Tom Geiger

“They say that these are not the best of times But they're the only times I've ever known"

Correcto John! Bit o' trivia... back in the days when we put annoying sounds bits on websites, when you clicked on the first NNL East website (hosted on AOL) you'd hear "Hello! Hurray! Let the show begin! I've been ready!"

I like putting unusual dashboards in my models. Here's a cut down '53 Studebaker dash in my '34 Ford sedan. and a '57 Chevy dash in my '34 coupe!

I find the commercials silly, but I like the Darryl guy from the office so I'm okay with it. The commercials are for the general public just to give the Dart name recognition, with most of these folks never knowing that Dodge used the Dart name before. So when some young person says, "Hmmm, I need a new car." they'll think "Yea, I'll get a Dart like Darryl's!" And these TV campaigns work. When my daughters both decided they wanted to buy new cars, both of them told me they wanted Fords. My younger wanted a Focus and the older a Fusion... I was puzzled at first, then I realized that Ford was the sponsor of American Idol. And that's where they saw them. In the end, my younger saw the commercials for the Fiat 500 with Jaylo and wanted to be like her so she got that same white convertible. My elder did get her Fusion.

When CDs first came in, and everyone was dumping their record album collections, I was buying! I found nearly every album I ever wanted for a dollar or two apiece. And right about the same time CDs appeared, programmable turntables briefly were on the market, no doubt over powered by the rush to CDs. My father was the big audio guy, so he grabbed up two of the Kenwood KD75F programmable turntables. These are cool because they allow you to play the songs on a record side in any order you wish. They have track buttons on the front like CD players had. So you can press buttons to play the third song, then the first song and then stop playing. When you start it up, the stylus has an eye on it that remembers where the grooves are between the songs. It wasn't faultless, it would get screwed up on live albums where there was clapping between songs and such. You were also limited to one album side at a time, but it was so cool back then, even with the limitations of adapting something like this to old school technology. When my father died I inherited his so I have two of these, one in my den and one in the basement rec room. With my father always owning top notch turntables, I was taught to take care of my records at an early age. Because of this I have every album I ever bought, starting with the Beatles Let It Be album I bought when I was 12 in 1970. And I no doubt have bought hundreds more albums since the CD appeared than I had before!

A consultant came into the office this week with one of these.. it's a Pico overhead projector... well, you see the size. It's about the same size as my GPS. We all want one! Figure it will be built into the Iphone 7 or 8

Roll out! Roll out with your American dream and its recruits, I've been ready. Roll out! Roll out with your circus freaks and hula hoops, I've been ready.

You put your right hand in, You put your right hand out, You put your right hand in, And you shake it all about,

Kenneth, you have a kit that was tooled back in the 1960s when the main audience was kids, not adults. The kits back then had much less detail than you'd find on new tooling today. There isn't a radiator in the kit since it would be up front in the nose and almost unseen. I don't see how the engine could be off that much. I've seen built examples of this kit where it looked fine.

One of the New York City stations used to play this sound bite on a regular basis... Joey from Brooklyn calling in a special request, "Can you play Stairwell To Heaven?"

Thanks for the input. I know that Carfax is only as good as the info they get fed, my concern was the absence of information on the supposed government cars prior to them hitting the auction. So I guess that's okay, and I'll check that national government database prior to buying anything. I will also ask the dealer to prove the cars came from the federal government as they have claimed. They say they will provide full disclosure on the cars and I have no reason to believe they are scamming, since they provide free Carfax as you see above, some of which show some sins a dishonest dealer would want to hide. David, thanks for the opinion on the Certified Used Cars. Two years ago my daughter bought an off lease Fusion with 18,000 miles on it and it worked out well. One of the things I'm watching is that new car dealers are asking full Kelly Blue Book or greater for the 1-3 year old cars on their lots. And with current incentives on new cars, often a new car is a better value than that 1 or 2 year old car. So I'm weighing all options.

Kinda like the way guys on this board blame 99% of modelers for being happy with the products?

I've been working in NJ every day this week so I've been on the major roads like the PA Turnpike and Route 95. I've noticed a lot of antique cars being moved around on car carriers. Of course these are all going the opposite way in fast traffic so I have no photos. The other day I saw one of those pickup truck mounted 3 car carriers on Route 95, first car was a black early 60s Mercedes SL and the other two behind this were both 4 door Jeeps. Today I saw two different shipments. One car mixed in with modern cars was about a 1940 Studebaker. Later on a carrier breezed by me with a 46-48 Chevy fastback amongst it's load.

Steve didja now notice that he has over 7300 100 percent positive feedback? Seems that he'd be the one doing the laughing!

Of course I agree with everyone here. No need to register your models with this clown. But ya never know... back about 15 years ago there were people saying, "Nobody would ever auction bid for Pez dispensers!"

I have an original Mattel Vac-u-form machine. There is a company that makes the perforated sheets today. I use it mainly to make glass. I find that one out of three is good enough to use.

I've been looking for a new family car. I've looked at brand new cars, and all kinds of used cars. I have found a few higher end used car stores locally that have very nice cars at reasonable prices. They have buttons so you can view that vehicle's CarFax report, so the dealers aren't hiding anything. I've found it interesting to read the reports, and how complete some are. Original new car delivery recorded, a lot of service records, resale to the second and third owner... some cars have had accidents with no information, others with detailed information... "front damage - car towed from scene" and another one said "minor damage - car driven from scene". One even mentioned that the car had been repossessed. Some look down right suspicious... a 2006 Buick LaCrosse with 38,000 miles on it that I was interested in has a very short CarFax... First entry is "US Customs- Puerto Rico" Car exported from PR to USA." Next entry is the car being put into this dealer's inventory. I'm wondering why this car has no past history, I'm sure CarFax operates in Puerto Rico. Second, I'm curious why some entity would ship a car from there all the way to Philadelphia. I can imagine a car is more expensive in Puerto Rico or should've been exported to South America (which is really close!) where it would be worth a lot more. So I'm passing on this one! The salesman I spoke to said a lot of the 2010-12 vehicles that he has with 5,000-10,000 miles were bought from the government. There was a row of brand new last year Crown Vic Interceptors with 4,000 miles on each that had never seen any kind of police use. Other cars they had were Dodge Avengers, Pontiac G6s and Chevy Malibus and Impalas. Some of these cars had no CarFax information, prior to them being sold at auction to the dealer. Others showed no ownership information or past history, but had random service records like for tire repairs and oil changes at Pep Boys. Can anyone make heads or tails out of this? The LaCrosse: http://www.carfax.com/VehicleHistory/p/Report.cfx?partner=ECL_0&vin=2G4WC582161291783 One of the Crown Vic Interceptors: http://www.carfax.com/VehicleHistory/p/Report.cfx?partner=ECL_0&vin=2FAHP71V59X135805 A 2009 Focus with less than 7k on it: http://www.carfax.com/VehicleHistory/p/Report.cfx?partner=ECL_0&vin=1FAHP35NX9W224137 A 2010 Avenger with 4k on it, no history at all: http://www.carfax.com/VehicleHistory/p/Report.cfx?partner=ECL_0&vin=1B3CC4FBXAN180338 I'd consider buying the Avenger if I could be assured that nothing's up with it... thoughts?

A friend of a friend got hired on as a carpenter at a major show venue in New York City. They're setting up the booth partitions for a show, and he notices that they started at the wrong place and everything they're building is wrong. He says, "Hey guys..." and is immediately shut down by a supervisor... he knows it's all wrong, but someone in management told them to start "there". And they all know that the mistake will be soon discovered and they'll all get paid overtime to fix it!

As photographed at the 2000 Liars Show. If you see an interesting car, you can just about figure that someone's built a model of it!

And that's the story of America! Somehow the values of things changed so much that retail has become a part time / minimum wage thing, and like most things you get what you pay for. Inexperienced, disinterested employees. Back when I was a kid in the mid 60s, we lived in a brand new housing tract in Dayton, Ohio. Us kids loved to go to Sears because we'd see the father of my friend who lived next store. He worked there and we thought he was so important in his suit. That job paid for an entire American family. He owned a brand new house, had two cars in the driveway, a stay at home wife and a couple of kids. Somehow that same position in life requires two full time, college educated wage earners!

I've had a VC Ute on my bucket list from the first moment I learned they existed! Someday maybe I'll find one and import it to the USA. It sure would make a stir at car shows here. I'm at the crossroads of evaluating my fleet and maybe upgrading. My 1996 Grand Caravan is in the shop having a transmission replaced at 195,000 miles. The 1999 Breeze my wife is driving has 155,000 on it and the air conditioning evaporator needs replacing so I've been adding gas to it all summer. One shop said that half the dash needs to come out to get to it and wanted $700 labor, so that's not happening. So I'm at that point of making the next automotive decision. I take it pretty serious since I keep cars a long time. I've been doing the math on buying something cheap new and buying something for less than $10k used. I still don't know what to do here!

It's called "Deep Pocket Syndrome". You sue everyone you can think of. You don't want to go to trial, the goal is that some of these companies will offer a settlement to avoid going to court. A matter of simple economics for them, pay you a few dollars, save the big cost of a trial. It's become an American industry!

Greg- Here's your photos! Nice models! It's pretty easy to post Fotki photos here. Go to any of the page links you posted above... On the Fotki page look right above the photo and you'll see the word "Share". Click on it. A menu will appear. The first choice (and the one you want) is : "Image URL for use on other sites:" Right below that is a long line that starts out "http..." That's your photo. Put your mouse over that line of text and it will start to change color. Click on it and it will briefly turn orange. That means you copied the photo address. Now come over to the board.. right above where you post, there's a bunch of icons, one of which looks like a framed picture.. click on that, and a box will come up with "URL" and a box you can input text into below it. Put your mouse there, and right click. That will bring up a menu, look for "Paste". Click on that and the text you copied from Fotki will appear. Click the "OK" below that and your picture will appear in your post.

Okay, Scott's golf joke reminded me of this one... A priest in a small parish was an avid golfer. He got up one Sunday morning and saw it was a perfect golf day. So he decided to play hooky from saying mass for his congregation and snuck off to a golf course far enough away that he wouldn't be seen. St Peter alerts God to this misdeed and the two of them watched. The priest got to the first hole and immediately shot a hole in one. Same on the subsequent holes, he just couldn't do any wrong. He was ecstatic at the best golf game of his life! St Peter is perplexed and asks God, "He skipped church and you're letting him shoot the best game of his life?" God just looks at St Peter and replies, "Yeah, but who can he tell?"

I worked for my first company for 15 years. I bled their colors, worked all kinds of unreasonable hours and volunteered for more. Over the years I got top ratings and raise percentages. My hard work paid off. I was living the American dream! Then right after 911, a lot of companies used the recession as an excuse to do mass layoffs. Prior to this, one of the major insurance companies (I forget which one or I'd name them!) let go a lot of people over 40 and there was a lawsuit that got all the way to the Supreme Court for age discrimination. The company's defense was that all of the folks they let go were at the top of the wage scale and they no longer wished to pay that much money for those jobs. The fact that all of them were over 40 was just a coincidence. And our top court bought it! So when I got laid off, I was told it was because I was a high wage earner, in the top 25% of the pay scale for my position, and the company no longer wished to pay that much for that job. Well, DUH! you guys kept giving me raises for performance!