Sebrina and Justin

It’s taken me this long to realize Justin is not a geek. When I confronted him with this epiphany today he responded, “Yeah, I never really was into Star Wars.” Okay…

I don’t know if it’s that he’s changed over the last eleven years or that I’ve just been dilusional. He sure seemed like a tech geek when I first met him. He was a programmer, only wore holey jeans and free T-shirts from work, and his consciousness seemed all consumed by tech-related trivia. Now he’s often mistaken for a program manager or sales rep. Maybe there’s simply a bigger difference between younger and older geeks than I realize. 

Whatever the case may be, his non-geekiness is never more apparent than at gift giving times. And unfortunately, I’ve never been good at picking gifts for him, so I can’t really gauge how much he’s changed. It’d be so cool to get him quirky gadgets and tech toys like those mentioned on Think Geek and Geek Dad–sites I frequent–but he’s just not into that kind of stuff. And when I ask him what he’d like to have, his standard answer is that he already buys whatever he wants so there’s nothing left. It’s demoralizing to think that whatever you give him won’t really be appreciated because he already has everything he wants.

So, in hopes of making all our lives easier–because some of you have also been asking me for suggestions of gifts for Justin–I’ve finally gotten him to start a wish list. Hopefully, we’ll be able to encourage him to keep it updated. Aside from the specific items on the Justin Wish List, you can also keep in mind that he enjoys swimming, snowboarding, weight lifting, traveling, learning Chinese, economics, Eddie Baeuer style clothes, and building things with Madison using toys like Duplos.

NOTE: You have to register and login at WishListLive.com to see Justin’s list. There are a couple other such sites, but we’re trying this one first because it seems to be the only one that enables friends/family to suggest gifts for others.

Carissa found this T-shirt and a few other treasures at our local Walmart. Justin’s going to be so jealous when he sees what he’s missing. He left this morning on a business trip to Taiwan and should be back in four days. Did I mention that he just flew back last night from a 10-day business trip to Redmond. None of us expected that he’d end up being the frequent flier.

We spent Halloween on the road this year. A group of us took a road trip to find the confluence point 42N 113E in Inner Mongolia. Check out this link to read all about the arduous trip and see more pictures.