Pinewood Derby Extreme Edition II

Here are a few more pictures from the pinewood derby. On the left you see "Breaking Wind" the propeller powered car that was the overall speed winner. I was surprised by this one. Those propellers had enough power to drive the car on the gym floor.

"Breaking Wind" on the left and the RC car on the right. The RC car was a really good idea but he needed a faster motor to make it win.
This is a nice shot of the CO2 car blowing itself off the track. It needed more weight and a more consistent mechanism but it was fast when it worked!. We had a rule that you couldn't touch the car during the start so he had a mechanism attached to a string with a big fish hook on the other end. The fish hook went on the top of the track. The gravity start would get the car going fast enough that when the string pulled taut the nail would be shoved into the cartridge. However, sometimes the string wouldn't release and the car would be left dangling off the side of the track. Hilarious!
Elder Hallam's car did very well. It was a nice kit that he bought at the store. It came with a lead weight to mount on the bottom. Very nice. If you ever get to see the Church's new missionary training videos "The District" you will recognize Elder Hallam. Sitting on the table is Elder Bridegan's car "The Golden Convert". It was so slow that it only made it over the finish line after I lubed it up for him. There is a bit of a lesson there too. Even the "Golden Converts" need help from the members to get to the finish.

Pinewood Derby Extreme Edition

Friday night we had a Pinewood Derby Extreme Edition event and it was really great. The only rules for the competition was that you couldn't use fire or gunpowder since it was indoors. This ruled out the use of Estes model rocket engines. However, there were some really good cars. The winning car used twin propellers mounted on the back of the car. There was one built from a RC car motor, one with a pull-back type toy car and one with CO2 cartridges. There was a hands-off start rule too so the CO2 car had a string with a hook that would release the spring loaded nail to pierce the cartridge as it began rolling down the track. The release mechanism had a consistency problem though. When it all worked well the car killed everyone else. But it only worked well two or three times so it didn't win in the end. There were a total of 10 cars entered in the race.

Below are pictures of our car. Katie came up with the concept and bought the Acorn Squash and jewels. She made the decorative wheels out of wire and at the last minute remembered we had an old Cinderella to pu on it. I did the gold paint job on the car and squash and Katie did the decorative paint. I polished the axles by putting them in my drill and spinning them on extra fine sandpaper. I also removed the burrs from the inside of the plastic wheels and lubed it all up with oil.






Amazingly, this car came in 2nd place overall. The polished axles make a Huge difference. We lost out in the end to the propeller powered car aptly named "Breaking Wind". However, we deserved the Best Sportsmanship Award because I brought my oil can and shared it with everyone. If the propeller car hadn't applied the oil he would not have won. All in all it was a great activity. Next time we should do it outdoors with an asbestos covered track so we can use fire!

San Antonio Rodeo Stampede 4 Mile Run

Today was the San Antonio Rodeo Stampede 4 Mile Run and I finished 2nd in my age group and 7th overall. My time was 27:37 so I averaged 6:54 per mile. I'm really pleased with that because I've recently come back from some tendinitis in my left knee and I felt really strong today.

Leaving St Croix

This picture is a little hazy because I was shooting through the window of the plane. At the top left you see Sandy Point, the turtle nesting grounds I mentioned. That is the Southwest corner of the island. If you look closely you can see the Frederiksted Pier in the middle of the western coast. The steep rugged coastline in the bottom left is Annaly Bay. This is a very historic part of the island. Many years ago escaped slaves fled to this part of the island to hide from their owners. Many died. Some built or found (stole?) small boats and escaped to freedom in Puerto Rico. The region is being threatened because someone wants to build a massive resort along that ridgeline and destroy some of the rugged coastline to build beaches there. I have a "Save Annaly" bumper sticker that I saw on many cars on the island.
This is a picture of part of the Mississippi Delta as we were approaching New Orleans.
I just had to include this lovely picture from the airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The airplane is the one we flew in on from St Croix. We got off the plane and then slowly loaded onto the shuttle bus. This took 10-15 minutes to fill both shuttle buses. Then the buses started moving slowly and travelled all of 40 yards and then parked at the terminal building where we disembarked. When we realized how short a distance we had to travel in the bus we all started laughing. We could have walked there much faster.

Thanks for looking at the pictures. We had a really wonderful time. It was hard to come home but we knew we couldn't stay becuase we had to get home to Ella and Grandma Kathie. Boy were they glad to see us. Now we just have the memories and the pictures. But they will help keep us warm in the cold (okay okay...) in the cool Texas winter. 

Chenay Bay

Our last full day on the island and for the last snorkeling we went to Chenay Bay. It was really cool because there was a lot of stuff very close to the surface. Although with the massive sea urchins that could make you a little nervous at times. On the way to and from the reef area we swam through a shallow grassy bottomed area and we saw a number of conch laying in the grasses. Even though some looked old and beat up we didn't disturb any of them. You never know if something is living in it.
Spooky.
This sea anemone was really nice too.

 

Swirling Reef of Death IV

This eel was really cool. He was a little nervous that we were looking at him. He would move around a little. It was a little creepy.



The reefs just went on and on. It was gorgeous.
 

Swirling Reef of Death Part III

I don't know what type of coral these are but they are really huge. Look at the next picture with Anne the divemaster to get a sense of scale for some of these things.


I believe that this picture is looking down into the same coral from the previous picture.
 

Swirling Reef of Death Part II

Here is the only picture of me while scuba diving underwater. There are also some pictures of some odd things that I saw on the bottom like the remains of an old dive mask and a lovely steering wheel.



 

Swirling Reef of Death Part I

I went on a two tank dive one day. The first tank was the shallow wrecks. Here are a few pictures from the second dive at The Swirling Reef Of Death. Check out that lobster in the last picture. The water was a lot clearer here so the pictures turned out a lot better.