INPEX, "America's largest invention trade show" now at the Pittsburgh ExpoMart in Monroeville, spotlights more than 1,000 ideas for new products to make life more efficient, safer and better for all mankind.

Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette Frank Peters of New Alexandria displays his Puff-n-Putt combination smoking pipe and golf putter at the INPEX show. Click photo for larger image. INPEX runs through Saturday at the Pittsburgh ExpoMart in Monroeville. Hours are noon to 6 p.m. today through tomorrow, when walk-in registration is $15. The show is open to the public for $5 admission from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday. For more information, visit www.inventionshow.com or call the INPEX office at 412-288-1343.

Then there's the Puff-n-Putt.

This combination smoking pipe and golf putter is the patented, trademarked master stroke of Frank Peters of New Alexandria, Westmoreland County.

With these, he guarantees, you can "smoke the course."

Showing off the clubs in his booth yesterday, he didn't rank them with a cure for cancer.

"It's just the lighter side of golf," said the 48-year-old, whose day job is making advertising displays. He builds these while watching TV at night.

He was 16 when he crafted the first pipe/putter as a present for his father. When he recently rekindled the contraption, a friend convinced him it could be a hot novelty in the golf market.

Peters already has made 100 and is selling them locally and via a Web site for $69.95 (plus $39.95 for a trophy base).

He's exhibiting at the show on the dream chance that some manufacturer might pay him really big bucks for his idea.

If not, true to his father's "Relax ... it's only a game" catch phrase, he'll keep swinging solo and enjoy the experience. As he puts it, "I'm an inventor now."

So is just about everybody at this 20th anniversary Invention & New Product Exposition, which gives inventors and entrepreneurs a chance to learn, network and get feedback, including medals and prizes.

They won't need to leave themselves Post-It Notes to remember that Saturday's keynote speaker is Art Fry, who invented the sticky yellow things.

Walking through the booths, you might think, "Why didn't I think of that?" Or, you might wonder, "Why did anyone?"

There's the Multi Deviled Egg Server (catch phrase: "There's Plenty to Go Around").

The Alcatraz Pet Gate ("No Dog Can Escape Alcatraz").

The handcuff-like Sock Cop ("Keeps Socks in Pair from Wash to Wear").

From Croatia comes the Convertible Wind Surfing Board ("Use any standard bicycle") and the K-Kone, a double ice cream cone that contains drips so "the hands remain clean."

Ideas range from the lofty (the Rescue Balloon for Fire Departments from Belgium) to the low-brow (a vibrating condom from Taiwan).

From the incomprehensibly high-tech (Taiwan's Institute of Nuclear Energy Research is represented, too) to the simply practical, such as the Stowers Swaddler infant swaddling blanket from Sewickley.

The other two local inventions are the Rafter Pro hand tool from Beaver and, from Cranberry, the Cycle Caddy golf club carrier for motorcycles ("speeds above 55 mph are not recommended").

	Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette Angie Junkins gets help from husband and inventor Richard Junkins while trying on an air-conditioned hat at the INPEX invention trade show. The hat is cooled by a device that's enclosed in a cooler, at left. Click photo for larger image.

All together, it's an impressive display of human inventiveness. As Huntsville, Ala.'s Richard Junkins put it, "If you want something bad enough, you'll find a way to get it."

Inspiration was 99 percent perspiration for Junkins, a house painter who "just got tired of being hot."

He was at a tire shop watching Road Runner cartoons when it hit him like an ice-cold anvil: the idea for the air-conditioned hat. He's here with prototypes of his "portable personal air conditioning" unit, a strap-on plastic box that pumps cold water to a plastic hat (cowboy or hard) or a small blower box.

"Both models are coolers and water dispensers, too," he says. "Plus, it'll hold four Budweisers or four Cokes."

Just across the aisle, all the way from South Korea, is the Soomack Stone Bed, "The world's first U.S. FDA-approved therapeutic bed preventing water veins," whatever those are. You lay down right on vibrating marble.

But the interactivity only goes so far at the booth for Foot Flush International ("Changing the World One Step at a Time"). You're welcome to step up and step on the foot-shaped pedals and try a flush. But heed the warning sign:

"These toilets are for display only."