Last summer, if you know me well, you may recall that I was working on both completion of the new Penguins hockey arena, and conducting a study regarding demolition of the old hockey arena. While it was an exciting time, it was also EXTREMELY busy and stressful, and I ended up almost backing out of my family vacation and in fact, worked during most of it.
Adding to the stress of work, our family was involved in all sorts of activities and it was taking its toll on both me and our family. Jeff and I decided to dedicate Monday nights to family game night. We agreed not to work late or schedule meetings or other social engagements and devote at least an hour after dinner to playing games with the kids.
We wrote different games on scraps of paper and pulled them from the bowl. Most of the time, we ended up playing hide and seek, and sometimes the games ended with us all laughing so hard we cried. Like, the one time, when the kids and I walked by Jeff's hiding spot several times and eventually he quietly emerged and placed himself on top of Johnny's bed without us noticing.
When I got the word that I had to come to Afghanistan, we redoubled our efforts to keep family game night going. Jeff would send bingo cards and popcorn kernels along in my suitcase so I could play bingo during pre-deployment training. Or we'd find the Skype Hangman game and try that. But it was hard to keep it going, and we've really lapsed over this summer.
Until recently, when I realized that the only game Johnny is interested in is Lego Universe, the massively multi-player on-line game (MMOG). So, in a pathetic attempt to connect with my 8 year old, I ordered the game, downloaded 400 megabytes of universe data over 3 days and slowly started to teach myself this new world of on-line gaming. We can 'meet' each other on the island. His name is DryDustyMeteor, mine is ColossalGagaSidekick. He's been very patient with me. Early on, I asked him how to get to Avant Gardens and he told me to go to the launch pad. I did, but had no luck, so I asked again. He replied "Aren't you LISTENING??!!" We do all of this by text, so his typing skills are improving. One day, he wrote "gtg". I was too embarrassed to ask him what he meant, but while I was pondering his meaning, he popped up again and wrote "that means gotta go. Bye" I was so touched that he thought to explain it to his dear old mom!
When I asked him how he felt, at level 35, playing with his mom who is at level 10, and he patiently explained that I needn't worry. LegoU would not take his levels away just because he was playing with a level 10-er. How nice!
The drawback to all of this playing the MMOG is that I am turning into an 8 year old boy. At lunch with my friends here, I cannot help but tell them all about smashing stromlings and earning faction gear, and BOY do they make fun of me!
So, there it is, the explanation of my Blog Name, and how I'm turning into (more of) a geek.
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