More than Toys

The movie Toy Story became an instant classic for many reasons, but mostly because it showed us something that we all instinctively know to be true....some toys are more than just toys.

For me it was a circa 1960 stuffed animal I called "Mr. Minky".  He looked pretty much like this guy.

I'm told I was a precocious imp who started talking early, so Minky and I must have gone way back.  Many years later when helping my parents move I found him.  He was down in the basement in a never visited cubby under some stairs.  Mildewed, plastic crumbling, his vapid simian expression was still happy.  Into the dumpster he went.  As I had a brother actively hauling crap back out for dubious sentimental reasons there is a slim chance that he moulders on somewhere.

My own lads seemed less into this sort of thing.  Oh, somebody decided to make them into sensitive modern males and got them a baby doll.  "Baby Mike" ended up being used as a hammer, and sometimes for more advanced experiments that involved falling long distances.  This is probably the sort of thing that gets reported nowadays, but the kids all turned out fine.

Seeing things through grandparent eyes is different.  You are so focused on not missing a single moment that assorted minor characters are noticed.  Toys, or more than toys, appear, have their day and fade into obscurity.

First came Possum.  He was actually some kind of dog toy.  He had not one but two "squeakers".  This made for considerable amusement when he was for instance hiding in Grandpa's back pocket.  Every time I sat down there would be a squeak and I'd leap up trying to figure out where Possum was hiding.  Possum developed a mischievous streak after a bit.  One time he danced across a ledge gleefully pushing things off.  The eldest grandchild was shocked...."Possum, why did you DO that?!".  He had a brief revival with GC2, but has now vanished.

Obviously characters like Possum are my fellow players in the constant "Grandpa Show" that has been running for years.  Not quite puppets, they have their own personas.  The current co-star is Doll Baby.  Here she is:

Doll Baby has the strongest personality of all my Comedic Foils*, perhaps reflecting the Indomitable Will of her owner.  And to put it as kindly as possible, Doll Baby is a Stinker.  Hugs, kisses, Doll Baby hands then out with abandon to all.  Except to Grandpa.  With me she'll peer in close, pause, then give me audible "raspberries" every time.  Or she'll use her one extended thumb to methodically pick her nose.  If I get up from the table to get something from the kitchen she'll steal my chair every time.  

Sigh.

Like Possum before her Doll Baby is something of a stock character.  I think of her as a version of the "clever servant" that dates back to Greek Theater with an upgrade of 1930's wise cracking kid, of which examples abound.

She seems to be enjoying her moment of fame.  As she should.  As fellow stock figures destined to become a distant, fond memories she and I are actually on the same side, although you'd not know it from her horrid behaviour.

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* Foil is a very interesting word.  In the sense of theatrics a foil is a secondary character that highlights the main cast member.  It comes from the practice of putting a thin layer of shiny metal on the back of a jewel to make it shine brighter.  Foil in the sense of a thin piece of metal comes from the Latin folia meaning leaf.  See also, foliage.  Foil in the sense of "Curses, foiled again" has an entirely different etymology.  Said to be circa 1300 it comes from foilen a French word that means roughly to mess up a trail by stomping around on it.  Oddly this goes back further to Latin, really what doesn't,  fullare, which means to tread on cloth.....although oddly in this sense to clean it.  

Enigma

Fingers crossed that the 2021-22 school year begins and continues on a more normal basis.

For two decades - missing only the Plague Year of 2020 - I have taught classes in the middle school's afterschool program.  The longest running was Machines Behaving Badly, now retired as the technology has become outdated and anyway we've started to just bump the smarter 8th graders up to the high school team.  I've also done assorted Advanced Robotics classes, some of which worked well, others not so much.  I even did a couple rounds of Dungeons and Dragons, and was gratified when another fellow picked this up and kept it running for years.  But what to do this fall?

Of course I'm hoping that the high school robotics team keeps meeting so doing the double Tuesday/Thursday option as in MBB is off the table.  So for a casual, flexible concept I've come up with something I call "Enigma".

This will be a series of one hour sessions where a small group of kids solves puzzles.  Really tricky puzzles.  I'm thinking cryptography, gps based scavenger hunts, riddles, crosswords, foreign language translation and who knows what.  The goal each week will be to learn something new, and to successfully identify a five letter code that unlocks this:

It's a wooden treasure chest, made long ago by one of my sons.  It now has a special padlock that allows me to change the combination.  And what's inside?  Actually even I won't know.  The program staff will take care of that.  I'm hoping Cheezits and Little Debbie cakes.  You won't greatly motivate kids with the conventional healthy fruits n' fiber snacks they are usually stuck with.

After perhaps six sessions I'll have the group switch over from puzzle solvers to puzzle creators.  Using what they have learned they will put together a multi stage code breaking, trivia, mapping challenge......and pose it to an all star team of teachers and administrators.  Who will prove to be smarter?

Other than my own amusement there is a point to this silliness.  I want kids to think.  Independently and critically.  To that end I am going to purposely include errors in some of the messages.  That's the real world.  Or, the messages will just look like errors and they will have to trust their work.  I'll ask a lot of questions.  And when they give me an answer - let's say a correct one - I will look at them over my glasses and ask skeptically: "Really?  Are you sure about that?"

My hope is that they will learn to look me right in the eye and confidently say: "Yep.  Very Sure".

That's the general direction.  In my course intro I am going to emphasize the point that I am not trying to make them into sneaky people.  No, what I'm trying to do is get their brains better able to figure out a world chock full of codes and puzzles.  And is there any time where they all make less sense than middle school?

In the interests of transparency, and because they might be of general interest, I'll be publishing the quizzes and best answers in abbreviated form in the weeks ahead.   Who knows,  maybe somebody out there will want to take this idea and run with it. 

Deer Hunting 2021 - Part Two, Zeroing In.

I am always intrigued by pursuits where my assorted interests overlap.  It makes things more fun.  Consider the physics of marksmanship.  Well, I can't consider it deeply because in such matters I am just smart enough to see the questions and a measly few of the answers.

But sending a projectile a reasonable distance for northern Wisconsin deer hunting (100 yards give or take a bit) with sufficient accuracy is not straightforward.  Gravity kicks in at some point and straight lines will betray you.  This assumes you can aim straight to start with, a dubious assumption for this tyro, and that your rifle was accurately sighted in.

And on that point....when I bought a rifle earlier this year the shop was too darned busy to put the scope on and sight it for me.  My son helped me a bit, but now it is time to fine tune.

Step one:  I got this nifty little laser.  It fits inside the barrel and will give you that straight line "bore sight" accuracy.  

In general lasers will work to sight things at 25 yards.  Beyond that the reflected red dot probably can't be seen well enough.  Unless......

What you see above is a dot of a special "retro reflective" tape made by 3M.  We use it in robotics applications.  Instead of sending the light back in a haphazard fashion it bounces it directly back.  In its extreme applications I've heard you can bounce a laser off a target left on the moon and detect its return.  So, 100 yards seems pretty doable.

And off to the woods.  I decided to set up in an area we actually hunt in.  This time of year there is nobody around and the sight lines and backstops are good.  Plus, its a real world test, albeit with a lot more leaves this time of year.  Here the rifle is secured on a stable bench, aiming at that blue target.  I set it 55 yards away.

Although the laser reflection was absolutely Eye of Sauron bright at that distance, and in fact would have been out much farther, centering the cross hairs on it did not put me on target. 

The reasons for this are probably multiple.  There is more laser scatter than I expected.  So although you will get a flash back at a long range it is not guaranteed to be a perfectly straight line.  Also, seeing as I am missing low, there could be some gravity involved.  But mostly I suspect its my inexperience as a new shooter with a new rifle.  Well, you adjust the scope with the rifle locked down, dialing the cross hairs to where the shots are clustering.  After a bit of fiddling and a new target, things were looking better.

From the lock down times we have a bunch of carryout pizza boxes on hand.  They make an excellent final target.

And the results?  Well to make it realistic I of course had to take the rifle off the bench and fire it normally.  Three rounds quickly from a sitting position at a plausible deer hunting range.

I consider this to be quite good considering my newness to hunting and it being the first time I've ever sighted in a rifle.  It should put food on the table.  And not pizza.

Ongoing practice of course is needed, and I will walk it out to 100 yards next time.

Deer Hunting 2021 - Part One, Gearing Up.

Preparations for Family Deer Camp seem a bit haphazard this year.  Of course that just means that last year we had way too much time on our hands!  But there are Things to be Done and the end of summer means it is time to get at them.

I've had trail cams out intermittently.  They are cheap units and so are not going to have long range or great sensitivity.  Sometimes they show you things:

The deer really like that tree in the center of the frame.  I caught multiple images of them using it, as above, to scratch their butts!

Other places I've set up the cams have shown little.  This despite my seeing quite a few of the critters standing around the area looking right at me. 

Last year we had a deer that appeared to come up and lick the trail cam.  While changing batteries just now I noticed this:

Somebody, given the bite size I suspect a porcupine, decided to have a nibble!  It must have been from behind or even with this level of electronics quality we'd have had an interesting picture.  Maybe some of the shots of empty woods happened when the camera was being gnawed on.  That might set off the motion sensor.

A couple of important matters needed attending to.  Hunting permits are an online deal, and this year's sign up involved several time zones, babysitting grandkids, etc.   With assorted electronics deployed we were able to get the requisite (non) paperwork accomplished.

I feel as if my success last year involved a mixture of luck and persistence leavened with only trace elements of skill.  I need to be a better marksman both in the interest of Tasty Vension for the freezer and to be humane to the deer.  Nobody wants to wound a critter that runs off and is not found.  A degree of judgement is required.  Sometimes you should just wish a deer at long range or in deep cover a good evening and keep waiting.  And as in all things, practice makes you better. 

So I was very happy to see this notice at the local Scheel's store!

That's gonna help.  Stay tuned for Part Two.....

 

 

 

On the Back Fence

Hops are an interesting life form.  We might be able to learn from them.

The Male variant:

"Behold, are we not frilly and magnificent!"

And the Female:

"Happy and plump.  Soon time for beer".

A few weeks later we can reflect on the transience of beauty as the guys age and fail...

The Tooth Fairy is a Scam

I don't recall for sure what I got from the Tooth Fairy when I was a single digit tyke.  I seem to remember nice shiny dimes under the pillow in the morning but all memories from a half century ago must be regarded as suspect.  I understand my grandkids are doing considerably better in the business.

And if it is a business, well, the Tooth Fairy is a scamster on the level of the shadiest of Nigerian Princes.

We lose 20 baby teeth.  If I got a dime a piece and invested it at what once was a reasonably expected 7% annually.  I'd now have the (not Nigerian) princely sum of $83.

And let me tell ya, when through bad luck, bad heredity and just maybe a few foolish things like crimping fishing sinkers you have a tooth that cracks badly enough to be extracted?

$83 bucks won't get you far.

Well there is a time for economy and a time to (oops, not gonna bite any bullets!) do what needs doing.  With the aid of lots of IV sedation I can report that the entire procedure might just as well have happened to somebody else.

And my better half wrote the check before I returned to this planet, so that's helpful.  I burned a few spousal credits on this deal, probably putting me back to negative numbers after - I swear - months of being an absolute paragon.

A Dubious Bargain

 Here's something I saw on my morning walk the other day.  It raises questions.

The simplest answer is usually the correct one.  I checked, and it is not illegal to own or to sell poisonous snakes in Wisconsin.  So I guess if you really wanted a deadly reptile, and did not have a spouse, children or other pets that you were overly fond of, heck $25 seems like a great deal!

On the other hand, when I google searched Pit Vipers for sale I got page after page of a fancy brand of sun glasses by that name.  The prices were all over the place.  Some special edition versions were over $100.  Other, plainer versions more like $50.  So perhaps this would be a bargain if what you got were brand name, not cheap knockoffs.  

I suppose I should have called the number and asked, but to be honest neither transaction appeals to me.