Those warm spring breezes are starting to blow in, which means it’s the best time to go fly a kite! Whether or not you have the experience to keep your kite afloat, flying a kite is an entertaining way to spend your Saturday afternoon. And it’s a toy that can entertain every kid from ages three to 95!Specialty kites offer fun designs that will make your toy stand out against everyone else’s in that bright blue sky. Try one of the Gaylay Thunderbirds to soar through the air. Or be patriotic with this American flag box kite.
If you’re a bit more experienced behind the lines of a kite, try a sport or dual line kite. These fast trac stunt kites will soar in the air for hours, allowing you to control its fast turns, spirals and power dives.
Whatever kite you choose, this toy is a great way to spend time with the whole family or all of your friends. And that breeze will surely feel good too!
A slot car is a powered miniature vehicle that is guided by a groove or slot in the track on which it runs. A pin or blade extends from the bottom of the car into the slot. Though some slot cars are used to model highway traffic on scenic layouts, the great majority are used in the competitive hobby of slot car racing or slot racing.
Slot car racing is a hobby about the excitement of playing and actually racing miniature electric-powered replicas of full-size cars on track layouts with “grooves” or “slots”. There are many benefits to slot car racing: The participants quickly develop an enhanced sense of hand-eye coordination; enjoy an interactive activity with enthusiasts of both sexes and all ages; and learn sportsmanship at its highest levels.
If you’re just beginning your foray into this hobby, you might enjoy a slot car kit, which has everything you’ll need to start racing slot cars.
If you’re already a slot car hobbyist, check out the cars and parts available at HobbyWarehouse.com! They carry the complete lines of AFX, SCX, Carrera andNinco slot cars. Store your slot cars and controllers in a Slot Car Tote. The tote carries four 1:32 scale slot cars and two controllers safely and securely.
Learn all about slot cars and the history of the hobby at www.slotcar.com.
I grew up in a little town in northern Wyoming that was nestled in the valley beneath Heart Mountain. It was cool in the summer, freezing in the winter, and ALWAYS windy. There’s an old statewide joke about the “Wyoming Wind Festival,” which runs from January 1st through December 31st every year. Trees in Wyoming nearly always lean to the east, unless they’ve been staked. Triple trailers on semis are actually illegal in the state because they are practically impossible to control in the wind when you’re moving along a winding mountain road. And trying to keep your hair tangle-free was an exercise in futility.
There were SOME advantages to living with a constant breeze, though. For one, Wyoming has been on the forefront of wind energy research, which is aiding the U.S. Department of Energy in developing systems to utilize renewable resources that are cheaper than the conventional methods and easy on the environment.
And then there’s the fact that it’s always perfect kite weather!
I’m a total pool shark. Much like the Spanish Inquisition, however, nobody expects it. (If you got that reference, I love you. If you didn’t, click the link and thank me later.) Of course, the looks of surprise make winning all that much sweeter!
I figure the only real reason I’m good at billiards is that I have a real knack for geometry. Set me up with any other kid of math and I go completely dim, but angles and shapes have always just come naturally to me. (And I’m pretty sure I’m the only person on the planet who actually LIKED doing proofs!)
Unfortunately, there isn’t room in the house for a pool table, so I go to my grandmother’s house and use the one in her basement when I want to brush up on my mad skills. Maybe some day, I will achieve this level of awesomeness:
All I need is a few hundred dominoes, and I’m set!
Okay, so this is somewhat off-topic, but I wanted to post this link because I feel like it’s an important cause. (Besides, there are toys related to comics, right? And I’ve been wanting to branch out into hobbies, as well, and comic collecting certainly counts!)
The Hero Initiative is a non-profit charity organization that helps retired comic book writers and artists who have fallen on hard times. Gene Colan, who has been illustrating comics for over seventy years, has recently fallen ill. To help him combat his rising medical bills, the Hero Initiative is raising money by selling special edition art pieces featuring Colan’s work from Iron Man, Daredevil, and Tomb of Dracula.
WARNING: You are about to experience a ridiculous amount of nerdery. Proceed with caution.
It’s kind of a running joke around the office that I’m a complete geek. First there’s my obsession with all things toy-related. I have figurines and stuffed animals all over my desk. And then there’s my ant farm, which should be arriving within the week. And I keep Silly Putty in my purse… The list goes on!
And then there are my cubicle walls, which are nothing more than a vivid display of one of my other obsessions: comics! Between the two of us, my fiancé and I have so many comic books that we’ve devoted an entire room to them. (We call it the Nerd Cave, and we’re very proud of it.)
So you can imagine my excitement when I heard that Mattel is producing a line of superhero Barbie dolls. They’ve taken my two biggest joys in life and thrown them together into a perfect marriage of nerdy goodness!
Specialty kites offer fun designs that will make your toy stand out against everyone else’s in that bright blue sky. Try one of the Gaylay Thunderbirds to soar through the air. Or be patriotic with this American flag box kite.
