January 31, 2007
proud uncle
This morning, I'm a proud uncle. My sister called last night to say that the pinewood derby car that my father and I put together for my nephew took 3rd place in his Boy Scout tournament.
He's six, and really wanted to win something. At that age, you can't really handle the power tools to put one of these puppies together. We picked up a kit at the local Ace Hardware (pinewood derby is BIG in Texas) and spent the Christmas weekend shaping it, hollowing it out, glueing in weights, setting and lubing axles, etc.
Very tedious with minimum power tools and I was quite frustrated because I have all this knowledge on how to build race vehicles that I was sure was going to come to naught.
But lo and behold, he had a grand time, and was 3rd out of 12 entrants and 8th out of 58 (the entire pack). So he get's a nice little trophy.
And I get to do it again next year.
Posted by artandscience at January 31, 2007 03:53 AM