Creating Family Traditions

Dragging the Kayaks back up the lake's "shore"
which is very long due to the use of the
lake as a reservoir for the Yakima Valley
Agriculture industry.

Last year I started taking one of my boys for a camping trip with just them and Dad. This year was time for my youngest to start this tradition with me.

For our trip, I decided I needed to find something where we could use his new Kayak. I got him one for his birthday and it was a hit. He loves kayaking like his older brother loves mountain biking.

So, after some research I decided on Cle Elum Lake since it had lots of camping nearby on the Cle Elum River. It had an interesting lake to kayak and there are lots of opportunities to fish.

Now, why only one of the boys? Having a chance to spend solo time with each boy gives my wife and I a chance to really hear them, bond with them, and not have other demands getting in the way. My wife takes the boys on a trip to a different city and I take them camping.

I learned a lot camping with my Dad and spending many days fishing with him. He never had to deal with the challenge of having multiple kids vying for his attention. For me, taking each boy on a solo camping trip makes the trip more enjoyable for me (lower stress from sibling rivalry) and lets me spend solid quality time with my boys.

I don't have video of Finn kayaking since he decided he wanted to use my kayak so he could have the camera and since I had a new kayak which he had not used. So, I have some footage (thanks to Finn since he worked the camera for most shots) from Finn's perspective as we kayaked in Cle Elum Lake.

The trip went awesome and we had a wonderful time kayaking, fishing, and wandering the banks of the Cle Elum River. It was a beautiful spot that I will be exploring more.

Hiking the very low Cle Elum River near our campsite.

Bank of Dad

Not sure where I picked this one up but we instituted the Bank of Dad a few years back. It has been a fun way to teach saving, interest, and responsibility with money to our kids.

How the Bank of Dad Works

• Each child gets a weekly allowance on Sunday that is equal to 50 cents for each year they are old (ie. 9 gets you $4.50 a week). The allowance increases each birthday by 50 cents.
• At the first of the month the kids get 10% interest on the balance of what they have on the last day of the previous month. Ya, pretty sweet for them.
• The kids decide how they use their money within reason.

The money is all handled by Dad and there is an account book for the boys that is in a shared location (a kitchen drawer for us) so anyone can check the balance. Only Mom and Dad can do updates to the account book but the boys are free to review their balances and check the deposits/withdrawals.

Interest

The interest of 10% is high, especially as their savings climb but here is the goal with that. We are teaching them to save. We have let them know that normal banks for not pay back this well but we want to show them what saving can do for your money in the long term.

We explain that when you give the bank money it uses your money to make more money. By loaning your money to them to use they pay you back a bit of the money you loaned them.

The fact that they can see that they are making money by keeping it in the Bank of Dad has encouraged one of our sons to never spend a cent. The other son tries to device schemes where he has enough money in the Bank of Dad that he is buying toys and games off the interest. I saw, great to both of them. They are learning the power of money and what it can do for them.

Responsibility

The fun for Mom and Dad begins when we go out and one of the boys decides he wants something. Certain things are covered by Mom and Dad. For example, food, clothing, school supplies, sun screen, etc. You get the picture.

For other things, comics, toys, new lunch boxes to replace the lunch box they lost comes out of the boys allowance.

Many times, just this weekend for example, I have said, "No, problem, if you want to pay for it out of your allowance you can have that." The kids will all of a sudden wonder what is the price? They generally remember how much money they have. Once they see the price and do the math against what they have saved, they decide to put it back.

We use many of these times to also have discussions about value. We talk about how cool or fun something looks but is it really worth so much of their savings? We let them know that if they think it is then by all means buy it.

We have some failures (a huge number of Magic Cards) but many successes (they have learned that gift shops are generally a bad idea).

That's one way we are trying to teach our kids the value of money. What do you do?

Cigar Box Guitar #2

My 5 year old is really into my instrument building and he wants to be just like Dad. He has also been asking for a guitar for a long time.

At first I wanted to jump in and get him a guitar but I know kids; who's interest can quickly wane. So last year we tried music lessons. He did not have the attention span for it and so he did not get a guitar last year.

Flash to the last few months and I have started building various stringed instruments. With that and all the guitar playing I have been doing he has been wanting a guitar again.

First I built a Diddly Bow with him, which he played on and off. That worked out well so I built the Canjo with him (a Diddly Bow with a can at the end to resonate the strings). He loved that.

So, with that it was time to build him a Cigar Box Guitar. We built about 50% of it together on Saturday, planing, sanding, and drilling together. Then on Sunday I finished it off for him.

A trip to the Music Store to get some soft acoustic strings and now he has a Open A tuned Cigar Box Guitar. This will work well since I plan to teach him "Little Ghost" by The White Stripes as his first song.

Why that song? He loves the lyrics, knows it almost by heart, and it only needs 3 chords (A, D, E). With the Open A CBG that means he can strum open for the A, then the 5th fret for D, and the 7th fret for E. The beauty of the open tuning being that to fret the strings at the 5th and 7th he can use the slide to fret all 3 at the same time. So he can do less fingering at first and instead start to learn about the note circle (A, Bb, B, C, C#, D, Eb, F, F#, G, G#) and how frets work.

To play with the slide though I needed something small enough for his 5 year old pinky finger. So, we went to Home Depot for some copper pipe (tried on for size so we bought the correct diameter) and then I got to building him a custom slide. Those chords should be easy to hit with the copper slide I made for him. Here's the slide being built:

To build the slide I just used a hacksaw to cut one long enough to fret the 3 strings on his CBG, then used a precisions filing kit to file the large hunks of metal, and finally finished the cut ends with some 320 sandpaper. The slide is nice and smooth and a perfect fit for his finger.

So, now we will begin working on learning what frets are and finding the 2 that he needs for Little Ghost.

But first, Dad has to mark the frets. I am going to need to hold off on that one though since he won't let anyone else touch it at the moment. It is his!

I adjusted the height of this CBG so that it was lower to make playing
chords easier when not playing an open chord.

With this 2nd CBG completed I now have my sights set on building a Cigar Box Uke (Ukelele) and a Cigar Box Bass. The Bass will be interesting since I will be investigating Piezo Pickups in the bridge. Not sure how to do that yet.

The Cigar Box Uke is another for fun build I want to do. The idea was to give it to my youngest but now that he has his CBG, just like Dad, I think the Uke will become a family instrument. That way anyone can play it. He seems so partial to the CBG.

I love that there are no rules with CBG. I needed something to hold the
rope "strap" on so a U-shaped nail filled in at the time.

My youngest does not really like the sound of the CBG plugged in due to it's grainy Piezo Pickup. I think that will be fixed once I get the Boss Super Overdrive pedal which I tried out in the guitar store but have not purchased yet. So, at the moment he does not want an electric pickup in his CBG but now that he knows how I build them (participating and watching a huge amount of the work) he said, "Later I might want to plug it in, so you can add that later for me."

This little hobby started as a way to try out a cheap instrument but has turned into a fun way to teach my kids about creating and building. They are really into the fact we are building instruments and can play songs on them.

Who could ask or anything more?

Fishing The Yakima

Image: In my fishing attire.

I have been wanting to get away for an overnight fishing trip. Something where I can get further outside the city to some rivers further afield. This past weekend opened up as a free weekend this summer so I jumped at the chance to go.

I took my 8 year old with me who has been a fast learner with fishing. We packed the car on the weekend before so we knew what we needed to pickup for the trip and completed the packing during the week. I like to do this so I am less rushed the day or two before the trip.

We took off on Friday evening, after I got home for work and drove to the Cle Elum area to find a campground near the river. There are lots so this is not a problem I was told. We lucked in to find that there was a campground along the Teanaway River along the paved section of road.

The campsite was free, open and we had a good night there (no rain).

The next morning I decided to drive further up the road to see some more campgrounds and try our lines along the river (further from the campgrounds). We had not driven past the end of the campground along the paved road when it turned to a dirt road.

I am driving a new Honda Accord but said sure, it looks in great shape, let's try it. We never got 3/4 of a mile and the road turned into some serious rutted road. That ended that adventure and we turned backed up until we could turn around and head back out.

Lucky for us that out of the 5 campgrounds along this river, the 1st is on the paved section and had open sites. Else we would have been driving a while to find the next campground.

The morning started at 4:45am or so and we were on the road driving not long after. After our aborted drive to explore and fish, my son piped up that he really wanted to go try the Yakima (we had seen it on a Fishing show). So we set off.

He navigated in the back (I knew the route to take as backup) and we found ourselves ascending along highway 10 alongside the upper Yakima River. The morning light was fantastic and we stopped for some photos along a seriously gusty section.

Image: Yakima River at Umtanum Campground

We drove until we arrived at Umtanum campground in the Yakima Canyon. This was our first spot of fishing and to say the least, it was windy. The wind was making it hard to cast, as in, the line was blowing back into my face. My son's 2nd or 3rd cast was the same and his got into a terrible tangle.

While I untangled my line he tried the same with his. I then helped him finish untangling his and we both went back to fishing, but not for long. Another tangle and he was done. He began hunting for fry (baby fish) with a bait net along the bank. After a little more wind frustration I gave up and decided we would try another spot.

Luckily for us there was an interpretive session that day on the river near where we were fishing. We

Image: Captive Crawfish, Stonefly and Mayfly Nymphs

stopped by and found out that some Marine Biologists were explaining the river ecology. this included showing the kids what animals and bugs were living along the river banks and collecting worms, stone flies, nymphs, crawfish, and dry/smelt (baby trout and salmon).

We spent another hour or more here as my song helped with specimen capture, identification, changing water in the holding containers, etc. We had a great talk with the biologists and learned a bit about the river, identifying baby fish, and the habits of various bugs.

Next up we move upriver along the river and found a nice bend on the opposite side (from our previous location) of the river to wade in. We had the wind more on our side this time and were able to cast with few tangles. The tall reeds at our back being a bit of a challenge but roll casts and side casts were the order of the day.

Again, no luck, and so we packed up and moved further north-west (working our way in the direction of home) and put in at Ringer Road public launch. Just upriver from the launch was some nice ripple river about 12-20 inches deep for a wide section of the river that we tried out. Again the wind was a factor and was blowing downriver at us into our direction of cast. I was able to work out a side cast that let me get up river by casting along the top of the water.

Image: Specimen Hunting

It was fun and there were some ledges that I played with a large stimulator dry fly holding up a wet fly/nymph which I was trying to drop over the top of the ledge as it drifted past. A lot of work for no reward but again, another day learning and practicing my skills.

At this 3rd put in, my son said enough of this wind shenanigans and he went hunting frogs in the pool behind the river bank. He got close but never got his hands on one. Good thing I did not give him the fishing net or I am sure I would have some new frogs with us now. He got awful close with his hand capture attempts.

It was a long day on the river, lots of less than ideal conditions to deal with, but it was a day on the river. My oldest graduated to a fly rod, he has wanted to try one and after some practice at home he got to try it out this day. I am not sure he is impressed with it yet but I'll give him time. Just like I'll give myself time to get the hang of fly fishing.

Teaching My Kids Programming

Image: ScratchJr Kickstarter Page

I'm a programmer and I have been since I was 7. My Mom had heard about home computers and when she saw the Vic-20 was a reasonable price she bought one for me for my birthday or Christmas. I was elated!

I had no idea what level of effort it would take to use that thing. It came with no games and pretty much the only app on it was Commodore BASIC 2.0 which was the OS which you then wrote your own programs in. I found out a little later you could get a tape drive, games and apps but on my allowance those were few and far between. So I wrote my games from books.

So, when I look at it, the way I got into programming was a little like this:
 * I was given a computer
 * With a manual and no apps
 * I picked up some programming magazines and books that included BASIC programs
 * I coded the games in to play the games
 * I learned as I went, learning to debug, learning to read code, learning to understand code

Now, I don't think that everyone needs to know how to code. But I do think that our children and their children should start to learn it. To me, programming will be as much a core skill as Reading, Math, Science, or any other skill taught in school.

With that in mind here are some things I am doing with my kids to cover the gap that schools have not caught up to:

 * Teaching them to code with Code.org.
 * Giving them a similar experience to my childhood coding with Kano Computer.
 * Teaching them programming logic, control structures and concepts with the upcoming Code Monkey Island board game.
 * Explaining to them what Dad does and how software is built by being involved with school presentations where parents come in to explain what they do to the class.
 * Backing projects that support childhood education of Computer Science like ScratchJr.

I am not the only one that thinks that Programming is a core skill. Look here:
 * The UK is adding programming as a course in schools next year (2015).
 * Coding for Kids: Schoolchildren learn computer programming
 * Chicago Public Schools Adding Computer Science to Core Curriculum

Coding for many of us that do it is fun and rewarding. How will kids know that they may like it without being exposed to it?

What are you doing to help the next generation learn to code?

Ways to Add Writing as an Activity With Your Kids

One of our challenges is having one boy who loves to read so much we have to take books away to get

Beetles and the Zoo, ripe candidates for stories and poems.

him to do things (so he can continue reading). Our other boy more physical and loves to help or do chores (when phrased the correct way).

Now, neither of or boys want to really write. Ask them to do homework involving writing and it can be hell to get that work done.

Some things they both love are games, modeling what Mom and Dad do, and joining in to do things as a team. So, how do I harness that to get more writing happening at home?

I am not so much concerned with them doing the homework as much as I want to get them so into writing as just something they do that the homework is an afterthought for them and they just do it. Remember, practice makes perfect and stretching that writing muscle helps improve it.

The ideas for this post started flowing when I wrote a post on my Svbtle blog, called 10 Ideas: Party Themes. The 10 Ideas series is something I started recently where I try to take a couple minutes each day to quickly come up with a topic and then 10 ideas for that topic. I am doing it as a writing exercise myself to flex my writing muscle and get my brain running in the morning.

So, what have I come up with for the boys?

1. Start a Poetry Writing Circle with the boys.
1. We pick a topic.
2. Discuss it a bit.
3. Then decide to write 2 lines each for the poem we build as a team.
4. Once we get the hang of it we can start to work in poem styles and aim for funny/sad poems.
5. Key here being each of us writes down our lines of the poem.
2. Start a mini-version of my 10 Ideas.
1. Pick a topic.
2. Discuss some ideas around that topic (Forms of transport to get from home to Grandpa's house or Ways you could catch a fish.)
3. Have each person write down 3 ideas for the topic.
3. Journaling
1. I did a couple as a kid for school.
2. Set aside a time for us all to write in our journal about our day or yesterday.
4. Have them write down the best thing that happened today.
5. Have them write down something they did today that they want to do again.
6. Have them write down something nice they did for someone else today.

Those are a couple ideas I am going to start trying with the boys. Hopefully by the new school year we will make this such a habit they will find written homework a breeze.

How Simple Can It Get?

Our Diddley Bow

A big influence on the Blues sound can be traced back to the Diddley Bow.  This is a single stringed instrument that was normally hand made, not store bought. It was considered a starter instrument for children and beginning guitarists.

It's song and the lack of additional strings can probably explain the reason that a Blues Scale has so many notes in use (up to 9 out of a possible 12). Compare the Blues Scale to the Major Scale (7 notes) or the Minor Pentatonic (5 notes). No wonder they added more notes to the scale, on a single string you needed to take advantage of all the notes that worked together so you could make a song.

Given that, I was home with my youngest one day last week and said, "Let's go build a basic guitar." He was all in and so he went about finding a stick for us to use.

I grabbed a broken guitar string and we headed to the tool shed. In a couple minutes we had our Diddley Bow and were both trying it out.

We tried putting it into some empty plastic bottles to amplify the sound but decided to go without "amplification".

And here is what it sounds like:

Adventure Day at Point Defiance Park

Today's Adventure Day was to a road trip to Point Defiance Park in Tacoma, WA. Our main draw Fort Nisqually which we were lucky enough to visit on the off season. It was not very busy and we got to spend a lot of time speaking with the interpretive staff who are dressed in period costume and are ready to tell you about the day to day life of the fort around the 1840s.
was

The Fort was established by the HBC as a fur trading post and farming outpost that supported the Puget Sound area. The Fort started as a way station along the path from Fort Vancouver to Fort Langley in 1832. It was turned into a proper Fort in 1833.

While there we had long chats with period actors. One regaled me with the story of his ancestors. We discussed where I worked as a programmer since a programmer in those days was a clerk that did calculations on an abacus. We talked about strategies for creating customer demand to fuel profits such as selling muskets at cost to the natives so that they must come back for powder and bullets. Sounds a bit like today's tactics like selling game hardware at close to cost so that people will purchase games.

The more things change, the more they stay the same was the general consensus we came to.

Michele decided that if one of us starts working half time or we can figure out how one of us can leave work, that chickens would be the way to go. They do a great job of eating bugs in your garden, produce 1 egg/chicken/day, their scratching to get bugs tears up the leaves to increase leaf breakdown, and are all around awesome sounding. Oh ya, and you get to eat them when they slow down on egg laying.

Not exactly practical for a modern life but if you can swing it or have one person living at home and have an acre of land then it is a possible alternative.

As we were getting close to leaving, out came Patrick Haas, one of the other interpretive actors at the Fort. He plays a Gourd Banjo in the style of a banjo that would have been played in the 1840s. He also plays some percussion bones and sticks, as well as a mouth harp.

We spoke a lot about banjos, cigar box guitars, and guitar playing. He also let me know about the 42 year running Northwest Folklife Festival which was going on this weekend from May 24-26 (post to come) at Seattle Center.

It's always fun to meet another guitar player and discuss their particular guitar passion. Be it folk, slide, finger picking, blues, etc.

I am sometimes shy and hesitate to approach people to strike up a conversation. Call it nerves or whatever. I find that in general though it really pays off to open up and make connections. In this case, I made a new connection with a fellow guitar player and I found out about a great festival.

Pushing Strings: First Week Back To Work

A local spider, pushing strings.

Well, this was my first week back to work after just over 4 months off. I took the time off to help out my kids, especially my youngest with his schooling. He was falling behind and he needed some directed attention. He has gotten to a point where he was doing great in school and we were lucky enough to find a great Nanny/Tutor to help him for the last 6 weeks of school. So, that allowed me to get back into the workforce and get back to one of my loves, programming.

This time around I decided to try something different and give contracting a try. For those not from around Redmond, here is how Microsoft and many big technology companies operate in the USA. They use contingent staffing, contractors (more correctly, vendors, the politically correct term), to help them build new products, features, or releases. This allows companies to keep staff levels lower, reduce costs from benefits, 401K, severance packages, etc in the inevitable up/down staffing cycles that occur. Wall Street likes this and so do investors.

For those that choose to contract, it can mean a higher salary if you have health benefits from another source, such as our spouse. It also means you can move from project to project and always work on something new. I am used to being a full-time employee and owning the code into the maintenance phase, so this is a first for me. I am being paid to deliver features and once the project ships my contract is over and I then find another project to work on. That's worth a try for a while I figure.

For the first week back to work, we have done a lot of planning. We have our kids in a morning program at school that includes gym and open play time. Like us they now start their day earlier. They get up at 6:30am to be to school at 7:30am. I start my day at 5:45am so I can take the bus at 6am. I jump off at the gym, near work, get a workout in, shower, change, and walk to work. Then at 4 I commute home with my wife. That's for 3 days a week, for the other 2 I drive, one day I pick up the kids early and the other my wife picks up the kids early.

The week went well, for a first week. Starting at a new place is always difficult as you have to get up to speed on the project and start delivering. As a contractor I feel some additional pressure to be productive since I can be let go at any time if my work is not up to par. So, there are less pressures in some senses but additional pressures in other areas. I did not expect that feeling.

Anyways, it was a good first week. I miss being with the kids and I miss them a ton. The last 4+ months with them have been a fun experience. Not easy (laundry, tutoring, activities) but worth it for all the extra fun times we spent together. While off I also had the house always stocked with groceries. Something ran out and I would go grab it. Now, things are missing, and it is only one week back. Now we will be back to the single trip a week since we don't have time to run to the grocery store on a whim to pick up a hand full of things.

As a family with two working parents, it is hard to stay on top of all the demands made of us each day. Work, tutoring our kids, cooking, house chores; the list goes on. Such is life.

So, though it's good to be back to working on a new project, it is bittersweet since home life is much more manageable with one of us home with the kids, laundry, cooking, temper tantrums and all. I have deep respect for those that choose to have one parent home keeping while the other works to support their family.

Oh ya and work? How is it? It's a job. It's new code and new problems to solve. But in the end they are the same old problems to solve. Push strings here. Get strings from there. Display strings.

I once joked in Computer Science class that all we do is figure out ways of manipulating strings. Concatenating, truncating, sending them, receiving them, displaying them, and not overrunning any buffers. Some days programming feels just like that day back in University. Pushing Strings.

Maybe that could be the name of an album some day or a band, The String Pushers.

Placing Your Cigar Box Guitar Frets

The cool thing with Cigar Box Guitars is that they are custom. There are no rules is the motto and as such if you wing some of your implementation (like I did) you end up with a custom instrument and then some.

I had been playing the guitar for 2 days when I decided it is time to add some frets and the Piezo pickups. The Frets so that it is easier for the kids (and myself) to learn on this guitar. The Piezo pickups so I have a lo-fi electric guitar I can jack into my amp.

I measured from my nut to my bridge and I came up with 676 millimetres. Of that only 510 millimetres are usable for the frets. How do I figure out the fretting for this?

This is where Stewart MacDonald comes in. He has some handy informational pages on stringed instrument construction and one of those is a Fret Calculator.

Here were the calculations it gave me for my setup:

Image: http://www.stewmac.com/

From this I placed test measurements to see if the generated fret placements work well. Once I tested the locations and made a few adjustments for slide versus chord playing I marked the frets with a black marker and square.

Then some fret markers and additional fret markers along the top of the neck to help the boys find the frets without needing to turn the guitar up to see the frets.

Volia, custom frets without physical frets to make slide playing easier. Note that with medium strings this makes playing the first 3 frets difficult with chords since there is no fret to use to push the string against. So, this may limit my ability to play chords in this region. If it turns into a problem I may add a physical fret to the first 3 frets to compensate for that issue.

Why a Cigar Box Guitar?

I came across Hollowbelly and had to know more about his guitar (based on the track Shotgun). That got me searching around and reading that a Cigar Box Guitar (CBG) is exactly what it sounds like. A guitar made with a cigar box as the body.

Now, as anyone who follows me knows, this has been an ongoing project for the past week or so. I started to write this post before I got so deep into the CBG but then enthusiasm got the better of me and I built one. So, here is some rationale for Why a Cigar Box Guitar?

These homemade instruments can be traced back to 1840, the first illustration is from an copyright in 1876, and the first published plans for how to make your own were seen in an 1884 publication by the co-founder of the Boy Scouts of America. The plans would later make it into the 1890 edition of American Boy's Handy Book.

Here's where things start to get interesting. These homemade instruments were instrumental in the creation of jug bands and blues. For myself, blues is the heart of rock and roll and something I keep trying to learn more of. A cursory look into playing the modern 3 string Cigar Box Guitar (CBG) shows that many blues licks originated on these instruments.

Speaking of number of strings, Keith Richards even once stated that there was no need for the 6th string on a guitar. Here is a great interview answer about using 5 strings:



As Keith mentions in this, when you are limited to a 5 string open tuning you have only 3 notes to work with. The CBG is the precursor to this and the players had to find ways to do more with less on their guitar.

So, a lot of the early blues can be traced back to these "limited" instruments that forced their players to become more creative to work around the limitations. Very cool stuff for a guitar player.

When I started to read up on this I thought, well heck, I have to make one of these. So that is what I just did. Here is a pic of the new guitar.

Just finished my first Cigar Box Guitar! pic.twitter.com/gcToXNz7jh
— Mark Thistle (@mthistle) May 3, 2014

So, that's the start of my Cigar Box Guitar journey. I plan to make a 2nd so that my two boys can each have one. Which means I need to make a 3rd for me. My youngest also wants a Ukulele, so why not a Cigar Box Uke! This is getting out of hand as you can see.

I have more posts planned on this subject, so hang on while I bring you along for a trip down the Cigar Box Guitar rabbit hole.

Mother's Day Painted Pots With Flowers

It's 10am PST when I am posting this and as such the pots were just given to the Mom's at a Mini Class Concert. So, though these are for Mother's Day, I am not letting the cat out of the bag by posting early. Onto the post.

-----

My son's Kindergarten Teacher asked me to help her figure out a pot painting project for Mother's Day. I thought the idea of the kids painting a pot and giving it to their Mom with a flower in it was a great idea. I set to work.

Before you set out, know that this was a lot of work since we had 34 pots to do. One or two pots would be a breeze though.

First I priced up the supplies to see that we could do this for about $5 or less per person. We were on budget:

• $0.77 : small clay pot at Home Depot
• $9/32=$0.28 : gallon of deck paint reject at Home Depot, in a colour (off white) that would work
• $4/32=$0.13 : clear coat can of spray
• $13/32=$0.41 : soil for pots
• $1.69 : price per plant

Grand Total: $3.28

I got the pots (the teacher purchased the supplies with a discount and handed it all off to me) and started work. First I had to remove sticker glue from them all.

Sanding sticker glue off pots in prep for priming them for kindergarten project pic.twitter.com/KRNxmeNxIw
— Mark Thistle (@mthistle) April 26, 2014

Then I primed them all off-white.

Next we did the painting at school with the kids and then it was onto giving a clear coat of gloss paint.

Pots being clear coated

The final steps were to add the soil and plants. And voila!

Pots ready to go home with Mom's!

The kids had a blast doing this project and so did I. It was a lot to take on 34 pots and I learned a couple things I would change next time. Those being:

• Open up the reject paint first. If it is full of little bubbles stay away, far away. The deck paint had a ton of bubbles that would not go away while I used it. I had to sand that off-white finish on 34 pots for 2 (and in some cases 3) coats of paint.
• Clear coat spray does not react well with ink pens. The "dry" pen runs when sprayed and makes names on the bottom a mess. Due to this I also held off from using a black marker to add highlights for the bugs faces.

The Blerch Came Back...But Not in a Bad Way

I got in! The waitlist for the newly added Saturday day of the Beat The Blerch race opened up a couple days ago and I got into the race.

So on September 20th, 2014 I will be running the Beat The Blerch. This is a 1/2 Marathon trail run on an out and back course. It is a flat course meaning it starts at about 100 ft, rises to about 300 ft and then you reverse that on the way back. In total there is 871 ft of up and down on the course. For around Seattle, this is fairly flat and I can't wait to see what the course is like in person. It has been hard to find anything close to resembling flat like Ottawa, Ontario where it can be stupidly flat.

Then on Sunday I will volunteer as a course official. Doing whatever to help keep participants on course and sporting my Blerch Shirt!

What has been very funny the past few days is that my youngest (6 yr old) saw me registering for the race and was all, "What is that? Who is that? What's a Blerch? Does he fly and kick you? Does he chase you?" To understand better in case you did not check out the other links here is The Blerch:

Image: http://www.beattheblerch.com/

That was funny and I kinda explained away the questions with misdirection, "Anyone for Scooby Doo?"

This morning, he knew I was going for a run when I dropped him off at school. His comment as he was going into school, "Dad, I hope you Beat the Blerch. Bye Dad, I love you." He is a cute kid.

Then when I picked him up from school, on the walk home he was all, "Dad did The Blerch chase you? Can he fly? Did you escape?"

I then tried to explain the concept of The Blerch. How it is like a little bad person sitting on your shoulder telling you to skip exercise and playing outside today. Instead sit inside, eat some chips, relax on the couch, and watch a movie. A movie is way better. Skip that playing outside in the sun today.

He did not get it.

So, I have had to explain multiple times that:

• The Blerch is not real.
• No he does not chase you for real.
• Yes, I still run from him but it is an idea, like Mr. Invisible, his imaginary friend.
• Yes, there might be people dressed like him and pretending at the race.
• Dad is silly sometimes and does not make much sense to a 6 year old.

I previously posted about The Blerch:

• Running From The Blerch
• No Blerch Run, But Next Best Thing

Pinewood Derby Season

Well, it's pinewood derby season for Scouts across America. My son and I are partaking of this tradition/annual event currently.

I remember my Dad building most of my car for me. I endeavoured to have my son do as much as possible.

That did not stop me from doing research into the best strategies for a winning car.  That is where I came across this video which I tweeted on April 18th:

How To Make The Most Efficient Pinewood Derby Car - Digg http://t.co/vv74AyzRed It that time at Scouts so I am doing research
— Mark Thistle (@mthistle) April 18, 2014

Here is a the video I referenced:


So from this video my son and I picked the items we could use based on our Pack's rules:

1. Aerodynamics
2. Weight Placement
3. Bent and Polished Axles
4. Graphite Lubricant on the Axles
5. We are only riding on 3 wheels
6. Railride Alignment

Of the top seven listed in the video the only one off limits was the lightweight wheels.

He also asked me to do a design for him on his car that involved fishing. He wanted a big fish, some people fishing, and worms. So I came up with this sketch:

Son did cutting and painting but asked me to do a fishing design for his Pinewood Derby Car pic.twitter.com/ED2zzuVnAO
— Mark Thistle (@mthistle) April 29, 2014

One thing that was great was showing my son the video (above), after I had researched several, to help invest him in the activity. You see, when someone tells you build a car from a chunk of wood and race it, it is hard to get what that means. He understood he wants to try to win and he wants a nice looking car but how to get there.

Well, while watching the video, about halfway through he turned to me and said, "Dad, are we allowed to watch this?" We talked about it and he was wondering if it was cheating to get tips. I said certainly not, we were doing our homework. No one builds a car or much of anything without planning and research. Thankfully someone already did the legwork, Dr. Scott Acton at pinewoodphysics.com, and then Mark Rober boiled those down into the best tips from pinewoodphysics and from regular Derby racers.

With my son's newfound knowledge we set to building his car. I worked the power tools (axle polishing and bending) while he cut the car body, sanded it, notched out a location for our weights at the optimal point, and painted his car's base coat of blue.

Here he is filing his car's weight notch.

Wood Working with a Wood Rasp

He then asked me to do his paintjob which I did happily and sealed with some clear coats.

Painted Top of The Big One

Friday night is the big night and we go to race his car.

Washington State Fishing Season is Open

Most lakes in Washington state opened this weekend. I live next to Pine Lake and with the season opening today, my oldest (8) and I got out there early to try our luck.

Now in our case we are very lucky. Our lake is one of the stocked lakes, and I don't mean a couple hundred brown trout. I mean by the tune of 14,000+ brown trout back 3 weeks ago. So we were pretty excited to get out there on the canoe and get fishing.

We were not lucky enough on day one to land a fish. We had 3 bites. 2 were strong and I may have had them if I was holding my pole but both times I was paddling and by the time I tried to hook the fish he had slipped off. Once I even dropped my paddle in the lake and leaned out hard to grab it.

We were lucky enough to catch our local (4) eagles fishing. One caught a fish about 75 ft from us and then flew past with the fish dangling from his claws. That is until he dropped it after a gull came swooping in to try to steal the fish. The fish went free (though not for long I figure) and the eagle had to hightail it as he was trying to gain altitude away from the annoying gull.

It was amazing how many people were out and to get to see the high tech gear people are using. There were all manner of self propelled, electric motor, paddled, flippers, you name it and it was out on the water today. Luckily our lake has a no gas motors policy so only electric trolling motors under some very low HP are allowed.

It made for a great day on the lake (well the 3 hours we got on it). Now to start getting up early so we can get more fishing in.

Fast Soccer/Baseball Game For Kids

I have been working to get the kids rolling out the door by 8am so we have an hour of play time before school. We are not on track yet but we are getting some play time in this week.

One morning we got to the park with our soccer ball and about 10 minutes to play a game. Finn asked to play baseball but we had a soccer ball.

So, we quickly came up with our modified soccer/baseball game:

• One person rolls (pitches) the ball to the batter/kicker.
• The kicker must kick the ball out of the infield into the grass in the outfield to score a homerun. 
• If the pitcher or fielder (there are only 3 of us) stop the ball from hitting the grass then the kicker is out.
• 3 kicks with a miss or foul balls result in the player being out.

Not many rules, loads of fun and easy to "miss" the ball as you try to stop it with your foot so younger ones get some homeruns ;-)

Having Fun With Art Projectors and Your Kids

Image: http://www.artograph.com/

Many moons ago I wanted to put a mural on my wall. A mural of none-less than The Punisher.

To do that I used a transparency and an overhead projector (remember those old timers?)

My parents being open to the idea, let me put a large Punisher diving with a very large gun behind my weight set in our basement. It was cool! I am not sure they knew what they were getting into.

Fast forward many years and I did a painting that I thought would be great in triplicate, but how to copy the original to 2 more canvases? Step in the Art Projector/Tracer.

I bought the Artograph Tracer, took a photo of the original artwork, printed that out in black and white, and then proceeded to transfer/trace it onto two new canvases. Then I went to work painting those. I am still pleased with the result.  Here they are, the Yellow was the original:

Flash forward to the topic for today, having fun, well, more fun with Art Projectors and your kids in particular. Kids love to do art and they have lots of beloved characters. What better way to have fun than to copy some of their favorite characters onto large sheets of paper and then paint/colour those.

We did that the past two days and they had a blast. I could not tear these two boys from the machine. I gave them each 2 tracings and then sent them off to colour their new artworks. They had fun and enjoyed making larger versions of some of their favorite characters.

Here are some pics of what we did.

I traced this Samurai:

And Finn helped me colour most of it:

Then Finn wanted a Cat in the Hat:

Harrison wanted a Pokemon:

This all started with this box of Puffin Cereal:

So I did a Puffin for the boys, with a little help from Finn:

 

This was a fun activity which I underestimated would be such a winner. The boys were engaged for hours colouring and helping setup, trace, and then hang their works.

If you have a tracer this is a fun afternoon activity on a rainy day.

As well, if you pick up a tracer, they can be super fun for tracing children's characters onto the kids walls and then painting those. The kids will love it and you can really make their room theirs.

For me, we have moved so many times I have taken to tracing onto canvases and then painting those. This way the kids can take the works with them when we move again.

Considering a Trip to Chitwan, Nepal

Image: Habitat for Humanity

Michele and I are considering a volunteering trip with Habitat for Humanity to build houses in Chitwan, Nepal. Yes, we have reached that point where we want to combine do gooding with a trip. It won't be a vacation as much a growth experience.

We are unsure if we can fit this in and the logistics since we can not take our two boys. Children must be 16 or older which are boys are not.

So, we have to figure out how to have the kids taken care for 2 weeks while we wander off to Nepal to spend a week building homes with Habitat for Humanity and then take about 3 days to tour. The rest of the time is taken up with just travel days.

We are still not convinced this is a good idea. The trip is in November 2014 and we have to sign up soon.

My biggest concerns are:

• How will we get the boys taken care of?
• What if something goes wrong at home with the kids?
• What if something goes wrong in Nepal?
• And many more.

Have you ever considered travelling without the kids for an extended time? How did it go? We have gone for 4 days before and that was great but this is 2 weeks.

Have you ever gone on a volunteering trip like this? How did it go?

Have you ever worked with Habitat for Humanity? How was that?

Three Month Check In

It's been 3 months since I resigned from BlackBerry and left to do a stint as a Stay At Home Dad (SAHD, is the lingo apparently). Here's a check in with how things have been going.

My primary reason for resigning was to concentrate more on my kids and help my family out. That has been going very well. We are still getting used to Dad at home but I am happy to say that my youngest is doing great with the one on one help and attention he has been getting. My wife has been happy that there are more meals being prepared by me and that things around the house are getting done, slowly, but still getting done.

As part of my time off the past three months I have been able to volunteer in both of my sons classes. So far I have taught 2 Computer Science classes to my older son's grade 2 class. For my younger son, his teacher has graciously let me come in 1-2 times a week to help his Kindergarten class. I do mostly math, some exercise/active games, a little reading, and a little art (basically, whatever she needs help doing). I have become a celebrity with his class and the kids are all excited to see me there. Teaching and interacting with the kids has been one of the high points of my time off.

As an outlet for my creativity, I have been very happy with the blogging as a place to express my opinions, share my multitude of ideas with you, and connect with my readers (mostly friends or family). When I began this blog it was a way to share my latest doings with friends, a bit with family, and a lot with colleagues. My technical and Mac troubleshooting posts are still my most read articles. Since I have gone off to be a SAHD, I have expanded my writing more into my other areas of interest as I have had more time to explore them.

Of course, we can't forget guitar. I have gotten worse, since I have been adding singing, and better at playing since I went off. I would not hire me to sing at your wedding but my jam partner and I are having a blast as we continue to rock out each week.

While off I have dropped 10 lbs but I am still far from a healthy weight and where I want to be. I have done ok the past 3 months with better eating and exercise but am not satisfied with my progress. This is why I am dedicating April to fitness so I can kickstart one of my other loves, running long distance. I look forward to how the month turns out and planning the next phase with running.

Lastly, since I started the DroolFactory, I have meet more people, become active on social media and watched as my readership has expanded. It's always exciting for me when I see a comment from someone, a retweet, or like for an article I wrote.  Thanks to all of you for reading my ramblings and continuing to come back. You make this site worth working on.

Movie Review: Mr. Peabody and Sherman

The kids and I enjoyed the new Mr. Peabody and Sherman movie. They liked the humour in the movie and the action packed scenes. I enjoyed the flashback to childhood watching the original show on Saturday morning cartoons and watching them enjoy the movie.

Mr. Peabody and Sherman has had a pretty large marketing push I felt. They have spread it around to areas that many of us that grew up watching the skits on The Rocky and Bullwinkle show are visiting now with kids.  For example, there was a tie-in at the Home Depot Kids Project on March 1. Here is Finn with his Trojan Horse that he built there:

There is also a Mr. Peabody and Sherman comic series ongoing, which I have been buying for the kids. We all are enjoying that one. They love having a comic to read since Dad has a bunch they can not read (due to subject matter).

As for the movie, it was fun, I love time travel, and I love Mr. Peabody & Sherman. A trip down nostalgia lane and an introduction to a fun series for the boys.