Bobsroom Dot Com

When you read that headline, it might seem that I either don’t like it or I am having a really hard time but that in fact is not the case at all. It’s actually something else entirely.

I don’t know what most people think, but for me, I have always considered myself to be somewhat humble. I’m not a big ego guy and I’m not one to brag or talk myself up at all. In fact I have always thought of myself as the opposite of that. I mean, I figure I’m a pretty decent all-around person, but I’ve never really thought of myself as being extra special in any way. I mean I have certain things I think about that are definitely outside of that, but generally, I figured I was just a regular guy and not that out of the ordinary.

I have a lot of good qualities and I know that I make a good friend, a good husband, and now a good dad. But I’ve always somewhat struggled to think of myself as much beyond that. I think that’s actually good because the last thing I want to do is become one of these ego-centric assholes who thinks he’s better than everyone else.

All of that being said, becoming a dad has been a bit weird. Dylan will be turning three on Friday and recently I’ve come to learn something about him that for me, feels absolutely awesome, and incredibly intimidating all at the same time.

Last week, Tamara videotaped Dylan sitting on the kitchen floor crying his eyes out. It was in the morning and I had already left for work and he was still in his PJ’s. The video consisted of him crying and crying wanting his daddy to be home and wanting to see his daddy. Tamara taped about two minutes but she said it went on for much longer than that. Over the course of this weekend, it seemed all he wanted to do was to have dad pick him up, play with him, talk to him, read with him, brush his teeth, read his stories, and on and on.

Tamara’s told me that when she drives him home from the sitter’s and he sees my car in the driveway, he gets real excited and runs to the door so he can see me. I’ve seen him get SO excited when I walk in the door and even this morning, he kept saying to me that he didn’t want me to go to work. He stood in the living room and waved out the window as I drove away.

Now for me, there’s two sides to this. One side is that it is SO sweet and cute that my son really has such a bond with me (Megan is very much the same way with Tamara but she’s starting to like playing with me a lot.) and we really do have a lot of fun. The other side is that there’s this tiny part of me that keeps asking “why me?”. What is it that makes me so special to him that he gets so excited? I’m just a guy and I’m just his dad.

When I really start to go all psychological on it, I wonder if because I really didn’t have much of a dad figure growing up, or no dad to get excited about, that maybe I have a hard time relating to what Dylan is feeling. He seems so excited to spend time with me and hang out with me, and yet I can’t seem to “get it”. I love it and I cherish it and I will play with him (and Megan too) as much as he wants (within reason ) but there’s still that part of me that asks the question, “What is it that makes me so special to him? I’m just a regular guy.” Tamara says “It’s because you’re his dad. That’s all”.

Everyone likes to hear good things about themselves and sure I do to, but it makes me feel very uncomfortable as well. I’ve done my best to make sure the kids don’t feel that because I want them to know how much I enjoy spending time with them and how much it really does feel good to get that kind of love back from them.

For me, it’s just feels …. weird. It’s very hard to explain.

Anyone else out there know what I mean? Has anyone else felt the same way?

Yesterday afternoon Dylan did something that neither me or Tamara expected. He willingly gave up his soother.

We had been talking about trying to ween him off it around his third birthday (coming up in two weeks) so we were unsure as to how we could best go about it. The one thing we were VERY sure of is that we wanted to make sure he did it all on his own without us telling him or taking it from him. We thought it was very important that he be the one to make the decision to give it away so that he wouldn’t feel like we were taking something from him. The problem was, how were we going to do that?

We had thought about trying to tell him about how other little babies need doodens (that’s what he called his soother) and that since he was getting to be a big boy, he’d soon have to give his dooden to a little baby who really needs it. But then I had an idea that ultimately sealed the deal.

See Dylan loves to watch balloons fly up into the air (filled with helium) and he watches them “go to the moon”. He really likes watching them float up into the sky and eventually out of sight. So I had this idea that we could tie his soother to the end of a strong on a balloon and we could let him take the balloon outside and let it go, and that his soother would fly into the air and go to a new baby who needs it. Yesterday, when Tamara got home, she wanted to give it a try.

I sat Dylan down and told him that a little baby needed his dooden and that we were going to put it on a balloon and he could let it fly into the sky to the little baby. Dylan repsonded with something to the affect of “Fly up to the moon. A baby on the moon”. Knowing he was SO keen on it going to the moon, I went with it.

He was VERY excited to let his soother go to a baby on the moon. He took the balloons outside, and I stepped away from him, and I told him to say goodbye to his dooden, and when he was ready, to let it go. He said goodbye, and a mere few seconds later, he let go of the balloon and off it went. He waved to it and got really excited about how it was going to go help a baby on the moon. (Meanwhile I’m wondering if the soother will land on someone’s head when the balloon’s finally pop).

No tears, no anxiety. Nothing. He was VERY excited. That is until bedtime came.

He stalled going to bed and then the requests for his dooden came in. He kept asking for it and we kept reminding him of where he sent it that afternoon. He got a bit upset a few times, but we just kept talking to him and reminding him of where it was and how he was a big boy and we were so proud of him. Despite getting out of bed several times, he eventually went to sleep without it. He hadn’t been using it anywhere else at any time and only when he went to bed so this was the last of his dooden time.

I suspect that the next night or two might also be a bit rough but I am SO proud of him for doing so well with this. I know it could have been WAY harder but he did so great saying goodbye and he’s really starting to grow up.

Wow. He’s going to be 3 in less than two weeks. Holy crap.

Pulled from DylansHouse.com. Read the original post here

It seems like blogs are so passe these days yet here I am still doing it.

So the latest and greatest in the world that is me. Well, let’s see. After all of the crap I have had to deal with in regards to the cottage, I can finally say that the big bills are now officially paid. The renting of the cottage for five weeks over the course of the summer has officially paid off our well bills, our sewage bills, and our other misc bills tied to getting the cottage primed. So now that the summer is coming to an end, the cottage repairs are paid for and we can enjoy it. Hopefully September will be a good weather month as well.

The renting of the cottage has been pretty much handled by my wife which I have to give HUGE props to. Lots of great work and this year we had great tenants so I really can’t complain at all.

Our asshole neighbor has not spoken a single word to anyone from our family since he cut our sewer line. In fact, he runs and hides the moment he sees us at or near the cottage. Somehow that gives me a sense of satisfaction

Been doing a bit of geocaching lately. Snagged a few in Fredericton while I was there for the breakfast yesterday. Nice group of folks. I might be heading back there on the weekend of the 18th of September for another days worth of events and caching. Hopefully I can make the time.

Work has been a bit slow but I’ve been working on some stuff that is sort of outside the scope of my normal work which has made it a bit more interesting. Learning some new products and I may have an even bigger research project coming up later. Interested to see where that leads.

Lastly however, I’m a bit frustrated with family. Specifically, my mom.

continue reading…

Dylan will be 3 in a couple of weeks. In the last month, I’ve noticed a lot of different things come out in him.

For starters, he’s now getting a bit spooked by noises in his room and as Tamara has said, I think he’s starting to realize that even when he goes to bed, there’s a lot of other things going on in the world around him. He is however doing very well.

There is one spot that seems to be the most challenging right now and that has to do with discipline. At his age, he wants what he wants and throws quite a fit if he doesn’t get it. I find it very hard to find good ways to make him understand that there are things he needs to do that he may not want to, or may not agree with, but that he needs to do. We’ll tell him it’s time for him to eat and he’ll get mad and wander off to his room and stay there. I get worried that him going off to his room all the time is going to turn him into a recluse. Tamara insists that it’s better for him to have a place he can go to and calm down and then come back to us when he’s better. Although I agree with that, I still wonder if going to his room all the time is good for him.

We’ve learned the art of counting to three to get him to stop doing something. It’s amazing how when he won’t listen, you start counting and all of a sudden it changes things. It works even more when you threaten to take something from him that he really likes. I don’t like doing that but sometimes when he doesn’t want to listen, it seems the only way to keep him in line is to do that.

It’s a challenge for things like that but thankfully both him and his sister are generally well behaved kids. They may fight with each other but isn’t that what siblings do? The next few years are going to be even more interesting as Megan gets a little older and starts standing her ground against Dylan. He’s not going to like it.

Pulled from DylansHouse.com. Read the original post here

She’s 15 months old and in the last week, her vocabulary has jumped in a big way. It really does come in spurts doesn’t it? It seemed she knew her mama’s and dada’s easy and a few other words here and there but in the last week or two, it seems like every day a new word is becoming part of her daily routine. She’s really enjoying doing a lot of talking and I’m really starting to see a lot more personality come out because of it.

She still likes to sulk a bit and is definitely mommy’s little girl, but let me tell you, she’s one heck of a feisty little girl. She’s going to be a very stubborn fighter when she gets older.

Pulled from MegansWorld.ca. Read the original post here

As with all things, I try to keep up on things going on but it seems the blog gets left behind a lot. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that things like Facebook and Twitter have really become the place to “share” things. I have contemplated pulling the plug on here several times but it always comes down to not wanting to get rid of it because I have so much here and so much invested in it. So with that said, here’s a few blurbs from my recent days.

Cottage stuff has actually gone very well. We have rented it for 3 weeks and have 2 weeks more booked. We have now paid off all of the retarded expenses we had because of our … situation with the neighbors. That having been said, it’s nice to be able to know that we’ve got the bills paid and now what comes in will be a bit of padding for us. We can finally enjoy the cottage a bit more without the stress.

Our house on the other hand is another story. Oh nothing even remotely as bad as the cottage. Just trying to find the time to keep things tidy and in order. Last thing I feel like doing when I get home is cleaning the living room or doing dishes, especially since the kids take about 10 seconds to fill the room with crap again anyway. Very tiring and annoying at times but this is what is expected. At least the kids don’t drive me to drink

My geocaching race went over VERY well this year. In fact, more so than I had ever expected. We ended up with around 100 racers and more people showing up at the BBQ. A LOT of people were there and it was received very well by the folks that attended. A lot of praise passed around which I discovered made me feel very uncomfortable. Very odd. So despite the fact that one person tried to sabotage the race, it went over very well and folks had a good time. I’m anxious to do it again next year but will definitely need some help as it keeps getting bigger every year.

Now that the race is officially over, I think I can start to relax a bit. Tamara’s right in that it does kind of take over me for a time period and when it’s over, I can return to normal. Maybe now I’ll be able to relax a bit. I should go spend some time at the cottage

I don’t know if I would go as far as to say that I’m too old for that shit, but I think I have definitely outgrown certain things.

Yesterday afternoon, after a spur of the moment decision, I purchased a ticket to the Canadian Carnage show at the coliseum. The show featured three well known heavy metal acts: Testament, Megadeth, and Slayer. All three of the acts are huge metal acts and I have been fans of theirs for a very long time. I had originally passed on the idea of going to see them but then yesterday I figured that I may not get the chance to go see them again so why not go. I bought my ticket, and headed out.

Having purchased a ticket this late, I had an actual seat, which was fine by me. The idea of standing on my feet on that cement floor for 4 hours was not very appealing to me. I waited for the show to start, ate my popcorn, drank my Coke, and waited.

Testament came on and did a hell of a job. Although I didn’t recognize most of their tunes (as I was more of a passive fan of theirs) I still really liked the show. Megadeth came on and I gotta tell you, Mustaine did not do much for me at first but about halfway through the set, it really picked up. Slayer finished it all off with some awesome renditions of great tunes like Angel of Death, Dead Skin Mask, and Seasons in the Abyss. All in all, they all played pretty damn good.

But part way through Megadeth’s set I began to find myself sort of feeling a bit odd. The truth is, I continue to listen to bands like Slayer and still enjoy them immensely. There are days where heavy music really helps me get through the day. Slayer, Korn, Sepultura, and plenty others have graced my MP3 playlist and car. But when it came down to going to see them live, it really didn’t “do it” for me.

I think the biggest reason is that my banger days are from a time long gone now. 15 years ago I would have been in the middle of the mosh pit as I was a huge metal fan. But as time has progressed, I’ve mellowed out considerably, and I found that sitting in those stands, watching great bands do really well, just wasn’t as satisfying as it would have been many years ago.

I said to Tamara last night that I think that show will likely be one of my last metal shows to go to. If Faith No More play together again somewhere close, I’ll be off to see them, but beyond that, I really think I’d rather hear that music in the comfort of my own home/car/office than at the coliseum.

Does that mean I am getting old? Maybe. Or maybe it just means that my tastes of changed, my priorities have changed, and that my life has changed. I can still enjoy the music, and I can still be reminded of my oddball youth, and hell, I could go see bands like this again if I wanted to, I just don’t see it happening again sometime soon. I can however at least have the satisfaction of knowing I have seen these three metal gods play live. After playing music for as long as they have, they all still put on one hell of a show.

I’ve been working on getting new vendors into this years race and let me tell you, I have been having more issues this year than any previous year.

In the last two years of races, every vendor I went into was more than happy to be included in the race as it was no cost to them and it was free advertising. Hell, people would be coming into their store and either buying something or looking at items. You would think this is what vendors WANT. Not this year.

I’ve had very little luck in contacting managers for one particular task and for several others, I got a lot of … concerns. One guy was worried that the racers would tear his store apart looking for something. Another guy wasn’t going to go for it because he didn’t like the idea of a lot of people coming into his store. Today, I got turned down by another bar who just didn’t seem interested in having folks come into their restaurant, buy something, and leave. The manager didn’t even want to speak to me. He sent some other guy out to tell me to basically go away and that they were not interested.

But the one that irritated me the most was The Manhattan Bar & Grill. I have gone to this place on many occasions to see a ton of different shows. I’ve even helped a band get set up there. I love that place in how it treats its local musicians. But when it comes to trying to get them to go along with something like my race, forget it.

I went in and asked to speak to the manager. This waitress told me that they had different managers and wanted to know what I wanted them for. She refused to give me any names of any manager and just wanted info. I told her about my race and said I wanted to have folks come in and buy a special drink. She told me that she didn’t think the managers would be interested in it because it wouldn’t bring in much money but she’d pass it along and they’d call me back. They never did.

What irritated me the most was how she was so adamant about not divulging the names of any manager. Why? Are they illegal immigrants or something? WTF was that all about.

I guess  I’ve been spoiled by the vendor support of the last few years and I guess I was due some resistance. The vendor who thought his store would get tore apart did finally agree after some reassurance and the other guy did go along once he heard me out so I suppose I shouldn’t complain. It’s just a little bit more frustrating this year than previous years.

Hopefully all will go well and everyone will have a good time.

On August 5th, 2005, I posted about the fact that I had found out about a brother I never knew I had. It was a big surprise but at the time it was an even bigger surprise because it turned out I knew him and had worked with him for almost five years. Today, another similar connection has been made.

A few years after mom moved us to Moncton, dad got remarried and he had a daughter. In all of the time that transpired since then, I never met her. Dad would make the occasional mention of her in passing conversation but I never actually got to meet her. It had always sat in the back of my mind about the fact that I had this sister “out there” that I had never met. But the fact is that I didn’t know whether or not I should try to initiate contact or not so I just left it. I always figured if I wanted to talk to her, I could find a way through my dad.

Well, dad’s gone now. With his departure from this world, the chances of me finding my sister more or less vanished. How would I ever be able to find this person when I don’t even know her last name? I had it written down on a paper somewhere but couldn’t find it.

So, dad’s fiance had told me that Deanna (a friend of dad’s) had spoken to dad’s daughter from time to time so I got Deanna’s phone number and spoke to her. She had no means to contact this long lost sister of mine but said she would do some digging for me. About a week ago, Deanna calls me and gives me dad’s daughter’s sisters name and full address. She also included the last name with this. I typed the last name into Facebook, and up comes a list of people, one of them with the same first name as my sister, and she’s from Edmonton, AB. Both the first and last name are not exactly common names so I had a pretty good inkling that this was who I was looking for.

I actually sent a Facebook message to her boyfriend as I was a little shy about contacting her directly. Tonite after supper, I got a message from her directly and it would now seem that the search is over.

Thanks to an old friend of dad’s and the powers of Facebook, I managed to find an extended member of my family.

Where does it go from here? I have no idea. I don’t expect to instantaneously become part of her life, but I am glad that the door is open, and I have a means to get in touch with her. it’s one of those things where you just feel the need to connect with someone and then you just let it go wherever it goes. If I get to meet her face to face someday, that would be awesome. If she’d rather sort of focus on her own immediate family, that’s fine too. The big thing is to at least have the door open. You just never know what might happen right?

So, to my “little” sister (she’s 22), welcome to the family. Take it however you want. I’m just glad I can finally say I have “met” you, even if it is just online.

This article is part six of a series of articles I am writing to share the story of my adventure to Seattle, WA to attend GeoWoodstock VIII and several other key geocaching locations. In this part, I’ll talk about Groundspeak’s big Lost & Found event near HQ and my final few caches in the city.

Seattle Troll

Sunday was going to be my last full day in the area as my flight home was for Monday a little after 12 noon. I had originally intended to hit up a certain area for each day I was caching. The idea was to get as many caches as I could while also getting some pretty cool and other notable ones as well. Although that kind of worked out ok on the first day, the rest of the trip had not gone like I had originally planned, but still all was good. Knowing that Sunday was my last day to get any serious caching in, I wanted to get some non-traditionals found since I had ample supply in the area. Those would have to wait as a big event was going on downtown.

Groundspeak had been advertising on their site and newsletters about their big Lost & Found celebration event that was taking place near HQ on July 3rd. Knowing that a whole lot of people would be going to this event, I drove down there early, found a good parking spot, and then cached around until the event really started.

The main GSP tent had a lot of info about the sport of geocaching. They had GPS units you could rent and try out, info about all the different types of caches and containers, but most of all, they also brought the coolest part of HQ with them: the live log.

Now the video I posted is not the greatest because my phone takes crappy video but you’ll get the idea from it. How it works is it uses Google Earth to display satellite images of caches that are being logged at that moment. So in this video you see a log for a cache in Idaho, and then moments later it zooms to another part of the world where a cache was just logged in Puerto Rico. The screen updates every 30 seconds so you literally get to see people log their finds from all over the world, right on that screen. They have this exact same setup on a larger screen in the HQ lobby. Very cool.

There were also a number of the same vendors at this event as there were at GeoWoodstock. Tents were set up in various locations selling whatever kind of geocaching stuff they had. There was also a big tent for trackables, some social stuff for people to get to know each other, and a ton of street banners showcasing HQ’s L&F event.

Now I had pretty much had my fill after wandering around for an hour or so but then I came upon the dunk tank. Dunk tanks are always fun to watch as the poor soul stuck on the seat waits for the eventuality of being covered in water. When I arrived there was a volunteer cache reviewer named Marco who was on the platform. But there was a list of folks who would be coming up and I saw a name I thought would be entertaining to watch: Jeremy Irish.

For those who don’t know that name, Jeremy is the guy who co-founded Grounspeak and actually launched geocaching.com back in 2000. He is now the CEO of Groundspeak and seemed like a pretty genuinely nice guy. I have to admit that I don’t do very well at just going up to random people I don’t know and introducing myself. He was at the tank chatting it up with folks and taking pictures. A family man, his son and new baby were also there (his son got to dunk his dad) so I figured I would stick around and

L&F Banner

watch this CEO get slammed. Well, sure enough, the first person to step up (a little kid) nailed the target and down Jeremy went. For Magellan lovers, he put his Magellan GPS in some sort of Magellan waterproof container and wore it while he got dunked. He made some comment about how if his GPS got ruined, he’d be talking to Magellan very soon.

Once the dunking was over, I took a few more pictures and then headed out. I had some very specific caches I wanted to get so I got started as quickly as I could.

Bruce & Brandon Lee

My plan was to get a couple of virtuals, a letterbox, and a Wherigo all in the same day. The first stop for me was a pretty cool and special cache called Enter The Dragon. Although not a Bruce Lee fan (having never seen one of his movies), getting this virtual was pretty cool. I met a couple from Oregon there who were also getting the virtual. I left there and went out to snag a letterbox cache that wasn’t too far from the cemetery. I got thorned up by all the bushes but I snagged the find. I then proceeded to head to a completely different part of town where I was going to do a virtual CITO of a park to get a Wherigo cache. That was a funny experience. You literally walk back and forth and in circles in this one small region of the park and when you’re done, you go find the container. Took about 10 minutes but man did some people look at me some weird while I was walking back and forth in the grass. Looking at me like “What the hell is that guy doing?!?!?”. Ended up having to explain myself (and two other guys who came for the cache) to a few of the locals so they’d know what was going on. Pretty funny actually.

I hit up a pile more local caches and then I actually decided to call it a day early. I had snagged enough and I knew I wanted to kick back and have some rest time before getting ready for my return. Got back to the hotel, packed my stuff and called it a night. The following morning I snagged another 10 caches while killing a few hours by the airport. I left at 12:20pm PDT and walked into my house at 1:10ADT. I was glad to be home.

Stay tuned for the final part of my seven part story where I sum up the trip and my experiences being near so many iconic caches.

Pulled from Cache Up NB. Read the original post here