Figuring Out Rayners

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What Makes Me Happy #7: Knights of the Dinner Table

I'm a gamer. I enjoy games and game related things. One of my favorite game related things is the Knights of the Dinner Table comic. I first picked it up on a whim at Alternate Worlds out in Cockeysville (is that place even around now?) around issue #22 and they're up to almost #160 now. I think I've got most of the issues from #22 to #90 or so, and I've started to back-fill my collection with the Bundles of Trouble. I've read each of the bundles I've got at least twice so far, and I plan on re-reading them all when I my next batch (BoTs 12-14) arrives.

If you haven't before read Knights of the Dinner Table, there are some web versions of the strip you can read, starting with their version of the famous gazebo story.

Now to figure out what to do with all the old issues I've got that are now covered by the Bundles of Trouble I've bought. I'm thinking I'll send/take them up to David and my other colleagues in New York City.

What Makes Me Happy #6: Trains

I have a Y chromosome. I'm pretty sure there's a gene in there that requires me to maintain a boyish love of trains and rail travel for my entire life.

For months recently, I'd been thinking about how I might be able to put together some model trains at home, but I finally let that go (for now!) because of space limitations.

ISanta got the boys some wooden trains for Christmas and they play with them just about every day. It is so tempting to play with them myself after the boys go to bed at night, and it doesn't help that they're always asking me to come play build tracks for them and play trains with them while I'm trying to do other things. And don't get me wrong, I will play with them when I have the time, but I also have to force myself to hold back because I want the boys to enjoy building the tracks themselves instead of just asking me to do it for them. I'll help expand a track, but I won't build it from scratch for them.

Heck, one of my favorite parts of my trips up to New York (besides getting to actually work with and hang around some of my awesome colleagues) is riding the train to and from town.  It's so wonderfully relaxing to just sit there (in chairs with actual legroom!) and watch the world go by or read a book, or even get some work done.

What Makes Me Happy #5: Bedtime

One of my favorite parts of my job is that, since I work at home, I've been able to be here to give the boys their bath and put them to bed almost every night.

Lately, going to bed involves me laying down with each of them individually for five or ten minutes while they settle down (often falling asleep too; for various reasons, I haven't been sleeping well lately, but I'm working on that).  The boys can say some of the strangest things at night when we're face to face like that.  William, for example, likes to point to the facial hair on my chin and call it my "big mustache" and the facial hair above my lips and call it my "little mustache".

It is a nice way to transition into the evening, and, more often than not, leaves me with a smile on my face and love in my heart.

What Makes Me Happy #4: Beaker

What Makes Me Happy #3: Preschool commute

One of my favorite parts of the day is taking the boys to preschool in the morning. It's just me and them in the car for 35 minutes or so going against traffic to start my day. 35 minutes with the boys fresh from sleeping and breakfast, before they can get tired or hungry or cranky, and strapped in with plenty to look at out of the windows.

Often, I hear one or both of them singing their interpretations of songs they've heard or been taught. "Fwee dah-bee-nah!" "Fleas nah-bee-nah!" "Hi ho dairy oh farmer in the dell hi ho dairy oh farmer in the dell hi ho dairy oh farmer in the dell." Since it's the holiday season right now, I'll put the local radio station on that plays holiday music 24/7, but normally I put on a Pandora station for them (it'd be awesome if I could turn on/off explicit lyrics on a station by station basis for Pandora). They know that I can skip songs with that if they don't like them, and have asked multiple times for me to do so. They've even asked me to skip songs on the radio.

I also get to hear all sorts of wonderful conversations that they have with each other and with me. This morning before we left, Nick told me that I was very tall and that he was little. Later on, we were at a red light next to a school bus and he declared that the school bus was "tall as a mountain!" We also pass a number of farms on the way to preschool (that's Carroll County for you), a couple of which have a number of grazing cows.  Today, as we were driving past one of the larger farms, I heard William say "Hi cows! How are you today? Are you eating grass?" Sometimes we'll be near "big trucks" and we'll play the "guess what's inside the truck" game. "What's do you guys think is inside that truck? Could it be... apples? Paper? Is it full of monkeys?"

The next best thing about the morning preschool commute is that, once I drop the boys off, it's just me time. Usually, I'll put on one of my loud Pandora stations, like my heavy metal/hard rock station and zone out a bit while I drive back to the house. It's very calming for me. The boys are taken care of, work problems generally haven't managed to get into my head yet and traffic on the way back is generally light to medium.  Between the driving and the music, my brain is completely occupied and I can relax and just let go.

Sometimes on the way home, maybe once a week or so, I'll treat myself to a breakfast sandwich somewhere. I used to enjoy a sausage supreme omelet on a bagel from Dunkin Donuts, but because they've discontinued that and their coffee has started to get bad for some reason, this morning I decided to try a sandwich from the coffee shop I'll stop in some mornings near the boys' preschool. And oh my goodness was it tasty!

With a tasty sandwich devoured and yummy coffee still to drink, today I took the exit off the expressway back to the house, smiling because the traffic just a couple hundred yards past the exit was at a near standstill.

Abstraction (XKCD makes me happy)

via xkcd.com

What Makes Me Happy #2

When I got home from preschool with the boys today, they took their jackets and shoes off like normal, and were starting to get settled in when Nick declared that they needed to feed the kitties. So Nick went straight for the big container of cat food we keep in the kitchen and pulled it out onto the floor. I opened it for them, William reached in to take out a scoop and handed it to Nick. Nick went over to the stairs, with William at his heels, and poured the food into the cats' food bowl. Nick then handed the scoop back to William so that William could take his turn at feeding the cats.

William came back, filled the scoop up again and headed back over towards the food bowl. Of course, at this point one of the cats had already heard the activity and had come over to start eating. William stopped initially because she was there, and I told him to go ahead and pour it in the bowl; that she would get out of his way without any fuss. He instead informed me that he would just pour the food into the "other bowl." Of course, by the time it dawned on me that he meant the water bowl, he had already dumped out the contents on the scoop into said bowl. The cat, of course, was intrigued by this combination of food and water and dove right on in, drinking and eating at the same time.

The boys are constantly surprising and amazing me with their capacity for caring for others, including the cats.

What Makes Me Happy #1

I want to start recording (mostly for my own benefit) the things that happen to me that make me happy, make me smile and genuinely bring me joy. This is the first of those.

Sunday afternoon, I took the boys out to Target to do some holiday shopping. It was a little rough getting them out of the house.  William especially was being cranky. Usually, this just means he's really tired and needs a nap, which is exactly what happened on the way to the store. He was out pretty quick, and Nick followed William's lead about half a mile from the store. So, as I've done before when they've been cranky and are both asleep, I let them sleep in the car. Last time we did that, the three of us ended up sleeping in the car in front of the house for about an hour. This time, they slept for about half an hour while I read a few pages of a book in the Kindle app on my iPhone (Assassin's Apprentice for those that care; I got it on sale for "free").

They woke up, and were a little cranky going into the store.  I'm guessing that was because they just woke up.  When we got inside, William promptly informed me that he was hungry (he's always hungry lately), so we went over to the Target cafe for a snack.  William wanted popcorn, Nick wanted a hot dog, and I went for a sandwich and a soft pretzel (I hadn't had much of a lunch that day).  They insisted on taking off their jackets and I sat them down at one of the tables in the cafe, where they sat quietly the entire time I was in line and waiting for the food.  So quietly, in fact, that the woman behind me asked me how I did it.  My response was that I'm just lucky (and I am!).

I got our food and, with the exception of my sandwich, all three of us shared our food with the other two.  Without any fighting, screaming or crying.  William insisted on sharing his popcorn with me, asked Nick if he could have some of his hot dog, and they both asked me for pieces of my soft pretzel.

They were so well behaved and so generous with me and with each other that I couldn't help but smile.

More recent musical obsessions of mine

I went on a Mark Ronson kick for a while a few months back.  Notice the singer from the second video appearing in the third, as well as the band that performed the original version of the song.