... I'd build my son the perfect opponent

Alternate title: How dabbling in the black arts of ebay is good for my son

Earlier this week I received an email from my very concerned sister-in-law.

I glanced over at Ebay to see what your old chandelier looked like, since I've never managed to get up there and see your house in person. Then I noticed you had 10 comments by your name. Of course, that made me curious to see what other items you had bought or sold. At first I was feeling guilty about being nosey, but now I believe I was led to snoop so I could confront you about the dangerous path you're on.

I don't think you need to be worried about selling your soul at PPP when you're out there damning it by even looking at crimsontideauctions. You're lucky you didn't turn into a pillar of salt or get struck by lightening. If I were you missy, I'd be down on my hands and knees begging forgiveness, although I'm not sure you can undo the damage you've done.

Does Damon know you're dabbling in the black arts over at Ebay? That precious little boy of yours better not be corrupted by this.

I'll be praying for you.
LOL,
Vicki

Well today I can come clean regarding my relationship with crimsontideauctions.

First, it wasn’t me. Honest. It was Damon.
And second, he had a good reason.

A while back, Damon began teaching Fuller some of the skills he will need to become an All-American linebacker. Maybe you have seen the video?

Damon got tired of falling to the ground and decided that a third player needed to be involved in the training. And since Damon is a good great husband, he knew that third player was not going to be his wife.

For the past month or two Damon has been working, much like Geppetto, to build Fuller a worthy opponent. Today that opponent stands in our kitchen (it's raining outside right now). Meet the Alabama Loser!

... I'd rework my coaster bike design

A lot of folks have been taking me up on my offer for suggestions on how to build a wooden coaster bike. So, it's taken a few days, but I finally have a collection of suggestions and a pdf of patterns that I feel comfortable releasing to the public.

Coaster Bike Advice

The first step is to decide what kind of wheels you’re going to have: wood, plastic, or metal. This decision will shape the rest of the bike design. Here are my thoughts on the three basic wheel choices: wooden, plastic, and metal.

Wooden Wheels
Wood wheels are the best looking and since you’ll have to fabricate them, their characteristics can very flexible. However, not everybody has access to either a lathe or a drill press – tools that I think you’d have to use to make decently round wheels. Wooden wheels will require some sort of hub or bearing to spin on the axle. Look on ebay for a couple of either 1/4“ or 3/8“inner diameter bearings. Wooden wheels also require some sort of tread or other gripping surface. You could cut up a bike tire and use the tread from it, but you’d have a seam in the tread that might be a bit noticeable. I’ve wondered of a can of Plasti-Dip could be used to paint a tread on a wooden wheel – it might work.

Plastic Wheels
Plastic wheels are a faster build option because you don’t have to fabricate the wheel. However, most plastic wheels (like metal wheels) are made to fit a 1/2“ axle (the standard for lawn mowers). This means you’ll have to use a thicker (or in my case, redesigned) front fork to accommodate an axle that large, or you’ll need to buy some bushings to make a smaller axle fit inside the wheel bearings (in hind-sight, this is probably what I should have done). Plastic wheels (again, like metal wheels) are also wider than wooden wheels and will require a wider front (and rear) fork design. This will affect the styling of the bike. The reason I avoided plastic wheels was that I didn’t like the look of plastic. However since I completed the project, I’ve wondered if a plastic wheel with a pair of round wooden (probably made from a thin sheet of luan) hubcaps would look OK.

Metal Wheels
Metal wheels have pretty much the same characteristics as plastic ones except they are heavier and look nicer. Metal wheels also give you the option of pneumatic tires, which aren’t really necessary, but are certainly cool. I’ve also seen a coaster bike online that had a pneumatic wheel on what seemed like a wooden hub. I think a similar wheel could be made from taking the wheels off a small child’s bicycle and cutting out the spokes and fitting a wooden circle in its place – but that’s probably just as much work as making a wooden wheel from scratch.

Construction Suggestions

After making the first bike with metal wheels, I’ve pretty much decided that I should have gone with wooden wheels. For that reason, my suggestions and the accompanying patterns will be based on the assumption that the builder is making the bike with wooden wheels.

Wheels
To make a set of wooden wheels, you’re going to need either a lathe or a drill press. I suggest making the wheels out of 3/4" plywood, because a bike with a wider wheel will be easier to balance. Someone with a lathe can probably whip out a 10” wheel in a few minutes. However, I only have a drill press, so I’d probably have to rough cut a circle with either a jigsaw or a bandsaw, and then drill a center hole, attach a bolt through it, and chuck the bolt into my drill press. Then, I could spin the circle while using a rasp and some sandpaper to smooth the circle into a wheel. Once the wheel is nice and round, I’d drill a bigger hole in the center to set one of the bearings into. I bet a couple of thin 2” luan circles (with axles holes in the center) glued onto either side of the wheel would be enough to hold the bearings in.

Front Forks
I think making the front fork out of 3/4" plywood would be sufficient to hold a 3/8” axle bolt.

When I cut out my first attempt at the front forks, I had a lot of trouble with the edge of the plywood chipping. I think it might be worth clamping a sheet of luan on either side of the plywood to help reduce chipping.

Also in my first attempt at the front forks, I ran the pivot bolt up from the wheel well into the fork. I now think it’s a better idea to run the bolt from the top of the fork down. This way, the bolt head can be hidden by the handlebars.

Bike Frame
In my design, I used 3/4" plywood for each side of the frame. I now believe that using 1/2" is a better option for the frame. The bike will be lighter, and the thickness of the frame at the front fork pivot will better match the thickness of the wheels.

I originally used wood screws to sandwich the two frame pieces together. This means that one side shows the screws and the other doesn’t. In this new design I suggest using counter-sunk bolts driven into some wood insert nuts. (This is probably a picky detail, but I think it looks better.)

The front fork's pivot bolt sits within a hole drilled through the frame cross-section. I suggest inserting a pair of bushings on both ends of the hole to keep the wood fibers from getting reamed out.

I also suggest reinforcing the area of the frame where the pivot bolt attaches with a plywood wedge.

Another small detail that I'd like to change is the front of the frame where the two half meet. In the original design, the frame had a rounded leading edge. This made getting the two halves flush together troublesome as I had to do a lot of precise sanding to accommodate for the curved edge. A flat edge would fit together nicely with little to no extra sanding. I've updated this detail in the plans.

Seat
In my design, I have two thin wedges glued to either side of the frame that the seat support slides between. It was a lot of hassle to get those wedges into just the right spot to correctly hold the seat support. In this new design, I suggest securing a piece of wood onto the front edge of the seat support and use that to secure the seat post to the frame.

I also redesigned the seat support to be a little more “stylin”. The longer seat also acts as a rear wheel fender.

Axles
In my original design, the axles were 1/2" steel bolts with the heads cut off. The axles were kept in place by friction, and I noticed that they tended to work loose after a few days of riding. To correct the problem, I put some hot glue where the axle contacts the wood, and that seemed to work. However, I think a better design would be to use wood insert nuts and possibly a few drops of hot glue for good measure.

Final Thoughts

I hope these suggestions help. If you get stuck, please refer to the final three pages of the patterns pdf file. I’ve drawn some diagrams of how I’m envisioning this new design fitting together.

...I'd build a bunch of wooden coaster bikes

wooden coaster bike
Originally uploaded by CrumleyFamily.

... I'd manufacture state-of-the-art compost bins

I like the idea of composting. Even though I'm as red-state as they come, I think recycling is cool. I love the idea of turning discarded crap into something useful.

Urban composting is kind of a pain. I feel like most compost bins aren't really designed for urban composting. Over a year ago, I attempted to build a compost bin that would solve the main problem most compost bins have - there's no way to remove the finished compost from the bin while other scraps are still breaking down.

So, I designed a bin made from a large wheeled garbage can with a porous cylinder in the upper part of the can that lets compost drop through to the bottom of the can. The can has a hinged door at the bottom that allow the compost to be scooped out.

However, the implementation of that design had some problems.

Some problems

The original bin I made used a lot of wood to construct the cylinder. After a few months, the sides of the cylinder rotted enough and the handle pulled away from the side of the cylinder.

So recently, I finally got around to rebuilding the compost bin. This time I used plastic and metal parts instead of wooden ones. I posted a series of photos on flickr showing how I did it.

Tags: Compost, DIY,Recycle,

... I'd spend most of my time making short animated films

This past weekend, our church hosted a Sweetheart Pot-Luck Dinner. The husbands/ boyfriends were expected to prepare an entree and either a salad, side dish, or desert. Also, each guy was told to have some demonstration of their "talents" to perform during an after-dinner program.

About a week-and-a-half beforehand, Bob Harbert suggested we co-prepare some entertainment. We brainstormed a bit, and settled on a really cool idea.

A Really Cool Idea

About half-a-year ago, Cartoon Network had a contest for it's viewers to design a 30 second commercial for one of its shows, Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. In the contest, Cartoon Network made available a selection of background music that could be used. One of the selections was a particularly catchy eastern-themed piece that I liked. I envisioned creating a commercial of animated Harvey Birdman-themed shadow puppets. Sadly, I procrastinated enough that I failed to ever realize my shadow puppet dream.

During our Sweetheart Dinner brainstorming session, I told Bob how I'd always wanted to make a short shadow puppet movie, and I suggested we could do one for the sweetheart dinner. I would write and animate a short story that Bob would narrate. I planned to burn the movie to a DVD that we could take to the dinner and pretty much WOW the crowd.

So, I set about writing a simple romantic short story that would work as a shadow puppet show. I decided to have the characters be tigers to fit with the Eastern origins of shadow puppetry. I intended to basically adapt the "Gift of the Magi" story as a Valentine tale. But, once I got into it, I realized just how obvious the "Gift of the Magi" ending is. So I set about changing the story to be more of an "accidental" love story where the protagonist unwittingly/ unknowingly does something romantic. That lead me to write "Strong Magic."

I went up to Bob's house one night and recorded him narrating the story. Then over the next few days, I drew out the character puppets and sets, and animated them in Macromedia Flash. I finished animating everything a little before noon the day of the dinner.

I then spent the next five hours unsuccessfully trying to compress the animation into the proper format for a DVD. About thirty minutes before the dinner, I had to give up and admit defeat. While taking my pre-dinner shower I realized we could still salvage something out of my failed efforts. So, I quickly printed black-and-white copies of the main characters and sets.

At the dinner, I updated Bob on my inability to create the DVD and told him that he'd have to read the story while I manually performed the puppet show in front of a white board.

All-in-all, the show went pretty well. While it was nowhere as cool as the unseen digital version I'd created, the live version was still entertaining (if for no other reason than it was funny watching me try to manipulate so many puppets with two kitchen tongs).

Anyway, our talent was a success. In the future, I'll need to leave more time to actually write the DVD.

Oh well. Since then, I've had some time to create a small web version of the movie that can be viewed here. Also, Alli filmed our live performance. A summary of which, is available here as well.

... I'd create a state-of-the-art Lego animation studio

Recently, I was asked, "hey D, are you working on anymore Lego movies?" This question is in reference to a Lego stop-motion animation movie called "The Luckiest Man Alive" (warning: the small version posted here is 5.2 Megs!) I made a few years ago as part of an inner-office film competition (in which I finished 2nd - by only one vote).

The short answer is, "Yes"... and "No".

You see, it's a bit like the "wolf, the cabbage, and the goat" dilemma. You see, I've had a growing list of ideas for films before i finished TLMA: (a heartwarming tale of a wheelchair-bound girl and her robotic dog; an adventure/ morality tale about an African boy who has to battle 4 ghost-tigers; a series of reproductions of Spider-man stories blatantly ripped-off from the story albums I listened to as a kid; and recreations of humorous events that happened to me and friends at college) i just have a list of things that have to happen before I can resume filming.

Obviously, I need some free time. However, everyone makes that excuse when they rationalize, so I refuse to use that one much.

There are a few technical problems I've got to solve before I can begin as well. This film actually has animated Lego faces on the minfigs, which the creators drew frame-by-frame, by hand. I'm working on a way to automate Lego facial expressions. (After all, I want to be on the cutting edge of Lego animation film-making.) I've thought of a solution, but I need some time to implement it

Primarily, the biggest hurdle is location. I've had to move my Legos into the attic to get our house more livable. There's room in the attic for filming, but the attic has no floor, so I first have to install a plywood floor up there. But, before i do that, I want to reinforce the ceiling beams. The house is about 70 years old and the ceiling will sag if I put too much weight on it. Before I can work on the attic, I have to work on my windows. About 5 years ago, we started repairing our windows. We kinda quit working on them and never really finished. In some windows, all we have are the exterior storm windows. Needless to say, our house is starting to get cold these days. We've suffered through this in past winters by just jacking up the heat. But, since gas prices are going to be so high this winter, I'd rather finish repairing the windows instead.

The good news is that my Dad is coming up to help at the end of this week. We hope to repair the windows either this weekend or by next. After that, I'll be in a warmer house, and one step closer to realizing my dreams in film.

...I'd spend a lot of time at Ikea

On our way to Auburn last week, Alli, Fuller and I swung through Atlanta to visit Ikea. We spent about $150 on stuff we couldn't live without. One item we thought was neat but just not worth it, was the children's egg chair pictured.

How much would you pay for this chair? Well, Ikea (who normally has quite good intuition about how much I as an American/ Consumer will go into debt to own their stuff for 5-10 years) thinks I might be willing to pay $60 for this egg chair. Sure, I'll admit it's a cool chair, but it's not $60-worth of cool!

Anyway. we continued our shopping spree. Before proceeding to checkout, we decided to duck into Ikea's "as-is" section. It was there that we found something amazing.

Something Amazing:

We found a stack of egg sections for the egg chair. No canopies. No bases. But still cool. The Price? ONLY TWO AND-A-HALF FREAKIN DOLLARS! That's a 96%-off sale. Dang! How could I not buy it?

I couldn't.

All it really needed was a base. I remembered that the office still has a too-small task chair that I bought for $10 about 7 years ago. For seven years it was a bad purchase (it has no arms so nobody wanted to sit in it) but not anymore.

Today, I unscrewed the wheeled base from the chair and attached it to the egg chair. It took about 20 minutes while we watched the tape of last night's SNL episode.

After assembly, we unleashed Fuller on the new-and-improved egg chair and HE LOVES IT. I think it might even be better than the original. One of Fuller's favorite things about the chair is how well it rolls across our floor. The original was sans-wheels, and consequently didn't roll very well.

So, thanks for the great deal on the chair, Ikea. As a sign of gratitude, I've taken your cool egg chair and made it even cooler. I rock!

…I’d spend my time working on projects like this.

This weekend, I started work on The Great Summer Mystery Project". I’ve been working on the dinning room shelves for a few months now, so cool personal projects like this have had to wait. Now, I’m not going to tell you what I’m making, so you’ll have to make your best guess based on what you see.

What you see:

All good projects start at either Lowes or Home Depot. So, I went to Home Depot (I had a 10% off coupon) and bought some hardware, 2 tubes of glue, and five sheets of luan plywood (essentially a plywood sheet made of a single ply).

The first step in building this mystery project is to rip the luan into 3 inch strips. (For those of you who went to public school, that’s 16 strips per sheet, times 5 sheets; which equals 80 strips.) To speed things up, I stacked the sheets and made each rip-cut through all five sheets. Now’s a great time to allude to: "Damon’s fool-proof method for making accurate rip-cuts with a circular saw”.

Fifteen cuts later, and I have my slats. You’re probably asking yourself, “What would make a man seemingly ruin 5 sheets of plywood by cutting them into three inch slats?” Keep reading.

Now that I've got the slats cut, I need to build a template for project assembly. I use an 2’ X 8’ piece of 3/4" plywood for the template base. I then tape down a series of ten pieces of paper I printed out a giant curve on.

Next, I whip-up eleven little wooden do-dads and screw them to the plywood along the inside of the curve.

Now comes the fun part. I group the slats into groups of sixteen and start spreading glue on one side of each slat. Then, I clamp the group of slats to the template creating a laminated curve of three inch slats.

Once the glue sets up (polyurethane glue sets up in about 4 hours – much slower than normal wood glue) I remove the laminated curve and begin the process again with another group of slats.

There’s something quite artistic about twenty four clamps lined up along a gentle curve like this.

So, at this point, I’ve only made three of the five curves I’ll need for this project. I’ll post more information as the mystery project continues, but I’d be interested to read guesses about what I’m building.

... I’d create a line of Auburn Baby Gear

The Context
Our upcoming trip to the 2005 SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament is right around the corner. So, we’re scrambling to get all of our stuff ready. One of the things we “need” is a more compact stroller to shuttle Fuller between our hotel and the Georgia Dome. The Ga. Dome has a baggage-check station where we can leave a stroller, but we don’t want to wrestle with a full sized stroller while traveling. So we decided that an umbrella stroller would fit the bill perfectly. And of course, no ordinary stroller will do.

No Ordinary Stroller
We (actually, “I”) wanted a stroller that would tell the world, “War Eagle!” As you can guess, there aren’t many stores in Chattanooga that sell such a stroller. (Actually, there aren’t any.) I even asked my old friend, the Internet, if he knew of any, but he practically laughed in my face. He seemed to get really hung-up on the fact that "auburn" is also a color. (Stupid Internet) So, I decided to pimp-out a standard umbrella stroller.

Wal-Mart has a nice selection of umbrella strollers under $15. I selected a model that had a white frame, with navy blue trim. The fabric was kind of childish, but that wouldn’t matter for long.

Next, I purchased 1 square yard of heavyweight burnt orange fabric from Hancock Fabrics. I was going to get some new straps and buckles, but since the existing ones are navy blue, I didn't have to.

I unscrewed the existing stroller seat and used a razor blade to removed the bias tape edging and the safety straps. I used the original seat fabric as a template for the new one.

Sewing on the bias tape edging was definitely the hardest part. I had to re-sew several spots where the needle missed the seat fabric. After a few hours, I had sewed the edging and the safety straps onto the new seat.

At this point, I could have attached the new seat and called it quits. But the stroller still didn’t say, “I pull for Auburn.” So, I got on the computer and whipped up a copy of Auburn’s “Tiger Eye” logo. I printed the logo onto a sheet of iron-on transfer paper. Alli cut out and ironed the logo onto the seat.

After that, it was a simple matter to slip the new seat in to place and screw it to the frame. Now we have arguably the world’s coolest umbrella stroller! Alli says that if someone at the tournament offers to buy the stroller from us, we should consider it. Maybe; if we can use the money to buy a better stroller and modify it too.

... I'd Start a Company that Builds Geodesic Domes

The Context
Alli and I were talking the other day about the different preconceived notions we have about raising children. She was sort-of hinting that I have a lot more "requirements" about Fuller's childhood than she does. In response, I pointed out that there are really only 3 unique things that have to (at least until he’s old enough to rebel against us –Ingrate!) be part of Fuller’s life: Auburn University, Spider-man, and the geodesic dome.

It’s the last of these that is probably the hardest to sneak into Fuller’s life right now. Wal-Mart doesn’t sell too many Buckminster Fuller sneakers or geodesic dome sweatshirts, so I figured I have to create my own special something.

My Own Special Something
So I decided to construct a geodesic dome that could either fit over his ExerSaucer or could be used as a climbing apparatus.

I went online and found a site that has a nifty geodesic dome calculator. I entered the ExerSaucer’s radius and the calculator provided me with the strut measurements of a “2V” dome. I estimated that I’d need about 40 feet of plastic pipe, some zip ties, pipe insulation, and a roll of duct tape. Lowes was more than happy to provide me with the stuff I needed.

It was cold outside. I mean REAL cold. You might have heard about the ice storm that blanketed the southeast in late January. Well, my front porch wasn’t blanketed, so I moved my miter saw stand (with vise) onto the front porch and bundled up in my winter coveralls I got for Christmas one year.

The first step was cutting the plastic pipe. When we started remodeling our house, one of our first purchases was this nifty red plastic pipe cutter. It’s wonderful. If you’re going to cut any plastic pipe sometime in your life, you’ll need this tool. It’s much better than using a saw. It made cutting 65 sections of plastic pipe a breeze. Alli also discovered that it’s useful as a cigar trimmer.

After a 5 minutes warm-up-break, I set about flattening the ends of the pipe sections. I used a heat gun to soften up the ends of the pipe. Anyone melting PVC (or in this case, CPVC) should be careful. Burning PVC releases hydrogen chloride and some other toxic gases, so it’s important to soften the plastic, and NOT burn it. This is why I choose to work in a well-ventilated (albeit cold) area. Someday, I'll be diagnosed with lung cancer because of this, and Fuller probably won't even remember this thing (Ingrate!).

Once the end of the section was soft, I squeezed it flat in the vise, left it to cool, and began softening the next segment. This process continued for the next hour-or-so (including 2 more warm-up-breaks) until I had flattened the ends on all 65 pipe sections.

Now I set about drilling holes in the flattened ends. I chucked in my drill bit and started drilling. It was a bit tricky holding the pipe down while drilling. As the bit penetrated the pipe, it grabbed the pipe and screwed the pipe up the drill bit until the pipe struck the drill chuck. This violent impact cracked several of the pipe ends. I quickly realized that I needed to drill these hole on a drill press. Fortunately, I have a drill press. So, after making a few replacement pipe sections, I was able to drill holes in all the end pieces.

Now I could bring my materials indoors. Alli and I watched Ocean’s Eleven while I assembled the dome. Piece-by-piece, the dome fit together and took shape. It was really interesting to see how sections on one side of the dome would “pop” into shape when I tightened up a joint on the far side.

At about the point in O11 where Matt Damon appears on screen, I had assembled the dome. I used pliers to tighten up the zip ties and then clipped off the excess ends. The corners were a little too sharp, so I cut sections of pipe insulation and duct taped them around the joints. By the time George Clooney got out of jail, I was finished.

Now Fuller has his own toddler-sized set of monkey bars. He hasn’t thanked us yet (Ingrate!) but I know he appreciates it. Also, I bet there’s some part of his brain that’s gonna be more developed than yours or mine. (Well, at least yours. I mean, I built the thing. That's gotta say something about my brain.)

... I'd Create Maple à la Carte

The Context
Three years ago, Alli and I had The Amazing Rando shoot our Christmas photos. The one from the year before had turned out so well that we decided to include Maple and Lively in that year’s picture. We drove to a spot halfway up Lookout Mtn. near Craven’s House and started searching for the “perfect” spot.

The “perfect” spot turned out to be on a large rock about 20 feet down the embankment from the roadway. So, we all traipsed down the embankment and over to the rock. Afterwards, it was a bit tricky getting back up to the car. Alli was having a particularly hard time holding Lively and getting up the hill, so I took Lively and had Alli grab Maple’s leash. Maple essentially pulled Alli up the hill and to the car.

The Problem
Our dogs love going for walks. Alli likes walks. I like walks. And Fuller likes sleeping through walks. We have a stroller that works very well for us, but it really lacks in the “cool” department. Also, pushing the stroller is a bit problematic while trying to control 2 dogs. Especially when the bigger dog is always pulling you along, and the smaller one is constantly stopping to “mark” her territory.
(Yes, girl dogs mark their territory too.)

Before Fuller was born, we anticipated the difficulty of taking the dogs on walks with us and came up with an idea. It’s common to put your children in wagons and pull them on walks. So, before Fuller was born, Alli bought an older model infant car seat at a garage sale, and I purchased a small Radio Flyer wagon from Wal-Mart. After replacing a few of the included wagon bolts with longer ones, I was able to mount the car seat inside the wagon.

Going on walks with the Dogs and Fuller was much easier. We definitely increased our “cool” factor with the tricked-out Radio Flyer/ Baby Carrier. However, we still had the problem of being yanked along by Maple while having to pull the load of the wagon. Obviously, we needed a better solution.

The Better Solution
Sam’s Club sells a well-priced, steel mesh utility wagon. It weighs about 50 lbs. and has removable hinged side walls. Even though it weighs a lot, I figured, “I bet Maple could pull that.” So, I bought the wagon along with some steel pipe conduit and hardware from Lowes, and assembled a harness that can be yoked to the wagon. The bottom of the wagon is mesh, so we used bungee cords to attach Fuller’s car carrier. The wagon is large enough that there’s room for a pillow in the back. This allows us to scoop up Lively if she’s walking too slowly, and set her in the back of the wagon.

The hardest part was getting Maple used to being harnessed to a large object that’s always 2 feet behind her. The first 10 attempts with various prototypes caused Maple to just stand-in-place, in fear of being “chased” by the wagon. Finally, she became used to the apparatus and now voluntarily steps under the harness yoke when I tell her it’s time for her walk.

Maple pulls the wagon with little to no difficulty. She often begins to outdistance us on walks (even uphill) causing me to gently reign in her leash a bit. I estimate that the total load she’s towing is about 75 lbs. That’s pretty good for a 35 lbs dog!

The Kicker
One of the best results of the project is that our family’s “cool” factor has shot way up. We definitely get noticed. Everyone who sees us gets a kick out of our dog-drawn baby wagon. It’s not quite as cool as the “Off the Thrunk” Boom-Trike that circumnavigates the neighborhood, but it’s close. Now we can take our growing family on hassle-free walks through Saint Elmo.

If this idea is too 'extreme' for your dog, yet you still want to explore the idea of getting your dog to pull their own weight, check out wolfpacks.com.

The Epilogue
We'll have to get back to everyone on the question about Maple towing an adult. Right now I've got this other idea I've been thinking about...

... I'd Spend All My Time Working on Cool Projects

Forget about becoming President or writting the great American novel. The real American dream is getting a million dollars. So, What would i do if I had a million dollars? Well, I think I'd turn all my crazy ideas into reality.

So, in that light, this section of our blog is dedicated to my crazy ideas, and how much better off the world would be if I had a million dollars.