{"id":2212,"date":"2009-04-09T14:51:59","date_gmt":"2009-04-09T20:51:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamesanityblog.com\/?p=2212"},"modified":"2009-04-09T14:51:59","modified_gmt":"2009-04-09T20:51:59","slug":"state-of-the-heart-409-kids-alright","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/09\/state-of-the-heart-409-kids-alright\/","title":{"rendered":"State of the Heart 4\/09: Kids Alright?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Logo

Logo by Penny-arcade.com <\/p><\/div>\n

I have to admit I’m still shaken. A good 3\/4 of last year was spent in considerable pain and that did affect me. My bigger worry is how the kids are doing. I’m wasting my time though, school counselors, teachers and Linda say they’re fine. I know my daughter has some demons though, how could she not? She almost lost her dad at\u00a07 (which is even more disturbing when you consider that Linda lost her dad at 6). I figure, that’s gotta leave a mark. We’ll keep watching, from a distance so as not to alarm, to make sure the kids feel safe, secure, and that daddy won’t get sick again.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Andrew Bub – The GamerDad – had a major heart attack in September 2007 (just 2 days after speaking at the PAX convention). He had another one the next day so the surgeons figured they’d do the surgery as soon as possible. Quadruple bypass. Naturally there’s been some fall out, repercussions, to this but the upshot is that I love my family more than ever, I love my kids and my wife, more than ever.\u00a0 And games, well, I like games about as much before. I just savor them more now. Anyway, State of the Heart is his way of blogging through all this garbage. Okay? Caught up? Now we continue . . . . <\/em><\/p>\n

The other thing I did last year was work like a maniac. Call it “nesting” – you know, that crazed need to make money and prepare your house when a baby is coming – or just the bad luck of having too many opportunities I’d worked too hard to create for me to take time off – despite the heart attack.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Anyway, the psychic backlash has been considerable and I’ve spent the past few months just playing games, playing with the kids, and trying to be a useful stay-at-home dad. I’m so lucky, my job gives me respectable part-time income and I get to play with my kids.<\/p>\n

So, lucky me. The good news is that I’ve been working for the past 3 weeks. You’ve probably noticed that the site is being updated more. I also plan to revisit my children’s novel and I’m still thinking about a GamerDad book.\u00a0 All in good time. Odd isn’t it?\u00a0 That a heart attack, a quadruple bypass, would make a person want to slow down and smell the roses – rather and speed up.\u00a0 Nobody says, “I wish I’d worked me” on their deathbed. That won’t be me, I assure you.<\/p>\n

Maybe that’s a lesson you could use. Personal interaction – that is to say family that’s healthy for you and good to you – is so important. But also important are the times you get to enjoy a peice of fruit, notice a beautiful day, or blast aliens or zombies into a digitized hellscape. Fun is still important.\u00a0 If you’re worried about death, working harder won’t help you live. But visiting a land like Azeroth isn’t a waste of time. It’s an experience, and life is all about experience. All about virtual violence and the thrill of cheating death. That’s still fun for me. Maybe moreso now.<\/p>\n

I’m still trying to make the heart attack “the best thing that’s ever happened to me” and given that I quit smoking and grew closer to my wife, children and GamerDad fans. That I’m in good shape and have lost weight and am eating better.\u00a0 GamerDad is an important place. Important community. I’d like to take a small census. I don’t collect emails, so if you could be so kind as to log in below and say “hi”.\u00a0 I need to know you’re out there.<\/p>\n

Thanks,<\/p>\n

Andrew Bub<\/p>\n

The GamerDad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have to admit I’m still shaken. A good 3\/4 of last year was spent in considerable pain and that did affect me. My bigger worry is how the kids are doing. I’m wasting my time though, school counselors, teachers and Linda say they’re fine. I know my daughter has some demons though, how could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-state-of-the-heart"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2212\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}