… because we’re actually together, not just sitting at the same table.

Ryan was home for Thanksgiving, and as part of Operation Make The Most Out of Having My Entire Family Together for a Few Days, the four of us went out to dinner early Saturday evening.

After we put in our drink orders, I got up to wash my hands. On my way to the washroom, I passed a mom and two kids at a table near the back of the restaurant. The kids were a boy and a girl, probably about 8 and 12. The mom appeared to be in her late 30s. I noticed that she wasn't wearing a wedding ring. I wondered if she was divorced, and this was part of her weekend with the kids.

The boy was holding a Nintendo DS up, furiously smashing the buttons. The girl was wearing headphones, and watching something on a device that was either an iPod or iPhone. The woman, who I assumed was their mother, looked sad and resigned. My heart ached for them all, as I passed them.

When I got back to our table, I put my arm around Nolan and hugged him.

"What was that for?" He said.

"For coming out to dinner with us, and actually being here. It really means a lot to me that we're actually together, and not just sitting at the same table."

"Uhhh, okay," he said.

I kissed the top of his head. "I love you."

"Okay, Wil," he said, not unkindly, "I love you too."

He and Ryan shared one of those "Wil's being sentimental again" looks that I've seen so often over the last decade or so.

Nolan stage whispered to Ryan, "He is so weird."

I looked over at Ryan. "I'm so glad you're home."

"Me too."

Anne and I shared one of those "we sure do have an awesome family" looks that we've shared so often over the last decade or so.

In which my shirt.woot shirt makes its resurrection roll

The Lords of Shirt.woot heard our prayers, and have brought my shirt, (or, as I like to call it, Critical Mass), back for the holidays!!

Real quick history lesson: I designed this shirt, that I really love, for shirt.woot last year. It was pretty damn popular, but was overtaken by other awesome designs in the Reckoning, and was sent off to a farm where it could run around and play with other shirts. I was super bummed (and a little angry) when it died, because I didn't get a chance to cast a single healing spell on it … but today, it's been given a second chance at life.

I'm super excited that they're doing this, because I can replace mine (there was an unfortunate incident when I failed a DEX check and took ongoing stain damage that not even the washing machine could end), but also because we've improved the design a little bit for the reprint.

When I thought up this design, I wanted it to look very similar to the old D&D sourcebooks that I loved as a kid. To that end, I suggested thin, dark lines to hold it all together. In theory, this is awesome; in practice, it's pretty easy to lose the thin black lines on the dark grey shirt. Unfortunately, I didn't realize or consider this until I'd seen it a few thousand times on other people at conventions all over the place. So when I was contacted about doing as a reprint for the holidays, I suggested that we make the lines a little heavier, and make them white instead of black. The crew at shirt.woot waved their magic wands, and it was done.

Here's what the revised design looks like:

By the way, your DM told me that if you wear this to the next session, you get +2 on the roll of your choice.

in which i spend a day as both father and a son

My son Ryan came home for Thanksgiving, and before he left, my dad and I had planned to take him and his brother to play Frisbee golf.

When I got up today, it was fifty-seven degrees below zero, and the wind was gusting with gusto (HA HA HA), and I knew the conditions were not, shall we say, optimal for the playing of disc golf. Or being outside, for that matter.

I called my dad, and asked him if he wanted to go out to lunch, instead. He suggested that we go bowling, and then go to lunch.

Now, I am a terrible bowler, and not a huge fan, but I love doing things with my dad, and I love doing things with my boys, so bowling was more of an excuse to spend more time together than we would if we only went to lunch.

I put on the best bowling shirt I own and drove over to the bowling alley, where my first three frames went like this: 0-1, 0-3, X. I went on to win that game with something around 150. I told Twitter: I just won at bowling, and didn't have to break anyone up to do it. Today, life does not imitate art.

The second game, I bowled spares through the first 7 frames, but my dad was matching me and dropping a few strikes in there himself, so by the 10th frame, I needed to throw a turkey (two strikes followed by a spare, incidentally, is now called a TOFURKEY in the Wheaton Hall of Bowling Nomenclature.) I didn't pull it off, and my dad edged me for the win. I told Twitter: I shanked my last ball, and didn't want to break up my parents to win, so my dad edged me out to win the second game.

Ryan and Nolan had a blast, too, giving out high fives, sincere and mocking applause as appropriate, and issuing the required number of Team Homer and Lebowski references.

After bowling, we went to Lucky Baldwin's for some pub food. When I got home, I made this stupid cell phone video in my living room:

It was truly wonderful to have three generations of Wheaton Men together, and it meant the world to me to spend the day with people I love, as both father and son.

In this video, I say that I won at bowling, but the more I think about it, today I feel kind of like I won at life.

in which teenage me is a deer in the headlights

Most of us are awkward teenagers; it's a class feature that stays with us until we level up to our twenties.

But most of you didn't have your awkward teenage years play out in front of the world, preserved for future generations to enjoy, thusly:

Talk about deer in the headlights! Everything about my awkward teenage years is captured in that photo: I'm nervous, self-conscious, and forcing a smile so whoever is taking this picture will please just go away as quickly as possible. I haven't looked in a teen magazine since I was, well, in them, (and I don't know if non-Bieber-specific ones ever exist) but I wonder if the people who are in them today (Bieber and otherwise) are photographed in the same harsh flash and unflattering awkwardness that seemed to be endemic to the teen magazines in the late 80s.

(Thanks … I think … to @jennabryson, who says, "Look what my mom found, @wilw – she cleaned out & sold my childhood dresser & this was inside" for sharing that photo.)

the circling hawks

Two days in a row, in two different places, twenty miles apart, I’ve seen two hawks circle in the sky above me.

I know it’s simple coincidence, but I like to believe that they’re the same pair, soaring gracefully and beautifully on thermal currents just for me, so I don’t forget to appreciate the simple beauty of the world around me.

(Of course, it's also possible that they are stalking me, waiting for me to fall to the ground dead, because they’re from the future and know something that I don’t.)

I suppose the moral is: Don't forget to appreciate the simple beauty of the world around you, because you never know when deathhawks from the future will show up and ruin your day.