Toy Review: 2015 Hess Fire Truck And Ladder Rescue

Actually *two* trucks! (Image via Hess) — 2015 Hess Fire Truck and Ladder Rescue (Image via Hess)

Only the Hess toy trucks at the babysitting room at our local Y have convinced our two boys to accept a drop-off there. They’re much better built and way cooler to play with than one might otherwise expect from a toy made by a gasoline station.

Hess, it turns out, has been producing its Toy Truck line since 1964. The first make was a tanker trailer, modeled after the ones that brought gas to the stations. For $1.29 (including batteries!) you could put the tanker trailer under the Christmas tree for your little one.

2015’s model is especially awesome:

This year’s Hess Toy is a red Fire Truck with oversized tires, swiveling chrome-detailed fire hose nozzles, LED lights including a high-powered pivoting LED searchlight, a slide-out ramp and 4 realistic sound effects. The accompanying Ladder Rescue features a rotating extension ladder with a movable nozzle and push-activated friction motor. (source)

Here it is (click on any image in this post to enlarge):

You’re really getting two trucks for the price of one. Which is good, because the toy is $30.99. That’s more than most parents I know would want to spend on a truck for their kid, but it also includes free shipping and batteries. Given its high-quality construction, the truck looks like it will last a long time, so I don’t think it’s an unfair–if high–price, especially considering all its features.

Here’s what the trucks look like with lights on:

I got quite a start when I pulled out the ramp at the back of the larger truck–it makes a robust sound that you’d expect from a real-life mechanical ramp. It’s not the kind of annoying sound that will bug you when on repeat, but this might be a toy for kids to take out of their brother’s bedroom and into the living room when they wake up at 6:30 a.m. to play. The ramp makes for an easy entrance/exit for the Ladder Rescue truck to go do its own thing.

The Fire Truck has more sounds than the ramp. There is also an Ignition button (very realistic), a Horn, and a Siren. Each sound plays for about 10 seconds and is–this is worth repeating–not something to play with while baby sister is napping. But that makes the toy all the more fun and awesome. The horn sounds like there’s a real emergency at your house. (Not to mention the siren!) If need be, you don’t have to wait 10 seconds for it to stop; you can just push the button again to silence it. (That’s a thoughtful feature!) So long as your neighbors know it’s just the Hess Toy Truck and don’t go calling 9-1-1 on you, you’ll be fine.

You can turn just the lights on via the switch under the truck. There are two options: you can have the lights solidly on, or turn them on in flasher mode. Regardless of what you do at the bottom of the truck, turning on any sounds causes the lights to flash. There’s also a button on top of the truck that turns just the spotlight on.

The wheels are on both trucks really securely, so you can run them across the kitchen floor at full speed and not worry about it running into the fridge. It’s a smooth ride.

The smaller Ladder Rescue truck is fun in its own right. It’s got a fully extendable plastic ladder with a small water spout (not real!) on the end. Both trucks are sturdy and made of hard, solid plastic. The trim pieces (mirrors, ladder hose, front visors) feel a little flimsier than one might hope, but it would take a child’s deliberate act to break anything here. (Not outside the realm of possibility.) The ladder swivels a full 360 degrees and can be snapped into place when not extended.

The Ladder Rescue truck also lights up via an on/off switch on the bottom of the truck. What this means for parents is that your child will turn off all the lights and find the darkest place in the house right away, so as to test the truck properly. 🙂 Parents will also want to make sure to turn the toy off at night so as to not let the batteries drain.

You can’t open the doors to either truck, so your LEGO minifigures will have to latch on somewhere else, but there is plenty of room for them to hop on and go fight fires.

This is really an awesome toy, and the more I played with it (yes, I played with it), the more I enjoyed it. Hours of countless fun for children are inevitable. Both trucks are thoughtfully designed and excellently executed. And the Fire Truck is pretty giant as far as children’s toy vehicles go, so you could do well to make this the “big” present you’re getting your child(ren) this Christmas.

One other cool thing: Hess has made 100 individually numbered Silver Editions of the Fire Truck and Ladder Rescue toy. I got the expected red one and was not disappointed.

You find out more and purchase the truck here. You can find the Hess Toy Truck on social media (#2015HessToyTruck) here: Facebook/Twitter/Instagram.

Many thanks to the fine folks doing PR for Hess who set me up with the free product sample for review, with no expectations as the the review’s content.

Notebook Review: Rustic Ridge Classic Leather Journal

I’m back to writing in a journal again. It’s not that I haven’t been writing or reflecting these past few years–it’s just that I’ve been using other formats. But it’s hard (impossible?) to beat the distraction-free mode of a pen and nice journal.

Rustic Ridge Leather makes a classic leather journal that I’ve been using this fall. It’s made well without an accompanying exorbitant price tag. My Rustic Ridge journal is 5×7, which is probably my ideal size–portable yet big enough to feel like I have a good amount of space on the unlined pages.

You can see in the image above that it’s got a leather wrap tie closure. When I was a frequent journal-writer back in the day, I used to avoid those ties as much as possible. But this one has grown on me. There’s something almost ritualistic now about unwrapping it to start writing and then wrapping it back up again when I’m done.

Here’s what it looks like inside:

The bleed-through is a little noticeable but largely limited, even with a Pilot G2 07 gel pen.

And check out the cool-looking binding (which, more important, shows its craftsmanship):

It makes for an aesthetically enjoyable writing experience: before, during, and after.

The leather–as leather–had some imperfections I didn’t love:

I’m no tanner, so I don’t know how avoidable something like the above would be, but I do understand that real leather has imperfections, so no worries, really. I learned from Rustic Ridge that my journal is “chrome-tanned” and has a buffed finish, which gives it its soft feel. There is not the oil finish sometimes applied to leather, so this journal didn’t have what I associate with a “leather” smell, but it’s just the applied oil that I’m not smelling. (Whatever treatment was applied did smell sort of chemically.)

Of course the leather journal lays flat right away, a question one might have with a hardcover journal. That’s a plus. And the cream-colored pages (acid-free) match the leather perfectly, so that the coloring is just right.

I am using the 200-page journal (i.e., 100 sheets of paper), but there is also a 400-page version (200 sheets). And, yes, I do hope to fill it up by the end of 2016! No need to look elsewhere for a great journal writing experience–this one has got me covered.

Find all Rustic Ridge’s leather journals here. They make other products, too, like photo albums. You can purchase the classic leather journal above using this link.

Many thanks to the fine folks at Rustic Ridge Leather for the journal for review! Check them out here.

Bonhoeffer Reader’s Editions: Now Published, and a Look Inside

The Bonhoeffer Reader’s Editions are now available for public edification. Check out the details here.

The set covers four classics: Discipleship, Life Together, Ethics, and Letters and Papers from Prison.

Here is the full publisher’s description:

Using the acclaimed Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English translation and adapted to a more accessible format, these new editions of Discipleship, Ethics, Letters and Papers from Prison, and Life Together feature the latest translations of Bonhoeffer’s works, supplemental material from Victoria J. Barnett, and insightful introductions by Geffrey B. Kelly, Clifford J. Green, and John W. de Gruchy.

Originally published in 1937, Discipleship soon became a classic exposition of what it means to follow Christ in a modern world beset by a dangerous and criminal government.

Life Together gathers Bonhoeffer’s 1938 reflections on the character of Christian community, based on the common life experienced at the Finkenwalde Seminary and in the “Brother’s House” there.

Ethics embodies the culmination of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theological and personal odyssey and is one of the most important works of Christian ethics of the last century.

Letters and Papers from Prison presents the full array of Bonhoeffer’s 1943–1945 prison letters and theological writings, introducing his novel ideas of religionless Christianity, his theological appraisal of Christian doctrines, and his sturdy faith in the face of uncertainty and doubt.

This four-volume set of Bonhoeffer’s classic works allows all readers to appreciate the cogency and relevance of his vision.

If you’re new to Bonhoeffer, I’ve got a collection of posts gathered here. The Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works is already a well-done series; the idea of an even more accessible, annotated Bonhoeffer is also appealing.

Check out more here, and when you click on the individual book images on the right side of the page, you can read samples from each of the volumes.

Baron Fig: Put Your Confidant Notebook in Leather

The inside of a Baron Fig Confidant is exactly what I want in a notebook: off-white paper, perfect thickness (no bleed-through with my Pilot G2 07 gel pen), and an option for dot grid paper. It looks like this:

When I reviewed the Confidant notebook, I was generally impressed with it, but not with the aesthetic of the binding:

Today, however, Baron Fig announced a leather slip case for the Confidant. It looks awesome:

Screengrab from Baron Fig's site — Screengrab from Baron Fig’s site

The Guardian notebook cover is here. (And here‘s my original review of the Confidant.)

An Amazing Way to Index Your (Paper) Notebook

As far as I can tell, there are three ways to organize your catch-all notebook you carry around with you:

Realize that you’re taking notes chronologically anyway, so just flip through by dated entry and hope you find what you are looking for.
Number your pages (or get a notebook with numbered pages) and then keep the first three pages clear for your running Table of Contents.
Use a tagging system, like you would in Evernote.

Yeah, I know. The last one didn’t seem possible to me either. But then I read this. (You’re welcome.)

Thanksgiving Opens Our Souls

Happy Thanksgiving! Here is a short but potent piece from Andrew Murray (1828-1917), found in his With Christ in the School of Prayer:

Let us, with thanksgiving that we have been heard, with thanksgiving for what we have received and taken and now hold as ours, continue steadfast in believing prayer that the blessing, which has already been given us, and which we hold in faith, may break through and fill our whole being. It is in such believing thanksgiving and prayer, that our soul opens up for the Spirit to take entire and undisturbed possession.

PopClip: The Most Indispensable Mac OS X Utility

PopClip is the best Mac OS X utility there is.

It’s simple, really:

PopClip appears when you select text with your mouse on your Mac. Instantly copy & paste, and access actions like search, spelling, dictionary and over 100 more.

PopClip is basically a Mac version of the iOS share sheet, which you can quickly get at just by selecting text. It looks like this:

What’s Awesome About PopClip

Its very existence is awesome. This short page shows you the extensions with which the app ships–fairly basic, though still helpful, ones.

But it’s all the Actions you can add to it that make it so great. Here are but a few, shown in the menu bar at right, where you can also rearrange the order to customize the appearance.

A few of my favorite things I can do with a single click:

select text to send to OmniFocus as a task
save a text selection to Evernote
select text to send to 2Do as a task
select the title of a book from a syllabus and find it on Amazon
do the same thing on ebay

And then there’s some cool power-user stuff, too:

change selected text to all caps, all lowercase, or sentence case
calculate a string of numbers (i.e. 4*9+7 magically changes to 43 when I select it and click on the = sign in PopClip)
count characters and words in a selection (especially helpful for when I’m using OmniOutliner, which doesn’t have a built in word count feature)

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Here are all the extensions you can add to your own PopClip, a process which is fast and easy.

There are some customizations, too. You can have PopClip not appear in certain apps of your choosing. You can change the size of its pop-up menu. And you can have it start up at login.

A Single Drawback

Just one: you cannot currently sync your added extensions between computers. So if you use two computers, you’ll have to configure evertyhing twice.

How to Get It

PopClip will fill in the gaps of many of your favorite apps by letting you quickly get information into them. It will save you time with things like its spell check, word count, and running a Google or Amazon or Etsy search on selected text. It can even automatically shorten Web links and randomly re-order selected lines of text.

PopClip is easily worth its $6.99. Find it on the Mac App Store here.

Thanks to the good folks at Pilot Moon for the review copy of PopClip, given to me for this review but with no expectation as to its content.

The Mourning Woman Who Taught the Priest How to Really Pray, or, The Power of (Even Silent) Prayer After Terrorist Attacks

There was once a couple who was not able to have children together. The woman felt alone and mourned regularly. Her husband loved her deeply.

It was her habit to go into a local sanctuary that had open prayer times during the day. Another woman in town, if you can believe it, would tease and provoke her over her not being able to bear children. So she wept bitterly and would go long periods of time without eating.

One day her husband said to her, “Why do you weep? Why do you not eat? Why is your heart sad?”

She could not respond, except to go back to that sanctuary and pray.

* * * * * * *

One day the priest was there, close to where she was praying.

The woman was utterly distressed and prayed to God, weeping openly as she prayed.

She made a promise of sorts: “O Almighty God, if only you will look on the misery of your servant, and remember me, and not forget your servant, but will give me a child… I will devote him entirely to you.”

As she prayed the priest started watching her mouth. He noticed that she prayed silently. Her lips were moving, but he couldn’t hear any sound come out of her mouth. He thought maybe she was drunk.

* * * * * * *

So the priest, a man named Eli, said to her, “Hannah, How long will you make a drunken spectacle of yourself? Put away your wine.”

She responded:

No, my lord, I am a woman deeply troubled; I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord. Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation all this time.

Eli responded, as with a change of heart, “Go in peace; the God of Israel grant the petition you have made to him.”

* * * * * * *

Prayer, as it turns out, is not a silent, impotent act.

Even those prayers we can’t fully voice—where our lips are barely moving—reach God.

The prayer of one of God’s beloved is powerful and effective, as Jesus’ brother James tells us.

So keep praying. Keep your lips moving, even if no sound is coming out.

Keep praying though you are in despair. Keep praying when you feel helpless and hopeless and powerless. Keep praying when evil seems to have the upper hand.

Keep praying in times of drought, in times of death and destruction, in times of violence and terror, and in times of fear and confusion and sadness.

Through our prayers and the prayers of others, we are healed. Our words uttered to God plant us in the soil of his love, and we are saved. The prayers of God’s children are powerful and effective.

15% Off All Logos 6 Base Packages

I haven’t posted about this in a while, but you can get 15% off any base package in Logos 6 through Words on the Word. If you order a base package through this Logos landing page, Logos feeds a percentage back to me, which I use to support the work of Words on the Word. So if you’re going to buy a base package anyway…

…check it out here, or just use the promo code ABRAMKJ6 when you check out with a base package in your Logos cart. My review of Logos 6 is here.

Mediac: This Is The Most Serene Republic in 2015

The first half-minute of ambience that opens Mediac took me right back to the first time I listened to The Most Serene Republic’s fantastic debut Underwater Cinematographer. I have my sister-in-law to continue to thank for introducing me to that still-ahead-of-its-time album.

Unique Toronto, Unique Toronto

TMSR always has been and still is a band very much their own. Are there 4 members? 8? 126? It doesn’t really matter, because they all (there are actually 6) play in sync with each other, even while contributing unique lines you might not otherwise think could be combined in a single song.

That’s part of the band’s unique genius. Sometimes you’re experiencing the music as one unified groove, as in the poppy “I Haven’t Seen You Around,” Mediac’s second track, or as in “Ontario Morning,” the album’s first single. Other times you hear the instruments more disparately and have to work harder to take a song in, as in “Brain Etiquette,” the album’s second-to-last song.

TMSR is not afraid to challenge their listeners, a trait I admire in a band. What other rock sextet do you know of that routinely incorporates brass and strings as if it were second nature? Well, okay, maybe a lot do, but not this creatively. “Failure of Anger,” the sixth track, makes you wonder why you haven’t heard more banjo and electric guitar fuzz in the same song before this.

But back to the beginning for a minute.

TMSR Through the Years

Underwater Cinematographer came in 2005. And on a blog that has long since disappeared from the Internet, Phages was my 2006 Album of the Year… even though it was an EP. That’s how good these guys are. Their live show matched the energy and quality of their recordings. They were probably my favorite band of the mid-oughts, or whatever we finally ended up deciding to call that decade. Their second full-length, Population (2007), was my favorite outdoor running companion for many months.

I sort of lost touch with the band at that point, and they actually have been on hiatus themselves for the last five years. Well, they’ve worked the last four years on Mediac, but I don’t know who knew that until now.

Word Association

Ready for some album reviewer’s word association?

Creativity? They’ve still got it.

Quality production? Check. (Brought to you by Ryan Lenssen from the band and David Newfield, who has overseen Broken Social Scene, Super Furry Animals, and Los Campesinos!).

Memorable hooks? Done, throughout.

Lush, interweaving guitars? Yes, even if it’s not a priority as such.

Thought-provoking, critical-of-the-mainstream lyrics? Uh, yeah. In “Capitalist Waltz” (which, awesomely, is not a waltz) Adrian Jewett snarkily sings, “I’ll advertise for you,” an impulse we reviewers have to face cautiously, much as we may love the bands we write about.

In that spirit, some lyrics hit me as a little obtuse:

To fill the day with an effigy of you,

while Earth’s cigarette is freshly lit

in the modern times, the modern times.

(Et tu, Facebook? he Tweeted.)

That same song is still catchy, though:

A montage of you turning around, turning around, turning around

And, okay, I’ll admit–if I’m understanding the song right, referring to Facebook (and/or Instagram) as “Earth’s cigarette” is actually right on the money.

Concluding Evaluation and Where to Get Mediac

I’m thrilled these guys are back in action with another full-length. Their first few records showed real progression, while each being winners in their own right. Medaic is a little harder for me to know how to place in the TMSR corpus, all of which I’ve listened to. It has some real bright moments, though I didn’t initially experience it as being as cohesive or as innovative as previous efforts.

That said, if you have never listened to TMSR, they exude talent, passion, conviction, and RAWK on any album they put their hands to.

And even as I wrap up this review, some weeks after starting to listen to Mediac, it’s growing on me with each listen. I find more hooks, melodies, motifs, and layers to latch onto each time.

You probably will, too, so definitely untangle those headphones in your jeans pocket, download the album, and queue up your iPod. The Most Serene Republic is back.

Mediac releases today, November 13. You can find it on Amazon here, iTunes here, or at the band’s site here.

Thanks to the fine folks doing PR for TMSR, who provided me with an advance copy of the album so I could review it.

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What’s Awesome About PopClip

A Single Drawback

How to Get It

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Unique Toronto, Unique Toronto

TMSR Through the Years

Word Association

Concluding Evaluation and Where to Get Mediac

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