Extra Long Baby Gate

Baby Gate Tips

We have an Evenflo Top of Stair Gate. It’s a wooden gate with metal hardware. It swings. VERY secure.

I mounted the hinges to a 1x4 piece of oak stained to match the newel post on our stairwell then ziptied the 1x4 to the newel post. This worked well for years. Setup was approved by childcare agency for a home daycare. However, once the kids got bigger, and started shaking the gate, I noticed the zipties getting worn (took at least 3 years). I eventually broke down and put 1 screw in at the top and 1 at the bottom to replace the zipties. Unsing the industrial strength, large zipties it is very secure. Just keed an eye on the condition of the ties. The standard cheap wire zipties do not stand up to this use. Do not use them. We have an Evenflo Top of Stair Gate. It’s a wooden gate with metal hardware. It swings. VERY secure.

I mounted the hinges to a 1x4 piece of oak stained to match the newel post on our stairwell then ziptied the 1x4 to the newel post. This worked well for years. Setup was approved by childcare agency for a home daycare. However, once the kids got bigger, and started shaking the gate, I noticed the zipties getting worn (took at least 3 years). I eventually broke down and put 1 screw in at the top and 1 at the bottom to replace the zipties. Unsing the industrial strength, large zipties it is very secure. Just keed an eye on the condition of the ties. The standard cheap wire zipties do not stand up to this use. Do not use them.

“Babygate” being the best sounding label I can come up with for this controversy.

First, interesting posts from the Stryde Hax blog on “Google hacking” information about He Kexin. Essentially this involves using Google’s advanced search features to target very specific kinds of information. His queries on Google.cn and Baidu lead him to cached versions of spreadsheets from the General Administration of Sports of China that pretty clearly list a 1994 birthday for the golden girl of Chinese gymnastics. The Baidu cache versions (here and here) were still live when I looked. Interestingly, however, the files started evaporating from Google.CN’s cache more or less as the Stryde Hax blogger was doing his digging.

What does it mean? I invite you to draw your own conclusions.Serling> But it’s also worth reading a post from the always interesting Fool’s Mountain blog that looks at the problem of age manipulation in Chinese sports and wonders if He Kexin’s age could have been massaged down rather than up:

In fact, in the comments to a prior post, I’ve raised the point that
Chinese parents change birthdays of children quite often for a variety
of reasons or advantages, to older or younger, hence the possibility
that things could go either way with He Kexin. He really could be 16,
yet still nobody would want to come out and explain the age changing in
local competitions — that’s just another can of worms. Anyway, this
certainly isn’t proof of anything nor is it great news. The point is
simply that, before jumping to conclusions on something having to with
China, it is worth considering the other possilities, and at the least,
consider that other possibilities do exist.

That last thought is definitely worth bearing in mind. Nevertheless, Imagethief had the good luck to be in the stands for the finals of the women’s uneven bars on Monday night, which meant I had the pleasure of seeing He, her only slightly less microscopic teammate Yang Yilin, and American Nastia Liukin (who seems gigantic by comparison) compete. All the Chinese female gymnasts are tiny. He is teeny tiny. If it’s a stretch to accept her as turning 16 this year, imagining her any older is downright impossible. Still, it was thrill to watch all three of them perform. They’re all great athletes and they all deserve recognition.

While He has got most of the attention, both because she’s a pint-size medalling machine and because the controversy hovers most closely over her, Yang has come in for her share of attention as well. I was interested to see a commentary from the AP that is constructed around the theme of Yang as helpless victim:

How fragile she looked, like a baby deer in the headlights of an oncoming SUV. Little pink hearts and the word “love” in blue letters decorated her hair clips.
The glitter on her forehead twinkled under the lights. Chalk was
encrusted where the skin met her slender fingernails. So thin, so
uneasy, so out of place she seemed, in a downstairs room in Beijing’s
National Indoor Stadium. She’d just won an Olympic bronze medal in
all-around gymnastics, one of the toughest sporting tests there is.

***

[A little hesitantly], Yang started to
answer the questions. And the more she said, the more shocking it was.
The answers were brief, spoken without heart. What emerged was a
picture of a young girl who has been kept largely cut off from family
and the outside world for more than a year, so she could be intensely
trained to win medals for China at its own Olympics.

I have no doubt that China’s gymnastics training regimen is brutal, and the cold mechanics of China’s national sporting machine definitely deserve scrutiny. I also think the evidence of an age scandal is pretty compelling. Perhaps Yang is a victim. But she, along with He, is also a talent and should be celebrated as such. The rest of the world, America included, has had its grim training stories, especially in sports like gymnastics and figure skating for which the feedstock is young girls. This article has a whiff of the old cold-war double standard. Ours=plucky, heroic achievers. Theirs=manufactured robots/slaves/dopers.

Perhaps she’s a victim of the Communist Sports Machine. Perhaps she’s just a teenage girl who is a spectacular gymnast, who’s had a hard year of training, and who is uncomfortable talking to the media. As Nimrod wrote on that Fool’s Mountain post, consider that other possibilities do exist.

Hat tip: Adrian.

Golden girls.

Safe Kids Watauga County is teaming up with Boone Ford, Lincoln, Mercury for a child safety seat inspection. The free inspection, called “Staying Sweet,” will held at Boone Ford on New Market Boulevard in Boone Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. N.C. certified technicians will conduct the inspections. Anyone transporting a child is encouraged to stop by for an inspection and information regarding the appropriate seat for a child’s age and weight. For more information, contact Watauga Medic Aaron Miller at 295-5218, or Safe Kids coordinator Tammy Nelson at 264-9486.

This is a message for all you deliquent mothers out there who buy whatever is closest to the edge when choosing your child’s tub shampoo. As a tub afficianado myself, I study these things and I have agents all over the planet to keep me informed of human UNFRIENDLY bathing products.

First of all you only need to look on the face of this tentacled bastard to see he means your child no good. Do you notice that skipping rope he seems ready to garott you beloved bunchkin with? No more noise and no more tears sweetie. Lets just let you sink to the bottom of the tub.

You brought him into your house and THIS is how they getcha. Thank you agent Monkey Muck for remembering me. when you came across this abomination. I bet it doesn’t even make the big bubbles I like. So - FAIL. CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This message and any attachments are for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information that is exempt from public disclosure. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure, or distribution is prohibited. If you have received this message in error please contact the sender (by phone or reply electronic mail) and then destroy all copies of the original message.