I’m not 100% sure what’s going on in the French city of Nantes, other than its steampunky mechanical animals are REALLY COOL. The Isle of Nantes isn’t really an island, but rather a former shipyard turned into a cultural exhibit where mechanical animals are the main attraction. The big one right now is a gigantic […]
Continue ReadingThe CCC is a German conference for “hackers, nerds, and other beings with a creative and critical view of life.” Now in its 24th year, it has lectures on topics such as “Steam-Powered Telegraphy”, “Make Cool Things With Microcontrollers” and “Playstation Portable Cracking” on three tracks over four days, beginning tomorrow. Tickets are 80 euros […]
Continue ReadingCollaborate with other clever types at Minneapolis’ Leonardo’s Basement in constructing a Rube Golderg chain reaction machine. “With your help we will construct a 119-foot series of contraptions that will begin at our front door and then click, crash, boink and splash, culminating with a royal flush in the women’s restroom! We need individuals and […]
Continue ReadingI’m here in Austin, Texas getting ready for this weekend’s Maker Faire at the Travis County Expo Center. If you’re anywhere in the vicinity of Austin and looking for some good, geeky family fun, I highly recommend checking out this event. There’s lots of posts on makezine.com about the preparations taking place, and a tangible […]
Continue Reading(part of Blog Action Day) Sometimes it’s difficult to get the Geeklet thinking about the environment. He’s a city kid, born and raised near downtown San Diego, a place so artificial it takes an hour drive just to see a dozen trees at once. This (plus Geekdad influence) has produced a child more interested in […]
Continue ReadingWe made our annual Thanksgiving Day trek to the Toronto Zoo last week (I live in Canada- we still have turkey, but we like to cook it before the snow hits) and one of the big highlights of the trip for the kids was the Dinosaurs Alive! exhibit. Housed in a large dome, the exhibit […]
Continue ReadingOnce again Maker Faire is upon us, this time in Austin, Texas. Billed as the place to build, craft, hack, play, and featuring art, engineering, sustainable technology, music & science, the convention is put on by O’Reilly Media, publishers of MAKE and CRAFT magazines. Austin is a logical site for the convention. Home of SXSW […]
Continue ReadingThe Oklahoma state centennial is this year and there are a large number of events leading up to and beyond the date of statehood, November 16th. Some of the upcoming events may be of particular interest to geek dads/moms and their geeklets: Guthrie Centennial Wild West Show, with its trick roping, horse-drawn hitch teams, and […]
Continue ReadingI just returned from the new touring show Walking With Dinosaurs: The Live Experience. Ninety minutes of life-sized animatronic robot dinos, lots of smoke, and puppetry—yeah! It’s the closest thing you’ll get to seeing real live dinos. Best ones of the show: Brachiosaurus and Torosaurus. The show is definitely light on the science and heavy […]
Continue ReadingOur church recently sent 18 people to Red Cliff, Wisconsin on a week-long service project. We went to serve the Red Cliff band of the Ojibwe people. We stained decks, painted a house, installed a screen door, roofed a house, spruced-up their campsite, and helped with their meals-on-wheels program – but we got much, much […]
Continue ReadingWhat’s more Mid-Western than a summer parade? And what parade could be more inspiring for family projects than the annual Minneapolis Art Car Parade happening this Saturday, July 21st at 2pm? Grab some cotton candy and soak in the amazing creations as they roll on by. We think the best viewing is to be had […]
Continue ReadingFor the past few months, my kids’ response to "Where do you want to eat?" has always been "THE DINOSAUR RESTAURANT!!!!!" With that decision already made, I recently packed up the car and prepared to head far back in time. Sort of. The dinosaur restaurant, or more accurately, T-Rex, is a brand new concept from […]
Continue ReadingAdmit it, the best part of being a GeekDad is having a ready excuse to enjoy the things you never outgrew. Well here’s a whole museum of things for your kids (and you) to enjoy: the Strong National Museum of Play! The Strong Museum has been a Rochester, New York landmark since 1982. In 2006 […]
Continue ReadingWise Bread recently posted up advice on How to Survive a Road Trip. All 10 tips are savvy — Igor has obviously taken a few road trips in his time. Unfortunately, they’re all sort of oriented to grown-ups. Or at least to adults not necessarily travelling with kids. My geeklet is just getting to the […]
Continue ReadingWithin a short distance in the Blue Ridge Mountains, just off the Blue Ridge Parkway, you can be atop the highest mountain in the range, cross a mile-high swinging bridge, go to the deepest gorge in the Eastern US and then go inside the mountain itself. Beginning atop Grandfather Mountain (elevation 5,964 ft), a privately […]
Continue ReadingWe’re getting ready for vacation, so I zoomed through a bricks and mortar store tonight to pick up some Dad reading material. I stopped to gawk at the Audio version of The Dangerous Book for Boys. Looks like a nice way to spur discussion on bow-making, the Wonders of the World and maybe some Grammar […]
Continue ReadingTeaching a geeklet to fish is more complicated than it sounds. Fishing is by definition an exercise in patience and observation skills — not natural traits in most kids. As the author of this astute how-to notes, the temptation is to buy them cute kiddie gear that winds up being more frustrating than fun. Instead, […]
Continue ReadingFor those of you in the San Francisco Bay area who have kids who grooved on Pixar’s Cars, this Sunday (6/24) is the Palo Alto Concours D’Elegance at Stanford, the Classic Cars for Charity Drive organized by the Palo Alto Lions Club. Features should include vintage tractors and trailers; “significant” (?!) Ferraris, Auburns, Duesenbergs, Cords, […]
Continue ReadingIf you find yourself in the Bay Area this weekend, you may want to check out the geekiest of GeekDad activities you’re likely to find anywhere this side west of Mos Eisley. The 2007 RoboGames are coming to San Francisco, and it’s good fun for the entire family. From the RoboGames website: Combat robots, walking […]
Continue ReadingBefore we had kids, my wife and I enjoyed many a geeky pursuit, but few captured our interest as much as going back in time to the year 1836 and visiting to the little village of Prairietown. There we would play corn cob checkers on a carved board, dip candles in a boiling cauldron of […]
Continue ReadingMy wife and I recently visited the number one shell hunting beach in the US, Sanibel Island, FL (as picked by Coastal Living Magazine). I read that Ponce De Leon named this island "Costa de Carocles" (Island of Shells). It’s easy to see why. You don’t have to be a shell enthusiast to be […]
Continue ReadingMister Rogers’ Neighborhood is on display in a big way at the University of Pittsburgh. The Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood Archives contains correspondence, scripts, props, puppets, fan mail, over 900 videotapes, and scholarly articles that show the cultural impact of Fred Rogers’ work. Rogers started his career at Pittsburgh public TV station WQED and went on […]
Continue ReadingGoing to a museum can be a very hard sell to my 11-year-old (don’t even get me started about my 5-year-old!), but this is one exhibit we can all get excited about. Starting this weekend, the San Francisco Asian Art Museum presents Tezuka: Marvel of Manga, a show featuring more than 200 drawings from this […]
Continue ReadingLocation: Science City at Union Station in Kansas City, Mo. When: Monday, May 28 Why: It was supposed to rain and we had free passes … and I was looking forward to playing with all the stuff. Cost: $13.95 get you into KC Rail Experience, Science City, Gottlieb Planetarium, and one Regnier Extreme Screen movie; […]
Continue ReadingWe just got back from a Memorial Day camping trip in Mendocino County, and we made our usual fun stop on Hwy 101 — the Real Goods Solar Living Center. Located in the sleepy little town of Hopland, Real Goods has become our family’s favorite geeky/hippie mecca. Imagine a combination playground, garden, gallery, environmental learning […]
Continue ReadingWhen my son expressed an interest in fossils I saw an opportunity to geekdad Old School style and pretend I was one of the original geekdads, the gentleman naturalists that are stock characters in most movies about Victorian England. Not knowing much (anything) about fossil hunting, we turned to the internet where I found sites […]
Continue ReadingSan Diego may seem dominated by beaches and Sea World, with only Legoland to redeem it, but there are actually lots of options for the visiting Geekdad. I live right near Balboa Park, which includes: Model Railroad Museum San Diego’s model railroading clubs put together this expansive set of O-scale, HO-scale, N-scale, and toy (3-rail) […]
Continue ReadingI was invited to a Memorial Day event by a fellow geekdad who will be there. I’m not going to be able to make it, but perhaps one of you can stop by. . . Just fly down to Atlanta on Sunday and drive 90 minutes down to Fort Benning. First Call on Memorial day […]
Continue ReadingIt’s tough to OD on Maker Faire highlights. We went around taking photos and videos of much of the action. By my estimation, we made it through about 25% of the faire in the six hours that we were there. Too much good stuff! Our first stop, of course, was the Geekdad booth where we […]
Continue ReadingThere was so much to see and do at the Maker Faire, that it would have taken a week to properly milk it dry for all it was worth. I wandered about for an afternoon with my kids — who had a great time. Here are some highlights of things that caught my eye and […]
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