Wordless Wednesday: Twenty Photos From The Playground
Category: Photos
It’s Spring, There Are Birds – What Are Those Bees Doing?
Today, I took the boys to the park for some play time (and also to give B some time by herself to get some writing done). As we piled into my car, I noticed a bug atop my car. Nothing odd there. It’s spring, the weather has gotten warmer and the bugs are out. I looked closer and noticed it was a bee. Two bees, in fact. One atop the other.
The boys were already in the car so my first instinct was to send a TwitPic of the situation. After that was done, I was going to go in the car and drive off, but then I stopped. I had my DSLR with me to take photos of the boys at the playground. Why not put it to a macro test?
So out came my camera and I began snapping away. I’ve taken bee macro photos before so I know how to do it safely. I’ve learned that you can get pretty close to bees without bothering them. They tend to try to fly away from you first. But if they start buzzing angrily and dive bombing you, it’s time to move away fast.
Anyway, I got as close as I felt I could safely get and let my zoom lens do the rest. A few clicks of the shutter later and…
You can click that to magnify the photo, but here’s a cropped version from the full resolution original.
After I was done photographing, I went in the car and started it up. NHL was curious about what was happening. I told him that there were some bees up there that wouldn’t be happy that I was moving the car. He asked why. I danced around the facts and told him that they were happy with the car where it was and wouldn’t like for it to move.
As we drove off, he said he was sad for the bees because they might get blown off. I told him that we started slowly and they probably got the hint before we went so fast that they would be blown off. I really hope that’s the case. Sorry about the interruption, bees!
A (Semi-Gross) Journey Through The Body
Last year, we went to the Colonie Center mall to attend a Journey Through The Body program. The boys had fun, so we decided to try it again this year. We made our way over and started to fight the crowds to see the exhibits.
Each of us seemed to have different goals. NHL was focused on what “characters” he could see. As they did last year, volunteers dressed up as fruit and animals to highlight healthy eating habits. NHL acted as though meeting a girl dressed as grapes was as fun as meeting Beast in Disney World. (I blame it on a post-Disney crash where he’s looking for the Disney high again. Disney addiction can lead you to do crazy things… Luckily, there’s no cure!)
For the sake of brevity, I’m including all the characters here to get them out of the way. I won’t reference them again, but rest assured that NHL was constantly on the look for new characters to meet. Several times he would shout “I think I saw the apple! Over there! Is that the apple? No? Ok.” or “There goes the chicken! We need to go over there to see the chicken! We’re missing the chicken!!!!”
B, still not fully recovered from stand-on-line-at-Disney-World-itis, was clearly not having fun. So I decided to give her some time off. She headed to the Christmas Tree shop for some solo shopping time while I corralled the boys.
JSL, was taking it all in. He liked the free stuff and the characters, but he also liked the interactive nature of some things. Most of all, though, he liked the slide. He repeated over and over how he wanted to go to the slide. I had to reassure him that he would get to go on it eventually.
Me? I was in it for the educational nature of it all. That and photo opportunities. Especially photo opportunities of the gross out kind. Beware: Gross photos will be following. Those with sensitive stomachs might want to close their eyes. (Or, at least, not click on the photos to see larger versions.)
We first went over to the big mouth. The kids remembered this well from last year. They waited for a family to finish their photos and then went to work brushing the giant teeth and tongue.
After this, it was time for a journey into the ear. We were shown how the hairs in your ears keep germs out. If that’s the case for the nose too, no wonder I rarely get sick! Finally, a good thing to say about my ear and nose hair. (Hey, I said this post might be gross!) We also got to see the tiny bones in your ear and how the ear turns sound into electrical impulses. In this giant-sized example, we were told to clap and sound-activated lights blinked in response.
After the ear, we saw some displays on the human brain. Here, NHL and JSL worked on a brain puzzle and got to feel a realistic (not not real) brain.
Moving from the brain, we worked our way to the lungs. Here, NHL and JSL got to see a healthy lung and a lung that was affected by cigarette smoke. (Gross photos ahead!)
After a few more exhibits, the boys got to the section they were waiting for: The bone slide. Both NHL and JSL scaled the slide and rocketed down a few times. I’m not sure of the educational value here, but it sure was fun. To misquote Mary Poppins: A spoonful of fun helps the educational material go down.
We ended our journey with the heart. Well, that’s not quite true. We waited on line to see the heart, but when NHL saw the cow hearts sitting in ice water (tinted red, no doubt from residual blood leaking into the water), he declared he didn’t want to touch them. No problem. Then he saw that they had been cut open so people could see the insides. That was it. He had reached his gross-out point (he’s squeamish about blood in general) and wanted to get away. I took some quick photos before we left.
Just so I’m not leaving you with that image, here’s a shot of NHL and JSL as we stopped by the tooth exhibit again on the way out. They decided to brush some life-sized teeth this time.
All in all, it was a fun experience. The boys had a blast and learned a bit, B got some time to herself (a sanity essential) and I got to take some really gross photos. Wins all around!
Wordless Wednesday: DiVine, Animal Kingdom’s Vine Lady
The Great Epcot Twitter Experiment
On Friday, March 18th, while B was in the DisneySMMoms conferences, NHL, JSL and I went to Epcot. We sought out the characters and topiaries (more on those later), but at one point we happened upon the phone booths in the UK.
Seeing it, I remembered reading that all of these booths were actual working pay phones. They even had numbers that people outside of Disney World could call. I wondered: If I tweeted the number from one of these booths, how long would it take before someone called me? What kind of conversation would I have with a Random Twitter Follower?
My kids were not too keen on this experiment. They just didn’t see the fun in it. My seven year old actually said: “Dad, this trip is not about you. It’s all about us!” That clinched it! The experiment was on!
I walked up to one of the booths, looked for the number and tweeted:
Then, we waited. We didn’t have to wait long, however. Soon the phone rang. I picked it up and was asked if I was “TechyDad.” After I answered “yes”, I had a nice (if short) conversation with @moth_editor and @cheimbuch! (Short because the boys were getting restless and I wasn’t going to make them wait too long.) We waited a couple of minutes after the phone call ended to see if anyone else called, but nobody did so we left. I couldn’t help wondering how many times the phone rang that day leading Disney parks-goers wondering “Who is TechyDad and why is someone calling Epcot for him?”
Thanks to everyone who participated and those of you, like @BabiesGottaHavT, who tried calling and just got a busy signal. By the way, if you want to try calling the Epcot UK phone booths to see what random people you get, here are the numbers:
Left Booth: 407.827.9862
Center Booth: 407.827.9863
Right Booth: 407.827.9861
That information comes from @adisneymom who had a similar idea (and coincidentally executed it the same day as my Twitter Experiment).
A few days later, when back in Epcot, I stopped to take some photos of my boys in the phone booths when the center phone rang. I answered, but it turned out to be a wrong number. At least I got some nice photos of my kids placing some calls (as NHL attempted to dial the phone without entering an area code… or putting in any money).
