Parlor Trick!

Here is a fun parlor trick for you! How do you remove the coin without touching the matches? Karl and I are going to show you!

But, first! Did you know that children do not know how to light matches!? I didn't! I just figured that, if you were eight years old, you had played with matches. How do children expect to burn down apartment complexes if they have not figured out this essential life skill?

Teaching Karl how to light a match proved to be surprisingly difficult.

We went through about 10 matches before we got a successful strike.

What were we doing wrong? What were we missing? Ah! Pressure! Karl was not applying any pressure when lighting the match. Once we figured that out, Karl was lighting matches like a pro!

Here is how to light a match:

1. Hold the match at a 45 degree angle.

2. Apply just the right amount of pressure to the match book.

3. Strike the match away from you quickly!

4. Oh wait!! Before you do #3, know how to put the match out.

Let's get back to our trick, shall we?

To remove the coin, light a match; not the two matches that are part of the trick, but a separate match. Ignite the middle of the angled match.

Fire!

This picture is bad, but the angled match will stick to the vertical match, curl up, and lift itself from the coin.

See!

Now you can remove that coin and buy something important for that special lady you impressed with your clever parlor trick!

Boobies!

Most boys want to look at boobies on occasion, but they don't have a easy way to go about doing this, do they? Luckily, your local grocer has boobies. Lots of boobies! In the form of Land-O-Lakes butter packages. Land-O-Lakes, I am sure, is very happy to provide these sex education materials to your child. We are happy too!

Each package has two pretty ladies.

Cut out both panels with the ladies.


With one panel, cut away everything but the knees.


With an exact-o knife or other sharp knife, cut the bottom and the sides of the butter package the woman is holding. This will make a little flap you can lift up and down.


You will have two pieces now. Like so...

Line the knees up so you can see them through the open flap. Turn over the panels and tape the 'knee' panel to the 'flap' panel.


Here we have the finished project: Flap down.

Flap up!

That makes one happy kid! Thank you Land-O-Lakes! We salute you!

Bikes!

Last month Karl and I camped at Red Top Mountain. While we were there, we hiked the "Iron Hill Trail." For the past month we have been wanting to go back and ride our bikes on it. It's short. It's flat. It is pretty perfect for an eight year old's first off road biking experience; we call it "maize". Oh, I mean, we call it "mountain biking".

I figure if something is worth doing, it is worth doing half assed. So, I pulled out my old mountain bike, a 1992 Canondale with pedals with no cages and a rusty chain, and we hit the trail. I will have to say that the bike has amazing brakes. Cantilever! I need to go back to those.

You might have guessed from the first picture that something did not go right. A quarter mile into the ride, we hit our first down hill. Karl rode into a gully and crashed. I suggested that a dragon bit Karl's tire and that made him crash, but he was having none of it and he said that stupid gully made him crash. He did say that he disappeared into the underworld for a bit and had to come back. Then he said something about going to a pizza palace, but I was still thinking about him going to the underworld and how interesting that might be.

Anyway, after his crash, he was pretty bummed. I mean, a five minute bike ride and then a crash? What is this all about? Bike riding in the mountains sucks dad! He really wanted to end it and go home.

But!! He bucked up and we rode on. He was not entirely enthused at first. The long pants and the scraped knee were not a good mix. Whatever kid.

We rolled up his pant leg and soon the boy had his confidence back up and he was riding like a pro. There was only one tricky downhill with a turn where he might have finally learned the importance of a front brake. After a while, I even got enough confidence to ride next to him on occasion.

The ride just got better.

And better!

Look at him go!

Final opinion? Approval!

Fire!

Red Top Mountain

Monday, October 12, 2009

Karl and I just got back from camping during some days he had off from school. While there we made a fire sculpture of sorts.

A while back I found this hollow log on the side of the road. There were three holes where branches used to be. Two are visible here and the third hole is between them, but you can not see it from this angle. Our plan was to glue a bunch of flammable stuff to the log, catch it on fire and have all that stuff burn like crazy.

This is the view from the bottom. Perhaps "hollow" is not the exact right term for this log since it is also cleaved open.

The artist/engineer, Karl. Karl decided we were going to make a fortress.



The artist's assistant. Unknown yokel. Assistants get smaller pictures because the art could easily be done without them.

Karl's knife. He loves this knife, and he really wanted to use it on this project so we included it as an official tool. However, we never ended up using it.

This is all the stuff we used. Glue. Fire cubes. Firework snakes. Sparklers. Popsicle sticks. Matches. Not pictured is a dried arrangement. You will be able to see that in later pictures. We got this stuff as a gift from the Grateful Gluttons' Endowment. Thanks Grateful Gluttons!

First, we started with the bottom of the log; just some sparklers and a grid of popsicle sticks. Karl called this the dungeon. The plan was for the dungeon to catch on fire first and kill all the prisoners in the dungeon. When we turned the log right side up, we put fire cubes in on the stick grid. The fire cubes were really prisoners and prisoners are quite flammable! We were pumped!


Oh! Hey! We had other things going on too. I had to make dinner and we had to burn this log also. It is hollow also. What is the take away here? Hollow logs are the stuff!

While I was making dinner, Karl made the 'Flower of Death', on the right, with matchbook covers. The Flower of Death along with the Popsicle stick grate guarded the prisoners inside. To the left you can see the prison tower and the hanging prison cage. Mr Big Man, the stacked nuts, guarded this area. Prisoners to be added later.

Here we have the artist at work. He is gluing a guard nut to the highest point of the fortress as a lookout. In the foreground, we have the beginnings of the Kings Castle. Inside the first level are two fire cube prisoners. The second level will have fire cube prisoners as well.

This is King's Castle nearly complete. The king is on the top level with his fire starter guards. On the left, fire starter guards. On the right, fire cube guards. In the front center, we have a prison cell filled with firework snakes.

Here, the top of the firework snakes' prison cell has been put into place.

In the back of the King's Castle, there are sparkler cannons.

With that we were ready to burn the fortress! But! You got to have popcorn when you watch your fortress burn!

The yokel holds the fortress before placing it on the fire.

The fortress is on the fire and ready to burn. We wait!

The dungeon catches.

It gets bigger!

Oh yes! Karl says, "Bye Bye Fortress."

The Flower of Death and the prison cage were burning nicely. Karl and I were running back and forth, trying to get the best view of what was going on.

The fire is impressive. We were expecting the King's Castle to catch fire at any moment, but we would have to wait.

Hestia, goddess of the hearth, reveals herself as the numeral 2. I was thinking it was Satan, but Karl corrected me. He pointed out that; 1, Satan does not exist, and 2, we were at the hearth and that there were two of us and that is why she revealed herself as a 2. Hm... I am glad Hestia exists!

Coming out of the center hole that I did not get a picture of was the dried flower arrangement thingy. The thing would not catch on fire!

We grew impatient and threw the dried arrangement into the dungeon. It caught on fire then!


For a while we just watched.

The Great Pumpkin made a brief appearance!

We waited a long time for the King's Castle to catch on fire, but it was too heavily defended and would not catch. So we put a bunch of long stick matches under it and caught those on fire...

(I like this picture. Click it to get the big version.)

But! That did not work! The King's Castle remained untouched! So, we put a bunch of matchbooks under the firework snake prison cell and caught those on fire. You can see the long stick matches behind the flame. Failures!

The matchbooks did the trick!

Here you can see the firework snakes lifting up the ceiling, bustin' out of their prison cell. Well, you might not be able to see that. The snakes are on the left, and they are pushing up a bunch of popsicle sticks.

Karl watches.

In a last gasp effort to defend himself, the King launched fire cubes at us. They missed us and burned on the ground.

Now, we just watched as the King's Castle and the fortress burned.

So, yeah. That was awesome. Karl said it was the best project we have ever done and that our camping trip was rated 5 stars. Sweet.

The Yokel and the Artist. The next morning.