Views from the Coop Online 04-13-07: Fun with Hobbytron!

April 14, 2007

Every once in awhile, I get tech-ed out. What I mean is that while I adore technology related topics and figuring out how to do something and learning how stuff works, sometimes I just want to take advantage of a technology tool (or in this case, toy) and go with it! Hey, tekkies DO just wanna have fun….

This week, I welcomed John Christiansen, the unofficial “toy tester” from Hobbytron, an online toy company that specializes in remote control toys. I first saw a Hobbytron R/C helicopter in action at Showstoppers in Las Vegas during CES 2007. You couldn’t miss it. It was buzzing around near the ceiling and doing all sorts of maneuvers. Now, that’s something that my deaf kitty, Powderfinger, could really have fun with. Since she’s deaf, she’s very aware of everything that moves and this baby was moving!

After hearing John talk about the Apache (the ‘copter I saw at Showstoppers) as well as boats, planes and cars, I started remembering my best friend, Lorrie’s, boyfriend, David, who had a plane AND a boat. The three of use would hang out in the field next to mine and Lorrie’s apartment all afternoon watching David put the plane through it’s paces and inevitable crash it. We’d also take the boat to a neighborhood lake and watch it spin around in the water and once again, David usually managed to crash it. Y’know, I think those crashes were what we waited for. David burned up Lorrie’s hairdryer trying to dry the glue he’d used to repair an airplane wing once. Ah, sweet memories!

John really enjoys his job (if you can call playing around a job) and you can tell it in his voice. He gets to try out cool stuff from around the world. Hobbytron is very choosy about the toys they decide to add to the over 1,000 items in their online toy store. Check it out yourself at http://www.hobbytron.com and listen to this podcast. It’ll get you excited about playing around!

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