Mushy Geeky Dad Moment

Last Thursday our neighbors made a kind of marble machine in their back yard. A liked it so much he wanted to visit their house. A lot.

So I poked around in our mounds of junk and found some old PVC piping. I cut up a Pepsi bottle for a funnel and bent some screen to make a "suspension bridge" (A was quite clear that he wanted a suspension bridge). A slightly-doctored cereal box became a grotesque where the marbles came to rest.

A loved it. I think it kept him busy for about an hour running back and forth dropping marbles into the top and running to the bottom to see them come out.

Then we listened to John C Adams's "Short Ride on a Fast Machine," (Well, OK, A was running back and forth between the two ends of the machine) and I guess I had a kind of a "When you want to build your star cruiser, son, I'll be here to help you, (and then I'll turn away so I won't be able to say anything when you're having fun flying too close to a gravity well)" Geeky Dreamer Dad Moment.

It's probably a good thing that we didn't listen to John William's "Superman Theme."

Now, if we can get the sticks out that A shoved into the PVC piping and figure out what happened to the twenty or so marbles last seen in A's possession. . . .