SamWatson.us
Last Saturday, the fam and I went to the State Fair of Texas. We took the Trinity Railway Express from Hurst to Dallas and hopped on the Dart Green line, where we were let out at the entrance of Fair Park. I had purchased tickets to the fair online, so they scanned my phone, and we were in.
Many years ago, mere days after my son’s birth, my dad passed away. It was a weird time, feeling great joy about my newborn son but then having my father die. I am forever grateful that my dad could hold his grandson before he went.
When I stop to think about it, it might sound a bit quirky, but I’ve got this genuine love – I mean, seriously, it’s a whole lot of love – for gamification. And if you’re scratching your head wondering what that is, it’s all about tackling tasks within an app or website and getting rewarded, just like in your favorite games.
In the summer of 1994, I was turning 14. My grandparents in Costa Rica had a place near the beach. It was close to where the river ran into the ocean. The river would rise and fall with the tide. On low tide, you could walk out in mud quite a ways, and on high tide, you could kayak out from their place.
It’s almost comical at this point, but every year, my mother-in-law gives me pistachios for Christmas. I don’t know if I ever told her that I liked pistachios. I do, but maybe not enough to advertise it.
Age creeps up on all of us. It’s a tale as old as time. I never really cared too much when I started seeing wrinkles. A few sprinkles of grey made me look wise in my early twenties. Going completely grey didn’t affect me either. In fact, I had enough compliments and people calling me a “silver fox,” I thought it was a good thing. When the hairs on my cheeks turned white, I finally felt like I looked old.
I am a little slow to the game. Everyone around me has used ChatGPT and is living their best lives. But the other day, my coworker begged me to write a memo, and I said, “Why not use ChatGPT?”
We knew my dad was dying years before he passed away. He was scuba diving in Honduras in hopes of seeing whale sharks and had some heart issues. His body was failing him. He loved scuba diving more than anything. I always thought it was a tragedy that he didn’t see the whale sharks and never dove again.
We were at a restaurant the other day, and some people’s phones started going off. That it happened all at once, a few of us chimed in, “It’s an Amber Alert.” We talked about how the sound was annoying, and I said, “Wouldn’t it be great if you could change the ringtone for that?”
My sister-in-law and her kids visited Disney World a few years ago with my son and me. My son had never been, so it was a real treat for me to take him. We rode the Millenium Falcon and saw the Star Wars area that had been set up, which was terrific. Storm Troopers interacted with the park guests, and we even drank blue milk. I was super pumped to find Admiral Ackbar memorabilia!