Currently Reading Soon I Will be Invincible (Vintage) By Austin Grossman see related

This past weekend, I made major headway with my geek training plan for my two oldest children, Tyler and Maya.  Along with the help of Cris, we took them to Indianapolis for Gen Con 2008!  For those of you woefully ignorant in all things Geek, Gen Con Indy is the largest gaming convention in North America--think Urbana but for gamers.  Started in 1968 by none other than Gary Gygax himself (don't even tell me you don't know who that is), this convention is the mecca of any person who has ever thrown a twenty-sided die.  It has been one of my life goals to go to Gen Con Indy (right between kayaking the Amazon and reading the unabridged version of Les Miserables) and not only was I able to attend, but I was able to bring Tyler and Maya too! 

Anyway, after telling Angela that we were going to the zoo for the day, I went and picked up Cris, a fellow gaming maniac.  It is a three and a half hour drive to Indianapolis so I maximized on the absence of my meddling wife and her socially capable influences to do some heavy indoctrinating of the kids.  Here is an example of the kind of conversations Cris and I were modeling to the kiddos:

Bum:I seriously don’t think time travel could ever happen without ripping the space-time continuum unless there are parallel universes where both realities could simultaneously exist.

Cris:What about traveling to the future where you don’t necessarily mess with the past and inadvertently create two realities?

Bum:I could see that happening more than traveling in the past.But then you might run into your future self and again, I don’t think that would be possible without creating another parallel universe…

So after three and a half hours of this, we finally made it to the convention center and it was freakin' awesome!  Even before we made it to the exhibit hall, we ran into three storm troopers, seven pirates, two elves and a gaggle of undead.  Of course, there were the twenty thousand or so pimply, unkempt mostly male in jeans and black T-shirts that said, "Speak Nerdy to Me" as far as the eye could see.  In a moment of compassion, I just wanted to hug them all and tell them that high school does end and that Bill Gates could pay Michael Jordan's 1997 salary 1300 times. 

Tyler and Maya loved it!  I got tears in my eyes as I watched them roll dice for the demo games, paint miniatures at the Paint and Take, ran after a working R4-P17 and asked if we could come back next year dressed as anime characters.  Next year, I'm going to have to figure out how to sneak Ayla away as well seeing as to how she is turning out to be unusually beautiful and socially adept as well.  Angela was a little suspicious as to why we left for the zoo at a 5:45 in the morning...