Category: Videos

The boys are, of course, insane for trains, so kudos to Margot for discovering the Skunk Train that operates out of Fort Bragg (the town just up the coast from Mendocino). The train winds its way through redwoods en route to an old logging camp that offers BBQ & knickknacks (but not BBQ’d knickknacks). We met some nice families along the way. A 3-year-old kid named Silas ended up lending his name to Finn’s little souvenir stuffed skunk (for which we devised the mnemonic, “He makes you sigh less”), and a couple from Fremont helped the boys squash pennies on the rails while keeping Henry from being squashed as well! Despite the cold & wind, Hen insisted that he & I stand outside for mile after mile, so he’s a bit overrepresented in the photos. 🙂

Here’s a gallery from the day, as well as some video highlights:

[YouTube]

Following our torrential rains, the dudes & I explored the waterfalls of nearby Uvas Canyon. The boys even took turns rocking my big camera, so this set includes the first Finn-captured photo upload to Facebook! They were also keenly aware of things we could do to images after the fact (“Dad-O, take a picture & then Photoshop me falling off the bridge!” “Dad-O, will your Google friends make this into a little animation?”).

Stay tuned for the Photoshoppery, and in the meantime, here’s the gallery plus a short video below.

Micronaxx + DSLR = Proud Paparazzo!

A video posted by John Nack (@jnack) on Dec 12, 2014 at 8:24pm PST

Yesterday the boys were extremely excited to journey up to San Francisco at the invitation of my old Navy buddy, Commander Chris Peppel, to attend the commissioning of the brand-new USS America! They were so hyped the night before that they wanted to go straight to bed, with Henry announcing, “I’m going to get up, get dressed, and eat breakfast in the car!” We had a great time attending the ship & touring the new 45,000-ton ship (a small aircraft carrier—”small” being a strictly relative/only-in-America term!) and seeing Mr. Peppel. Here’s a gallery from the visit, plus a very short video below.

This weekend marked the annual gathering of super-creative folks of all stripes, called Maker Faire. For those of you who’ve never gone, it’s definitely a must-experience! It’s billed as The Greatest Show and Tell on Earth, and it’s like a tw0-day science fair crossed with a county fair, with a bit of performance art thrown in. Or for those of you familiar with Burning Man, it’s like a smaller, less dusty, less expensive Burning Man. Exhibitors and participants come to celebrate creativity in all its forms, and share all of the fantastic things they’ve made. Some are there to help you figure out how to make your inventions a reality! There is always so much to see and do, and it is a total blast for both kids and adults. It really gets your creative juices flowing.

This year’s highlights included the always popular cupcake cars, a human-powered bike carousel, a high-five machine, a man-sized and man-powered sidewalk-chalk spirograph, serpent vehicles, a fire-breathing amphibious sea-serpent vehicle, lego robots, make-it-yourself kayak kits, cheap and portable DIY yurt kits, El Pulpo Mecanico (a giant fire-spouting metal octopus), a remote-control model boat battle (with real BB’s as ammo), and tons of crafts for the kids to make.  Here’s a little gallery from Sunday’s outing

And here’s a tiny video showing El Pulpo Mechanico—the mechanical, fire-breathing octopus!