Anyway, yeah, how exciting is that?! That's right, a question mark AND an exclamation point!? Twice?! Thrice?! It's out of control, and that's exactly what visiting the rock festival at the Wichita Geological Society (might not be its actual name, but I'm too lazy to find the brochure or even pull up the email that Libby sent about it two weeks ago, which is still in my inbox and surely would have taken one-tenth of the time that writing out this ridiculous justification/explanation did) felt like today. I would like to say it was a "rocking good time," but it was only sort of fun, and punning "rock" more than once in a post might get me banned from Blogger.
Interesting side note: Blogger does not have its word processing spell check program set up to recognize the word "Blogger." Nor "blog." That seems silly to me.
Anyway, today's festival was the geology nerd equivalent of a Star Trek convention. I know this because I've been to several Trek conventions--but only because it was a mandatory part of a yearly vacation we used to take to Tulsa that primarily revolved around a trip to a local strip club. We always went to the convention, of course, because we paid $10 for the tickets, but the convention was never better than lame (though one year we shared a hotel with Jaws from James Bond, the cute red-head from Firefly, Wang from Voyager--whom I declared a vendetta on in a memorable bar scene--and Bruce Boxleitner from Scarecrow and Mrs. King, and Jon had a mancrush on Chief from Battlestar Galactica, all of which was rather fun. Another year, I almost puked on a stripper. That was less fun, but certainly memorable.).
Side note the second: "mancrush" is a word according to this website. Something weird is going on in Blogger's lexicography department.
Rock nerds united! This is just one of four aisles at this thing. Sadly, without a proper catwalk to get above the crowd, I couldn't get a picture that took in the entire scene.Also, unlike the Trek conventions, there weren't people dressed up in sub-ridiculous homemade costumes, which is too bad, really. It could have only added to the atmosphere.
Now, I'm sure that most of you are assuming that I was bitterly complaining about this event the entire time we were there. This is only partly true. I did complain, but it wasn't bitterly. I actually have a soft spot in my heart for rock collecting. I rather enjoyed rocks when I was growing up. We even had one of those rock tumblers that can make boring, ordinary driveway rocks SHINY, boring, ordinary driveway rocks after only two days of making the most god-awful noise imaginable. We put ours in our unfinished basement, but, if I listened closely, I could still hear the damn thing spinning and knocking while in bed two stories up. But it did what it was supposed to, it shined rocks! And we loved those rocks for two or three minutes before we stuffed them somewhere and forgot about them and the rock tumbler forever. Money well spent!
My youthful interest in rocks, however, never prompted me to actually study the things, though, or even learn more than a very little bit about them. I can readily identify quartz, because, if you pick up a handful of Kansas rocks (around where I grew up, anyway), you've almost certainly just picked up a handful of quartz and possibly giardia. But, over the years, I have learned a few more things about rocks, and all of it came flooding back to me at the event today. For instance, did you know that everything that ends in -ite is a rock? It's true. "Dinomite," "Samsonite," and "Carbonite," which is what poor Han Solo was trapped in for all those years while George Lucas dreamed up the Ewoks, almost certainly the first sign that he wanted his wonderful franchise to die a horrible death, are all rock names. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.
Today, I stopped for just a second, and I'm serious, it was no more than a second, at a display of meteorites, because the only thing more interesting than rocks from Earth are rocks from space. Specifically, I stopped to look at a very shiny meteorite, and before my eyes even had time to fully focus on the shiny chunk of space dirt, the guy watching the booth said, "Pretty amazing, aren't they? That one in the middle (the one I was admiring my reflection in) is Cellulite. Did you know that less than 2% of all meteorites are made of Cellulite?" To which I replied, "No. I didn't know that." And I should have added, "And thanks, that's one more piece of completely useless trivia that I'm sure I couldn't forget if I tried (though, obviously, I already forgot what the rock was ACTUALLY made of, but it might as well be Cellulite for all it matters to anybody anywhere).
Then we wandered back to the Junior Rock Pile where tikes are encouraged, for $.50 a bag, to pick out some rocks to take home. Now, this is a racket that I wish I could get my foot in the door in. We paid $.50 for the privilege of hand picking rocks VERY similar to the ones that Gabe could find in just about any big, unpaved driveway. There were a few more colorful varieties than our standard fare rock, of course, but not by much.
Gabe handpicking his rocks. Finn and Kris were there, too.
Now, I'm sure that most of you are assuming that I was bitterly complaining about this event the entire time we were there. This is only partly true. I did complain, but it wasn't bitterly. I actually have a soft spot in my heart for rock collecting. I rather enjoyed rocks when I was growing up. We even had one of those rock tumblers that can make boring, ordinary driveway rocks SHINY, boring, ordinary driveway rocks after only two days of making the most god-awful noise imaginable. We put ours in our unfinished basement, but, if I listened closely, I could still hear the damn thing spinning and knocking while in bed two stories up. But it did what it was supposed to, it shined rocks! And we loved those rocks for two or three minutes before we stuffed them somewhere and forgot about them and the rock tumbler forever. Money well spent!
My youthful interest in rocks, however, never prompted me to actually study the things, though, or even learn more than a very little bit about them. I can readily identify quartz, because, if you pick up a handful of Kansas rocks (around where I grew up, anyway), you've almost certainly just picked up a handful of quartz and possibly giardia. But, over the years, I have learned a few more things about rocks, and all of it came flooding back to me at the event today. For instance, did you know that everything that ends in -ite is a rock? It's true. "Dinomite," "Samsonite," and "Carbonite," which is what poor Han Solo was trapped in for all those years while George Lucas dreamed up the Ewoks, almost certainly the first sign that he wanted his wonderful franchise to die a horrible death, are all rock names. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.
Today, I stopped for just a second, and I'm serious, it was no more than a second, at a display of meteorites, because the only thing more interesting than rocks from Earth are rocks from space. Specifically, I stopped to look at a very shiny meteorite, and before my eyes even had time to fully focus on the shiny chunk of space dirt, the guy watching the booth said, "Pretty amazing, aren't they? That one in the middle (the one I was admiring my reflection in) is Cellulite. Did you know that less than 2% of all meteorites are made of Cellulite?" To which I replied, "No. I didn't know that." And I should have added, "And thanks, that's one more piece of completely useless trivia that I'm sure I couldn't forget if I tried (though, obviously, I already forgot what the rock was ACTUALLY made of, but it might as well be Cellulite for all it matters to anybody anywhere).
Then we wandered back to the Junior Rock Pile where tikes are encouraged, for $.50 a bag, to pick out some rocks to take home. Now, this is a racket that I wish I could get my foot in the door in. We paid $.50 for the privilege of hand picking rocks VERY similar to the ones that Gabe could find in just about any big, unpaved driveway. There were a few more colorful varieties than our standard fare rock, of course, but not by much.
Gabe handpicking his rocks. Finn and Kris were there, too.They gave him a small paper bag to fill, the contents of which they then transferred to a far less environmentally friendly, used newspaper bag, for some reason, and tied off for us to take home. Then they gave his paper bag to the next kid. Rock people are weird.
Unhappy with the main selection--or possibly just more interested in doing things the "difficult" way, which I suspect was the real motivation--Gabe started digging through the supply buckets to find rocks that lived up to his rigorous standards.
Unhappy with the main selection--or possibly just more interested in doing things the "difficult" way, which I suspect was the real motivation--Gabe started digging through the supply buckets to find rocks that lived up to his rigorous standards.And that was pretty much the end of that. We went early--it started at 9:00 and we were there before 9:30--but after being there for less than an hour the place was already PACKED with school kids taking field trips. We could barely even get out the door without mosh pitting our way through the tides of vacuous looking seven year olds.
Here is the one video that we took. Right before we left, Finn took to grabbing ahold of a series of big "touching" rocks and yelling at them. We couldn't decide if he was mad at them, trying to move them, or, perhaps, carrying on a conversation. Of course, by the time I found the camera, he was already mostly done.
Side note the third: Finn's face is all bandaged up in this video because Darby, their family dog, chomped down on Finn's face for no real reason yesterday. It was pretty terrible. They rushed Finn to the ER and had several stitches put in his cheek and above his eye--they even had to call in a plastic surgeon to try and repair the damage to limit the amount of scarring. They still think he'll have a pretty obvious scar, though. He was really lucky that Darby missed his eye, though. When they got home from the hospital, Kris took Darby to be put to sleep. It was very sad and tragic. But Finn was in a pretty normal mood today, which was good. Apparently, because he's a not-quite-two year old, he's already moved on.
Here is the one video that we took. Right before we left, Finn took to grabbing ahold of a series of big "touching" rocks and yelling at them. We couldn't decide if he was mad at them, trying to move them, or, perhaps, carrying on a conversation. Of course, by the time I found the camera, he was already mostly done.
Side note the third: Finn's face is all bandaged up in this video because Darby, their family dog, chomped down on Finn's face for no real reason yesterday. It was pretty terrible. They rushed Finn to the ER and had several stitches put in his cheek and above his eye--they even had to call in a plastic surgeon to try and repair the damage to limit the amount of scarring. They still think he'll have a pretty obvious scar, though. He was really lucky that Darby missed his eye, though. When they got home from the hospital, Kris took Darby to be put to sleep. It was very sad and tragic. But Finn was in a pretty normal mood today, which was good. Apparently, because he's a not-quite-two year old, he's already moved on.
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ReplyDeletegreat post Pat (from Libby...who is too lazy to sign in under her own username)
ReplyDeleteHilarious, informative, and heartbreaking. As for Finn's rock shouting: he's obviously stoned.
ReplyDeleteYou and Kris should come up with some sort of show about living unemployed, and taking your sons to new places every week. You guys are living the dream, apart from the dog attack thing; that's not cool.
ReplyDelete