This is a picture of my son (3 1/2) playing with a friend at a recent wedding. Apparently the game was “see who can find the biggest rock and throw it the highest”.
The photographer at the wedding was taking candids of kids playing and caught this on film. I walked up just as the rock was descending… it missed Gabriel’s head by inches and only grazing his shoulder.
I think the photographer (not a parent) soiled his pants in horror.
I just love this photo because it reminds me how innocent and oblivious children can be and makes me wonder about all the narrowly missed disasters I don’t know about.
Any other stupid kid tricks (the tricks being stupid, not the kids) out there worth sharing?
When I was about ten years old or so, some friends of mine used to live at the edge of a new housing development, and there were always fantastic piles of rubble and junk. For some reason, people would take advantage of the detritus from the construction site and dump old sofas, chairs, clothing, lamps, etc.–a treasure trove for the pre-adolescent set! One day, while sifting through the piles, we found an unspent .22 shell and thought it would be fun to try and fire it off. Being logically minded, we took turns hurling the shell straight down at the pavement until it finally fired with an anticlimatic crack. Looking back, I always shudder at the thought of how easily that bullet could have fired straight back up into one of our heads. Not the smartest thing I’ve ever done …
You should have seen the trick my youngest son did this past Saturday - He crawled through the smallest hole, squished his head up real good, spent the night in the hospital, and now he’s recovering. Doesn;t say too much about it though.
I come from work yesterday to see my 8 YO son’s bike in the garage with the front wheel off. This is one of those ultra sturdy/heavy Toy 'R Us bikes. Still, full-floater, yellow… pretty snazzy to an 8 YO. So, I thought, he’s trying to modify it as kids will attempt (maybe trying to put my racing wheels on it, who knows!)
Well, that’s not what happened. He was showing off to his friend how he can jump up curbs and the like. During one jump (his last) the front wheel came off. He went over the bars as the fork tangs planted themselves into the grass (thank you that there was grass there!). The bike followed him and went over him. The front tire came down and landed on his helmet.
All that he got was a scrape on his elbow and knee and a bruise on his quad. I’ve told him how lucky he is - citing Michellie Jones at Alcatraz. (He knows who she is - gave her a high-five at a race last year.)
The wheels are held on by nuts, not QRs. One of the front nuts was missing. Earlier, some older boys were teasing him at school and kicking his bike there. He told his teacher and those boys got a talking to. We think they may have pulled the nut off - vindictiveness. We’ve looked all over for it - everywhere he’s ridden.
Now we’re trying to find a new nut. It seems to be a weird size. It’s 3/8" and the pitch seems to be about 20. The hardware store’s coarse thread is 16 and fine is 24 - no 20 available.
When I was a teenager, some friends and I decided to see what would happen if you tossed a nearly empty spray paint can into a fire. Turns out those babies pack enough punch to wipe out a machine-gun nest. The metal ball went whizzing past us like a bullet, and there were pieces of metal shrapnel embedded in the nearby trees. Then there was the fact that we had blown red hot embers out into the forest that now had to found and stomped out before we started a major forest fire.
Another time I went to go see a friend. He was in the garage with a coffee can, mixing together a little bit of everything that said “FLAMMABLE”. Then we threw a match in to see, again, what would happen. The contents instantly consumed themselves with a cool “whooommp” sound.
Note to all moms of boys out there in ST-land: All boys are pyros. All of them.
That is a stunningly beautiful pic. Hard to figure out what is going on without your narrative but stunning even so.
I already posted my personal stupid tricks in the “almost got killed as a kid” thread.
Here’s one my youngest (8) did recently. I was showing the older one how if you hold the cotton storage sack from our sleeping bag over one of the heater vents, it puffs up like a huge marshmallow. Well the youngest one sees us and comes running up and dives onto it thinking it will be like a big pillow.
We have hardwood floors.
Ow (there were tears, recriminations, and two bruised knees).
“Now we’re trying to find a new nut. It seems to be a weird size. It’s 3/8” and the pitch seems to be about 20."
Sure it’s not metric? M10 x 1.5 perhaps. That’s about a .393 - 16.93333 in standard so pretty close to what your describing. If it’s a Toy’s Rust bike, likely wasn’t made in the good old USA.
Since there is no chamber to contain the blast and propel the bullet , simply exploding the shell is not so dangerous. It is kind of like a firecracker with a piece of lead attached to the end. One danger is fragments from the shell case getting in your eyes but the actual bullet would not be able to hurt you.
I tried several metric bolts (using the other nut) I could get it on one about 5 turns before it would seize. Went back home to see if the threads might be screwed up. It went on both sides of the axle freely. Really has me stumped.
I think I’ll hit up the local Supergo. I bet they have something back in the repair area.
It is truly a miracle that I am alive today, but one that I know all will appreciate is when I was about 10 and had ridden my BMX through a pile of leaves. One got stuck in the fork and was making a loud noise. Well I figured that I could just kick the leaf out with my toe, which I tried while still moving at full tilt. My toe became instantly stuck in the gap between the fork and wheel causing the wheel to stop an me to be vaulted over the bars (toe sill in fork). I came down rather hard on the side of my face twisted in the bike. These were the days before helmets for kids so I was lucky to ride away with a slight concussion and looking like the phantom of the opera.
yeah I also did the front wheel falling off trick as a youngster. Did it jumping off a curb into the street… Like I said, an absolute miracle…
McMaster Carr lists an M10 x 1.25 & M10 x 1.0 the 1.25 would be 20.32 TPI. That might be the one.
Didn’t see anything that jumped out at me in McMaster or the Machinest handbook about a 3/8-20’ish. Although one could be made I suspect the metric “fine thread” is more likely.
