Shiny moments

Every now and then a moment in time occurs that makes you step back, take it all in, and then think to yourself, "Wow, this is so cool". I had one of those moments this past Sunday evening. I was on Live playing H2 with my fellow 2o2pr's, enjoying the extra night of gaming ( working nights really sucks during the week), happily running around getting sniped by Bluestar and being constantly nailed from behind by Phreaks(ya I know I could have worded that better but hey, whaddya gonna do?). During one of the breaks between games while invites were being sent out and people were taking bathroom and beer runs, I took a sec to look around.

Behind me on the computer was my daughter, Michelle. She had Led Zeppelin cranked on WMP and was busily pounding away on the keyboard writing a short story. Now that in itself is no biggy but the story was in fact a book she was creating for a mod she is working on in Morrowind (my poor computer doesn't stand a hope in hell of playing Oblivion so it's Morrowind for now). She is building a palace chock full of NPC's that she is rescripting, tons of specialty rooms, a library full of books that she is writing the content of, and designing a storyline to accompany all of this. She also has a couple of friends from school on messenger critiquing her work and giving her ideas.

Beside me on the couch is my son Todd. He has a stack of Stephen King novels on the coffee table in front of him and is going over a flowchart he had downloaded from the net earlier in the day. It shows all the connections between the Dark Tower series and the rest of King's books. He is now going through all these books and tracking down these connections. He has already finished the Dark Tower books and is almost finished the rest of King's stuff. Oh, and he is also listening to all my NIN albums that he loaded into his MP3 player earlier in the day as well.

Oh, before I forget, Todd is 15 and Michelle turned 14 on Sat. Happy birthday Mikki.

This is where I think "Wow, this is so cool". I know it's a small thing but when I think of all the crap and bullshit my friends and coworkers are going through with their kids and families, it is exactly this kind of moment that puts a smile both on my face and in my heart. I can hold my head up knowing that ya, I'm doing a pretty damn good job as a parent if I do say so myself.