I've been a customer of Apparitions Comics & Books for about 12 years now.  In the more than 20 years that I've collected comics and been a patron of numerous shops, its owner Dave is the only one who dutifully fulfilled my pull list without trying to pad it with tie-ins he "thought I would like" and then pressuring me to buy them, or giving me a sour opinion on one of the books I collected.  He has a clean, well-organized store with a healthy stock of back issues, out of print books, interesting collectibles, and rare RPG products.

It's been several months since I stopped in, as my teaching job took me to closer to home--with daddy responsibilities there--and I couldn't justify the cost of time and gas to make the pilgrimage to he opposite side of town.  So, this past Friday, when my father-in-law shared with me the news that Dave had been robbed, shot, and critically injured, it was a heavy blow.

Here's a way that fans can give a little to make a big difference for Dave:

Fund Raising to Help David Pirkola, Comics Retailer

Of course, another way to help out would be to shop at Apparitions.  As noted already, it's more than just a comic book store.  But, hey, even if they've got nothing for you, pick up some comics for a young person in your life.  They went a long way in developing my imagination and love of reading as a kid, and there are now many books targeted specifically at elementary-age.  I'll be picking up some graphic novels there soon. Location info for Apparitions can be found in the link above.

Thanks for your time.

Our baby girl is here!  You can follow all of her adventures at the Totsite we created for her.  All the details about her delivery are there, too.  I'm having trouble transferring videos from our camcorder, but there are plenty of pictures to enjoy in the meantime.

I've loved D&D and tabletop roleplaying games in general since I was a wee tot.

Same goes for the Green Bay Packers, who I followed with as much if not more enthusiasm this year as I did during their remarkable Super Bowl seasons of the '90s.

Teaching is something that fulfills me like no other thing I've done as "work."

Yesterday, the co-creator of D&D, E. Gary Gygax, passed away.

Brett Favre retired.

And after a doozy of a day once I returned from being ill on Monday, I've had another of the most challenging days at school than I can recall.

I should be emotionally raw, but I'm not.  My focus is--as it has been for many months now--on the well-being of my wife and our soon-to-be-arriving baby girl.  I love other things, but I live for them.  Thanks for giving me hope, baby girl.

With almost a month since my last post and sporadic updates in the months prior, it's become pretty clear that if I have a chance to be online for any length of time, I'm not checking in here.  That'll probably hold true for as long as I am writing to our baby girl at the To Our Baby journal.  I know that I've got to be careful to keep pursuing my own interests and being my own person... but it's much harder than I expected when most of my thoughts are already geared towards our child, and she's not due to be born until about a month from now!

Hey, at least I bothered to update my Journal theme.  That's somethin', right?

It's funny, what files of seemingly trivial information are easily retrieved amongst the many piled up in my head.  I remember today purchasing my first CDs, "ZZ Top's Greatest Hits" and "The Bodyguard" soundtrack.  Both have long since been exchanged for store credit toward more worthy additions to our music collection. 

The first DVDs in our slowly-growing movie collection were, strangely, "The Perfect Storm" and "Fantasia 2000."  They accompanied my dad's electronic Christmas gift splurge for that year, the DVD player that's still hooked up to our main TV today.  I didn't connect with "The Perfect Storm" when Melanie and I first saw it in theaters.  But, as I've come to enjoy George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg more in recent years--especially in "Michael Clayton" and "The Departed"--it's seen more play in our house.  While their performances are enjoyable enough, it's of course the 1991 super-storm in the North Atlantic that's the star of the show.

While it was our third for the year, today really was The Perfect Snow Day.  Not so much in the time spent away from the responsibilities of work--what with snowblowing the driveway and Melanie's early morning checkup and errands and an ice-slashed tire that needed to be replaced and cooking supper and graduate class homework, my chill time was nonexistent--but in the conditions that closed schools all over the state. 

Unseasonably warm weather (over 40 degrees Fahrenheit!) that produced thunderstorms.

Temperatures that plummeted 40 degrees in less than 24 hours, leaving all the wet surfaces glazed.

Showers of light snow.

Strong winds that whipped that dusty white stuff into significant drifts and created wind chills of far below zero.

It looks like there's another strong storm with heavier snow and strong winds headed our way for Friday.  Dare to dream... another snow day?

After several weeks, I've finished the first of what is sure to be many plays of "Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn" for the Wii.  Combining many of my favorite elements from beloved games of the past "Final Fantasy Tactics" and "Gemfire", it captured all of my video gaming attention this late fall/early winter, after "Paper Mario" from the Virtual Console did so in late summer/early fall. 

What's noteworthy is that both games were produced by Intelligent Systems, and that my next planned game--and likely the last one to which I'll be able to enjoy any meaningful time before Baby Tulip arrives in late March--is "Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door" which Mel's parents gave to me as a Christmas gift.

Back to school tomorrow...!

This holiday vacation has been outstanding and so very needed.  In addition to celebrating the blessings we remember especially at this tiem of year, sharing of gifts with friends and family, change of sleeping routines (example: it's 10:17 a.m. and I'm still in my pajamas), and the chance to do more things that don't fall under the categories of "work" or "school", we also got the nursery ready for our baby girl. 

I say "we" because Melanie's mom was gracious enough to give up two mornings of her time to help prime and then paint what was once our office.  Just yesterday, she loaned me their deep carpet cleaner, which did an excellent job of removing a few stains that Melanie once felt would necessitate replacing the carpet.  I've moved all of her Christmas gifts into the room, along with the few Ocean Life-themed items we'd purchased and had been residing in our dining room while the nursery was refurbished.  We looked at cribs and other furniture yesterday before seeing "Michael Clayton" (highly recommended for those who don't mind being challenged by a movie and who enjoy character studies), and now have a better idea of what we do and don't like.

Today is the first day since over a week ago that I'll really do any school work, and there's plenty to be done.  Lesson plans here at home while enjoying some of my new DVDs ("Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin' Down a Dream" will be finished before I move on to "MST 3000" or "Sopranos" Season 5), then to school to do the monthly change-over of decor and prepare some materials for our return to classes on Monday the 7th.  I also have some reading yet to do for the first sessions of my grad school class on School Law; two sessions this weekend, the first on Friday from 5 to 9 p.m. and then the long stretch on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.  Hopefully, today will be productive enough that I can relax again on Sunday after church... though we'll likely do some grocery shopping and, depending on whether or not our progressive dinner with friends will take place on the following weekend or not, un-deck the halls.

Perhaps even better than being Simpsonized... now we denizens of the Internet can join Santa's squad of shorties.  Melanie and I cut a mean snowdrift.   Credit for this find goes to our friend Erin, who posted the goods at her blog PattersonShenanigan.

Enjoy, and if you make yourself and elf, be sure to share it with me!

Last night's WWE broadcast was supposed to be a celebration of 15 years of Monday Night Raw, the show that brought wrestling to primetime television on a weekly basis.  Instead, it was what's made WWE increasingly bland over the past several years: far too much screen time devoted to WWE owner Vince McMahon and his son-in-law/wrestler Triple H. 

The Good:
The recaps of significant events were fun--wrestling "weddings", slaps, upsets, and so on--and the participants of the 15-man battle royal made me glow inside ("Skinner?!  I.R.S.?  No freakin' way!").  Jeff Hardy and Carlito had an awesome ladder match that charged the live crowd.  Eric Bischoff and Chris Jericho in trading verbal blows was a blast.

The Bad:
There wasn't the slightest celebratory tone to the evening.  The show could've benefited greatly from a launch of balloons or confetti, pryos that weren't tied to wrestler entrances, and so on. 

I generally liked the video recaps, but a better use of the time of past performers--shoehorned into embarrassing vignettes through the 3 hours--would've been their reflections on favorite Raw moments.  Though I know it might've been tough to do so without drawing attention to passing over Chris Benoit, I would have liked to have seen a short tribute to the Raw performers who are no longer with us. 

Again, far too much of Vince and Triple H.  I think Triple H was a part of fully a third of the segments: the McMahon family photo op, the Evolution reunion, a D-Generation X moment, and the awful end to the program.  Predictably, the Greatest Superstar in Raw History turned out to be Vince himself.  Even more predictably, after Mankind and Undertaker abused him, Vince was confronted and eventually received a Stone Cold Stunner from Steve Austin.  As loads of wrestlers were slowly ambling to the ring, the camera continued to focus on Vince as Austin and Triple H poured beer on him.  A third of the screen was dominated by a scroll of matches for this coming Sundays' pay-per-view.  I was moving around on the couch as if doing so would allow me to see past the three of them and catch a glimpse of some of the special guests.  Bad, bad stuff.

Worst of all, the show was heavily promoted, and I'm betting that many rasslin' fans from days of old tuned in for a dose of nostalgia.  Instead, they got a drawn-out 180 minutes of two egomaniacs strutting around the ring.  Like me, they're unlikely to tune into Raw again anytime soon.

For some reason, I my mind kept traveling way back in time today to an evening at home watching WWF wrestling on TV.  It was a more innocent time, when I was certain in my heart that longtime heroes of my friends and me, the Rockers Marty Janetty and Shawn Michaels, would settle their differences and, "go on and rock & roll like the Rockers... can do."  In my gut, though, I knew that a black leather jacket was analogous to an I Am Evil badge, and Marty was in for it.  Rather than dreading it as I should have, I was thirsting for it--for the wholesome glam boy Michaels to have some edge.


I rooted for Michaels, "bad guy" as he was, all through the rest of my middle and high school years, much to the puzzlement and sometimes anger of other rasslin' fans.  Such a "turn" today wouldn't even register on the radars of viewers, as it happens on such a regular basis, but back then, this was wickedly satisfying.