Tought Licks

My son decided to start his extreme sports career last night by riding my friend’s daughter’s scooter down a steep driveway, only to crash at the bottom and impale the handlebar into his chin. Fortunately the daughter was nearby and did the right thing by walking him out of the road and running to get me. When I heard, I initially thought ok, no big deal, small scraps and tears. However walking around the corner of the house I see my son crying with blood running from his chin, small pool of blood at his feet. This was no normal tumble, this is going to require a trip to the hospital for stitches. I pulled my shirt off, wrapped it around his chin, and walked him up to the house. We put ice into a cold pack, put it on his chin, carefully walked him to the car, and drove off to the hospital. An hour later my son was all stitched back together, and a lot happier. I’m sure he’ll think twice before pulling anymore scooter stunts. We made sure to get him ice cream on the way home. I took some before & after pictures of the wound, for historical sake.

Warning the following pics are a bit gory: Before & After.

However this brings up a parenting issue I’ve been struggling with for a while. How much do you worry over your kids, and when do you just let them injure themselves so they’ll learn. Everyone is so over protective of kids these days. Obviously times have changed, it’s a miracle I survived as a child. When I was little, I didn’t have a car seat with cup holders and video games, I had an upside down 5-gallon bucket in the back of my Dad’s work van, sitting in between 1/2 ton weight machinery that could crush me in a sec if we had to stop too fast. I got to play with power tools, hatchets, dirt bikes, etc when I was definitely not old enough or parentally supervised enough. And today I worry, stress, and over parent if my son climbs a tree. Of course I blame most of my son’s woosiness on his mother, she coddles and spoon feeds him constantly, and there is only so much control I have during the 50% of the time he’s with me. But I’m too blame also, because I haven’t done much to rectify the situation. This has become an issue constantly on my mind, and I have tried to just let go. Let him go be a kid, get hurt, take his licks and learn from them. This recent injury is proof of that, of course right afterwards I went right into over protective mode. Where was I? Who gave him the scooter? Why wasn’t another parent watching? Etc etc etc. I have to admit it’s hard, but it’s important my son become self reliant, and learn from his mistakes. I’m not always going to be around. So hopefully after this event he learned that scooters can be dangerous, and maybe he shouldn’t roll full bore down a steep driveway? Time will tell.

Paintball

My cousin bought me and the rest of his wedding party BT-4: Combat paintball markers as groomsmen presents. We plan to take them out camping this next weekend for some RL FPS frag action, w00t! (Am I show my geek colors enough?)

I haven't had the chance to do any paintball'ing yet, only the occasional laser tag event. So I decided to stock up on supplies and talk to some people who know their stuff. A quick search on google maps pointed me to a shop right down the road from my office Xtremez Paintball. The guy there was pretty knowledgeable and helped me select the following supplies/add-ons:

• JT Spectra Flex-8 Goggles
  
• NXw 4+1 Paintball Harness w/four clear paintball tubes
  
• Tippman X7 M16 Front Sight
  
• Tippman X7 M16 Carry Handle
  
• CORE Prime Paintballs (2000) (Purple/Orange Shell, Orange Paint)
  
• 20oz CO2 Tank w/Pin Valve x 2

Can't wait to get home tonight to put the new stuff on the marker and try it all out! I'll make sure to post another blog with some pictures from our fun this weekend!

Automatic Panoramic Pictures

Finally had an excuse to create another panoramic image. This time I utilized an application called Autostitch. Pretty cool application. Saved me a lot of time. In the past I've manually stitched my panoramic images together. That took forever. This does it quick and painlessly. I'll definitely start creating more. (Note: All pictures taken with my iPhone, pretty sweet huh?)

Bowling Anyone?

I made this custom anklet for my cousin to wear during his bachelor party get away this last weekend. He sounded like a ghoul roaming the castle dungeon whenever he moved around.

Summary Update

I know it's a blogger cliché, but I have been too busy to post lately. In fact my "internet life" has been nearly non-existent, which in turn is making me feel very detached and isolated. Damn, doesn't that sound contradictory?

Mostly it's all due to me starting a new job at MotoSport, Inc. I happen to have joined their IT team in the middle of a busy shopping season, and while their doing multiple large system installs/conversions. Nothing like hitting the ground running and never getting a break to catch your breath. But I like it that way, I strive in a fast paced environment, especially when the work is fun. I've been out of the full time coding arena for a while. So being back in the game, I'm enjoying the hell out of it. I'm doing fun work, in a fun business environment, and working with good talented people. It's so nice to be not working with medical codes. I'm working with tangible products, motorcycle gear & products, something that is of interest to me in my personal life.

Anyhow, I'll finally get to break away for a bit in the coming weeks. I'm heading out of town to throw my cousin's bachelor party, and then I'm getting out of the city and spending a long weekend in the wilderness. We're doing our annual trip out to the family property. I'll be sure to post some pics when I return.