Back when I was a kid, ColecoVision had just come out, the Atari 2600 was the cool toy to have, and the PC was a distant hope in young Bill Gates mind. 

I remember the Christmas we received the family ColecoVision from Santa well.  It was the coolest present ever and we spent a LOT of time on that console.  The graphics were incredible (for us anyway) and even my parents got into playing it and we spent many, many hours taking turns playing games like Venture, Donkey Kong, Mouse Trap and so many other cool games.  Every once in awhile, my dad would come home with some new video game for us to try, or even better, a new toy like a driving wheel to add to the system.  Now THAT was cool and it made the whole gadget HUGE. Coleco even had a converter that you could plug into the ColecoVision that allowed you to play Atari games, which significantly increased our possible game library.  Now we could go out and get that E.T. game!

Over time, Radio Shack came out with a new home computer called the Color Computer and my parents thought that might be a good toy for their nerdy son.  Well, they were spot on and I spent even MORE time on this new machine.  I spent DAYS typing in computer programs from magazines and saving the resulting code to TAPE and I learned a lot about programming by doing this.  Eventually, I started to code my own database apps in a very dark foreshadowing of my future life.  Programs were created that did such diverse thing such as a way to keep track of all our VCR (remember THOSE?) tapes and what was on them, rudimentary Bulletin Board System (BBS) programs, and the like.  Now keep in mind that I was in the neighborhood of 10-12 years old.  You would think I would be creating GAMES, but for some reason I thought creating database apps was much more fun and I even created my own fake "companies" to sell these programs I created.  Remember, I was pretty nerdy.  Cool nerdy, but still nerdy.

Eventually, my parents thought all of this computer time probably wasn't as healthy as it should be for me because I was spending a LOT of time on the computer.  Even my teachers had "talks" with me about getting serious with my life because these "computer things" weren't going anywhere and the only possible job for me would be as a teacher and everybody knew I wasn't going to do that, because I was just WAY too quiet.

I think I had some "oh man" time there where I thought that maybe everybody was right and I needed to get serious and learn some sort of trade like building things or counting things or something, but then my rebellious side came out and I decided that everybody was crazy and I was just fine being the nerdy little quiet kid.

Eventually, the world caught up to me, and these computer things got pretty popular, and what do you know?  I actually got a job playing around with computers and making database programs.  And they are on the WEB.  Now how cool is that?  I even work for a COMPANY and everything!  AND get paid for it!

And even stranger still, that nerdy little kid eventually got MARRIED and had KIDS and I'm not near as quiet as I used to be.  It turns out that most of that quietness was mostly shyness and I just discovered that I COULD talk to people.  At one point I even TAUGHT kids how to use computers!

Now, as an adult, I have several PC's and an Xbox 360.  So, still nerdy, but cool nerdy.  Anymore, EVERYBODY has computers, so I'm just one of the crowd. 

Super Michael, up till now, has fiddled around a little with games on the PC and things like V-Smile and enjoys them, but not to the point that I was when I was a kid.  He turned 6 late last year and discovered the Lego Star Wars game that I had bought for the Xbox over a year ago and not really played since and has gone crazy over this game.  He will literally sit for HOURS playing this game all by himself and begs me to play with him too.  We sit and play through the story together and he is just glued to the TV the entire time.  It really is a blast to sit and play with him and listen to him laugh at some of the humorous points in the game.

I'm just amazed at how quickly he has picked up the game, but know I really shouldn't be because as a kid I would do the same thing.  Manuals were for wusses.  The best way to figure things out was to do.

I'm pretty proud that he's playing games just like dear 'ol dad.  Of course I would LOVE if he follows in my footsteps, but I know realistically that he will do whatever he wants with his life, and I'm OK with that.  My job is to just be here for him and support him in what he decides to do.

 In the meantime, however, I think we'll try a couple other Lego games. :)