Take 'er Apart And See What Makes 'er Tick

When I was a little boy the toys I had were simple and relatively inexpensive compared with toys today. When my kids were younger (20 years ago) their toys were relatively inexpensive compared with toys today.

Toys today are like expensive, especially when your toy is a computer and you like to take your toys apart. I did just that not quite a month ago. Refer back my post from February 26. I mentioned briefly my experience with dismantling an external hard drive. Apparently this runs in the family.

My daughter Julie (22 years old) brought something to me last night. "Hey Dad," she said; "Look what I took out of my laptop!" She shows me a wad of dust. Then she tells me that it's all over the inside of her laptop. Then she asks if I have any canned air.

I tell her, "No, I used it all when I took my computer apart last week to get rid of all the dust and hair." Then I tell her, "That stuff is expensive, just blow on it!"

Later, Julie comes in the bedroom and tells her Mother that she put her laptop back together and she had lots of screws leftover. Chris told her that maybe her Dad or brother would like to take it apart and try to find where they go.

"No thanks," she said. "It still works; except the screen!"

It turns out that a couple of nights ago one of her cats knocked the laptop off the night table. The tumble to the floor broke the screen off. Julie had taken it apart to she if she could get the screen to work again. No such luck.

Apple Ipod, look out. Here comes Julie.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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Retro Saturday March 22, 2008

How many of you remember Soaky Toys from the 1960's. Well Chris remembers them quite well. She and her brother Tom had quite an extensive collection when they were younger. For those of you that don't remember them or are perhaps a might too young to have enjoyed them here is a video clip for you to watch. I hope you enjoy it.

One thing I remember when I was young was the Frito Bandito. I loved the song and the commercials. Then one day I woke up and he was no more, never to be seen or heard from again. Gee that's hard for a kid to understand. I still don't understand it. If you liked him like I did you can enjoy him again. Here is a video below for you to enjoy.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

I Remember........

Last night,Tom and Ruth Ann, Chris' brother and sister-in-law visited. As happens when family visits the conversation eventually shifts to memories when we were young. The same thing happened last night.

Our trip down Memory Lane began when Ruth Ann asked about the Christmas candles I had mentioned in an earlier Blog post, the Gurley/Tavern candles. Chris pointed them out and then Chris, Tom, and their Dad began to discuss the various candles that they had when they were younger living in Kansas. They not only had candles for Christmas, but they had some for Spring, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. At about this time I remembered a catalog I had from the Vermont Country Store. I mentioned that our candles were the originals from long ago, but the candles were being made again. Look at the new candles here.

While we were flipping through the catalog, someone asked, "Do you remember Soaky Toys?" They are the old bottles for bubble bath that were made to look like various cartoon characters popular at the time. Chris and Tom both reminisced over the various ones they had and played with. I remember Mr. Bubble. My parents didn't buy bubble bath for me or my brother and sister very often. I suppose they thought it was a waste of money. They did buy shampoo though. For a youngster shampoo made pretty good bubbles. I wonder if it would have been cheaper to buy bubble bath and not have to buy so much shampoo because I was using it for a bubble bath?

While I was still pondering the bubble bath issue someone else started tugging us to a different location on Memory Lane. This was a very dangerous location on Memory Lane. It involved past girlfriends. Just prior to this Tom was relating his memories of going to an early Pro-Bowl at Arrowhead Stadium shortly after it was built. Then it happened. He mentioned having taken a girl to the game. Ruth Ann said that she has heard the story many times but this was the first time she heard the part about the girlfriend. We are beginning to slide down the slope now. Then, someone (Probably his sister Chris) asked Tom just how he knew how many girls he had dated before meeting and marrying Ruth Ann. He simply said he kept a list of their names.

Not content to be sitting on the sidelines I decide to wade in with both feet. Out of the blue I say, "I remember the funniest thing that happened to me on a date." Too late now, I'm committed. They want to hear it now. For a time in high school I worked at The Cinema movie theatre. We could get discount tickets to other theatres in town. There was a new girl that started at the Cinema and I decided I would ask her out for a date. She said yes so on Saturday night we wen to a movie at the 25th Street Theatre. I don' remember what was showing but I do remember what the fellow taking tickets at the door said. He looked at my date and said, "You must have like this movie a lot to come back again tonight!" As I said, I don't remember the movie and I really don't remember the girl.

During this whole episode I look over and Julie has picked up the Tavern Puzzles. You know, they are the metal puzzles (horseshoes, etc.) where you have to take off a ring or some such object and it looks near impossible to do. It is possible with a great deal of patience. Julie had involved her self with trying to solve the puzzles and then all of us get into the act. At that point Memory lane was left behind. I guess you could say it was just a memory. We were now busy making new memories with the puzzles. Undoubtedly, Julie will relate these memories to her children many years from now.

More memories later. I have to go make a few more for the future.

© 2007 Barry T Horst


This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.