I’m fat. Nothing new there, but I am working on losing the pounds and keeping them off for good.

CaptainsCast is coming back. Ben has a renewed interest as well and wants to do the show again. I also realize how important it is for me to communicate with my boys and keep them on track. This is the way to do that.

Time Machine Toychest is coming back. More classic toys from yesteryear. This week brings the Frisbee!

Overgrown Boyscout is starting up anew. Since I have been thrust into the world of Scouting, I feel it is important to help others not that familiar with it. Look for me to hopefully be joined by Eagle Scout Jeff Hertlein as my co-host.

The Weekly Word Podcast will continue. For those looking for a great spiritual message, come listen to Dr. J, John Daniels, give his weekly message.

Coming soon – more blogging, more 70′s & 80′s history, and a few new podcast projects.

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Our day started with us being late for breakfast. We are the closest camp to the dining hall yet the last one to get there. Still don’t know why. Our troop volunteered for the song for this meal. Our first years, Tim Carter, and myself led the whole camp in a stunning rendition of Alive, Alert, Awake, Enthusiastic. It was fantastic.

The boys know where they are headed now, so the pressure is off. Everyone knows where they need to be. Summer camp looks a lot like a college campus. Except no girls.

A few of us went through Scoutmaster training part one today. We basically learned how to gently guide the boys to run the troop while we advise. We each introduced ourselves and why we were attending the training. The older boys did it for me. They said it would be cool to have Captain Kirk as one of the Assistant Scoutmasters. It makes you feel good to be a part of the troop aside from the first years you came in with.

We did a troop service project this afternoon and dismantled tents in a camp that will not be used for the next week of camp. Have you seen Aliens? That’s what it was like with all of the wood spiders in the tents. We had to battle one. You can see it and the aftermath of the battle below in the photos. THEY JUST WON’T DIE!!!!!

Everybody went off and did their own activities tonight. There was the Blob, Archery, Boating, Magic the Gathering tournament, fishing, rappelling. Our kids did it all. Mel, Ron, and myself hit the archery range. I haven’t shot in nearly 30 years. It was awesome.

The night finished up with an Order of the Arrow ceremony. Some of our scouts were inducted. It was a proud moment for all. Congrats to Tyler, Tarak, Jacob, Ron, and Brody.

Time to head back to camp. Faygo time.

In other news, I went fishing with one of our assistant scoutmasters. What a great time. I caught a few and it was very stress-relieving. His daughter caught a nice bass too. She wasnt afraid of the worms like some of our older boys were. Check out the pics below.

Sidenote – we had a fire drill today. They then served us refried beans at dinner. Coincidence?

That’s it for now. Time to get out the chips and Faygo for the boys. It’s a troop tradition.

P.S. The 2 boys that got lost finished the course. Only 2+ hours. Nevertheless, we’ll have a full headcount at lights out.

As you can see from the photo, camp is clean and pristine. Just wait. Chaos will ensue.

Emergency Cub Scout System Tiger Cub Skit
Required:
6 to 10 scouts
Notes:
Make sure you practice so the Beeeeeps start and stop when they should and so that the punch line does not drag on too long.
Script:
All scouts but one stand in line. Lead scout is in front or to one side.
Leader: For the next ten seconds we wil conduct a test of the emergency broadcast system.
(line of scouts all make Beeeeeeeeeeep sound until the leader raises his hand.)
Leader: Thank you. This concludes the test of the emergency broadcast system. Had this been an actual emergency, you would have heard…
(line of scouts scream in panic and run around)

What to bring to Summer Camp
Click here to view the list courtesy of the Dan Beard Council of Boy Scouts of America

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For more information about Monfort Heights United Methodist Church, please visit www.mhumc.org.

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This is it. The big one. #1. I think many in my generation would agree that the Atari 2600 was the best thing to happen to toys and technology at the time. Long before the days of the Xbox360, Wii, and PS3, this granddaddy started it all as far as switchable video games went. The Atari came with 2 joysticks, 2 paddles, and a pack-in game of Combat. Nowadays you get one controller and no game with a brand new latest generation system. Oh yeah – don’t forget the awesome RF modulator switch you had to slide to “game” or “tv” depending on what you wanted to do. It had the 2 leads you had to screw down to the back of your television. That was tech. It’s hard to believe, but the Atari went for $199 retail. That’s nuts. There were also a couple of versions. First generation models had six switches on the console and were much heavier. Later they were streamlined to just 4 main switches and less RF shielding to make them lighter. Atari really hit it big when they started buying the licensing for arcade games. Space Invaders was a mega-hit for Atari even though it was inferior to the coin-operated machine.

Do you remember? – Pitfall, Combat, Pinball, Kaboom, Breakout, Adventure

When I got this for Christmas it turned into family fun time. Rarely do you see families hang out together in the same room and play a game together let alone a video game. My family was the same way. That’s what we did that Christmas. On a 13″ color tv (Dad didn’t want to screw up the big one.) Me, mom, dad, Jon, Pam, Jerry, Cindy, Jenny, Rob, & my nephew Nick. We played Space Invaders until 2am. I threw up in the middle of the night that night. Mom thinks it was from too many video games. I think it was just the flu. For the past few Christmases we had the Kirk family Christmas at my brothers or sisters house in Columbus or Sidney respectively. Our family is much bigger now. We played Wii bowling till all hours on an inflatable screen in the basement as a giant family. I believe this is why I picked the Atari as my number one. It brought my family together for a moment from our hustle and bustle lives. It’s really more about family and friends than all the super cool toys from my youth. This is very Clark Griswold, but it’s about the times and memories you have and those times and memories you will still make.
I hope everybody enjoyed my top ten list. I wanted to get back into the blog again, and saw this as a great motivator to write again. I’ll try and keep it updated with interesting anecdotes and adventures. Most of all, thanks for reading. Have a great Christmas Day today. Enjoy your family, watch your kids open presents, and curse the toys you have to assemble. Merry Christmas everybody!

You knew I couldn’t get through this list without having Star Wars toys on it didn’t you? The big question people had was how many Star Wars toys would make the list? Anyone that knows me knows that that is not very possible. It would be a top ten star Wars list instead. Hmmm…maybe another time.
When Star Wars first came out there were no such things as action figures. In fact you may recall that Kenner released a cardboard box for purchase with the promise of 4 action figures by mail. When I received those action figures I would imagine play scenarios around them since there were no playsets or ships yet. I used the narrow end of a mini ironing board as the Millennium Falcon. Kenner then started trickling out ships. First the landspeeder, the xwing, tie fighter, a death star playset. Then the holy grail of all ships and playsets came out – the Falcon. A working ramp, opening cockpit, retractable landing gear, rotating radar dish, swiveling gun turret, holo chess board, jedi remote training area, and a hidden storage compartment. THIS ROCKED!!!!
This toy was not necessarily a surprise on Xmas morning. At the time midwestern Ohio was not very prone to get Star Wars toys when they first came out. Even if they were manufactured in Cincinnati, so it was hard to find anything let alone a brand new MF that everybody wanted. Hence Davenport, Iowa enters the picture. My sister and brother-in-law lived there and we would visit every now and then. Every trip to Iowa meant a trip to the mall (Sidney, Ohio had no such thing.) That is where I saw my coveted Falcon – at Montgomery Ward. Later on we all split up to do our own thing in the mall. I happened to spy my dad walking down the opposite side of the mall with a large bag under his shoulder with my new Xmas toy in it. Score! Many, many hours were spent piloting the hunk of junk from a galaxy far, far away.

Before Star Wars action figures there were the Fisher Price Adventure People. Kind of a post pre-school toy line to role play neat adventures. Recently you may have seen the concept of these toys transformed into the Rescue Heroes by fisher Price. There was a wide assortment to choose from. Check out the photos, you may see something you had as a kid. I had the kayak, the skydiver, a sea explorer boat, the rescue copter, and the blue news van.

Long before the days of Power Wheels, there was the era of the pedal tractor. Not the plastic ones mind you, but the cast iron, heavy duty models. Mine was a Ford 8000 in blue. To this day I still have memories of mom and dad taking me to a farm supply store. I got to ride one around the store, and threw the biggest tantrum because I didn’t get to keep one. Then on Christmas morning there it was. No pedal tractor is complete without a wagon. This one had that as well. I still remember the most frustrating thing about being a 4-year old, is not having the leg power to pedal the thing on shag carpet. Later on when the winter thaw came, I could ride it outside on our driveway. We had a circular driveway with a secondary lower driveway to a separate storage garage/shed. I remember coasting this iron missile down the hill full speed. In the early 80′s my nephew tried the same thing and ended up wrecking and breaking his finger.
I recently learned that mom and dad still have this same tractor in storage. I plan on getting it out and restoring it to the shape it was in when I first received it.

TCR Total Control Racing was a slotless track system that gave you more control over your racing cars than ever before. Because there were no slots for the cars to fit into, the TCR cars could change lanes. This was done by flipping a switch on the Hand Controller. However when the cars came to a bend they would always default to the outside of the bend due to gravity and centrifugal force. This meant that you could not overtake on the inside of a bend. Most TCR sets that were sold came with the added bonus of a third vehicle, a Jam Car which travelled at a slightly slower speed than the two “racing” cars. This meant that in order to win a race you would have to negotiate this vehicle as well as your opponent.
I used to have this set up in the back of our basement in a creepy storage room on top of the meat freezer. We used to have races, but had to count the laps ourselves. That never worked out because you always lost count. Wrecks never really happened either. You just rode the rails the entire time. Still a great track that didn’t frustrate you by having the cars fly off the track at a simulated 500mph.

2-XL was an educational robot that entertained you through material recorded onto 8-track tapes that you played through 2-XL. Everything was totally interactive based on the choices you made answering questions and pressing one of the four corresponding buttons on the front panel. Essentially it was nothing but a fancy 8-track player, with each button operating a particular track. The 8-Track tapes focused around a nerdy robot with a New York accent who would speak as if the listener was right there with him wherever he happened to be in the storyline. He would ask multiple-choice questions based on the subject of the tape, and the user would answer the question he asked by pushing the corresponding button. A right answer resulted in 2-XL congratulating the user on his knowledge, while a wrong answer would result in a razzing as 2-XL explained what the proper answer was. In between questions, there would sometimes be a story going on that the user was involved with, with the answers to the questions corresponding to the story line. Other times 2-XL would crack a bad joke and laugh at his own humor with a crazy-sounding laugh that was one of the many running gags that would be found on almost every tape in the series.
I have always been known for my wealth of knowledge in useless trivia. 2-XL is to blame for that. He is where I started learning everything about anything useless. Sure he spit out educational data, but the useless trivia was the best. If you step back and look at this toy it’s basically the prototype for NTN bar trivia.

Everyone had a Tonka Toy as a kid. Everyone has a fire truck as a kid. I had a combination of both. The Tonka Hook and Ladder Fire Truck. It had an actual extendable, elevating ladder on it. This is the best photo I could find online.

Before the PSP, before the Nintendo DS, before the Gameboy, handheld gaming was defined by little red LED’s and the molded plastic surrounding them. Mattel came out with a surefire hit by the name of Electronic Football. The great thing was that you could hand this off to your friend and play each other (that’s what we call multiplayer today), or simply play alone. Long car rides were made bearable again. Mattel’s version followed the basic rules of football, with 4 downs and a “full-length” football field. You couldn’t pass, nor could you run backwards. It seemed like a marathon when you broke free for a long run. You mashed on that button forever hoping you were getting close to the end zone and would hear the touchdown signal.
Football was very difficult to find after the initial release because Mattel relied on Sears to provide market data to tell how well the product sold. Production was halted at 100,000 units out of 500,000 because of “bad sales”. Sears revealed they had made an error, then asking for 200,000 more a week, then followed by 500,000 a week thereafter.
Mattel followed up with Electronic Football 2. You now had the ability to pass and move backwards. It couldn’t get any better.
Electronic Football is also featured in the ending of Supertramp’s 1979 hit “The Logical Song”. Listen closely and you can hear the 4th down whistle tweet about 3:24 into the song.
You can now re-live the experience again. In some cases you can still find the re-make of Electronic Football in stores. It was brought out again several years ago for around $10. It can also be found as an iPhone app created by touchGrove called LED football.

Many moons ago, my cousin had this toy. I begged and begged for this for what seemed like forever. Santa brought it for me I think in 1974. This toy was awesome and full of play features for the time. A helicopter with a winch, a landing pad, a ramp, a fire truck with a working ladder, an ambulance, little action figures, an elevator, and even an escape chute. Although after a while a toy loses its luster, this one is still a memorable one.

Ah yes. Hot Wheels kept the hits on coming throughout the 60′s & 70′s. One of my favorite toys does not qualify for my list. It was my older brother’s Cobra vs. Mongoose race set. You may remember it. It had the orange track and you mounted the launch gate to your kitchen table, it had 2 loops, and a parachute system. Mattel later came out with the ultimate racing system – Thundershift 500. A big oval with power shifters that propelled the cars around the track. You had to be careful, though. One bad shift and you would jam the car in the shifting mechanism and wreck. My set had two Dodge stock cars. A red one, and a yellow one. You had to time these particular cars just right & provide the proper strength to the shift, or the cars would either fly off the track or not make it around the entire circuit.
I found the secret to winning at this every time. An ugly orange GMC motorhome provided enough weight to stay on the track no matter how hard you shifted. It ran really smooth. Wasn’t very glamorous, but it worked.

Run Yourself Ragged was a puzzle game in which you raced against the clock. Kind of like Perfection. The game consisted of a marble-sized ball bearing which you would navigate through a maze of 10 different obstacles (parallel bars, catapult, etc.) Each ‘obstacle’ had its own little control assigned to it– a lever, button, etc. Ultimate goal was to navigate the course in under 60 seconds and ring the bell at the end. This game came out under several other names as well – Tricky Golf, Snafu, and Screwball Scramble.
This was a very fun game. The fun factor of this was great while on Winter Break. After that, I think it sat in the closet for a very long time. Then it was retired to garage sale purgatory. Sure wish I still had this game now.

Following the initial success of Star Wars, many toy companies started coming out with their own space-themed toys. Milton Bradley was no exception with their entry, Star Bird. Star Bird had a few, very cool features to it – press a button and their front lasers light up and fire, tilt the ship up or down and it makes engine sounds that raise or lower in pitch, removable front assemblies, wing fighters and engine parts. Milton Bradley made a playset to go along with the Starbird line, the Command Base. It is a large cardboard station with plastic accessories like radar dishes, laser guns, a working crane, little vehicles and space men.
Milton Bradley later released this toy under the name Space Avenger. The reason was everybody was hopping on the Star Wars bandwagon, copycat-ing everything Lucasfilm put out and were getting sued as well. Milton Bradley wanted nothing to do with that and promptly changed the name.

Huh? A hunk of Hot wheels plastic? No loops, parachutes, or ramps? Basically just a garage. Here’s some backstory. As a kid I was a semi-only child. My siblings were much older than I was, so I would have to come up with things to do on my own a lot. My older cousin would watch me a lot while my parents did the going-out thing. We would create huge environments out of Legos, Matchbox cars, and of course Hot Wheels. We had entire neighborhoods and scaled cities made. There were literally hundreds of cars, and even a big Matchbox parking garage. The Hot Wheels Service Center was a complement to my imaginary city. This toy had a working elevator, working dynomometer, gas pumps, car wash, a cool “road” your cars could roll down, and it folded up for “on the go” play action. It also came with a blue Trans Am. I think if I looked hard enough I might still have the car somewhere in my basement.
Even if it’s not the most awesome of toys, it’s more of the memories you have that make it great. And of course it has a Trans Am.

Vertibird (1974)

Now this is a classic. You may be able to find cheap, miniature knockoffs of this toy, but none will ever replace the original. This toy cost around $12 25 years ago. An original boxed in mint condition can fetch $500 on ebay these days.
You might remember the tv commercial where you had to stop the fictional bank robber from leaving town. You would send vertibird into action and drop a roadblock on the cardboard cutout of a road. Then you could swing in and hook onto the car and carry him away. This was nearly impossible to do in reality. I wonder how many takes it actually took to hook the getaway car?
Two things that did not work together in the 70′s – a vertibird and shag carpet. Always a tangled mess.

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What, if any, kind of themed swing set did you grow up with?

***An addendum to this post***

Just wanted to update this post a bit. In keeping with the theme of the captainscast website, I decided to span the generation gap between father and son. I talked to my son Ben regarding the Peanuts gym and what I grew up with for a swing set. I am pretty proud of this aluminum structure. His reaction to it was lukewarm at best. He comes from the newer generation that has been raised with Little Tikes plastic super-fortresses, or the even more impressive wood-built playsets with rock-climbing walls, rope swings, and motorized gun turrets. Just kidding about the gun-turrets.

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My Fantasy Football Setup

Here’s my fantasy football setup for NFL sundays. iMac 24″ with an Elagato EyeTV Hybrid for watching live games. The secondary monitor has twitter, my live fantasy football scores, and ESPN gamecast so I can monitor my players on my team.

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On a side note, I put together my playlist for the run. Here it is:

Let’s Go – The Cars
Revolution – The Beatles
Feels So Good – Van Halen
You May Be Right – Billy Joel
Forrest Gump Suite – Alan Sivestri
Star Wars The Throne Room / End Title – John Williams
Theme from Superman – John Ottman
Rocky Going the Distance – Bill Conti

That’s 36.4 minutes. I should be able to complete my run in that time. Wish me luck and more to come after the race.

Click to play.
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First off was Ed McMahon. Before I knew the man’s name, he was just known as ‘Heeeeere’s Johnny!!” to me. I used to share a bedroom with my brother Jon when I was a tyke. From what I recall, when I was in a crib up to 5 years old. When I was sent to bed, it was reasonably early, but Jon had two things in the room. One was a Soundesign hi-fi stereo playing Boston, ELO, Genesis, & hits of the 70′s. The other was an orange Zenith black & white 11″ television playing the Tonight Show on Dayton channel 22. I would stay up and watch Johnny and Ed quite a bit growing up in that room. I was also a crabby kid the next day for not going to bed early.
I also remember when the end of summer came, and it was time to go back to school. The Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon was on. I don’t remember it for Jerry Lewis, but I remember Ed McMahon helping co-host.

Farrah Fawcett. I was too young for the”poster”, but I do remember Charlie’s Angels. Most importantly back then, Charlie’s Angels trading cards. Yes, that’s right. Trading cards. They weren’t easy to find, but every year we took a fishing trip to Rice Lake in Ontario, Canada. There was a little general store down the road from our fishing village that sold gumballs, toffee, and various trading cards. I’m sure they sold other things, but what did I care. Me and my cousins would buy as many packs as we could and try and comlete the puzzle on the back of the cards that showed the famous silhouette of the Angels from the tv show. You had Sabrina, Kate, but the best was Jill. It was sad to lose her today.




Michael Jackson. This is a shock. I don’t think anybody expected this at all. Jackson was the epitome of 80′s pop culture. Who didn’t have a Members Only jacket trying to be like Michael? There was the moonwalk, and of course, Thriller.I played drums as an adolescent and took my love of that, & Michael’s glove, and combined the two. I would play fake drums with a golf glove on. I don’t know. I guess I was imitating Michael in the only way I could. I knew I couldn’t sing or dance like him, but it was the closest thing I could do to be like the King of Pop. My mom even had a birthday cake made with Michael’s glove and drum sticks on it. Later in life, he had some rough times and very suspect actions. Hopefully the world will remember him for his contributions to the music world.

Time to head back home. We could stay a few extra days if we wanted to, but it’s just too hot in Florida. We hit the road at 8:39AM and made it back to Cincinnati at 10:00PM that night. I drove the whole way. I’m tired. Goodnight.

Today was spent lying around. After a week at the house of the mouse it was definitely time for a respite. We slept in, ate lunch, then hit the pool for a few hours. We then hit Chili’s for dinner. At this point we could definitely tell the boys were tired of vacation. They were rotten at dinner. They haven’t been this wild in ages. It was time to go home.

That was the extent of the day. We watched TV and I planned our trip for our early father’s day festivities to Kennedy Space Center on Saturday.

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