Backwards

This is awesome.

Pinewood Derby

I love Corban. I know that's obvious but the more time I spend with my guys the more I love their personalities and am amazed by them.

Corban and I have been doing Tiger Cubs together this year. A bunch of his friends are in his Tiger Den and one of the awesome dads leads. A good experience for him. It's fun to learn along side of him.

So it was Pinewood Derby time. For those that don't know, you're given a block of wood with slots cut for wheel axles, 4 nails and 4 wheels. You have to design and build your car to race on a metal track against other cars. All cars have to be 5 oz.

When I was growing up, my dad helped my brother and I, but it was a project we did TOGETHER. There were always cars that you know the dad did it himself. The reason I know some of the stuff I know about tools is because of Pinewood Derby. So I wanted the same thing for Corban.

We began with the discussion of what he wanted it to look like. Did we have to win every race or did we want to have an awesome looking car that we'd be really proud of? We started looking for ideas.

My man came decided on something super awesome. I'll show some pictures and then if you don't know what it is (you better) I'll tell you.















For those who are uneducated....it's Han Solo frozen in Carbonite. So cool. I know I'm biased, but I think we had the awesomest car there. We did the project together. The only things I did myself were drilling some of the underside out (we started together, but he got bored quickly and asked me to just do it myself) and today I had to paint the gray on top because we were running out of time and he was at school.

He was super proud of his car. We said together, "it doesn't matter if we win a race or not, we have an awesome car and this has been fun." We meant it.

We didn't win a race. He was so nervous. But he had fun. He was very proud of his participation ribbon and certificate for "Best Star Wars Car".



















I seriously need a hair cut.



EDIT: For comparison purposes

More Hockey Awesomeness

So once again my friend Katie comes through with awesomeness. She turned me onto this really cool website called One Sad Hockey Player. I can't believe I never noticed it before. There are lots of pictures where a goal is celebrated, but one player from the opposite team is in the picture. One Sad Hockey Player. So funny. The more I look at it, the more I laugh. FIND IT HERE

Dig a Hole to China

When I was a kid, my brother and I had this hill in our backyard. We called it our dirt pile. We were allowed to dig and play and do whatever we wanted to it. We spent a lot of hours on that pile of dirt. Digging holes, filling in holes.....that's where I got my first concussion riding my bike into a hole and flipping over the handlebars!

The center of our obsession (like many boys my age) was digging a hole to China. Every small hole, was the beginning of THE hole.

So for whatever reason I was thinking about that the other day. Then I thought....there has to be a website that lets you see where you'd come out if you actually dug to China. There is. It's awesome.

So if I dig in my current back yard (actually my old backyard too), I end up southwest of Australia in the Ocean. If you don't live in Warren....where do you end up?

DIG YOUR OWN HOLE

EDIT: So I don't know why I didn't do this early....I started in China to see where you'd need to start digging the hole to actually get there. Answer: Tip of South America....Chile and Argentina.

NHL Realignment Revisited and Trouble brewing

Back at the beginning of December I wrote a large thread about the new NHL Realignment proposal. It's here if you didn't read it then.

I mentioned at the beginning of that post that the NHL owners had agreed on that plan. What I failed to mention (I think) was that the NHL players union had to agree to it.

Literally in the last couple hours news has broke that the NHLPA DID NOT agree to the plan...nor could they be persuaded to do so.

What does that mean? Well a bunch of things for sure and some other things I think are implied or impending.

1. The NHL will NOT implement their plan next year. At best they can hope to convince the players to use their plan in the future.

2. It means the NHL is going to look at it's league rights to restructure without union approval.

3. It means that some teams are going to be doing a whole lot of traveling...like the Winnipeg Jets who are currently in the south east!....except their in central Canada. The funny part here was that one of the major reason the players didn't agree to it was that it would include more travel for some teams. HA

What it implies is BIG.....the current agreement ends in September....so that means like the NBA and NFL the players union and the league are going to begin negotiating a new contract. The union just said to the league is....we won't be strong armed. The league just assumed that this plan was a done deal because an overwhelming majority of the owners agreed to it. The union just got the leagues attention.

I have a really bad feeling about the negotiating process. If this is how the union is going to start things off, it doesn't bode well. Let's not forget that the NHL took a year off last time they had to negotiate. That didn't do great things for the popularity of the game.

I could see Gary Bettman getting a bee in his bonnet about this and not letting it go when negotiating time comes.

what numbers sound like

Found "What Pi Sounds like" and then realized he has another video about what Tau sounds like. The Pi video might go down as apparently there is a copyright infringement claim on the melody (even though it's based off a random number).

I could be a nerdy music geek and point out the problems with these videos but I will leave it where it is and enjoy. From a cool music standpoint I like the Tau one better. What do you think?

Then Sings My Soul

My buddy Jim Baker (I'd link his blog but he admitted to me he only blogged twice last year) was in town from Maryland this past week. While chilling he asked what I was listening to, then he shared Ascend the Hill with me. OH MAN! Talk about rock my world.

I got a call Friday from our choir director saying they weren't going to sing Sunday and could I do something. Sure. So I did a song I just downloaded. (see video at end of post)

So it turns out that you can download their Hymns album for free. Don't hesitate. Don't think about it. Don't tell yourself you'll remember to do it later....because we both know you'll forget. Go do it right now. It is really really really good. So go HERE RIGHT NOW and down load their album for FREE.

Lost in Translation

My friend Stephen has a great sense of humor. Always has. He keeps turning me on to funny links. So I keep giving them to you.

This is a link to Google Translate. Once you get there make sure your speakers are on (headphones will do) and then click the volume/speaker button on the lower right. I promise it is nothing vulgar or offensive and definitely safe for work.

THIS IS THE LINK YOU CLICK