HoodedHawk

Xylocopa has a set of Alphabet blocks engraved with pictures of all the equipment and training a budding mad scientist will need:

A – Appendages | B – Bioengineering | C – Caffeine | D – Dirigible | E – Experiment | F – Freeze ray | G – Goggles | H – Henchmen | I – Invention | J – Jargon | K – Potassium | L – Laser | M – Maniacal | N – Nanotechnology | O – Organs | P – Peasants (with Pitchforks) | Q – Quantum physics | R – Robot | S – Self-experimentation | T – Tentacles | U – Underground Lair | V – Virus | W – Wrench | X – X-Ray | Y – You, the Mad Scientist of Tomorrow | Z – Zombies

Also:

…the blocks have a super-secret built in encryption function – if you rotate any block 180 degrees, it’ll encode to ROT13. If it’s good enough for Adobe Acrobat, it’s good enough for Mad Science!

-via BoingBoing

Ok, it’s rare that I make movie recommendations because people’s tastes vary. However, I have to make an exception: The movie “Fireproof” is wonderful. Went today with my two older boys. I didn’t tell either it was a Christian movie – just that it was about a fireman and that the scenes I saw involved pulling people out of burning buildings or moving cars out of the way of trains (all true).

It’s about a couple (the man is a firefighter) who are going through a tough time in their marriage, and how he tries to get back together – with God’s help. Wonderfully done; I didn’t find it “preachey” or over-the top. I don’t think I’ve ever shed a tear in front of my kids before; I told them I had allergies (they didn’t buy it and are still ribbing me). What got me is that my oldest son’s only comment was “I liked it – but I didn’t cry I held it in”. High praise from a 13-year old.

Made my top ten list.

http://www.fireproofthemovie.com/

My son recently received a badge at a Cub Scout meeting. I happened to notice the sticker on the back. For some reason this just seems wrong.

The boys and I went to see a production of Macbeth this past Sunday. It was by the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, based in Ellicott City, MD. The venue is a small theater (seats about 100). Acoustics are good, and I didn’t have any problem hearing the actors. It didn’t hurt, I guess, that we were in the front row. :)

The actor playing Banquo came out into the lobby before the play and using pictures and diagrams he explained the play to the kids. I like that part, since it at least gives them a fighting chance to understand what is going on (since even I have a hard time following spoken Shakespeare; an eight-year-old gets lost quickly). The play was very well-performed. I hadn’t seen Macbeth performed before so I can’t compare it to a like performance, but this acting company is excellent. If you can’t make it to Macbeth before it ends in December, I can definitely recommend any other productions by this company – I’ve been to 3 or 4 now and have never been disappointed.

On Saturday (June 16), I took the boys (Brandon and Dylan) to Kings Dominion Theme park, in Virginia (about 85 miles south of Washington, DC and about 120 miles from our house). We got off to a late start, and hit major traffic on 95 in northern Virginia; it took us about an hour to travel 10 miles. Thus total time to get there was about 3.5 hours vs. the normal 2.25 it should take. The return trip didn’t have a lot of traffic, so we made it back in a little over 2 hours.

The park itself had a lot of people, but I don’t think it was as packed as it “normally” is. The parking lot was not full, and none of the lines were more than 15 minutes. However, the boys didn’t want to try any of the roller coasters after the Rebel Yell, and we ended up doing the bumper cars. We then spent 1.5 hours at the Tidal Wave pool. They liked that, though I was glad I had brought a book (and managed to find a chaise lounge under an umbrella -they were scarce). The tix I had purchased (package from work) also included dinner, so we had all you (care to) eat hamburgers, hotdogs and soda. I didn’t realize until 10 minutes before the food pavilion was to close that it also included beer. Oh well – I managed to grab a couple.

The park is quite large, and there was no way we could find anything without a map. Finding a map was also a trek, but we got one in one of the gift shops (free). Brandon wanted to navigate, so he used the map to take us (the really, really long way) to the Wave pool. He then decided navigation was not his specialty and gave the map to Dylan. Dylan didn’t even try and handed it to me.

After dinner I convinced both boys to ride the Grizzly roller coaster as well as the Anaconda. We also did the go-karts (I drove with Dylan and Brandon drove his own kart). Brandon got a spray-on tattoo (a purple dragon). I don’t think he plans on bathing for awhile so it won’t wash off. The Eiffel tower clone in the middle of the park was closed, so we didn’t get a chance to go up in it – I imagine that is a great way to get your bearings as you can see the whole park from the top.

I wanted to go on a few of the other rides, but was not up for leaving the boys to themselves while I did so. Oh well – probably a good thing that they didn’t get to see Dad lose his dinner. :)

I had to constantly steer the boys away from the midway games, but relented at the end on the way out. The ride home was uneventful. All in all, I’m not going back any time soon, as a 5+ hour round-trip is not worth it unless you actually ride the coasters! I asked the boys what they liked best and they both said the pool and the free sodas. I guess I can replicate that this summer with the local pool and a six-pack of Sprite.