It’s probably for the best that I’m not a paranoid person.  Granted, the paranoid person wouldn’t  be nearly so transparent.  It amazes me the amount of information that we share about ourselves on a daily basis.   I’m sure that our activities on “free” sites is well paid for in the information that they provide to larger companies and advertisers.  Someone said “You’re not the customer on sites like Facebook, you’re the commodity”.  Twenty year old me would probably begin a scathing tirade about personal privacy and such, but 40 year old just doesn’t care.

I use social media sites like Facebook.  If I just want to comment on something, I’ll say it there.  If I have something I really want to say, I’ll write a post here, or one of the other blogs that I deal with on a very infrequent basis.  But then, I’ll link it on Facebook.  I don’t tweet.  Not cause I find it silly or anything else, I just never think about it.  I don’t “follow” twitter, anymore.  I just don’t have time.  I did for a while, and I tried to contribute, but honestly, I like words a bit too much to limit myself to short bursts of text.

I use sites like BoardGameGeek and GoodReads to catalog my collection, and find out things about other games or books that I might want to get involved with.  I use Facebook and Meetup to organize groups for gaming.

I have an Amazon Wishlist, I have a Netflix account, my facebook profile shows hundreds of things that I’ve “liked”.  It’s not hard to figure out what interests me.  Fine.

I track exercise with Endomondo, I have Moves on my phone, that keeps track of how much I walk during a day.  I have MyFitnessPal to keep track of what I eat, and keep me honest about my diet.

I blog here about my life and thoughts.  I used to write on LiveJournal.   I blog (ugh, when did I start using it as a verb?) on fortsackville.com about board games.

For a while, I was using OptimizeMe, an app for my phone that let me track all of my daily activities, but after a month of logging, I didn’t feel like it was benefiting me in anyway, so I stopped using it.

In the past, when people died, it was frequently difficult to find out much about them, beyond census information, family photos, and spoken stories from loved ones.  With the digital age as it is, I feel like it will be easier to paint a picture of our ancestors, if we can see the way they interacted with the world.

Now, my question to you is:  Do you want your future generations to remember you by the things you said on facebook?  When we air our dirty laundry for the world to see, it’s frequently not something we can take back.  I’m nearing 40, and many of my friends from my own generation have kids leaving high school, or their kids have kids of their own.  It pains me, when I see people trash their (currently former) significant other, or defend themselves by slinging more of their own dirty laundry around.  If you want to talk about each other that way, I guess I can understand.  But just remember, someday, your kids will be able to look back through your profile on Facebook.

First, I’ve noticed that I have a habit of posting “Part 1” entries, and never finishing them. Oops. So, this is just going to be a bit of an update.

I started the new job in June, classes started in August. I’ve been there just over 4 months now, and I’m loving it. I’ve helped get a board gaming club going at the high school, and I’ve started hosting events every two weeks at the local public library. It’s still a bit slow going, but it at least lets me teach a few games.

Betty’s growing so fast. She’s babbling, crawling at lightspeed, and pulling herself up on things to stand up. Two teeth, with more on the way.

My third anniversary is coming up in a few days, but we won’t be able to celebrate it until the weekend. Not sure what we’re going to do yet, but I’m sure it’ll be something fun.

My game design projects are stalled. The new job has kept me busy, and I don’t spend much time after work on a PC. Hopefully I can get back to them soon, but if not, so be it.

So we found ourselves needing to have a yard sale for a few reasons. The big reason is we’re trying to save up some money, but we also have a storage room filled with stuff that frankly, we just don’t need. Over the last week or so, we’ve been gathering boxes of things that we want to get rid of, and hauling them up to the shop.

We decided to have the yard sale at the shop for a couple of reasons. It’s easier, for one. We already have tables there, and space that we can set everything up. It has made the gaming a little more difficult, though, as 5 of our 7 rectangle gaming tables are being used for non-gaming purposes. Another reason is the potential for rain. We set up on the sidewalk and inside the storefront, and could move inside if the rain were an issue. It also gives us the chance to tell people about what we do at Legends. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been told "I didn’t know this place was here" or seen people peek in, look confused, and leave.

We’re running it for four days, from 8am til whenever. On Friday, whenever was 7pm; Saturday, it was 5. I’m already exhausted, and we’ve got two more days of it. We’ve not sold any of the big stuff yet, but I’m patient, and hopeful.

Oh, and I’ve spent the evening tonight unearthing more things to sell in the storage room. I finally had to give up. But who knows, maybe I’ll find more tomorrow.

I’ve had this domain for a decade and a half, and it’s about time I did something with it.  When we first set it up, it was just a place to do goofy stuff.   By we, I mean a couple of friends of mine (whom I’ll refer to here as Garou and Zodiac) and myself. I took that site down a few years ago, but I couldn’t get rid of the domain name.  For one thing, I like having a very short email address.  For another, I still really like the name.

I guess I’ll make this first post a bit about myself.  I’m in my mid-thirties, recently married, and somewhat scattered.

I am:  A husband. A gamer, of both the Dice-chucker and Card-flopper varieties.  A game store owner/co-owner. A comic collector/reader.  A fan of C.S.I., House M.D., Smallville, The Big Bang Theory, Doctor Who, The Avengers (comics), Wil Wheaton (both the regular and “Evil” versions), Harry Potter, Stephen King, and a number of other things.  An I.T. manager.  A computer programmer (.NET, Perl, PHP, and Second Life LSL scripting, primarily).  A would-be father (if the stars ever align).  A potential hoarder (but I’m getting better).  A collector of books.

That doesn’t sum me up completely, but it’s the beginnings of a picture.  I frequently have something to say, and I plan to use this space to say it.  It might not always make everyone happy, it might not always make sense.  If you’re offended by what I say, I encourage you to not read this blog.  It’s here mostly for my benefit.