by bobthewizard on December 11, 2009
Nothing much to say… Playing Eve and the corp needs some Ice for our POS operations and for the Carriers for fuel. Also our corp has a Rorqual for our mining ops that can use some of the components of the Ice for the compression process. So… while I’m watching the kids tonight I can set the ship to mine, and walk away for about 13 minutes or so (I’m using a kitchen timer to time it) and come back to start the process over again. Boring but necessary for the good of the Corp. And, Sam Adams is keeping me company.
Until next time…. See ya.
by bobthewizard on November 22, 2009
We went camping this weekend. We drove a couple hours to Gordons Well which is just outside of Yuma, California. We had a great time, I have to say, and we’re planning another trip sometime in January, if things go right.
We met up with my wife’s Aunt and Uncle, Cousins, and my Mother and Father in law, plus a few friends of the family, too. They all left early Friday but we had to leave later in the afternoon. I would have liked to have left in the morning, and normally we would have done that but my wife (mommy23monkeys.com) had some things to do on Friday morning and we had to adjust the schedule. You can see what she was doing at her blog, Mommy23Monkeys.com. And, she has more on the camping trip here.
Because we left late, we got there and had to put our tent up in the dark. But we got it assembled and ready by 6:30pm, and the group went to the family’s traditional dinner at the nearby diner Pair-a-Dice (aka Duners Diner), which the family always does when we are there.
Now, my family doesn’t have any dune toys (quads, Rhino, RZR, etc) but the rest of the family does. So because we left late and got there late, we missed out on the early Friday rides, but the next day (Saturday), we went on a couple and it was a blast, as usual. Saturday we went to Patton, then to Test. I was a passenger in one of the Rhinos on each ride. When we got to Patton, (which I’ll describe as a really big sand dune, and leave it at that) we all tried and tried to climb the Dune with the Rhino and the RZR and found that the sand was really soft and there just wasn’t a way to get up. The quads were able to climb it ok. For me it was quite exciting (especially as a passenger) when you have to stop and turn around to head back down, or in one case just slowly back down the mountain.
Saturday evening, after all the riding, we had a big dinner. Everyone brought something, from a deep fried turkey, to pulled pork for tacos or burritos, plus all the fixin’s. It was quite good. Then we clothed the kids in double layers of pajamas and put them to bed, including mom who was pretty tired too. I sat with the adults for awhile by the campfire. 
This morning (Sunday), before we packed up, we went on one more ride. 
I had my cousin stop at the very top on one of the dunes at Test (sure hope I have that name right) and scooped some of the sand up and I swear it felt almost like water, it is so fine. That’s why the Rhino and Razor can’t climb it. A little rain might change that, and I know that with different wheels, Paddles, they would have been climb to the top, but they weren’t equipped with those… Oh well, that’s ok.. It was great fun anyway.
We had a great time and tonight, at home, when we put the kids in bed, we didn’t hear a sound. They were really tired and happy from the great weekend.
Mom and Me are too…
by bobthewizard on November 20, 2009
Don’t throw those bananas away.
Of course when they are new and fresh, they are the tastiest, but when they start getting old, which they do pretty fast, they aren’t so appealing. Funny thing with bananas… They give off a gas that causes other fruit, including other bananas, to ripen quickly. That part is kinda annoying. I know at my house we usually eat them quickly, with 3 boys in the house, but if they are out for more than a couple of days, they start to get black and no-one wants to eat them.
So… what do you do? Overripe bananas can be made in to Banana Bread, or pudding, or used in pancake batter, or other cool food stuff. I searched online and found quite a few receipes to use overripe bananas for. But I have to tell you, the funniest thing I found is that you can use the banana peel to polish your shoes.
That’s right. Polish your shoes. Funny stuff!
Seems that the Banana contain the key ingredient found in most commercial shoe polish. Potassium. As good as potassium is for your health, it’s good for your shoes, too, it seems. A friend sent me a video that shows how to actually do this, which is pretty obvious if you think about it, but the video is funny, and actually shows you that it does work.
And, just to see for myself, I tested it too. And yes it does work.
The dog wouldn’t stop following me around though. Image that.
Check out the video stuff here. Thanks to lifehacker for this information and link to the great video on How to polish your shoes with a banana.[VideoJug via DIY Life]. They have a lot of good info there. Check it out.
by bobthewizard on November 14, 2009
You know what we’ve been doing lately. On the nights when I’m home, we will sometimes go out and watch the skies just after sunset and we’ll see the ISS (International Space Station) fly overhead. It’s pretty cool. Now of course you don’t see the station like the image above, without a really REALLY good telescope, but to see the station fly over, knowing that that is what it is, is actually pretty exciting. I’ve had my Father-in-law out watching in amazement, my wife looking for it (actually found it one night when I was looking in the opposite direction for it) and of course the kids are excited to see it. I’ve shown the kids the live feeds from NASA of the astronauts in both the Space Shuttle and the ISS so they understand what it is and what’s going on. I’ve also seen some links online for people that have used cameras and telescopes to track the Station across the sky. Here’s one from a TV news station in Tennessee.
Where I live in Southern California, the ISS won’t be visible for another week in the evening. I use a tracking site from NASA, to find sighting opportunities. Southern California is out of luck for the next few days, but tonight (Saturday), the New York area will have an opportunity to see it. Check out the next sighting opportunity in your area and look for it.
by bobthewizard on November 9, 2009
The Circadian Rhythm and Biological Clock.
For the past several months, mine has been off… WAY off. What is the Circadian rhythm? In a nutshell, it is the roughly 24 hour cycle in the physiological process in living beings, from animals to plants. And the Biological clock is linked to it. It has an affect on mental and physical functions, from clarity of thought and memory to bodily functions like liver, kidney functions, basic digestive functions, etc. What I’m trying to get across here is that for the past several months, I’ve been working the off shift… the dreaded Grave shift. And, it has basically made me feel terrible. I’ve done it before and it’s been ok, but this time it really affected me.
I don’t know how many of you have experienced this, but I expect that many of you have. Grave shift hours, in my case the hours between 10pm and 6am, are difficult for most people to handle. This can be especially true when you have a family to interact with. I remember years ago, when I was single (and younger also), it didn’t bother me as much. But trying to work effectively, and take care of family issues as well and get enough rest in between isn’t easy.
So I have to say, this is part of the reason there hasn’t been much here lately.
Wiki has some interesting articles on the subject of the Biological clock and Circadian Rhythm. Also there is a good page on the effects of Shift Work. Check it out here: Circadian Rhythm and Shift Work
Now, back to our semi-regular posts. (hopefully, anyway).
by bobthewizard on August 31, 2009
The 5 year old (actually he’ll turn 5 in a few weeks) starts kindergarten today. I’ll go home from working Grave Shift early Monday morning to get him and his Mom and we’ll all go to the school so he can start his first day. And with this, I had a curious thought. What kind of things is he going to learn? He’s a smart kid and knows a lot already of course. I mean what kind of parents would he have if we didn’t teach him the ABC’s, how to count, colors, etc. But what else, I know he’ll learn to read, learn to count better and add and subtract. We’ve been working on days of the week and months of the year lately. But, but what other things will he learn?
I Googled “things you learn in Kindergarten” just to see what came up. There was a lot of stuff listed with variations of that entry. But the top one on the list really seems to be the best answer.
ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN
All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.
These are the things I learned:
* Share everything.
* Play fair.
* Don’t hit people.
* Put things back where you found them.
* Clean up your own mess.
* Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
* Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
* Wash your hands before you eat.
* Flush.
* Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
* Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
* Take a nap every afternoon.
* When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
* Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
* Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup – they all die. So do we.
* And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned – the biggest word of all – LOOK.
Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.
Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all – the whole world – had cookies and milk at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.
And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.
Man… I hope he gets all of this. I for one, and I’m sure his Mom will as well, will be working to make sure he knows this and lives this.
Source: “ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN” by Robert Fulghum.
by bobthewizard on August 16, 2009
This was previously posted at Mommy23Monkeys.com, here.
A friend of mine turned me on to this cool website, Cubeecraft.com. He showed me that he was building a cube Mario from Nintendo Mario Brothers. When I saw it I immediately thought of the kids and how much they would love seeing it. I asked my friend to shoot me a picture of the Cube Mario when he is finished and send it to me. He’s not quite done yet so I’m still waiting. And I think I’ll help out and make some Mushrooms and Piranha Plants to go with the Mario.
I looked around on the web ( ya gotta love Google ) for pictures of Cube Mario and actually found a picture at a site called Technabob.com. We’ll post the real thing later, but take a look at this.
Just like what I was picturing with his Mario and my Mushroom and Plant….
But in the mean time, I went to the site and downloaded a Cube Sonic and a Cube Mario. I’ll update the pictures later when I have them done…
by bobthewizard on August 6, 2009
OH MY GOSH!
The little wizards have been really tearing it up on the Wii. Normally I wouldn’t be too worried. We have it all figured out for them taking turns, ant they’ve been getting pretty good on the Wii, trading between the old school Mario Karts and the Mario Galaxy game. And when I have time, I’ve been moving up in the Mario Galaxy game myself. Until the other day when I found that MY SAVED GAMES ARE GONE!!! I had gotten half way to unlocking Luigi, completing I believe about 66 levels. And when I got there to try the next one, it was all gone. I was not happy, to say the least.
I had to start over. Geez… Now granted, having done it before, it shouldn’t take forever to get back to where I was, but it took a long time to get there in the first place. At this time, I’ve managed to get back 32 of the stars I had. And, when I’m playing, the kids really enjoy watching, as if it were a movie they’re watching. Pretty funny.
There’s a new rule in the game. If I catch someone playing in my character, they can’t play for awhile. I’ll take the disc and put it away in my office and they’ll only get to play when I’m home to watch.
Maybe the Wizard should turn them all into a Toad. 
Nah… That would be too easy.
by bobthewizard on June 22, 2009
For three days we slept about 80 feet from this Rattlesnake
We went camping for the Fathers Day weekend. Lots of good food, fun with the family, no sleep (groan)… It was over all a good weekend. The kids all got really good nature lessons. They got to see many types of bugs, tadpoles, a green snake, many birds and at night, bats flying around. Very interesting and lots of fun.
We found a Rattlesnake near the camp, which was a little unnerving at first. After awhile we were going out regularly to check and see if he was still there. It was all pretty foolish in retrospect. We started the weekend warning the kids to be extra special careful looking for snakes and to run away and tell us right away if they were to see one. Then what do we do? Take the kids out to see it (from a distance of course). But in the grand scheme it was good learning for the kids for what they are and what they look like. Of course we were very careful to make sure the kids were a good distance from him and the adults were between him and the kids.
This snake was sleeping under a large log at the campground we were at. It was less than 100 feet from where we were camping. This shot is taken from about 5 feet. His body was about 5 feet long and as thick as my wrist.
Good stuff.
by bobthewizard on June 3, 2009
Things just keep appearing at our door…. It’s amazing. Last week this thing called a Vroom arrived. After a quick install, our kitchen is cleaning. Amazing. The other day, a terrific 16X20 poster showed up of the little wizards. Truly amazing. Before that, it was a Laptop Gelskin from Lenovo, in anticipation of the Star Trek movie that recently arrived in theaters. The wife received a cool charm bracelet not long ago, and there was the Bissle Green Machine, and a Flip Video Camera a couple weeks before… And, believe it or not, some KY Intense arrived, too?
It’s like Magic or something…
If this keeps up, we might have to get our own zip code or something…
Digg!
