Bwahahaha! 
There are only two (um, actually a lot more than that, but I’ll start with two) words you need to know about the PineWood Derby.*
“Graphite Dust”
Once the car is built, grab your handy tube of graphite dust and use most of it on the wheels. Maybe you shouldn’t listen to me, 'cause I never actually won any races, but my Dad swore by (or at) the graphite dust.
Also, make sure you get lots of weights. These guys even have tungsten weights, which are better than lead 'cause you get to have the most expensive car, and you get to say, “Due to its very high density Tungsten is an excellent weighting material for pinewood derby cars. Only gold, platinum, and a few other rare and expensive metals have a similar density. Tungsten is about 1.7 times heavier than lead and 3.2 times heavier than the no-lead weight often used on pinewood derby cars, thus it allows a tremendous amount of freedom in the car design” (from the linked site) while looking all pompous and happy.
*Capitalization in reference to the new and improved VunderBob.
I think this might be part of the problem, Bumba. Bosses generally like employees to stay awake during the working part of the day. Even if an occasional nap boosts productivity and the work’s all getting done. That don’t cut no ice, for some reason you have to stay awake.
Uh… gee, thanks for the fashion tips Swampy. I’ll be sure to take that into account if it ever becomes an issue. Show arms, expose chest. I can see how that would be a big improvement. Yeah.
I think I need a Sawzall.
Scout Daddy Rue, showing your manly arms and chest would be an inspiration to all the little cubbies to grow up big and strong. Of course you need a Sawzall. Soupo’s got a PineWood Derby car to build after all. It is an essential tool and you should probably bundle up little Katcha right now and run out and buy one. If The Little Woman happens to notice it just say, “What? This old thing? I’ve had it for years.” It’ll work. Trust me. Really. Oh, and don’t forget to pick up a few tungsten weights while your out. No need to wait for the last minute only to discover the store’s out of em. That’d be a shame. Also, might as well stock up on graphite dust. Again, no sense in waitin’ til the last minute.
-swampbear (providing all the justification you need)
I grew up in a power tool deprive household. Mom wouldn’t even let me use a power mower, even after I pointed out that the concept was very similar to the vacuum cleaner and she never had any trouble having me use that machine. Alas and alack, my argument fell on deaf ears, and to this day I have never mowed a lawn with a power mower. My life is incomplete.
So, on to power tools. In my early 20’s I was involved in the Society for Creative Anachronisms, and, as a beginning fighter, I was anxious to make some armor (this was before I discovered the world of the consumer, where you pay a craftmen to do such things for you). A friend was willing to let me use his shop and guide me through the making of many, many small rectangles of metal (breastplates are a lady’s nightmare, give me a suit of brigandine any day) and attaching them to leather. Well, to do this, I need to use power tools (an anachronism). My friend, seeing an adult woman, points me in the directions of the sander or drill or saw or whatever it was I was supposed to use, says a few lines about what I’m supposed to do and goes back to his project. After I ruin something and make horrid noises with the equipment and demonstrate my profiency at swearing like a Marine, we re-group.
Then he digs up some written instructions for what I’m doing, complete with illustrations. Ahhhh, much better. The volume of the noises is much reduced, and I’m only swearing like a dockworker. Again, we re-consider the process. My friend seems genuinely perplexed at my inability to use a simple power tool to do a simple job.
“Tell me,” I said to my friend, “if a neighborhood kid came over and wanted to work in your workshop, and the parents said okay, at about what age would you let the kid use power tools?”
“Well, if I knew the kid, maybe eleven,” replies my ever-helpful friend.
“Good,” is my response, “treat me like an eleven year old using a power tool for the first time.”
“But,” my rather literal friend argued, “you’re 21, not eleven.”
“Yes,” I replied, impressed that he remembered my age, “but with power toys I am but a babe in the woods.” (or something like that, I may have still been in dockworker mode, and that wouldn’t be fit to print).
My friend is a patient and gifted teacher, any child would be perfectly safe and well-advised in learning to use power tools under his tutelage. Armed (yes, the pun is intended), with knowledge of my total lack of skills and experience, my friend was able to successfully guide me throught the process of making many, many small rectangles of metal, all ready to be riveted onto leather.
Of course, by the time they were ready, I was dating an armourer and he was making me armor, so somewhere, in a dusty corner of a workshop, there are many, many small rectangles of metal still waiting for some leather.
I’m very, very sorry about all the cooking stuff, Ex. Would it help if I took my shirt off?
No, it’s too cold. It was supposed to snow last night, and it’s all chilly in here.
I was in Girl Guides before they sold chocolate mint cookies. We just had regular vanilla and chocolate cookies. No fun. And swampy, I don’t know about the popcorn, but the chocolate small children sell around here is crap. Why can’t they sell discount Godiva or something? Maybe with booze? That would be great! Amaretto and brandy chocolates!
In other news, the LCBO (the Ontario licensed booze-vendors) is selling cute little packages of mini Smirnoff bottles. Vanilla, cranberry, citrus, green apple, and a couple other flavours. I was booze-shopping with Driving Husband. He’d run out of the ingredients to make Commodore Justice, his personal creation. It needs Malibu, regular rum, vodka, limoncello, and melon liquer. With grenadine and orange juice.
They are dangerous to drink. Usually, if Driving Husband offers you a drink, it’s a good idea to dilute it a lot.
My Dad owns a crazy number of power tools, Kalley. You can use ours. Remember the oxy tanks in his workroom, which were next to my bedroom? And my bedroom was full of fabric, dust, and candles?
It’s amazing we all survived.
Engraving gear, welding and soldering gear, fun dremel tools, power drills, lathes, jigsaws, stained glass-making-stuff…
Kalley you are invited to the swampcave next summer to partake of mowing with a power mower. Afterwards, we can lounge around the pool whilst brawny and burly men attend to our needs. Deal? Bet we could come up for some uses for those many, many small rectangles of metal.
Good call on the Indian name, Bob. That gave me a chuckle.
I don’t have any power tools. I do, however, have a Kitchen Aid mixer. Some folks might consider that close to being a power tool.
Those dough hooks can do some damage in the wrong hands, is all I’m sayin’.
I remember when my son was in the Cub Scouts. Boy Scouting lasted all of a little over year. We did however, get to do the Pinewood Derby (we came in second), and the rubber band rockets. We never got to do the boat thing. We did other cool stuff and went to some interesting places, but my son soon lost interest in going. 'Sides, they were ALWAYS trying to get me and/or hubby to be some kinda leader or something too.
I have very little in the way of power tools, but I have a couple. I want some more power tools (and I’m a girl! ), but don’t know when I’ll get around to purchasing any.
Right now the focus is on new furniture. Yay! Hopefully, it will at the very least be ordered by the end of this month. I found something I really like and hubby likes it too. It is tres chic! . But…I have a couple of other places I want to check out before I commit to actually ordering this particular set. Hubby still likes the chair and a half idea, and he and I sat in one, but even he agreed the “look” is definitely frumpy. I’m thinking of going custom with that chair. There is a place that won’t charge me extra for custom work and they also sell the line we like. Perhaps they’ll be a little less expensive as well. I plan to do some looking on Thursday because I’ll be off work then anyway.
Other than that, I’ve got nuttin’ excitin’ going on.
Swampy, bein’ that we’re buds to the point that I’d let you into my refrigerator without explicit permission, I don’t care if you small-case my name.
Awwwwwwwww… VB!
Course the true test of buds is when you let a bud into your beerator without explicit permission.
May I small case your name as well?
Oh, I’d let either one of you in my fridge anytime 
Me! Me! Can I, too, huh? Hey I actually thought we were supposed to lowercase our names here in the MMP.
It’s a deal! How’s mid-June for you? You supply the burly and brawny men and I’ll buy the beer. Or a reasonable portion thereof, I may not be able to completely fulfill the swampcave’s beer needs on my income, but I’m willing to go broke trying!
I never got to do the Pinebox Derby thing. They do let girls do it now, don’t they? I was young in the days when they still had pretty sharp fences between girl-stuff and boy-stuff and never the twain should meet. I wasn’t a Girl Scout or anything either. My sister was a Bluebird for a year or so, and Mom was the assistant leader or substitute leader or some such thing. That was enough experience in scouting for my family (once, when my sister’s troop was making cratfs at our house, I put a staple in my thumb (on accident), and for the rest of the afternoon, the girls all took turns reading If I Owned the Circus to me). I may not have been very good at crafts, but I was cute. Another example of why I think Beverly Cleary somehow channelled my childhood and based the Ramona books on it.
Whew, what a day! It’s homecoming this week and there are bouncy teenagers in their pajamas all over the place. Do other parts of the country have dress up days during homecoming or are we the only freaks? The good news is I get to wear my jammies all day. The bad news is I’ll never be able to look these slippers in the eye again. Poor dears have never been worn outside before and they’ve definitely lost their outdoor/indoor virginity today.
I made the best minestrone in the whole world this weekend. The kind you dream about and would eat for breakfast even though you’re the sort who never eats pizza for breakfast much less soup. I just sort of combined a handful of recipes and stood back (after a world of chopping) and then-- blammo!-- good soup. The same can’t be said for the vaguely pumpkin-flavored mousse recipe I tried. Big fat ‘meh’ on that.
Power tools. Mine all come in the prettiest aqua cases, almost like they’re from Tiffany’s. In my stocking, I would like a planer and a joiner.
Taters, have you thought of a two-seater sofa instead of a chair and a half?
The girl scouts in my neighborhood were mean little snot slurpers and I quit after a year. I’m still a little bitter.
I graduated from Purdue, but I’m most certainly not your niece. Considering we dated, that would really be skeevy, ‘ceptin’ that yer from Jawja an’ all…
I’m glad Rue started out talking about tools and stuff - it gives me an excuse to post this link to some pics of my sweetie’s work shop. The first two pics are “before” and the rest are as it looks today, or as it looked 2 days ago when I took the pictures.
I’m not going to recount all the work we did this weekend, but you can check my sig for links to the latest photos, should you be so inclined. I will share one item worthy of much rejoicing. The chandelier from hell is gone!!! At least, gone from the dining room. It’s in the laundry room until I can sell it.
In other news, it’s supposed to freeze tonight and the next 2 nights. I put in the storm door windows tonight. I’m thinking warm thoughts… Oh yeah, MMP guys in Speedos on a tropical beach, fetching me drinks with paper umbrellas in them… mmmmmmmmmmmmm warmmmmmmmmmmmm
Many thanks - it looks yummy! I’m thinking dessert for Turkey day…
Going for 3 in a row - regarding my sweetie’s play room in the basement - what I didn’t show clearly was all his small power tools - almost all are Porter Cable. He wants a T-shirt that says “Norm borrows tools from me”