PINEWOOD!
As promised at the end of last week, I must report the outcome of the Pinewood Derby Competition held last Saturday. It turned out to be sort of a let down for my buddy and me--his wasn't the slowest car out there, but danged near it. His car did manage to win one race in one of the elimination heats, but then faded afterwards.

But, with every bit of adversity comes a few lessons. First, I believe the boy with the heaviest father should win. Second, even though the Web is full of sites showing how to make your car faster, the winners appeared to have nothing in common with any of those cars. The fastest ones weren't necessarily low slung and smooth--most rattled down the track like boxcars full of palsied crap shooters on meth. Next year, we concentrate more on loose wheels! Third, thankfully, most of the cars looked like they had a goodly amount of little boy hands involved in their construction. The dad factor was pretty low, but I don't know if this was because of a strict adherance to the spirit of the competition or the lack of tool skills among dads. In any event, next year the Possumblog-sponsored entrant will show more boywork in its construction. Finally, the most exciting part for Lil' Boy actually was getting to play with his car after the race was over. I don't quite know how to work that into the car design for next year, but I am glad that he at least wants to play with it, rather than just toss it aside. One of the good things about his car is that it actually can be played with, since it looks like a car rather than a thin, flat (read "highly breakable") plank. So, he will still get some fun out of it.

After his race was finished and he collected his ribbon, we went next door to the library and he got his first library card, which he thought was even more cool. And it is.
posted by Terry at 11:08:00 AM