Studious, yet dashing
Bam Bam has a ton of kitschy, yet fantastic tee shirts. The above was a gift from Grammie, which included a second, larger duplicate shirt. You know what they say…kids grow up so fast!!! It was purchased at Old Navy. If you go, don’t forget to get multiple sizes for long-lasting enjoyment!
Here are a few other wonderfully geeky shirts for good measure…
EXTERMINATE!!!!
I’m here every Thursday. Try the veal!
I’ve climbed to the highest peak of Mount Knitting, and now I’m taking a brief respite to enjoy the view that overlooks Yarn Gully. That’s right – I’m halfway there, precisely 50% done! I can report this fact with complete certainty because I made a chart to track my knitting progress. Yeah, I’m that guy.
The scarf is now way longer than both of my kids, and it’s getting pretty close to passing me out as well.
Highlights:
The biggest and most exciting news is that Toni Carr, author of Knits for Nerds, found my posts last week and wrote some very kind words of encouragement! What an awesome surprise! This will surely keep me motivated through the second half of the project.
Overall, this project is turning out to be a blast! Much more so than I could have imagined. Knit on!
Previously:
Wow! This real life Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle party wagon is sooo cool, and I bet the owner would have totally dug my recent Playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Like a Boss post! It’s too bad I didn’t leave a note for him or her. It could have been my first interview!
The zombie apocalypse is fast approaching! Late night viewings of “The Walking Dead” followed by mornings waking up next to zombie wife (think “Groundhog Day” meets “Dawn of the Dead”) serve as constant reminders to live each day as if it was my last.
Get a glimpse of your own zombified loved ones with these zombie sleep masks for sale at the Boing Boing online store.
While my wife and I were getting rid of some old and broken toys, I managed to squirrel away a few things for my toy robot that I hope to someday make. Today’s additions include:
I should probably be on the lookout for some core body parts. Suggestions welcome!
I loved watching Mr. Bean when I was a kid. The Christmas episode, Merry Christmas Mr. Bean, was one of my favorites and always had me in stitches. I hadn’t seen it in years, so I pulled it up last night to watch and share with my family. It was all extremely familiar to me, until the Dalek appeared. I couldn’t believe it! I have absolutely zero memory of seeing the Dalek before. Granted, when I was a kid I never watched Doctor Who and didn’t know what a Dalek was until I was much older, but I didn’t remember there being a robot at all. I remembered the truck, dinosaur, tank, helicopter, and all the animals, but no robot. It’s so strange, it’s as if the Dalek was just added into the scene. It’s funny how your brain forms and categorizes memories depending on your frame of reference, or lack thereof, for certain things. Anyway, if you haven’t seen this, you must. Classic Mr. Bean at his best. You can watch the full episode on hulu. Enjoy!
Well, it’s been one week since I started my Knits for Nerds: Doctor Who scarf knitting project. According to my estimates, it is 18% complete. Here’s what I learned thus far:
So far, so good. No major mistakes or hangups. My daughter likes to click the clicker for me, which is really cute, but now I have to watch she doesn’t run off with it. She wants to knit, too, but I told her she’s still too young. Really, I just don’t want to get schooled by a four-year old. Of course, I do want to include her as much as possible, so instead we picked out three colors of yarn to make a friendship bracelet. After some instruction from daddy, she made me proud by weaving the rest of it herself. I thought she would lose interest, but she could see it coming together and became excited.
The other day I was pulling out some christmas decorations in the basement, and when I leaned on an old lamp, the base of it just completely broke apart and I nearly went headlong over it. Don’t worry, I escaped unscathed and live to tell the story. I was about to take it out to the trash when I realized I may be able to salvage some parts. I’ve been wanting to build my kids homemade robots for some time now, but I never seem to have enough materials lying around to work with. Even though the lamp is a good start, I’m still going to need a lot more parts, so I’m dedicating a box in the basement for random robot parts, and whenever I come across something I think may be useful, I’ll just toss in the box. Hopefully, I’ll look in that box someday after amassing enough random roboty junk, and I’ll be struck with inspiration to build the perfect robots for my kids. Better than Wall-E and Number 5! (Notice that I set the bar much lower than R2D2 and 3CPO, ’cause they’re the best!)
We stopped in to see Santa during his visit at the Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA) museum in Hershey. He ditched his usual sleigh for the day. Check out his new ride:
My kids must have sensed something was off when Santa arrived in an old convertible, without Rudolph and the rest of the reindeer gang, because today neither of them would sit on his lap, and usually they fight over who gets to go first.
It was my first time in the AACA museum, and unfortunately, with all the hubbub around Santa, I ended up having to rush through all of the exhibits. I’ll definitely be going back to more throughly explore the entire museum. If nothing else, I need to get another look at the 1920 Ford Model A “Car-Toon” Truck. The entire car is detailed with thousands of cartoons, comic book characters, and movie personalities, using brush and airbrush techniques. It’s fun and quite amazing to stare at it for a few moments and then begin to focus in on all of the dozens of characters. I only had a minute to see it, although I could easily have spent an hour or so soaking it all in.
Click here to find more images of the Car-Toon truck. What famous personalities or fictional characters can you spot? Go ahead and list them in the comments. I call Spock!
Bonus question: What is the make of Santa’s car?
This is my first update on my Doctor Who scarf project. It turns out that you can’t just sit down for the very first time and expect to start knitting. I’m not sure who gave me that idea, but whoever it was, they were grossly misinformed. Like most things, there is a learning curve involved. You have to practice first and acquire an adequate base skill level, figuring out what works, making mistakes, fixing mistakes, all while struggling to develop a natural rhythm and the necessary muscle memory. I learned this lesson right off the bat.
First attempt – Lumpy Space Princess?
That being said, I am currently a knitter in training, working on my craft with intensity whenever I can grab a few spare minutes. You could equate such training to Rocky Balboa prepping for his mammoth fight against Ivan Drago, except that I am actually Russian…so, flip it. Never mind, it was a bad analogy anyway.
I started on size 10.5 needles and after a few failed attempts, I actually started to become fairly comfortable.
See, getting much better!
I just moved to the suggested size 8 needles as indicated in the book.
Size 8. That hole is intentional. It serves to anchor the piece.
I’d like to actually start knitting by December 1st, a nice and neat date. I’ll need a little more practice with the size 8 chopsticks (sounds better than needles, eh?), then I’ll need to figure out how in the world to change colors on the fly. Yikes, better get back to training…
Secret Dad Society 