Re Education Puns

Finally a turn in the right direction.

Because sin90 = cot45

Not completely sure this is a dadjoke but it sure got the same reaction. This happened about two years ago.

My wife used to work nights and on Friday and Saturday after she went to work, my then-12yo son and I would often watch a movie together. Sometimes he picked, usually it was a movie from The List, movies I liked when I was his age, things that shaped my sense of humor. I want him to be able to recognize the stupid quotes and references I throw at him. It’s his cultural education.

So we settled in for Groundhog Day. I’m a sucker for time travel shenanigans. Finished it up, he enjoyed it, and the next morning he was off to Boy Scout camp for a week.

He came back, we’re all excited to see him, and I tell him I got Groundhog Day 2 from Netflix. Threw it in the DVD player and we got about 20 minutes into before he looked at me and said “this is just Groundhog Day all over again, isn’t it? There is no Groundhog Day 2.”

So worth an extra week hanging onto the disc.

Back a few decades, I was working in a program with a local college in the Middle East.

The name of the program for ExPats has the clever acronym of "IDEA" (hey, I said it was clever); which stands for "Inter-Departmental Educational Adjunct". It's interdepartmental because my particular specialty not only covers field geology but also paleontology and a bit of archeology thrown in for good measure. Everyone hopes to have a good IDEA...

ahem...

Well, we saddle up and head for the Dune Sea out in the west of the country, where the Precambrian, Cambrian, Silurian, Cretaceous, Pliocene, Pleistocene, and Holocene crop out and access is relatively easy and non-injurious.

Well, we caravan out, some 30 Land Cruisers, Nissan patrol, and the odd Mitsubishi Galloper strong. We all get our maps, compasses and split up into 5 or 6 special interest groups ("SIG's"); where each IDEA has his own GPS and LIDAR laser ranging apparatus. Reason being, that there are very few benchmarks out in the desert, and even those are constantly at the mercy of the shifting and ever-blowing sands.

Since we're split into groups and at any one time, ranging up to and including some 50 km2, when a real find is located, a device called the "DIME" (Digital-Interface Monitor Encoder) is attached and programmed into the GPS for location later; it is a digital sort of low-frequency transponder, developed from technology used by offshore drillers and jacket setters where benchmarks are even more transitory.

The way it works is rather simple. When something is to be marked for later retrieval, a series of wooden posts are pounded in a triangular manner around the find and the DIME is set, programmed with the GPS and attached to one or more of the posts.

That's the theory, at least.

Everything works well, especially all the hardened electronics and computer gizmos, but attaching the DIME to the stakes is the real problem. It can't be nailed, screwed or fastened with any sort of metal contrivance as that farkles the magnetic field and causes all sorts of goofy spurious signals. Zip ties don't last long in the heat and duct tape is right out. Many sites have been lost to the shifting sands this way.

Velcro doesn't work too well, as the sand fills the hooks of the receiving piece of velcro and soon renders it useless. String or fishing line work, but that's temporary (they melt). Glue or mastic are out as these are supposed to be temporary. Even plastic sleeves don't work due to the heat out

Family and I were having a conversation at dinner last night. My sister was educating us about violin equipment prices and such.

Grandpa: Wait, so you're telling me violin bows can cost up to $15,000?

Sister: Yeah, they're really expensive!

Dad: Well I guess if you didn't have one, the music would sound like bowcrap.

When I was in high school, I babysat 2 boys (who at the time of this story, were aged 7 and 10) for some extra cash. One day I was eating dinner with the family when the younger brother said that he couldn't wait to be in the fourth grade like his older brother.

"It's not that great," said the older one. "Once you're in the fourth grade, you have to read a bunch of books for a summer reading log and write a report on one." (In my county, there are mandatory summer assignments, the most common ones are English assignments.)

Their dad said, "Summer projects are good! They help stimulate your brain over the summer! If you don't brush up on your education for those three months, you could lose all of your smartness and never get it back!"

Older brother: "Yeah right. And how did you find that out?"

Me: "Well, they do say that firsthand experience is the best way to learn."