Our red plate is a bit worn from use. My wife says that it just adds to its charm. She has given many of these plates out as gifts over the years. Doing her part to perpetuate not only the tradition of the red plate, but through its use, the tradition of family dinners themselves.

Sadly, she sometimes seems to be alone in this cause. The store where she’s been buying all of these plates has stopped selling them. We were told that she is the only person who has bought any for a while now. But all is not lost. There are places that sell the red plates out there. So somebody must be buying them and carrying on the traditions. I think that those people deserve to be the first to use them!

The Red Plate

Last night I took my meal break from work and took the boys out to grab some fast food. Of course they both wanted something different and so multiple stops were necessary. Applying the concept of family time I decided to make an evening of it. One of those stops was next to a video store. So we picked up some movies while we were out.

We brought the food and movies back home. We all had food from different places but at least we sat together at home to eat. The kids then entertained themselves while I finished up work for the evening. Then we all sat together and watched a movie.

I promise to get to the whole ‘create a dinner menu for the week’ stage at some point and keep to it. Right now I’m a single-during-the-week parent with two kids, two dogs and a lot on my plate (yes, pun totally intended).

Small steps…

I work in tech support and have a number of Windows machines that I use for that. We also have half a dozen personal machines that run various flavors of Windows. When I go on the road I generally take a couple with me. My wife is now part of the corporate machine and has also had Windows inflicted upon her. Believe me, I hear about it. When we are not working we tend to migrate over to our Macs. Just a preference I guess. I find the build quality between a MacBook Pro and my Dell to be like comparing a Yugo and a Mercedes. We both also prefer the OS X interface.

Yes, like any true geeks we have our share of Linux boxes. But for getting things done it pretty much comes down to Mac vs. Windows around here and the Macs tend to be the favorite. So, no problem, get the software for OS X, right? Well, about that. I have recently given my only current generation MacBook over to my oldest to help foster his budding music production career. That means that as well as the software, I need a new Mac. The things I do for my family.

Now, 27 inch iMac or 17 inch MacBook Pro…

My wife’s job is in another state much of the time. So I am forced into more grocery shopping, shuttling the kids around, cooking and cleaning than I would prefer at times. But even without that need I would still be doing many of these things. Really, I would. I’m sure that I’m not the only father that takes an active role in his kid’s lives. Do men just not blog and create web sites about their families the way women do? Or do they just suck at search engine optimization?

So where are some family websites with plenty of wisdom from good old dad? Please let me know if you have a favorite.

It’s not always easy for us to do family dinners at my house. One of us always seems to be working in another state and commuting home on weekends. But those of us at home do sit down to dinner together most nights and talk about our days. No electronics are allowed. We don’t even have a television in that part of the house. And guess what. Nobody misses it. The teenager may occasionally be anxious about receiving a text from a girl he has asked out for the weekend. But he manages to get through dinner just fine.

My wife is a bit of a geek. But she is needed as a content person and not for coding and the techie stuff that goes on behind the scenes. I have agreed to take on that role. So the focus of my blog will shift from the occasional status update on my life to the business of spreading my wife’s message.

So look for lots of changes and posts here.