Catharsis of the Bogue

Oddities, Profundities, Profanities and Dad Stuff

Category: Funny Stories (Page 1 of 7)

Stories to laugh at

Relativistic Physics for 7 year olds

February 8, 2018 / / 0 Comments

This morning was interesting.  I poured my 7 1/2 year old son a bowl of cereal for breakfast while I was finishing making lunches.  He sat and ate for a few minutes and then he asked, “Dad, if someone from the future takes someone from the past on a time machine to the future, are they the same age or is one really old?”  Yea, ponder that for a minute.

English: Relativistic formula

English: Relativistic formula (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I sat there for a minute or two and finally said “Yes, to both questions.”  Needless to say he was confused.  So here I am trying to figure out how to explain relativity and time travel to a 7 year old so he can understand it.  Yea, his brain is unique.

I started with a bit of relativity, glossing over the theoretical science and math and got to “If you are on an airplane you don’t notice you are moving unless to look out at the ground, but if you are standing on the corner watching the plane it is going fast.  It is all how you are looking at the same thing.”  Confused look for a minute and then, “Oh, so it is like watching a car go by on the road.”  Bah, bested by a 7 year old.

“Yes,” I said, “it is like that.”  And then we get into what happens with time travel and people.  I hold 2 fingers up, one on each hand.  “OK, these are people and they are both 10 years old and they were born 100 years apart.  In normal time they would move at the same rate.”  As i move my fingers at the same time, “each gets older the same but they will never meet.  When the guy in the future goes to the past, he is getting older to himself, but hasn’t even been born yet to the past guy!”  Eyes began to glaze a bit but he stuck with it.

“Ok, if they both jump back to the future, the future guy is still 10 to himself and 10 in his world.  the past guy is 10 in his body, but 110 by his birthday?  Make sense?”  He looked for a minute and said, “So if they guy from the past goes to the future he is still 10.  Got it.”

Yea sure Tristan, you got it.  I am still waiting for a call from the school, either from his teacher, “What are you teaching this kid?”  or from the principal, “Your son got in a fight about time travel and how old he will be in 103 years.”  We will see what happens.

-Justin

The day after….DST Hangover

March 9, 2015 / / 0 Comments

I am sure there are going to be 50 billion posts today about daylight savings time.  Well, I am no exception.

Is there anyone out there who DOESNT think this is just a giant waste of energy?  With today’s society and technology, time is relative and who gives one rat hair what that actually is?  Farmers don’t, and that is what the bureaucracy has tagged DST with all of these years.  Recreation is now a more accepted fact of why they want longer days during the summer.

But what difference will it make in the winter if we just stuck to DST all year long?  A few states don’t change time, AZ and HI come to mind.  They seem to do fine, why doesn’t the rest of the country follow suit?  I don’t believe there are any kickbacks to the government from people who get to play in the sun until 10 pm.

I guess you will just have to forgive me today, I am in the midst of the “Time Change Hangover”, that day after the change when you actually have to get up and work or get the kids to school, and you realize that you are now getting up at 5 am.  Sure in the winter it will feel like 7, but that is now months away and not worth looking forward to.

I know it will do about as much good as hoping for a miracle, but what do you think about changing DST to be the only time?  Making summer time standard and standard across the country.  Not one time zone like China, but one time, so that 8pm in Utah in July is 8pm in Arizona in July.  Or December.

I have a story about a vacation to AZ with time differences…  We were on a vacation to visit a bunch of National Parks in Utah and then the Grand Canyon in Arizona.  It was noon by our watches and our stomachs, and we were hungry.  This was in late June.  We went looking for something to eat, and every place we looked at around the grand canyon was just getting started.  We looked at the open times on the windows, 11 AM.  Well here it was 12, and they still were not open.  Finally one guy told us in broken English, “No, is 11 now.  No time change in Arizona.”  Gee thanks Arizona State Government.  Maybe you could be troubled to post a sign or two saying, “We don’t conform to the stupidity of changing the time twice a year.”  Anyway, the whole debate is silly, pick a time and stay there.

Let me know if you have any other suggestions that don’t involve death or moving countries.

Until later,

Justin

SAHD Friday- A Lack of Naked Barbies….

March 6, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Hello all.  So I am back to writing my Friday posts all about being a Stay at Home Dad.

Last night I had a strange thought.  I was getting in the shower and there were no naked barbies in the tub.  Let me tell you, there is a creepiness that Mattel never intended with a Barbie doll that is your daughter playing with them in the bath, and subsequently leaving them there.  Without clothes.  Why? “Well Daddy, she can’t bath with her clothes on.”  was the logic from my oldest daughter, though she would probably deny that now.

 

Playing with the barbies in the bath would not be so bad, it is when I would go to take a shower and there were 10 of the things naked in the tub.  Made me feel quite creepy to tell the truth.  But last night there were no naked barbies.  Sure I had to clean up some hot wheels cars and a boat, but no barbies.  I had almost a nostalgic twang before the elation crept in.

 

My kids are growing up.  My youngest daughter is almost 9, and she rarely plays in the bath anymore, and when she does, she cleans up the toys.  The older kids just shower.  It is only my 4 year old son who has the bulk of the bath toys, and his are not barbie.

 

Mainly, I start thinking about how my kids are growing up, and the things that we are losing, or more correctly, just done with.  We start cleaning out things to send to charity, and many of the toys that we have accumulated over the years are not relevant or just not being played with anymore.  We don’t want to hang on to these, we don’t want to move them again.  We have thought about saving some for grandkids to play with in the future, but, looking at it, why bother?  By the time we have grandkids and unpack these wonderful (?) toys that we have saved, the plastic will be brittle, pieces will be lost, and there will be so many other new toys out there that it doesn’t make sense to save anything.

 

Some other things have gone away as well.  My favorite thing to get rid of was the diaper genie.  Now, the diaper pail is a great invention, and the diaper genie is great because it holds in some of the smell, but I’ll tell you, the day we thew that thing in the garbage 2 years ago I danced a jig.  We have finally now got rid of all diapers and pull ups.  Some days I am not sure if that is a good thing or not, it is easier to toss a pull up than wash out tiny underwear, but….I have a whole other post about potty training coming up.

 

In the end, there are some pangs of nostalgia for the things that we had to have when the kids were babies and now don’t need anymore.  There are strange feelings when you realize your daughter, your little girl, the one you held most of the first night when she was born the day before yesterday (now 14 years) now needs deoderant, or a bra….don’t get me started.  Or when your son starts to leak body odor like an Exxon tanker, and it is time for his deoderant.  Or when it is finally time to stop helping your kids bathe because they are just too old and it is not appropriate.

 

Yes there will be new things.  in about a year and a half, there will be a drivers license for my oldest, some pretty significant church stuff for my son, and school starting for the youngest.  Holy cow, I am getting old.  But I wouldn’t trade this for the world.

 

Until later,

 

-Justin

 

 

 

Broccoli and nostalgic comedy.

July 9, 2014 / / 1 Comment

Hey folks how are ya.  I seem to be doing a few of these video to morals posts lately but I am busy working on projects that are keeping me busy.  Like tomorrow, Saturday June 19th there will be fiction Saturday on here and I am launching my wifes revamped site for our family business.

Brendasquiltshop.com will go live with a fantastic wordpress based site complete with shopping cart.  If you are interested in handmade quilts, table runners or casserole dish holders we have them available.  We also do custom orders.  Needless to say, I have been busy rebuilding and tweaking that site.  It has not been very good for writing this week.

So I am bringing the magic of You Tube back to my site and posting one of my favorite memories.  Years ago when Saturday Night Live was in its second iteration of funny, in the early ’90’s , Phil Hartmann and Dana Carvey were two of the funniest people on TV.  They both are still hilaroius even if Phil Hartmann was shot by his wife several years ago.

I used to stay up late and watch SNL with a mono headphone until I got a VCR for Christmas and it was just easier to record it.  Anyway, this video is of Dana Carvey’s first audition for SNL that they later made into a great skit with Phil Hartmann and Sigourney Weaver.  It is from his stand up comedy act and it is about making music.  Oh and broccoli.

I can remember seeing this and laughing for days, not to mention singing the dang song for months in school.   Have a great weekend, Fiction and Quilts tomorrow!

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