Three Generations - Just a little surprised

It’s my Dad’s 70th Birthday today. Yesterday we surprised him with a birthday party of family and friends – he TOTALLY didn’t know it was happening until the elevator arrived at the “wrong floor” – and I made sure to grab a quick photo before everything got crazy.

Three Generations - Awesome tiara, Dad.

My Dad was the person to get me into computers – back when I was 8 years old. I remember him playing on a TRS-80 at Eaton’s (geez, this sounds so dated!). Not only did he purchase one for our house, and push for them in our school, but he then helped organize computer  classes for adults in the evening for our community. My sister and I also went to computer classes (Basic and Logo) during the summer at a local Radio Shack, and I was lucky enough to accompany him on a few meetings of the computer user group that he has joined. That wasn’t all he did, of course. Beyond the “usual” dad stuff like coaching teams and making sure I got my homework in (mostly) on time, he:

• Made me practice (over and over and over) until I mastered parallel parking, a skill that’s come in handy more times than I can count.
• Drove 14+ hours to take me on a campus tour of Augustana and then, when I decided that was where I wanted to be, drove back and forth several times over the next few years to bring me home on holidays.
• Taught me that “measure twice, cut once” works for everyone else, but maybe I would be better off letting someone else measure instead. (Three times, three different numbers, a lot of laughter.)
• Told me that I could do it, and then cheered when I did. (Well, except for that measuring thing, but I guess he also showed me that sometimes getting help is a good thing.)

Happy Birthday Dad! Thanks for being the most awesome you that you could be. (Oh, and I’m probably still using your computer to upload things to Dropbox, so thanks for that too.)