The Due Date

We have officially arrived at the due date... and so far nothing is happening. Tomorrow we go to see the doctor and discuss what next. I assume a little more waiting, but you never know. We heard two stories in our birth class about people who were induced the day after their due date. I'm not sure if Andrea and I are down on the insta-induce method, so we will probably take some time to discuss with the doctor our options.

It occurred to me that I haven't posted any pictures in awhile, just my rambling incoherent thoughts. So, without further ado, here are some pictures. Last week we had Megan's first birthday party. We were guessing she was -1 week old!

And here are some pictures of Andrea from today, the Due Date!

The Countdown Begins

Friday night was the ultimate last AD&D session with me as Dungeon Master. I'd like to say the final session was a culmination of all the hard work and interesting story lines I had dreamed up. Instead, it was my players arguing about whether or not they should avoid a confrontation with the "bad guy" of the whole story. They must have argued for a good hour about what direction to travel in. Oh well, I gave it my best shot. Maybe I wasn't cut out to be a GM, maybe I will be a better player. Time will tell!

On Saturday I did something I haven't done in a long time. I sat around my house, played video games, and that was about it. It helped that Andrea had all these other plans like meeting up with a friend of hers for lunch and doing church things at night. I must have got a solid 12 hours of gaming in. Mainly I did it because I was resting, I had just biked 25 miles the two previous days, but I also did it in part because I know I won't have many 12 hour gaming days in the near future and it just seemed fitting to get one last one in.

Sunday I went out for a quick bike ride even though it had been raining all weekend. It stopped long enough for me to get a 10-mile ride in. Turns out my bike isn't quite designed for riding in wet conditions and I took my first spill of the season. Considering how much I have biked this summer, I figure if this my only accident I'll be happy. I just slightly scrapped my hand and bruised/scrapped my right upper leg.

Sunday afternoon we attended a "Dance for Dollars" - it was a fund raiser for the hurricane victims. It was put on by 6-year old Marselienna. I guess the whole thing was her idea and her parents just helped put it on. She came up this interpretive dance all on her own. I might be getting video of the dance later, if I do I will post it here. It's definitely something worth keeping, she did an awesome job and even found a way to include her younger sister in the act. Just precious!

I have no clue how this week is going to proceed from here so I figured I'd get a post in while I can. I'm nervous, scared, excited, and freaking out all at once. I know it's even harder on Andrea, I can hardly imagine. Somehow we will get through this week!

Fantasy Football, week 3

I didn't make any changes to my line up this week. I left Daunte in simply because I didn't like my alternative option. Turns out I made the right choice, seeing as how the Vikings crushed the Saints. Obviously everyone is still criticizing the Vikings even with a win, but that's what sports reporters are supposed to do. The problem is that one of my WR was out this week on a BYE and I didn't swap someone else in for him. So I might end up losing anyway. Okay, so I suck at this whole Fantasy Football thing. Sue me!

Position	Player
QB	D. Culpepper
WR	A. Johnson
WR	D. Driver
WR	E. Kennison
RB	T. Barber
RB	S. Jackson
TE	J. Kleinsasser
WR/RB	Ke. Johnson
K	S. Graham
DEF	Carolina
D	A. Wilson
D	D. Sharper

Update: Well somehow I pulled out a victory this week, mainly because Daunte did such a good job. But you know what? I still might pull him for this coming weekend. I'm not sure he has 2 good games in him. Anyway, it won't really matter much because next week I go up against Val, and she is friggen 3-0.

Record: 1-2

Back to the Future

I feel better! To celebrate, I of course went for a bike ride tonight. 24 miles in 1 hour 37 minutes. It felt great to get back out on the road after a week off. It's SO weird to think I haven't had more then 3 days between bike rides in almost 3 months. Wow! It was a great summer of biking and I'm looking forward to more of the same next year. Maybe a few more times out yet this year, but soon the weather will be too cold for that. Thus begins Phase 2 of my Master Weight Loss Plan.

Phase 2 consists of me staying home from work for 2 months to help take care of Megan. At the same time, I'm going to get a Lifetime membership and try to build up some good habits while I have time off work that will carry over once I go back. I will probably pay to spend some time with a personal trainer, go over my goals and come up with a good long term plan for me. If you had asked me 4 months ago if I thought I could lose 40 lbs in 4 months, I'd say you were crazy. Yet here I sit, chomping on my apple, sipping my water, 40 lbs lighter thinking - you know what? Anything is possible! It's a pretty exhilarating feeling.

It's been awhile since I could honestly say that I'm really looking forward to the future. I've always been a big advocate of living for the moment. But sometimes when you focus too much on the moment you can lose sight of the purpose, whatever that might be for you. And when I talk about looking forward to the future, I'm not talking about some specific vision. There is simply too much uncertainty. No, the future I am looking forward to is simply the unknown future. When I think about all the ways my life is changing, I can't help but smile. That's the future I'm looking forward to. Is my life perfect? Of course not. Are there aspects of my life I'd still like to work on? You bet. But that lingering feeling that anything is possible really puts a new light on things.

Usurped!

I've been informed that after Megan is born, I will be losing my Dungeon Master status. I guess it makes sense, even though I will be off work I probably won't have much time to design adventures. Honestly though, I'm not quite sure about my DMing skills anyway. I can't seem to keep the pace of the adventures going at times, my players are constantly bickering, and none of them seem to have any motivation (i.e. my previous post "Why are we doing this!!"). Last nights session was a simple dungeon crawl, the first dungeon crawl in 5 sessions of gaming. Did they have a reason to be in this particular dungeon? Yes. Did they necessarily have to explore the entire thing from start to finish? No... but damn is it annoying spending 3 hours developing a dungeon only to have your players decide they are done after exploring 40% of it. Only one of my players seemed to get that, and he also tried to convince me that it wasn't my failing as a DM that dragged down the pace of the sessions, but the players fault. I guess I agreed to some extent, there are some... Interesting personalities in the mix. Needless to say, even if we do manage to have one more session before Megan arrives, I'll probably just wrap up the few loose ends, let them finish the main "mission" they were on, and call it quits. At that point someone else in the group is going to take over as DM.

Health Setbacks:
Thursday morning I didn't feel so hot, but I didn't have a temperature and I figured, if things got worse I'd rather take Friday off as a sick day, and not Thursday. (there was no real way I could take both days off). Thursday night after I got home, I took my temp again and it was 101. I still wanted to get one last bike ride in before I felt too bad, so I met up with Steve at our prearranged location. Steve convinced me I probably shouldn't be biking with a temperature like that, and he was right. My temp stayed at 101 for 3 days accompanied with headaches and sore throat. Saturday I decided to goto the Doctor. The initial strep throat test came back negative, so I'm currently waiting for the results of the 24 hour culture. Anyway, long story short, I obviously haven't been doing any exercising lately. On the plus side, you'd be amazed at how much your body burns up when you have 101 temp for 3 days. My weight actually went down, probably due to burned up water weight. I think I am going to focus on re-hydration today and just go nuts with the water. We also ordered pizza last night, and that probably wasn't the best decision all things considered.

Fantasy Football, week 2

Coming off a huge loss last week, the lowest score in the league, I figure I got no where to go but up. Everyone says Culpepper never has 2 bad weeks in a row so I'm keeping him in. But if he posts a negative score again, I'm scrapping him for my backup, K. Collins. Only other interesting developments are the Javon Walker injury for GB. This makes my pick up of D. Driver much more valuable as he should be a go to guy for Farve. The only other change I made was picking up of D. Sharper from the Vikings. He will probably never make another INT-TD the rest of the season, but I figure he must have something to prove this year coming off his injuries. Maybe he's got a few more surprises in store.

Position	Player
QB	D. Culpepper
WR	A. Johnson
WR	D. Driver
WR	E. Kennison
RB	T. Barber
RB	S. Jackson
TE	J. Kleinsasser
WR/RB	Ke. Johnson
K	S. Graham
DEF	Carolina
D	A. Wilson
D	D. Sharper

Update: Wow, what a huge mistake to leave Culpepper in. Will I make the same mistake in Week 3? Probably. Culpepper was worth negative points again - but I've decide to stick with my Vikings. Purple Pride. If Culpepper goes down this season, I'll go down with him. What the hell right?

Yes, I lost big time in week 2. Big suprise. Week 3 I play my brother, and will probably get my ass kicked. He has Peyton Manning, I'm sure he will have a killer week. Oh well!!

Record: 0-2

We didn't do it for the money

Money, it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of our greatest strength, and our greatest weakness.

Interesting use of a (modified) movie quote, eh? I've decided it's time to switch gears on my blog for a little while instead of my usual "Shawn's Current Events" posts. I know I promised to write more about my 30 mile bike ride, but Steve wrote a really good description about it. I'd basically just duplicate his post, and I try not to steal... from my friends at least. :-)

Money. At what point in life does Money become a focus? The collection and gathering of wealth and objects. Why are those even considered worthwhile human endeavors? It seems to me that it's dictated by society, and the wealthier a society becomes the more important money becomes to that society. I think books like Rich Dad, Poor Dad are an example of just that. That we must instill in each new generation the importance of wealth and money. Yet isn't it funny how money has no inherent value?

Money motivates. It motivates CEO's to build vast empires, it motivates scientists to invent, it motivates politicians to do... whatever it is politicians do. It motivates criminals, it motivates sports stars. I try to think about how and why money motivates me. I wish it didn't, but there isn't anything that can really be done about that. Unless I decide all of a sudden I don't need money and find some way to live off the land. Maybe the Amish have it right.

Unfortunately, for most people, that isn't really an option. Money is what provides us with the basic necessities of life. Shelter, sustenance, clothing and medical care. Without money, obtaining those basic needs becomes very difficult, therefore you really only have one option in life: Make money. I like how we call it "making money" because really no one "makes" money, other then the government. The rest of us are just "trading" money. Anyway, where was I?

Who knows. I just wish that money wasn't such a factor in our lives. I wish that it didn't motivate me. I wish I had gone to college to learn, and not just "so I could get a job". I wish I could work at a video game store talking about video games all day and still provide the basic necessities of life for me and my family. I wish I wasn't a consumer. I wish I could live on a plot of land that provides all the food I'd ever need, and still have an internet connection. I'll end with another Movie quote:

God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

Best laid plans of mice and men

Wow, I just realized Blogger rhymes with Frogger, which is a really cool game. I used to play it as a kid. I also don't have much interesting to write tonight, can you tell?

Friday night was AD&D night with the guys. I spent a decent amount of time getting ready this week, but I still failed in a few things. I told Andi earlier in the week that it's not easy trying to provide entertainment for 4 grown men. Her response of course was a sarcastic, "Ya tell me about it!" One of the things that I failed at was helping the players connect plot pieces. In my mind, it all makes sense, because I'm the guy writing the story. But to them, they are seeing bits and pieces and sometimes, even though they have all the information, it's not readily apparent how it all fits together. I ended up having to lay it out for them because at one point they didn't understand why they were doing what they were doing. In the end, it came down to the fact that they had forgotten a few pieces of information from 2 sessions back. I think somehow in the future, I will just have to put more emphasis on important information. The second thing I need to work on is descriptions of people, places and things. It's hard to describe how someone looks when you don't at least think about it ahead of time. Otherwise, everyone becomes a faceless guy or girl with nothing interesting about them. I think the trick is to write at least one paragraph descriptions about each major NPC prior to introducing them to any sessions. Ahhh... the joys of a nerd life. The other day, someone told me the difference between a Nerd and a Geek. Apparently, a Geek is a Nerd with a social life. Does AD&D qualify?

Saturday we had our last Baby Shower - got lots of cool things, a high chair, a stair gate and a very cool crib set. Also, my sister in law showed us something she was working on, a quilt with a cute hand stitched pattern. She was working on it for a long time while living with us, and we always had to be very careful when she was in her bedroom so we didn't find out!

Sunday was my 30-mile bike tour. It wasn't a race, although we sure did finish in record time! I'll post more about that once I get some pictures from Steve, he's going to email them to me in the next few days. Until then, you can check out his blog for some pictures of our ride.

Fantasy Football, week 1

Okay, so my last post was really boring, so I decided to throw up another post to hide the fact that it was that boring. This will be a new weekly segment, everyone can share in my Fantasy Football embarrassment! Here is my line up for this week:

• QB - D. Culpepper (woohoo, go Vikes!)
  
• WR - A. Johnson
  
• WR - D. Driver
  
• WR - E. Kennison (Who's this guy?)
  
• RB - T. Barber (solid pick according to Yahoo)
  
• RB - S. Jackson
  
• TE - J. Kleinsasser (probable, DOH!)
  
• W/R - Ke. Johnson
  
• K - S. Graham
  
• DEF - Carolina
  
• D - D. McMillan
  
• D - A. Wilson
  

I think I need a back up Tight End asap, if Kleinsasser goes out quick I could be screwed. I'll update this post with my results, and each week I'll post my lineup / wins / losses!

Update: I lost big time this week, Culpepper counted as NEGATIVE 12 points due to all his turnovers and 0 touch down receptions. He hasn't had a game without a touchdown pass since 2003, so ya, I got screwed big time (as did anyone else that picked Culpepper).

Record: 0-1

Daddy Dance

I love short weeks. All of a sudden its Friday and you can hardly remember how you got there. So fast, I can't even think of anything interesting to post. I did get to see my old college roommate last night who had to leave New Orleans. I'm glad they are safe and sounds like they might be staying in MN for good depending on how things go. Very interesting to get the perspective of someone that actually had to leave.

The weather tonight is looking great for a nice bike ride, I wasn't sure about that considering how I was woken by thunder. One last bike ride before the "official" one this weekend. It's almost going to be sort of anti climatic considering I have biked just as far many times now. It was still nice having a goal, now I just have to make sure and keep it up. Hopefully there is one good month of biking left before it gets too cold. The winter months will bring a whole host of new challenges, the least of which will be my health. :-)

The countdown to Fatherhood has officially begun, and I'm getting really excited now. Just a few nights ago I did the "Daddy Dance" around my basement in excitement. I'm also really nervous about the whole birth process and what Andrea has to go through. I feel horrible sometimes when I think about how much of the burden of childbirth is placed on her shoulders. I just hope things go as best as they can and that we have as few complications as possible.

This weekend is our last baby shower, I'm honestly unsure what else we can get. We already have SOOO much baby clothes, it's crazy. We even have most of the basics covered, but I guess there is always something you forget. It will also be nice to see some of my family that I haven't seen in awhile.

I also have a big AD&D session set for tomorrow night, and we are going to start at a decent time for once. I have some cool things planned, I think everyone will have fun. I'll have to write up a larger post about it on Sunday, along with a report on the bike ride.

Renaissance Festival photos

I'll keep tonights post short so that you can just enjoy the Ren Fest pictures. It was a short, but fun Ren Fest experience this year. We got there early enough to do a little walking around. We first went into the Secret Garden, which I swear was new (but I'm probably wrong). It was a little walk in a wooded area with characters and little things to look at. We stopped and saw the jugglers and some guys in the stocks being made fun of.

After that we headed over to Bad Manor for our 7 course meal. The food was great and the entertainment was fun. Not as interactive as I had figured, but fun non-the-less. I snapped some pictures of the belly dancers. :-)

Then right before we left, I was able to catch the Jousting which is obviously one of the main highlights (and my favorite thing) each year.

As for the rest of this weekend, it was exactly as I predicted: way fun and way too fast! Our party was a nice success. It's always interesting to get all these different people together and see how they mix. :-) I'm not sure how well I did with my Fantasy Football draft, but I did get Daunte Culpepper so I'm pretty happy about that.

Roleplaying on Saturday night went pretty well, considering we started at Midnight. We went until 4am like I had also predicted, mainly focused on an important combat session. We all had a lot of learning to do with the combat system, so future combats should go quicker. It's funny that in 4 hours of gameplay, the actually in-game time moved probably 1 hour? In the 3 sessions I've done, the characters have been through 30 hours of actual in-game time. I'll have to find ways to speed that up. Everyone is having fun though, and I'm being told that my storylines are interesting. But really, we need more meat and potatoes (i.e. combat, XP & rewards) for the next few sessions. We are adding one player to round out the group to 4 players. I'm pretty sure I can handle that, but one of the players also says his girlfriend wants to join too. I'm not so sure about that - she has never played, and I was hoping to keep this group to only the hardcore players. Will have to wait and see on that one...

I also managed to see the movie, 40 Year-Old-Virgin on Sunday, the first one I've been to in a long time. There just aren't that many good ones at this part in the summer, although there are still a few I would like to see that I haven't. (Four Brothers, Transporter 2, Brothers Grimm to name a few) Maybe I'll get around to them this month.

Wind blows. Or does it suck?

My bike ride tonight was just horrible. Even as I stepped off the bus after work, I knew it would be bad. There had to easily be a 15mph wind with 20mph gusts. It made it very hard to even get any momentum going. I toughed it out, but my legs are probably more sore then most rides I've done.

This weekend is going to be crazy busy, but I'm looking forward to it. Saturday we are having a Labor Day get together, one last hurrah before the baby arrives. Then that night I'm doing my first ever Fantasy Football draft. I'm sure I will suck it up, but it should be fun. My brother has been doing it for a few years now and I just wanted to get involved. Then the plan is to play some AD&D after that and I'm sure we will go until 4am again. I still have to do some setup for that, in fact I should probably be doing that now.

Monday Andrea and I are going to the Feast of Fantasy. I've been to the Ren Fest many times over the years, but I've never done the Feast. I figured we'd do something new for a change. Someone I work with has been a part of the Ren Fest for over 10 years and she recommended the feast. Should be quite a busy but fun weekend!

One of my old college friends moved to New Orleans at the beginning of this year. He setup a blog which I've added to my link section, "To be determined..." Thankfully, he made it out of New Orleans okay and has made his way back up to Minnesota. I'm hoping to talk to him soon and find out more details on how he is doing and what his plans are. The media sure is doing a good job of painting the worst picture ever of what's going on down there.