My 2 year old is in love with my bike. I got him something for his birthday that is absolutely perfect and I thought I'd pass it on to you guys. I found a little bike at ToysRUs that he looked really cute on, but it was a weak sauce 6v bike and I knew he would out grow it in about a month. So I went online looking for something better. I found this guy selling on eBay and bought a bike just to see how the quality was.
He shipped it super quick by FedEx. He is in the Dallas area and I'm in Salt Lake. I put the order in on Monday and the bike arrived on Thursday. Assembly was a piece of cake and I put my other two kids to work testing it out before I let my youngest see it.
It was definitely a winner! It is a 12v bike and can hold 90 pounds. My 6 year old and 4 year old were just about as much as it could take. Going uphill wasn't making it very happy, but on a level grade it buzzed around with both of them without a problem.
So I went back to his store on ebay and looked at what else he had. I knew I wasn't going to get away with just having one of them, so I bought two others so everybody had one. My daughter has the red one and I got one that looks more like my bike for my youngest. Since I wanted them all to have something a little different, I got one with raked out forks for my 6 year old. Now I've got a little biker gang terrorizing the neighborhood.
They have training wheels on them, so you don't have to worry about them dropping the bike. Well, you don't have to worry as long as they don't decide to take it off road and then stop on a precarious angle. lol
You have to admit those are pretty sweet! I sent the pictures to the guy and told him I got a lot of questions about where I got them as we drove around the neighborhood. He as a store that isn't ebay if anybody wants to check them out. www.motorcycles4kids.com. The ebay store seems to have a little lower prices since they include shipping there. You can use MY-10%-354 as a discount code on his store if you want to order there, or you can go to his ebay store here if you want to order there.
I'm not affiliated with him nor am I getting anything to promote him or anything like that. I just thought they were awesome bikes that were really inexpensive and my kids love them. If you have kids who are into your bikes like mine are, then I thought you might want to look into it.
I just want to say that I invented this conceptually three years ago in a training class at American Express. I'm not the first to have thought of it either. I'm so glad that this is something that someone may actually be perusing the actual production of! I believe this will be a common card before the middle of this decade.
Nicholas Sparks stated that he has no contemporaries. No one else does what he does. He writes unpredictable love stories, not trashy run-of-the-mill romance novels like Shakespeare.
Just The Facts
Nicholas Sparks is an author who churns out about one romance novel a year.
All of these books are almost immediately made into movies.
All of these books are the same book.
Nicholas Sparks on Nicholas Sparks
In a recent interview with USA Today, Nicholas Sparks criticized Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Ernest Hemingway, and romance novelists in general for essentially writing the same story over and over:
"(Romances) are all essentially the same story: You've got a woman, she's down on her luck, she meets the handsome stranger who falls desperately in love with her, but he's got these quirks, she must change him, and they have their conflicts, and then they end up happily ever after."
But he claims that he is not a romance novelist. He is a fiction writer who writes love stories.
"You read a romance because you know what to expect. You read a love story because you don't know what to expect."
Really Nicholas Sparks? Really?
Nicholas Sparks Movies
A Walk to Remember
Landon, a rebellious high school student, meets Jamie, the booksmart daughter of a pastor. At first, they have a rocky friendship because they are from different worlds. Jamie offers to help Landon learn lines for a school play if he promises to not fall in love with her. They grow close, but Jamie repeatedly rejects him. Jamie's father does not approve of the relationship.
Then tragedy strikes. Jamie tells Landon that she has Leukemia and is dying and therefore they cannot be together. Landon is forced to reconcile with his estranged father, a doctor who sets up treatment for Jamie. Despite the tragedy, Jamie and Landon continue to grow deeper in love.
They get married and a few months later, Jamie dies.
The Notebook
Noah, a local country boy, falls in love with young heiress, Allie. Since...they are from different worlds, she...repeatedly rejects him. Allie's parents...do not approve of the relationship, which eventually causes them to reluctantly break up. Allie regrets breaking up with him.
Noah writes to her letters every day and she never responds. Noah goes off to fight in World War II and Allie meets another man and gets engaged. Noah comes back from war and meets up with Allie, who tells him that she is engaged. Allie asks why he never wrote her. They make love. The next day, Allie's mother gives her all 365 letters Noah wrote, which she had been hiding from her. She tells Allie that her fiancee knows about Noah. Allie chooses Noah.
Fast forward to the future, and it is discovered that Allie has Alzheimer's and can't remember Noah or her life story. Noah reads from a notebook that contains the above story. That day, Allie miraculously remembers Noah. The next morning, they both wake up in bed together in each other's embrace. Dead.
Nights in Rodanthe
Paul, a surgeon, meets Adrienne at a bed and breakfast in Rodanthe, North Carolina. They fall in love. Paul then goes to South America to...Hold on. Something's not right here. Neve rmind. Paul goes to South America to...reconcile with his estranged son, who is a doctor treating local villagers. Paul helps his son treat the villagers. Paul continues to write letters to Adrienne and their love grows.
Then tragedy strikes. Paul is killed in a South American mudslide.
But, Paul's son thanks Adrienne for changing his father and allowing them to reconcile. Because Paul is dead.
Dear John
John, a simple soldier in the Army, falls in love with sophisticated college student, Savannah, while on leave. They grow closer until John must return to the Army. John must choose to stay in the Army, or be with Savannah. He chooses to stay in the Army. John and Savannah write letters back and forth, but eventually drift apart. Savannah gets engaged while John is in the Army...Wait. Hold on. I think this is the wrong book. I think this is the summary for...No, I'm sorry. I guess it is Dear John. Sorry. Anyway, John comes back from war to spend time with his estranged father, who had a heart attack. John and his father were never close, but they...reconcile shortly before John's father dies. Hold on again. Sorry, this is might be Nights in Rodanthe. No, sorry again. This is from Dear John. So, then John goes to visit Savannah.
Then tragedy strikes. Savannah tells John that her husband has cancer. Wait. What the fuck is going on here? Sorry. I guess this is getting confusing. So, John sells his father's prized coin collection to pay the medical bills and goes back to war.
Savannah's husband dies.
Last Song
The question of which estranged parent the main character reconciles with is immediately apparent in the first chapter of the book when you find out that the main character gets along with her mom. The only question remains is who will get cancer and die. Ronnie, the main character, and her little brother Jonah are reluctantly spending the summer with their estranged father. Ronnie meets Will at the beach and they fall in love. Will is from a wealthy and powerful family. Their romance blossoms. But Will's parents...do not approve. Despite that, their romance continues. Ronnie's friend reconciles with her mother. So now side characters are reconciling with their parents too, I guess. That's different, so we'll give him that.
Then tragedy strikes. Ronnie's dad is diagnosed with (wait for it...) cancer and is dying. Seriously, it's like this guy only know one possible bad thing that could happen to people. No one gets laid off or diagnosed with a lumbar strain. Fuck this guy.
At the end of the summer, Ronnie decides to stay with her father to reconcile with him. She finishes a piano composition that her father had been working on. Her father dies. She asks her mother to send her letters that her father wrote her, but that she never got a chance to read. Holy fucking shit. He's got to be doing that on purpose. It doesn't even make any sense. No one even uses the mail any more. It's like this guy spent every day of his childhood reconciling with his parents, getting cancer, and writing letters to people that never got read them.
Ronnie moves back to New York and Will transfers colleges to be with her.
So those are all of his movies. So far. There are several hundred permutations left.
A Man Without Equal
"There are no authors in my genre. No one is doing what I do." - Actual quote from Nicholas Sparks. It looks like several thousand people are doing what you do.
It's like if M. Night Shyamalan started every movie with the main character being shot to death by one of the New Kids on the Block and then criticized Steven Spielberg and George Lucas for always making the same movie over and over.
Make Your Own Nicholas Sparks Poster
Now that you know what it takes to make a Nicholas Sparks movie, we want you to predict his next big idea. Find a photo of two famous people having an intimate moment (thereseemsto bea startlingnumberof these), give it a title and post it on our Facebook wall. Here's a sample to get you started:
We'll take the best entries and not only put them in a special album, we'll post them right here in this section!
I just wanted to post a couple pictures I took this weekend. It was a nice weekend for polishing the bike and letting the kids take Parker's birthday present out for another test drive before he gets his hands on it.
I am so sick of chain letter. I've received several over the past week and I'm absolutely sick of them. Why are people obsessed with sending anything that sounds interesting to everybody in their address book? And more importantly, why don't they even take five seconds to verify if it is true?? Here are the chain letters I never want to see again:
- The shit about 'in god we trust' being removed from the new dollar coins. It is right there printed all the way around the edge of the coin, you retards!! Before you forward an email requesting everybody to refuse the coins, you should at least verify that it is true!!
- Anything that says 'we will track this email and reward you for how many times it is passed along' is even more ridiculous than the coin one! It isn't possible to track emails like that!!! IDIOTS! Do you seriously believe everything you read??
- Anything that says "this is the last time or only time it has happened in a thousand years" have to go. That stupid one about the moon being closer than it has ever been is just the worst. Yeah, it is half a micron closer than it was last year. SO FREAKING WHAT?? Geeze people, don't you have anything better to do?
- NEVER send me another "01/01/01 or 01/02/03 or any other emails about dates that will never happen again. DUH FREAKIN DUH!!! Not only do I not care, but I DON'T CARE!!
Can you tell I'm going to be a great anti social recluse someday? I totally am. I hate getting pointless emails. I don't mind funny jokes or funny videos, but these absolutely wrong factual emails are going to drive me insane!! At least check the facts on SNOPES.COM before sending them on. These stupid emails are meant to do only one thing: MAKE YOU LOOK STUPID FOR FORWARDING THEM ON! Don't fall for it! Just delete them!
