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After 17 years as a social studies teacher at a small, rural Junior High School in central Texas, I retired at the end of the 2016 school year. I started that career at age 45. Prior to that, I was a professional painter and prior to that, a sheet-metal mechanic/tinsmith. I am married, and my wife Jackie and I have two children, Ann, 42, a financial advisor and Carson, 40, a Mechanical Engineer.
Our kids have now provided us with two grandsons, Ann and her husband Robert had a baby boy on August 11 2014, John Carlos ("Johnny") Huerta and Carson's wife Amanda delivered their baby boy, Sullivan ("Sul" or "Sully") on the following December 18. Needless to say, they are both beautiful babies and yes, the grandparents are somewhat STOKED, lol!
I am glad to add an update. My first grand-daughter, Nora Wade Brantley, was born Nov. 8, 2016. Of course, she is beautiful (looks a lot like her brother Sullivan). Just one more blessing in my life!
And yet another update- our second granddaughter, Chloe Marie Huerta, was born on Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, 20017 and now is 4 years old and counting...
My other hobbies include shooting and collecting firearms, music, reading and hot-rod cars and motorcycles. I also assist (read: doing the heavy lifting, lol) with my wife's antique business. We bought a brand new 47 HP 4WD Kubota L4701 tractor in Sept. '16 to use on our ranch in the country, "Brokenoak". I've been busy and having a lot of fun as a Country Squire out there. Yes, life can get rather hectic for ol' Squire Brantley! 🙂
When I was 13-14 years old, my family and I lived in Geelong, Victoria, Australia, where my Dad worked for ALCOA ( in Geelong 1966-67). My passion then was slot car racing! I had two commercial tracks within 100 meters/yards of our house. Oh man, did I have fun over there! Hey wait, that was over 50 years ago?!?! Wow, where did the time go? 😉
The model is the Monogram 1/48 Mirage 2000, the instructions are dated 1986. I built the kit somewhere between '93 and '95. It had never been photographed at all until last Tuesday. When it was built way back then, I had very little [...]
This is my second Tamiya kit to finish and it was well-engineered and thoughtfully designed. I started this Skyray about three years ago, only to put it aside about half finished. I returned to it about a month ago and pronounced it [...]
I have always loved the lines of the Northrop F-5A. Sleek and elegant with that great area-ruled fuselage, it is a real classic. This model is the one that was built concurrent with my Iraqi MiG-21MF. The kit is the ancient Testors [...]
Inspired by the outbreak of Desert Storm, or Gulf War One, I built this MiG-21MF in Iraqi markings and camouflage. So, it's been languishing in the display cabinet since way back then, with no airport pictures taken. Even though it's more [...]
This is an older build that I finally got around to photographing last Thursday. I took it and several other models (see the Bell AH-1S Cobra) to another small-town airport, the Coffield Regional Airport in Rockdale, Texas, about 20 [...]
Here's a build that's 15-20 years old but I had never taken it to the airport until last Thursday. It's the old Monogram kit from 1986 and mine is painted in Israeli livery. It's pretty much OOB but I did add a bit of screening to the [...]
I thought I had posted these pics before but it seems that I haven't. With that in mind, Tom Cleaver's generous compliments in the "Monograms at the airport" thread" moved me to show the few pics that I do have of this [...]
In keeping with recent contributions, here's a collection of some of my 1/48 Monogram planes all photographed at the Cameron, Texas airport. I think most have been previously seen here as individual posts but here they are as a group. [...]
Tom's fine looking Panther and great story inspired me to dig up a few pics of my modest effort. An older build that finally made it out to the airport. This is the 1/48 Panther, painted with MM gloss dark blue. I would've liked to take [...]
This was my first Hobby Boss kit. I started in earnest last fall and hit the first "snag" soon after. I had to repaint the seat several times to get the effect I wanted and stopped construction for several weeks. The I took up [...]
