I have two sons. The oldest is not quite 8. This year he joined the Cub Scouts. I?m no outdoorsman so the camping doesn?t do much for me. But there?s one annual scouting event that?s right up my alley. It combines my love of woodworking and my lifelong interest in cars. It?s the Pinewood Derby.

The Pinewood Derby is the original level playing field. Every kid gets a block of wood, a few nails and four plastic wheels. The rules are simple though typical of our times they run to about half a page. And while the heats are now computer-timed the basics of the race are straightforward. A sloped track and Sir Isaac Newton are as complicated as it gets (ok, throw in some graphite powder).

Making the cars is a father/son project but the bulk of the work is to be performed by the scout. Dylan designed his car. I cut the shape on the band saw and then Dylan sanded it. And sanded it. Painting was a team effort. Turns out that spray paint cans can be difficult for seven year-old fingers to work. But we managed two coats of primer and two of Ferrari red.

A friend mentioned that the secret to speed is to sand and polish the axels (the above-mentioned nails). So we did that too. And we made sure that the wheels didn?t have any rough spots from the manufacturing process. A few decals and it was ready to race.

In Dylan?s age group there were 13 entries. Each car raced 12 times -- four runs on each of the three lanes on the track. And that?s just for one of the five age groups. So it seemed like it would be a long haul. In reality it went quickly and was fun.

In Dylan?s first set of three runs his car won each time. The look on his face was worth a million bucks. In the end, he didn?t win his group. Cars against which he didn?t race were faster. He didn?t seem to mind. Within minutes he and his brother were playing with the car on the floor. Winning is fun but not as fun as playing. Or making a car with your son.

The measurements of the boards which comprise the four drawer case panels are a tad smaller than originally planned, so I have had to forgo squaring the ends of the boards of each of eight boards. Instead I have assembled the eight boards into four panels and will instead square then ends of these panels off. It is just an arbitrary decision at this point and doesn't affect the assembly of the panels, although nicer panels would have resulted had I squared the ends of the boards first. This also allows me to dial in as much length as absolutely possible in each of the panels.

I had also jointed the mating edges of each of the boards, the edge which mates with the other, matching board of the panel. This went well and I let the boards sit for a day or so afterwards to determine if any further cupping would result. A very small bit of cupping did result, and of course it becomes more pronounced due to the width of the panels. The next step involved scribbling witness lines across each of the cupped faces of the boards and handplaning the outside edge area working towards the middle. I regularly go back and forth with a flat, steel rule to determine how much progress is being made. I also try not to overshoot... which essentially decreases the overall thickness of each of the boards.

At this point, I have four panels ready to be squared to finish dimensions, both in width and length. A small part of each of the panels form the sides of the drawer case. I will also need to cross cut these sections off, which leaves me with four shorter panels which form the tops and bottoms of the drawer case.

I'm going to take some time and spend it outdoors today. We had wintry weather until late last week, but this week has been getting wamer and sunnier with temps in the low 70's today. We've had such a long winter up here, and this weather couldn't arrive soon enough.

I know….no blog postings for ten days and now two in one afternoon….

About 11 days ago I told of my adventure removing a splinter by myself while Gail was off visiting her sister in San Francisco.

Well, today tragedy struck again. I got another splinter but this one came from doing something we’ve all done at one time or another. I refer to the painful “reaching into the briefcase” splinter.

I happened to look in my briefcase today, and I saw that the center compartment is still filled with Euro coins from where I was in Ireland 2 months ago. So I decided to clean them out. I reached down in there and began scooping them out when I felt the most intense pain of my life.

Having never passed a kidney stone, here is the previous personal pain record holder: I was carrying the ball and had enough steam built up that when the defensive guy hit me he sort or bounced off, and as I kept running his attempt to grasp me caused him to slide down my body. With my left foot planted on the ground this guy’s knee came down right on top of my left foot, breaking 3 of my Metatarsals. (Shout out….Dr. Steve Ahlfeld…thanks again for fixing my foot. All these years later I have NO issues, even when the weather changes. It’s perfect.)

Anyway, broken metatarsals are nothing like the pain I felt prior to pulling my hand out of my briefcase and seeing a huge splinter jammed up under the fingernail of the middle finger on my right hand. Yes, just like some kind of sadistic POW torture, I had put the equivalent of a toothpick under my fingernail and broken it off.

It doesn’t help that I have a problem with biting my fingernails…

Strangely, the splinter only hurt on the way in. Having found its equilibrium, it was not causing any pain as it just sat there. Still, I couldn’t leave it there.

Gail won’t be home until Tuesday. (I know…she has been in San Francisco LONGER than we were in Ireland….) I don’t think it would be good for this splinter to wait that long. What if the nail grows over it, trapping it in there? Also, I don’t know what species it is. It could be Cherry, but it might be Padauk…and I just don’t like the thought of African wood living under my fingernail. What if it leads to Ebola? Laugh all you want, people, but none of us actually knows for sure….

So I had no option but to cruise over to PrimeCare (it’s cheaper and faster than the Emergency Room). However, when I got there I found there must be influenza sweeping through the blueberry farms of West Michigan because it seems every migrant farm worker in the area was there with a sniffling horde of kids. I asked, and a nurse confirmed they had a full crowd in front of me. So l left and went to lunch.

I drove 25 miles away to my favorite place to eat (BW3s) and used their free WiFi to email my tale of woe to my wife who was 3 hours behind me on the west coast. I ate my food while asking all of my favorite waitresses if they would like to earn some extra cash going after the splinter…no one needed the money that badly.

So I used the internet to find the closest medical facility. When I arrived at Spectrum Hospital’s Urgent Care facility, I found no migrant farm workers…only trained medical professionals looking to help.

The Physician’s Assistant asked if I wanted to try to tough it out or if I wanted to take the sure fire painless route. He misinterpreted my answer and the next thing you know I am “toughing it out.” Basically he just jammed some tweezers under my nail and yanked that bad boy out.

I have posed it with a dime (and a 10 cent Euro coin) for size comparison.

Is there a lesson to be learned here? Perhaps I should not be left home alone in the future???

What does it say about my woodworking toughness when I get doctor-worthy splinters just reaching into my briefcase?

It’s probably a good thing that I am more into hotels than tents. It’s really best than I don’t like to go camping. To quote the Lemonheads….Honey, "I lied about being the outdoor type.”