I came across Trebuchet.com, [4] a site where you too, can learn how to build a trebuchet, a type of catapult. The guy running the site is another one of these engineer types with way too much time on his hands. Way too much. And as I was going through his site, I couldn't help but think of an episode [5] of Northern Exposure, where Chris, the artist philosopher disk jockey of the radio station, builds a catapult to fling a cow.
Man, I miss that show.
[1] http://www.trebuchet.com/articles/ron/trebuchet.html
[2] http://www.trebuchet.com/articles/grandcanyon/jump.html
[3] http://www.trebuchet.com/story.php/jyw.html