Aloha Friday Archives - Page 32 of 34

Aloha Friday: Favorite Holiday Meals

December 18, 2009 TechyDad Aloha Friday, Cooking, Food, Holidays

The holiday season is a time to celebrate, get together with friends and family, and eat some wonderful comfort food. Chanukah just isn’t Chanukah to me without eating latkes (even if they are store-bought frozen). I’d like to get a jelly donut tradition included in there too. 😉

Different people have different traditions, so my Aloha Friday question is: What foods do you like eating during the holiday season? What foods do you like making during the holiday season?

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the MckLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #18

Aloha Friday: Encouraging Kids’ Interest In Science

December 11, 2009 TechyDad Aloha Friday, Parenting, Science

I love science. Always have. As a young child, a couple of my first career aspirations were archeologist and astronomer. (Of course, I wanted to become a baker too at one point.) My first year in college, I was a physics major until I slammed into that brick wall known as Quantum Mechanics. (Yes, I took Quantum Mechanics in my freshman year. Russian too. Yes, I was crazy!) Even though I didn’t choose science as a career, I still retain an interest in all things scientific. I enjoy reading about scientific advances and try to keep somewhat up to date with the latest scientific theories.

Lately, I’ve also been trying to ignite a scientific interest in NHL. I’ve talked to him about how the stars are very far away. So far away, in fact, that looking up in the sky is like looking back in time. I also like it when he watches shows, like Sid the Science Kid, that show science to be fun and exciting. (Oh, by the way, did you enter my Sid the Science Kid giveaway yet? If not, what’s keeping you? Go! Enter now!) Even better is when he comes home from school and starts telling me about some scientific information he learned in school. NHL definitely seems to have that scientific spark – the desire to know how things in the world work the way they do.

My Aloha Friday question is: How do you inspire your child to take an interest in science?

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the MckLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #17

Aloha Friday: The Santa Line

December 4, 2009 TechyDad Aloha Friday, Holidays, Judaism, Parenting, Religion, School

As the holiday season draws near, certain challenges arise. As I ~~ranted~~ talked about before in Tis The Season For Bah Humbug, we don’t celebrate Christmas. Instead, we celebrate Chanukah. This means that we don’t need to put up a Christmas tree, stuff any stockings or tell our kids that Santa is going to come and visit. However, that last item does pose a tricky dilemma. Obviously, we don’t have any personal need for our children to think that Santa Claus is real. However, if we tell them that he isn’t (especially 6 year old NHL), then that story will be repeated to other kids. Kids whose parents have said that Santa would be stopping by soon.

We don’t wish any ill will towards other families’ beliefs and practices so this one has, for now, been relatively easy to circumvent. We haven’t told them about Santa’s reality one way or another. The boys understand that Santa relates to Christmas and we don’t celebrate Christmas. However, I wonder what will happen as they get older. Will they begin to ask for a better reason why Santa won’t visit us or whether we’re on the naughty list for not celebrating Christmas? Perhaps NHL will want to know how Santa gets to every house in the world in one night. Perhaps he will have other, not so easy to answer questions. (If there’s one thing I’ve learned is that kids have a tendancy to find and ask questions that are difficult to answer.)

The more I think about the questions they might ask, the more I wonder where the line is. At what point does our wishes not to burst any bubbles clash with our wishes to raise our children to believe certain things. To expand this past Santa Claus, what happens if NHL tells a classmate in Hebrew school that men evolved from primate ancestors when that child has been taught that mankind was created by God somewhere around 10,000 years ago. That could understandably cause a sticky situation. To go past my own children, what if an athiest couple’s child tells mine that God doesn’t exist?

My Aloha Friday question is: How do you reconcile teaching your child what you would want them to believe while not offending others’ beliefs?

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the MckLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #16

Aloha Friday: Sticky Tunage

November 27, 2009 TechyDad Aloha Friday, Internet, Music, Television

The other day, I was watching Mythbusters on Discovery Channel, when one of their commercials came on:

It didn’t take me long to begin humming along. I thought I had remembered this commercial from seeing it a few years back. A little searching and I found the previous version:

I couldn’t stop singing "Boom De Yada" over and over. Just when I thought I had gotten it out of my head, I saw someone post a link to this video on Twitter:

Now I couldn’t stop singing this! "Will you let me go? Ma-na-ma-nah. I will not let you go. Let me throw. Ma-na-ma-nah. I will not let you throw. Let me blow. Ma-na-ma-nah. I will not let you blow. Let me joke. Do not like your jokes. Let me joke. Do not like your jokes! Let me joke!" Sorry, there I go again.

Anyway, my Aloha Friday question is: Besides these songs now (evil laugh), what other songs have been running through your head?

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the MckLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #15

Aloha Friday: A Fun Night Out = Abandoning My Family?

November 20, 2009 TechyDad Aloha Friday, Family, Fatherhood, Guilt

Last Thursday night, I had the pleasure to go see Dr. Phil Plait (aka BadAstronomer) talk. He spoke of such interesting subjects as the end of the world, Hollywood and eggs standing on end. Amazingly, he was able to relate those things together into a coherent (and downright funny) speech including some clips from Armageddon and Deep Impact. While there, I met TechSkeptik. We had a great time talking about many things before and after Phil’s speech. (No, not during. That’d be rude. Besides, Phil’s speech was too interesting to allow for talking.)

As I went to the speech, excited though I was, I also felt guilty. I usually go home, make dinner and help get the boys ready for (and into) bed. Instead of helping out my family, though, I was going to hear a speech for my own enjoyment. I felt selfish, even though I knew that nights out like this for me are extremely rare. I really don’t have any friends here that I can have a guys’ night out with. Back in June, I posted about feeling isolated at times. That feeling still pops up from time to time. Yet here I was out on the closest thing to a "guys’ night out" that I’ve had in a long, long time and I was feeling like I was abandoning my family by doing so.

My question for you is this: How often do you have a guys’ or girls’ night out? When you do, do you feel guilty for leaving your family?

(NOTE: To balance out my night out, B had a girls’ night out of her own the very next week.)

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the MckLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #14

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