I am Hephaestus

"He turned these toward the fire and gave them their orders for working. And the bellows, all twenty of them, blew on the crucibles, from all directions blasting forth wind to blow the flames high now as he hurried to be at this place and now at another, wherever Hephaistos might wish them to blow, and the work went forward. He cast on the fire bronze which is weariless, and tin with it and valuable gold, and silver, and thereafter set forth upon its standard the great anvil, and gripped in one hand the ponderous hammer, while in the other he grasped the pincers."

- Homer, Iliad

MB #95 Metalwork

It is pretty cool to look at things and be able to say, "I made that!" Well....

I made that. (a punch)

And Those! (Awesome Tin Boxes)

A Badges - B Badges

 I like to classify all Merit Badges into two categories: A badges and B badges. A badges stand for AWESOME badges and B badges stand for boring badges. The last one I earned was definitely an A badge.

MB #94 Snow Sports

Living only 15 minutes from Sundance Ski resort has its advantages. The number one is...I can go skiing! This is where I earned this MB and it was AWESOME. Maybe the BSA needs a little more modernization and extreme MB's like Cliff diving or hang gliding or base jumping. Anyhow this is me...

A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.

-R. Daneel Olivaw

The Three Laws are:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

1. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

1. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

MB #93 Robotics

One of the newest and one of the coolest MB's. While I did not build anything like this...

I did get to use some Lego Mindstorms and build something like this...

Phasketboot

MB #92 Sports

Since I am an incredibly athletic individual, I had a hard time narrowing down exactly which sports I was going to play for this MB. I was thinking about Bicycle Polo...

or Roller Basketball...

or Phasketboot...

but, I decided that they were all too tame. So, I ultimately settled on track and basketball.

Anyone can do it.

MB  #91 Graphic Arts

My next door neighbors work at Liberty Press and gave me a tour of the facility. I have to say that it is one of the coolest things I have ever done. We are a long way from Johannes Gutenberg. If he could have only seen the machines that I saw, he would be proud to be the father of mass printing.

Today, we (everybody in the US at least) always have something to print. Although I think printing's peak  is in the past with the invention of the tablet computer. (Shhh...don't tell my neighbors.) Graphic arts has become a tech job. What people used to do with ink and paper is now being done with point and click. Simple programs like Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Digital Image (my favorite) can make stellar graphic artists out of all of us. Publishers will have to evolve to stay alive. My dad has made several personal books thanks to software and an online publisher called Blurb. The most recent one he put together was one my grandma wrote about my great-grandpa, who is still alive at 99!

If you are related to Grandpa Paystrup, you can buy this book here.