Dave’s Cool Toys Blog

Archive for the ‘Comment from Dave’ Category

Our ants didn’t sleep much last night.

Overnight our ants were quite busy. They began two tunnels from the starter holes I created last night. One tunnel goes straight to the bottom and the other curves behind the first one. I’m not sure at this point if they are going to break through to the other tunnel, or continue on behind it.

You can see all the little chunks of gel they have removed from the tunnel and deposited on the surface at the top. Oddly, they are also taking the gel chunks up the walls and sticking them there. Wonder how they know that will work.

The instructions tell you to open the lid now and then and give them some fresh air. When I did that today, they got very excited and started running all around. There are air holes in the lid, but apparently they like getting fresh air. On the right of this photo you can still see the other two starter holes in the gel. I don’t think they are holes any longer from the top because they seem to have buried them in the gel chunks.

	They seem to have made a little room at the bottom of the tunnel

Other than removing the lid for a "few seconds every week or so", there isn’t much more you need to do to care for your ants. The gel is their food and water, so you don’t need to find food for them or give them a drink. Other than that, you just need to keep them out of direct sunlight because ants prefer shade. I also suspect AntWorks would heat up pretty much in sunlight and cook the ants in their gel. That would be bad. The ants prefer room temperature between 58 and 74 degrees Fahrenheit.

This basically leaves you to watch your ants at work. And they are busy. Ants do sleep, but I haven’t seen any that seem to be sleeping yet. They all seem busy. The manual says that some ants sleep while others work, so there is activity 24/7.

The whole family is enjoying watching our new buddies building their tunnels and scurrying around.

I should point out that AntWorks is not meant to be an ant colony. That is, it is not meant for long-term ant populations with a queen and breeding. It is meant to house about 20-30 ants for their lifetime and give kids and adults an opportunity to get to know these incredible creatures. The gel makes the entire tunnel system, and the ants activities, available to a degree that an ant farm with dirt could not. But it is not meant for long-term sustainability of a colony.

A close up of the ants in their tunnels.

We picked up a load of used packing peanuts and other packing materials from a local college department yesterday and I began thinking that I’ve never really told our customers and visitors the things we do, and the concerns we have, for the environment.

Dave’s Cool Toys strives to use recycled materials whenever possible. We also recycle or reuse everything we can. This not only helps protect our environment, but it lowers our costs, which allows us to keep shipping fees as low as possible (we do not make money from shipping charges).

Much of the packing material we use in our shipments is recycled. We pick up packing peanuts, bubble wrap, and packing paper from local businesses and sometimes from individuals when it’s available. We re-use all packing material we receive from our suppliers. We do purchase packing peanuts new, but we are using less of them all the time as we find other resources. We have tried biodegradable packing peanuts, but were not happy with them. They cost somewhat more than standard peanuts, they didn’t fill and cushion the shipments nearly as well as we would like, and in damp weather they shrink and stick together. We use them when possible for fill when the items are fairly safe from breakage. We have instead focused on obtaining used peanuts and it’s been quite successful.

We also use as few peanuts and wrap as possible by cutting down cartons to size when packing your shipments and simply by arranging items to reduce the need as much as possible.

We receive many of our shipping cartons from a local printer that receives envelopes in them. Once they’ve used the envelopes, they save the cartons for us and we pick them up on a regular basis, flatten them, and store them for future shipping. We also reuse as many cartons as possible from shipments from our suppliers.

Some cartons cannot be re-used. Either they are too damaged, or have so many markings on them that it would not be practical to clean them up. In this case, we recycle them.

	Packing Peanut Lamp. Yikes!

We recycle as much as possible. All waste corrugated cardboard is regularly taken to our local recycling center, as well as office paper, catalogs, plastic bags, flatboard, plastic, and foam. Other items we recycle are printer cartridges, glass, metal, electronics, and more.

Here in Bethlehem, PA we have an excellent recycling program. Much recycling is picked up at the curb, but we also have a great drop-off center. They take cardboard, paper, magazines, plastic, glass, cans, newspaper, phone books, textiles, aluminum, scrap metal, foam, and appliances. We also have a large compost center where yard waste can be dropped off and finished compost is available free of charge. We recycle all these items in our household as well.

Our recycling center also has a free shredding service and I want to assure our customers that we are very careful when recycling to destroy all personal information that may be present. We either cross-cut shred papers here in our office, or witness it being shredded at the recycling center.

One other area in which we reduce waste is packaging. Some of our suppliers allow us to order their items (mostly wooden toys) either with packaging, or without. Since we are an online store, we don’t need to worry about how our items will look sitting on a shelf in the store, so whenever possible, we order without boxes and packaging.

Speaking of wooden toys, many of the ones we carry are made from either scrap wood from other manufacturing processes, or, in the case of Tree Blocks, wood that is the discards from managed paper forests that might otherwise go to waste.

We encourage our customers to recycle their packing materials when they receive their orders. There are lots of good resources for this, but one of the best we’ve found is Freecycle. Freecycle is an online group who’s users post items they no longer need for others to re-use. Another resource is your local mailbox or eBay store to see if they would like them. Many would gladly take them for their shipments. You can also call the Peanut Hotline (I kid you not) at 800-828-2214, a toll-free, automated 24-hour service that provides the location of the nearest site that accepts loose fill packaging for reuse.

	Metal Sculpture from packing peanuts

If you are looking to dispose of your biodegradable packing peanuts, you may not want to flush them. Apparently they can cause clogged sewer lines when large quantities are flushed. Instead, spread them in your lawn or garden and hose them down lightly until they disappear. They are made from food starch and are perfectly safe for the environment. Obviously, this won’t work with Styrofoam peanuts.

Or… you could try making a lamp out of them. I found this interesting post online of a lovely lamp made from old packing peanuts (see photo above). Not sure how safe it is.

Maybe you’re artistic. Then try out this project… zinc casting sculpture using packing peanuts.

On the other hand, if you need some packing peanuts and want to make your own, try this interesting project. Yes, it is instructions on how to make your own cornstarch packing peanuts. OK, it’s probably not practical or cost-effective, but it might make an interesting project with the kids on a rainy day when you’re bored. Really bored.

=

Josh firing our 6F Big Bang Cannon

At the beginning of the summer, my son was firing off our little 6F Big Bang Cannon. One of my neighbors heard it and checked to see what he was doing and we got talking about the cannons. He mentioned he had a cannon somewhere that he doesn’t remember ever firing. He thought it was in pretty bad shape and might not be fireable (is that a word?).

The next day he came over and he’d found an old cannon in his basement that was the size of a 10FC, but with military green finish (not currently available). I’ll have to do some research to see what cannon it is exactly. It wasn’t in too bad shape, but it needed some work. He asked me if I would mind getting it working and I gladly agreed (I need to keep his wife’s plum goodies coming).

It took me about two days to clean it up, but this mostly involved soaking time. The loading mechanism was fused and needed some work. I soaked it overnight in WD-40, cleaned it up (it must be completely dry to work), and put some graphite on it and it worked fine. There was a bit of calcium buildup in the chamber, so I soaked it for about an hour in CLR, which cleared it out nicely. Other than that, it just needed a bit of cleanup, spiderwebs cleaned out of the barrel, a new "spark plug" and it was ready to go.

I returned it to him with a new tube of bangsite. He brought it back later that evening for my son to fire and it worked great! It was very loud and Josh had a great time with it.

My neighbor wasn’t sure how long he’d owned the cannon, or where he got it from. He was pretty sure he’d never fired it. But with just a little work, it’s good as new. He was fortunate that no parts were missing, but those could mostly be replaced as well.

I’ve been thinking about this. There aren’t many toys out there that you could say this about. Perhaps some older wooden toys could be sanded and oiled and would be good as new if they were kept dry. But Big Bang Cannons are certainly unique. A little bit of cleanup and it’s usable. No need to keep it on a shelf and never touch it to preserve it for future generations. Just make sure you flush the chamber after use, keep it dry, and keep all the parts together.

My son enjoys firing ours. I keep an eye on him to be sure he is using it properly and cleaning it up once he’s done. But he gets the "bang" of fireworks with almost none of the dangers. He certainly enjoyed the larger one too (are you listening Santa?).

Following are some photos of our neighbor’s cleaned up cannon. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to take any pictures before and during the clean up.

My friend Rich sent me a link to the following video (scroll down), which is very cool. It is a "behind the scenes" look at President Barak Obama recording his audio for the Disney World Hall of Presidents.

Well, I love Disney. I respect Barak Obama. Love the Hall of the Presidents. And I really enjoy behind the scenes stuff. So I don’t need to tell you how much I enjoyed this.

The Obama Animatronic will have a speaking role along with Washington and Lincoln (who will, for the first time, recite the entire Gettysburg Address). The revised and updated attraction reopened July 2, just in time for Independence Day.

Apparently, the Bill Clinton animatronic was recycled for President Bush, and now once again for Barak Obama. This is done because it is a much more complex animatronic and is needed for the current president’s speech. Once they are out of office, they have much less movement and do not require as complex an animatronic. It takes some time to re-work the show as the presidents must be moved around to make a space for the current one and the entire roll-call of presidents must be re-recorded and implemented.

Here is the behind-the-scenes Obama video as posted on the White House blog. I must say that one thing about this following video that I noticed is that President Obama didn’t seem to be aware of the attraction, asking if they were "holograms". Seems odd to me that the President wouldn’t be aware of this show.

Dave’s Cool Toys

Tranformers, Revenge of the Fallen, came out this week. I haven’t seen it yet, but my older son went with friends to a 12:01 showing and according to his Facebook posting it was "Awesome!!!!!" (there were a lot more exclamation points than I’m willing to put here.)

My younger son and I had to be contented with watching the original Transformers movie on DVD.

The first eight minutes of the new movie were filmed in June of 2008 here in our home town of Bethlehem, PA in the previous Bethlehem Steel facility. For several nights we could hear explosions and gun fire in the middle of the night while they filmed a scene that takes place, in the movie, in Japan. I went down to the location with my kids and some of their friends on two nights. The first night it rained and there wasn’t much to see. The second night we were able to watch helicopters flying low and in formation over our heads while explosions and gunfire took place at the Steel facility down the road from where we were standing. I tried to get photos, but it was dark and it all happened very fast and without warning, so most of my pictures were not very good. I’ve posted the better ones here. At one point the amazing pilots of the helicopters came out to the crowd and were warmly welcomed. I believe they were retired military pilots. And the director, Michael Bay also came out to the crowd while we were there and thanked the residents for putting up with all the noise, which was very nice of him.

Of course the Transformers are toys from our childhood, soon to be followed by GI Joe. When I was growing up, my cousin and I played with GI Joe all the time. We had lots of great Joes and accessories. Then, years later, they change Joe to a small action figure, then eventually (in 1992, I think) the 12 inch Joe came back. My younger son was a big GI Joe fan (I’m so glad he had the full size figures available by then) and still has all his toys, so we’re looking forward to the new movie.

What childhood toys will be made into movies next? Check out the very early preview of upcoming toy-based movies:

Dave’s Cool Toys

We spent the day in New York City yesterday doing touristy stuff (Circle Line Tour, The Intrepid Museum). Of course, I own a toy store, so we visited The Disney Store and FAO Schwarz. The photos here are my Wife and older son playing on the Big piano. Yes, they are the only people over the age of about 7 on the piano.

Incidentally, FAO Schwarz has been recently acquired by Toys R Us. This should mean that the classic toy store will remain in NYC in the future. Time will tell.

If you are going to be in New York City, you might want to visit FAO Schwartz and follow the signs to the Big piano (just in case).

FAO Schwarz
767 5th Avenue @ 58th st.
New York, NY 10153
Sunday 11:00am – 6:00pm
Monday – Thursday 10:00am – 7:00pm
Friday & Saturday 10:00am – 8:00pm

Dave’s Cool Toys