A New Way to Annoy the Kids

[Spock]

I just figured out something that will provide hours of fun (for me).

(Over) using 1960's and 1970's slang with a few other older slang thrown in for good measure.

I tried it out on the youngest one and it processed nicely. I can't wait until the older ones are home from work.

It is going to be a Gas. I don't know if they will dig it or not.

I had thought that "Hepcat" was from that time, but I guess it was from earlier-but I still am going to use it. Hepcat seemed to bug him the most.
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This should work better than my other favorite Bug the Kids thing.

"I wish I was a fish again, swimming in Lake Michigan."

Friends recently went salmon fishing in lake Michigan, so I got to use it in context.

[Estonut]

"I wish I was a fish again, swimming in Lake Michigan."

They are annoyed by bad grammar?

[TheConfessor]

People who get their kicks by annoying others are what polluted this community and chased away 99% of the Bored members. I don't know why you'd also want to do that to your kids.

[Spock]

People who get their kicks by annoying others are what polluted this community and chased away 99% of the Bored members. I don't know why you'd also want to do that to your kids.

Hang Loose, Man.

[TheConfessor]

People who get their kicks by annoying others are what polluted this community and chased away 99% of the Bored members. I don't know why you'd also want to do that to your kids.

Hang Loose, Man.

Fo shizzle, homeslice.

[Beebs52]

Homie don't play dat.

[MarleysGh0st]

People who get their kicks by annoying others are what polluted this community and chased away 99% of the Bored members. I don't know why you'd also want to do that to your kids.

On the other hand, this may be the only non-political thread of the day (at least, until the usual suspects hijack it).

[Spock]

With 4 trips across the Dakotas (the long way) in the next 11 days with various iterations of family members along as we take the Spocklette to her engineering camp and pick her up, I have been informed that I will not be allowed to play this game in the car. Yeah, good luck stopping me now.

However, I can always pull out my trump card which was my original plan and drone on and on about the various iterations of the Great Sioux Nation-ie Dakota/Nakota/Lakota and Mdwekanton/Wahpekute/Sisseton/Wahpeton/Oglala etc.

My kids love to say Wahpekute.

I just read a book that filled in a lot of gaps for me on the Missouri River Sioux-so I can be really dangerous

I should be able to get a lot of mileage out of the Yankton Chief -"Smutty Bear"-who I had never heard of before.

[Spock]

I have put a marker down and we will be visiting the International Vinegar Museum in Roslyn, SD.

http://www.internationalvinegarmuseum.com/

[Vandal]

Homie don't play dat.

[Spock]

My relevant reading for the trip is a history of the cattle industry in South Dakota. I am going to be chock full of fascinating anecdotes on the drive west (and east).

There is still room in the car for anyone interested.

[Spock]

Littlest Spock provided me with one of the highlights of the trip.

We saw an older sign for "Wonderland Cave" and he asked what Wonderland Cave was. He realized his mistake as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

My response-"It is like a Wonderland inside." That was a top-ten parenting moment for me-I almost want that one on my headstone.

He got me back twice though. We were following a car in the Black Hills and I did not recognize the license plate in front of us and I asked if anybody could see what state was in front of us. As soon as I said it, I wondered if anybody would catch the opening and sure enough-Littlest Spock chimed in with "South Dakota"-OK, touche, he was proud of himself for making a "Dad' Joke.

He also got me on the way home-We stopped for gas and the 3 got ice cream cones-I wanted one but not when I drove-i said it would have been really good, but not when I drive.

I had previously mentioned that my highlight was the Wonderland Cave moment and a few miles down the road-he said his highlight was eating the ice cream-"It was so good on 100 plus degree day, it was the best ice cream cone ever." OK, you got me, I have taught you well, Grasshopper.

[Spock]

With 4 trips across the Dakotas (the long way) in the next 11 days with various iterations of family members along as we take the Spocklette to her engineering camp and pick her up, I have been informed that I will not be allowed to play this game in the car. Yeah, good luck stopping me now.

However, I can always pull out my trump card which was my original plan and drone on and on about the various iterations of the Great Sioux Nation-ie Dakota/Nakota/Lakota and Mdwekanton/Wahpekute/Sisseton/Wahpeton/Oglala etc.

My kids love to say Wahpekute.

I just read a book that filled in a lot of gaps for me on the Missouri River Sioux-so I can be really dangerous

I should be able to get a lot of mileage out of the Yankton Chief -"Smutty Bear"-who I had never heard of before.

We were laughing on the way home, because I had the perfect opportunity to embarass the kids, but I let it slide because it would have required (at the least) a paper and pencil and would possibly have ended with a call to Mount Rushmore security.

At Rushmore, we attended a 20-minute lecture on the Lakota. he gave a little background on the Lakota and then told a couple of legends.

The ranger type guy had his Dakota/Nakota/Lakota languages all mixed up-he was assigning them to the various bands of the Lakota, instead of to the higher level.-This gritted my teeth for a little, but I let it pass.

The kids were laughing in the car, because if I had talked to the ranger about it-they would have been far down the trail-"I don't know that nerd."

[ghostjmf]

Don't your kids love you enough to spoon-feed you ice cream (out of a cup, of course) as you drive? Or they could have held their cone so you could lick it.

[Spock]

Don't your kids love you enough to spoon-feed you ice cream (out of a cup, of course) as you drive? Or they could have held their cone so you could lick it.

Apparently, you don't understand our family dynamics-LOL.

As parents, our hearts break repeatedly for the Spocklette. She gets "Gypped" on everything. She was hiding in the corner reading a book when God handed out luck. She is very quiet and reserved and doesn't have many friends. She was expecting to have a roommate at camp to bond with.

However, there were an odd number of girls and, guess who doesn't have a roommate. Of course, it is the Spocklette. That is the way of the world for her.

[Spock]

Li'l Spock was very impressed with SD School of Mines football field and their roster. Frankly, I was surprised that they even had a team.

He was comparing the majors of the Mines players with that of the NDSU players. The mines roster is majoring in some pretty heavy stuff compared to the players at NDSU where "Campus Studies" is a fairly typical major.

http://www.gorockers.com/roster.aspx?path=football

I had read earlier that that the Physics department does research at the bottom of an old mine. The guy who showed us to the Spocklette's room was a Physics major who is interning in the mine.

[Spock]

I am not going to tell the Spocklette, yet, but I really hope she goes to South Dakota School of Mines-AKA-"Mines."

Going there would provide me with a rich vein of material to mine. When she comes home and it is time to head back -I can ask her-"Off to the salt mines again?"

We can do lots of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves stuff-which should work well given the Male/Female ratio is about 8:1.

[Spock]

Just got back from a 4-day trip to the Black Hills to pick up the Spocklette at her camp. She absolutely loved it and wants to go to another camp next year.-More on this later.

We did a few "Tourist Trappy" things that we had not done before.

We did a tour of an old gold mine and Littlest Spock said that I came up with the ultimate Dad joke.

During the tour, I leaned over to him and said

Spoiler

"With the amount of tourists coming through here, you could say that they have an absolute gold mine."

I also checked an item of the bucket list as Littlest Spock and I climbed Bear Butte. We bickered (in a nice way) for about 1/3 of the way down and I came up with the ultimate hobby to embarass the kids and that allows me to pontificate on stuff. That hobby is Birdwatching.

The way I came up with that is that I was showing him the difference in vegetation on south-facing slopes vs north-facing slopes. Cactus and so forth on south-facing slopes and wetter vegetation on north-facing slopes. He made a comment that I would have fit right in at the Spocklette's Nerd Camp and then we saw a bird and the penny dropped.

I only wish I had thought of this when they were younger and I would have had more years to birdwatch with them and really nerd them up on it. On the way home, he was testing me on birds that we saw and I was categorizing them as "Flightless" or "Flying" birds. We only saw "Flying" birds. Admittedly, I have a little work to do on my bird ID skills.

[Bob Juch]

Just got back from a 4-day trip to the Black Hills to pick up the Spocklette at her camp. She absolutely loved it and wants to go to another camp next year.-More on this later.

We did a few "Tourist Trappy" things that we had not done before.

We did a tour of an old gold mine and Littlest Spock said that I came up with the ultimate Dad joke.

During the tour, I leaned over to him and said

Spoiler

"With the amount of tourists coming through here, you could say that they have an absolute gold mine."

I also checked an item of the bucket list as Littlest Spock and I climbed Bear Butte. We bickered (in a nice way) for about 1/3 of the way down and I came up with the ultimate hobby to embarass the kids and that allows me to pontificate on stuff. That hobby is Birdwatching.

The way I came up with that is that I was showing him the difference in vegetation on south-facing slopes vs north-facing slopes. Cactus and so forth on south-facing slopes and wetter vegetation on north-facing slopes. He made a comment that I would have fit right in at the Spocklette's Nerd Camp and then we saw a bird and the penny dropped.

I only wish I had thought of this when they were younger and I would have had more years to birdwatch with them and really nerd them up on it. On the way home, he was testing me on birds that we saw and I was categorizing them as "Flightless" or "Flying" birds. We only saw "Flying" birds. Admittedly, I have a little work to do on my bird ID skills.

What?! No bare butt jokes?

[Spock]

I said earlier in the thread that the Spocklette's social life is pretty minimal-she is just so quiet. It will likely get worse this year as most of her posse (such as it is) will be attending various local colleges and will not be present at school. In Minnesota, 11th and 12th graders can attend college for free. For various reasons, we are not having the Spocklette do that-in 11th grade anyway.

The obvious joke is that this was an American Pie "Band Camp" situation-but I doubt it.

She was so happy when we picked her up-I was really, really happy for her that the social thing worked out there. She was giggling about how they called it nerd camp and that her group (industrial engineering/entrepeneurship) was teasing (for lack of a better term) the Geology camp.
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One thing that will relate here is that she told about how serious conversations among the boys could quickly turn nerdy.

I think most of the kids were a little younger than her, which worked because that age would be more her social peers.

I had to chuckle a little bit at how innocent she is. She mentioned a couple of times that they stayed up late talking. OK, I was thinking back to that age and guessing 1AM or so. Nope, she said the last night they stayed up till 11PM!!!!!!! (What a group of Rebels)And nobody probably really got to bed until 11:30 or so.

She really really needed this for both the engineering and the social side.

[MarleysGh0st]

I had to chuckle a little bit at how innocent she is. She mentioned a couple of times that they stayed up late talking. OK, I was thinking back to that age and guessing 1AM or so. Nope, she said the last night they stayed up till 11PM!!!!!!! (What a group of Rebels)And nobody probably really got to bed until 11:30 or so.

Sounds like you rescued her from that den of iniquity just in time!

[Spock]

My relevant reading for the trip is a history of the cattle industry in South Dakota. I am going to be chock full of fascinating anecdotes on the drive west (and east).

There is still room in the car for anyone interested.

Just to partially satisfy the hunger on the Bored for early South Dakota livestock anecdotes: The best one I found so far is that somebody drove a herd of pigs from Pierre to the Black Hills-this is a drive as in on-foot, not in a truck. 200 miles or so.

I know that pig-drives were a thing back in the day, but I can't imagine doing that.
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One other interesting thing is that the book was compiled in 1964 and it is somewhat surprising how many sons of the 1876-77 settlers were still alive and living on the home ranch. They were obviously elderly by that time-but it shows how short 90 years really is.

[Spock]

It will surprise no one that I really enjoyed our visit(s) to Crazy Horse. We went there one morning and back the next night for the light show.

Littlest Spock's attitude was-"Get the thing done already, it has been 70 years." Started in 1948. I think part of the fun is that it might not ever be done

2 things really struck me.

1) My first visit was in 1978 (age 11). There was a timeline on the wall that said by 1978-6,000,000 tns of rock had been removed, with 1.5 million tons remaining.

Obviously, the basis for the large amount was that it was bulk removal of rock VS finesse stuff later. but still, 6,000,000 tons in the first 30 years and 40 years later there is still a tremendous amount of work.

3) Most impressive to me was a small display in a corner that showed the sculptor (insert Polish name) and his family ran a dairy farm on-site for income-From a picture, it looked modern for the time. So not only did he work on the mountain by himself for years-he also did the grunt work associated with a dairy farm.
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I did spot one error in the hagiography of Crazy Horse. One of the sculptor's documents on the wall said that Crazy Horse did not fight the whites until after the 1868 treaty was broken.

Umm, Crazy Horse fought at the defeat of Fetterman in December 1866. He famously acted as a decoy there. Plus whatever other fights he may have been in during the Bozeman Trail unpleasantness.