January 2012 – Life isn’t a game. But a game can be a metaphor for life. I enjoy metaphors.

Once, this blog tried to take itself more seriously. It worked for a while. The author, after all, was simply trying to write about his life in a way that reflected his values and beliefs within the framework of opinion and analysis. Then it stopped working. Or, at least, it stopped being fun. And that was never the point.

This blog has been reloaded: Same author, but different framework.

Life, after all, is rarely about opinion and analysis, but is often about the tiny accomplishments and the lessons we learn from those accomplishments as we play — ahem, live — our lives. These little achievements don’t win us awards, are rarely noted, and are often overlooked. This is not a bad thing either. It just is. But, as much as I am a scientifically-minded geek, I am also a sappy, narrative-inclined writer. And this new format is much more in line with me sharing a message, sharing a metaphor, and sharing a story.

The gaming stuff amuses me and I hope it amuses you — and it’s just in fun. The stories on the other hand are non-fiction, and hopefully those entertain you, too.

December 2011 – I’ve tried a lot of different iterations of this site, always reaching to find just the right balance of whatever it is I thought I wanted to accomplish each time.

In its first few iterations, the skepdad blog was a humble attempt at writing skepticism-themed articles that related directly to my own experiences as a new parent. In essence, it was me baking my opinions into a swath of superficially researched observations, each article tinted by my a haphazard collection of anecdoates and vaguely rational explanations. Skepdad was this guy who tried really hard to be a good and rationally-minded parent, but often balked at the irrationalities of the world around him, struggling to make sense of everything from the silly (Baby Mozart) to the fanastical (lying to kids about Santa Clause) to the cultural (the Disney Princess gender-role phenomenon.)

The problem was two-fold. A fair and balanced skepdad is not a father at all but rather: One, he’s got enough time each day to not only write a dozen articles on as many topics, but he is neither shaded nor jaded by his own experiences in writing those articles. And two, the emotional pounding of parenthood does not rain across his efforts and repeatedly make him feel inadequate to be offering advice within a blog.

This is a new iteration. Very new. So new, in fact, that I’m starting completely fresh. If you are looking for something older, well, perhaps someday those articles will be slowly and quietly filtered into some sort of greatest-hits archive. But for now? New focus. New, blank slate. New blog.

This is a story. This is not a blog about ideas or opinions. This is not even really going to be a blog about skepticism, rational parenting, or anything to do with debunking claims et cetera. If you like that sort of thing — need that sort of thing — this will not be the place for you. Instead, this will just be me — still a “skeptical” dad, yes — writing “dispatches” — notes from this distant land in which I live — to whomever happens to find them and read them. They are tales. Stories. Essays. Observations. But that’s it. There will be little in the way of opinion. There will be little in the way of advice. There will be little to offer any sort of insight or guidance on parenting. It will just be what it is.

And if you read this — this skepdad blog in its new form — I do hope you enjoy it for what it is now and not what it used to try to be.