Ravenseye

Who doesn't like shopping cart bumpercars?

I had no problem ordering and receiving what I ordered last year from both Amazon and Old Navy. I highly recommend it actually!

I'd join those in the Harbor Freight / Ace Hardware bandwagons. They seem to have the earliest leak times.

Nah. Just crank 'em up on Red Bull and tell 'em to follow your lead or they could get hurt.... If you were to go to your local Army/Navy store, you could get a few combat helmets for 'em and spray 'em black with hunter's orange stripes so you can find 'em in the crowd. :)

whew.....I was nearly faint with anticipation. It's on!! Thanks Brad!

absolutely no problem! hope I have helped!

Me too babygirl! It opened around this time last year, when sears and kmart decided to trot out some of it's holiday goodies earlier than normal. :) Who know's, perhaps Santa's watching and will leave an early present for us! -Mike

Hi there egirl! I happen to work at a shop that sells detectors! We primarily sell the Whites brand at our store, but do carry a few basic Garrett units to have for people who do not want to spend what the White's cost. The basics: Metal detectors are a type of ground penetrating radar. They shoot frequencies into the ground, when they get return signals from the "stuff" you are looking for, they register a "hit". More basic units just beep at every hit, while the more expensive units tend to differentiate between the stuff that it sees, this is called discrimination. The better detectors do a better job of telling you what you are seeing in the ground than the cheaper ones do. They either have a different audio tone, or show you a number on a screen that tells you what you are looking at. This is designed to have you dig up less junk up and only get the worthwhile stuff. Good metal detectors also have what is called ground balancing. This feature allows a detector to be able to look through more types of soils and materials to find good stuff. Most of the time, you can calibrate the ground balance pretty easily by holding the detector in the air, hold a button for a moment or two, then tap it to the ground and hold the same button for a moment or two again, then you can go hunt. Most people who detect do this about once an hour or so to make sure the detectors can perform at their best! Prices range on detectors at our shop from $149.99, to $1,699.99. Our most sold model, the White's DFX 300, sells for $1,199.99. This particular unit has a ton of pre-set "point and shoot" settings that get you out and poking around pretty quickly even as a fresh newbie! If you want to go hunt coins, find that setting on the menu, and go find 'em. Wanna hunt relics? same thing...it's dead easy to set up the basic settings, and it has a lot of adjustments you can make when you get used to it. There are detectors that are awesome for about half that amount, and even the cheaper ones do well in basic tasks, you just end up digging more junk targets up than good stuff. If you have any questions for me, please do not hesitate to send a message here, or to me at our work e-mail, [email protected]. My name is Mike and I'd gladly assist you with any and all questions you have! -Mike P.S: the Whites company is an awesome company to deal with. We've had nothing but the best of luck when it comes to supporting them as a good company to deal with in terms of either customer support, or just the quality of their products! Every detector by them is built in the states and they have one of the best warrantee's of anything we sell. They have gone out of their way to support units that were sold more than 10 years ago, and at a different store, through us. We love those guys! www.whiteselectronics.com

I had been a subscriber for a few years until last year. I cancelled it because it was rather expensive and I got into podcasts. When I read about stacie's 5 months for $20 deal, I jumped back on that and have been very happy with it! Thank you Stacie! -Mike

I think these are the kinds of batteries that Scott is talking about. If not, let me know. http://hobbycity.com/hobbycity/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=10456 I'll keep my eyes out if there are any better ones out there. -Mike

what about white christmas?

I just checked our cable, Time Warner in Central NY, and we have officially shifted to Christmas Music on Sounds of the Season! Merry Christmas Everyone! It's here! -Mike

Cool! I am glad I have helped, any more questions fire away! :) -Mike

Cool! He does have some tinkerin genes then! Thats good. Basically, any of those little animal kits sound good for him. They aren't too involved and can be completed pretty quickly to keep the attention demands light. This, http://www.trossenrobotics.com/beginner-robot-kits.aspx is another place I'd recommend. That page specifically is the beginner kits they sell. These can be quite a bit more than the tamiya kits, but, they actually get the kids into programming stuff, and learning how real robotic things work! Which is very cool! Also, Lego has their Mindstorms setup which is AWESOME! I'd highly recommend that if you wanted something that is very good to learn with! With Mindstorms, there are actually national competitions that are held every year and can lead to scholarship money for him, and funding for his school too! Anyhow, Those are a few of my suggestions to get started. A few websites I'd recommend to look at and see if any of the projects they talk about would be fun to do would be: www.instructables.com www.makezine.com Please read through these sites and filter the content. Sometimes they show ya some dangerous, or risque' (costuming things) stuff. Definitely look at it first, and print off some projects for the kiddos to work on! Also, the next time you're wandering around Barnes & Nobles, or the magazine section at your local grocery store, look for MAKE magazine, and Robots magazine. Both magazines are excellent! Any other questions, please let me know. I love to help out! -Mike, the mad scientist at the shop

Hmmmm....How much of a tinkerer is he outside the focus of the camp? Does he take stuff apart a lot, get those things back together? What kinds of things is he into? There are things that are video game/computer tinkering, or radio control tinkering, or just tinkering, tinkering. When I know that, I'd be able to help a little better! -Mike

I like this because it introduces interaction with the mechanical bits. It's good to see what you built something that you can control! http://www.tamiyausa.com/product/item.php?product-id=71110 It's a little pricier, but totally worth it in that it gives you some cool feedback about your work going into something that _does_ something that you can control! This guys neat because it gives the illusion of primitive intelligence. As it wanders, if the head hits something, it turns to avoid it. http://www.tamiyausa.com/product/item.php?product-id=71103 From the kits in this series, you can grow into the mechanical component stuff that they make. In these products, you can solve some interesting problems from scratch without having an advanced degree! That would be found here: http://www.tamiyausa.com/product/category.php?sub-id=38000|39000|42900|37000 the nice thing about these parts is that they are cheaper and you can get a few of them and mash them together into whatever is running around in his head :) Tamiya is an awesome company that makes some great educational goodies. I highly recommend them to anyone! While they are a japanese company, and there is a lot of japanese writing on the package and in the instructions, they have a ton of drawings that explain everything to you! How old is your kiddo conj? If he's responsible, and happy with the tinkering stuff, there are some great products out there that I love getting in front of kids to show how cool this stuff can be! -Mike

http://music.aol.com/radioguide/christmas-music http://www.accuradio.com/holidays/ These are fun! :) -Mike

We sell those where I work! Excellent products and I'd highly recommend them to budding tinkerers and mythbusters in training! -Mike

No questions are dumb questions! Thanks for reading and asking! Now, to answer your question: Take the batteries out. There is a chance, depending on how the charger is programmed, that the charger will continue to trickle charge the batteries even though they have reached peak charge. If this happens, there is a chance that the batteries could overhead and exhaust/explode. If you leave them in the charger unplugged, they may discharge to the point where the charger won't charge them again. To be on the safe side, whenever the batteries are done charging, remove them from the charger as soon as possible to avoid any chance of bad things happening. -Mike

Hello folks! I work at a hobby shop and deal with a lot of radio controlled products every day. I wanted to put some things that you aught to think of if you are thinking of choosing one of these items for the kids (or the bigger kids) in your life! 1) Unless the product has Lithium-Ion batteries, charging the batteries up the day before is useless! Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) or Nickel Cadmium (NiCad) batteries will lose the power from the charge overnight. Lithium batteries keep that charge up to a month before you see a noticeable fade to it. 2) Batteries are dangerous!! DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, LEAVE A CHARGING BATTERY ALONE!! Lithium batteries can catch fire, and scoot away very fast. Nicads and Nimh cells can explode if something wasn't spot welded in the pack correctly. PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO THEM THROUGH THE CHARGE CYCLE! Check them by holding them with your hand (Unless you see or hear something bad from a distance) to feel whether they are feeling too hot. Nimh and Nicad will get warm (some call it hot, some call it warm) when they are charged. That is normal and completely fine. In fact, they should be used when they are warm/hot as this is when they'll have the best oomph in the vehicle. 3) Please, read all instruction manuals, and understand fully what you are getting into. If you do not understand when the manual tells you to adjust something, ask! I'd hate to see something that should be enjoyable and fun turn into frustrating and stressful! An hour or so reading through the manual will help a ton and alleviate a lot of frustration on your part! 4) Use whatever you have, whether it's a $20 Air Hogs helicopter, or a $1000 airplane responsibly. While something like the Air Hogs won't do a lot of damage to things, bigger things can (and do!). Please use your head when playing with these things! Thanks folks! If anyone has questions about this stuff, please ask! I love sharing my knowledge with people when it comes to hobby stuff and can suggest excellent places to look for great stuff! -Mike

Silly Nit to pick. Samhain is on Halloween. Not Nov 1st. That's All Souls Day. Thanks, and Merry ChrismaHanukkwanzika to you all! And, to bring this to relevancy, I say Merry Christmas to everyone...and I'm a Pagan. My friends who are either pagan or jews or what have you, get the appropriate greeting and card :) Merry Christmas tends to generically cover what I want to say :) And, working in retail and knowing a bit about the design side of things, just because a store (especially a big chain retail store) decorates in certain colors doesn't mean squat about what they are supporting or not supporting. They are following what color forecasters tell them are going to be the hot colors of the season. -Mike

Here in Syracuse, the first pop up location just opened in the last few days. It's located at the Carousel Center mall in the previous KayBee Toys location. -Mike

Our local Home Depot has their whole Christmas Dept up and runnin. Picked up a pack of LED color changing tealights for $6. :) -Mike

Ace Hardware; September 21st -Mike

Ugh...as a retail sales employee...I really really really would hate the cleanup afterwards.... -Mike