Tom Geiger

And I've had more than a few cold one with Howard! Money spent on my hobbies is money spent on my sanity. I never have used money on the hobby that was needed for my family. I've always worked hard, saved wisely and put two kids through college. And next summer I'm paying for a wedding... which makes my model purchases look like chump change! If I have $25 I can buy a model kit or a case of beer. At the end of the week I still have a model car!

LinkedIn is a great networking tool. I am linked to many folks I used to work with, who with mass layoffs at our companies, are working in all kinds of different places. It's nice to know how folks are doing, and to be able to reach out to them either personally or professionally from time to time. If I find something interesting in just about any company in my industry, I check and sure enough I know folks there. Oh, and I got my last THREE positions through LinkedIn.

That's pretty cool Ed! I've always found it interesting how the areas we live in are so very different.

That's what I usually do. Sometimes if you mount mirrors ahead of time, it becomes difficult if not impossible to paint and polish behind them. And with both the mirrors and the fin, I wouldn't want to place them onto a painted surface without a guide like a pin. In fact when you pin things onto a model, you can glue the pin in place on the inside of the body, assuring that you get no glue on your fresh paint.

I probably have around 1500 models. I would include unbuilt in box, built ups, and even parts kits and diecast in that number. I've been at it as an adult for 30 years, and had about 2 dozen kits I had saved over the years prior to getting back seriously. It's not tough to get to 1500 kits. Figure 30 years, that's like getting 4 kits a month. And that's pretty easy to do. There are months I buy nothing, but that gets averaged with the months I bought a dozen kits at a show. Back when I lived in NJ, I had a space crunch and had kit cases stored in the attic, in the void under the stair case and stacked to the ceiling in the corner of the model room, and a few other creative places. The problem with this is I had no idea how much I had, exactly what I had and where it may be. When I moved to PA, I moved the models myself. I know I filled Dodge Grand Caravan right up into the hightop FIVE trips! And being out of space, I did what any modeler would do.... I bought a bigger house! Now I have no issues storing my models, I have a 10x14 room in the basement I call the warehouse. All the kits are in cases, ends marked with contents like "1970s Fords" etc, so I find it pretty easy to locate a kit. I also have a huge amount of kits up in the model room that migrated there for a grok and managed to stay. I have no worries about building them all. It's a collection. It makes me happy to complete sets and series. And if I get the urge to build a specific car or truck I've seen somewhere, I have one in stock! In the end, maybe someday I'll have that urge to sell it all, or once I've fallen off my perch, it's my wife's problem!

I bought the '69 Pontiac to complete my year set of full size Ponchos. Right now the rest of the built ups I have in this series are neatly tucked away for future restoration. The plan for the set is to restore them to stock. I will have to see how it looks when I get it. I know one of the posts is broken, so I'll see just how bad. If the paint is really bad, I may just strip it now. Otherwise it will join the rest of the cars in that box!

Thanks guys! This was 2 years ago... the nested on the bend in the rain leader. There's an L in the house there, so we could take pictures from an upstairs window. This was last year... right on the window sill. Couldn't have had a better view. And right before they took off.

This little guy made my day! Every year we have a pair of Robins that make their nest on our house. The past few years the nests have been in spots where we could watch the babies. Last year it was right on an upstairs window sill. This year the poor Robins built three nests. One was on top of my spot lights, so I knocked it down because they would've gotten fried overnight. The second one was on a bend in a downspout and I found it on the ground. So I had no idea where they were nesting, although I saw the birds daily. The other day we found out, the nest this year is on a tree branch overlooking my deck. And today the last fledgeling left the nest! He fluttered down onto the edge of a flower box on the deck and sat there for at least an hour. The parent kept coming back and feeding him worms, until finally he took the leap into a bush and then to the ground. The last I saw the parent and child were running across the yard to the safety of the underbrush in the woods. Fledgelings leave the nest before they can fly and they hide in the brush until they figure it out.

This was on the TV screen as I read Rich's post! He's a few hours west of me, so I get his used weather... yea, I can't wait!

Wow! That's an odd way to transport such an expensive car... how did they get it up there? Series of ramps? Or once the owner was out of sight, did they just jam a fork lift under it?

I've had a big collection of Cuban car photos for a long time. I even have a paper book on them. I've had my ideas, but like Chuck, I haven't pulled the trigger on any of them. I've had my eye out for an unusual power plant... can anyone recommend a Russian diesel?? I've always been fascinated with the Cuban cars. The laws there limited car ownership, and these are legacy cars that couldn't be sold, but could be passed down to the next generation, obviously several times! "My grandfather was a taxi driver in Havana, my father was a cab driver in Havana, me too! Same car too!" And in a very poor country owning one of these is the ticket to employment. That's why you'll see convertibles and 2 door cars in taxi service. The Cuban government has opened up car ownership, and that's why you'll now see some of these for sale. They opened new car dealerships in Havana. I had read that a new Peugeot was something like $50-75,000 in a country where the average person makes $200 a month. There have been cars imported since the US embargo, mainly from their Russian trading partners and South America. I saw some Ford trucks in some of the photos that look like South American ones, and some old US school buses in some of the online photo albums. Of course the general media lauds these as a major hoard of valuable, pristine antique cars, but we know better. Most of these are so patched together that they wouldn't be desirable to American car guys.

I had been stalking 1969 Pontiacs on our favorite auction site for a while. Most of them were going over $50 and near $100 for old built ups. I finally got lucky and won this '69 convertible for $32.89 plus $7 postage. I also had a $12 eBay Bucks certificate so this one is coming my way for less than $30 complete. This was the last one I needed to complete my full size Pontiac year set.

Great story Mike, a special collection because of the connection to your youth and your brother. My story doesn't have that aspect! Many years ago a vendor of mine at work asked me to look at something in his trunk. I was amazed! There was a large TV box full of old models and promos all wrapped in old shirts. He said a friend of his found it on a basement cleanout of an old house. He said his friend understood if these were all mint in the box, they'd be worth money. But the kits were poorly built with the hoods glued shut. The promos were all poorly detail painted. So he just wanted to give the box to someone who would appreciate them. My friend told him about me and the deal was sealed. Box was transferred to my car and it was very difficult to work the rest of the day! This was in the 1990s so the kits weren't worth what they fetch today. Still, this became the core of my old built up collection.

Nice work guys! Glad to see the finishers! I'm still plugging away on the Manx.

So funny you should say that! My wife is convalescing from surgery and my car was at a local garage so I decided to walk there to retrieve my car... um, didn't realize it was four miles, but yea I did it! On my way I passed the local Mini Dealer.. many cars with 5000-15000 miles sitting there as used cars... a few thousand off the price of a new one. Makes ya wonder!

Just a demonstration of how easy it is to pull the few out with a simple comment.... "A lot of modelers will enjoy building it, never mind the few grumpy old me who enjoy the smell of their own farts on this board. Get real, it's a friggin hobby!" Just so out there that a few hare trigger folks just had to attack! Bill, I explained a while back how kits are developed from a price point backwards. The board was actually quiet for a few days. I thought maybe you understood, especially since I don't think you are stupid. From your posts you appear to be quite intelligent, but somehow you don't get the simple point... this is what you get for $25. 99% of the customers are very happy. The 1%, of which you belong will never be happy. The kit you request is maybe a $50-100 kit, and the market won't bear that. Understand that, and you will be a happier man! Well maybe... And Mike 51... you are just out there on your own. Good luck! Sorry to jump out but I have a 10pm meeting with my manufacturing folks in China!

Aside from the guy who blew his head off (news report said one of his friends was quoted as saying there was no reason to call an ambulance) a guy in New Jersey blew his leg off with ammo he shouldn't have been allowed to acquire. I'm sure there's a state by state injury report. I had posted earlier about a Pennsylvania law that allowed sellers to set up shop on border towns to sell to out of staters, but not state residents... as in what idiot approved this legislation? Especially since fireworks are illegal in the border states. I've since forwarded my opinion on this to our new no nonsense governor, Tom Wolf, and we'll see if I get a response. There's no reason for this stuff to be sold anywhere in the USA.

Mike, you are another one who has an awful lot to say! And really easy to get a response outta you too! And as I watched, you actually challenged Dave Metzner that you were owed some sorta bumper? Ballzy! Let's see who else from your tribe we can pull out of the woodwork! Yea, we be hunting wabbits!

Amazing how easy it is to pull ole Bill out with one small comment! Didn't take what, less than ten minutes! You are sooo predictable! Yea, Bill I'm talking to you. Buy the friggin kit. Start a build thread. Show us how smart you are!

I thought for a while that I only had the one flame job... then I remembered I owned this one! I didn't build it, this is THE box art car for that issue. I bought it from the GSL auction this year, as donated to them by Revell / Monogram.

Whoa! No skirts! Yea!

Chris, I really enjoyed your review. And you are right, it's an excellent kit for the price point. A lot of modelers will enjoy building it, never mind the few grumpy old me who enjoy the smell of their own farts on this board. Get real, it's a friggin hobby! Scott, I also agree with your post. Enough already! Some folks will suck the fun right outta anything! And frankly, I challenge the most vocal of the group to buy the kit and start a build thread here on the board. If you are so smart, and fix all the supposed issues, I'd really like to see that!

I will continue on with the Manx an hour or two a night this week. Of course I will have to keep working my circus of a life. Tomorrow is my first day back in the office, after staying home to take care of my wife for a month. Then with all that going on I'm way behind on my yardwork. With the rainy weather, the weeds are winning. Beds that I cleared out a week ago already have weeds an inch or two tall! A funny thing. Last night I lost a Cragar wheel. I looked for a bit, but gave up and went to bed. I have a second kit sitting there so I was just going to take one from there. This morning I did some wash. I go to move the wash from the washer to the dryer... what's sitting in the bottom of the washer? My wheel!

A guy in my club was all gung ho about doing a car carrier full of Ferraris... until we told him they didn't ship Ferraris that way!

I always wondered when people said red or yellow had come out in their paint job. Never had it happen to me. I have a junker Monogram Cord downstairs that is pink... who ever was building it sprayed it with an antique white color.