Greg's Birthday and Thermite Experiment Part Two

Experiment: 20090515

When I asked my friend Greg what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday this year he said "You make great Red Velvet Cakes with the White icing... (yeah, I'm in a predictable rut...). As for shape, well feel free to think Steampunk." And thus, as foretold in the prophecy, his doom was sealed.... Err.... I mean, so then I made him a perfectly nice and normal cake with lots of Steampunk-ish flourishes.



After the cake had been devoured we headed out into the backyard for a second try at the Thermite Experiment. This time we increased the quantity, mixed the ignition mixture in with the thermite, wrapped a full coil of magnesium ribbon around the two iron bars, and used plastic army men to show the extent of the heat.







Here's a quick video clip showing just how much more energetic this attempt was than the last one.



And finally, just to add a finale to our geek extravaganza we finished the day with a Diet Coke and Mentos fountain.

Hank's Graduation

Adventure: 20090509

This Saturday Kathy, Carrie, and I went to watch Hank graduate with his second Associates Degree from Pellissippi State Technical Community College. Luckily they have professional photographers for these sorts of things because out of just over a hundred shots I got two that didn't end up completely a waste and a brief segment of fuzzy video footage....

Sam's Thermite Birthday Experiment

Experiment: 20090501

This year was my 40th birthday and I asked for just two simple birthday wishes:

1. A home-made carrot cake with cream cheese icing.
2. Some thermite to play with. ^_^

$40 for 20 seconds of concentrated awesome. Seems like a deal to me. Plus I only used about half the bottle so I think the rest will be going into a small casting experiment.

Carrie's Choco cake o' DOOM!!!

Experiment 090227

My friend Carrie had some pretty definite ideas on what she wanted for her birthday cake:

I have considered my impending birfyday cake...and I want...
*drumroll*
A cake that is so chocolate-y it oozes chocolate-y goodness.
I want a chocolate cake so chocolate-y that there's no possible way we can accuse Sam of ruining chocolate.
I want to see through time *bwahahahahahaha!!!* (and throw all the diabetics into coma's of dark brown delight!)

And hence the "Choco cake o' DOOM!!!" was born in a ritual involving four pounds of chocolate, a perfectly innocent double-layer Dream Whip chocolate cake frosted with a double batch of chocolate butter-cream, and about an hour and a half of careful candy-bar and chocolate chip placement.

Liz's World of Swirl Birthday Cake

Experiment: 090220

My friend Liz requested a yellow cake with chocolate butter-cream frosting for her birthday this year and left the theme and design entirely up to me. Since I had free reign I decided to go for something a little "prettier" than normal and made a Wilton method World of Swirl cake. For future reference I would like to note that this cake took most of four batches of chocolate butter-cream and ended up with so much frosting on it that the cake layers inside actually fell and ended up looking like half layers when we cut it. Another item to note is that the "Bakery Crafts" brand Sparkler Candles I used have a very clear warning on the back instructing that "TO EXTINGUISH, PUT CANDLES IN WATER".... It would have helped a lot if I had read that in advance. On the plus side I got a pretty amusing video sequence out of it.