DNA!
The Wife, bless her, is in the final days of a final semester of school. Long story short, she was misadvised by an adviser, a person who is on my list(1), and as a result she is taking 19 units on her methods semester, meaning she sleeps and does school work. And not a lot else. For the record, The Wife rocks.
So today she faced a mountain of schoolwork. With The Boy having a no-school day (Weekends! Pshaw! If this was 1893, he'd be working in the mills with only tomorrow off... to go to church), I decided to clear the hell out of Dodge and spend some quality time with him.
Oh... Evidently, if you have a kid, you have to spend quality time with the kid. Or you suck as a parent. Or the kid ends up turning into Idi Amin or something(2). I read that in "Better Parenting Magazine" maybe.
We did a bike ride down to the UofA, which was cool. The idea was to go to Flandrau Planetarium, which just reopened to the public, despite the best efforts of our dingbat of a governor to keep it closed by cutting all budgetary funds that don't directly benefit rich, white, retired people. It was a hella cool experience that I could go on and on about, y'know... with one of those "Hey! My cute ass kid did this cute ass thing that was cute as hell if you are directly related to him. Or if you were there. but you weren't. So SUFF-AH while I tell you all about it!"
Bit he did do at least one cuteass thing I'm going to regale you with, because, frankly, if you have read this far down, you're here until the end.
Today at the planetarium was "DNA Day" in honor of the 10th anniversary of the completion of the mapping of the human genome. Among other things they had a DNA collection exhibit. Basically you would pony up a sample of what makes you. And then it got placed in a vial. And you got to make a necklace out of it.
Wicked cool, huh?!?
And what was better was that the exhibit was manned by a gaggle of cute early 20s coeds. And, really, The Boy has zero shame when it comes to flirting with early 20s coeds. He is to that crowd what Fyvush Finkel was to housewives on vacation in the Borscht Belt in 1948. Seriously, if I was not happily married - not to mention a 40ish balding, disenchanted and bitter guy - the kid would be brokering my dating life. He grabbed the undivided attention of three bubbly, blond 22 year-olds while they did a four-minute collection of his DNA, a process involving swishing with salt water and spitting and chemical mixing and yadda yadda.
What we ended up with was a 0.5cc plastic vial of genetic material on a necklace with beads.
Of course, during the process, I was trying my hardest to explain the concept of DNA and what it was and how it works, using terms I thought appropriate for a mind of 5½ years. What I arrived at was a rather lame, "So the stuff in this vial. That has the instructions for making another one of you."
Of course he uses this nugget of information to approach every coed in sight - followed by every woman for the rest of the day... on the campus, on the grocery store, etc. - and hold up the vial on the necklace and say, "Know what THIS is? This is my. Ummm... Dad?" (and I would whisper "DNA" into his ear). "Yeah, this is my DNA. And you can use it. To make another CUTE one of me!"
(1) That's a lot more ominous than it sounds. Or it isn't ominous. At the very least, the adviser is not getting a Christmas card from me Ev-Ah! No way no how...
(2) Which at least means you get a steady supply of fresh meat. So that's something.
So today she faced a mountain of schoolwork. With The Boy having a no-school day (Weekends! Pshaw! If this was 1893, he'd be working in the mills with only tomorrow off... to go to church), I decided to clear the hell out of Dodge and spend some quality time with him.
Oh... Evidently, if you have a kid, you have to spend quality time with the kid. Or you suck as a parent. Or the kid ends up turning into Idi Amin or something(2). I read that in "Better Parenting Magazine" maybe.
We did a bike ride down to the UofA, which was cool. The idea was to go to Flandrau Planetarium, which just reopened to the public, despite the best efforts of our dingbat of a governor to keep it closed by cutting all budgetary funds that don't directly benefit rich, white, retired people. It was a hella cool experience that I could go on and on about, y'know... with one of those "Hey! My cute ass kid did this cute ass thing that was cute as hell if you are directly related to him. Or if you were there. but you weren't. So SUFF-AH while I tell you all about it!"
Bit he did do at least one cuteass thing I'm going to regale you with, because, frankly, if you have read this far down, you're here until the end.
Today at the planetarium was "DNA Day" in honor of the 10th anniversary of the completion of the mapping of the human genome. Among other things they had a DNA collection exhibit. Basically you would pony up a sample of what makes you. And then it got placed in a vial. And you got to make a necklace out of it.
Wicked cool, huh?!?
And what was better was that the exhibit was manned by a gaggle of cute early 20s coeds. And, really, The Boy has zero shame when it comes to flirting with early 20s coeds. He is to that crowd what Fyvush Finkel was to housewives on vacation in the Borscht Belt in 1948. Seriously, if I was not happily married - not to mention a 40ish balding, disenchanted and bitter guy - the kid would be brokering my dating life. He grabbed the undivided attention of three bubbly, blond 22 year-olds while they did a four-minute collection of his DNA, a process involving swishing with salt water and spitting and chemical mixing and yadda yadda.
What we ended up with was a 0.5cc plastic vial of genetic material on a necklace with beads.
Of course, during the process, I was trying my hardest to explain the concept of DNA and what it was and how it works, using terms I thought appropriate for a mind of 5½ years. What I arrived at was a rather lame, "So the stuff in this vial. That has the instructions for making another one of you."
Of course he uses this nugget of information to approach every coed in sight - followed by every woman for the rest of the day... on the campus, on the grocery store, etc. - and hold up the vial on the necklace and say, "Know what THIS is? This is my. Ummm... Dad?" (and I would whisper "DNA" into his ear). "Yeah, this is my DNA. And you can use it. To make another CUTE one of me!"
(1) That's a lot more ominous than it sounds. Or it isn't ominous. At the very least, the adviser is not getting a Christmas card from me Ev-Ah! No way no how...
(2) Which at least means you get a steady supply of fresh meat. So that's something.