Tom Geiger

Around 1976 my buddy needed a cheap car and there was an ad in the paper for a 67 Chevy 4 door for $200. We get there and it's an old taxi fleet and the guy wants to sell '67, '68 and '69 Biscayne 4 door sedans, with 6 cylinders and three on the tree. Sad looking cars, not a straight panel between them, high unknown miles and filthy from sitting under trees for who knows how long. No we didn't buy one!

No pictures but I had to share... I was coming home on the New Jersey Turnpike on Thursday afternoon. Speed limit is 65 but unless you are going 80, you are in the way. Every so often you hit a snag of traffic where a few slow moving cars decide to clog the road side by side. This was one of those times. Three lanes wide and three slow vehicles averaging between 50-60 in the lanes. And of course they kept slowing down and speeding up. The one in the fast lane was also wandering in the lane. I got in the middle lane and that car moved enough forward that I was alongside the car in the fast lane. I glance over and see that the driver is a young woman. Then I saw a small head and realized she had an infant on her lap! At that moment I saw a flash of white tossed to the passenger side of the car and realized.... yes! She was changing a diaper!

Harry would've enjoyed this.. we used to talk stamps. Bucket list items. These are the first two US stamps issued in 1847. Back then the cost of mailing was calculated by zones. On the first one, mailed within Massachusetts, that was one zone for five cents. The second one was St Louis to Boston, which was two zones for ten cents. I decided that it was more interesting to have these on envelope, or "on cover" as we collectors call it. I justified the first one because I had a eBay gift certificate I earned with credit card points. I was admiring the second one and my wife said to get it as my birthday present. So I wasn't passing that opportunity. And as far as the most expensive model kit I ever bought... these beat that by a wide margin!

Per yours and the rest of the comments... the black Model A will live on since it's complete. I will check it to see if it ever had a rear bumper, if so I will add one from the parts box. The green bomb is classic. The original builder didn't even get a full coat of paint on it. I will see if I can fashion some wheels on it. The blue chopped coupe may get the rat rod treatment since there's not a lot left. Notice that it has dual side mounts in the front fenders. I don't think that's been in a kit for a very long time.

I owned this one "back in the day". You can see the tail end of my 65 Barracuda and 66 Valiant in the driveway.

Here's a trio of 1960s or 1970s glue bombs that I bought a few years ago. All three were in one bag and I believe the total was $5 or $10. Each one of these has some character that I like, so I'll use them for the basis of my traditional / rat rods.

My model tools are all in this cheap Chinese tool box that my father bought many years ago. Too light for garage use, but is perfect for the model room. I roll it around when I need to work out of the drawers. I have two of those 50 drawer parts cabinets on the shelf over my workbench. I have lots of small part types and materials in those small drawers. I saw this cabinet at Walmart for about $5 I cut my sand paper into 1"x1" squares and use this cabinet to store the different grits. I made a cardboard divider for each drawer. The bottom drawer holds Q-tips and Flexi File tapes. It keeps it all organized and within easy reach. My wife is in love with these Swiffer wet pads. At least I get a model box from every box she buys. These are perfect for holding old built ups or projects. I like that they have clear lids so I can take a peak.

Cool. I see a lot of people having fun with this kit. This was one of the theme kits at NNL East and there were a ton of them on the table. A lot of creativity too! And remember back when Revell announced this kit, people complained!

Nope, never done! I too have a diecast of a '56 convertible. The good news is that the body for the 55-56-57 is essentially the same car. So it should be easy enough for you to cobble up a '56 convertible. Note that there isn't a modern kit of the '57 Nomad either. Revell has the old 1/25 from the dark ages that is one of the most awful assembling kits of all time, and the fairly simple 1/24 old Monogram one, but I'd like to see a modern tool in the new series. Even this one is easy to modify from their 56 Nomad. So we just will have to wait and see what Revell does for their next act...

I hate to point out that this is soooo outside the spirit of what NNL is supposed to be!

I had taken the Thursday before NNL East off from work to get some stuff done since I had been away on business the three previous weeks. I no sooner get up and am having coffee and my wife said there was no hot water. Then I hear water running. I went to the basement and was greeted with a nice little flood. Seems a saddle valve, long abandoned over the water heater, let loose and fortunately just flooded the concrete side of the basement. It took me all morning to fix it. Half a day of needed prep time gone! Why do these things always happen in the middle of the night?

Wait... isn't the red seat for Santa???

The New Jersey Turnpike came to a standstill yesterday on my way home. All six lanes stopped dead! Then I saw a flat bed tow truck coming the other direction. Small black SUV that had been rolled so bad as to destroy every panel. No glass at all and side air bags blowing in the breeze. A few minutes later another flat bed comes up the same way, with a totally burnt 2 seater. All that was left was a charred mess (I'm thinking Corvette since there were no visible body panels) and a roll bar standing up. That must've been some accident. By the time I inched up to the scene, they were sweeping the roadway. I just found the below photo. Article says nobody was killed. Interesting... I just found a second news story. What was originally confusing is that there were signs in both the car and truck lanes saying "Left two lanes closed ahead". Now I see why. The SUV landed in the left lane in the truck lanes while the sports car was in the left lane in the car lanes.

Ha George! You caught me at a bad moment. I didn't recognize you because you didn't have a beer in your hand! I'll buy the next round!

Nobody here knows what is going to happen, just a lot of speculation on worse case scenarios. So let’s be optimistic and wait to see what really happens

I'm still tired! I drove up to Boston area on Sunday on a business trip. In fact I was away on business 4 out of 5 weeks before the show, I'm home now and looking forward to just chilling this weekend!

Bill Said: For the most part, consumers know nothing about cars. Zero. Zip. Nada. Marketing has created whatever "demands" the consumers are credited (or blamed) for. A number of years ago my two daughters, then in their mid to late 20s, decided to buy themselves new cars. When they approached me to help, they were proud that they had already decided exactly what to buy. My older daughter wanted a Ford Fusion. Daughter the younger was going to buy a Ford Focus. I wondered how they came to these decisions and then it hit me... they both religiously watched "American Idol" which was sponsored by Ford! And they were subject to repeated commercials AND the show's contestants singing and dancing in and around new Fords! I assisted Daughter number one in the process of the purchase of a Ford Fusion. Daughter the younger? About that time the Fiat 500 debuted and they hired Jennifer Lopez to drive the pearl white convertible in commercials... guess what we got? Yup, pearl white and all! So yes, average consumers who know nothing about cars are heavily influenced by advertising. And just for the record, both cars worked out fine. Neither car has ever had a repair outside of normal maintenance. The Fiat that everyone warned me about now has 120,000 trouble free miles on it.

Rest is highly over rated! We started planning next years event a few months ago so there's always something to do throughout the year!

Yup, I use Irfanview for all my photo editing needs.

Spotlight Hobbies sells model car promo boxes. See the link below: Tom Carter is a good businessman and ships quickly. Model Car Boxes

As mentioned, Palmer box art is interesting and fun to collect. Many years ago in the hobby you'd see them at swap meets for $5 or $10, so I started to collect them...

Now that the dust has settled and we've gotten a full night's sleep, here are the results from NNL East, April 21, 2018 Many thanks to the Tri-State Scale Model Car Club members for all their hard work and dedication to producing the best show we possibly can. The official NNL East Photo Album is up and running! See the link below: NNL East Official Photo Album

Ron, Scale Motorsport will be doing their final sell off at NNL East tomorrow. They are not "going out of business". Matthew is shutting down a thriving business for other pursuits. He had offered the business for sale, there was interest, but nobody came through with the $$

I have confirmation that our British friends are already at the hotel. Our annual French visitor flew into Montreal today. It's on!

Ya know, nothing ever goes smoothly! I took today off to finish up some NNL details. I have been working at remote locations lately, which includes dedicating Sundays to travel and returning home late on Fridays. First thing in the morning? My wife wakes me up to say there is no hot water. I go to the basement and find the furnace room flooded, a saddle valve someone else installed for a long gone furnace humidifier had sprung a leak right over the water heater. So there went my morning! Replaced the valve, vacuumed all the water and am still waiting for water heater to dry out enough to relight the pilot.