Tom Geiger

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!

It was a 1:1 called The Grasshopper The model is very true to the original. Don't know why they renamed the kit.

Most companies have done away with pensions, including the top 5 pharmaceutical companies, so there is no reason to stick around. Working in the same industry most people stuck with the same company because they were building on their pensions. People were eligible for a pension after five years, but hit the maximum at 25 years of service. Now I see people with 8 years changing companies because they have nothing to lose. On the flip side as was looking for a job at 55, I was told that the age discrimination wasn't as strong because companies were only looking at you to do the job they needed now, and fully expecting you to leave in 5-7 years.

In my career I found that my situation changed on the average of every two years due to changes in the company. So every time I got a bad boss or otherwise was in an undesirable position, I just dug in my heals and soon enough it changed again!

A blonde driver is speeding and gets pulled over by a blonde police officer, who asks to see her license. She gets flustered searching through her purse and pulls out a small pocket mirror. She sees herself in the mirror and thinks it's her drivers license. She hands it to the blonde police officer who looks at it and says, "you should've told me you were a cop! You can go."

The Surfite.. my favorite Roth car because it's so different than any other 60s custom. Based on a Mini Cooper chassis. The Deora! From the time I had the Hot Wheel car as a kid! I don't have a photo of the Fireball 500... anyone?

Great work so far Bill. That kit is another one I love to play with. I've since blacked out the front suspension as needed.

We must be channelling each other! I wound up going to Lowes this afternoon, who only had one, and then to Home Depot across the road for the two I needed. Old ones were kinda crusty!

I saw the Tucker that's part of the Smithsonian collection. Apparently the US government confiscated this one in a federal case.

My father used to say, "Some folks just enjoy the smell of their own farts." Kinda fitting on those complaint threads. My favorite... there will be a rant that the manufacturers are not doing anything to attract kids to the hobby. Then Revell announced a couple of simple kits aimed precisely at that market, and the rant began that the kits weren't complex enough for the adults. Can't have it both ways!

Another one of mine... the old Monogram Green Hornet kit. Above is a box stock build that I bought from a friend as you see it. I also own this one, which was built by NJ modeler, Mike Havranek, who passed away a few years ago. I bought it from his estate sale. Here's one of my works using this kit. I used the chassis as a base to build this Beverley Hillbillies kit version. I've played a bit with this chassis on a bunch of different bodies.... Model A or '32 roadster body.. Model T phaeton body.. everything seems to fit and maybe cause one more model to be built! This pickup from the Revell Model A pickup / woody wagon kit... I actually have this one in progress with it's own chassis coming too. Same with the shortened woody! Note that I left the length that I cut out of the body as a sun visor. I have the above two in progress with different engines and such. The pickup will have the Ford flathead from the Tom Daniel Pie Wagon, with the three carb scoops. The other may have the '53 Studebaker kit's hemi with the dual blowers. Just having fun, and I have another 4 of this kit on my shelf just waiting for more inspiration.

Funny thing as we look at used cars. I decided to not buy a new car with a payment, but to find something a bit less that $10k and pay cash for it. A few of the cars currently in the running are GM. I looked them up and they are surprisingly trouble free and had very high consumer ratings on Kelly. Cars we saw yesterday include the 2006 Buick LaCrosse that I had mentioned earlier on the board. It is blue, and was a bit darker in person than we expected. It has 40,000 miles on it. I talked to a guy getting out of one of these at a store this past week and he was very happy with the car. Said he bought it new and never an issue. Then on the same lot are a 2007 Cadillac CTS with 61,000 miles and a 2004 SRX with 58,000 on it. Both are very nice looking cars and within my financial targets. Guys on this board approved of the Buick, but should I avoid either of these Caddys? Same lot has a 08 Lincoln MKZ with 62k on it and an 07 Chrysler 300 with 49k on it...

Sunny fall day here west of Philadelphia! It was cold in the house when we woke up so the wife fired up the furnace for the first time. Which means I'm making a Lowes trip to get some new furnace filters. I still have an outside decking paint project I haven't finished. Seems every time I have time it rains. Good day to get a few hours in!

Nice '58s John! I'm a '58 too! I'd love to see Revell do a '58 off the new '57 kit. Everyone is expecting a Ranch Wagon or Ranchero. Wouldn't it be grand if they threw a curve ball and came out with a '58 instead?

We got our new Sleep Number bed on Friday. We have slept in it two nights and it's pretty cool. First, we got a king size, much bigger than our old bed so it is great to have a lot more room. It's so wide that it looks square! The past two nights we've been playing with the settings, trying to find the most comfort. Salesman said it would take a week or two to totally figure it out. Now the fun part... the bed is connected into our wide area network! Nothing like having a bed on the Internet. I can check in from my computer or phone ap and see how we slept last night. Complete analysis. It even tells you how many times you got up in the night. My wife thinks someone is watching!

Saw this one on our little jaunt to Delaware yesterday. A Ford Flex woody complete with surfer decals on the side glass! The license plate read "PILE IN". No doubt an available aftermarket kit, but it looked soooo good! We were out for a drive looking at cars yesterday and this one was at a dealership. I have no idea how many miles or how much they are asking since the dealer was closed. But it is my favorite little bugger, a much newer Tracker than mine, and in my favorite color!

Maybe.... there is a company in New Jersey, IDA Automotive that made some pretty realistic Tucker replicas on Cadillac chassis!

Models have benefitted greatly from the age of CAD generated tooling. Just look at any of the recent offerings from Revell or Moebius. But it comes down to budget. The model company budgets for each new kit is very low, in fact I'm amazed that they get it done for those numbers. On the other hand video game companies have millions of dollars to invest! So they can spend a lot more on their product. In fact these companies have so much money that they sponsor their own professional game teams. A friend of mine's daughter is a paid professional player. And the good ones make six figures!

Work ethic is something that's learned by example. My father was an army officer, and once retired held responsible jobs in industry. I was expected to be productive at an early age. Back when I was young, the family rule was that you had to accomplish something for the family every day. My father would come home from work and ask, "What did you do today?" and I'd be proud to answer that I had mowed the lawn, vacuumed the living room or washed the car. It was just a given and I'd feel guilty if I hadn't been productive that day. And I still get that feeling today! My father also taught me the value of a dollar. My house was a comfortable life. We always lived middle class, never went without a meal or decent clothes, but if I wanted extras and spending money, there was no allowance. I had to go out and earn my own money. So from an early age, I mowed lawns, washed cars and did other neighborhood chores. I earned my Raleigh Chopper spyder bike a dollar at a time. My father taught me how to gauge my spending, "Think about how much work it took you to earn that money, then decide if that item is worth that much work!" I still do that! So I wound up with a strong work ethic, that I tried hard to pass on to my daughters. Both of them have good jobs, pay their own way in life and have earned things like new cars. The oldest followed in my shoes buying a low mile 2 year old Ford Fusion for cash that she had saved. My younger daughter shares my passion for cars and put 50% down on her new top of the line Fiat 500 convertible. The dealer was impressed saying that they rarely see young people with a large down payment. Both of them are frugal and have money in the bank. And we have friends who were never responsible, had the work ethic of Homer Simpson and never respected money, spending to the limits of their credit limits. We watched them flop from one disaster to another over the years, and they didn't realize that their kids were watching and learning too. Those kids mimic the same behaviour today. Enuf Said!

Or the ones that have tabs on one end and just snap into place without glue. As I build I try to engineer the body and chassis to fit close, so they don't require glue. Sometimes I've glued strips of evergreen on the inside of the body between the wheel wells, at the height that the chassis should mate up with them. I like that just in case I need to take them apart to fix something.... yea, I've done the interior repair through the side window thing way too often.

What school did you go to? Early on I let both of my daughters know that they were going to college, no ifs ands or buts! I also told them that I would pay 100% for state schools, and if they wanted to go to Harvard, they'd be paying the difference. New Jersey has great colleges and my eldest graduated from Rowan and my younger from Montclair. As a result, both are nicely employed and self sufficient. Cost? About $20k a year... maybe a few more and a few less depending on the year and the living situation. I had saved all their lives, and paid cash for their education. Best investment I ever made. I see a lot of the young folks we know that have no income and no plan. Some of them still see themselves as teenagers, still living at home and spending all their money on goodies. Blame the parents. My older daughter never moved back home after college. She just wanted to be on her own and pay her own keep. My younger had no choice, we were moving to PA and she wanted to stay in NJ. They live together in a small house where they pay all their own bills. Neither asks for money, both bought nice cars, and are quite proud they are making their own way.

Since folks were posting pictures of their AMT '32s... Here's my Vicky, of course I opened the doors and did the flip nose myself. A bit o' trivia.... when I was building this I cut up a second body to make the window surrounds you see on the door. I have them in the rear sides and rear glass too. Something you'd never see on the body, when I cut them apart and mated them up with the window on the opposite side of the body, they were different sizes / shapes! I had to massage them to match. So you could tell that the tooling was done by hand in the old days, kinda like the antique night stands I have, where the hand made drawers won't interchange between them! And here's one of those eternally in progress projects. A '32 Ford Doodlebug. It has a Model A 4 in it too.

As long as you have some of that special Johan brand oil that doesn't leak out of the axle hole through the pan!

Cool! I've always been a Celica fan ever since a teacher of mine took me for a spirited ride in 1972. I own a 1995 Celica GT convertible. I have bought all the Celica kits I have seen. I'll have to keep an eye out for that one!