TechyDad, Author at TechyDad

Reptiles Up Close at CMOST

July 17, 2013 TechyDad Educational, Museum, NHL, Photos, Wildlife

This past weekend, JSL had a birthday party to attend. While B and him went to the party, NHL and I stopped by CMOST for some fun of a different kind. B had taken the boys there recently, but it had been awhile since I had gone.

NHL showed me the Molecularium show in the planetarium and he loved going to each station to learn more about nanotechnology. Of course, while that was fun, the photographer in me loved the reptile room the most.

First, there was a box turtle that they were taking care of.

Unfortunately, the previous owner had fed it the wrong foods. (Raw eggs and chicken are NOT turtle food!) Thanks to this, the turtle had developmental problems. For example, one of its rear feet would periodically get stuck in its shell. NHL, sadly informed the staff member that he hoped the turtle would get better. The staff member let NHL know that while it wouldn’t ever recover, they would take good care of it.

NHL wanted them to take out the boa constrictor so he could see it up close. Unfortunately, they said they couldn’t do this. It had just eaten and moving it now would risk the snake either throwing up its food (and risking starvation) or puncturing an internal organ. So the snake stayed in its cage to digest its meal over the next few months. I was able to shoot a photo of it from behind the glass as it finished off a nice, yummy mouse.

The leopard gecko kept staring at us from it’s log perch and we marveled both at its spots and its bumpy hide.

NHL loved the bearded dragon and begged me to take a photo of it. (Quite impressive since he’s usually complaining that all the photos I take are slowing him down.)

Later, we sat down as a staff member explained to us about some species of animals that live all along the Hudson River from the beginnings in Lake Tear of the Clouds to its ending in New York Harbor. She fed some trout that they have and we sat awestruck as they went nuts splashing around trying to get a scrap of food. They do feed the trout regularly, of course, but the trout seem to go nuts anytime there’s food present. If I didn’t know better, I’d say they just loved putting on a show.

The stars of the show were the turtles, of course.

First up was the box turtle. We got some more information about it. For example, box turtles are so named because not only can they retract into their shell, but they have a special hinge and muscle that pulls the shell shut over their head. This closes them in (like a box) so that it is almost impossible for predators to eat them.

Of course, predators should think twice before eating them anyway. Box turtles can eat many things, including mushrooms that are poisonous to any other animal. The toxins build up in their system making them a not-so-pleasant treat. Early settlers quickly found out that they got sick when they made turtle stew from box turtles.

By the way, the red eyes mean that this is a boy. Girl box turtles have brown eyes.

After this was the Diamondback Terrapin. This turtle is more aquatic and loves spending its time swimming through the water. While they usually eat small fish, the three brothers that CMOST has were raised in captivity and don’t know how to catch their own food.

Many questions were asked by everyone attending. I wondered how long the turtles could hold their breath. After all, while watching them swim, it didn’t seem like they regularly came up for air. The staff member replied that it is a long time, but they really don’t know how long exactly. They’ve noticed the turtles going underwater to sleep for a few hours. Quite impressive little turtle.

NHL and I had a blast at CMOST and left knowing a lot more about reptiles than we did before. I just love visiting places that are both fun and educational.

What is your favorite kind of reptile?

An Embarrassing Tale On The Lake

July 15, 2013 TechyDad embarrassing

Last weekend, we went to the lake. I wrote about that a bit, but there was one thing I didn’t write about. An embarrassing incident of mine. Thankfully, what is embarrassing often makes good blog fodder.

During the boat trip, Cousin A first jumped out of the boat for a bit of water skiing.

The kids were in awe as he bounded on top of the water seemingly effortlessly. He made it look so easy. Still, I remarked that there’s no way I’d do that. I’m way too uncoordinated for such an activity. I’d probably somehow wind up upside down or tangled in the rope. Don’t tell me that’s impossible. I’d find a way.

Cousin A even proved to us that he doesn’t need two skis. He went up on a single ski.

After this, we decided to take a dip in the lake. First, we got to a nice sandy spot that was shallow enough for the kids to walk (though they kept their life jackets on). Some people jumped in. Some carefully slid in. Me? Well….

First, I need to back up a bit and describe the boat. This was a new boat that Uncle M had bought. It has three pontoons underneath it which helps keep it from capsizing. (That actually almost happened to us on the last boat which only had two pontoons.) The pontoons extend just past the front of the boat and curve upwards a bit.

As I slowly edged towards the end of the boat, deciding to carefully slid in, I noticed something was wrong. My swimsuit was snagged on the pontoon. No problem, I thought, I’ll just unhook it. Unfortunately, at that exact moment, I also realized that my weight was shifted too far off the boat. Gravity was in play and I was going in the water.

As the top half of my body went down, my snagged swim trunks kept the lower half of me in the air. I hit the water hard, back-of-the-head-first. Mercifully, my swimsuit didn’t rip, yank off, or stay lodged keeping my head under water. Instead, it came loose and my lower half slammed into the water a split second later. I sunk to the bottom (about four feet down), reoriented myself, and kicked back to the surface.

I wasn’t hurt badly, just a little bruise on the back of my leg. I was more embarrassed than anything. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, though, it’s "When you’re embarrassed, laugh at yourself." I immediately joked to everyone that THIS was exactly why I wouldn’t be water skiing anytime soon. After all, why would I get on skis behind a moving boat when I can’t even get off a stopped one safely?

The rest of the trip was a lot of fun, but every time my leg ached, I’d quietly relive the embarrassing moment again.

Have you ever been publicly embarrassed? What was your reaction?

Beware The Scam

July 12, 2013 TechyDad Scams

A few days ago, while bowling with the kids, my phone rang. It was my father calling to check something out with me. He told me that "Windows" was calling him saying that he "had errors on his computer" and was walking him through steps to fix it. My reaction was immediate and severe. "It’s a scam. Hang up the phone."

My father wasn’t too sure. I told him that Microsoft doesn’t go around calling people to help them fix errors on their computers. Still, my father said, they had guided him through running some commands and sure enough it brought up a screen showing lots of errors. "That’s the error log," I replied. "Every Windows computer has it. All the errors are listed there and EVERY one will have errors in it. Guaranteed."

My father seemed mostly convinced. He told me that the guy had told him to load a website, which he did, and then told him to download some software. The guy said the software would let him remote in to fix the errors. The words "remote in" had raised enough red flags in my dad’s mind to have him call me. I told him that it might already be too late. Merely loading a website can be enough to infect a PC. Though it was certainly good that he didn’t download or run whatever program the caller wanted him to, we’re still going to treat the PC as if it were infected. (Perhaps if the caller had framed the program as "an anti-virus tool to clean your PC", the scam might have been completely successful.)

While I was strict with my father, even the best of us have times when our red flags fail to raise. Times when we give out too much information or fall for what should be obvious setups. In my father’s case, he was thrown because he had, just a few minutes before, encountered an error in Microsoft Office. The timing of the call threw him off just enough for the caller to take advantage.

We need to remember to be on our guard. When we think of scams, we usually think of those poor Nigerian princes that always seem to be dying and their heirs who will (out of the blue) share fortunes with us if only we’ll e-mail them our bank account numbers. It’s easy to laugh at those since they are so obvious, but some scammers are slicker and not all scammers use e-mail.

Scammers have been known to call people claiming to be banks or credit card companies. In a new twist, some scammers might already have most of your information. They’ll call up claiming to be from your credit card company alerting you to fraud. They’ll give you your address and credit card number, confirm that a charge "on your card" was not made by you and then ask for the security code on the back of your card. Once you give that, the scammers will confirm that the "charge" was removed. Of course, at that point, fraudulent charges will actually begin to appear.

Scammers can strike via many avenues and even the best of us can fall for them. The best defense is to keep alert. All it takes is one moment with your guard down for the scammers to succeed.

NOTE: The "burglar" image above is by tzunghaor and is available from OpenClipArt.org.

Doctor Who Geeklings Are Born

July 10, 2013 TechyDad Doctor Who, Geeky Pursuits, Television

For quite awhile now, I’ve been watching Doctor Who. I’ve been amazed by the tales of the Time Lord from Gallifrey with two hearts who travelled through time and space in a blue box that’s bigger on the inside. After some time watching, B decided to watch as well. I rewatched the "new Who" series with her (from Doctor #9 on) until we only had 4 episodes to go. (She now wants to save them so she doesn’t go into Who draught until November.)

I went back and forth over whether Doctor Who would be appropriate for my kids. On one hand, they’d love the adventure and time travelling and weird aliens. On the other hand, some episodes can be a bit intense. (I’m looking at you, "Blink.") There’s nothing horribly scary, mind you. Monsters/aliens are threatening but not nightmare inducing. (Some – Adipose – are even cute.) Still, with NHL’s anxiety issues, I thought a few episodes might be too much for him.

Over time, though, I changed my mind and began to think that both boys could not actually handle it, but love it. Unfortunately, NHL had it set in his mind that Doctor Who was a scary show that was NOT for him.

Cue, B’s devious plan.

For Father’s Day, B got me "When’s The Doctor." This "Where’s Waldo" style book sees the eleventh Doctor, Amy, Rory, and the TARDIS lost amid the chaos of many different scenes on many different worlds in many different time periods. Scattered throughout are not only natives of those times, but some familiar aliens as well. In addition to spotting the Doctor, the TARDIS and his companions, you can find K-9, Daleks, Weeping Angels, and more.

B meant for me to read the book with the boys, thinking that they would get so wrapped up in finding these characters that they’d want to see the show. It didn’t look like it was working until NHL greeted me Monday morning with "Dad, I want to watch Doctor Who with you tonight."

So that night we watched "Rose" and two new Doctor addicts were born. The boys held their breath as creepy plastic mannequins-come-to-life stalked Rose. They gasped in awe as Rose first entered the TARDIS and was overcome with how it’s bigger on the inside. The cheered when the Autons were destroyed. NHL wanted to watch the next episode right then and there, but it was past their bedtime.

Of course, NHL – the consummate geek-in-training that he is – wanted to know all the facts about Doctor Who. Who are the Daleks? Who is Davros? What episode do the Weeping Angels come in? Is the Pandorica good or evil? When will we see Cassandra and the Face of Boe? I answered as many questions as I could (trying to strike a balance of giving enough information to feed his curiosity while steering clear of spoilers).

The next night they didn’t even wait for me. They began watching "The End Of The World" while I made dinner. NHL got excited as he finally saw Cassandra and the Face of Boe. He got nervous as Rose was put in danger and excited when the Doctor triumphed in the end. Part of me felt left out, but a bigger part felt like a proud geek dad. After all, he loved Doctor Who so much that he couldn’t wait an hour to watch it.

Yes, we’ve got two new Whovians on our hands and I’m going to enjoy introducing them to every single episode. Talk about a fun and geeky family activity.

NOTE: The TARDIS image above is by Tim Hoggarth and is shared via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.

The Fourth Goes Boom!

July 8, 2013 TechyDad Holidays, Outside, Photos

On the Fourth of July, we had a very lovely time at a family’s house near Saratoga Lake. The exciting events, however, happened not on the Fourth, but on the Sixth. That’s when more family was present and we got to watch fireworks. Yes, the "more family" also equaled "more chaos" from time to time and the fireworks meant that the boys were up WAY too late. (They fell asleep in the car at around 10pm, though NHL had passed out much earlier and missed the entire fireworks show.) Still, it all added up to a very fun day.

As we prepared for the fireworks, Aunt S broke out a series of glow sticks, hats, glasses and more that she had purchased at the Christmas Tree Shop. Apparently, they stock many of these things for only a dollar each. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for these in the future.

We sat and waited on the porch and eventually it was time for the show. The blasts came up into the sky and exploded with color. Meanwhile, mosquitos defied the lit citronella candles and feasted on what they obviously saw as an all-you-can-eat human buffet.

I observed the fireworks the way I observe much of life, through the camera’s lens. (I could launch into a detailed psycho-analytical self-study here about how I deal with Asperger’s and social situations by seeking the balance of social isolation and social participation one gets while taking photos nonstop, but that would be off topic.) During the photos, someone asked me why I was taking so many. I answered that I had to. For every twenty that I took, only one was likely to be usable. When asked for what, I replied "You never know when you might need fireworks photos for a blog post!"

Therefore, to keep myself from being a liar, here’s a selection of fireworks photos. Feel free to add booming noises as you see the photos and/or say "Oooooh! Aaaah!" (Bonus points if you Vine or Instagram Video yourself doing this.)

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