The first, The best, The only: ROGUE

I love RPGs.  They are, by far, my favorite type of video game, and the love started a long, long, long time ago (the 1980s).

Until recently, though, I could never remember the name of that very first PC game that started my love on dungeon exploration, weapon acquisition, and monster bashing.  I did a little wandering about the web, and I found it:  ROGUE.  Yes, yes!  I was so excited!  Here's the cover of the manual from EPYX Computer Software:

Doesn't it look exciting?!  In this game, you fight your way through level after level of dungeons, looking for armor and weapons to help you on your quest to find the Amulet of Yendor.  You can read Rogue's whole story at RougeLikeDevelopment.org where I found these pictures.  It's a fantastic journey of adventure and excitement! 

BTW - the actual screenshot looks like this:

I played this game for HOURS.  Days, even.  It was truly, truly AWESOME, and I thank you, Michael Toy, Glenn Wichman, and Ken Arnold for using the computers at UC Santa Cruz and UC Berkley to inspire a whole division of video games that have kept be happy for my whole entire life.

Thank you.

PS.  Want to see what it's like to play Rogue?  (sorta)  Try out the web-hosted Hexatron Rogue.  But, don't blame me if you get addicted.

Gasp! Buried Treasure!

When I was working on my degree and certification, I had to take a class on how to use a computer. (Family: have you stopped laughing yet? Ok, I'll go on.) One of the things that I had to do was create a website with a PowerPoint-based photo slide show.

Today, I found those photos on some old 3.5 disks! I thought they were lost. I give you now a quick (somewhat incomplete) peek at my life and family in photos, circa 2003.

Granny Weidler

Great-Grandma Hutchinson

Grandma and Grandpa Hutchinson

My Mom

Me

Me at age 3

Me in Kindergarten

Grandpa and Me, Sault Ste. Marie

Grandpa's 70th Birthday party

Me with Mom

Me with Mom and Dad


Me with Mom and matching perms
(what exactly were we thinking?!)

Wedding Day with my Jim!

The infamous Marker Boy

My lovely daughter in a jacuzzi tub.

Probably my all-time favorite photo of Jimmy, age 3.

Little Annie in Kindergarten after her first big hair cut.

Me and the yearbook kids from my student teaching

Me, 2003

We survived!

Jimmy as General MacArthur

It's been a long. long weekend. Thursday morning, my little man started complaining of a headache. I pretty much ignored that because his first 10yr molar is coming in. Instead, I tossed him a tube of ambesol and told him to drink a glass of water.

By mid-day, his temperature had risen, and I sent him to bed. I took him to the pediatrician the next day after his temperature registered at 102.6. "It's just a virus," they said. "Keep an eye on him."

Ok. I took him home, gave him a corner of the couch, and a bottle of water, and waited
.

Saturday night, his aches turned into pains, and he couldn't really walk well or climb his ladder to bed. The pains seemed to be coming from his lower right side, and he miserably failed the "jump-up-and-down" test, so we went to the ER. Jim and I texted furiously the whole time and he kept me cheery in the face of not knowing what was going on with Jimmy.


The poked, prodded, hooked up an IV, checked vitals, drew blood, took urine, filled him with contrast, scanned, poked and prodded again. "It's just a virus," they said. "Keep an eye on him."

Ok. It's 2 AM on a Sunday and I have to be at church by 7:30/8. Sure. Why not.

Jimmy spent Sunday quarantined in Jim's office, and seemed to be getting better. Fever was down to 100.3 that morning, and his appetite was back. Abdominal pain was pretty much gone, and his spirits were high.


After church and lunch and naps, he said he felt much better and asked me to check his temperature. 103.7. Oh, good heavens. Took it again. 103.4. Jim told me it would be ok. Much muttering of "What do we do now?" ensued.

I did what any self-respecting, intelligent, mother of 2 older kids would do. I called my mommy. I told her the whole story. I did my best not to cry. (It sort of worked.) She told me it would be ok, and suggested that - since I'd tried everything else - I should put him in a tub of lukewarm water for 5 minutes and douse him, hair and all, then bundle him back up.

When the 5 minutes were done, Jim went up to get him out of the tub, then came down and said that he was a new kid. And he was! He was smiles and appetite again. He ate (a tiny) dinner and felt playful. I gave him one more dose of medicine for the fever and sent him to bed.

This morning, I handed him the thermometer and held my breath. 98.5. Hooray! We made it!

The mystery virus lost.

I'm a bad kid

I forgot my mom's birthday. AGAIN! I think every year I come up with a new way to fail her in this regard.

This year, I added the category "did not even notice the Facebook reminder" to my fantastic ability to fail.

MOM! I AM SORRY! I ANNOUNCE IT HERE AND NOW IN FRONT OF YOU, FRIENDS, FAMILY, AND EVERYONE ELSE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!

I LOVE YOU.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Now go visit her and wish her a belated birthday.

Hi, Mom!

Time for post 3 in my series of influential people in my life.

Time to meet my mom, Clara.

Um, Mom? Moooo-oooom! Where are you? Oh, there you are.

Hi, Mom.

It's taken me a long time to write this post because it was very difficult to decide what to write about. There are so many many things that I could say here. I mean, just look at me: what DIDN'T I get from my mom?

There is such a list I could give you, but I'm going to try to hold to a reasonable number.

#1. A sense of humor.
Mom's a punny lady. Very very punny. This American Gothic photo was her idea, and nothing will get a good laughter-induced-asthma-attack going like a good pun. Getting together with Mom's family always involves funny stories, jokes, wordplay, etc. This was one of her father's coffee cups:A joke in your honor, Mom (one that earned me a follower, no less!):
Three guys walk into a bar. The fourth one ducks.


#2. Acceptance of all.
I grew up in a white home town. Let's call it Super-White, even. I think it would be safe to say that I only encountered non-white people if I was watching TV or listening to missionary stories; that's how white my early childhood was. I think it would also be fairly safe to say that the population of this home town of mine was occasionally racist in nature as well. Unfortunately, so were some of the members of my own family. But my mother? She was not, and she went out of her way to protect me from the poison of racism. The thought of judging others based on ethnicity, skin color, or demographic of any kind was simply not entertained.

I am so grateful for this gift. It has allowed me to make so many friends from so many countries (check out the countries represented in our church, for example.). It has opened doors at work. It has strengthened me as a student, broadening my interests. It helps me connect with the high schoolers I teach. It has made me a better person.



#3. Faith.
No one's perfect. Mom taught me the beauty of a forgiving God. She encouraged me to explore the Scriptures on my own and not just accept the Bible stories and pulpit messages as all there was to know. For example, instead of letting me stop with the traditional John 3:16, she also taught me John 3:17: For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

She was willing to call me on my mistakes and own up to her own. She taught me songs and hymns and spiritual psalms.

She's also the one who gave me the first half of the verses I posted as my anthem today on the Stuff Christians Like blog.

• Micah 7:19 .. and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.
  
• Revelation 21:1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

I always liked the visual of God creating a new heaven and earth for us, and the verse from Micah came to Mom's mind. That was easily 15+ years ago, but the connection implied will always stick with me.

So thanks, Mom, for being who you are and for helping me be who I am.

Wow. I'm famous.

Check it out, guests and followers! I got my first guest appearance invite over at One Weigh at a Time. Ciara and Clara (aka Mommy!) run the website, and they invited me over to share some of my story.

Go and check it out, sillies! Hope you like it.

Eat your Veggies!

Moms are full of good advice.

I tried explaining to my daughter this week how I always know/want what's best for her, and I'm always looking out for her, and that when I feel cold, that it means she needs to wear a sweater... she's 11, and I don't think she believed me on that last bit. She gave me the look that I give my husband when he tells me he doesn't NEED to go see the doctor.

Moms are full of good advice, though, even if we're not sure where our inspiration comes from.

With my son, who is 8, I tried to explain how I could always tell what he'd done by how he cried. That there is a cry that means "Feel bad for me" and one for "Ow. That hurt, but I'm fine" and one for "GET OVER HERE NOW!!!!!" He gave me the look that Annie gave me when I told her she was cold and needed a sweater.

Moms' advice dispensers are always in action; we like to train our kids to be good, responsible, thrifty, dependable, tidy, honest, all those things we wish we were more often. In spite of the looks we get for sounding like living fortune cookies. In spite of the fact that we often feel like we're making it up as we go along. In spite of the fact that it seems like we sound a lot like our own moms when we get really worked up about that good advice that is being ignored for the millionth time....!

Thanks, moms, grandmoms, step-moms, foster moms, neighbor's moms for giving us the good advice that we'd need to pass on.

Now, eat your vegetables! And be careful with those fireworks! You could put your eye out with those things!