It has been a few months. It’s hard to believe that at one time this was a daily blog. Of course back then there were a couple of writers. I’ve still got plenty to say and hopefully there are readers who want to hear what I have to say. So how is it that over four months pass before I publish a blog entry? Notice I said “publish” there were many times that I sat down, started writing, and didn’t finish. It’s like a pressure relief valve. I sit down all fired up and a few paragraphs in the urgency to write seems to fade. I never get back to one I’ve started even though I tell myself that I’ll get back and finish it.
So here it is one day before the election. If I had something to say about the election that might have made a difference, I would have written much sooner. However, there is something almost as scary as politics during this time during the year—Halloween.
Halloween is my favorite holiday and as one of the neighborhood kids says I go “all out.” I’ve enjoyed the holiday since I was very young. One of my earliest memories is winning a 
classroom costume contest. I was dressed as “Hot Stuff” a comic book character. It was way back in 1960. We had school Halloween parties back then and someone dressed as a little devil could win a costume contest. I wonder if things have changed much since then. As I grew up Halloween provided many opportunities to stretch my creative muscles. There were costumes to construct, of course, but more importantly we had to have a neighborhood tactical plan. We had to get to the most houses in the allotted time and a pillow case was the only acceptable option for collecting the candy. There were rules we had to follow or we couldn’t go. We weren’t allowed to eat anything homemade. All candy had to be inspected before we could eat it and we were only allowed to eat two pieces each day. If we got a good haul that meant we would have candy until Christmas! Finally in our house “Trick-or-treat” ended at the age of 12. After that age, my job was to do the handing out.
So I handed out candy when the doorbell rang. My parents didn’t decorate or get into the spirit of the holiday at all. Dave Michaels was a friend of mine from high school. His dad set up a pumpkin on a pole covered with a white cloth. The pumpkin had an electric light in it and a speaker under it. It also had a large solenoid that would flip up some stubby arms under the cloth. Dave’s dad would hide in the house and watch the kids through the window. When they came up he would talk with them and make the arms go up and down. I only saw it one time and only for a couple of minutes. When I saw it, it didn’t work but that brief encounter changed the way I looked at Halloween ever since.
Eventually, I recreated the talking pumpkin only a bit better and I set it up every year for over thirty years. My pumpkin had a speaker, and a light. While it didn’t have moving arms, the light was voice modulated. When Nancy and I moved to Tucson in 2000 we brought our talking pumpkin. The neighborhood kids loved talking to the pumpkin and would sometimes come back after they finished trick-or-treating just to chat. Many still remember it but now they’re quite a bit older and some even have children of their own. It was our sole display until 2008 when I finally retired from work at Raytheon and the beginning of the next chapter in the “Lacey’s Scary Halloween Graveyard.”
Nancy bought me a hang up clown display in 2008 and I attempted to make it come out of a box. Mercifully, I don’t have any pictures of that attempt. I started too late and the power automotive radio aerial didn’t have the >snap< I was looking for. In 2009 I started earlier and discovered pneumatics. The Clown and the Popup Ghoul were born and joined the talking pumpkin. Gravestones were put in the garden behind lumps of dirt. It was better but I made a mistake. I invited a few friends over on Halloween night to come over and see the display. It wasn’t a mistake to invite them. It was a mistake to invite them on Halloween night. There was so much going on and I wasn’t able to enjoy their visit, show off the display, operate the display, and dole out the candy.
The current routine started in 2010 when I invited some friends over the night before. Once in a while things just seem to work out. I found a new friend Jack Herron who got into the holiday as much as I did and he donated tons of his decorations to the effort. Having people over the day before was so much better and continued through this year. The “Devil’s Night” party provided me a chance to dry run all the props, show off a bit, and have a party. Things that fail during the dry run can be repaired on Halloween before Trick-or-Treat and the kids get a fully functioning display for the entire time.
I hope that you enjoy Halloween as much as I do. Check out the video and come by in 2017 and see what is new!
Camp Quest AZ is over for 2016. It was great! There was a wide variety of activities for the campers and the Counselors were always on the run making things happen. As before, the staff had the help of the older campers called LTs. This year there were 9 LTs and 45 younger campers. Many were returnees and some previous attendees came back as LTs. I was in the cabin with the older boys. As a program counselor, I was responsible for running my programs and filling in when the cabin counselor had other duties. Rick was the cabin counselor but also ran programs. He was VERY busy during the week. If you want to know more about Camp Quest and Camp Quest Arizona, check out 
The fun continues…Yesterday I finished construction of Robby the Robot. As in the other Tin Can Creations projects, he is built around an empty Healthy Choice Chicken Noodle Soup can. It’s my activity and I make up the rules. So, I decided to build all my tin can robots using the discarded container of the soup I’ve eaten almost every day for almost 13 years.
The ATtiny85 microprocessor lights up Robby’s LEDs and activates his pager motor. When Robby is switched on his eyes light up along with the two flickering lights in his chest behind the discarded car air freshener. He buzzes in short bursts while at the same time his mouth lights up with blue LEDs. Then, all the lights switch on. Finally, only the three “brain” lights illuminate at the top of his dome and rotate as if he is thinking about something important.
Thanks to one of the members of Tucson Atheists, I have a couple of empty gas cartridges. They are cool and needed to find their way into one of the Tin Can Creation projects.
In preparation for my program at Camp Quest AZ, I’ve created 3 prototypes (pictured on the left). Certainly, there will be more. The prototypes are being used to help design a viable program for the young campers because a month ago this was just an idea. Hopefully, the kids will see these and become as excited as I am to create robots out of recycled materials
. They are all based on the same empty soup can. The soup can is Healthy Choice Chicken Noodle. I have a large quantity of these cans. I have it for lunch every day. The rest of the robots are constructed of items found in my workshop and in the streets near my house.
The kids will start with a “basic” kit of parts including a couple of cans and some electronics components. They’ll also have a supply miscellaneous hardware items available. Then their imagination can take over! Here is how the process worked for me…
I needed to capture the essence of the Dalek. I started with the eye stock detail. All Daleks see the world through their eye stock. A piece of tubing, pony beads, and a blue LED were pressed into service.
Fortunately I had an old dead pen with a flashing LED that would make a great “exterminator.”
Black foam insulation tape became the skirt at the bottom. Originally, I had wire nuts on top to simulate the communication antennae but I replaced them with spare LED Christmas tree bulbs.
It was a simple matter to add a battery holder and a slide switch to power all the LEDs and…”Exterminate!”
Here the trusty soup can is flanked by two miniature plastic bottles. The dome comes off of the top of a laundry detergent container. The rear trucks are spent car deodorizers that clip on the AC vents. The front truck was made out of an empty dental floss container.
First coat of paint was black, followed by a coat of silver and a final coat of white. I cut out some blue vinyl tape, mounted the LEDs, the switch, and the batteries and it was time to shoot the engineer. R2D2 was done!
Remember the Jetsons? Here is Rosie, model XB-500 reporting for cleaning duty in the house of the future. Actually it’s another Healthy Choice soup can made up to look like something other than trash. Rosie has LED lights and fancy chrome antennae. Her arms
are small water pipes and her base is a lug nut. Look into her eyes and you’ll see painted water bottle lids. Her collar came off of a greeting card and her hat and skirt are what’s left of a duster.
In the February 25th issue of The Daily Wildcat there is an article entitled “
to pull out key words from his rhetoric and create Bingo cards. To be fair, his presentations are entertaining and sometimes he uses words and phrases to color and keep the students engaged. For example here are some of the words you might find on your Bingo card: Grope, Cheap Thrills, Wicked, Margaret, Bedroom, Fear or Trembling, Squeeze, and Virgin. Some of the words might be considered rude in polite company. The SSA hands out the Bingo cards and the students listen for the key words. When they get a Bingo, they are rewarded with a piece of candy provided at the SSA table where they’ll get a chance to talk with the club members and sign on to their email list. It’s a good time.
On January 12th, the board of directors of the Secular Coalition for America announced the appointment of Larry T. Decker (an unaffiliated Christian) as the new Executive Director of the organization. I for one am not impressed!
I just lost a member of the community today. Apparently, the subject of UFOs came up during a wine tasting party and she was upset that I dismissed the subject in such a mocking manner. Here’s her note:
It’s been a week of driving for Nancy and me and our ’97 Thunderbird “Atheist Mobile.” Normally, our old cruiser sits in the driveway collecting dust and tree sap but we got a chance to clean it up, fuel it up, and drive it to and from Phoenix three times this week.
AZAtheist's Blog 