behold Nigel!

in the spirit of the Feline Theocracy I give you Nigel, our cat. Pictures by Xavier O'Neil Decker.




curious








thinking deep thoughts








devilishly handsome

where have all the players gone? Come out and play!

Now that winter is almost over I finally started to get out and have some winter fun. We went out and bought the whole family ice skates like we’ve been talking about doing all winter. They’re hockey skates actually, where I grew up you wouldn’t get caught dead in a pair of figure skates. I’m so glad we finally did, because I forgot how much fun it is to go out to the rink and slap the puck around. I felt like a kid again; energized and alive.

I’ve brought Xavier skating 3 times now and we’ve had a blast every time. The first time was a little rough. Xavier must’ve fell about 80 times, but he got up every time and kept at it. I explained to him before we started that it was going to be tough at first and to not give up. There were a few tears right away, but after another boy arrived with the same name as Xavier that was a little younger, he got his second wind and wanted to start showing off his new skills. This video was from the 3rd time I took him skating. This was also the first time using the stick and puck. You can see he' s still a little shaky, but he manages a nice backhand at the end of the video.

The one thing I did notice each time we went was that the rinks were empty. My whole childhood I remember never being far from a hockey rink. It’s tradition around here to play hockey. Everybody was down at the rink almost every day. We loved it. Where is everyone now? Maybe it’s just the neighborhood I live in, but I know there are kids around, I see them locked up indoors, staring at the TV or playing Wii, which seems to be justified by the media, since you can’t just sit on your ass to play Wii.

Perhaps this next generation is getting lazy. Perhaps technology is making us all lazy. The kids I see now are all walking around talking on cell phones and zoned out on an IPOD checkin out the facebook profiles, installing a new widget. God forbid that we would go more than a few minutes without some form of techno self indulgence. When I was young we were made to play outside and we loved it. Maybe the luddite is right. Maybe technology is the enemy. In this blog post she talks about the notion that we abuse our environment today because we “fail to physically connect ourselves with nature”. It’s a great blog post and forced the techno culprit himself (me) to reconsider my stance on technology.

I remember reading about a study where they compared brain activity while playing video games against that while walking out in nature. The comparison was remarkable. It was like night and day. When you are out in nature your synapses are firing like a wild fire. It’s instinctual and natural to be outside. It stimulates all of your senses. Even though when you are playing video games it feels like you are solving puzzles and logically you should be improving you problem solving skills, I think overall it is healthier to just be outdoors. (sorry if I’m starting to sound like some tree hugger, but maybe I am a tree hugger)

I love technology. I make a living off of technology. But I have to take a step back and think about what effect it may have on our world. It makes me sad to go to the hockey rink and see nobody playing. I know they are hiding inside afraid of the cold outside world, zoned out on some techno brain drain. Of course there is the argument that technology improves our quality of life. After all, isn’t that the point behind technology, to make things easier? But is it really improving our lives? Or is it making it just that much more difficult to live? Just think, 30 years ago you never even saw a computer in a business or a home. Now nobody can live without them. Do we really need all this crap?

We should all be at the rink playing with our kids. That’s why I ask..

where have all the players gone?

Peace to all the techno addicts out there. Come out and play!

new job-exciting and stressful

I haven 't posted in a while because things have been a little crazy around here lately and my mind has been elsewhere. I'm starting a new job on the 24th. I got offered a job as a Systems Admin for St. Mary's Medical Center here in Duluth. I'm really excited about it for a few reasons. First, they offered me about 50% more than I'm making now, which is sweet! I can finally afford to actually pay the bills I have. At least for a while. I'm told the more you make, the more you spend. I'm curious to see how long it takes us to waste away all that extra income. It's strange to think that I'm sustaining everything now on my fairly meager pay. Well, it's meager for a family of4 anyways. I'm the only source of income since Anna is still finishing up her degree in Philosophy. (Then we can all start living the easy life, because we all know the kick ass high roller jobs you can get with a philo degree.) So times have been pretty tight for a long time. It sure is going to be nice to have a little head way. There's also a lot more opportunity there than where I work now.

but then there is the stress of starting that new job. I'll be the new guy. I'll be doing a lot more specialized work then I have in the past. I'll be concentrating mostly on administering Citrix servers running on top of Windows. For the past few years, I've been kind of a jack of all trades IT guy at the newspapers I've been working for. It will be a big change for me to concentrate on just one system. I'm both excited and a little nervous. I'm going from an IT department of 6 people to one of over 200 people. A little fish in a big pond. Not what I'm used to. But sometimes change is good.

I'm hoping for the best.