My daughter turns 13 today. I am the father of teenagers. Does this frighten anyone else, or is it just me?

Since my mid-week visits tend to run between an hour and two hours in duration, I decided to make Saturday a “father/daughter day” as a kind of early celebration and present. We didn’t do anything too terribly exciting, mind you. The first order of business was food, so we hit the mall for Arby’s sandwiches. While there we also introduced her to the tacky but amusing electronics wonderland that is Radio Shack, and we perused a few other shops (like the occasionally-evil Suncoast, where they had R.O.D. TV #1 on sale… ahem).

After the mall, being the jet-setting family that we are, the plan of action became “go home and play games and watch a movie.” So we worked on her healer Empathy Defender for a while (with some help from a friend in Seattle) and finished the day by kicking back and watching Castle of Cagliostro, one of my all-time favorite movies.

I am reliably informed that she had a good time on Saturday. Hopefully she’ll like her other present, too…

(Happy birthday, kiddo!)

Why yes, it was rather like a pet rock, thankyouverymuch. Ah, those were the days.

I love Carcassonne. The game, not the French town, that is.

Steve and I, and two concerts.

This one’s an oldie. Sort of like the songs in question, when you get right down to it.

A couple of quickie anecdotes from the recent past.