Month: July 2022

Surviving the School Holidays

On By somegeektoldme@gmail.comIn Children, Parents

I want to talk about the school holidays, in particular surviving them. Why? Would you like to take a guess?

Term 3 of the school year has started today for thousands of children across the country, here in New Zealand. They are going back to school, after coming off a nice relaxing two week holiday. They have enjoyed swimming at the beach, having water fights, and eating ice cream to cool off; is what you would say if it was the Summer/Christmas holidays.

We have not just had those holidays. Oh no, the school holidays the kids have just experienced have been in the middle of Winter. You know, the rain, the cold, the snow, gloves, beanies, and puffer jackets. That Winter.

Image by levelord from Pixabay

Now before I go any further, this is not me complaining about spending time with UMC1 and UMC2. That’s not it at all. This is all about, “It’s freezing, it’s been raining for five straight days, the kids are fighting again, so how do I survive the holidays, without using alcohol?” That is a very interesting question.

The Winter school holidays are brutal, seriously, they’re really mean. And it’s not just one factor that creates this carnage. A lot of charming things all add up to this sanity breaking experience.

Let’s set the scene in the Some Geek Told Me house, shall we? Our house is very small. I feel extremely bad for people entering it for the first time, and believing they have entered a very large walk-in wardrobe. I have to shatter that image and explain that what they’re looking at, is exactly the entire house.

Because of this, they are not many places you can actually escape to in the house, that’s away from everybody else. UMC1 and UMC2 are still learning what the words alone and privacy, actually mean.

Our only heating system in the house is a log burner, which is located in the lounge, which is connected to the kitchen, because it’s basically one room. This is where we have been living, in front of the fire. Classy.

Let’s check the weather report today. What’s this?! We’re going to have a high of 6 °C today? That’s so warm, let’s have a barbeque!; say nobody ever! The horrible weather has had a huge impact on this small family.

It would be raining or having just recently rained or quite cold outside, UMC1 and UMC2 would cut their losses, and refuse to leave the house. Even at 8 am, they would basically declare, because of the weather, the day would be a write off for them.

Their arguments were that, “It’s too wet! or It’s too cold.” Even when the few times it stopping raining or became a lot warmer; nope, they were not leaving the house.

This brings us to pyjamas. After stating that they were not leaving the house for the day, this meant UMC1 and UMC2 would be staying in their pyjamas. For the whole day. It puts all of your parenting skills to the test, to convince your children to change out of their pyjamas, knowing you’re going to fail, like Superman under a red sun.

11 am, 12 pm, 1 pm, 2 pm, and on it would march. We would feel defeated some days, knowing the boys never left the house, or never changed out of their pyjamas. On other days however, jobs had to be done outside in the big, wide, scary world.

An example of an upcoming disaster would be going to the supermarket. You’re running out of food, so you try to convince the kids to go with you. Their answer is no, because, well of course it’s going to be no. They’re too busy playing with Lego or fighting, to go to the supermarket.

That would mean leaving the house or worse, changing into regular clothes! So we did whatever a normal parent does: we offered bribes. Some Kinder chocolate here, a McDonalds hash brown there, or hot chips everywhere! Anything to leave the house, even to drive to the port and back!

After being cooped up in our tiny house because of the weather, with no escape from anybody, you just wanted to leave and see the outside world. And if you needed to bribe the kids to do it, well, you would never be judged by me.

Sometimes their response was basically, “What’s in it for us?” Unbelievable. Of course, they would always accept the bribe, but they would tease you a little bit. How far can we push Mum and Dad, before they break forever?

I had mentioned something previously, but I need to expand on it. Because of the cruddy weather, we have been inside a lot. Cramped conditions added to terrible weather, equals fighting.

Should we spin the Wheel of Misfortune to reveal what the children will be fighting about for the next four minutes?

Will be it be because UMC1 touched UMC2’s bed?

Will be it be because UMC2 looked at UMC1’s robot?

Will be it because, while sitting on the couch, UMC1 and UMC2’s elbows touched?

No, today’s answer is because someone is using someone else’s Lego!

I swear, they do actually get along. However over the last two weeks, their fighting has branched out into new fields like space on a couch, the number of crackers on a plate, the longer someone sleeps, and of course, is UMC1 or UMC2, the greatest Lego builder of all time!

On one dreary and rainy day, I mentioned to my wife that the boys had been doing really well. There had been no fighting, everybody was working together and sharing; it was awesome. I jinxed it, because UMC1 and UMC2 must have been listening, and quickly realised they needed to get their fighting quota in for the day, and promptly starting arguing about whether James was a better steam engine than Thomas.

The last two weeks have been tough and our parenting skills have been tested, failed, retested and succeeded. Anyway, how do you cope with your children during school holidays and terrible weather?

In other news, our dog injured his right front leg, while jumping up onto our bed last week. This has resulted in all of us, giving him some extra attention, which he is loving. So I’m off to rub his belly, before he starts getting angry. Thanks for reading, pat your dog, and I’ll see you next week.

The James Webb Space Telescope: Awesomeness worth $10 billion

On By somegeektoldme@gmail.comIn Science

I once again want to talk about the James Webb Space Telescope. Why? Well strap yourself in, because I’ve been geeking out. Back in January, I gushed over the launch of the JWST, while trying very poorly to explain how important and magnificent the JWST will be to humanity.

The JWST’s main function is to capture and see images in infrared. This is because infrared wavelengths are longer than visible light that we can see; thus making it invisible to us. By allowing the JWST to see in infrared, the telescope will be able to detect and see different cosmic objects, that are too far away for us to see with visible light.

This is a great time to mention that JWST’s first images were released recently, and they did not disappoint. I’m swiping right here. The JWST images are more gorgeous, than you can shake a stick at, on your best stick shaking day.

You may have already seen these images, but please just humour me. The truth is, I just want to stare at them. As sad as it is, these images are bringing me a lot of joygasms. WTF?! This is awesome!

With the descriptions of the images, I’ve tried to give a brief explanation of them. Can’t promise the explanations are good though!

One thing quick thing we need to sort before we start: what is a light-year? It sounds like it could be a measurement of time, but it’s not; it’s about distance. A light-year is the distance light can travel in a vacuum, within a single year. Light travels at 299,792,458 metres per second, (you can round it up to 300,000,000 m/s) so a light-year is 9.46 trillion kilometres (9.46×1012 km).

To put this in perspective, the distance between the Sun and the Earth is around 150,000,000 km. The light travelling from the Sun towards Earth is travelling at the speed of light, which is 300,000,000 m/s or 300,000 km/s. This means the distance from the Sun to the Earth, is just over 8 light-minutes.

Earth’s second closest star, Proxima Centauri, is 4.2 light-years away. Space is big.

SMACS 0723 aka Webb’s First Deep Field

Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

To start the ball rolling, this image; just like the Hubble Deep Field photo, is greater than the sum of all of its parts. This is a cluster of galaxies called SMACS J0723.3–7327, but SMAC 0723 works just as fine.

SMAC 0723 is over 4 billion light-years from Earth, and this image is remarkable for four reasons.

1.) From what I understand, every dot, blob, or smear of light in this image, is actually a galaxy, filled with millions of stars, and hundred of millions of exoplanets.

2.) The area of space in the image, is about the size of a grain of sand, where a person standing on Earth, held it out at arm’s length.

3.) Due to the huge size and combined mass of this galaxy cluster, it is distorting space-time. This allows light to be bent around it, thus it acts like a lens, so we can see distant galaxies at a greater magnification. This is known as gravitational lensing.

4.) The JWST has some pretty cool instruments on board. The NIRCam and NIRSpec, have helped to reveal information about one of the galaxies in the image. The analysis of the galaxy’s light, shows it to be red shifted and about 13.1 billion years old. The age of the universe is about 13.8 billions years old. We are looking at a galaxy that, quite possibly, was only created around 700 million years after the Big Bang. This is mind blowing.

Southern Ring Nebula

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

This Planetary Nebula is 2,000 light-years away. It’s not a planet, but rather a collection of gas and dust, blown away from a Red Giant star as it died. With the image on the right, do you see a small white dot in the centre? That’s the White Dwarf star, and that’s what remains from the Red Giant’s death. For me, that looks like a hot mess. It’s gorgeous.

Stephan’s Quintet

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

This image is quite literally, out of this galaxy. This is Stephan’s Quintet, which is located around 300 million light-years away. Named after Édouard Stephan, the astronomer that discovered it, this is a galaxy group.

The image consists of four different galaxies; NGC 7320, NGC 7319, NGC 7318, and NGC 731. NGC 7318 is actually two galaxies that are colliding into each other. Which by the way, is exactly what will happen to our Milky Way Galaxy, in about 4.5 billion years, when we collide into the Andromeda Galaxy.

It also pays to understand, there are thousands of other galaxies in the background. You are not entertained?!

Carina Nebula

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

This is part of the Carina Nebula, that’s called the Cosmic Cliffs. It is near 8,500 light-years away from Earth and is filled with gas and dust. The Carina Nebula is what you would call a stellar nursery. This means it’s a region of space where stars are born, because of the vast amounts of gas and dust that are pulled into it. Once again, another gorgeous image.

Atmosphere Composition of WASP-96 b

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

Spectrum of a Galaxy’s Composition

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

These two compositions of an exoplanet’s atmosphere, and of a galaxy’s spectrum, reveals two major things: water and oxygen are more common in the universe, than we first thought. The implications to this data, could already change the way we understand and view the universe.

These images from the JWST are some of the first to be released, with many years of images to come. This telescope is going to create new fields of science, for generations of people to study and learn from. It really is going to change the world. Believe the hype about the JWST.

It cost $10 billion to create, which is a hefty price tag. However what we are going to learn from it, is going to be invaluable and priceless to life on our planet, but maybe, just maybe, life out there as well.

Thank you for reading Some Geek Told Me. It keeps me inside and in front of a computer, where my wife can keep an eye on me. Marriage is awesome. Stay away from Sour Cream and Chives, walk your dog, and I’ll see you next week.

My dog’s eating habits are getting strange

On By somegeektoldme@gmail.comIn Animals

I want to talk about my dog, in particular his eating habits. Why? Oh that’s easy, this stuff is bonkers. My dog’s name is Indy,1 and he’s had some interesting eating habits.

When he was a puppy, he would scoop up some of his dog food in his mouth, walk over to someone sitting down or standing, drop the food, and then proceed to eat the food by their feet. Of course Indy would turn round, walk back to his bowl, scoop more food up and repeat the exercise. Not the most effective eating method, was it?

Fast forward to May of this year, I wrote about what life is like living with a dog. In that blog, I mentioned about his current eating habits. For whatever odd reason, we noticed that he had started eating his food from his bowl, by dividing it in half. Indy was eating nearly half of his food each time, which is nothing special; however you could tell what he’s done, because he was literally eating half.

We have tried to determine if there is a pattern to his madness, but every time we think we have unlocked it, he up and changes it. It’s like he understands what we are doing, and is deliberately being a jerk about it.

Anyway, we did what any geeks would do, we started recording his eating habits. We discovered Indy has several different ways to eat his food. He is fed only once a day, always in the morning, and with the same type of dog chow.

For Indy’s eating methods, they cover different starting points: Left, Right, Top, and Bottom. There is also the Centre, when Indy ate from the centre and not from any side; All, when he ate all of his food in one setting; and the Hour Glass method, where he ate from the left and the right, so the food looked like a hour glass.

These are the results:

The percentages work out to be:

Left: 45.88% Right: 40.88% Top: 6.63% Bottom: 3.31% Centre: 0.55% All: 2.21% Hour Glass: 0.55%

So what does this all mean?

1.) My dog is strange, though that’s relative.

2.) Indy is slightly favouring eating from the left side of the bowl (83 days-74 days), though I do have a hypothesis for this. It may have something to do with the Summer months and the door being left open; or it could be some other crazy reason(s).

3.) As the year has progressed, Indy’s eating habits have become more diverse. June was his most diverse month, because the number of times eating from the bottom half of the bowl, was equal to the number of times eating from the right hand side. Very progressive.

4.) So why has Indy actually started eating his food like this? I don’t know. I’m serious, I don’t know. Does he have OCD?

5.) We will continue to monitor his eating habits for the rest of the year, because, you know, why not? At the end of the year, I’ll present our findings for July-December and compare them to January-June. I’m sure some scientist would be interested in the results. Maybe.

Does your dog or pet have any strange eating habits? Please let me know. Alright, that’s it for tonight. Enjoy the blog, walk your dog, and I’ll see you next week.

1 He’s named after Indiana Jones.

Saying Goodbye to a Series: Are You a Quitter?

On By somegeektoldme@gmail.comIn Books, Comics, Literature, Movies, Music, Television

I want to talk about saying goodbye to a series. Why? Over the many times I have travelled around the Sun, this strange event has happened repeatedly. To understand this subject better, you won’t need Herb Powell to build a translator for you, I’ll just try to do a better job at explaining it.

You don’t have to be a geek or nerd to enjoy a series. This could be in the form of comics, novels, television shows, movies, video games, music, or just about anything that is created for people’s enjoyment and entertainment.1

Now for whatever reason, you love that series. Maybe you have grown up listening to a special artist or band, read all of the books in a saga, played all of the games in a franchise, watched every episode in a tv show, or seen every movie in a series.

Whatever it is, there is something you like watching, listening to, or reading, that…well, makes you happy; like lying in bed, listening to the rain fall on the roof, or eating some some Salt and Vinegar chips, while watching your favourite team win.

Whatever the case, you have a relationship with…and I’m doing to use the word, product, for the purposes of context. You have a relationship with that product; whether it is positive, negative and everything in between.

But here’s the problem: just like the relationships you have with other homo sapiens, every relationship has a beginning and an ending. Just the same as the relationship you have with your product.2

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

The way I see it, I can think of three different ways the relationship with the product will end.

1.) The product stops creating

The band could split up; the singer retires; the monthly comic book finishes; the tv show screens the final season; the final movie in a trilogy or series is released; the makers of the video game, have discontinued the line; or the last and final book in a saga, is finally released.

It doesn’t matter what the reason is, but the product that you enjoy, will no longer be creating any new content going forward, on a regular basis. Yes, it’s possible that tv shows and movies, could have spin offs; the monthly comic book could come back as a mini-series; the band members could join or create new bands; or the author may decide to explore prequel eras of the saga; but it’s not the same, is it?

Basically what I’m saying, is that the product broke up with you. It hurts, but it’s out of your hands. There will be no new book, album, movie, tv show, or comic book; whatever story the creators of that medium were telling, that story has been told and now, it’s finished.

You also know, if it was up to you, the product and yourself would still be together. All you can do now, is listen to the songs again, reread the saga, play the games again, or binge watch the tv shows and movies; compounded by the blessing and the curse, that you know what happens.

2.) The product is high maintenance

As the stale, old, bread winner of our one income family, this reason is a no-brainer: money. ABBBA and Pink Floyd warned us about this in the 70’s, to various degrees. The loss of a job, extra bills, crossovers, multi-media projects, dwindling savings, or just the slow and steady rise of the product’s cost, could result in you declaring that the product is now, high maintenance; therefore, you can’t afford it anymore.

It sucks, because you love the product, but the product is out of your league now. You could try to figure out a way to keep it: buy less food, give up the gym, or decrease on using electricity.

However when there are children or UMCs involved, you have to admit that you’re the adult, and you need to give up the product for their sake. Bread vs the new book? Electricity vs the new video game?

You’re a parent and you’re doing the best that you can for your kids, so you quit the product to help them. Or until you can afford it again!

3.) You and the product want different things

So we have finally arrived at the most strangest and personal reason, you and your product are no longer together: you’ve lost that loving feeling.

There are so many various situations about why this happens. It can cover the product receiving a new artist, new writer, new direction, new singer, death or return of major characters, new music video, new songs, games becoming easier/harder, storylines getting repeated, bad dialogue, or maybe just the fact that you have moved on from the product.

Whatever it is, the love and the passion you once had for the product, has slowly faded away. It could have been your family’s influence, or your friends, spouse, partner, work mates, or quite honestly, it was you realising that you and the product are travelling down different roads now, and you want something else.

There is no shame in this. I think about my own life and the products that I have quit for different reasons, is probably more than Chuck Norris has executed a roundhouse kick. Wait…that’s physically impossible. You can’t beat Chuck Norris at anything, except receiving roundhouse kicks to the face.

And you’re back in the room. This may sound quite odd, but hey, a geek’s going to do, what a geek’s going to. Every time I have quit a product; whether it involves movies, novels, comics, bands, or tv shows, I feel the need to explain myself.

By this I mean writing an email or letter to the director, author, or whomever it would be, to apologise for leaving the product, and explain why I have done it. I never have though, but the desire is there.

Sometimes it’s extremely easy for me to identify, the reason(s) why I’m not interested in a product anymore, but there are times when it’s the opposite. I’ll know that I’d like to quit the product, however I’m unable to explain why.

I may start second guessing myself over the decision, but if I start doing that, I know it’s over. Throughout my life, my love of music, books, comics, movies, and tv shows has not changed, but the genres have.

My tastes in popular culture have changed, just like me. I’m definitely a work in progress, but I’m still evolving, which means the products that I spend my hard earned money on, have to reflect what makes me happy. Though my taste for Sour Cream and Chives will never, ever change. Ever.

We have now arrived at the point of the conversation where I ask you the question: Are you a quitter? What products were you interested in, but have now left behind? What caused the break up? Please let me know.

Sorry, this was a long one. As usual I have a bad idea, then it spirals out of control. Alright, thanks for reading, walk your dog, and I’ll see you next Monday.

1 Alliteration much?

2 Am I the only one that has Closing Time, by Semisonic, as an earworm now?