My children and I love spending time on one of our local lakes. Filling the boat with gear, finding a nice spot to camp, tubing, knee boarding, and cooking out are all part of what I really want to share with my children. On this last time out, I did notice several Geeky activities, so here I present my Top 10 ways to be a GeekDad while out on the lake. Please feel free to comment with any Geeky activities that you enjoy out on the lake.
10. Writing this article while on the lake. Did I take my laptop and broadband access card on vacation with my family to one of the most beautiful lakes in North America. Are you kidding?
9. Thinking how much better the picture would look with a Digital SLR. Imagine how much detail I missed in this picture, if only I could have shot this on a 10 megapixal SLR with 200mm lens.
Tubing at the lake
8. Having two GPSs on the boat. We need one for the boat and one in case we get off the boat and go geocaching (see number 3).
7. Being able to program the depth finder. Similar to the VCR blinking 12:00 all the time, we actually find it useful to be able to change the settings on the depth finder.
6. Coming up with reasons to replace the ski mirror with a closed caption TV system. Here is what I have so far: not as easy to break; can zoom in further; can record video (will need DVR); helps with backing up the boat; cool factor of about 9.8.
5. Being called from work and actually being able to help. I did get called from work and the geeky part was that I was able to log on and see the problem.
4. Why is this compass on the boat? It did occur to me that I could gain some dash real estate back by removing the old magnetic compass, but when everything else fails …..
3. Only finding 3 geocaches this time out. We have been geocaching so long that my boys are starting to get bored with it, or maybe bored with me doing it all the time. The geeky part is not that we do it, but that we have done it so long we do not enjoy it as much anymore.
2. Tucking in the children, turning off their cell phone, PSP, and iPod. This speaks for itself.
1. Did my son just tell me to turn like a french curve? A few weeks ago, I was showing my children my old drafting set from college. I have a french curve in the set and my son wanted me to make my turns slow at the begining and “tighter” at the end. It did take me a little time to figure out what he was talking about.
Do you guys have anymore?
