Do video games make kids violent?

The Geeks playing Call of Duty - World at War.

Getting Lost (The Plan)

I have paused in my review of No Opportunity Wasted to expand on an idea that I formulated in the last post.

Go on a Quest

Not only is the book North to Freedom by Anne Holm, one of my favorites, but I was reading the book to College Geek when he was in grade school. We were reading in when the Littlest Geek joined our family, if you want read about that story go here .



Because of the book and its impact on me and the College Geek, we agreed to give the Littlest Geek the middle name of David. David is the central character in the book. The book is both an incredible adventure book as David escapes a forced work camp and travels through Italy north to Denmark. It is also a journey of self discovery and awakening of a mind and soul that has never been free.



Call out to the producers of No Opportunity Wasted - the television show .

HEY READ THIS!

The Littlest Geek, named for the main character is now the age of David in the book (or will be next summer, hint hint). How awesome would it be to travel David's route and see it through the eyes of a young boy.


Here's the itinerary.


David escaped from a camp north of Solonika (Greece). He mostly walked this route and snuck aboard a truck for some of the traveling. This would put him in an interment camp either in Bulgaria or Romania. Parts of some of these camps are still around and can be visited. Perhaps Lovech Bulgaria where we could take some hikes in the mountains and come to understand David's journey.


David walked to to the shipyards of Solonika where he stowed away on an Italian Cargo ship. He was discovered in the hold, but the man finding him did not have the heart to turn him in. He gave David a makeshift floatation devise and let him jump off the ship shortly be for the ship entered the port of Salerno, Italy.



I am still searching for a boat that would take us to Salerno. I think we probably shouldn't stow-away, even in the interest of accuracy.


In Salerno, David first saw a world that was not grey. He saw a beautiful world full of light and color and the pictures of Salerno are very beautiful. David began to appreciate how precious his freedom was. He began to explore the village during the daylight and tentatively talking to the people there. The Littlest Geek and I should spend some time meeting the local people and eating the local food.

From there David walked and hitched rides through Italy stopping in Naples, Perugia, Florence,
Bologna, Milan, and Como before crossing into Switzerland.

View Larger Map

After traveling through Switzerland and Germany, David finally enters Denmark. He travels to Strandvejen 758 Copenhagen. This is an actually address.


View Larger Map

We can visit Bellevue Theatre. Bellevue Theater is a theater on Strandvejen in Klampenborg north of Copenhagen, who visited annually by more than 100,000 visitors. Building are among the architect Arne Jacobsen's absolute masterpieces. In addition to the theater is the theater hosting and co-producer of a summer ballet, which annually ballet company created by Copenhagen International Ballet, headed by Alexander Kølpin.

Happy Mother's Day!!

I have lots of posts in the queue but I interrupt them for this important Mother's Day Essay.

I LOVE my Mom Because:

Well there's so many reasons that I can't name them all, but I will try to say as much as I can.

Mom I love you because you are nice to me, you love me. You help me with my troubles and you are nice to my friends. When a bully is hurting my feelings you say like "back off." You mean bully stop hurting my child's feelings or I'll call your parents and then the bully will be like "Oh no, please don't call my Daddy He will put me in the corner." There are 5,879 more reasons to go.....just joking! Well it is time to end this essay...Oh, and one last thing I love you Mom!

Love from,
The Littlest Geek

An Interview with the Littlest Geek

1. What is something mom always says to you? Please listen to me.

2. What makes mom happy? When I do the things she wants me to do or when I do something for her.

3. What makes mom sad? When I don't do stuff for her

4. How does your mom make you laugh? When I tell her a joke or do something really funny, like the joke about the bees wax

5. What was your mom like as a child? Pretty, funny

6. How old is your mom? like 45

7. How tall is your mom? taller than I am

8. What is her favorite thing to do? Read

9. What does your mom do when you're not around? Maybe have a party and invite friends over.

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? Cooking

11. What is your mom really good at? Cooking and reading and engineering.

12. What is your mom not very good at? Nothing

13. What does your mom do for her job? Engineer, helps people make their houses bigger

14. What is your mom's favorite food? Chicken?

15. What makes you proud of your mom? When she does something awesome or wonderful, like making a score in the game if she played sports or saving someone.

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be? Jeremy's mom in the Zits Comic Strip.

17. What do you and your mom do together? Shop for groceries, watch Extreme Home Makeover

18. How are you and your mom the same? Both like to watch Extreme Home Makeover, we both like flowers.

19. How are you and your mom different? I was adopted and she wasn't. I like to play video games and she doesn't.

20. How do you know your mom loves you? She always treats me nicely and never ignores me.

21. Where is your mom's favorite place to go? Health Food Store because everyone is nice there.

Other News

This spring the Littlest Geek became a Boy Scout - after earning the Arrow of Light as a Cub Scout! Next year he starts middle school, I can't believe how fast my boys are growing up.

Morning Questions (contiunued) and a Funny Story

The question from Middle Geek yesterday, "What is pornography?"

I assume after reading my post yesterday you all realize that I have no idea how to answer deep thoughtful questions, but I looked around and I was the only adult in the room. I figured it was up to me. I decided to go with the basics.

Pornography is when you take picture of men and women naked and sometimes pictures of them having sex. (Oh my I just realized that my blog is going to be found when people search for you know what. Well, Hello fellas.)

Luckily that was all the Middle Geek could handle. "Yuck!", he said. Then he thought, "On TV they were talking about children pornography."

"What is wrong with some people." I thought.

"Well that is the worst thing ever," I told him, "To do something so inappropriate with a child is horrible and to take pictures...." Okay I had no words for that.

There, surely you all will be able to come up with something better when the questions arise.

Now for a funny story (yea! that last subject was depressing)

The Littlest Geek and I were in the car and he was enjoying some gum that I had just bought him. He was reading the label (yes everyone in my family reads labels) and he said:

LG:"Yuck, this gum has beeswax in it!"

AbFab:"Oh really, I like beeswax."

LG:"I didn't even know that bees had ears."


That kid cracks be up!

The Best Christmas Present Ever

The best Christmas present I ever received was a while back when College Geek was a Grade School Geek and Middle Geek was Baby Geek and the Littlest Geek was... well you are going to have to wait for it.

It was December 23 and I put College Geek on the bus for the last day of school before break. I had a million things to do before Christmas. But before I dove into my list of things to do I thought how about taking some time to pause and relax - the calm before the storm so to speak. I asked my neighbor (also at the bus stop) if she would like to come over for a cup of coffee. I am still not sure why I was able to convince her to also pause and reflect but we went inside and had some coffee and conversation. Soon the phone rang. This was before caller ID and I had (and have) a policy of trying not to ignore a live person over one on the phone BUT for some reason I answered the phone.

Phone: "Hello Mrs. Geek, this is Ms. Social Worker from the State."

AbFab: "oh"

Phone: "I wanted to tell you that Middle Geek's biological mother has had another child. He has been in the hospital for a few weeks and they think he is about healthy enough to send home. Since we like to keep sibling groups together, we wanted to first ask your family if you would consider taking him in."

AbFab: "oh oh oh!"

By now my neighbor was listening intently with me.

AbFab: "Of course, oh my God"

Phone: "Shouldn't you talk to Mr. Geek?"

AbFab: "Who? Yes of course I will tell him, he will be SOOO excited!"

Phone: "Are you sure he will agree?"

AbFab: "Agree with what? Oh. It is not much of a decision. Tell me everything!!!"

Now it just so happened that Mr. Geek was on a business trip. And he was not a meeting or conference but he was driving the length of the railroad from Ohio to Missouri stopping at various stations for inspections. This was also long enough ago that not everyone wore a phone in their pocket. (Remember those days) So it was going to be challenging to find him and tell him.

AbFab: "I will call and tell him and get his okay." (The hard part would be finding him, I knew we were completely on the same page regarding more children.)

Phone: "Okay let me know. It is possible he will come home tomorrow, the hospital was hoping he would be home for Christmas."

My neighbor and I squealed, there is no other word for it. The lists that both of us planned to complete that day before Christmas Eve were instantly forgotten.

I called Mr. Geek's secretary.

AbFab: "I was wondering if there was any way that you could get a hold of Mr. Geek BECAUSE (I talked right over her expected explanation of him on the road, uncertain schedule etc.) -- I want to tell him -- he has a new son!"

Mr. Geek's Wonderful Secretary: "Eeek!! Your kidding!! Oh My! I will find him!"

Like all great secretaries I knew that she could make it happen.

Now began the phone calls to my family, who also instantly dropped their last minute things to do before Christmas Eve. I have to give you some more background at this point. As College Geek outgrew all of his baby clothes and baby stuff, I patiently stored everything in the basement. When Middle Geek joined our family (a good story for another day), I pulled everything out and much of it was old and dated. After Middle Geek we knew we still wanted more children. We were assured by the state (that we were adopting through) that they placed older children and it was unlikely (actually they said impossible) for us to get an infant. We really thought that was great and that our next child would probably fit in the large age gap between College Geek and Middle Geek, making Middle Geek the Littlest Geek and ....- are you following this -- and so as Middle Geek outgrew equipment or clothes, I immediately gave them away or sold them.

So (have you caught on yet) it is Christmas Eve's Eve and I am getting an infant tomorrow and I have NO INFANT STUFF!

The remainder of the day is still a joyous giddy blur. My mom and sister came over. We went to several resale shops looking to rebuild the nursery. As we were shopping we were so hyper that we told everyone we met about our "Christmas present". One saleslady even threw in some toys for us to take for him.

Mr. Geek was found - his travel companion actually had a cell phone. He was so happy, he cried, right there in northern Indiana, in front of a virtual stranger (I told you I did not have to ask him if he wanted another child).

And that was the Greatest Christmas Present Ever.

I would like to thank Damama for inspiring me to get this wonderful story down in writing. (It has been repeated over and over of course.) And also her point to the Writer's Workshop which gave us the writing prompt.

The Last Triathlon of the Season - The Story

First I have to give a big SHOUT OUT to Mr. Geek for his last Triathlon of the season. Although he doesn't get his own blog posting (or even any pictures, the shame), congratulations to Mr. Geek for finishing the Fall Triathlon consisting of a 500 meter swim, a 21 mile bike ride and a 5 mile run in well under 2 hours (1 hour 51 minutes), scoring a Personal Best and finishing 7th in his age group. Let's hear a big WOOHOOO!!!!

Now on to the Littlest Geek's Triathlon. (Sorry Mr. Geek, but LG is just a bit cuter.)

The swim was a short 50 m. No big deal for this seasoned Triathlete.

Transitioning to the bike in the month of October is just a little different than in the summer. It was a chilly morning.

The transition was very smooth.

Look at Team Geek Go!

I was worried a bit about the bike, because it was on the streets. The lane was marked by big orange cones, but a mother worries.

The biking was for 1.5 miles - Piece of Cake!

Now it was time for the run. This has been the hardest part for the Littlest Geek (and Mr. Geek too). I can't blame him, running a mile after swimming and biking.

Look how he took off out of the transition area. Can he keep up this amazing pace?

Here he is starting the street course - still looking strong!

And here is the Finish Line!!!

He ran the entire way!!!

WOW! The Littlest Geek came a long, long way from his first triathlon!

Just wait til next year!

Last Triathlon of the Season

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

The Littlest Geek's Second Triathlon - The Story

If you haven't watched the video of his triathlon go here and watch it. (and then come back and tell me how wonderful the editing was. Oh, Thank you.)

Now for the story behind the video.

The Geek family arose early on race day. (Well Mr. Geek, the Littlest Geek and I did, the other two slept in.) We arrived at the race location early, but not as early as some of the even more obsessed families. We picked up the race number, marked the race number on the Littlest Geek and went to stake out our transition area.

As race time approached they opened the pool for warm ups. LG did a 100 IM his traditional warm up. (The 100 IM is one length of the pool of each stroke, Back Stroke, Butterfly, Breast Stroke and Freestyle.) Most people use the freestyle for their race, but sometimes LG's fastest stroke is his Breaststroke.



After Warmups, we met and learned about the course. LG's age group swam 3 lengths of the pool (75 yards), two laps of the bike route (2 miles) and two laps of the Run (1 mile).





As usual the swim went well and LG was about the fifth kid out of the pool.

Next came the bike portion. LG had his new road bike and he rocked the course. In fact maybe he rocked the bike course a bit too much. Because...

He started the run strong and as he approached the big hill got a stitch in his side. Ouch! He slowed to a walk and then a crawl and then he stopped. Mr. Geek ran to the rescue. They walked slowly for a portion of the course, while LG vowed never to run another triathlon. However, the second time up the big hill, he found his second wind and as you can see in the video, he finishes strong. (That is Mr. Geek running behind him up the hill trying to catch up.)

Final Time 28 minutes 48 Seconds.

Woohoooo!!!!!!

The Littlest Geek's Second Triathlon

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

One Mile Fun Run

What is your Theme song?

Today's Take5 Tuesday has some great subjects. I am not sure which ones I would like to list. These are the choices, and each one could be a posting of its own.

List…
5 of your favorite things.
5 things you wanted to be when you grew up.
5 of the best compliments that you have ever received.
5 songs that you would pick as your theme songs.
5 people that inspire you.

I will pick the easiest first.

5 things you wanted to be when you grew up.

Teacher
Botanist (I had read a biography of Luther Burbank and I wanted to graft new plants)
Writer
Engineer
Astronaut (This is still on my list. My dad made me promise not to go into space while my mom was alive -Hi Mom! )

5 songs that you would pick as your theme songs

Instead of my five songs, since there are five of us in the house I will give each of us a theme song.

Littlest Geek

Middle Geek



College Geek



Mr. Geek



AbFab Geek

So What is Your Theme Song???

The First Triathlon

I know you are all very curious and what to know--- How was the first triathlon?


Here's the short story in pictures.


If you are unfamiliar with a triathlon, here is how it happens.

The littlest Geek (LG)

Mr. Geek

First, you have to have your number assigned.










The first race is the swim.






Followed by biking. No picture of Mr. Geek, I was in the pool area.









The last part is the run.











Time starts from the beginning of the swim so transitions are very important.

The Results

Third Place - Boys Ages 9-10

Second Place Men 40-49

The Story

We chose this triathlon for the littlest geek (LG) because it was a mini-tri (a little bit shorter) and we thought it would be small. We were right the size and crowd was perfect. They started in six person heats and LG went and introduced himself and shook their hands.

LG has been on swim team for several years, so we figured the swim portion would be no problem. Once again, we were right and LG was the first out of the pool.

The clothing change had been laid out meticulously by Mr. Geek and also went very smoothly and he was up on his bike and off.

Now I was not so confident of the bike portion. He had just recently outgrown his bike and was on his older brother's bike, his first with gears and hand brakes. So as the people that had left after him returned and there was no sight of him, I began to worry. I mean I know it was a closed course with people monitoring it along the way, but he is just a little boy.

Finally he returns, pushing his bike. The group of spectators that have been waiting with me begin cheering for him. When that doesn't cause him to pick up the pace (he loves applause) I knew something was wrong.

He returned his bike (okay he dropped it) and went out for the run at a slow slow walk. I walked with him trying to find out what happened. "Are you okay?" "Do you want a drink?" "Do you want to quit?" No answer. I finally stopped him and refused to let him go any further until he drank some water. (Oh did I mention after a cold, cold spring the temperature was now ninety degrees!) By then Mr. Geek had finished his race and walked the final leg with him.

After the race he ate and drank some and finally perked up and told us that he had crashed on his bike. (No blood, only a very small scrape.) After that he was so mad.
When he saw he had won third place though (yes out of three, what is your point?) he was very happy.

And the best part of the day was when he went to the officials and told them he really didn't deserve to win because after he crashed the bike, he turned around right there instead of continuing to the proper turn around location. I was very proud of him. And yes they told him he still deserved third place for trying so hard.

So I think we can declare: The First Triathlon was a Success!!

Training for a Triathlon

This summer my youngest is determined to race in a triathlon, just like his dad. Today was his first run (1 mile).

He has been on swim team for several years so I think the swim will not be too hard.

Stay tuned for more details.