John:

Good morning Hank, it's Tuesday, July 30th, 2013, and I'm back! I missed you guys so much, but I've really had a wonderful paternity leave. It's just so great to be home with my family and my beautiful baby daugh- am I, am I in an airport? DANG IT!

So Hank, I'm on my way to VidCon and

Airport voice: Outside the airport along sidewalk streets or parking areas [Continues]

John: Oh, I can't smoke? I can't smoke inside of a public building? That's a shock. Can I snort heroin? Oh, I'm not allowed to snort heroin either? What is this, an airport or a monastery? Right, but before I was in this airport on my way to VidCon, I spent the last month with my family on the United States' third coast: Lake Michigan.

There was the beautiful water and astonishing sunsets, and sometimes people would pretend to have a war to celebrate America's independence. There were also a lot of Nerdfighters there on the coast of Lake Michigan, although I never met them until and unless I removed my shirt at the beach, at which point inevitably, someone would walk up to me and be like: "are you John Green?" and I would be like "g-g-g-g, yes?".

Right, I want to tell you about a funny thing that happened but I have to go get on the plane so I'll tell you in California. Movie... Magic! 

That joke was 6 hours in the making. So, Hank, as a preface to this story, you have to understand that while my son Henry is very bright, he is also 3 1/2 years old, so he rarely says things that surprise me because, you know, like, I taught him all of the words he knows.

Okay, so when we first get to Michigan, Henry and I go down to the beach, and we're digging holes, you know, looking for treasure, and he says: "Daddy, I wanna dig a big hole! I wanna dig all the way to the tippy-tippy bottom!" (Which is of course the opposite of the tippy-tippy top.) and I said "Yeah, let's keep digging!" and Henry said "Daddy, this is so fun!" and I said "I know!" and then he said, "Daddy, do you know who likes diggin' holes?" and I said "No, who?" and he looked at me, and he said "Germans".

Okay, so when Henry was one, we lived for a little while in the Netherlands while I was researching The Fault in Our Stars , and we kept running into Dutch people who would tell us that they didn't really think that highly of Germans. And I would be like "Oh, yeah. because of the Second World War, and the occupation, and everything" and they would say, "No no no! That's all water under the bridge. It's because they dig holes in our beaches".

This happened like six different times and Sarah and I would always comment upon it, apparently in the presence of Henry, and then we went to a Dutch beach, and sure enough, there were all of these people with like full sized shovels, digging like 30 foot (9 meter) deep holes, and all of them were speaking German. And Henry, somewhere in the deep recesses of his one year-old brain, remembered this, which makes me worry about all the other things that he might remember. Like the times during the Liverpool games when I forget to use the word 'darn' and also forget to use the word 'damn'. 

Anyway Hank, I bring this up for two reasons. First, I think it is time for German people and Dutch people to have a constructive dialog about the 'holes in beaches' phenomenon. And secondly, Henry is 3 1/2 years-old and he already has his first cultural stereotype: hole-digging Germans. I think that says a lot about us as humans. 

Anyway I know there's nothing more boring than stories about other people's kids, but whatever they're adorable. 

Okay Hank, I just want to take a second to thank all of Nerdfighteria for being so understanding during my paternity leave and also to the amazing guest hosts, who made it so much fun. Frankly, more fun than, like, regular me. 

You can find links to all of their channels in the dooblydoo. Hank, thank you for this nice hotel room. I will see you when I go downstairs after I finish editing this. Bye!