Guys Weekend - The Potato Gun

Every once and a while my Dad, my Brother and I get together just to goof off outside the scope of normal family visits.  A chance to just relax, swap stories, brainstorm how to change the world, and act well, like kids.

My Brother owns a house overlooking Lake Travis in Jonestown, TX [northwest of Austin], he's got the nice boat, a great entertainment center, you know...all the toys.  What he's lacking is a good guest bed and some food on the shelves [bachelor], but that can all be remedied.  Dad usually arrives on his motorcycle [from Conroe] at the crack of dawn and I'll roll in around noon [from Dallas].

Prior to arriving, my Dad forwarded the following video of a 'potato cannon' to us.  It was to become our inspiration for the trip.  I've linked to it below in case your interested.

 

Once we saw the video [you can stop after a couple minutes, you'll get the point] the inner child in us was raring to go!  We bought all the necessary components from the local True Value hardware store and the requisite 10lbs of potato's and a can of 'Aquanet'.  Less than an hour [and a few beers] later, we had built the toy d' jour and it was awesome.  You can see some of the pictures below and hopefully Dad will rip the video he took off his camera and get it to us so that we can see it.

This contraption literally shot a potato a hundred yards down the side of Jason's property! 

Now, we realized that we were doing something dangerous [and quite possibly illegal] so we rationalized who would go first.   We couldn't let Jason go first, he as the only one of us with any medical training [over 10 years as a paramedic], if anything went wrong we'd need him.  They wouldn't let me go first because I've got a wife and two kids.  That left Dad.  Dad was barely able to contain himself just waiting for us to quit fooling around and give him the damn thing..

Of course, after all that deliberating [inebriating], Jason goes and sticks his face right up to the combustion chamber just as I am testing the 'spark' for what we thought would be a misfire.  Well, the picture can be found in the group below!  The irony is that we've grown up with guns our entire lives and gun safety has always been a priority.  

 

Guys Weekend 2007 - The Potato Cannon

We enjoyed ourselves so much that we are going to each make one, with a little different design and definitely with a personal touch.  Jason has already got his Halo design worked out. 

We also spent a lot of time rocking the hilltop on Guitar Hero 2!  I've got to get this, it is still the best game I've played in a long time. I still can't believe they've yet to release the wireless controller for the XBox 360!  What kind of sick joke is that? Anyway, that's what I'm holding out for.  Anyway, Dad won the cards with an all in late in the evening.

I had to cap off the weekend with a hangover and a burning desire to get back to my family [two sick kids] so called in on Sunday.  Dad, Jason [and crew] still took Luscious out on the lake on Monday.  I've yet to hear how that went.

Till next time..