the meal to exponentially increase their energy.

They have now created some sort of game that requires jumping from the bed (thankfully not the upper bunk) to the floor, climbing back up, and jumping again.  Oh, and laser noises are required too.

The thing is that I remember coming up with those games and having the energy to play them.  I created cosmic battles and fantastical quests; invisible armies and monstrous challenges awaited me.  A part of me is tempted to join them even though the rational portion of my brain knows that I would easily break the bed.  

They are climbing into bed after being properly chastised (especially after one of them made a rather loud thump upon hitting the ground).  They are protesting, but I know the protests are half-hearted.  Another irony of life is that they will be asleep in moments while I will be stuck with my thoughts for a while still.  

Willow trees hold a special place in my heart.  The first tree that I remember climbing was a willow.  It was a tree where my imagination was able to soar.  I even tried soaring myself from it once with wings made out of paper.

My parents had three willow trees in their yard while I was growing up.  One was in the front on the side hill.  This was my first tree.  It had a double trunk with one side giving dividing even further and then dividing again, all relatively low to the ground.  Basically, that side allowed at least two people to sit comfortably in it without requiring too much work.  It was my spaceship.  Often I would sit in the "gunner" seat (which was higher) while my sister "piloted" our craft.  The other side of the tree was a much more difficult climb, but it had a fantastic perch to serve as a lookout post.

The second one was my least favorite as it was near the apple trees and thus more bugs.  It also had a low-hanging branch, but it didn't have the multiple perches for more than one person to use.  It was, however, possible to hang a tire-swing from it.

While we wouldn't be able to climb the willow in the back until we were older, it quickly became my favorite.  It wasn't until about six feet off the ground that this tree split its trunk, but when it did, it made a space like a little tree house.  It also had numerous branches parallel to the ground that were perfect for gymnastic moves.  Sadly, it is now the last of the willows and all of its large branches have been taken down.  All that is left is that trunk which still rises over six feet off the ground.

Today, my mother purchased and had me attach several boards to the willow as well as a couple of hand-holds and a climbing rope.  My youngest sons and I climbed to the top as I attached them.  It was like visiting an old friend.  While it's more of a large stump than a tree, as well as home to an assortment of bug, the boys and I had a fun climbing it again.  

I'll just have to check my sons for paper wings before they go to play on it.

I have had a much busier summer than I had expected.  We recently passed the half-way point of my break, and I can't help but think of all the things that I haven't managed to accomplish.  This seems like a good place to take stock of what I've done and not done as I only have a little over a month before my life goes at break-neck speed again.

I finished (although I haven't polished) the Rosary section on this website.  Considering that I had been planning on doing this for a number of years now, I'm really glad that I got it up and running.

We cleaned out the garage from the garage sale and can now park our cars in it again.  Honestly, it had been long enough that I had trouble parking in the garage again.

I've been writing in this blog nearly every day.  Only on days like yesterday, where we end up busy until later than I expect, have I had to postpone writing the blog.  Still, I've managed to have a blog for every day since I've started.

I fixed and updated the character spreadsheets that I use for D&D (both 3.5 and my home-brewed 3.6), and made them available on Google Docs.

I've been playing tennis at least twice a week with my father.

I even fixed the slide and swing set at my parents' house, as well as set up the beginnings of a play area on the willow tree in their back yard.

And I've seen a lot more of my friends this summer than I have for the last several years.  While the lack of down-time is frustrating my wife a bit, I've been having a blast.

That said, there's still a lot on my list: repair the drain field (in progress), get a cover picture for Dragon Hunter and get the book e-published, write a new story (Vali's Tale), take a load or two to the dump and metal recycler, clean up the basement, go on a trip (currently planned), get Pool of Radiance stuff on this web site, finish converting DQ7 into a D&D adventure, and other things that aren't coming to mind.  I am avoiding working on school stuff even if the dreams have already started.  There will be time enough for that later.

At least I've been getting some stuff done.  This has already been a more productive summer than most of my previous one.  Still, I have some catching up to do.

More so than any other television show, except perhaps M.A.S.H., the Rockford Files was a major part of my early childhood.  I don't remember much from the show itself other than its car chases, but I remember Jim Rockford and his personality.  In some ways, I almost thought of him like an uncle.  It sounds weird as I write it, but it was true nonetheless.  

My father was a big fan of James Garner.  I believe his favorite movie is The Americanization of Emily (which is certainly worth watching).  Along with the Rockford Files, he also tried to watch any of the reruns of Maverick, which I enjoyed more, that he could find.  I know that these characters helped to form my idea of what a hero should be.  They didn't seek out confrontations and they often looked for non-violent solutions.  They were concerned about day-to-day life, but had a code of ethics that didn't allow them to ignore the downtrodden.

As I grew up, seeing James Garner in a film or show was like seeing a relative or friend.  I didn't always like the roles that he played, but I still looked forward to seeing him.  With that in mind, his passing has affected me almost as much as if a relative or friend passed away.  It amazes me how much we are affected by the lives of people who never met us.

We watched the first half of the Rockford Files pilot episode last night.  The clothes and hairstyles are entertaining and the show's pacing is MUCH slower than to what we are now accustomed, but the show is still entertaining and it was like seeing an old friend again.  Rest in peace, James Garner.

While The Settlers of Catan still holds its place as my favorite board game of all time, Carcassonne has definitely made some gains on my list.  Honestly, a major reason that I like it is the way the board looks as you build it.  It's a pretty easy game to learn, but it takes a while to master it.  While several expansions that change the nature of the game in subtle but interesting ways, this game has the capacity to hold a family's attention for quite a while.

And there's another thing I like about the game: my family likes playing it.  Each game is relatively short, so we can get in a couple of games at sitting (the expansions usually make the game a bit longer).  While I know that this sounds like an advertisement, it's not meant as such.  This game has become a part of what my family and I do, so I wanted to share it.

We took my youngest in for his shots today.  The poor kid needed to get five of them.  He was really calm as the nurses readied his first two shots, but once they stuck him, he started crying and mildly trying to get away.  My wife held him without any help, but he did tense up his legs (which makes shots more painful) when the last three were given, making him scream out.

I was impressed at the efficiency of the nurses; the actual shots only took a minute even with them stopping to try to soothe him.  Of the five, his reaction was not the most violent or the loudest, or even the calmest (the award for which goes to Katrina who mostly just glared at the doctor who administered her shots).  I remember getting my shots, one in particular that made my arm harden like a rock for several days.

As a parent, its hard to watch my children in pain, even if I know that it's for their benefit.  It has not gotten easier.  It's hard to explain to someone (a child, in particular) that the pain he was going through today would help benefit him in the long run.

There's a metaphor in there somewhere . . . 

The song is running through my head and I only really know that one phrase from it.  Truthfully, I didn't have a bad day, but it will not go down in history as one of my better ones.  In the book that I've been reading about creating an electronic presence for myself, the author suggests that you shouldn't write a blog post on a day when you are angry.  People don't like angry (even if the popularity of the Hulk suggests otherwise).

I have found that the author is probably correct.  Usually, when I talk about something that is bothering me or something bad that happened to me, the person to whom I was complaining gives an example of something even worse that happened to them.  It becomes a reciprocating cycle of one-downsmanship.  

As hard as it is, I usually find that the only thing that gets me out of the funk of a bad day is being positive and counting my blessings.  If I focus on how bad the situation is or on revenge (and I can be pretty creative when it comes to revenge), I just end up feeling worse.  If I find the silver lining, it's as though a heavy stone has been lifted from my brow and I can think more clearly.  This isn't about a false positivism; for this to work, I need to find something truly good in the situation or in my life and celebrate it (not ironically).

Now, demons will still try to bring those bad thoughts to mind.  I find that the only way to consistently keep them back is to recognize who benefits from my misery: it isn't my kids or my friends, not my co-workers or my spouse,  and it certainly isn't me.  Thus the only true revenge is leaving that misery behind.  I certainly don't want to support the devil that benefits from my misfortune.

Life is good and my blessings are many.  My state of mind is my own to control.