Willfully Ignorant

I haven't had the chance to keep up with hockey lately so while was at work it occurred to me to ask Siri who was in the playoffs.  I wasn't looking at the phone when I asked the question and I was hugely surprised to hear the following:

"In the NHL standings, the Bruins are leading the league followed by the Sabres, Flames, Blackhawks, and Redwings.  If you'd like, I can tell you more about a specific team."

I was, like, WHAT?!  The Sabres are in the playoffs? No way!  That's awesome!  I looked down at my phone with what I now recognize as epic-level tunnel vision and saw that, sure enough, the Sabres were in second place:

I then asked when the Sabres played next:

Wait a minute.  What do you mean you don't know when they play next?  Let's try something more direct: "Hey, Siri, are the Sabres in the playoffs?"

Yeah... That makes a little more sense...  I then asked the question slightly differently. Instead of "What teams are in the NHL Playoffs" I asked "Who is in the NHL Playoffs".  Sure enough, Siri came back with "The Panthers, Lightning, Red Wings, Capitals, Penguins, Rangers, Islanders, Flyers, Stars, Blues, Blackhawks, Predators, Wild, Ducks, Kings, and Sharks have all qualified for the NHL playoffs.

So what gives? The only way that the Buffalo Sabres are in "second place" in the NHL is freaking alphabetically, that's what gives!  I never noticed that the "standings" had zeroes across the board.  I had one more request of Siri before going off to get a cup of coffee:

Wrong again, my friend.

Scavenger Hunt Project

A long time ago (a couple of years, I guess) my son and some of his friends started a Mystery Solver “club” at his school.  It was really never clear to me what exactly their organization’s charter was, but occasionally they would invent some crime that needed to be solved during recess. Scribbling misspelled notes into a notebook collecting clues like rocks, shells, and acorns seemed to be a big part of this process. He saw my security badge from work and said he wished he had one for his club. Since I don't own a laminator I couldn't make one for him right away.  About once a quarter he would remember that he wanted an ID badge of some kind and we would talk about it for a bit but nothing ever got done.

Sometime before Christmas I was in Office Max and I noticed they had laminator-less badge making stuff – I guess I should have known that stuff existed - and it reminded me of the Mystery Solver club. So that started the ball rolling on the idea for my own mystery for the boy and three of his friends to solve.

Their journey started out with an envelope with the words TOP SECRET spray painted cartoonishly on the front. Each of the parents helped to place the envelope somewhere where their child would find the mysterious package the night before the event.

Inside the envelope was a pen, a small notebook, a book of maps and photos, a wooden jigsaw puzzle piece with part of a code, a part of a code translator, and a colored wooden piece with some notches cut into it. There was also a letter:

The letter said:

Dear Candidate,

You and three of your friends have been identified by our secret organization to complete a series of tasks to see if you are suitable to join our ranks.  You will all be judged by your cleverness and ability to work together to solve the series of puzzles we have arranged for you.

You and your team will meet at 1:30 PM, Saturday, February 6^th at Location A in the enclosed Map Booklet.  You will learn the identity of the rest of your team at that time and place.

You must tell NO ONE except for your family about this mission until after it has been completed.  You may bring them along if you choose, especially if you need transportation.

In this envelope you will find:

·       A puzzle piece

·       A part of a decoder

·       A painted piece of wood

·       A notebook

·       A pen

·       A book of maps

Each one of these items is custom made for you and you alone. But beware! You must bring this envelope and ALL of its contents to Location A.  DO NOT LOSE THEM! If you do NOT bring ALL of these items to the meeting place then your team’s mission will most likely fail.  You will need to depend on one another to make the mission a success.

If you and your team succeed then you will all be granted the status of Field Agent in our organization.

We wish you the best of luck.

I am told that each of the kids went completely nuts when they found their envelope and read the letter. I can only speak to my boy’s actions of course. He found his on his sink as he was getting ready for bath time. After going through the contents and reading the letter he was literally shaking with excitement. He repeatedly asked “Is this real? This isn't a trick, is it?” And then he hit me with the question I knew was coming but still hoped he wouldn't ask.

He inspected the jigsaw puzzle piece and examined its wood-burned lettering and quietly asked “Did you do this?”  There was a hint of disappointment there, as if a little bit of magic was swept away.

“Look,” I said as seriously as I could, “All I can tell you is that I am forbidden from saying anything. Please don't ask me any more questions.”  If anything, that lame non-answer ratcheted up his excitement even more!  Sweet.

See, I knew he would be suspicious especially since, for several weeks prior, he was forbidden from going out into the garage while I was working. Normally he is welcome to watch, invited to join in, or is actively helping with my projects. Also, a pile of random looking “stuff” was growing in one corner of the normally tidy(ish) room, doing it's very best to look as unimportant as possible. I'm sort of space-limited out there, so the best I could do was try and pull off a Purloined Letter and hide things in plain sight. It seemed to work ok, but I'm thinking that was a “one time good deal” thing. I’d never get away with that again.

The next day I woke up early to hide the items around our part of the neighborhood and then go with the neighbor to the local park.  I rang his bell and he and his daughter (a Mystery Solver candidate) answered the door. Excited, she started “Guess what! Guess what!  I… ummm…” Then, remembering the rules in the letter, ran back inside the house without saying another word. Pretty funny!

We really didn’t worry too much about the ones we hid in our neighborhood being discovered but the ones in the park were less under our control.  We waited a little while to go and hide those at the locations that were referenced in the map booklets.

Oh, yeah, a little about the map booklets.  Each one had the same park and neighborhood satellite images in them but no two books had the same areas marked on these maps and no two books had the same close-up photos of the hiding spots other than the initial meeting location.  That is, if the clue told them to do go to Location B, they would see that only one of the maps had a location marked “B” on the map, and only one (a different one) had a close-up picture of that location (a certain park bench, say).  This was one of the ways I designed into this adventure to make them work together and not turn the thing into a footrace.

So, anyway, the neighbor dad and I went to the park and hid a couple of items… We also brought a basketball with us because there’s something just a little bit seedy about two middle aged guys hanging out in a park without their kids.

The four kids converged on the spot at the appointed time and each was excited to see the others.  They quickly agreed to assemble their jigsaw puzzle and use the decoder pieces to read the secret message.  The secret message congratulated them on working together and directed them to find a magnetic box at Location B – a park bench.

Now, from the satellite photos I figured this was like any type of park bench – wood and lots of metal bits.   Nope. Nearly all composite, with very little metal. Thankfully, the metal was ferrous and the box (an Altoids tin painted black with a big white question mark on the lid) had enough to grab onto. We were a bit worried that the box was too obvious but I guess it was only visible if you knew where to look. In fact, it took the kids nearly five minutes to decide to look UNDER the bench and leave the nearby light post (also in the pic) alone.

Inside the box were three pennies, a steel washer, and a note telling them to find “a log that wasn't a log” at another location in the park. They arrived at the next location but only one of them was brave enough to crawl under a clump of bushy overgrowth to retrieve a piece of wood that looked a little suspicious. The piece of wood was a cedar log that I had cut in half lengthwise, routed, and reassembled using brass hinges. In the routed out hollow was a red wooden arrow with four holes and a note directing them to go to the next location.

The next spot was in the neighbor’s backyard. There they found a waist-high circular table with the letters of the alphabet around its circumference and vague instructions to “build the arrow” and give it a gentle spin on the table. The placed their pennies and the washer in the arrow and gave it a spin. CLUNK!  The arrow came to an abrupt halt on position Q (a hidden magnet pulled the washer and stopped the arrow dead).

At location Q they found a wooden box and  were directed to build the device from the parts they saw there.  The completed device was a series of colored octagonal  blocks that were free to rotate  on a spindle. Only by following the clues could the device be built correctly and the next location be determined.

The next stage was a grid of letters surrounded by a colored border. The colors corresponded to the colors of the notched wooden pieces they received in their mystery envelope. Once all the pieces were in place in their correct locations they were told to “find the keys” at the next hiding place.

Once there, they discovered a small wooden box in the shape of a piano. Inside the piano were four different, oddly shaped wooden keys. Each key had copper sheeting on one side and a label that said, simply, “PUSH”.

Now, up until this point everything had gone smoothly. Arguments were kept to a minimum, everyone was having fun, and all the little puzzles and contraptions worked as planned. We were long overdue for a glitch.

The penultimate stage required the kids to insert their keys into the appropriate holes in the lid of a wooden box and push together. Doing so was supposed to light a light in the dark box that would illuminate the instructions that could be read if they looked through a peephole labeled LOOK.

In the shop I tested that simple circuit about 20 times and I was satisfied that, with about an ounce of pressure, the copper strips on the keys would make good contact with the switches (made from brass picture hangers) and backlight the message to be read through the peephole. What I neglected to consider is that when you instruct four seven-year-olds to PUSH and not give them any other guidance they will put their full effort into it.

The switches were not designed to endure the tens of pounds of body weight they were subjected to and so they were immediately and irrecoverably crushed! (The switches, not the children. The kids are fine.) Under my breath I cursed my stupidity, quickly disassembled the box, and had them hold the peephole part up to the sky so they could read the message and move on.

At the last stage they found another wooden box. Inside were four magnifying glasses and four personalized, laminated security badges declaring them to be official members of the Virginia Mystery Solvers – the kind of badges I told you about in the first paragraph of this post.

They were all very happy to have finished their mission successfully. The kids and the parents all had a blast. One of the dads (a GM of an AM radio station in Virginia) even gave a shout-out to this project on the air the next week which was pretty cool.

So the dads are now hard at work coming up with a new challenge for them. This one, we are pretty sure, will involve the dads being “kidnapped” and the Mystery Solvers will need to follow the clues to rescue them before it’s too late…

The Final Plinkdown

Well, all good projects must come to an end, I guess.

Five years ago I described the Plinko Project.  It was a fun way to prevent my then-two-year-old son from breaking his foot by dropping a multi-pound box of foreign coins on it.  When we moved, the coins and the Plinko game were put into the new attic where they sat until last month.

In early March the boy came home from his grandpa’s with a small baggie of Indian head pennies.  Since I had a “collection” when I was a boy I was able to tell him a little about what coins used to look like a long time ago.  I use the word “collection” loosely here because it was just a bunch of wheat pennies, some Indian heads, a few silver coins, and some silver certificates (mom worked part time at an OTB and traded out “odd looking” money when it came through her window).  Now, of course, since coins and bills change styles a lot more frequently than they did 30+ years ago it’s not so unusual to see “odd looking” money…

Nonetheless, he was interested to hear that the coins grandpa gave him were “rare”.  Not “rare” numismatically speaking, you dig, but interesting and not-often seen.  And, like any kid that age, they collect things and are especially interested to hear when something is “rare” or “limited edition” (even though pretty much every single toy in the whole wide world is “Collect Them All!”-ish… I’m looking at you, Ugly Pets and Minecraft figurines).

I got online and I was happy to see that the same type of cardboard books I had as a kid were still around.  I bought the Whitman Lincoln and Indian Head Cents books along with the Red Book and once they came in we sorted and started smooshing the coins from the baggie and our change dish into their respective places.  As we worked I told him about mint marks and double strikes and the WWII metal shortage and how to discern the composition of a 1982 penny by sound. Looking through the Red Book, he was very interested to see that “most money used to only have pictures of girls on them”… I never really thought about it until then.

I told a couple of co-workers about the nascent collection and the next day one brought in a whole bag of newish pennies with one wheat penny tucked in there for good measure.  “It’s all about the hunt,” she said. I agreed with her and thanked her for her generous donation.  The boy had fun looking for non-duplicates and was happy to see the wheat penny in there. 

That Saturday we went to a nearby coin store to get some wheat pennies to help fill out the books.  The guy said he had them in bulk and was willing to sell them for five cents apiece.  Super!  For a couple of bucks we could fill in quite a few gaps.  Let’s just check out the reviews of this place and… oh… great. 

See, what I found out was that one of the guys that worked here was “rude” and “cocky” and “a jerk” - exactly the type of guy that is really skilled at crushing the hopes and dreams of little kids looking for treasure amongst the trash.  The boy was amped to go and see the inside of a coin store and look though the collection of wheat pennies for ones he didn’t have yet, so on the drive over I prepped him for the worst.

“Look, buddy,” I said “This guy might not be very nice to us.  But it’s not his fault.  Every single day he probably gets, like, 20 phone calls or visits from people who insist that they have a super rare or valuable coin, only to be told that what they have is common or fake.  And a lot of the time the people who talk to him get upset and argue or call him a liar or a cheat.  Some of the ones that do have nice coins to sell look through books like the one that we have and expect to be paid the amount listed there… or maybe even more, which is crazy.  And those people also get mad at him.  So, after a while, it can turn some people kind of mean.  Just be respectful and look around at what you want to but just remember that he’s not being mean to you – he’s being mean to the 10,000 people who were mean to him before, okay?”

“Okay,” he said.

All I can say is that reviews often lie - we all know this.  This guy and his wife were courteous, eager to help, and very accommodating to the budding coin collector.  They even gave the boy a free (albeit very worn) Buffalo nickel and his pick from “the free pile” of magazines and other stuff near the doorway.  The boy left with his free loot, 100 new wheat pennies to rifle through (including quite a few steel cents), and a smile on his face.

We will definitely be back.

A few days later another coworker showed up with a fairly large baggie of wheat pennies!  The baggie also contained a film canister that “had some surprises” in it.  “Nothing big,” he added, easily winning the “Not-At-All-Suspicious Odd Thing to Say” award for 2016.

I looked at him for a bit and said “Well, thanks for this. If we notice anything of value in there we will certainly return it or pay you for it.”  He said “Don't worry about it. It's just a couple of bucks worth of stuff.”  Again, “totally believable”.

When I got home I showed him the new bag and he was very pleased. The wheat pennies there had an older distribution than the ones grabbed from the ammo box at the coin store so quite a few empty spaces got filled in. The canister did have quite a few surprises. Silver coins ranging from (WWII) nickels to half dollars made up about a third of the container! The other two thirds were filled with beat-up Buffalo and V nickels and lots of old foreign coins. I used the book we had and a couple of sites online to estimate the value of this hoard.

It added up to over $50 worth of stuff!  Quite a haul for a budding collector.

I let him know the next day about the value of the coins. He “seemed” surprised that the Chinese copper was worth anything and was interested to hear that the WWI Dos Centavos piece from Cuba was also worth more than “a couple of bucks”  but he refused any money or return of the coins. As a matter of fact he wanted to give the boy an additional pile of Buffalo nickels which I declined. I told him no - he'd been more than generous.

Besides, now that the boy had other coins than pennies to deal with, just chucking the new ones into a box someplace or keeping them in a baggie wasn't going to work. I remembered the Plinko project and I decided to invest in some coin flips and a three-ring binder with pages to hold them. I really didn't want to go that route just yet since I wanted to see how the penny thing would play out (he might get bored with it). But the new stuff was a cheap enough solution and solved more problems than it caused. Additionally, I got a State Quarters book, mainly so I could qualify for the free shipping, but also to help answer questions like “is Norway a state or a country” that we are asked way, way too often.

I brought down the Plinko thingy (now missing its Plexiglas window) from the attic and went through the coins there sorting them by country and denomination. Other coins we had around the house from Canada and the Bahamas and Morocco were included. We spent some time on a rainy afternoon stapling the flips shut and sliding the (roughly) 75 different foreign coins into their new homes.  I will help him label the flips later. The remainder of the Plinko coins were put into a small black box which was placed in his bookcase.

I still don't have a solution for the handful of silver coins and old nickels but I will probably end up getting Whitman books for them as well.  For now I will hold onto them.

The picture on the left there shows the Plinko project next to the trash can and the overflowing scrap wood bin - I'm not sure yet which way it will go. I'm a little sad to know that it has plinked its last plink but, hey, nothing lasts forever, we've got video of it in use, and the coins are in a more useful place than the attic.

Godspeed, Little Cache!

Oh No!  One of the geocaches I made has gone missing!  Why, why do bad things happen to good caches?!? You were too young to be archived  [bellows incoherently at heavens, rends garments]!!! 

Sigh.  Well, it had a good run.  In memoriam, here is a pic, the cache description, and the logs for LSL Combat. Oh, yeah, don't forget to play Boys II Men's "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday" while reading the post. Enjoy!

Cache Description:

My Dearest Mother,

I write this quick missive in the hope that it finds you well.  As you know, it is brother against brother and casualties are heavy on both sides.  Such is war.

Your repeated pleas to “walk away” from this stark, barren battlefield have not fallen upon deaf ears, I assure you.  I wish circumstances were different and I could simply sit and join you for a home cooked meal – I can smell your world famous sweet potatoes as I write this - but we are soldiers and we have a job to do.

 I implore you to have patience. This war cannot last forever and I will be with you and Father as soon as I am able.

Your Devoted Son,

Lt. Beauregard Snowurchin

P.S. Bobby is cheating again!  Make him stop!

Logs (latest to earliest):

snowurchin
  Archive
04/10/2016
Cache archived.

snowurchin
  Write note
04/10/2016
After reading the last comment, the seven year old and I visited GZ to see what was up. We are sad to report that the Geocache has been stolen... Well, maybe not stolen, but it's not there anymore. So it goes. :). Archiving this cache. Thanks for all the favorites, everyone!

latkinsonvarn
  Found it
04/09/2016
Found this container laying on the ground not inside a wooden box. Was hoping to see what was prize worthy. Tried to hide it a little better.

stumphunter
  Found it
02/27/2016
TFTC RAF

flowers22
  Found it
02/04/2016
Fantastic!

reineeann
  Found it
01/25/2016
Love it!

cjcj1515
  Found it
01/19/2016
Wow really cool! What a cold day for caching with the wind whipping at 20 some miles an hour, I dared the cold to claim Lone Star Park. Found the caches as promised. Thanks for the fun.

SNAP!!!
  Found it
12/13/2015
12/13/2015 12:47:00 PM #7517 [i]{details about this cache or event are in ORANGE below}[/i]
We are doing a major run through Lone Star Lakes Park doing maintenance on not only our caches but all others that we can find (or until we get too tired to continue). There were also several caches in the area that we have not found - might as well do them also while we are here!!! 
Once we find the cache we will:
a) Dry the cache out
b) Empty all trash or old and moldy stuff out of the cache
c) Examine the log for dryness and writability
d) Replace logs as needed
e) Repalce baggies as needed

Very quick find here. BUT... the cache was as expected. snowurchin always puts out great caches! So, we not only awarded this cache a favorite point BUT... named this cache as the WINNER.... of the "COVETED" SNAP!!! Cache of the Day Award!!! Congrats! 
SNAP!!! actually stands for "Suffolk Nana And Papa". We are a husband and wife team of cachers who really love both cemetery and historical caches. HEY!!! - if you are ever in the Suffolk, VA area - - - stop by and say hello - - - we are located at the last cache in the SNAP!!!-land geo-graffiti 
Thanks snowurchinfor the cache and the smile which made this a great day of caching!!!
check out our Geocaching blog at: SNAPgeocaching.Blogspot.com
:)

32obx
  Found it
12/11/2015
Couldn't resist getting outside on this beautiful day to grab a few caches. Loved the container! A lot of work went into this one! Thanks for placing.

silvertop1 
  Found it
12/08/2015
Another well constructed hide.
Gotta be a favorite.
Thanks snowurchin for the cache and the fun I had finding it.
Silvertop1

balloop
  Found it
11/29/2015
What a pleasant surprise to see this container after cresting the small hill. Well done and quite creative! No experience with that game. SL. TFTC. Took the TB.

grandad24
  Found it
11/04/2015
In town to attend a funeral, so a morning of geocaching in a park is a good way to reflect on life. Quick find. Thanks for placing this cache. Log was signed and returned as found.
This has to be the most unusual cache I have ever found. Funny write up, funny cache, and an uplifting moment. I really needed this type of cache this morning. Thanks a bunch. Instant favorite. Left TB Atlantic Slave Trade.

rg1334
  Found it
10/24/2015
Awesome find. Kids favorite one so far.

hairysojourner
  Found it
08/15/2015
Great hide! TFTC

DrMedicineWoman
  Found it
08/15/2015
Tftc!

teamziegler1
  Found it
08/15/2015
Did not think the container would look like that

gkygirl24
  Found it
08/07/2015
Tftc. Signed as Sammies. We had a fun afternoon exploring the park. Best find of the day... Maybe ever. Impressive container!!

episcodad
  Found it
08/07/2015
Another very creative snow urchin cache. Puzzled for a few moments as to where the cache was hidden until I read the hint. TFTC

GrandpaGene
  Found it
08/05/2015
Another easy to find masterpiece by Snowurchin! Be aware that water is pooling inside. SL for #5,927 and left a pink and white Mickie Frog. TFTC.

Lacey1961
  Found it
07/27/2015
Found for 4550. Another awesome container. The workmanship is outstanding. This is another one that would make a great milestone cache. It was a "midway" milestone for me.
I took a photo of it, for myself. And I sent a copy to bramatic. :) I can understand how she forgot. You get caught up in admiring the work. (And now that I'm at LSL, I think I'll grab a photo of Critical Cache, since I forgot when I found that one)
Thanks, snowurchin, for a very fun find. Favorite point.

bdramatic
 Write note
07/26/2015
snowurchin is gaining a much-deserved reputation for the outstanding containers he's put out! Just look at this one, for instance. So far, it's at 100% favorite rating! This (like the other 3 he's created) is a most creative container, and well worth the search. It's one of those containers that when you see it you know right away that you've found the cache. I meant to take a picture of it with my phone (NOT to post on my log, but just to keep for myself) but I found myself so excited about the find and marveling at the workmanship involved that I completely forgot to take the picture! Fantastic container! If I could give it more than 1 favorite I surely would!! :)

bdramatic
 Found it
07/26/2015
Had to wait until AFTER church but even after taking the VERY long way to gz I was still FTF. Will write more when I get home. Collected FTF prize coin, sl, and left signature PT. Thanks for another great hide!

Egg Drop Contraption

Another year, another egg drop contraption.

Like last year the goal was to build something that would let an uncooked jumbo egg survive a fall from the roof of my kid’s school onto the hardscrabble below. The rules were a little more strict than I remember them being last Spring but that really wouldn't end up affecting this year’s build.

We went to the Dollar Store to get drinking straws and any other stuff that might be useful. The boy noticed this rubber mesh mat stuff that I guess you could use to line your silverware drawer to prevent loose items from sliding around in there. It was cheap, springy, lightweight, and paintable.

Perfect!

I wanted to use the same box-within-a-box strategy that we used last time but keep it simpler. Since this year the rules expressly forbade using pre-made packing materials of any kind, I supposed foam shock absorbers would be disallowed so the inner box would need to be suspended by strings. A bag suspended within the inner box would hold the egg.

So… A simple shape… Maybe just cubes. But cubes are boring… Unless you play Minecraft like 90% of the kids in his school do… Hmmm…

Thus was born the design you see here. Like the last build, he did the straw cutting and spray painting. I did the glue work. Unlike the last build we did no testing – I didn't want to rebuild the thing multiple times or clean up the egg mess, regardless of how much he enjoyed seeing last year’s prototypes completely fail to save the egg.

And, also unlike last year, the egg smashed to smithereens on impact. I'm guessing the straws didn't have enough give to decelerate the egg just right to prevent its destruction. Good thing I don't design crumple zones for cars, eh?

Congressman: Mr. SnowUrchin. You have been called before this committee to testify as to why your company's 2017 Deathcube LS has a below-five-MPH crash survivability rating of one half of one percent.
Me:  We feel cheapness of materials and “coolness” are way more important than safety. That's why you can buy our cars in six-packs. Frankly, I'm shocked that more people aren't killed just through the act of turning on the windshield wipers. 
Congressman: (pause) I have no response to that.
Me: Can I go now?

For next year’s event the boy has already decided that he was going to team up with some classmates instead of building something at home.

I don't blame him. :)

Painting Update

I told you a while back about a painting the boy and I did using only materials we had in the garage. It was a fun project and when I saw that the local library was having a call for artwork under the theme “Imagine” we volunteered this painting, cuz, why not, you know?

We were delighted when they approved it and told us it would be on display there for the next two months.

Cool! 

We named it “100 Sunrises” and they asked if we were interested in putting a price on it in case anyone wanted to buy it. We both said “No.” at the same time. It was an easy choice.

They put it up in early January. There it is on display as Item #5 of seven.  It was the only one, it turns out, labeled NFS – not for sale.

A couple of weeks after it went up I got a call from the library asking if we would be interested in being interviewed by a regional paper about the piece. I gave the lady a tentative “Yes” but I wanted to run the idea by the seven-year-old first. I needn't have worried because when I asked him he said “Heck, yeah, I want to be interviewed by the paper!”

It was settled, then. We were doing the interview.

We showed up expecting the other artists and photographers with work in the exhibit to be there but it was just us, which was a little surprising. The interviewer asked a lot of questions and, initially at least, the boy’s answers were short and a little bit shy (I let him do most of the talking). The reporter (a mom) knew exactly how to tease information out of him and he warmed up quickly to her. She was a real professional and made it a fun experience for both of us.

After we were done talking she snapped a few pictures and let the wife help choose the best one. She then thanked us and said that the article would be out “next Thursday or the Thursday after that”.

In the car we asked him how he liked it and he said that it was fun but he “felt like his guts were going to jiggle out of him the whole time”.  Also, he said that “I thought some guy with blonde hair and a microphone was going to be there like on Fox News”. Not sure exactly what show that would be, but, anyway, he powered through his nerves and did awesome. I was very proud.

At home, the wife and I were discussing the interview and it hit us that she never asked the boy “the” question. You know, the one all adults ask kids: What do you want to be when you grow up?

Before I continue here I should assure you that the paragraph that follows is not embellished, exaggerated, hyperbolic, or an out-and-out lie. This happened exactly as I am about to describe it.

So we asked him “Hey, she never asked you what you wanted to be when you grow up. What would you have told her?”  He looked up from his Plants vs. Zombies “choose your own adventure” book and, deadpan, said “Well, by that time I expect that me and my army of clones will have taken over the world”, and went back to reading. The wife and I just stared at him for a bit and then at each other.

Oh. My. God. Where the hell did that even come from? I mean, that interview could have taken a dark, dark turn real quick but Providence intervened and the question was never asked.

A couple of weeks later the article was published and I raced around Hampton Roads during an extended lunch break buying up as many copies as I could scrounge (Like… six.  Noon is a little late in the day to be buying a paper it turns out.)

We showed him the beautifully written article and he was delighted to see his name and picture splashed across the page.

“Does this mean I'm famous,” he asked?  “Well… Sort of. Not like world famous or anything but..”

 "Maybe… city famous,” he guessed.

 “Sure, buddy. City famous.”  I smiled and he smiled. It was enough.

I mean, for now, amiright?  “Army of clones?!” Well, I guess us minions can rest easy in the knowledge that our future internment camps will have Legos and peanut butter and Nutella sandwiches…

Stop Thief!

About a year ago I was talking to my son about games. He asked me what my favorite board game was when I was growing up. Without hesitation I said “That’s easy. Stop Thief.”

“What is it,” the seven-year-old  asked.

“Well, it's this game where you had this electronic scanner thing that kind of looked like a phone. You would listen to clues like footsteps and breaking windows and try to figure out where the thief was in the city. Once you had enough clues you could arrest the bad guy. Sometimes they would get away from the cops and make a “nyah nyah nyah” sound and run like crazy. If you were lucky and we're paying attention to the sounds, you could figure out where they went. My brother and sister and I played it a lot. It was super fun.”

“Can we buy it?”

“No. They stopped making it about thirty years ago. I looked for it once on eBay but I would have had to buy two really expensive sets to make sure I had enough pieces to make up one good one.”

Fast forward many months to a little before Thanksgiving…

I called to let the wife know I was on my way home from work and I was skipping the gym that day. Normally this would be met with an “Ok” followed by a lively discussion about what foods neither of us were in the mood to have for dinner.  This time, though, the response  was a nearly exuberant “Sure! Ok! So you're coming straight home then?” followed by the not-so-subtle sound of a child trying to stop himself from giggling like crazy.

Something was up. “Okay. See you at home,” I said.

I got in the garage and I saw a note taped to door entering the house. I read (out loud as per the note’s instructions)  the oddly-metered poem describing a surprise and was permitted to put down my gear.  Right then, the boy snatched the note out of my hand and dashed off with a quick look behind that said “Chase me!”

Did I mention that they were both about to explode with excitement?  No?  Well, they were.

I gave chase and there he was at the chalkboard in my wife's office next to a note that said “LOOK DOWN”. A RedBox DVD was sitting there (“Meh…” I thought) alongside another poem.

Again the poem was read, and again it was snatched away, and again the boy ran off. I ran after him upstairs to the TV room and chased him behind the futon. There at my feet was the box you see in the upper left of this post.

“No… way…” I said. They both just beamed.

Earlier that day, apparently, they were at CHKD (a thrift store) dropping off some stuff. The wife was getting a tax receipt (cuz that totally, totally matters…) so the boy took the opportunity to browse. “Hey, mom,” he said. “Didn't dad say his favorite game when he was little was called Stop Thief?” 

“I don't know. I think so,” she said, distractedly.  After a bit of trying he was able to get her to turn around and he pointed to a black box with STOP THIEF emblazoned on it in big orange letters. The container looked like it was in good shape. Someone had scrawled the price on the cover in blue crayon. It was marked down to $10 from $20.

"Can we get it for dad?”  At ten bucks, there was little to lose, so she answered “Yes”.

They got it home and inventoried the contents - everything was clean and neat and seemed to be there with the exception of two cards.  Not too sure how they did that… I think the boy actually went through the process of comparing the pictures on the box art to the actual contents. Anyway, a quick check with a nine volt battery showed them the scanner at least turned on but, since they had absolutely no idea what bleeps and bloops to expect, they removed the battery and put everything back.

“Now, I think we should give this to Daddy for Christmas,” the wife said. “Do you think you can keep it a secret until then?”

“No,” he immediately returned, “No way.”

So they came up with the sweet, silly way of presenting it to me I told you about.

The “missing” cards do not detract from the gameplay whatsoever and everything is in great shape. The scanner was clean and looked new. The money wasn't even bent and the instruction manual looked nearly untouched.

Remember when electronics came with overly helpful instruction manuals?  Sigh. That ruled.  In typical 1979 fashion, the manual described every possible game operation in excruciatingly enjoyable detail. Any question you could come up with, the answer is there. Flipping through it is pretty much like getting a hug. In the meantime I type this on a device with a kajillion purposes, each and every one awesome and futuristic and infuriating and nearly-but-not-quite functional, and documented only by way of slightly-less-confused-than-you “experts” disagreeing with each other on a forum out there somewhere about exactly how easy it is to root your device to  install a series of non-vetted third-party apps that might allow you to do something as mind-blowingly complicated as “printing a damn document from the damn device I just wrote the damn thing on for crissakes”.

Well, that paragraph took an ugly turn… Get off my lawn!

Gameplay is exactly how I remember it. I was surprised and delighted at how quickly I fell into re-mastering the game.  The wife insists on using a notepad to write down possible locations of the thief. While she does this, the boy and I “patiently” wait for our turn to come around (read: sigh heavily, roll eyes).

Two months ago the boy stumbled on a ruthless solution to this game. I won't spoil it, but he takes advantage of an imbalance in gameplay that exists  when only two people are playing. His method involves giggling maniacally while bankrupting his opponent (me) as soon as he can, despite protests like “Dude! That's not cool.” and “Oh, come ON we’re supposed to be catching a thief, here!”

The game has since been played dozens of times and will forever occupy a place on my Shelf of Cherished Items at my writing desk.

Thanks again guys! You rule!