Ace-Garageguy

Like most things in life, your experience at any particular service establishment is going to depend 100% on the competence, skill, and conscientiousness of the individual who does the work for you on any given day, whether it be a mechanic, an optometrist, a plumber, or a plastic surgeon. Diplomas and plaques on the wall are no guarantee of competence either. For instance, I can think of two guys right off hand who have every ASE and I-CAR certification it's possible to get, and I wouldn't let either one of 'em work on a junk lawnmower I'd bought at a pawn shop for $20. Ask people in your location if the WallyWorld optometrist there is any good.

Better Than Bullion is really pretty good, and much more cost-effective than canned beef broth etc., but ONLY IF you use it up before it starts going green and fuzzy.

Yup, that's the Flintstone 550 kit, but if it's represented as the "James Dean" car, that's incorrect. The most obvious deviation from the Dean car is the lack of the louvered access hatches and helmet fairing on the real one. There are multiple other issues with the Flintstone kit. EDIT: Even with all its warts, the Flintstone kit can be built into an attractive model.

More tools with more capability or more convenience is always more gooder.

All very true, but in aviation there's no room for oopsies, whatever the cause. That's why there's redundancy in critical aircraft systems, sometimes even triple redundancy...and that's why there is supposed to be accountability for EVERYTHING ever done to something that flies, why the mechanic has to sign off on his work, and why his work is supposed to be double-checked and verified by the guy above him. There is a very real reason for the old joke that "the airplane is ready to return to service when the paperwork weighs as much as the plane"...but chimps filling out forms doesn't guarantee things are done right in the first place, unless EVERY said chimp in the chain is competent and conscientious. Boeing used to be the world-standard for safe, reliable aircraft. After the last 737-Max MCAS software-engineering mess resulting in two major crashes and hundreds of deaths, and the apparent ongoing QC issues with assemblies coming from Spirit Aerospace, and the failure of the QA/QC chain at the main Boeing plant to catch SEVERAL instances of missing or loose door-plug hardware on SEVERAL aircraft...well, not so much. And the top management is ultimately responsible for any oopsies committed by his underlings.

Nice. More light is gooder.

Promos as a general rule had neither opening hoods nor engines.

In this case, the "repair shop" was the main Boeing plant, where the door was removed for access to replace incorrectly installed rivets...that were installed incorrectly at the Boeing subsidiary Spirit Aerospace while building the fuselage. (Apparently poor QC/QA is an ongoing hallmark at Spirit Aerospace.) The fuselages are built at Spirit, trucked to the Boeing plant for assembly to the wings and other major components, and final assembly. Somebody at the main Boeing plant caught the poor work on the rivets, but somehow missed checking correct reinstallation of the door plug. I've worked as an A&P in general aviation (smaller private aircraft), and EVERYTHING I did was supposed to be inspected and verified by the next guy up the line, the IA (Inspection Authorization Mechanic). In some of the facilities where I've worked, some of the A&Ps and the IAs were grossly unqualified or just plain slackers. I was amazed at one shop where a licensed A&P (how this guy got a license I'll never know) put brake pads on a Cirrus in BACKWARDS, and nobody caught it until the aircraft owner was taxiing away from our tie-down area, and came back wondering what the "grinding" sound was on his just-100-houred half-million dollar airplane. Good thing he was a pilot who was sensitive to the feel and sound of his plane too, because a Cirrus cabin is not a quiet environment. In another incident, an A&P with a fake license (who had previously been employed by the shop I was talking about above) failed to reinstall bolts in the aileron linkage on a big twin during a 100-hour inspection, resulting in a fatal crash shortly after the next takeoff by the owner. One of the reasons I left working on GA aircraft was the (sometimes) slovenly approach to performing the extremely high quality work I'd assumed I'd be expected to provide. Some of the work I've seen on composite parts and structures in GA aircraft is so bad as to be truly beyond belief. I have, on the other hand, worked with some very highly-qualified, competent, and conscientious people in GA (general aviation), but sadly, they are not in the majority (at least in my experience).

Called home from overseas once, and there wasn't anyone there who'd ever heard of me, or that she even had a husband.

Birds and squirrels (and sometimes lizards) are nature's cat-toys.

"Service with a smile" was a slogan used by gas stations back when dinosaurs roamed the earth.

"Fire in the hole" isn't what you want to hear just as you connect the last detonator.

Double kool. Maybe even triple.

Let me make your day...while comparing your work to my body shell here last night, I noticed the rear fender kickup starts on the door on this model, but starts at the shut-line on the real ones and the Italeri version. It makes quite a noticeable difference in the top curve of the rear quarter panel if you correct it.

"Invented pants and the internet" would be a pretty impressive bio entry.

Beautiful model.

Some of the listings say 1/18. But the issue is at least two of the sellers of this "decorator art" refer to them as made by Bburago, a blatant lie.

Anyone not living under a rock most likely has heard of the recent Alaska Airlines 737 door-plug blowout incident. The FAA/NTSB findings are in on that particular oopsie...after inspections of subsequently grounded aircraft revealed missing or loose fasteners on several of them. 1) Spirit Aerospace, a Boeing subsidiary that builds 737 fuselages, buggered the installation of several structural rivets in the vicinity of the door. 2) The door was subsequently removed at the main Boeing plant to gain access to the rivets to correct the issue. 3) When the door was reinstalled, the retainer bolts were left out. 4) Nobody in the Boeing QC chain caught it. 5) This should be impossible if everyone in the chain had been doing his or her job. I'm impressed.

Keg root-beer from independent producers like 1919 and Fitz's can bring real old-fashioned flavor to picnics.

"Man" was once a word that had a pretty much universally understood definition.

I think it's one of those "artistic interpretations, because models don't look right if they're scaled correctly" scenarios we hear so much about.

So...ummmm...let me see...everything I've read says this stuff won't feed from the pens reliably, stays sticky, fingerprints, turns to muddy silver if you clear over it, and doesn't look that great anyway. So what's the point of using it?

Cook those two hundred dollar sneakers, or if you're really hungry eat 'em raw.

Real pretty.

Unscratched is the way you ought to leave scabs.