Firethorn - Father, Gamer, Geek.

Last night, for the first time in months, I did something physically active. I played racquetball. It felt great. I was tremendously rusty but for an hour I ran like crazy. My partner in crime is in a bit better shape than I am but he too is not as active as he’d like to be. I hope we’re able to keep up the routine.

Yeah another Favre post. Deal!

I think the Packers organization is doing things right. They are indicating that Favre would be welcomed back but they are not guaranteeing he would be the starter. As I try to tease some logic out of the situation, it would seem he was committed to retiring a few months ago. Now he wants back in. My response to him, were I in Ted Thompson’s shoes, would be: Prove It.

What better way to have him prove it than by indicating he will be competing for his job. The reality is that he gave up the chair and Aaron Rogers, as of right now, is in that seat. If he wants it back he has to fight for it.

I don’t see how this is bad for the Packers. I don’t see how this is bad for Aaron Rogers. Rogers, you think you’re the better QB? Prove it. Favre, you think you’re so much better? Prove it.

Ultimately, the best team will end up on the field, which is just how it should be. People seem to want to have an emotional attachment to Favre, and I can understand that. He is by almost any measure, a major reason why the Packers have a new stadium, won a Superbowl in my lifetime, regularly top out the merchandise sales , and (most importantly) consistently win. I do not discount what he’s done. But in the business world, you get paid for what you are going to do, not what you’ve already done. Experience is worth a lot, and that is why even in the salary cap scheme, veteran players get paid more. However, experience without results is worth essentially nothing.

Two posts back to back? Yes. The topics are too different and I wanted to address both here.

Brett Favre seemingly wants to unretire. I can’t say I’m surprised. As a Packer fan my honest assessment is: Awesome. I think any fan that doesn’t want Favre back needs to think about why.

Why are people in such a hurry to move on? Why are people so upset if he changed his mind?

If Favre comes back then without a doubt he is the starter. He takes the reigns back from Aaron Rogers. If Ted Thompson or Mike McCarthy do anything other than welcome Favre back I think:
1) Their egos are getting too big.
2) They are not performing their number one job — to win.

Aaron Rogers may some day be a better quarterback than Brett Favre. Unfortunately, the NFL is all about What Can You Do For Me Right Now. Favre offers the Packers their best chance to win. They were in overtime in the NFC Championship game last season.

Aaron Rogers ego will get over it if he gets demoted. Ted Thompson’s ego will have to accept that Favre is in fact more important to the organization than he is. Mike McCarthy’s ego will have to adapt to having something like a peer relationship with his QB as opposed to whatever he probably was establishing with Rogers.

I think anyone who talks about “moving on” needs to really think about what it is they are in such a hurry to move on to.

So yesterday, for the first time in two years, I played golf. Or really, I went to the driving range. I met with my cousin’s husband who is a 2 handicap golfer and he gave me a two hour lesson. He is an amazingly good teacher. I can not tell you how enjoyable it was to have him spend some time and help me remember how to hold the club, swing, and everything else. At the end of the lesson, despite some fatigue, I was hitting the ball better than I ever did. I left the clubs in my car as I hope to make it a habit to hit after work. There’s a nice little range on the way home and MAN was it nice to be outside.

It felt good to do something even slightly active. The only bummer is that it was 8 PM when I got home — and the boy was already going to bed.

I took Thursday off last week and we had a nice four day weekend. We had one friend over on Wednesday through Friday and then Smitty and the wife came over on Saturday. It was a generally relaxing weekend. The only thing I got accomplished was a lot of work on the lawn and bushes around the house. I did not even finish that.

The rest of my weekend was spent with the boy:

I held Frank for mos t of the day on Sunday while the wife worked on finishing the murals in his new play room. The murals look great:

Next up I need to build a book shelf and then the play room is nearly ready for a mobile baby with toys all over.

We went into this weekend with no plans. The wife started laying out specific and detailed plans for the weekend when I threw out that concept. In a way I needed to go to work on Monday frustrated that I didn’t get more done over the weekend, which is where I am right now. This means that I relaxed this weekend, spent time with my wife and son, and didn’t obsess on what was or was not getting done. It will let me enjoy working hard as opposed to feeling like I can never get ahead. I needed a good mental recharge.

I also got back into gaming this weekend by picking up Age of Conan. I have to say that I’m impressed by how much the game has been improved since the beta. The nearly 1 Gb in patches made me a very sand panda but now that it is all patched up I am enjoying the ability to play. My character is a melee fighter who can use huge weapons or dual wield. I really like the ability to tear through enemies. I am very happy to be online with my friends again … well, almost all of them. Hint.

So as a result of spending a lot more time on the couch as a new parent, I’ve been watching a lot more television. I had already mentioned Family Guy although I feel like I’ve already seen every single episode. This post is about my other new television interest - Ultimate Fighting.

I know nothing about UFC but I know that I find it interesting. I got sucked into season seven of The Ultimate Fighter, a (sadly enough) reality television show about fighters trying to win a contract and turn professional. Truly, I don’t care a whole lot about the “reality” portion of it and thanks to the magic of DVR, I skip to the fights. I do enjoy the post-fight interviews however, they reveal a fair amount about the fighter.

So last Saturday night was the finale and the fighter that I liked the most actually won. While not as exciting as the Packers winning the Super Bowl, it was a fun thing to have happen.

Through brilliant marketing and planning the two coaches from the season are fighting in July. I have never purchased a pay per view before, much less a pay per view fight, but I intend to do so for this.

Now I get it.

Historically Father’s Day was one of those No Big Deal holidays. As a new father, I can say that it means a lot more to me. Plan and simple. With my biological father passing away just over a year ago, it honestly confuses me how he could have gone through life not knowing me. I don’t feel sadness about that fact, I feel I guess like I knew him even less than I thought. Or maybe I do know him and he was as strange and self-centered as I thought. Dunno.

On the much happier side of things, we spent the weekend with family. Friday I took the afternoon off and we went to the in-laws for our first “trip”. We brought the three dogs and the six of us stayed over night. The trip went very well. We went to a balloon rally on Friday night and they had a nice pork dinner. On Saturday I got up early and started installing a new garage door opener for a Father’s Day present. The installation went pretty well and took about three hours.

Here is an action shot of the installation:

Sunday, today, my parents and step-brother and his wife came over. We went to Red Robin for lunch and relaxed with Frank on the couch while watching some golf.

A pleasant Father’s Day.

I played some more MOHA last night (instead of sleeping … so tired) and the game is pretty enjoyable. It is nice to simply play some first person shooter for the first time in months. The fact that it is single player is a mixed blessing. The game is really well done and the graphics are very good. The new video card really shines; I’m sad the old one burned out but wow is the new video card a lot better.

Playing single player games is really strange after not really playing them for years. I finished HL2: Episode Two last year and Portal and previous to that I can not remember the last game I played all the way through. The narrative and story are enjoyable but the stupidity of the AI makes it a lot less immersive to me. I also, as a social gamer, find the single player games a lot less engrossing.

I’m likely going to play through a bunch of single player games just to enjoy them, and I can quit at any moment (which is kind of a requirement). I get the feeling that this game is very short — we’ll find out probably by the end of this week.

Ahhh gaming …

I have never considered myself a morning person. Not even close. Since having a boy however my mornings start a lot earlier than they used to. While I do not get up for the day at 4:30 AM, it is not uncommon to be up at that hour to let the dogs out, feed them, and maybe help out with Frank.

My day does start at about 5:30 AM however, at least if he’s up it does.

Tuesday morning was a pretty good morning. The day started as usual (now) at 4:30 and I headed back to bed. The boy was done eating and was kind of awake when the wife had to head to shower and get ready for work when the dogs were taken care of. So I took the boy and laid down in our bed. He worked out his arms and legs for about twenty minutes and then started calming down and getting tired again. He fell asleep next to me and then I next to him. I woke up right in time to hand him off to the au pair at 7 AM.

I have to say that it made me really happy to have him fall asleep next to me. With Father’s Day approaching quickly, it is hard to believe that I now fall in that category. It has been so long in getting to this point that despite the birth, the huge expenditure of cash, the emotional relief of having a healthy boy … there are still parts of me that doesn’t believe it’s real. Waking up next to him was a moment that I will remember for a long time — it is real.