This year for Thanksgiving, I brought home a Wii, including the never-opened, much buzzed-about Guitar Hero III.

My family, particularly my mom (who is decidedly not a gamer), took to it immediately. Mom’s unexpected enthusiasm and enjoyment of the Wii prompted my Dad to make seven trips to Target in a quest to bring back the holy grail of gaming consoles for the holidays. Lo and behold, Christmas morning, Santa had placed a Wii under the trii, and fun was had by all.

Why — when no other gaming system has come close to tempting her — does my mom like rockin’ out on the fake guitar till her fingers are sore and smashing my dad to pieces with her speed-of-light serves in Wii Sports tennis?

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Strong gusting winds blew over huge sections of my six foot privacy fence a couple days ago. Like an idiot, I decided to undertake the repairs myself, relying only on the occasional tip from a neighbor and my wits.

Now my wits may be sharp when it comes to web services or programming languages, but like most geeks, I am not mechanically inclined when it comes to construction.

Nevertheless, last night I stood in my front yard, surveying the materials needed to fix my fence: pressure treated 4×4s, 2×4s, shovel, hammer, nails, and 800 pounds of concrete.

After four arduous hours of work I was fifteen percent done with the repairs, and I still had all my fingers. Although I consider the first phase of the project a success, the difficulty involved in fence repair deserves a nod on my list of the top ten things a computer geek should never do.

If you’re a computer geek, I would also recommend steering clear of any project involving large amounts of concrete.

Last Saturday night I attended the Artcrank Poster Show in downtown Minneapolis.

The show was at one on one bicycle studio, a place I had never been but wish I had, and will go back. And whatdya know, ran into Mr Tim Bramer! Pretty cool concept - Bike shop/Art Gallery/Coffee House/Local Hang Out for bicycling enthusiasts and activists. They also have a “bike graveyard” in the basement - hundreds and hundreds of old bikes and parts lined and stacked, interesting.

On display was a pretty impressive collection of bike inspired art and design, including this one by one of my design school classmates Adam Turman. He’s got a great style and does a lot of concert posters and album art for an impressive roster of clients. I picked up a couple of Minneapolis-ish prints for my office a couple of weeks ago - (this one and this one), just need to get them framed.

*update - Adam posted pics from the event on his blog