Category Archives: Machines

Monster Jam (4/6/12-4/7/12)

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If Barbie is not your thing, then how about Monster Jam! Who hasn’t seen the giant trucks smashing old junk cars in a dirt-filled arena. (And who hasn’t phantasized about having one when someone has just cut into traffic in front of them.) Did you know that Grave Digger, the most iconic of the Monster Trucks is from North Carolina? And is celebrating its 30th anniversary? Perhaps not the most spiritual and peaceful way to spend Easter Saturday – but at least you’ll know who crushed the eggs, I mean cars.  Cheapest seats+parking for one adult/one child: $40. PNC Arena. Tickets and details here.

Monster Truck Grave Digger by Tammy Powers, used under CC-BY-SA license

The image above is by Tammy Powers, obtained from Wikimedia Commons.

Mythbusters on Tour (3/25/12)

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The name pretty much says it all: Mythbusters, the famous TV show on the Discovery channel goes on tour. If you’ve never seen Mythbusters, well it is about proving or disproving urban legends and other myths, usually involving explosions and crash test dummies. Not something for the youngest among us, but if your child is old enough to watch it on TV and you’re willing to shell out $30 or more to see it live, go for it. Most reviews I read were positive, except that maybe the Q&As are a bit long for a young audience; on the other hand they promise ‘audience participation’, whatever that means!

[vimeo https://vimeo.com/31936113 w=550]

Overall probably an event for hardcore mythbusters fans; if you love that show it is certainly a memorable experience.

The show is downtown in Memorial Auditorium (so don’t expect too much explosive stuff then) and tickets are still available for both the 3pm and the 7pm show.

See Yates Mill in operation (recurring event)

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This is a frequently recurring event, and is a good idea for a nice day in the park. Mill Heritage and Local History tours (the link will take you to the current events list) are from 2pm – 3pm, and you can extend that as you wish with hiking and picnicking in this beautiful park. It is about 20 10 minutes South of downtown at 4620 Lake Wheeler Road, Raleigh, NC 27603.

This is one of our favorite parks, and you’ll read more about it.

This nice shot of Yates Mill is by Suzie T and licensed under CC-BY. She has a lot of nice photos, check out here photostream on Flickr.

Southern Farm Show: vroom, bark, moo (2/2/2012)

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Checking out the product display at Southern Farm Show in Raleigh

Daddy, can we put on of these in the backyard?

(This was two weeks ago, but I still wanted to write a brief review.)

On short notice and thanks to the tip of a reliable friend, the boy and I headed out to the Southern Farm Show on the State Fairgrounds. Now this is not the State Fair where kids are expected. This is a trade show for farmers. And we all know what farmers do. They have dogs. They have cows. They ride big friggin’ tractors.

I mainly went for the tractors; my son is at the stage where everything with wheels deserves a “Wow!”. Anything that looks more exciting than a car or bus is a dee-tee, from ‘digger’. There were lots of dee-tees. I was also not the only father, it seems many farmers brought their kids, so I tried to blend in as we studied the offerings of the farm equipment industry.

... upon further inspection of this image, I realize that maybe our "farmer and son" disguise had been busted. We enjoyed it anyway.

Before going, I looked at the program (always a good idea), and saw that a cowdog demos was scheduled for that day. Cowdogs are herding cows, and they are pretty good at it. We were both impressed by the half-hour demo..

The next Southern Farm Show will be in a year (1/30-2/1), so mark your calendars. However, we’ll be heading to the fairgrounds before that, in May (18-20) for the “Got To Be NC Festival”, formerly known as NCAgFest.