What weird thing did you always want to do but never did? My cousins had a pontoon

[applegrove]

boat, like a barge, at the cottage. I always wanted to borrow it, putting the picnick table on it complete with candles and wine and dinner. And go around the lake saying hello to people in their cottages as we ate.

[NYC_SKP]

1. I would do that.

That exact thing, except that I would put a solar panel roof on it and run an electric motor, and be the quiet solar electric boat on the lake or river.

[Populist_Prole]

3. Sounds very do-able

Lots more sun in open water than land and an electric trolling motor would provide adequate, quiet power for a boat of its type. If the panels didn't quite provide all the current needed, at least it would augment the battery to the point of extending your range.

[Populist_Prole]

2. Always wanted to soup up a small engine, like on a lawn mower, just for the heck of it.

Of course I'd never have access to a dynomometer capable of measuring the shaft horsepower of a small engine but I tried porting and polishing intake/exhaust passages of lawn mower engines to help improve their oomph a little ( on those especially thick patches of grass ), but always wanted to go all-out: Shave the head for more compression, I know I can't get a camshaft for more valve lift and duration but I thought I could circumvent this by adding some sort of artificial aspiration above atmospheric via some sort of air pump driven from the crankshaft. I actually did try to use the output/exhaust hose of a powerful shop vac into the carburetor intake to see what would happen; but of course that was not at all practical.

[Ikonoklast]

11. Actually there are all sorts of high-performance parts made for Briggs and Stratton

4-stroke motors, if you happen to have one.

http://www.briggsandstratton.com/engines-racing/racing-engines/

[Populist_Prole]

14. Oh cool! Thanks for the link n/t

[HopeHoops]

4. Make an internal combustion engine - out of wood.

I had it all drawn out, pistons, lifters, timing, everything. Wood was the only material I could work with.

Me thinks perhaps it would not have worked.

[alphafemale]

5. That is the kind of thing that inspires poety of a kagillion verses.

That we pass down over thousands of years and bore eight graders.

[HopeHoops]

6. I knew exactly what I was doing. I just didn't have the right materials list.

Can anyone say "POOF!"?

On Edit: I have all of the tools I would need to build one now. I just know better now.

[alphafemale]

7. But if you could remote start it from a distance?

It would be epic.

[HopeHoops]

10. No, that's called a bomb.

[alphafemale]

8. The mention of pontoon brings back memories of lazy high school summer days on Tappan Lake in OH.

Haven't been on one since. But they are fun.

[taterguy]

9. Go sledding naked

[csziggy]

12. My grandmother's next door neighbors used to do that

She lived on a lake in Central Florida and the people next door had one of those pontoon boats. They'd dress up, put a table on the boat, with tablecloth and fancy china and stuff and cruise around the lake around sunset while eating dinner.

It was kind of cool to see that thing slowly go by but most people who lived around the lake thought they were nuts.

It's been decades since I remembered that. Thanks!

[applegrove]

13. LOL!

[alphafemale]

15. If people think you're nuts they generally leave you the fuck alone.

[csziggy]

16. It was as much because they were the wealthiest people who lived on that lake

They owned one of the orange packing plants and had more money than sense. But they were pretty nice and didn't act superior, just stayed to themselves and spent money on things the rest of the neighborhood thought were wasteful.

[Auggie]

17. Ride a motorcycle across country,

taking the back roads. Never travel more than a 200-300 hundred miles a day. Stop and stay for a while if I liked a place.