This week's Geek in Review started out as a commentary on how computers, which were supposed to give us more free time, seem to have done just the opposite. With our cell phones, Blackberrys, constant access to the Internets, and a globally-connected world that never really sleeps, it seems like we're expected (and able) to do more than we were before. It's like adding roads in SimCity to try and alleviate traffic: the cars will just expand to fill the available space, and before you know it, you have a traffic 'copter and there's a monster stomping through your stadium.
But when I started writing that, my stream of consciousness took me to an entirely different place: while I don't have as much free time as I once did, what little free time I do have I spend with my kids, who, I realized as I was writing, reflect an awful lot of my geekiness back at me.
So I wrote about how I helped add +2 to The Next Generation of Geeks:
There was a time when I wondered if I'd ever be able to make strong bonds with my stepkids because I don't have that sports gene that most guys have. "I can't throw a curveball to save my life, but I can throw a d20 to save vs. poison," I once said to a friend of mine . . . and instantly realized that instead of trying to be someone I wasn't, and instead of trying to play into the typical "fathers play sports" thing, I could just share with my kids the things that I love, that made me who I am today. I carefully introduced my boys to the geeky things that shaped my life.The Newswire is SFW, if a little suggestive today, so there ya go.
