TuttleTree.com

Here we have the elusive Nerd, in his natural habitat. Notice his baggy sweatpants and milky-white LCD tan. Clearly, it's mating season.

I started cleaning up my office over the weekend; and that's never a simple task. Whenever I start cleaning up my personal space, I get reminded of all the projects I want to do with the space, and start think of new ones. This weekends new projects included hanging the corner shelves to display 2/3 of my Star Wars bobble heads (the other 1/3 are at work), and moving my backgrounds up from the basement into the office and trying to rig something for them to hang in front of the closet doors.

I did manage to get the shelves up, but as you can see the tools are still on the floor; and I did go through a huge pile of boxes of junk and sort it all out — now just to dispose of the trash and recycle the boxes.

Here at TuttleTree industries we try to keep everything fair and balanced. After the recent outpouring of insight about my old man, I think Mom deserves some credit for what she's done, too… don't you?

When I think of things my Mom was really involved with me in, two things stand out in my mind: Baseball and Boy Scouts.

Mom has always been a baseball fan — always happy to go to the games of the local team (even triple-a — she was a diehard Delmarva Shorebirds fan) and always the loudest cheer-er within earshot. I played little league baseball for years and she came to every single one of my games. As much as I was embarrassed by it at the time, she was just as loud and obnoxious at my little league games as she is today at an Orioles game. Looking back, I'm glad she was there, I'm glad she was supportive — even, no, especially when I was a strike-out machine in my early years. I always enjoyed playing, and I was glad to have someone with the common interest that I could talk about baseball with… even if it was my Mom. (Oh, the embarrassment!)

I don't recall exactly how I got into scouting, but I've run the whole gamut. I started at the very first rung: Tenderfoot, and right around my 18th birthday I was awarded the rank of Eagle Scout. I owe an awful lot of that to her. Although camping was one of my favorite parts of scouting, and Mom wasn't a camper, she still managed to be very involved. She helped me study for my board of review meetings for rank advancement, learn my knots, and so forth; but most importantly, she never let me quit because things got difficult. I was free to quit if it wasn't something I wanted to do, just not because it was hard. You can imagine the kinds of lessons that has bestowed on me.

If my Dad ever was not around to do Dad stuff, Mom was always there to pick up the slack. So thanks, Mom, for all you've done and all you continue to do. I'm lucky to have had you.

Why is it that even when I sleep 2 hours later than normal, I still don't wake up feeling refreshed?

This picture makes my stomach look big. It really isn't… really!

I love the wrinkles on my face from the contortion… especially the big one on my forehead that stops half way across.