Dave Ambrose

PM. Thanks for picking that up.

I may have to start calling it Maintenance Monday. We'll be offline for about 2 hours starting at 8:15 PM Pacific, Monday, March 25th.

All it takes is something fun. Model rocketry is like this too. Kids of all ages, flying rockets and having fun.

I've traveled a lot, and I would never put an assembled model in checked baggage. It doesn't matter how you pack it, it simply won't survive. You might get it there intact if you put them in a coffin. They will treat those with respect. But otherwise, they're graded by how fast they load baggage. Not how gently.

I don't golf either. I guess I'd rather get out in the surf break. Midway USA is my usual source for such things. I wonder if the hunting ones are tuned for game animals, and the golf ones for whatever you call the flag you put in the hole? My hunting friends like the Nikon rangefinders.

That's awesome. I pray he continues to recover.

I love this. Immediately started to figure out how to do it, and realized it was beyond my current abilities shortly thereafter.

We have a thriving Gundam scene here in Southern California. There is a yearly Gundam-mostly contest. Last year, they brought in 238 paid attendees, and I'm not even going to speculate on the number of models. It was a lot. They outgrew their previous venue, and this year, they're moving to a larger location. Their work there is first-rate. There's glossy, weathered, and everything in between. The people are nice, and they are young. I was just about the oldest guy in the room. There was someone from Orange County IPMS who was older than I. Our model car club puts on a contest in conjunction with our local IPMS chapter. A couple years ago, we put in a specifically Gundam category. There was some skepticism, and even some resistance. It just about overflowed the table we allocated for it. The judges were impressed by the craftsmanship, and last year, a Gundam won best in show. They are indeed a good thing, and anyone putting a more general interest show or contest should reach out to the Gundam builders. We're not all that different. I don't know about you, but I'm building models of cars I thought were cool when I was a kid. For them, Gundams fill the same role.

Update: The surgeons successfully implanted his pain blocker. I haven't heard back on how well it's working. I'll let you know as soon as I hear anything.

At this point, we don't know what account(s) he'll be using. All his known and suspected accounts are either disabled or under moderation. If you see an account with a clearly fake name. Please report it to us.

Two years ago, we banned an individual, Anthony Oteri. He has worked he way back on to the board and is now planning to send people messages regarding his views of his conduct, our conduct, and the outcomes. We'd much prefer that he take the hint, and go elsewhere, except it's my understanding that several other boards have banned him too. If you receive any unwanted private messages, please report them to us, so we can shut down his other accounts. Thanks, Dave Ambrose

My build buddy. She's a rescued feral cat. She civilized about as well as you can expect.

The board was 6 months old when they registered too. I like your idea. But, we'd have to write more than a little code to perform that purge intelligently. It becomes a matter of finite time and priorities. I will check and see if there might be some support from the forum vendor. Thanks, Dave

The name Stavanzer was taken when you tried to sign up. Apparently, you're not the only model car builder who likes that character.

Morris Minors, and Oxfords (I think) were build under license in both New Zealand and India.

Very cool. You rarely see those headlights. Where did they come from?

Lots of cool and interesting stories here. I'm boring. I got my name from my parents. I've been on the Internet since the days of smart people sitting at dumb terminals. (sometimes I miss those days). I've had multiple pseudonyms over the years. The only one that stuck was my real name, or some close variant to it. I've been known for being active in astronomy, scuba diving, target shooting, and any number of other things driven primarily by my kids interests. The only really enduring things have been astronomy and scuba diving. Got back into model cars when I tore up my knee during a dive and was laid up for a while. It's an activity that has stuck, and coexists nicely with other things.

He has his surgery on Tuesday. I'll post as soon as I know anything.

I finally ran into that 404 error for myself. It’s definitely related to the size of the post.

Not so much broken as makes us vulnerable to getting hacked. I lengthened the edit window to 3 days. This isn't perfect, but hopefully an improvement. It's going to take me some time to figure out how we mitigate this vulnerability, and get us back to where we can edit old content again. I understand your frustration, but please bear with me.

The forum software keeps track of most recent postings. It's how the topics are ordered in their listing. For various reasons, I can't just take this off. The question is how short can I make it without badly impacting legitimate usage? We may get a preview function with the new version of the forum software. I will ask.

I didn't know the subject line no longer editable after the timeout. OK. Bear with me. I'll make some modifications but it will take a week or so.

Wow. I didn't know that so many people were doing this. I thought it was just me. I made some changes. The post is now locked 45 minutes after creation. I can lengthen that out, but I don't want to turn it off altogether.

Welcome back, Nick. I'm going to move you over to the welcome section, where you can be greeted properly.

I keep thinking a paint topic would be a good idea. But, we have to be very careful not to create too many categories or nobody will find anything.