Tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day

The Saturday is Free Comic Book Day! 

If you're NOT in Seattle, check out http://www.freecomicbookday.com/Home/1/1/27/992 for locations near you!

If you ARE in Seattle, you are in luck! Arcane Comics and More in Ballard  will be celebrating Free Comic Book Day  from 10 AM - 8PM.  There will be free comic books for readers of all ages and everything in the shop is on sale for 10% off.

Parenting Geekly will be there celebrating the blog's 3rd Anniversary from 10-2 with face painting, balloons and treats!

 

For more information visit:
http://www.arcanecomicbooks.com/

http://www.parentinggeekly.com
http://www.freecomicbookday.com/Home/1/1/27/992

Dean Kamen, humanitarian inventor and...soda machine revolutionary?

Dean Kamen is a pretty swell guy.  He's the inventor of the Segway, a wheelchair that can climb stairs and a water purifier that make some of the most contaminated water drinkable. 

Nathan got a strawberry Fanta.  I got a Cherry Vanilla Coke Zero.  They were delicious.

Nate is currently doing his 6th grade biography project on Kamen, and recently asked me if we could make a trip to Taco Time as part of his "research".  The Taco Time near our house was a pretty popular place a few years ago when they introduced the area's first Coca-Cola "Freestyle" machine.  A computerized, touch-screen soda fountain that offers over 125 beverage flavors.  It was invented by Dean Kamen.

At first I was hesitant to believe Nate.  Why would Dean Kamen, a humanitarian, make such a "silly" innovation?  It turns out that several years ago, Coke approached him and asked to sponsor his FIRST program, a project aimed at getting kids involved in STEM education.  Kamen, however, saw Coke being able to help him with a different project, giving children everywhere access to clean water.  In a bit of a "I'll scratch your back..." maneuver  he used technology he had already created for chemotherapy machines and created the Freestyle.

You can read more about it here: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/oct2009/id2009107_810817.htm

Life Advice from Superheroes

I just saw this "Awesome Life Advice from Your Favorite Superheroes" article and got all excited!  Cool!  Advice from Superheroes!  And in Reader's Digest of all places!  ...and then I read it and was disappointed.  Sure, there are a few gems in there, but seems like someone over at RD grabbed a stack of random comics and took any ol' quote that could be kinda construed as advice.  I don't really think the person who wrote this was all that comic savvy, either.  Who wants advice from Darkseid or Doc Ock?

http://www.rd.com/slideshows/awesome-life-advice-from-your-favorite-superheroes/

That being said, I know many of you have gleaned some great life lessons from comics.  I know Parenting Geekly readers can do better than this lame list.  They don't have to be quotes, just any lessons or advice you've learned from your favorite comic books.  Leave it in the comments and if we get enough responses I'll compile them into a new post.

Happy Pi Day!

It's March 13th here in the US, which means it's Pi Day!  (They celebrate on April 31 in parts of the world where they abbreviate the date by putting the day first)  This year, Pi Day is also a Palindrome (3.14.13 is the same backwards and forwards!)...it's so mathtastic!

Image from sciencebuzz.com

We celebrated by attending Pi Day at the kids' school.  We are so lucky to be at a school where we have a Math Committee and parents who are into promoting STEM in our school.  The kids played math games, had programming stations set up with Chromebooks and Raspberry Pis.  They had tangrams, card games, oragami lessons and math packets.  We celebrated with a pie potluck and our Assistant Principal took a pie to the face to raise some funds for our parent group.  Super fun was had by all.

How did you celebrate Pi Day?

Get your tickets for Emerald City Comicon

I've been meaning to remind you all for awhile, but if you are anywhere near-ish to Seattle you should really consider checking out Emerald City Comicon.  This year's Comicon is March 1st through the 3rd.

This is one of my favorite events of the year.  We've gone every year since its inception and it's bigger and better every time.  It's really become a pop-culture convention, much like San Diego, but thanks to it's smaller size and scope is still very doable for families.

Tickets can be purchased here: http://www.emeraldcitycomicon.com/tickets/  or at many local comic shops, including my favorite: Arcane Comics and More.

Happy New Year!

So, remember when I said I was going to start posting more often and I totally lied?  Sorry about that!  It seems that making the transition to working outside of the home has been a bit more difficult than I thought it would be. That, and when the people at the school told me "You'll get paid for 19 hours, but you'll wind up 'volunteering' for more than that" -- they weren't kidding.  I totally love my job, though, and I've even been able to geek it up a little.

I was horrified by the massive amounts of paper that went out in our first day of school packet and my tiny contribution was to make our family directory submission form an online Google form.  Not only did this save more than a ream of paper it totally eliminated the step of having to data-enter all of the parent information by hand.  It was all dumped into a spreadsheet. That became a bit stressful as I looked at  the crazy spreadsheet full of messy data and realized I was going to have to make sense of it. Super-Dad saved the day and geeked it up even further by writing a PERL  perl (SD has informed me that it should be all lower-case) script to parse the data so that I could pretty it up quickly.  My hope is to convince the parents that we can host the directory online next year (something many of them are wary of) to save even more paper.

Nate gets to go skiing as part of school's Winter Enrichment Program. The school schleps 250+ kids up to a ski resort once a week for six weeks. You guys, skiing is expensive! Between the ski lessons, the charter bus, paying our share of chaperone tickets, a season lift pass and new gloves, a coat, goggles and renting equipment for a season we are probably close to having dropped $800.  I'm super glad that he gets the opportunity but the first line of the welcome packet should say "Welcome to Middle School, give us all your money!".

Kit turns six (six!!! What happened to my tiny baby?) in a few weeks.  After a lively pirate unit in Kindergarten that culminated in watching a performance of "Treasure Island", she's decided that she would like a pirate party.  I'm pretty excited to plan this one.  I have found some sweet printables for decor, and I'm thinking we'll have a Decorate Your Eye Patch Station and some sort of treasure hunt.  I think I may be more excited than she is.

Nate did a little modeling for Zulily.com.  He really enjoys it, and I enjoy making Zoolander jokes.

Next up for Nate: "The Nate Feliciano School for Kids who Don't  Read Good and Want to do Other Stuff Good  Too"

What have you guys been up to?

Elmo will live on.

If you read this blog you probably know that I am HUGE Sesame Street fan.  One of the highlights of my "Life List" (instead of a morbid "Bucket List" I prefer to keep track of the cool things I've already had a chance to do) is meeting Kevin Clash, Elmo's puppeteer

The news today that Clash has resigned his post has left me heartbroken.  Not because of Elmo, as Sesame Workshop said in a statement: 

"Elmo is bigger than any one person and will continue to be an integral part of 'Sesame Street' to engage, educate and inspire children around the world," 

We all adjusted to "new" Kermit, and after a few episodes and some time, kids won't notice a difference with Elmo either.  Clash has created a legacy with Elmo that will survive his leaving.  Though, I'm sure giving up performing Elmo will cause him some grief.  I'm pretty sure Elmo has a life of his own, and I
m pretty sure Clash loves him.

I'm more upset because Clash was a huge part of the Sesame Workshop team.  He co-executive produced Sesame Street, and was the Muppet Captain on the show.  Footage from the documentary Being Elmo  shows Clash traveling around the world to teach international versions of his signature Muppet how to, well...Be Elmo.

Sesame Workshop is one of my favorite organizations.  They offer free early-childhood education to kids around the world.  They teach kids internationally about social issues that matter to them.  In the United States they have recently launched initiatives to help military families deal with Iraq-War related injuries, with learning to save money and ending childhood obesity.  In Israel, Pakistan and Jordan they teach children about cultural diversity, in Africa they teach kids about AIDS.  They are a fantastic organization, and losing Clash is a sad moment for them and the children they serve.

I don't know if the accusations made against Clash are true or not. I met Clash last year, and I didn't get a single sinister vibe from the guy. On the contrary, he was one of the nicest and most gracious people I've ever met.  Regardless, it's a real loss for kids everywhere.

As Super-Dad said of the situation:  "It sucks when stuff like this happens."

To read about when I met Elmo click here.
To donate to Sesame Workshop click here.