My lovely wife is out doing last minute Christmas shopping and I’m home with the kids. While it would certainly be easy to just let them play video games all day, I like to challenge them to look beyond their surroundings and think. To do that, requires a fun puzzle, and I’ve been doing this one for a couple of years and they love it. In fact they love it so much that they requested I do it again this morning.
I’ve dubbed it “Moneyhunt”, which is a variation on a treasure hunt, and it is simple and easy for me, but for them, not so much… and that’s the attraction that gets them off the computer games and using skills of observation. I thought it worth sharing, so here’s how I do it.
What I do is take a selection of loose change, typically $1 exactly for each child, and hide it around the house in places that they’d never think to look. I also make good use of camouflage as shown in the picture below:
The trick is to place coins in places that aren’t on regular household surfaces, and to put shiny coins of like diameter on shiny objects that hide them. Darker coins like old pennies go into nooks on darker furniture. Making the coin look like part of the object is key to making it challenging.
I also put coins on top of doorknobs, tape them to the sides and bottoms of tables, and put them in the sea of refrigerator magnets with double sided sticky tape and a small magnet.
I’m still trying to figure out how to hide money on Tubbycat without waking him up:
By making sure you know the exact amount of coinage (in today’s case $2) the kids know just by counting the coins they have collected if they found them all. That last penny is usually particularly frustrating.
If you aren’t a parent, this little game works great for grandparents too.
Next year, since Al Gore’s warmer cronies say I’m apparently flush with cash reaching into the billions, I’m going to put out pure gold and silver coins and hide some gold bullion in the freezer. /sarc Yeah, that should be fun.
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If you aren’t a parent, this little game works great for grandparents too.
…”
Works for uncles too.
I used to do treasure hunts for my nieces and nephews. Best hiding place I ever used was taped (transparent tape, kid eye level) to a functional pocket door which almost no one ever used.
Great Idea, thanks.
If you play this game, be careful about younger kids finding the coins and putting them in their mouths. I was home alone with my daughter, when she was very young. I pulled her shorts down to change her diaper while she was laying on her back. A penny fell out of her pocket. I said, “Jenny, don’t put that in your mouth”, but it was too late. The coin got wedged in her windpipe, and she could not breathe at all. Realizing there was no time to call paramedics, I did the Heimlich maneuver on her, but I think I squeezed too hard. Everything in her stomach came out. Fortunately, the penny dislodged, but she swallowed it. I called the emergency room which advised me to just watch her stools, and she should pass it in a day or two. Two days later, she passed the penny. I cleaned it off. It had a dark blue patina on it (probably because of the reaction of bile acids on the copper — this was in the day of copper pennies). I wanted to get the penny mounted in Lucite as a memento for her, but never got around to it.
Just be careful out there — OK? And Merry Christmas.
Good luck on getting the patent office examiners to ‘buy-off’ on that one; prior implementation on just about EVERYTHING from vacuum cleaners to hair dryers to flashlights is the obstacle you are going to face.
You might try patenting something not quite so common, like square doorknobs or reverse-thread electric screw-in light bulbs …
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Better idea: Aluminum Zip-loc baggie for the phone (in effect, a Schlage or flexible RF shield). An idea-present from me to this Christmas eve!
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/8.18.html#subj2
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The way to check this a __________ … diode RF detector! You’re right!
The easiest way to do this is with a _________ …. small AM transistor radio placed next to the phone! Right again! Two for two now!
And what are we going to observe for? We are going to observe for _________ … clicking in the speaker each time the phone ‘wakes’ up and xmits a ‘packet’ of data to the cell site! Right again!!!!!
Congratulations on your Macgyvering a zero-cost zero-time solution on the fly with available ‘tools’ and/or materials!
ansel61 says:
December 24, 2013 at 11:16 am
(-: No, but i live just off the Mount of Beautitude, quite close to Nazareth…
And to Janice, thank you very much for your kind words too.
Have a great holiday!
Warmest of Christmas wishes to you and your family, Anthony!
Nice Anthony and Merry Christmas!
I have been watching the inverse over the last few weeks. My wife has been hiding money at retailers as far as I can tell ! LOL
On a more serous note, if any of you have shopped at a target store since the 27th of last month to the 15th of this month with a credit or debit card, get a new one. You need to do that to avoid issues since their breach of customer data happened. It is much easier to do that than the alternative. Just sayin…….. no BS folks. One of the many things I do is PCI compliance, and they were not compliant with a data breach of that magnitude. Hence the 40 million cards that were compromised. I was one of them.
That image looks more like a depiction of the surface flow. Notice the ‘flow’ in the mid US 48 in the following graphic – it more closely matches the 925 mb level:
. . . http://weather.rap.ucar.edu/upper/upaCNTR_925.gif
Than it does the 250 mb level (which is ripping from west to east and then to the NE for the present time):
. . . http://weather.rap.ucar.edu/upper/upaCNTR_250.gif
The different ‘levels’ can be selected here:
. . . http://weather.rap.ucar.edu/upper/
Nice graphic though … right clicking that image seems to give the wind speed at the point clicked, and it appears as though it is surface speeds.
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@ur momisugly mike, 1121 pm, re cell phone and land line we do the same here both of us , cell is with us as a flashlight like for emergencies only, as you do, please leave a message at the tone on the land line.
and if you want you are always welcome for a cupp, if ou know where we live , directions freely given .
To Anthony and his ex-fiancee, MERRY CHRISTMAS and a great 2014 , This is to all of you on this network especially to Janice ,you are a gem! And thanks Polski great pics (since moving to BC I have a hard time finding a level spot though LOL). Love and best wishes to all!
Reminds me of takin my kids to Mt. Graham in AZ.
I laid out some coin and gave them a map and a compass and showed them how to use them. They were 6 and 8.
They both navigated the course.
Sigh….
“If you aren’t a parent, this little game works great for grandparents too.”
Nah, for grandparents, hiding their specs is much more fun to watch !!
Keeps ’em out of trouble for hours.
re: ossqss says December 24, 2013 at 8:22 pm
Have you seen what has been ‘developed’ regarding the compromise, breech, ‘theft’ of Credit Card magnetic-stripe data, and the subsequent offering of that info on the web?
Brian Krebs does a bang-up job collecting that info, as do some of his posters, here:
http://krebsonsecurity.com/
This is the blog post that seems to have forced Target to go public with the information about the 18th of December or so:
http://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/12/cards-stolen-in-target-breach-flood-underground-markets/
To summarize, it appears that
(1) the data ‘contained’ in/on the mag strip on the back of all CC (credit, debit, etc cards) ran through Target company CC readers from about (2) Thanksgiving to 15 December was (3) forwarded in perhaps real-time to (4) an offsite repository and storage ‘archive’ in possession of ‘Carders’ (as they are known.)
By virtue of the fact that the CC info sucked up by Carders is *also* categorized by what city, state and Zip code, stolen CC data is available for known areas, obviously, so ‘red flags’ aren’t thrown when the card data is placed onto another, blank credit card and ostensibly used to purchase merchandise by crooks who have bought batches of these CC ‘numbers’ for placing on CC blanks.
Another important detail – the 3 or 4 digit NUMBER printed on the back of these CCards was not taken … this seems to be known as the CVV2 (C V V 2) number, whereas the CVV1 (C V V 1) number is coded in the mag strip on the card (with everything else). The CVV2 number appears to used when ordering things online/over the phone, etc.
They timed this well, too, in between Thanksgiving and Christmas – a very tight shopping season this year and banks/CUs are hesitant to do ‘blanket’ card cancellations on their own! This would impact shopping and customers in an even bigger way!
More details – see Krebs’ website above!
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Haha, what a lovely little game. Makes the adult(s) think too – the smarter you are, the smarter the kids have to think and the longer they’re occupied. And not an electron in sight!
Merry Christmas to the Watts family, and to all who pass this way, from a wet and slightly battered UK.
My mum would play “where are my glasses” as she went looking around the house looking for them. we would then tell her they were on the top of her head where she had pushed them when she had finished with them and would need them again in a little while. My mum never seemed to tier of this game and it kept us amused for ages as well.
I get around this by having a pair of glasses in each room so I can in theory lay my hands on them when needed.
A game our children seemed to like was where’s “X”. “X” could be anything that they could not find clothes, shoes, homework or a toy, it was normally in plain sight right next to whichever child was looking for it. They would be looking all around and I would be giving hints as to its location and marveling that they could not see it!
God bless you all this Christmas.
James Bull
Merry Christmas !!!
Eguberri On !!!
(Joxanjel and Manuela from Basque Country)
littlepeaks says:
December 24, 2013 at 6:47 pm
I had a similar thing happen, my boy was shaking a coin in a cup and as I put him down to change his diaper the coin flipped out of the cup and disappeared. I looked for it and couldn’t find it then asked if him if the coin did a “hole in one” and landed in his mouth. He said no but I didn’t believe it so I got my metal detector and sure enough it registered a solid “zinc penny” in his stomach. Took him to the doctors and they confirmed the penny was in his stomach and not in his airway, I got to use my metal detector again to confirm it had cleared his system.
Out on the prairies a snare wire and some gopher holes were a great way to keep the kids occupied for hours. Mind you that only works in summer.
Happy Christmas everyone!
Just don’t be surprised when they find those adult toys in the bedroom closet.
Thanks for the tip, Anthony. I tried that on my 4 nieces & nephews (ages 2 to 8) at our Christmas Eve party. To avoid accidental trampling of the smaller kids, I assigned each kid his/her own room to search, with difficulty level adjusted according to age. To complete the quest in the limited time (or attention span) available I finally had to give hints, but it worked out well. 🙂
Just a teensy nit: The set “grandparents” is a proper subset of “parents”. Hence, the set of those with grandkids who are not parents is empty. Of course, the game can be played with kids who are somebody else’s children or grandchildren.
Now we know how you hide your funding from Big Oil..
Listen! Hear age-old carols echo cheer
As celebrants brave winter’s dark and chill.
Now family and friends do offer praise,
Proclaim peace and prosperity at each New Year.
Let all rejoice, and chorus in good spirits:
WELCOME, YULE!
“I’m going to put out pure gold and silver coins and hide some gold bullion …”
I recommend you flag that sentence with a /sarc tag, Anthony, lest it be widely quoted as ‘proof’ in future MSM reportage of the ‘Dark Money’ hit-piece.