2013 IPMS USA Nationals

The Dumb (Ken) and Dumber (Mike) road trip.

The first idea that sounded good at the time was to drive. Note to self...20 hours in the car at 50 years old is WAY different than 20 hours in the car at 35 years old. Getting old sucks...and the trip home is REALLY gonna suck!  But oh well, we left Chattanooga at 6pm last night, and 21 hours later we pulled into the convention site at 1pm this afternoon. By this evening we were through all the registration hoops (a seamless and flawless process with pre registration, and had our entries on the tables. A quick pass through the vendors to get a feel for the landscape, a few hours of meeting up with guys we haven't seen for a year, and here are a few highlights of the entries as of about 5:30 this afternoon. 

Mark "The Duke" Deliduka (apologies to The Duke if I mispelled that) and his Magnum Opus Dora Rail Gun in 1/72.  If you aren't familair with Mark, I have three things to say about him.  First, he is a world class nice guy!  Second, he builds only 1/72 scale.  Third, he has more fun just building models than probably anyone else I know.  And fourth (yeah, I know, I said three things, but as noted at the start of this missive...I'm Dumber), he's prolific as all hell.  The rail gun is just one of his 100 entries this year!

 

Ok, that's all for now.  Highlights from yesterday.  Check back for more later!

A few new things we've tripped across....

From Horton Herrin, a cool look at the Mighty Eigth AF....

And something I tripped over ... a 19 foot wingspan RC B-36 with six pusher engines.  Who ever built and flies this thing has more guts, and money, than I do!

And a RC B-29 big enough it takes two guys with a radio each to fly it!

This RC B-29 has a 30 ft wingspan...and a short career...

And a monster RC B-52...with real jets...

And a different flight of that RC B-52...

Warning, things may be farther back then they appear in your mind...

Sorry folks, in a way it seems like only a couple weeks ago that we wrapped up ModelCon '13 on Saturday evening, and I flew myself and my shorts to Minneapolis on Monday.  And yeah, you do get some odd looks wearing shorts in Minnesota in January.  Go figure.

There's a few new things to check out for now.  Check the galleries page for some show pictures from this year, as well as some pictures of a recent trip to the National Musum of Naval Aviation.

I've uploaded all the newsletters I have to make them current.

And, there's a show flyer for ModelCon '14 on the show page.

A couple bits...

Well, the 2012 Nationals at Disney are in the past.  IPMS Pelikan Model Club did an OUTSTANDING job hosting the convention.  While everyone I saw was having a very good time, there did end up being some controversy regarding the venue.  For some, they simply refuse to step foot in the land of Mickey, for others it was too far to travel, and for many of the vendors, the Mou$e greatly reduced the amount of loose change that many modelers had to spend in the vending rooms.

But, again, it really was a very good show, and the Pelikans should be very proud of what they did!  Now on to Loveland CO for 2013!

On another note, I came across this link to the US Marine's publications library.  There is a GOLD MINE here for Marine Corps history.  I'd be willing to be there are hundreds of thousands of pages of free material and tons of great pictures buried in those pages if you're willing to dig.  I know I spent a good 2-3 hours downloading interesting looking PDF's.  Just make sure you've got some free space on your hard drive before digging in!

Marine Corps publications

This one is FUNNY...

And yes, I've certainly had similar conversations in hobby shops!