drwex | Breaking my own arm (metaphorically)

I don't often stop to pat myself on the back but it's my LJ, so cope or skip as you wish.

This year I scored big with gifts to Pygment and my dad. And we made a wise decision, I think.

I had been playing a lot of WoW early this month and Pygment kept wondering what I was up to. I sort of casually explained that I was collecting materials to help level up once the expansion came out. Which was true, but not the whole story. You see, there's this thing you can make in game. It's expensive, and Pygment was bemoaning her lack of (in-game) gold to buy it. So while I was collecting all those materials, I collected a bunch more, and I made it for her:

I had to resort to a small bit of subterfuge to get her to log onto game and see it in time. She rides it around everywhere, now.

When my father came up to visit the kids showed him our Wii. To my surprise he had a blast with it. He likes the controllers and the motions seem largely adaptable to his physical limitations. The game copes with one-handed, left-handed input perfectly fine. Now, I should note that my dad is also a computer gamer geek, but most PC-based games require a kind of manual dexterity that's difficult for him.

It's been a while since my dad expressed a real interest in something, so I figured... what the heck. And set about to get him a Wii. I enlisted help from a couple relatives and put together a package with the Wii/Wii Sports/Wii Fit gear.

On Sunday we got some time to set it up and he started playing. I wish I had a picture for this one because you can only imagine just how HUGE a grin he had on playing with the thing. He was the proverbial kid in the candy store. It's so rare to see him enjoying himself that much.

We left for PA on Friday morning and I was already worrying about the weather reports. They were bad, got better, etc. We had planned to stay through Sunday and return Monday morning. By Saturday afternoon, though, blizzard warnings and hazardous driving warnings were everywhere. I made the decision that we'd abort the trip and try to get home early Sunday ahead of the snow.

To my great surprise the kids coped with the change in plans and with the hurried morning. We got on the road by 8:15 and... um, broke some speed laws. OK, we broke a LOT of speed laws. We managed to out-run most of it, only seeing problems and some bad weather at the point where 84 runs into the Mass Pike. Traffic was pretty sparse for the first hour or so, but by 10 we were seeing a number of other people who also were trying to beat the storm. We got home in light snow and took care of a few things before settling in.