A few days ago I mentioned that I was preparing for my favorite holiday—Halloween. Work has to start early because there are a lot of things to do but more than that things have to be done in a certain order and there are some things that don’t seem to make any sense. For example, why is it important that a rebar tree stake be removed from my backyard?
Let’s start from the end result and work backwards. It is necessary to have the Halloween display operational from the hours of 6 PM to 9 PM on Saturday, October 31st. That’s fairly reasonable but a reliable performance of homemade pneumatic, electronic, and mechanical props requires that they be set up a day prior so that all the repairs from last year and all the new bugs can be worked out. It has been our tradition for the past 6 years to invite over friends on the day before to show off and exercise the equipment. The small number of friends became a large number of friends and a full blown house party. Luckily, Nancy decorates and prepares the house while I concentrate on the grave yard display.
We’re getting to the stake. I promise.
A full blown party requires furniture that we don’t use except for during the party. We have a collection of folding chairs and tables that usually get stored in our guest bedroom. Also, the Halloween props don’t reside with us all year. They are stored in one of those rental storage places about a mile from the house. As a result our guest room isn’t very useful as a guest room and I have to move a lot of material to and from the house to the storage unit. So this year we decided to get a storage shed in the backyard.
Here’s the list of things that came out of those concerns (in reverse chronological order):
Install Murphy bed
Empty guest room
Build storage building
Pour slab of concrete
Remove stake that is in the way
There are other things that have to happen. For example, sometime I’ll have to retrieve all of the Halloween stuff from the storage location, build the new props for 2015, and rework and repair the previous year’s props. (This year I’m computerizing some of them.)
The stake was located right where the concrete slab needs to go. I had no idea how deep it went. Previously, I tried to remove a similar one on the other side of the tree. My landscaper installed three of them to hold up a young Mesquite tree after it fell over in a Monsoon storm. It is made of rebar material and I wasn’t able to remove the other one. I ended up digging down about 18″ and cutting off the top. It’s still there and that fact bothers me. While you might say that it’s no big deal, it still bothers me and that’s just the way I am. It’s not right! So I was prepared to do what was necessary to pull out this one completely.
Yesterday, I dug down about a foot. Then I took a pipe and drove it in the ground around the stake. Of course, the pipe was difficult to remove and the stake was still stuck fast. I poured water in the hole and quit for the day. Today, I went out with more water, a bigger shovel, a small portable jack hammer, and my trusty steel pipe. I worked on it for about an hour and it didn’t budge one little bit. But then I got an idea…
I had a hydraulic motorcycle jack that will lift 1,000 pounds and some chains, a pair of vice grips, some tire irons, and a steel rod to put over the hole…Presto!
Mission accomplished.
There is a 
After getting close several times, 
internet! There is power for 12 hours in the day and water enough to drink and shower occasionally (limited to three minutes of tepid water—quite invigorating). The food was good and plentiful and prepared for the campers by a small catering staff. The weather was generally nice but we did have one wet day that started with fog and drizzle but it was only for the one day and the sky cleared up in time for our nighttime stargazing activities which included making an LED constellation, a star treasure hunt, and building a using a simple astrolabe.
On the list were things like something blue, a rock, a leaf, a feather, etc. I know a feather was on the list because one of the campers chased me down and took my hat.
I unloaded, set up, and tested the track. Then it went back into the storage box to await its time in the spotlight at the end of the program on Friday. That is when the campers who chose to build Pinewood racers would compete in front of the whole camp. 
Everything worked! The six campers that built cars each raced six times. The oldest boy in the competition became the race official and lined up the cars on the track behind the starting gate. He made sure the rotation was proper during the next race. I operated the computer and tallied the scores. After each race, the kids retrieved their cars and they 
were lined up for the next race. It went quick. Each race only takes a couple of seconds. After six races the numbers were in. The computer sorted out the scores and one car came out on top with 6 first place wins. That car belonged to the youngest and littlest Camp Quest camper. Everyone cheered as Gloria was crowned the 2015 Camp Quest Pinewood champion! Congratulations Gloria and congratulations Camp Quest AZ for another successful year.
This is the penultimate chapter on the Pinewood Derby track a friend and I built at Edwards AFB when we had kids in Cub Scouts thirty years ago. After getting all the pieces collected, the first step was to test it out. It is 32 feet long. The best place to set it up was on my back porch. After all this time and mileage, it still worked! It had some dings but the electronics still functioned and the cars stayed on track. In the picture you can see the middle four lanes occupied by my son’s three cars and my 54 year old version. Everything worked but it needed to be “freshened” up a bit and the joints needed work. Working with filler and sandpaper I filled the nicks and smoothed out the all-important rail edges. This is the part of working with wood that I hate but it had to be done.
Also, I’m a bit older bending over is not my favorite thing either but it had to be done…no wait, perhaps not.
put it on tables. This made the painting and sanding easier. The smoothed out track was then painted flat 
black then I needed to fix an old problem. After the car crosses the finish line, it needs to be stopped. The suggested method is to raise the rail at the end so that the car is lifted off its wheel and rides on the rails. The problem is that most of the cars are slick on the bottom. They have a good deal of speed and frequently don’t stop within the 2 feet provided. The previous solution was to put a section of pipe insulation on the end for the cars to bounce off of. That works but sometimes the cars bounce back and off their rail and collide with other cars on the track. The new solution was to coat the rail after the finish line with rubberized paint. The 
foam barricade at the end is still there but hopefully the cars won’t be bouncing off of it. I’ll tell you if it worked when I return from 
camp.
didn’t want to arrive at the camp with new damage. I needed 
a shipping/storage crate. The track pieces needed protection and combined into one package. It would be heavy and it would still be hauled in the back of a truck. My truck has a six foot bed which is 2+ feet too short for the track sections. The packed track would have to be tilted. Also, the access to the summer camp facilities is via a 
few miles of dirt road and I would need a dust cover. OK, still with me? The next step would be to build the crate. Then the crate needed a cover and wheels.
protection too. Luckily, I didn’t have to build something this time. An under bed storage container from Walmart was all I needed and luckily the packed electronics fit handily in the crate and under the dust cover.
one is a bit of a surprise and it would spoil it if I attached the picture to this blog. In order to see the 6th car, you’ll have to wait until I 
return from camp unless you’re at camp.
For three straight years starting in 1984, my son and I participated in his Pinewood Derby. The three cars are pictured are his cars. The car on the left is his first and although we worked on it together, I did a lot of work on the car from beginning to end. The car is extremely tail heavy. It was my idea that having the weight near the rear of the car would give it the most potential energy and make it faster. A Pinewood racer is powered by only gravity and there is a weight limit of 5 ounces. Maxing out on the potential energy along with low friction wheels and a car that seldom touches the guide rail (in other words, a straight running car) produces the fastest cars and the ones that win the races. The aerodynamic shape of the body is also a factor. It turns out that having the weight too far back is a BAD thing because it makes the front wheels light. Track imperfections especially where the track sections come together can cause the front end to bounce. If the front end goes above the rail, the car may leave the track and not finish.
In 1986, we had our new track with the electronic scoring box. The software allowed each boy to run against every other boy in his den. The top three finishers in each den advanced to the final stage where the boys all competed for the overall trophies. The new track had a special feature that indicated when a new track record had been made. We wrote the name of the boy with the fastest time on an easel each time the record was broken. At the end of the day, my son had won 3rd place overall but his name was on the board for the fastest time. He won two trophies that day! That ended my son’s Pinewood Derby experience. He left on a high note but so did all of his competitors. They got to handle their own cars and raced at least six times. There was no question about the scoring. It was done electronically and fairly. It was a great experience. Lee graduated to Boy Scouts after that and we moved away from Edwards Air Force Base to Dyess AFB, Texas.
…and I may not be ready…I’ve made a joke of it but it’s true! Ever since I retired, I don’t have time for my hobbies. Currently, I’m preparing for my second year as a camp counselor at 
This might be considered a public service. When someone calls me at home, I simply say, “I don’t give money to people that bother me by calling me at home. I’m sorry. Goodbye.” If you want money from me, don’t call me…And don’t come to my door either. The same rule applies. When someone calls to sell me something, I’m less polite than that. Normally, I just hang up the phone and add the calling number to my “blocked list.” Rude? Perhaps but is it less rude to hang up on an unwanted call than to make a sales call to a person who has enrolled in the “do not call” list? To those that call from “Microsoft” telling me that they’ve noticed that I have malware traffic on my computer…I’m even ruder! If I knew how to say “Fuck you, you’re a liar” in Hindi I’d say it but I have to register my displeasure in good ol’ English. Technology is wonderful and I’m on board with most of it. At one time the phone was the pinnacle of technology in the home. When I was a kid we had one on the wall in the kitchen and it had a very long coiled cord. My parents splurged on a “private” as opposed to “party” line so that when the phone rang it was supposed to be for us. However, we lived in base housing on the grounds of the Air Force Academy and our number was GreenWood 2-1006 which was one number off from the number for the kitchen at the Officer’s Club. You can imagine the phone calls we got:
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