There Are Some Things Dad Is Not Meant to Know....

Scene: After-school pick-up.

A (walking with J toward car): "J, I want a science lab in my room."

J (imagining gyroscopes, air tracks, and other Newtonian devices): "Oh, what kind of science do you want to study?"

A: "Evil Science!"

J (slowly): "Oh. Um, what exactly do you want to do in this lab?"

A: "Well, you see, I want to grow Evil Dragons that will Obey My Every Command."

J: (Wondering if someone has been sneaking a copy of Dragonsdawn out of the library) "Ah; you want to study biology, then."

Be Careful What You Wish For

Scene: The Enchanted Forest. Cloudy, with a 60% chance of showers and a high of 50F. Tinkly synthesizer harp arpeggios and florid electronic trumpet chords.

A (in rush mode; runs past damp concrete sculpted towers and up to The Challenge of Mordor Mondor): "J! J! Let's go on this ride!"

J (thinking a cart-driven ride through dark rooms to shoot animatronic goblins is not his first choice for entertainment rides): "Um, I dunno; have you been on this ride before?"

A (waving a ride bracelet in front of an attendant grateful to have something to do): "Sure."

J: "Are you sure?"

A: "Yeah."

J (digging out some tickets and running age appropriateness models against his memory of the ride): "Oh... kay..."

(They sit down in an armed electric cart while the attendant goes through her shpiel. The cart rolls away.)

Attendant: "Remember, the monsters are wearing blue medallions! Be sure to aim for those!

A (thinking): Monsters. Monsters. Monsters.

Animatronic Gandalf Wizard (while synthesizer music from Ye Olde Time tinkles and crashes around us): "Today, we write a manifesto. Today, our second sentence starts with the first word of our first sentence...."

J (paraphrasing): "So we're supposed to save the gnomes from the evil monsters. Get ready to shoot."

A (thinking): Monsters. Monsters. Monsters.

(The cart rolls into a dark room, lit only by blue LEDs. J and A begin to shoot. Their guns, attached to the cart by cables, make "thooop" sounds as if they were firing a bow; occasionally, they make a "thauk" sounds, indicating a target hit)

J (thinking): Man, (zaps a shadow) the sites on these guns (zaps a skull) are difficult to use (zaps a Really Big Spider). [editor's note, extra thooops left out for brevity.]

A: "What's that?!" (translation, to which J is completely oblivious: 'Augh!! A GIANT SPIDER MONSTER!!')

J (in "Commando-Dad" Mode): "It's a goblin [thooop - thauk!] Shoot it."

A: (shooting a few shadows and thinking): Monsters. Monsters. Monsters.

(Ye Olde Electronic Danger Music warns of Impending Doom. Electric cart rolls into the Dark Lord's Throne Room.)

J (admiring the flickering stage torches, and in the pause notices, 1: The Kid is really quiet. 2: And Still. Turns to A, who is pressed up against the cart seat cushion, gun held limply and eyes wide as saucers.): "Shoot, bud; shoot!"

Animatronic Dark Lord: "How dare you enter! Guards! Seize them!"

A (raising arm mechanically, shooting, and thinking): Monsters. Monsters. Monsters.

J: "Oh, look; it's a dragon." (pause) "Shoot, bud; shoot!"


Um, yes; we enjoyed the Enchanted Forest very much, especially the log flume ride at the end. And, yes: someone did sleep with all the lights on, and woke up at 4 AM determined to work on Brickbeard's Bounty until the blessed sun rose.

Water Bottle Rockets!

It's Spring Break.








One of the things on our Spring Break To Do List was Fire Water Bottle Rockets!






So we got a used soda bottle, a bicycle pump, a ball inflation insert, and a cork.














We filled the bottle with water.














And pumped in air. The bottles flew up higher than the telephone poles.

Nobody got wet. Much.

Thank You

A saved and saved and saved. Birthday money, Christmas money, taking out the stinky compost money. Finally, he had enough to buy Brickbeard's Bounty.

And Lego stopped making it. Toystores acrosss the countryside told us the same thing, "Sorry; we don't have any Brickbeard in stock." Not even the Lego Website could help us.

Luckily, V came to our rescue, and located something like the last out of four boxes in the nation.

THANK YOU V!

Train Station

A posed in front of the Philadelphia Train Station.