Tom Geiger

Happy Fathers Day to everyone! No yard work today! I may just fiddle with a model, yea that's the ticket!

My house was built in 2004. It also has an intercom system throughout, that we've never used. Ancient technology. If I'm upstairs or in the basement and my wife needs me, she calls my cell or texts!

Congrats Steve! I try to go to all the shows I can within my region, not to compete, but to see people I know, meet people I know from the boards, buy a few things from the vendors and have lunch with good people. I really like lunch! I bring models, but mostly just to share my work. We all like to see the models we watched get built on the boards in person! And every so often I win an award. Not my goal, but fun just the same!

Actually yes. I can press the main button on my iPhone, ask "Where Am I"? and the correct address comes back (with a map) within seconds. NEW home security systems may be! Mine probably went in when the home was new. It uses a land line to call in emergencies. Not that it's ever had to. We live in a safe area, but my wife feels more secure with the system. Still, I'm not replacing it.It works fine. Everything can be an App these days. I was told I can replace my pool control panel with an iPhone App panel for several thousand dollars... um, no.

UK / Aussie Guys- Here in the USA registration and inspection is governed at the state level. That gives us 50 different opinions on how it needs to be done. There are federal guidelines on emissions, states either comply with that or they lose federal highway funding. States are free to be tougher than federal law. Some states have no inspection at all. I'm originally from New Jersey and a few years ago they decided to relax the vehicle inspections. If you buy a brand new car, you don't have to have the car inspected for seven years. After that, there is no state inspection for defects, just an emissions check. And there is no fee for that at the state run facility. It's included in your $50 registration fee. There's a bill in the NJ legislature right now to eliminate the need to renew inspections. Two progressive state senators say the registration should be good for your entire vehicle ownership just like your title. They're argument is that it's just a money grab and not in the best interests of the citizens. I like these guys! I live in Pennsylvania now. The motor vehicle laws here are antiquated and pretty much in place to charge fees and set up political patronage. For instance, they have state agency offices around the state to issue drivers licenses, but privately run offices, owned by political appointees, to purchase license plates, register and title cars. They can't even title a car. Only the state agency in the state capital can issue a title! So these private offices provide "courier service" to bring your application all the way to the state capital, for a fee of course. You get your title in the mail in a few weeks. In contrast, in New Jersey, the same state office handles everything you could possibly need on the spot! Inspection in Pennsylvania is annual, both safety inspection and emissions. There are no state facilities, everything is done at private garages and costs around $100 on top of the $50 you already paid for registration. It's pretty much a money grab. The inspection is extensive and the private garage always makes sure there are repairs that need to be done. In my first foray, I was told they needed to replace two light bulbs for $20 each. If you refuse, they fail you and you still pay the inspection fee. Note that I had checked all my lights prior to going to inspection so they were being dishonest. With my wife's Buick I got them! They failed the vehicle for bad windshield wiper blades. I pulled out the receipt from the same garage less than 30 days old for wipers! They stumbled a bit and told me the wiper must have been defective and they'd replace it for free! They didn't touch the wipers, they were still dirty when I retrieved the car. Total dishonest and encouraged by the system in place. I recently had to bring in my 1991 Geo Tracker for inspection. They wanted to replace the front brakes, and when I presented them with a receipt from another garage for replacing those brakes less than 7,000 miles ago, they failed the car for "visible body rust". The car has minor rust on the rear quarter panel, just some bubbling which is still mostly paint color. I had to pay them anyway. I took the car to the garage that I use for repairs, that's not an inspection station. He took it somewhere else and it passed with flying colors. But I paid for inspection twice.

These guys sure look happy!

Someone was using soy sauce, the little packets you get with Chinese food orders. Then take green water color paint and dab it on.

Bingo! How many times have you heard someone say, "Go see it at the hobby shop (or insert other small store here), then order it online! And they say it like there's nothing wrong!

When we moved to PA we realized that we already used our cells for everything and the only time the home phone rang was for some sales call. We wound up getting a phone for our alarm system and didn't even put a phone on it. When I was looking for a job I realized the number was "in the book" (although my cell was used by me exclusively) and feared someone may try to contact me, so I put an answering machine on it. Well that phone rings day and night with nothing but sales and other pest calls!

Yea Bill, sitting on the board all day long, just examining every post for even the smallest error or misspelling. May not be stalking, but shows that you have absolutely nothing to do! And it must help your self esteem! So enjoy.... click, refresh!

This is Pennsylvania, close to Amish country... the cupcake fad is just starting here, LOL

I just voted for D. I tend to look at rods as if I was buying it as a 1:1 vehicle. I don't like most modern rods since they are still making new '32s in shops across the country and they just look so cookie cutter. And no Chevy engines! And I like that they didn't pop a '32 radiator shell on this one. I like the A look. I like the look of this car. I don't like big blowers, scoops and such that would get in the way of driver's view. I could live with this one, but if it was mine, I'd want the carbs a bit lower. I love the Olds Rocket engine, a great old school (dare I say traditional) engine. I also could live with a Caddy engine, Buick nail head, old Chrysler Ram Hemi etc. wouldn't be looking for record winning speed and acceleration, just a cool rumble and something drivable on today's roads. As such, I'd also like the exhaust to go under the car and add some mufflers! I want to cruise around town and not be a public menace. I do like the matte finish and although I'm not big into chops.. especially those mail slot ones nobody could sit in, I like this one. It just has the look. I like the wheel choice too. And I wouldn't want modern features like A/C... just crank that windshield open. I will get a rod one of these days. My preference would be a roadster pickup, with the attributes as described above. One of these days... right now my rod money will be paying for wedding next August!

True. There is a high cost associated with running a brick & mortar store. When I was going through my career transition, I actually spoke with real estate brokers and Hobby Town franchise. There was no way I could make the numbers work. But the irony is that one of the locations I inquired about was over $3000 a month in a local strip mall. What moves in there? A cupcake shop! I cannot fathom how they're going to survive.

I don't know if I've shared this episode on this board before. Above is my model room in my old house in NJ. Nice quiet little sanctuary, with everything in my reach. Watch the shelves... We were away for a weekend and I came home to this! The shelves came flying down. My wife spotted it first. This was on our anniversary and we had a dinner planned, so she didn't even tell me! She knew there was nothing I could do at that point and my day would be over! So she told me after we got home from dinner. My stomach turned! I immediately started wading through, it was like hoarders. Stuff filled the entire floor area of the room. I had to climb over things to get anywhere. And there was nowhere left to stack things etc. There was irony on several levels. The day we were leaving for our trip, we left to put our dog in the kennel and found it closed for several hours. So we returned home. My '53 Ford pickup Pyrite's Paddler was on the bench for a repair. I used that bit of time to do the repair and return it to my display case. Otherwise it would have been right in the epicenter! The next interesting thing is nothing spilled. No paint containers broke, glues were all sealed. So it was a dry mess. And nothing really got broken. As the shelves came down, things seemed to slide forward, rather than tumble upside down. Most of the unfinished project boxes were sitting upright and had their lids on. Even my multi drawer storage cabinets pretty much held their own. Stuff slid forward and filled the entire room. The magazines and other reference materials were probably the culprit, weight wise and shouldn't have been on the shelves. The issue with the shelf standards was that they were up with standard dry wall screws. The paneling thickness didn't allow them to get into the studs. That was 1960 era 1/4" paneling. It all did come down with some force. The bench stayed in place, but my wood chair was completely broken and flattened! We wondered just what that sounded like. Or if there was any sound at all since there was no one there to hear it? And after digging, this is what the top of my bench looked like. Note the sealed paint bottles. Now something ironic. Go look at the "before" picture and the position of the bottom shelf. That was a narrow shelf I used for paints and supplies. It came down straight and landed on top of a couple of eXacto knife set boxes, completely surrounding the '50 Ford pickup. The scissors on the hook severed the bumper cleanly. That is not a doctored photo. The pickup was on the bench for a repair. The white body is my Ranchero police car when it was in primer, also undamaged. The shelves did go back up on the wall, but with huge long screws deep into the studs. The books and other heavy stuff never went on them again. The same shelves are over my bench in my current home. Again with screws long enough that we joke that they can be seen through the siding outside! Moral of the story... make sure your shelves are securely in place. And don't think you are okay because they've been up awhile. These fell down after being in place for years! Imagine what could've happened if I was sitting there.

Steve, you still have much more in the way of benefits and protection than anyone in the USA. I used to work for an Irish company with significant operations near London. I currently work in Ireland, Italy and France. The employment laws are stronger, benefits better and in Italy and France everyone gets 30 days vacation to start. It's tough to coordinate meetings etc because someone is always on vacation! Where the company has outsourced a significant amount of their operations here in the US, the Euro governments have just told them "no" and they haven't been able to let employees go and hire another company to provide those services. No doubt there are good and bad in every system.

Love your storefront Steve! And with your name too! I need to do a photo background one of these days

Skylar, you made a comment in another thread that the Bandit Malibu kit was a bit rough, so you definitely don't want to get involved with this one. Ten times as rough. The resin casting practices back in the 1980s were very crude.

Great model Al. Nice to see your old friend come alive. Didja do the correct license plates too? As for the 1969 Lincoln, they are pretty scarce. Even if the tooling does exist, it would not be wise for Round 2 to release it. Model King had a hard time with the 1970 Buicks and 1971 Thunderbirds.

I think it would be much easier just to swap the noses on the two cars. Cut the bodies at the front of the door. Keep the A pillars with the doors. If the Elkie body is a promo, the hood should be molded in and that would be half the battle. It back up the splices with some sheet plastic glued into the inside of the body, especially since it would be a slot car and subject to crashes.

Give it a year... someone will find that Newhart Olds picture on Google and will come to this board hoping to buy the kit! I want one too Scott... that may be half a case sold!

Oooh! Look whose all upset! Guess I got a rise out of you! Game over Now go away!

Bill, don't think I don't notice that you stalk me on this board, and make snide comments after my posts. I choose to ignore your baiting, you will not get a rise out of me. There's no profit to spar with you. <ignore>

Not really. Done right, it takes lots of skill.

I guess I'm glad I missed the fireworks. I was busy making a living! Sad fact is that this is the very reason a lot of valuable hobby folks and industry insiders don't post on this board. And I'd expect one of the board pests to jump up and challenge this statement... How do YOU know that... because I know these guys, face to face in real life... and those are the opinions rendered.

Very cool story. Those promos look like they came out of the deep dark vault! And it will be very cool for you to restore them in the colors to match your uncle's cars. That will bring him great pleasure, and as you know it's much better to give than receive!