Tom Geiger

Interesting that the post office Pintos showed up at Ollies. I couldn't find them at retail in the real world of stores and shows! I did manage to get one. If anyone bought a bunch of them for other than USPS use, I could use a few sets of those postal decals to build other postal vehicles!

Breakfast is highly overrated, I prefer to just have coffee and wait until lunchtime for any real food.

Funny thing... my eBay sales chime (cha-ching like a cash register) kept going off during the game. So there were folks not watching!

Michaels is slowly going down the tubes. I'm in USA. I wound up with a $50 gift card for free as a credit card premium. I envisioned getting about a dozen of those shoe box sized photo / craft boxes I use for my eBay stamp inventory. I get there and am shocked to see they want $7.99 for a box! These are $2.99 and $3.99 at Hobby Lobby depending on the decoration on them! So at $7.99 I wasn't doing that even with a free card! Then I see their gimmick.. everything in the store is way overpriced and they are depending on their 30-50% sales to bring people in, and at that point the prices are the normal price in competing chains. So right before Christmas I saw the 50% off sale and bought boxes for $3.99. I extinguished my gift card and paid a few cents cash. Never Michaels again!

Forever is a long time said Captain Obvious

In my neighborhood everything is underground. Even my Fios fiber is below surface from the box to my house

And there's some controversy about that. There have been shows across the country that have come and gone who used the name "NNL". One was actually a judged contest, and when contacted were clueless as to what NNL actually meant. Some groups have stretched the concept with that Top Ten or even an award for each category, but it's frowned upon by the founders and those of us who are still holding the torch. It's supposed to be about the modelers and providing the best day of the year for the hobby! At NNL East we minimalize the awards to honor the original intent. We don't even have a Best in Show. We have the "John Slivoski Award" for most popular model as voted by people's choice. We have Best in the theme and sub-theme. We have a web award that is only put on our website just before the show to train folks to go to the website for information! We have a Junior award. All of thesse are people's choice balloting. We have the Joe Cavorley award for the model Joe would have appreciated most, chosen by his friends. Our last award is the Long Distance Award, to recognize the person who has traveled the furthest to attend in the spirit of friendship and comradery. Over the years we have had visitors from Europe. South America, South Africa and Australia. Also- there has never been a "trophy". We only give out simple plaques. We do get regular inquiries asking to do their own special award, and we respectfully decline as we want to keep the awards to a minimum and preserve the spirit of the event.

I just had to chime in... John Slivoski was the president of the Tri-State Scale Model Car Club. He would go to the NNL Nationals in Toledo with Rick Hanmore. He asked the founders for permission to use the concept on the East Coast and was granted permission as long as he held to the formula. Back in the day, there was a group of guys shooting the breeze at a Brooklyn, NY hobby shop. A guy came in and joined into the conversation. He told them he was good friends with the "owner" of NNL East and it was a very tough contest, but he won Best of Show, where he received a six foot tall trophy! The guy had no idea that one of the guys he was jawing at was John Slivoski, who quietly listened. They let him embarrass himself and after he left they all burst out laughing! John loved to tell that story!~ One time during the old Saturday night AOL Model Car Chats I got home late after NNL East. I joined the conversation and a guy instantly asked me who won the contest?" I replied that EVERYONE in attendance won, because it wasn't a contest! He immediately challenged me that nobody would attend a show without trophies! I instantly got so many IMs at once that my computer crashed! And even today I get a bunch of phone calls right before NNL East. One year I got a call from a lady asking if her daughter could enter the NNL East Model Show? I replied, "Of course!" and let her know we had a junior category. I asked what did her daughter like to build? She responded, "BUILD???" I instantly realized she though this was a modeling event for female models! We are on a few of that industry's mailing lists because we still get emails looking for models for photo shoots!

And there are those of us with snow on the ground who are happy it's just rain this time! 😁

burning against pavement

Nice display case! I have a repurposed china cabinet, and I also added a shelf between each of the original ones. In mine, each shelf is actually 3 pieces of glass, so I bought 9 pieces of glass. Not cheap!

Words can be hurtful.

Super scratch building and finishing! I started one years ago and it's still sitting. I love your solution for the seat

Drivers on the New Jersey Turnpike cannot drive, especially the New Yorkers going 50mph in the fast lane!

Much of the garbage you read on Facebook is from whiney little numpties who don't know a thing about how the world actually works

Sorry you are ill Miles! I had Covid summer of 2022 and it truly sucked! That scenario figured into the reasons we didn't do NNL East the third year we cancelled. We knew people would be so excited that they'd come to the show even with Covid! And we didn't want to be responsible for a super spreader!

Walmart runs a very effective business model. They calculate the sell through of every linear inch of their shelves. They are a net 120 account for their vendors and Walmart's contracts hold the vendor responsible for every returned item and anything that is left on shelf for clearance after the specified time. And I believe that's why Round 2 got a new equity partner. They still owned all that product, mostly diecast, in all the Walmart stores. Imagine the cost of that inventory! Michaels is their own set of problems. They have cash flow issues to the point that they aren't replacing batteries in their warehouse forklifts and guys are schlepping everything around on manual pallet jacks. Their business model is to have everything at a huge price and always have big percentage off sales. For my stamp business I keep everything in those shoebox sized photo boxes. At Hobby Lobby they were $2.99 and $3.99 depending on the decoration. I got a Michaels gift card from my credit card points with intent of buying those boxes. Price $7.99 each! Then over the holidays they had a big sale and I was able to buy them for $3.49 a box, which was free to me anyway but it's the principle! I have now sworn off Michaels. And our local AC Moore closed down before the holidays. I remember when ToysRUs blew out models. I bought everything I could for $2.50 a kit. I went store to store and literally dumped the shelf into my cart. The only thing I left behind were the stacks of AMT 57 Rancheros with the bad chop job! I still see those stickers in my stash.

Very nice work! I especially like the carpet with the edging. How did you do that?

Snowed here in the burbs west of Philly overnight. Just enough to take pretty snow pictures, but not enough to fire up the snow blower. I cleared my sidewalk, all 250 feet of it and a single path down the driveway to the street. It warmed up and is now raining so that should take care of the rest. The street is clear and I see people coming and going, still I'm going anywhere today!

"How To Bankrupt A Model Company In One Easy Lesson"! None of what you mentioned would sell in anywhere the numbers to justify cutting new tooling. Do not use the Moebius Hudsons as an example of success, they only got done because the company owner Frank was a Hudson fanatic. It's good to be king. The Ford pickups are the kind of kit that sells. The real trucks are always the top selling vehicle in America. Huge fan base. I remember Dave Burket talking about this 20-30 years ago. He finally got the Moebius ear and added in some of his own money to make those happen. One of the big factors that made those feasible was the similarity of the trucks year to year. And why do you think Round 2 rushed out their 1960 and 1964 Ford Pickups? To beat Moebius to the punch. They had planned on doing the entire series.

show about nothing!

Men who enjoy making people stand in a ling line in heavy rain or snow for a few small bread crusts

For rat jerky

Thanks guys! I’m now working on getting the replica of my old 56 Chevy off the bench for my first build of 2024. Did anyone catch the branding on the sedan delivery?

For lap dances