Racing Power Wheels
Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:04:06 +0000

Before our first child was even born, my wife has constantly talked about signing her up for skiing, snowboarding, go carting, rollerblading, and whatever you can think of. After having her and, now, having our son, my wife couldn't wait to put them in Power Wheels. If you have never heard of Power Wheels, they are electronic motor vehicles for little people (kids). And they cost about $300 each. So we've talked on and off about looking for $50 imitations at China town.

Two weeks ago, my wife took our kids on a stroll down the block and there were two kids driving around two Power Wheels: a Barbie Cadallac Escalade and an Eliminator dune buggy. My daughter was almost two, but she did not understand the concept of ownership. So she signed with her hands and fingers that she wanted to ride the Power Wheels. She wondered when it would be her turn.

But what luck!? The mother of the kids mentioned to my wife that they brought it out because they were going to sell it in a garage sell the next day. $50 each was what she wanted. My wife and I were more than happy to hand over $50 each to make our dreams a reality.

The Power Wheels were in good shape. The hard plastic wheels were well worn, but nothing I can't fix up.

After all, I've been modifying real cars and racing them for years. I've kind of given up that hobby to focus more on my kids and family. But what great fun it would be to transfer that knowledge to their Power Wheels?

I have several ideas on how to improving the Power Wheels to make them real racing machines. And I will perform those improvements in the next few weeks, while posting articles on how to do them on my GearHack web site. As I write these articles, I will provide links to this blog post.

Stayed tuned.
Category: think

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Discover Redlands Restaurants
Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:57:33 +0000

Part of the water bill I have gotten this week included a flyer on a high gloss, heavy weight paper. It's title is "Rediscover the Restaurants Redlands has to offer....." On the other side is a full list of restaurants. I have actually never heard of most of them and do not even realize they are in Redlands. Now it's got me thinking of trying some of these restaurants. I've attached a scan of the flyer below for your reference, in case you want to try some of these restaurants as well.
Category: memory

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Searching for Interesting Topics on Twitter
Sun, 14 Jun 2009 01:22:04 +0000

Hi, gr8 post thanks for posting. Information is useful!
Category: think

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Not Found in Japan: UPS
Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:34:15 +0000

During my visit in Japan, I have found a lot of interesting stuff. Some of these this I have already posted to this forum; others I will post in the future. But today, I want to talk about a particular experience where I could not find an item in Japan. That item is quite popular and wide-spread in the United States. It is called an uninterruptable power supply (UPS).

An UPS is basically a battery-backed powerstrip, where you can plug your computer into, to prevent data-loss from power-outage. In the United States, you can walk into most electronics retailers and pick one up for less than $50.

So when I visited my mom in Japan, I wanted to make sure she doesn't lose any data on her computer during a power outage. I went to all of the electronic retailers in Osaka, Japan, but could not find an UPS on the shelf. Finally, I asked one of the friendly sales person to help direct me to a consumer-grade UPS. After a bit of communication and head-scratching, he finally figured out what I wanted. He said he didn't have any in stock and will need to special order one for us. When he tried to do that, he realized such a product doesn't even exist in the market in Japan. For example, we went to the APC (one of the largest UPS manufacturer) site in Japan and found that they only had industry-grade UPS that are sold to large corporations and company. Consumer-grade UPS simply aren't sold in Japan.

It's quite profound for a country to be missing an entire market segment. I thought that was particular interesting. Does Japan not suffer power-outages?
Category: Found in Japan

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What I Like Most About Del Taco?
Fri, 27 Mar 2009 17:31:54 +0000

It's almost like you are living over here. They opened up a new Chipotle that is just down the street from work. :-)
Category: think

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