Engineering Fatherhood

College costs way too much!  There is the sticker price and then the real price, just like cars.  Is the traditional college approach worth it?  Is it really the parent’s responsibility to pay for it?  Aren’t some majors totally dumb!  Government subsidizes colleges heavily.  Should they?  What are the effects.

This was a great discussion and although we don’t give any real deep financial advice on how to get your kid through college, we sure had a great time.  It was fun to be back together to hit this hot topic.  John had recent experience with Zack (very successful!) and Matt and I are struggling on whether and how to save.  Hopefully we hit on all the issues an ‘engineering father’ would want to hear.

Oh and we went through a list of the highest paying undergraduate degrees and SEVEN OF THEM had the word ENGINEERING in them.  Go nerds!

Rants

John – Diversity.  We all want diversity, but are we willing to choose employees, prospective students, etc. based on this?  We all think that is a bad idea.  Diversity is just another word for affirmative action which is another word for racism.

Matt – Motor Cycles in the HOV lane.

Mark – Crumbs in the butter and police fundraising calls.

All that and MOMENTS too.  Tune in if you want to hear the scary story about poor little Emily!

Thanks,

Mark

Engineering Fatherhood Episode 32

Sorry for the hiatus.  Our excuse – summers are busy.  Also, see the top ten list below!

Give us a listen for an update on the EF Summer activities.  Mark’s list of beer selling gimmicks.  What beer makes cold mountains turn blue?  What beer has a ‘specially lined can?’  Answers to these and other universal questions in this episode.

Plus: Double rants!  That’s right, we have been saving them up.

Matt – Motorcycles are too loud and too dangerous!  The bread bag inside the bread bag is annoying!

John – Buses even in summer.  You miss the bus, you walk.  It’s that simple.  [I forget his second one]

Mark – Tangled earbuds, tip jars at fast food restaurants.

All this, moments of the week and more!!!

The boys are back!!!!!!

Mark

Top ten reasons why we havent recorded lately

(from the home office in Richmond, VA)

10 – Summer Power Outages

9 – Too darn hot!

8 – Zombie ant apocalypse at Mark’s House

7 – Fine for ‘potty mouth’ from the FCC

6 – Matt was busy buying pickles and ice cream for Mary (due in October)

5 – Our sister Kris came by and stole all of our podcasting toys

4 – Just too darn hot

3 – Matt deep in door handle debrassification (Nearly Complete!)

2 – Summer pool time!

and the number one reason why we have been totally lame and havent recorded is:

1 – John’s ‘bunker’ invaded by goonies

Engineering Fatherhood Episode 31

She Couldn’t Change Me by Montgomery Gentry

This is a list of movies that lie in the intersection of Child Love and Parental Love on a Venn diagram:

We also mentioned some classics:

We also noted that parents die a lot in kids movies.  How sad.

Great rants this week

*** – Denotes winner of the coveted weekly rant award

Moments and more!

Oh and we ended with the pi song!  Dedicated to my delightfully weird son Alex.  Great fun!  I wanted to belatedly give credit to the folks who adapted the pi song (their lyrics, Don MacLean’s tune) – Ken Ferrier and Antoni Chan!

Mark Out

Engineering Fatherhood Episode 30

Have your kids ever had an ‘incident’ in the bath?  In Matt’s family they call that a ‘CODE BROWN’.  This is all made even more fun with our special guest, Pete Loomis.   We tell all the fun stories about our kids in the bath:

All this together with rants and moments.  Pete wins the rant-off contest with his rant about toy product packaging.  That stuff is the bane of fathers everywhere.

Hope everyone has a great week.

Mark

Engineering Fatherhood Episode 29

Endless Summer by Aaron Lewis

Tonight’s discussion – Kids sleeping in YOUR bed!

Do your kids wangle their way into your bed?  Aren’t they cozy?  Have you ever tried to get them out of your bed after?  Getting them back in their own bed isn’t so easy is it?

Matt’s single night rule – Never let them sleep in your bed two nights running (this worked with girls in college too).  This is a great rule.  It allows the exception for things like being sick, a bad T-Storm, etc., but hopefully isnt habit forming without the second night.  This is a rule to live by.

John has a weird situation because the are grandchildren (man is he OLD).  They are only their on weekends and no one seems bothered by it.  Not sure what they do when the are back at home, but the rule we came up with is:  If you choose this lifestyle, more power to you.  If you dont want them there and just ‘cant’ get them to sleep in your own bed, you are being bullied by your kids!  Remember, you are bigger than they are!  Man up and put them back in their own bed!

We also agreed that at some point, this becomes a bit creepy.  We could not agree on an exact age, but if your kid is past puberty, they are too old to sleep in your bed.

Rants

Matt wins a second week in a row.  He had a slew of them.  Huge receipts that are more like junk mail mixed with your receipt.  He complained about automatic check out lanes, but didn’t get a lot of support.  Then he brought up overpriced professional photography and hit the jackpot.  I think the receipts one was the weekly winner

John complained about ‘press 1 for English’ and we all agreed that that was dumb.

Mark complained about purchasing eyeglasses, the mall, and brick and mortar stores in general.

All in all it was a very fun episode.  This week only, you may download it for FREE.

Remember, we can always use a review on iTunes.  Also, guest rants and all comments are accepted.

Signing off,

Mark

Engineering Fatherhood Episode 28

Going Through Hell by Rodney Atkins

Reading is important!  We go through our favorite books from baby board books to chapter books to teen series. We go through our favorites and even give tips on getting our kids to read.  Much reminiscing and tales of favorite books ensues.

Rant of the Week – Graham cracker packaging sucks!

Moments and a great ending song.  Download nowwwwwwwwwww!

Mark

Engineering Fatherhood Episode 27

Sounds Like Life to Me by Darryl Worley

As a man, the garage is our final frontier (unless, like John, you have a basement).  Garages hold our tools, our camping gear, and our cars…  OH and like 5,000 cubic yards of kids toys!

Special guest, Dad Owens shares his thoughts as we discuss garages of our past, garage destruction techniques, clutter and storage systems.  Does your garage look like this?

Then you are not alone.  Here is your best plan for a make over:

We also have a guest rant from a listener (Kelle Belle!) and great moments of the week.  Tune in and enjoy!

Mark

Engineering Fatherhood Episode 26

Hot Rod Lincoln by Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen

Silver Anniversary Episode!

Have you ever considered taking a job in another country?  What impact would it have on your family?  My good friend Antonio Medina joins us all the way from Sao Paulo, Brazil to tell us the pros and cons of ‘taking the family international’.  He has a wonderful wife and three super smart kiddoes.  On the plus side your kids become multilingual (three languages in his case) and get exposed to other cultures.  You also get to watch gogo girls at school functions!  On the minus side you are far from your extended family and have to travel a lot.

Antonio shares some wisdom and some great stories of living in Brazil.  We even learn a bit about Sao Paulo apparently has a larger GNP/Population than Poland!  As engineers and professionals, overseas jobs come up from time to time and we have all thought about it.

As always, we have rants and moments.

We also talk about guns and politics as usual.

Have a great week!

Mark

Engineering Fatherhood Episode 25

World War Z by Max Brooks audiobook

Hey all,

John brings up a good topic this week relating to grandparents and rules.  What about ‘what happens at grandma’s house stays at grandma’s house?’  Should grandparents be like Vegas?  Or does that go too far.  We came to the conclusion that when kids are with both grandparents and parents, parents rules should govern.

Matt brought up spider killing.  Mark (onsite in Enid Oklahoma) did not have a topic – Tighten up Mark!

Rants about stuff people did in our houses before we bought them and clutter.  Oh clutter you make me shudder!

Great moments and fun was had by all!

See you next week,

Mark

Engineering Fatherhood Episode 24

Two Pink Lines by Eric Church

The Hacker iOS game