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I have a little catching up to do and three stories to relate. The first deals with Ethen and his cub scouts. He has just finished up his first pinewood derby race. I am learning that these races are for the boys, but the parents do most of the competing. This was first evident by the fact that we were given 5 pages of instructions on what you can and can't do to the car to make it ready to compete in the races. After Ethen received his little car, he set on the task of what to design it to look like. He looked for fast cars, and after looking at designs that he didn't like, he decided that wanted a shark.

I had him try to draw the design on paper and then I helped him make it into something that we were capable of actually making. This design was a simple shark with a tubular body design. Then I had him transpose the design on to his block of wood. This I thought was a straight forward task, but quickly learned that what I was asking was trying to make him see three different views of the car (front, side, and top) view and then transpose them of a 3D car onto a flat block of wood. My intent was to have him shave the wood down until it was the shape he drew, starting on one side and then moving on to another and finally the third. I thought this would help him make the 3D car. He couldn't grasp what I was asking so I showed him by drawing the first view. He said he understood, so I then taught him how to use a dremmel tool and put a small sanding drum on it (think rotary sander). This would allow him to slowly make the shape.

I soon learned that as much fun as he was having, he still didn't quite have a grasp of how to do it. After he worked on it for a while (20 minutes) he came in and told me that he ruined his car. So I helped him shape the rest of the basic shape. Once we had the tubular body, we took the router and cut a groove on the top for a fin, and one on the bottom for some weights. The fin was made out of some wooden scraps and shaped with a dremmel, and the weights on the bottom were made by taking some fishing weights, placing them in the bottom half of a soda can, and holding it over the stove until we had molten lead in the bottom of the can. Then we went outside and poured it into the groove.

This worked very well. After it cooled, I had Ethen do the painting. He was again more than thrilled do it. He painted it gray three times, and then turned it over to me for the finer details. I am not an artist (and he is much better than me, but nevertheless I gave it a try) and this is what we ended up with. While putting on the wheels, one of the nails (axles) broke the wood, and we had to enlist some wood glue to help hold it in place. Then graphite powder was added around the axles and hubs to help it move freely down the track.

When it came time to race the cars, our was 5.5 ounces (5.0 ounces being legale) and we had to use a drill to remove some of the lead on the bottom. The car was one of 32 in the pack that were to race that day, and due to logistics and time constraints, everyone didn't race everyone else. Ethen's car raced 3 times and lost all three times. He was one of about 5 that didn't win any races. Apparently others took 2000 grit sandpaper and cleaned up the tire faces and axles where the tires rubbed. Then they took pipe cleaners and a drill press and polished up the interior of the wheel hubs. Those were the fastest cars.

After learning this, I can see why it is a parents contest. There were some really neat designs there. Some people had put a lot of effort into the cars. You couldn't widen them, lengthen them, or change the wheel base (these were all checked at the weight in) but you could alter the height. This is what we did, and a few others as well. Ethen had a good time and still likes his car regardless of the poor finish.

In other news, you may have heard that Landon is quite the climber. He is always climbing his way into mischief around the house. He has learned how to climb up on the bottom drawer of the stove and turn his body and open the top drawer. He then can have access to its contents and actually be high enough to see what he is getting. This happens to be a "junk" drawer, and contains a couple of screw drivers which he will incessantly retrieve and then relocate around the house. I imagine that it wont be long until I will no longer be able to find them.

Another climbing feat was also in the kitchen. We had some cookies on the counter and he wanted to get a taste. He went into his room, got his clothes hamper and dumped out all of his clothes, then dragged it into the kitchen. He then turned it upside down and climbed on the top. From here he had to get up on top of the sink and then he crawled down the counter to the lower counter and then had a seat and devoured the remainder of the cookies all while holding his bottle in his mouth. This he did so that he could have a drink once he had finished with his snack. Unfortunately about 25% of the cookies ended up on the floor. He always makes a mess on the floor while eating, but when eating desserts, his percentage of waste goes down.

Lastly, the first weekend of January, I flew back to Tennessee to do a field inspection of the new stack that is being fabricated for the power plant. This trip took me from Tucson to Houston, and then from Houston to Nashville. I didn't know it, but that latter flight goes right across the southern part of Arkansas. I was sitting there on the plane and I happened to look out the window and I saw this first photo. I looked at it and said to myself that that was an oxbow lake, and after looking at it I said that is Lake Chicot, and subsequently lake village. You see an oxbow lake is an U-shaped body of water formed when a wide meander from the main stem of a river is cut off to create a lake. Lake Chicot is the largest oxbow lake in North America, and I used to live just 45 minutes from there. So I started looking and sure enough, I found McGehee, Arkansas. The second photo is of McGehee, AR. I don't know if you remember it or not Wyatt, but you flew out of and landed in McGehee when you came out to visit us when we lived there. The second photo has the airstrip designated by an arrow. In the first photo, the paper mill - Cypress Bend (named for the bend in the river it is by) - is up river designated by an arrow.

Below is Monticello. This is where we used to live, and if you look at the arrow, that is our house (or our neighbors house). It is hard to see from 34,000 feet and looking through a piece of glass and a piece of plastic, but there it is. Seeing this country again, sure made me miss it there. It was sure a real neat place to live.

Below you can see the paper mill where I used to work. It is located right on the Mississippi river. Also if you look closely at the first photo, you can see the Mississippi Delta (where the trees stop, and farming land begins). I was amazed that I could find these places from the air, especially when I wasn't expecting it.

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