Pacman – The Chase

Pinewood Derby 2007 – Third Place Winner!

This year’s Pinewood Derby theme was Television and Movies. I chose to recreate the bus from the 1967 Beatles film Magical Mystery Tour.

I tried to find stills from the movie on the Internet but came up empty. So, I then popped the VHS tape in the VCR and took stills myself with my cell phone. The tour bus in the movie look pretty difficult to paint. I headed back to Google and found the picture of the refurbed tour bus on All Beatles News. Hopefully it’s ok that I used that photo. Basically I wanted to make sure that I had a picture for the judges because I didn’t want to count on anyone remembering what it looked like.

This is the first pinewood derby car I have ever made. I think it turned out pretty nice. They had two categories: racing and theme. I was 3/4 of an ounce over on my weight so I couldn’t race it without drilling out some plugs in the bottom. I decided not to bother since the wheels didn’t turn that great anyway. That’s a whole other story. The moral of which is that I should have read the directions. Apparently you have to sand off some of the sides so that by the time you paint and shine it up it won’t be too wide to get the dang wheels on! Ended up having to sand down the inside of the wheels to get the hubcaps on. And as you can see I didn’t account for how big the wheels are when I did my logo job on the sides of the bus. Live and learn. Next time my pinewood derby car will be able to enter both racing and theme contests.

 I got 3rd Place (or Bronze Medal Winner as I like to call it). First place was a really cool Christine PWD car from the Steven King movie. Since it was my first time I didn’t really understand what you could do. I thought you had to use just one of the supplied kits. They took two kits and used the wood blocks to make a car that maintained aspect of the real thing. It did turn out really good.  The second place winner was called Blue Truck and I feel I got robbed because it didn’t specify itself to a TV show or movie. It stated in the official rules under the Theme Category: Technical Standards that “Theme cars will be judged on creativity & how closely they represent the TV show or movie.” But whatever. It was really good too. As you would expect since the entrant works in the cabinet shop for Engineering.

All in all I did pretty good for a girl.

Related: Pinewood Derby 2007 Trophy Time

Just So You Know

The wages of sin are death, but by the time taxes are taken out, it’s just sort of a tired feeling.
 ~~ Paula Poundstone

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. I am terrible about doing breast exams. It is a habit that I still need to develop. But they are very important and I’m just putting it out there as a reminder for all of us. I sponsored my friend Sonya in  the 2007 Making Strides Against Breast Cancer of Traverse City, Michigan. If you don’t know someone who is walking/running you can go to the American Cancer Society’s web site and make a donation. 

Monkeys at the Falls!

Pretty awesome spot for a dip in the water. But I don’t know that I’d want to have to climb up the rope to get out of the water.

Fire with Fire

This was one of my favorite movies when I was in high school. I taped it when it aired on one of the movie channels and watched it over and over until the VHS tape wore out. I cannot believe it has not been released yet on DVD. What in the world!?! Folks are charging upwards of $20 for used (worn) VHS copies of this movie. One individual wanted over $70!!! If they’d play it some time on Showtime or Encore I’m half tempted to buy a DVD recorder.

Guilty Pleasures

My Sunday night favorite is back! Season two started this week. I am reading the first book and it is pretty much exactly like the first season of the TV show to a T so far.

Weeds is also back for Season 3. I hate to pay for movie channels but the original programming on Showtime lately has been pretty good. I hated The Tudors though. I need to check out The Brotherhood. It looks good on the teasers.

The freshman is winning me over. I really like David Duchovny’s new show! The X-Files this is NOT! Hank Moody has it all over Mulder. Sorry X-Philes.

We’re Live! Go Osage Soccer!

The website for the School of the Osage High School Soccer is live. Check it out at itstartswithagoal.com.

It’s just the beginning. There is still a lot of work to be done to make this a reality. Let’s get this program going for Fall 2008! Let’s get a program that has teams for girls and boys. To find out how you can help check out the web site.

One of Those Days

Ever have ones of those days? I feel like that all the time.