Ace-Garageguy

Time occasionally seems to slip, or the present to be just out of sight or around the corner from long ago...at least from my perspective.

I'm pretty sure there was no thought involved. A pretty smart psychologist once said that ONE way of grouping "there are two kinds of people" accurately is that there are 1) those who think ahead about possible unintended effects, repercussions, and consequences, and 2) those who don't.

Nice job. The proportions don't work with a lot of V-12 or inline-powered rods, but you pulled it off.

Ah, to be young again.

Today is shaping up to be OK...so far.

We have pretty specific outdoor fire laws here, one of which says no burning, period, during most of the warmer months, absolutely no burning of plastics etc. EVER, and no fires after 6:00 PM. And almost every week, some clown lights off his garbage fire around 10:00 PM, and if the wind is right, my house gets filled with acrid smoke pulled in by the whole-house fan I use to cool it. I've only called the FD once, at the last place, when I woke up at 3:00 AM during an "inversion" where there's a layer of dense mist close to the ground, and my neighbor's back yard was lit up with huge purple and orange chemical flames, and the stench was something unbelievable. The FD wasn't happy with that guy at all, and fined him pretty heavily. I actually enjoy the smell of burning leaves and small branches, permitted in the fall and winter, but invariably some bozo puts his household garbage replete with plastic...or a tire...in the fire, and toxic black smoke settles over the neighborhood.

I'm kinda surprised they didn't just say "whassamatter you? Our records show you drive a Jeep".

Butterscotch is a flavor I've never understood, because it doesn't really taste to me like butter and Scotch.

Cool stuff. I particularly like the custom Ford convertible nose treatment with the canted quads, and the '57 T-bird is one of the few restyles of one of those that doesn't spoil an almost perfect design.

I bought a decent (repaint) Alco RS3 in MEC colors not too long ago. It needs handrail and coupler and detail upgrades. It's amazing to me how much anything new in HO costs these days, but high-end stuff has always been pretty spendy. No wonder the model RR hobby has a rep as being for "rich guys". I really couldn't do it if I didn't buy mostly cheapo thrift shop/flea market and auction lots.

Hit a different "antique" mall on a whim and scored the only two HO models in the whole place, a powered HO Athearn "blue box" SD9 in SP "black widow" markings, brand new kit, complete with all the railings and bagged small parts never installed, absolutely perfect zero-time wheels, in an almost perfect box, etc., for less than 1/2 the typical selling price on the web for NOS... ...and an HO Proto 2000 steel center-cupola caboose in Maine Central livery; rough box, missing a couple small parts. I probably paid a little too much, but the MEC livery is rare, it really is a quality model with separate hand grabs, etc...and it looked lonely after I took the SD9 off the shelf next to it. Typical selling price for these is anywhere from $35 to $80 including shipping, I got it on the low end of that, so I'm happy. I normally wouldn't buy high-end RTR rolling stock for anything close to retail, but it followed me home. What can I say?

Back when I was your age, we had to walk to school 8 miles uphill both ways in the snow, barefoot, carrying 50 pounds of books and coal to heat the schoolhouse, with lions and alligators and bears around every corner, and after school we had to work 15 hours on the farm every day milking cows, collecting eggs, chopping wood, repairing the fences, and planting and harvesting, and then in summer with mosquitoes as big as eagles carrying off everything that wasn't bolted down, and the wells running dry so we didn't get a drink of water for months, well, I tell you sonny, you kids are soft.

Earth-rise is something I'd like to see from the moon, but the odds aren't great at this point.

NICE JOB.

"Off with their heads!!" would be one of my favorite commands if I ran the world.

All the above... PLUS...I build real cars for a living, but I'm very rarely paid to design and build an entire project MY WAY. The simple truth is that I never pushed hard enough to get to the point where guys like Foose and Barris and Giugiaro got to. Building models gives me that ability, in scale, and that's one of the reasons I kinda tend to sweat the technical details...like: would such-and-such work in reality? EDIT: Modeling also lets me have 3-dimensional representations of cars I could never possibly own at this point, but could look at all day, just like I never tire of looking at a very few specific women, sunsets, the ocean, etc. Cars like the Ford GT40, Ferrari "pontoon fendered" Testa Rosa and 330 P4, Porsche 917K, Jag XK13, Lambo Miura...you get the drift.

Leave and make like a tree.

Long live common sense and critical thinking; oops, sorry, wrong planet.

Since I was a kid, just about every time I've bought a kit based on the pretty box illustration alone, I've been disappointed by the reality of the contents. At this point in time, I've seen most everything, including oddball resin pieces and high-end short-run models, so I have a pretty good idea of what I can expect, no matter the manufacturer or how many times a kit has been repopped with different boxing, or how much a totally new release is praised...or condemned...online. That said, there are some "nostalgia" pieces I've purchased specifically FOR the particular box-art, and the momentary time-travel rush I get from opening a NOS something-or-other I first held in my hands decades ago. EDIT: Case in point...these are some of my favorite box illustrations of all time, and I've bought these specific issues just for the artwork (and yes, I know the '36 Ford is the side-panel).

"Room at the top" means there's always a place for excellence and achievement.

Name Game was one of the most annoying songs ever written about a bee by bo banana.

That box is the 1/32 scale 1956 Caddy kit. Build video below:

Agreed...and really the equal of any of the current stuff, including the Japanese offerings. It's an excellent piece of tooling all around.

Laser-eyed bears, oh my!

Of Mice and Men isn't a story about exterminators.