11/7/2002: Punkin Chunkin

The local news story

What you're seeing there is the winning entry in Delaware's annual "Punkin Chunkin" contest, in which people build elaborate weaponry to fire ripe pumpkins into the woods.

Some people don't think Delaware belongs in the south, but they are wrong. (I mean that in the best way possible.)

This event sounds really cool, and nobody can take a decent picture of it! It's another case of where I really should be on the road with the ol' digital, getting shots in person for you all...

79 contraptions were built for this year's contest. The key: no propellants other than air are permitted.

The winner shot its fruit 3,881.54 feet. How they know: they measure it with GPS!

The distance category is "air cannons", as shown above. But the other categories are cool: trebuchet, centrifugal, catapult, human-powered.

The story says that Discovery Channel was on hand, but I have no info on what they shot or when they'll air it.

It looks like that ole punkin disintigrated before it got all that far. Isn't that a punkiny sort of cloud?

i dont think so, not orange enough.

~james

I posted a link to the contest in the Manifestos back in June, with the hope of going to see it this year. Unfortunately, that didn't materialize.

I don't care what anybody says...Delaware rules...we are so moving there.

oh my god, i equate "delaware" with "shithole", syc.

it rules. ha. why? WHY?

Are you saying the DuPonts would own and live in a shithole?

Would this make an effective warning shot against a place like Iraq? We could launch a salvo of ICBP's (Intercontinental Ballistic Pumpkins) to rain down on Baghdad.

This would also be a good way to get rid of all the Halloween debris (and the ooo scary Jack-o-Lantern faces couldn't hurt).

Bull

The no sales tax is more than offset by the hefty state income tax.
The DuPont estates in PA are later geneations of offspring staking out new territory.
I've done a lot of exploring/fishing south of Dover. I can almost
hear the dueling banjos now!

Hmmm...*sycamore visits the Delaware Code*

I'd roughly pay 11.5% (based on estimated earnings). I pay 7.3% to PA and the City of Philadelphia. But the cost of living in Delaware is roughly 10-25% lower than Philadelphia, and no sales tax...it seems to be a fair trade off.

We'll see...we have a year to plan, and various factors to consider.

Delaware - Rambling Thoughts

I just woke up so this post will ramble a little bit. One of the reasons I've never used drugs is that if I want to impair my left brain to empower my creativity, I always have weekend mornings. I live in PA right across the border from Delaware. The original Dupont factories were all in Delaware and since they lived onsite, many of the estates are located there.

I recommend the Hagley Museum, which is the site of the Dupont gunpowder mill and one of the estates. It is located 5 minutes from 202 and I-95. There are admission coupons in the Entertainment books and from the Brandywine tourist commision.

Of course, I also highly recommend Longwood Gardens, which is in PA. Nothing beats the winter blues like walking though the flowers in the convservatory. The food in the (4 or 5 star) restaurant is also very good, and not too pricey, although they are out of season for their weekly brunch buffets.

If you visit Fort McHenry and look in the recreation of one of the powder magazines, you will see a box with "Dupont" stamped on it.

I have been told that an out-of-state fishing license in Delaware is cheaper than and resident license in PA. While I realize that there is a larger volume of water in PA, there is also a larger population, so you would think that it would even out per capita.

Delaware is very middle class and blue collar. Parts of the state do have a redneck feel to them, although you also have the arts community of Arden. It might be the legacy of the Duponts, who did have a reputation for taking care of their workers, but it seems to me there is a big concentration of public amenities near here like swim clubs and theatres. It's sort of the capitalist equivalent of the 'workers paradise' where a lot of attention was paid not to acquiring wealth, but improving lifestyle. That being said, there is certainly a 'redneck' element to Delaware. They probably sell more hunting licenses in the K-Marts here than in all of SouthEastern PA.

I like going into Delaware for the same reason that I 'should' like going into Philadelphia. It is a state in miniature the way that Philadelphia is a city in miniature. In PA you would have to drive an hour or two to get from the city and suburbs to the rural PA, the "Alabama" that James Carville talked about. In Delaware its a 15 minute drive.

If you ever want to spend some serious money, treat yourself and go to the Green Room in the Dupont Hotel. It and the Opera House are proof that accessible culture is alive in Delaware.

Got to go now. I'm starting to wake up and am tempted to go back and proofread and edit the message, which sounds too much like work for a Saturday morning. Must...resist....

This event will be the subject of a show next Sunday night at 9p ET on the Discovery Channel.

This is apparently the equivalent of a spud gun, which can propel a vegetable at amazing speeds. Orange Smoothie Productions, a FPS mod group, made some spud guns in the late 90's that propelled potatoes at close to the speed of sound. For a while, they had some video on the net of their guns firing potatoes at watermelons. Quite demolished them. Turned the watermelons into pink haze. The html of those days, Stuff the Warning Label Said Not to Do is still available on the Wayback Machine, but the images and avi's have long since disappeared, I'm afraid.

Oh, wait, at least one set of images still comes up if you're patient, under the heading: 'The Watermelon Mayhem'.

OSP represent!

That Discovery show is being shown again tonight...this year's contest started today.

Rho and I are off to Millsboro tomorrow to see the excitement. Hopefully someone will hit the magnificent mile mark this year.

You'd damn well better shoot some pictures...preferably, video, and make it available for those of us stuck here in the loathesome Midwest where the only thing we do with pumpkins is carve them into jack-o-lanterns and make pies.

What the fuck? Do I look like I'm rich or something? Video...ha! You're going to get pictures on Kodak film and like it!

35 mm motion pictures? Okay, but you still have to convert it to digital!

Hey...wait a minute. You've got a digital camera, if memory serves...

No sir...one standard 35mm and a professional one with various lenses.

I had to build a trebuchet to do this back in highschool. It was fun. And horrible. I think the pumpkin went 10 feet or so.

Re: Delaware - Rambling Thoughts

I am sad to report that there will be no photos of the Punkin Chunkin. We went down there, but didn't go in. Long story, to be explained in the Road Trip thread.