Saturday

Well, the odessey draws to an end.  Last night was the judging.  I can say I was very lucky.  I once again judged aircraft, and ended up on a good team.  Joe Youngerman and I judged together last year as well, and our third was a great guy as well, so our part went very smoothly.  Due to a large number of jjudges, we were done with the aircraft in about 3 hours.  Very nice.  But it did look like Tom got stuck with a bit of a slower team.  On the upside, at least he got his 10 year pin!  Congratulations Tom.

After judging, it was time to adjourn to the bar.  All I can say is that I stayed at least one Margarita too long.  The old noggin wasn't feeling too good when the alarm rang to get me out of bed for the business meeting.

The business meeting was actually pretty interesting.  The first order of business was talking about the plans for next year's 50th Anniversary of IPMS USA.  There are several cool things afoot.

First, every region is being asked to include a 50th Anniversary Theme Award in their Regional Show.  The national office will supply the award.  All they ask is that a photo of the winning model and modeler be submitted to them, and then there will be a display of all the pictures in Hampton Roads.  In  addition, a good number of foreign chapters have expressed interest in participaing in this.  It should be a really cool display at next year's Nats!

Second, we are getting great interest from manufacturers and other hobby businesses.  Squadron will be putting a 2014 Nats flyer in every mail order next year.  Several model manufacturers have expressed interest in putting some form of 50th Anniversary logo on their kit boxes next year.  And Airfix is apparently at least strongly considering issuing a special kit next year to commemorate the 50th Anniversary.

And finally, the organization is going to work hard to get all the print magazines to rin stories about IPMS and it's 50 year history.  All in all, it really sounds like plans for a spectacular year are coming together.

Once again, there is a link below to another set of pictures.  They are all taken with my iPhone, so you'll have to forgive me for some of the poorer quality pictures.   The other day I raved about the scratch built tractor.  Today I'll rave about a spectacular P-51.  It's the 1/48 Tamiya kit with EXTENSIVE scratch built detail in the engine, avionics, wheel, and gun bays.  I judged it last night and can tell you that like the tractor, pictures just don't do it justice.

Ok, so this is the link to today's pictures.

And now, it's off to dinner, and then the awards to see who gets to celebrate, and who gets to cry.  And then of course, it's time to pack the models, say the final good byes, and tell each other we'll see you next year.  I'll do my best to post how us local yokels did later tonight!