Catharsis of the Bogue

Oddities, Profundities, Profanities and Dad Stuff

Category: Education

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

Nothing But A Pile Of Sticks: Part 6- The Aftermath

April 12, 2013 / / 0 Comments
Christmas lights in a residential neighbourhoo...

Image via Wikipedia

Previous posts on the Pile of Sticks Series were written when the wounds were fresh and the ideas were rough edged.  I sit here now, removed from the actual moves 4 months, and it has gotten better.  We still have some things in boxes in the garage that we will get to sometime soon.  We still have a few things in storage at my Mother in Law’s house,  Things that we will not be using anytime soon, like our kitchen sink.

I will be trading the lawn mower for the snow blower soon, not being able to store both at this new house.  The good news is, there are no other storage units.  We have downsized, cleaned out and restarted so many things now.  I have finally gotten rid of all the empty boxes and garbage from the move as well.

We are finally getting the house organized in a manner that works for us.  We are figuring out how to live in the place again, and how to make everything work.  Just tonight I had to find my cable that hooks my computer to the TV so we can watch some stuff over the internet.  We have everything, it is just a matter of finding some of it.  Some things may never be found, or they may be in the few boxes left in the garage.  Some things we may never miss.  It is a good thing to purge much of this out of our lives.

We are now looking ahead for Christmas and all of the materialistic madness that it entails.  We are purging some of the kids old toys that we have hung onto for years.  Some things that they just don’t play with, some that are broken, and some they have just grown out of.  I am getting ready to put some of it up on eBay to make come coin for new toys to replace them when Santa comes.

But through everything we are still doing well as a family.  There will always be money issues, I don’t know that we will ever be totally caught up until I either get my book sold or we win the lottery.  Just FYI, there is no lottery in Utah so I had better get writing.

We all have discovered that whatever happens or wherever we are our home is with the family.  It has always been a cliche, or just something that people have said but it is true, the pile of sticks you live in is only a pile of sticks until you make it a home.  We have a home.  We have a community around us with our church that is very supportive.  My parents still are not very supportive, my dad still hasn’t been to our house.  That is another post though.

This week we are looking forward to Thanksgiving in only a week and watching the weather closely, trying to decide when to hang the Christmas lights before the snow hits.  I finished decorating last year in a blizzard.  But we needed a wreath in the alcove.  Planning a big holiday dinner and gearing up for the holidays are more things that make a pile of sticks a home.   The kids love it, and of course I do as well.

The wife and I have always decorated for holidays, even in our crappy first apartment we had lights up.  We decorate for Halloween with as much gusto as Christmas.  Easter gets a turn, as does St. Patricks Day, the Fourth of July, and Thanksgiving.  Those traditions are things that make a home.  The kids remember what we had out last year, they remember the things that Grandma has made for us to put out.  It doesn’t matter where they are displayed.

So, all in all, the saga of the Sticks is over for now.   We are settled into a new pile and we are going to stay for a year or two.  We may never get through all of the boxes, or find some things that we have been looking for, but we have enough.  We have our family and the basics.  We have gotten over giving up the dog and the fish.  We are at peace with everything except the bank.  (this is a good place for a blatant hint to use my affiliate link if you need anything from Amazon.  just look over there in the sidebar)

Now, I need to get back on a schedule, and get my writing back on track, as well as  my business.  You know those commercials that says “Life comes at you fast”?  It is true.  It comes fast, but can be handled.

Have a great day, or else.

-Justin

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Another Site Review: JustEssay.com!

April 3, 2013 / / 4 Comments

Hello folks!  I hope you all had a good Easter and are ready to get back into the swing of things this week.  Today, I have a (paid) review of a website that I hadn’t heard of before but will be of great interest to those of you in college especially, JustEssay.com

I have to admit, my first knee jerk reaction to a site where people will write term papers and essays for you was not good.  I thought back to school and all of the papers I had written and  thought, how could you not do your own work and expect a grade from it?

That was all before I explored a site called JustEssay.com at http://justessay.com/essay.   I received an offer to write a review of this website (for compensation, just to be fair and fully disclose) and so I began poking around to see what they had to offer.  After looking into all of the services that they offer, I can see the value of having someone else write a paper for you.

Later, I was talking to my wife about this site and she told me that she knew several people in Nursing School who used similar services to get papers written that they just didn’t want to do.  The more I thought about it, the more I was on board.

Essentially, you are contracting out an assignment, just like everyone will do in business or any other job.  I am handy at many things, but I am going to be hiring someone to redo my driveway.  I can fix some plumbing but I am going to call a guy to put in some new taps correctly.

That is what JustEssay.com at http://justessay.com/does.  They “subcontract” your paper and custom write it for you.  They write original content that is guaranteed not to be plagiarized or copied anywhere else.  All of their staff is Master degree or PhD level writing professionals who truly know how to write in English!

They also guarantee that your paper will be free of errors and ready on time.  Since you are buying the paper, you have the rights to turn it in with your name on it as well, just like when you hire someone to build something for you, it is yours afterwards.  They spend the time that you don’t have to researching, and actually writing a first class paper.

I think back now to how many pointless papers I had to write in both high school and college and think that if I had it to do over, many of these I could have contracted out.  I can’t remember more than a scant handful that I had to deliver orally, most were turn in and get back later and that was the end of it.  I could have saved a lot of time and put that effort into something else with a service like JustEssay.com.

They will send you your paper via email as well so you have a chance to read it and make any changes that you need to.  They want you to succeed and have a great paper to turn in.  So after all of this, would I recommend JustEssay.com?  You bet I would, and I plan on using the service when my wife heads back to Graduate School.  I know there are going to be more papers that she will have to write that we will not have much time for with the kids running around.

So, if you are in the market for a first class, well researched, well written essay, paper, dissertation, thesis, or book report, head over to JustEssay.com at http://justessay.com/buy_essay.  You will be glad to have the free time.

Have a great Tuesday.

-Justin

 

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