A Year of Mining

I spent most of this year enthralled by a little game called Minecraft.

I downloaded this game just after New Years Day 2012, and ever since then I have been constantly engaged and delighted by it.

When you first play Minecraft, you find yourself in a natural area (blue sky, green grass, trees, water). Your character can break blocks of wood, and dig up blocks of dirt. You soon realize that blocks can be collected. You soon realize that these blocks can be built into other things, which in turn can be used to build yet more things. Finally, you find that night time is fast approaching, and you must seek some shelter. If you are up and about at night, a monster may come to attack you. Or not.

In Minecraft, you can turn off the monsters from appearing. You can, in fact, enter a "creative" mode where you can call up any particular block that you want, and with this capability you can build practically anything. (The blocks in Minecraft are like Lego blocks, and unsurprisingly Minecraft and Lego are building off that similarity.)

There's only one "rule" in Minecraft: you can only sleep at night. Other than that, you can do practically anything that you want. You can run a large farm, you can grow chickens, you can build a boat and travel the ocean, or you can climb the highest mountain, or explore the deepest mine. You can make maps, write in books, make a large railway or dig for gold.

I enjoy exploring Minecraft's seemingly endless world. Unlike most video games that have pre-defined maps or territories, Minecraft generates its world as you enter them. When your character reaches an area you haven't visited yet, the game produces a new territory for you to explore. It can be a desert, a wintry forest, or a vast plains area. It can be rainy, or snowy.

It's a game that caters to your imagination. I love walking around in Minecraft, getting lost, and building small areas so that I can sleep at night. I pretend I'm "the last person on Earth", except I often play with my daughter on our local server. I love exploring abandoned mine shafts, and climbing mountains. I pretend I'm an intrepid explorer. There's no time limit, so I don't have to rush anything.

Most video games are goal-oriented, but in Minecraft, the only goals are those that you set for yourself. Because of this, everyone's attachment to the game becomes deeply personal. Not everyone plays it the same way, and as a result the game becomes a reflection of you instead of a reflection of its creator. Think of Minecraft like a musical instrument: everyone knows the notes, but everyone plays them differently.

To say that it's my favorite video game is an understatement: it's one of the best things in my life.

Rules I Follow for Social Media

No complaining. The book How to Win Friends and Influence People contains the number one principle for dealing with people: "Never criticize, condemn, or complain." This is an incredibly hard principle to follow in real life, but online, I try to stay by it. If I find myself starting to compose some kind of whiny rant, I step away. Everyone has complaints, so I'll spare you my daily aches and whines.

No family posts. I try not to write posts (or Tweets or Facebook statuses) about my wife and daughter. Yes, I blogged about Mia's first year, yes, I regularly posted pictures of her until kindergarten, and yes, Jenn and Mia occasionally appear in my Tweets, but you won't see posts that start with "My daughter today did this", or "My wife said that." They can post their own stories. They have their own voices.

No privacy settings. I don't expect any. My Facebook profile is open. My Twitter is open. The fine-grain "privacy" settings offered by Facebook is admirable, but I don't want to be in the business of managing my access, locking down my pictures, or separating friends and strangers and acquaintances. If I want to write 'privately', I use a diary.

No living online. The purpose of social media is to share your life, not to live your life. To that extent, I live my life out here, where there's air and water. I don't worry or apologize that my status is not accurate, or that "I haven't posted in a while." The online Rick exists so that people looking can find the real-life Rick.

No audience but me. I write for myself. I tweet to amuse myself (more specifically, my 'future self'). When I put something out there, I try to come back to the question "Would I want to read this in the future?" Today, the answer is yes.

Books and Movies from 2011

Last year, I managed to read 34 books. The full reading list is on LibraryThing. My favorite books were Faith by Jennifer Haigh, Life by Keith Richards (and James Fox), and Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston.

Also last year I managed to watch 17 movies. The full list is on IMDb. I really enjoyed The Town, The Fighter, and Morning Glory. My favorite though was one I saw in the theater: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Winter Solstice

The winter solstice is the day with the least amount of light (for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere). This means that after the winter solstice, the days gradually begin to lengthen. This is a good thing. By now I've heard the mild complaints about how cold and dark it's been getting. One part of me wants to join in: yes, I hate that it's getting colder. Yes, I hate that it gets dark at 4PM. But more often than not, when I hear these complaints in the hallways, I usually put on a stoic face. Winter's coldness and darkness can only be endured. If you choose not to escape it, you have to accept it. Commiserating doesn't make it warmer or lighter.

The other name for the winter solstice is "midwinter". I like that too. The days are lengthening, and even though New England will remain "cold" for at least another few months, we're past the half-way point. The Earth will gradually tip its northern axis towards the sun again, and before you know it, we'll be mildly complaining about all the heat.

The Long Way to Work

A few weeks ago, I took the long way to work. My commute takes up to 45 minutes, and it is all city driving. To take the long way means adding 20 minutes to the route, driving straight down Massachusetts Avenue in grueling stop-and-go traffic from Arlington all the way down to the Charles River in Cambridge. But if the mood is right, and I have the time, I always enjoy it.

The long way takes me past the memories of my adult life, as I have lived in the Cambridge/Somerville/Boston area for a little over twenty years. Arlington, where I live, has changed, but crossing into Cambridge brings even more changes. Stores that didn't exist five years ago are shouting at me to come in. Buildings that didn't exist ten years ago are now part of the routine scenery. Outlets are now college buildings. Banks are now restaurants. Change is everywhere.

I feel like there's a memory for every block of Mass Ave. There's my favorite burrito place in Porter Square (no, not Anna's). There is where my wife and I used to buy wine. There is our favorite restaurant back in our "restaurant" days. Of course, there are the places that are long gone. I was glad I knew them, back when they were around.

From Harvard Square to Central Square, I felt like I've been to every bar during those first few years of moving here. Of course, that's not true. People will mention a bar to me and if I ask if it's new, they'll say "it's been there forever." That's OK. I don't go out drinking much anymore.

On the long way to work, I will sometimes drive by the building where I had my first job out of college. I conjure up the faces from that wonderful time. I know lots of people who have moved out of Boston, but I stayed, and I'm glad I did.

Mostly, I'm grateful for the parking. I pull into my office building's garage, thankful that I do not have to hunt for spaces in Kendall Square, like I did the first few months of my working life. At moments like this, I sometimes feel like I've made it. Sitting in my car, I'm filled with gratitude.

Bowing Out of Novel Writing Month

A few months ago, I got it in my head to write a novel during National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo). I started plotting some scenes, and conjuring up some characters. The novel was supposed to be a murder mystery, set in a Greater Boston, MA. The opening scene featured a dead person at someone's cubicle in an office building, and the nervous yet excited whisperings of the workers about to start their day, but instead were met with a bevy of police and crime scene technicians and detectives. The victim wasn't just any worker-bee, however. He was one of the co-founders of the company, and the investigation into his murder would soon involve his fellow co-founder, a hard driving set of executives bent on acquiring this company, and his wife, who used to be married to the employee number three. I am excited even now to be writing just this little bit, but November is proving to be a packed month in my own life, and I didn't think I could spend every evening writing, like I did back in 2004. I'm disappointed, but rather than get frustrated, I think I'll keep letting the story percolate on its own. November isn't the only month to write novels, you know!

Husband First

In the various places where I get to write a profile of myself, I invariably put down husband first. Then father. And then maybe a little bit about "me". The husband part being first is on purpose. I read somewhere that the best way to be a good parent is to be a good spouse. A child sees a model of love, a model of civility, a model of manners in the way his parents interact with each other. Of course this is a generalization, but when I read (or heard this), I latched onto it.

Husband first. Father second.

A father's love is instinctive. A husband's love is deliberate. A father's love is unconditional. A husband's love is packed in with commitment. A father's love is pure, and at least in my case, it can be overwhelming. A husband's love is refined, and certainly in my case, more comforting.

June features my anniversary (today) and Father's Day, and as I enjoy the extra attention and the extra reminders, I find it fitting that my anniversary occurs first.