Tom Geiger

PJM Interconnection is the company that controls the power grid on the right half of the USA and Canada. I was invited to a business meeting at their Norristown, PA facility. In the lobby of their conference center was a Mini Cooper that was part of their research. Total electric car. In their presentation they shared their vision of the near future. They fully expect to fuel electric vehicles via air waves. And they see the millions of cars that will be out there as part of the power grid. They see these cars as power storage devices to the grid, that can be accessed at times of need. They expect to be connected to every vehicle, and they will know your usage patterns, and when and how much power you will be needing. So if there is a power emergency on the grid, they can tap into your car to help fill in that void. And once it's passed, they'll top off your tank once again. But knowing your usage, they will never leave you empty when you are leaving work. And they predict the ability to be charging vehicle batteries on the fly, as you are driving. The future will be very, very cool and way beyond your wildest imagination!

Sad to say all the drive in theaters in New Jersey are long gone. The land was just too expensive. Movie companies knocked them down and built large multiplex theaters that could show many movies at the same time, all year around. Plus there was enough land left to build a shopping center! Ah, progress!

That's why Tesla just open sourced it's patents on their charger / battery technology. They have been installing chargers at a mad clip. I've seen them at the local shopping mall, rest stops on the PA Turnpike and there's even two outside a small local restaurant. My cousin has owned a Tesla 3 months and has put 9000 miles on it so far. Not locally, but driving from PA to Maine, South Carolina and as far west as Detroit. The GPS built into the car plans out your course to accommodate when and where you will need to charge. He said he's never had a problem getting a charge, and it's never been less convenient than while they were eating a meal on their trip. Just like we couldn't have imagined the Internet, smart phones and the like 20 years ago, we have no idea of what technology the future holds!

The tough part is that these are small charges that aren't worth engaging a lawyer. Most go unchallenged because it's too much trouble to fight considering your only contact is with rude people in some foreign land that pretend they don't speak English. And you aren't going to fix them, that's their predator profit program. Yea, they break laws on purpose. There is a mortgage processing company called Ocwen that took over all the GMAC business when they failed. Ocwen has the worst customer service rating the BBB has ever given out. They have many class action suits against them and lose them regularly. They have been convicted of fraud over and over, and just pay the fines. Still the government has allowed them to exist, and continue to pull scams on their clients. Nobody ever chooses to have their mortgage serviced by Ocwen, mortgages get assigned to them by the actual lien holder. Try fighting a charge with them.

Finding out that my Sub Zero refrigerator just spit a compressor! That's a $1000 repair for sure. Having restaurant reservations and being told we'd have to wait 5 minutes. We were seated close to an hour later. We had requested an outside table, on one of the nicest evenings of the summer. The manager apologized saying that tables weren't turning over as they should. He point to 'our table' where everyone had left, but one guy was still sitting there playing with his phone. We finally get seated and my wife points out that two young women at the table next to us were being served food when we got there an hour ago. The two of them were sitting there chatting and nursing glasses of water. We were there an hour and they finally left a few minutes ahead of us, having had their bill paid a long time, The manager kept walking past that table, and the waitress didn't offer them water refills and actually grabbed the glasses as they finished. That didn't phase them at all, they just stuck to their guns hogging the table, totally clueless that there was a whole lobby and bar full of people (with reservations!) waiting for a table. That's why I couldn't be a restaurant manager... I would've dragged them outta there! Numpties!

Inflation again! A hulk is worth $500 in scrap metal alone. And those $100 cars are now $1500! On the other side of it, anyone who can fog up a spoon can lease a brand new car. So a lot of kids just go for that $199 lease special.

This happens over and over. I've seen stories like this many times over the years. One guy actually had an apartment full of mail he never delivered. Been there! Yes, you wind up responsible. No way to prove you didn't get it. I had a problem with my Paypal credit card. They refuse to send a paper bill, they send a bill by email. And when you don't use that card every month, you're not looking for that bill. I wound up late and went through all my received email and it was never there. No doubt AOL dumped all their bills as spam. I called to complain and their line was "you should know"... whether they bill you or not!

This is the technology curve, completely separate from inflation. I remember my friend Larry got the first Beta-Max VCR in our neighborhood. He paid something like $1200 for it. I waited a bit and got my first VHS machine on sale for $499, a top loader with a wired remote! At the bottom of the curve you could buy VCRs for $50. People have pointed out that your smart phone has more power than the computers that sent Apollo to the moon. I had the very first computer in my neighborhood. I was working for a huge food company in 1986 as a consultant. I had found a better job, quit, but agreed to complete their CAD application. So two computer geeks came to my house to 'install' an IBM AT, then an $8000 machine. The first thing I did at my new employer to start a CADD department, was to buy two Apollo mini-computers for $200,000. A year later, the next version had twice the power and was half that cost. And technology continued to march on from there... my $500 laptop has more power and storage than any of those machines!

Or if you have the magazine handy, see who has the photo credits in the article. That should be someone we know who would be easy to contact.

Marketing 101... stores must mark stuff up a minimum of 100%, which is referred to as a "key". A while back I did a real analysis on opening up a hobby shop. I realized I'd have to generate $20,000 a month in sales. A little store front in a suburban shopping center is over $3000 a month. I go to a lot of shows. There are several dealers competing in the $15-20 range for new kits. Of course they are not paying the costs of running a retail store front. You can always find cheap kits at shows, resales and close outs from dealers who buy collections and collector/builders thinning their hoard in the $5-10 range. In fact at the two clubs I frequent, guys regularly bring a case or two of kits to unload within those numbers.

I had an eBay package show up in 48 hours... I paid on Paypal 11:30 am on Monday, it showed up about noon on Wednesday, California to Pennsylvania. The best on was when I ordered a camera from NJ, 24 hours... that one was funny because the seller said 8-10 days, and wanted big $$ for expedited delivery, which I wasn't paying. And then they had it here immediately anyway! Pitty the suckers who paid!

Aha! I thought that color looked awful familiar! I went back a few pages to discover it's the same TS22 Light Green that my Chevette is painted. Perfect color for a 1970s-80s small car. BTW, this Chevette is a replica of my sister-in-law's first car, lime green and all!

Looking over your shoulder for Chris Hanson?

I never knew the battery was in the trunk! I did learn a lot about the Mini from watching the Wheeler Dealer rebuild !

They think you voided the warranty since you modified it! Actually I've had the pleasure of meeting a lot of industry folks and I can say that they are all passionate about their products and do their very best to bring the right things, in as much accuracy as possible, to market. They fight the same things you do on your job... not enough hours in the day or manpower to do everything you want, working within budgets and time constraints, logistics, laws, working with sub-contractors and all those other pesky reality things.

I had been looking for this and the van version of the Heller Mercedes 170 for a bit now. I was looking more for the panel, so I bid low on this one and was pleasantly surprised. I like these old Heller kits of Euro subjects. Full detail kit, and fiddly as if it was an early 60s Revell kit, but what a cool old car! Now the interesting part... I bid on this you know where. Paid via Paypal on Monday at 11:30am. Seller is in California, I'm in Pennsylvania. It showed up on my doorstep around noon today (Wednesday). 48 hour service across the whole country. Can't beat that.

Here's the gas tank in my 1/25 scale Politoys Mini. Note that there is a flat floor and no spare tire. Was there a flat floor cover over the spare in a 1:1 Mini?

Wow! www.badastronomy.com... they had the Internet back in 1969! I guess Al Gore didn't invent it after all!

Amazing detail and work on this conversion kit! We need a build thread from you now!

Sorry to say these are long gone. Otherwise I would've included photos.... they'd make good Barbie community mug shots!

Rusty- I see you are new to the board so I wanted to share a link with you: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=86629&hl=+cruz,%20+jeep This thread shows a copy of that Jeep Rubicon that was built by Marco Cruz. It really builds up to be a very nice model. The background on this kit is that Revell converted their previous diecast Jeep into this kit, thus the curbside aspect. It was either this way or no kit at all. A budget thing, and reality in our very small market. Many of us are very happy to have some new releases as curbsiders, it gives us an opportunity for a fun build and a chance to practice paint and finish technique. Let's face it, a lot of modern cars don't have all that much showing under the hood with engine covers and such anyway. Some guys use these as slump busters. And of course if you really need a full detail kit... you can always go the kit bash route and add your own engine!

I'd say the same thing about the first time I saw a Tamiya kit probably in 1987! I had been building as an adult maybe a year when I went on a business trip to Denver. I had been buying American kits and thought that the underwhelming quality at the time was all that existed. I ventured into a hobby shop and bought a Tamiya Ford Sierra. My bro-in-law was a shade tree mechanic and one of his customers had a Merkur XR4Ti. In the cold weather I'd let him work out of my two car garage, so I fell in love with this car. So I bought the kit. I got it back to my hotel room and opened it. I was immediately amazed by the organized sectioned box. The body sat in it's own area, and I remember the chrome tree and tires being in their own compartment as well. The rest of the trees were in a larger center area. Each tree and group of parts was packaged in their own clear plastic bags. The parts were all neat and clean and there wasn't any flash or even mold seams to speak of. I had found a whole new dimension! I was impressed. I even wrote a model club newsletter bit about it, saying it would be cool if every kit was done like this someday. And it's pretty much happened!

Back when I was a kid, there was lore about a fatal accident that happened right before I moved into town. There were a bunch of stories that circulated, and of course the stories got taller as time went on. It was a 1969 Road Runner that looked worse than the subject of this thread. There was a story about a girl who got out of the car in my neighborhood, saying they were driving crazy, right before the accident. It couldn't have been true since I now know the car was headed the opposite direction. Finally about a year ago I was on a Facebook group about growing up in my town. I asked if anyone remembered a 1972 fatal accident and within minutes someone shared the above news clipping. Seeing it for the first time discredited a lot of the stories I had heard over time. And it's amazing the power of the Internet to produce something instantly that you wondered about most of your life!

I always say if you gonna drive something odd, you may as well go all the way. I always said that if I bought a Pontiac Aztek, I would've got the bright yellow one with black stripes! It looked like an angry bee!

I saw that.. a full selection of wood crosses in all kinds of sizes, all primer white.... like the ones people put on on the road. And I was trying to be sooo good! My first thought was, 'If the dog dies, I know where I can get a cross for his grave." Then I thought about it a minute... I don't know if Ted is Christian.. never thought to ask him!