How To Grow Your Geek: Parenting and More!

 

 HTGYG SHow #41: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This week I give you a bunch of voicemails about all the recent topics we have had on the show. We revisit Babylon 5 and kid-appropriate tv, and Gary tells us how he handles commercials. Then Tim and Gary have some comments on my vaccine show. Finally, Tim talks about summer sports, and Gary challenges us to go do stuff not only this summer but anytime!

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Thanks for all the input, and keep it coming! And, if you have some time, I would appreciate a review on iTunes! And if you appreciate this show and other great Farpoint Media shows, please visit my website and contribute to the campaign to help Farpoint Media!

Don’t forget to check out the 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast!

Please email me with your own comments at howtogrowyourgeek - at-gmail -dot-com, or call my voicemail number at 206-202-7309 and leave your thoughts. You can also visit our forum at the Farpoint Forums. And last but not least, you can follow me on Twitter!

Promos: All Games Considered and Dragon Page: Cover to Cover

Theme music courtesy of Jonathan Coulton

 

 HTGYG Show #40: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

My kids helped me this week by telling us about their favorite summer sports - swimming, soccer and gymnastics, and pointing out the benefits of geeky kids getting exercise on a regular basis. They really enjoyed talking about this subject, especially when Kevin got to talk about winning ribbons in swimming!

Sponsor: Try GotoMyPC free for 30 days! For this special offer, visit www.GotoMyPC.com/tech podcast

Thanks for all the input, and keep it coming! And, if you have some time, I would appreciate a review on iTunes!

Don’t forget to check out the 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast!

Please email me with your own comments at howtogrowyourgeek - at-gmail -dot-com, or call my voicemail number at 206-202-7309 and leave your thoughts. You can also visit our forum at the Farpoint Forums.And last but not least, you can follow me on Twitter!

Promos:Variant Frequencies and Podculture

 

 HTGYG Show #39: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Sponsor: Try GotoMyPC free for 30 days! For this special offer, visit http://www.GotoMyPC.com/techpodcast

This week we are delighted to have Tim Callender from The Babylon Podcast on to discuss Babylon 5, sci-fi, and robot building with his kids. If you are a fan of B5, you should definitely check them out!

Thanks for all the input, and keep it coming! And, if you have some time, I would appreciate a review on iTunes! And if you appreciate this show and other great Farpoint Media shows, please visit my website and contribute to the campaign to help Farpoint Media!

Don’t forget to check out the 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast!

Please email me with your own comments at howtogrowyourgeek - at-gmail -dot-com, or call my voicemail number at 206-202-7309 and leave your thoughts. You can also visit our forum at the Farpoint Forums. And last but not least, you can follow me on Twitter!

Promos: The Babylon Podcast

Theme music courtesy of Jonathan Coulton

I found these posts on Twitter today, thought I would pass them on to you. Jerah, a 10 year old girl, picked 2 lists of favorite books, and included the summaries from Amazon.com in her lists.

Take a look and see if any are interesting to you! I mean, really, can you have too many good books to read? I didn’t think so!

Jerah’s first list - Includes classics like Heidi, Where the Red Fern Grows,  and Peter Pan

Jerah’s second list - Includes Misty of Chincoteague and several biographies of outstanding women

Teen Jessica Terry, with training from pathologists and resources from her high school science class, discovered a clear indication that she had Crohn’s disease, a serious intestinal disorder. She had been symptomatic for a long time, but had not had a clear indication until she discovered a granuloma, or inflamed tissue, in her own tissue slides.

Congrats to Jessica for being an empowered teen as well as an empowered patient, and dilligently studying to discover what her illness was. Thanks so much to teacher Mary Margaret Welch for supporting this project in class, and using a real-life situation like Terry’s illness to study pathology. Thanks also to the pathologists who gave Terry her slides, and trained her class to look at the cells.

While Jessica’s diagnosis is serious, she and her classmates will never forget what they learned about science and how it can really affect and help a person’s life. I predict several of her classmates will explore careers in science and medicine as a result of their hands’ on experience.

Here is the link to the story on CNN: Teen diagnoses her own illness in science class

 

 HTGYG Show #38: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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This week, I revisit the topic of Vaccinations, inspired by an email from listener Angela. I read her letter and wanted to discuss this topic some more, especially since there has been so much talk in the news recently. So I jump back on my soapbox, and give you my opinions and some places to get good information. Here are a few of the articles I have found that discuss important points, in my opinion.

CDC Info about HepB vaccines

CDC Info about Chickenpox vaccine

CDC Info about Shingles

Newsweek Article about Oprah

What’s the deal with Aluminum?

Genetic Link to Autism

Good summary article of history of this debate

And here is a picture of Angela’s lovely little girls getting a sci-fi head start!

Thanks for all the input, and keep it coming! And, if you have some time, I would appreciate a review on iTunes! And if you appreciate this show and other great Farpoint Media shows, please visit my website and contribute to the campaign to help Farpoint Media!

Don’t forget to check out the 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast!

Please email me with your own comments at howtogrowyourgeek - at-gmail -dot-com, or call my voicemail number at 206-202-7309 and leave your thoughts. You can also visit our forum at the Farpoint Forums.And last but not least, you can follow me on Twitter!

Bumpers: Paul and Storm

Promos: All Games Considered

Theme music courtesy of Jonathan Coulton

Here is a great, cheap, eco-friendly activity to do outside with the kids. Head out to the backyard or to the woods, pick up some sticks, big leaves, moss, and whatever other natural materials you can find, and fashion them into a small structure at the base of the tree. You can leave some seeds or berries inside as food. Small animals will explore them, and you can visit them to see how long they last, and make up stories about the imaginary creatures that might live there.

You can also make little fairy houses inside to play with more permenantly, using shoe boxes, cardboard or other recycled supplies, and decorate it with construction paper. You could even make little fairies out of clay or yarn to live in them. Just be sure to keep these kind inside, and only use the ones you make out of the natural materials outside, so it won’t litter.

Here is a link to more info, but use your imagination to create your own!

What is a Fairy House?

Hi guys!
I have been wanting to do a comic book review for such a long time now, it has just been tough thinking of which ones to do. I read a lot here, my Uncle Dave runs four hobby shops; both in st Louis and here. But also across the river in Illinois too! He has a ton of comics there, with new ones coming in every Tuesdays. I mostly like the funny ones, the ones like xmen and superman are so hard to keep up with. They change every new issue it seems like. I get into something and boom, they either kill someone off, or reboot the whole thing. like hollywood does with movies. So i been sticking with funny ones, manga, and some graphic novels.

So I thought I would start with one of my all time favorites, Nodwick. Nodwick is a hireling who works for three adventures, Atrax the wizard, Piffany the cleric, and Yeager the fighter. Now normally when you take on a hireling, they carry all of the stuff, hold the torches, make camp, ect. And the hireling levels up as well if you keep them, or you let them go after the questing is over. That is if the party is made up of normal characters……..ummmmm, theses guys are anything but normal. hehe. Let me introduce you to the cast.

Read more… »

 

 HTGYG Show #37: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Sponsor: Try GotoMyPC free for 30 days! For this special offer, visit www.GotoMyPC.com/tech podcast

Today I give 5 suggestions of things to spend time doing over the summer - swimming, visiting playgrounds, cooking, watching movies, and going to the library! We also have voicemails from Darcy’s Dad Tim, and Tim C. from the Babylon Podcast - with book and movie reviews for the summer!

The new downloadable Popcap game, Plants vs. Zombies continues to rock! This game is well worth the $10 price, as it is cute, entertaining, addictive, and offers many variations to make it replayable for a very long time.

Also, Kevin Cumming’s son Evan has also written and is producing an audio drama, The Airship Diaries, and I encourage you all to check it out. Kevin is a proud dad, and Evan’s work sounds great!

Thanks for all the input, and keep it coming! And, if you have some time, I would appreciate a review on iTunes! And if you appreciate this show and other great Farpoint Media shows, please visit my website and contribute to the campaign to help Farpoint Media!

Don’t forget to check out the 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast!

Please email me with your own comments at howtogrowyourgeek - at-gmail -dot-com, or call my voicemail number at 206-202-7309 and leave your thoughts. You can also visit our forum at the Farpoint Forums.And last but not least, you can follow me on Twitter!

Bumpers: Paul and Storm

Promos:  The Parsec Awards and What the Cast!

Theme music courtesy of Jonathan Coulton

 

 HTGYG Show #36: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Sponsor: Try GotoMyPC free for 30 days! For this special offer, visit www.GotoMyPC.com/tech podcast

Reviews Galore!  Today we have a review of the spelling program/software SpellQuizzer, with I found very useful in helping the kids practice their spelling words both for class and for the school spelling bee. You can visit their site and download a free 30 day trial to see if you find it useful too!

Next we review the new downloadable Popcap game, Plants vs. Zombies. This game is well worth the $10 price, as it is cute, entertaining, addictive, and offers many variations to make it replayable for a very long time.

Finally, we have my review of the TV show Castle, on ABC. It isn’t scifi or fantasy exactly, but it is a well-written, well-acted mystery/police drama, and portrays a great family relationship between the title character Rick Castle, played by fan favorite Nathan Fillion from Firefly/Serenity, and his teen daughter, as well as his mother who has moved in with them. Rick Castle is a best-selling murder mystery author who works with the police to get ideas for his novels, and his unique perspective helps Detective Kate Beckett and her team solve murders in creative, unconventional ways. I totally recommend catching it on Hulu.com or when it comes out on DVD this summer, and when it returns next season.

Also, Kevin Cumming’s son Evan has also written and is producing an audio drama, The Airship Diaries, and I encourage you all to check it out. Kevin is a proud dad, and Evan’s work sounds great!

Thanks for all the input, and keep it coming! And, if you have some time, I would appreciate a review on iTunes! And if you appreciate this show and other great Farpoint Media shows, please visit my website and contribute to the campaign to help Farpoint Media!

Don’t forget to check out the 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast!

Please email me with your own comments at howtogrowyourgeek - at-gmail -dot-com, or call my voicemail number at 206-202-7309 and leave your thoughts. You can also visit our forum at the Farpoint Forums.And last but not least, you can follow me on Twitter!

Bumpers: Love Long and Prosper

Promos:  The Parsec Awards and The One Tree Hill Podcast

Theme music courtesy of Jonathan Coulton