Back to school... finally.

I can't believe how happy I am to be back at school.

My summer was the pits. First of all, Dad made me mow the lawn, which would have been okay because he said he'd give me $5 to do it. But most of the time he didn't think I was doing it "right" and he would mow all the parts he didn't like. Then when I'd ask for my money he'd only give me $2.50, telling me it was because he did half.

I was looking forward to the money to get the final parts for the rocket ship. Well, that didn't happen. The rocket is pretty much in the same shape it was on Parent's Night. At this rate I'll be in college before I get to Mars.

At least the mowing is over. Dad said we are done, that he's sick and tired of yard work and that it's pointless now that half the lawn is brown and the other half is crabgrass. Mom said he should get a lawn service. But Dad insists he does it for half the price. She said yes and for half the price you get dead grass and weeds.

Dad also decided this would be a good summer to try camping, which turned out to be the worst summer for mosquitoes in recent history. I don't even want to talk about it. Let's just say we spent the better part of seven days in our tent.

P.J. was at day camp for most of the summer, then his parents took him to visit the Alamo. At least this time he didn't come back thinking he was Davy Crockett.

Now that he's back we'll work on a new lift-off schedule. We're hoping that we'll be ready before the new year, maybe even by Thanksgiving break - although I'd hate to miss Thanksgiving, it's my favorite holiday.

Anyway, we did get to work on the the rocket engine and it is almost complete. It is so cool. It's a little bigger than I expected, it looks like we might have to modify the rocket body.

Parent's Night!

Well, Parent's Night was a hit!

We pulled off the whole shebang at the last minute with everyone pitching in.

Grandpa sat in the rocket ship telling flying stories from the olden days. Me and P.J. explained the trip in detail and gave a demonstration of the rockets propulsion system. 

And Uncle Jake came out and brought his prototype for a nuclear powered laser death ray. He said you never know when you'll encounter hostile Martians and it'll probably be more effective than my cap gun.

He calls it the NPLDR 3000.

The whole night was so cool!

We didn't get first prize, though. We got second.

Emily Peters and Eleanor Timmins won first prize with their scooter that runs on Twinkies. 

It takes 35 Twinkies to make it go about 40 feet, but it is environmentally friendly. The only exhaust is some harmless brown goo and powdered sugar and when it's running the air around it smells like a bakery.

So between the smell and with everyone concerned about global warming these days, I guess a Twinkie driven scooter beats a homemade trip to Mars. Go figure.

Raccoons and Uncle Jake

The raccoons are going a little nutty in our neighborhood. It must be Spring Fever. Besides looking for good take out from our garbage, they like to pound away at the cans and lids like they're some kind of a rock band.

P.J. offered to sleep over to stand watch and, as he put it, "Run those Yankee raccoons back to the woods they came from!" I've stopped reminding him that he's from New Jersey.

He thinks he's pretty cool with his single shot cap gun. It is kinda neat and loud, but he's never seen my cap gun. Mom doesn't like guns and she only lets me play with it when my Uncle Jake comes over. He gave me the gun.

Uncle Jake is Mom's brother and he doesn't think there's anything wrong with cap guns. He and Mom disagree on a lot of stuff like that. Dad just stays out of it - I get the feeling he thinks Uncle Jake is cool, too.

Luckily, Mom didn't make me get rid of the cap gun. She didn't want to hurt Uncle Jake's feelings, but like I said, it can only come out when he's around.

Anyway, it's a sort of machine cap gun and it blows off about 50 caps a second. So if P.J. decides he's going to start some kind of uprising, I'm pretty sure I can handle it.

That reminds me, I have to add the cap gun to the list of things to bring to Mars. You never know what you might find up there.

The Reb

Parent's Night is only a couple of weeks away and there is still so much to do on the rocket ship. The body is pretty much complete, but we haven't gotten anywhere on the engine. It didn't help that P.J. wasn't talking to me for a few days.

He was mad because Grandpa told him I might ask Melanie to go to Mars with me. That was supposed to be private, but I think Grandpa forgot I asked him not to tell. Although, he might have told because he was upset that I didn't ask him to go. We all can't go! I think I'll stick to the original plan of just me going.

Things got better between me and P.J. when he got back from vacation. He went to Gettysburg over Memorial Day weekend and he didn't seem as upset when he got home. He got a Confederate hat and a cap gun rifle and he seems a little preoccupied  with fighting for his state's rights. I'm not sure which state though - he's originally from New Jersey.

Anyway, he wants me to call him The Rebel or just Reb, which is fine with me so long as we can get back to building the rocket.

The pizza is out

Well, the pizza shield plan is definitely out.

Last Saturday was real sunny and warm. The temperature got to 70˚. Normally that's perfect, but my garage probably got up to 80˚. Although the pizza held its shape, the smell is nasty.

Mom made me throw it all away when she caught Donald munching on a piece. He must not have any sense of smell, maybe it was the ball bearing incident. The stink went from sour milk and dirty socks to a sour milk, dirty socks and messy diaper mix.

There was also a greasy spot that Mom made me scrub. It took forever to get it all up and it left a stain that will probably be there for a thousand years.

On top of that, today Melanie gave me a bag full of fresh Pan Pizza. The grease was beginning to eat through the bag, but she seemed so happy to help that I couldn't bring myself to tell her that I wasn't going to use it.

I tossed it in a dumpster on the way home.

Anyway, it's nice having her pay attention to me and it's cool that she's interested in my project. 

I wonder if she'd like to go to Mars.

Nabbed by the lunch lady

Okay, just for the record, in case I disappear or something, I think the head lunch lady is on to me. Remember, P.J. and me are collecting Pan Pizza, well, I think she knows we're not eating it. I don't know for sure, maybe I'm just a little paranoid, because I know she's responsible for the recipe for the pizza, but I get the feeling she's watching my every move on pizza day.

She's not onto P.J. yet, or at least he doesn't think she is. I'm playing it safe though, I just order two slices – or three, if I know she isn't looking. 

But I do have an alternate plan. Melanie Shaw actually asked me about my science project. Melanie is one of the prettiest girls I know and usually I don't know what to say to her. I mean, whenever I get close to her it feels like my mouth fills up with dry crackers and my head goes a little woozy, but this opened the door and of course I do have a lot to talk about. 

It also gave me an idea–I asked Melanie if she could help and she said yes. So now I still get my pizza heat shield and a reason to talk to Melanie!

But I'm not so sure the pizza heat shield thing is such a good idea anymore. We have a good pile of it already in my garage. It's in a cool shady spot, but I have to say, it is not smelling so great. Kind of like sour milk and dirty socks left out in the sun. 

In August.

I don't know if I could stand that smell all the

 way to Mars and back. So I'm thinking we'll have to come up with something else.

Another fact:

Full Speed Ahead!

Now that I have the official backing of Mrs. Applebaum and the Pine Nuts School system, I can start working on my trip to Mars full steam ahead. So, the plan now is to have the rocket ship completed and ready to launch for the Parent's Day Science Competition.

I'll also have the poster of really cool facts (which I've already started), along with a flight plan and list of things I want to do once I get to Mars.

Grandpa is still very keen on helping out, so he can sit in the rocket during Parent's Night and talk to people about flying and stuff. He can even wear his leather jacket and helmet. Maybe we can find him some goggles too.

And since Mom still insists that I let Donald do something - even after the ball bearing incident- he can be our Martian specimen. Once me and P.J. figure out what one looks like, we'll make a costume and dress Donald in it and he can stand around making Martian sounds.

P.J.'s going to stay over Saturday night so we can do research. He has an awesome flying simulation video game that will give me some practice and he said he can bring over other study materials from his dad's video collection. I'll get kettle corn and soda.

Real Facts

I think for our science project we should have a poster listing a bunch of interesting facts about Mars. Not your everyday facts, like Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, I want to have cool things that nobody really knows.

Facts though, not made up stuff. Last year Eddie Spithausen did a project on Komodo Dragons and he had a poster called "Things you should know about the Kimono Dragon." First of all, a Kimono is a kind of dress and second everything on his poster was made up! I guess he thought that everyone would be so impressed with his paper maché dragon model that they wouldn't check his "facts."

Well, that might have worked, if the model had been any good. It didn't look like a Komodo Dragon. Actually, it didn't look like any kind of dragon at all. Mostly it looked like a cross between his bulldog, Puddles, and a rabid turkey—only green. With Chiclet teeth.

I mean, I know I can be lazy about school projects, but the least he could have done was look up what a Komodo Dragon looked like. Eddie's judgement can be a little off at times. He once got detention for calling Mr. Mulligan, the gym teacher, a meat puppet.

I still don't know what that is. I think it was in reference to Mr. Mulligan's muscles—the guy's got like 23" biceps—which is more to the point, why would you say anything stupid to a guy that could pop your head like a pimple?

You gotta wonder sometimes.

Mrs. Applebaum announces a class project.

Something happened at school today that will definitely speed up production on the rocket and of the Mars trip. Our teacher, Mrs. Applebaum, announced our Spring project. It's a science competition that we will exhibit at parent's night.

Parent's night is when everyone's mom and dad, and sometimes grandparents and aunts and uncles are invited in to school to see that we haven't just been fooling around all year. But mostly it's an opportunity for the teachers to prove that they are actually teaching us something—that they aren't "glorified  babysitters," as Mrs. Applebaum is always telling us that she is not.

Everyone in class has to pick a partner to work on the project with, then we have to research and construct a scientific experiment and show it off at parent's night.

Well, I already have a partner—P.J.—and we are so far ahead of the rest of the class, it's ridiculous! Me and P.J. are sure to win. Apparently, there are going to be some prizes for the best projects, "as of yet, undetermined," as Mrs. Applebaum put it.

I sure hope it's money, going to Mars has got to be expensive.

Anyway, Mom can't complain anymore that I should spend half as much time cleaning my room as I do on planning a trip to Mars - because now it's a school project!

A new kid at school

There's this new kid at school whose name is Billy, but for some reason he makes everyone call him Bubba. He's really tall. Well, I guess he's not that tall for his age - it seems he's been left back a couple of times, maybe three. He also has this kind of dull mean look about him. 

P.J. ran into Billy - uh, Bubba -  in the hallway and tried to make some small talk, trying to avoid being beaten up. He told Bubba about our rocket and the trip to Mars. Bubba told P.J. that wasn't anything big, that he'd been to Venus three of four times and that the girls on Venus were much better looking than the girls on Earth. He also told P.J. that he had a girlfriend on Venus and that she is way prettier than Molly Pinkston (the prettiest girl in our grade).

Venus! Come on! Now I see why this guy's having difficulty getting to the next grade. Does he realize that it's about 900˚ F on Venus? I guess that would make his girlfriend really hot!

At first I thought Bubba might be trouble, I don't really think that anymore.

Cafeteria Pizza!

For lunch today at school they were serving something they called "Pan Pizza." This was rectangle slabs of thick dough with dried up sauce and this grayish white stuff on top that I think was supposed to be cheese.

The only other choice was tuna salad, which was so dry it had started to crack.

I chose the pizza. I guess everyone else did too, because there was a wait while the cafeteria ladies made more. But they tried to make too many at the same time and the ovens caught on fire. It wasn't that big a fire, but the cafeteria monitors made us stand outside while it was put out.

I guess it wasn't a bad idea, because it took over ten minutes to put the fire out. The amazing thing was the pizza slabs looked exactly the same as they did before they caught fire. The cheesy stuff was a little more gray and the sauce was as dry as the tuna salad, but all in all, they were intact.

This gave me a great idea. The rocket's gonna need some kind of heat shield and me and P.J. have been experimenting with what to use—now we know:

Cafeteria Pan Pizza.

I told P.J. all about it, so now whenever the cafeteria is serving Pan Pizza we'll order extra until we have enough for a shield!

Unfortunately, I don't think there is anything we can use the tuna salad for.

Something to do with all those ball bearings.

P.J. helped me attach the fins and nose to the rocket today. 

But remember I said me and P.J. weren't sure what to do with the can of ball bearings he brought over? Well, Donald sure did. 

Mom said we had to let him help, so we sat him in the corner with the can of ball bearings and told him to start counting them. We told him it was an important part of the project and that he'd better count carefully.

He counted carefully alright, except he only got to ten. It seems he didn't know where to put the ones he had counted, so he decided a good place would be in his nostrils. Yup, five in each, crammed in nice and tight.

When he started crying I thought it was because he can't count much higher than 15 or 20 - and there must be hundreds of ball bearings in that can. Donald ran inside and I thought we were finally rid of him. But Mom came out yelling something about how it's not funny to make your brother do stupid things and she sent P.J. home.

Donald doesn't really know how to blow his nose, so we spent the next few hours in the emergency room. The doctor didn't have any trouble getting the ball bearings out - they were pretty greasy.

Anyway, P.J.'s not allowed to come over for a couple of days.

Great, now everyone wants to go to Mars.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm not grateful for the help P.J.'s been giving me - I mean the rocket is really awesome - but I think he wants to go to Mars, too! He keeps dropping these hints that are so obvious. He keeps talking about how cold and lonely Mars must be and who knows what kind of monsters there might be and wouldn't it be good to have someone to back me up.

He hasn't come right out and asked, but when he started to make the cockpit large enough for two, I knew what he was getting at.

So now I've got Grandpa trying to bribe his way into going, P.J. nudging his way in, and to top it off, Donald keeps stuffing his toy monkey, his blanket and his binky into the front of the rocket.

Out of all of them, Donald is definitely the last one I'd let go with me. The last family trip we took to the beach all he kept asking was when are we going home? When are we going home? We hadn't even got there yet!

And then when we did get to the beach, he kept taking off his bathing suit and running up to strangers shouting FRWEE! FRWEE! I'm not sure exactly what he meant, but it was totally embarrassing.

I don't need that happening on Mars.

My friend P.J. is going to help me with the rocket.

My friend P.J. came over today. I told him about my trip and the rocket and he asked if he could help build it. P.J.'s always been good in science and math, so he'll be good to have around. Plus his Dad is some kind of a mechanic with a workshop full of springs and wheels, rubber belts and hooks and things that I have no idea what are used for. His Dad also has lots of tools that P.J. said he was sure we could use.

P.J. brought over a big can of ball bearings, a greasy cog and two old hub caps. I think it was his way of showing me he was serious about helping. I'm not sure what we'll use it all for, but you never know - a rocket is a complicated piece of machinery.

Grandpa dropped off his old flying jacket and an old leather football helmet. He said I could use them on my trip. The jacket is really cool - it has all these patches on it that have something to do with flying old planes.

As far as the helmet goes, I can't imagine it was much protection for playing football. Grandpa says players were tougher back then. I think after getting hit in the head wearing that helmet you just didn't care because you probably couldn't feel much anymore.

Anyway, like I said, Grandpa's a great guy, so I just said thank you and let him ruffle my hair.

I have to say, I'm a little concerned about him, he seems very eager to go to Mars with me.

The rockets taking shape and Grandpa came over

I got a of work done on the rocket today, even with Donald asking all sorts of questions. He asks questions about everything.

Is Mars really red? Yes, of course.

Are there Martians? It's Mars, duh.

Are there monsters? Probably.

Does it take long to get there? A couple of hours, at least.

Can I come? No.

Can we talk when you get there? Yes, we'll use the walkie-talkies. (Probably a good idea - just in case there's trouble).

Do they have TV on Mars? I don't know.

What will you do if you get bored? It's Mars - there are craters and mountains and valleys to explore, there's water to be discovered and Martians to get to know - there won't be time to get bored.

He had others, but I can't remember what they were. You get the idea, though.

Grandpa came over on Saturday. He's very excited that I'm going to Mars. So much so he wants to come. He always talks about how he was a pilot in the war. I'm not sure which war, I didn't even think planes were invented when he was young.

Grandpa said with his experience he'd be a big help.

He can be a little forgetful sometimes. He locks his car keys in the car and once he forgot Grandma in the Super Shop-A-Lot. Although, Dad said he thinks Grandpa did that on purpose. Anyway, with that kind of help we'd probably end up hurtling endlessly through space.

I didn't want to hurt his feelings, so I said I'd see if I could make room for him on the rocket ship. And if I couldn't, I'd certainly need his help back here on earth.

He laughed and called me his Little Teddy Bear. He's been calling me that ever since I was a baby, but it kind of bugs me now that I'm older. Grandpa's a really good guy, always giving money and stuff, so I let it slide.

Luckily none of my friends have heard him say it, think about how that would go over.

Progress on the rocket a little slow.

Today didn't go as well as planned. I'm having a little trouble getting the rocket to look like my plans.

Part of the problem is that Mom won't let me use any of the power tools.

She wants to know why I have to use a saw of any kind. I asked her how she thought I was going to get all the pieces of the rocket into the shapes I needed if I couldn't use a SAW?

I think I said it a little too loud. I got a look. But she did say I could use the hand saw, so long as I was very careful and I didn't let Donald touch it. I don't know what she thinks he'd do with it. I mean, he's not the brightest kid I know, but I don't think he'd cut his arm off.

Then I told her she was the one who said I should let him help.

I had to spend the next hour in my room thinking about my tone of voice. It gave me time to plan the schedule and map out the trip.

I've started building the rocket!

I made some really good progress on the rocket today - even though my brother, Donald, decided he needed to help. I told him to go play with the cowboy stuff I gave him, but Mom said I had to let him help.

When I tried to tell her he would just muck things up, she gave me one of her looks. This one was a combination "I'm-disappointed-in-you/Do-what-I-say-or-you-know-what" kind of look.

Mom has lots of looks and it has taken me a while to learn them all. Donald can't read them yet and you can see he gets confused.

Dad only has one look and you better do what he says when he gives it to you.

I worked on the cockpit mostly today. I want it to be as comfortable as possible - you never know how long one of these space trips will be. I need to have room for snacks and some comic books and stuff to draw with, which I forgot about in my first plan. But, I was able to fix it without changing the overall design too much.

Now, if I could just figure out what to do with Donald.

The plans for my rocket ship are complete!

I spent most of last night coming up with an awesome plan for my rocket ship.

I almost forgot to do my homework. That wouldn't have been too good, because then I would have had to stay after school to do it and all I want to do is get started building my ship.

When I got home I started going through the garage looking for the stuff I'll need. 

Mom was right, Dad keeps EVERYTHING. There was a box full of string. Just short bits, nothing you could use to tie anything with. An old deer head with a plaque that says "Bagged by Woody." My Dad doesn't know anyone named Woody. And he doesn't hunt! There was a can full of nickels (I'll have to remember that next time I go to the deli), three broken chairs, a box of corks, old tires and a mannequin. And that was just in one corner!

I did find the things I'll need: wood, bicycle wheels, the steering wheel off Tin Flyer, an old grill, a plunger, this plastic bowl thingy I'll use as a dome, lots of nails and screws and all the tools I'll need for construction.

The rocket building begins!

I'm going to Mars!

This is it, I've decided to go to Mars.

I'm done being a cowboy, I'm too old for the hat and boots and holster. 

My brother, Donald, can have them.

It's time to start building my rocket ship and prepare for my trip.

My garage is full of stuff to build a rocket with. My Mom says Dad can't get rid of anything. We built a go-cart for a Cub Scout's competition out some old sheet metal he had. It was really cool. We called it the Tin Flyer. I didn't win the race, sheet metal is pretty heavy. But I did get a ribbon for creativity and after the race all the kids decided to have a smash-up derby with our go-carts. That, I did win. Trust me, sheet metal holds up pretty well to balsa and plywood.

Well it's time to go draw up the plans for the rocket ship! See ya!