The inventive mind of a child still blows me away. Bryce loves his big wheels, so much so that he actually wore it out, yes wore it out before breaking it. We replaced it with another one but he will still rides the original with the flat tire. Ever seen a flat plastic tire? Caused by excessive skidding, boys and their toys.
Next mix into riding the big wheels, croquet mallets, yes mallets. Big wheels have holes where the back rest fits into the body, low and behold a croquet mallet handle is a perfect fit, thus the birth of the "croquet cart"... The only problem was the height of the actual mallet (see photo)
So as he rode the big wheel/croquet cart for the first time, guess what the mallets were doing?
Yep you guessed it, smacking him in the back of the head!
First time it happened, he was shocked, definite pain, did he cry? No! I could see him pondering how much the pain was worth in comparison to the fun of riding his big wheel. After laughing (both of us) and putting his helmet on, off he went on another big wheel adventure. Smackity, smackity, smackity he went...
I some how forgot to mention this adventure to mom and Nana, oops!
W
(Originally Posted 2008)
Attached are some images from my vehicle evaluator job (or as we were told to tell the police instead of a test driver) with Toyota, Scion and Mercedes.
In 2008 I was driving a Scion prototype (like moms?) see pic of blue one, and almost became a bumper sticker on a semi.
I was heading west on I-70, very early morning, in snow (we had routes to
follow) driving a Scion 4 door 5 speed, we passionately called them toasters cause they were so boxy, sorry Mom.
The Prius was
affectionately called the "electric toaster"...
Anyway, coming around
a corner at speed there was a semi stopped in my lane, as I put my
(size 14) left foot on the clutch, and my right on the brake, rather
quickly, my left boot came under the brake pedal (see pic), thus I did
not have full braking as the pedal was mashed against my boot. After
cleaning out my shorts, finishing my route, I came back to the shop to document my adventure.
Think about Asian people with little itty bitty feet, and us Americans, living in the mountains, BIG BOOTS, tiny pedals,
well they just don't mix. That is kind of what I wrote up in my evaluation form, being politically correct mind you. If you want an
American to drive your cars in the mountains with boots on, make damn
sure the pedals are bigger and farther apart (US spec)...I sent all of
my pics into to Toyota with my evaluation, as was my duty.
We also sent them a picture of our suggested hood ornament, never heard back from them...
Long story short.
Fun job, crappy hours, low pay, but got to drive some cool stuff.
Sad to say though the Toyota Mouse hood ornament never made it into production (bastards!)....
Drove
two different Scions, a Toyota Highlander, a Prius, and various
Mercedes.
On one Mercedes it took me 45 minutes of drive time to figure
out how to get the damn radio off of mute, German engineers!
Toyota had us do what were called "static tests", close and open each door 50 times in a row, open and close the glove box 25 times, open and close the windows 50 times, and on and on and on, we had to document each of these static tests.
The Germans, well you know, they already know their shit is good and don't need no stinkin' static tests, just drive the damn thing...
We got some strange looks from people in the McDucks parking lot we used to stop at when we were doing our static tests. If they really started to stare at me I would just start mumbling as I opened and closed a door; "gotta go, gotta stay, gotta go, gotta stay" and then they would usually run away...
Toyota had some of the most worthless crap in cars I have ever
seen. In the Highlander they developed a storage box inside the front center console that opened from the rear that would hold the
rear seat center armrest. None of us could figure out how the damn
thing worked, seriously, they wanted you to remove it and then store it
inside the front center console repeatedly during the static test part of the vehicle evaluation, piece of crap...
On
another day, one of the Toyota engineers was at
the shop trying to show us the proper way to do our static testing. He
asked if anyone would show how to demonstrate the open/close door trip, I
volunteered, and said, "think about this, a woman has her child in one
arm and her bag of groceries in the other, do you really think she is
going to close the door with her hand and use the door handle", DUH, she
would use her ass, after a good healthy swing of the hips...
I then
demonstrated, quite well I might add!
He just kind of looked at me,
oh well the truth is the truth!
I did go through a formal training
with the top US Toyota vehicle evaluator, I passed with a score of 89 (of 100) mind you. He was one of very few that are certified to evaluate Toyota's on their test track (in AZ) at over 200 mph, yes 200mph. Nice
guy. If he wasn't happily married think of the chick magnet he would be.
Harley has a track in AZ for the same kind of testing. Big Kohona's them boys have....
Anyway Mom, there you go maybe your son helped those engineers, with little itty bitty feet, make a better car!
W
