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I'm a retired Lieutenant Fire Fighter / EMT. Prior to working as a Firefighter, I also served in Law Enforcement for several years.
In following with our long line of family military service, dating all the way back to 1776, I'm a US Army veteran (tanker). I served mostly in the M-60A1 and eventually the M1-A1 series tanks. I was a crew member in the Abrams only for a short while.
My Dad was kind of like "Lt. Dan" from the movie Forrest Gump. Fortunately dear old Dad broke our "family curse" of having members killed in every major conflict that the United States has ever had. My Dad was wounded in the Korean War, and thankfully he was not killed. Otherwise I wouldn't be here if he was. I accidentally happened some years later...
My other hobbies include restoring old "Mopar" muscle cars from the late 1960's and early '70s. I also enjoy building aircraft in 1/48 & 1/32 scale, along with 1/35 Armor. I especially like the WW2 stuff. Lately I have been gravitating towards the First World War 1/32 scale aviation kits though...
I built my first model (Revell 1/32 P-40 "Flying Tigers" version) when I was 8 years old. I currently have about 700 kits ( of which about 1/4 are built).
We have had some great responses and participation with our Midway Group Build so far. I would like to open it up for even more builds.
Here's how:
Chuck Villanueva and I have been talking about another part of the Battle that is often [...]
Earlier this afternoon my Hien arrived.
Here's a photo of the box end...
Needless to say, I am very excited about it!
This new kit can be summed up in one word. FANTASTIC! Tamiya has produced another 1/48 scale masterpiece.
As [...]
Here's a few pictures of a kit I built as a kid. This model has somehow survived over all of these years...
Here's the background on the build:
Some dates in time, (for some unknown reason), just seem to stick with you. This is one [...]
Here's a few pictures of one of my earlier Tiger builds. This one was built about 10 years ago. I used the available Tamiya brand individual track links for this build, since I'm not a big fan of the one piece vinyl ones that came with [...]
It's official! Everyone is invited!
I received enough interest to go ahead and start the Midway build.
I wanted to give us all a good amount of time needed for our selections, research, and building, so I started it about 5 months ahead [...]
We will soon be upon the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Midway. The dates of this event will be June 4th, through June 6th, 2017. It's almost 5 months away from now.
I had an idea about another "Group Build" as a fitting [...]
This one is hot off the work bench. It's number two for the year, but I started it last year. I literally just finished it less than an hour or so ago...
I have been posting updates with the build progress here on Imodeler. I would [...]
I have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of the new 1/48 scale Tamiya Ki-61. To me, the Ki-61 Hien “Tony” is one of the most graceful looking Japanese WW2 planes.
I purchased the new Tamiya kit from a hobby shop in Japan and [...]
I have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of the new 1/48 scale Tamiya Ki-61. To me, the Ki-61 Hien "Tony" is one of the most graceful looking Japanese WW2 planes.
I purchased the new Tamiya kit from a hobby shop in Japan and [...]
I just finished my first model of the new year. This is the final one of the three Corsairs that I started last year. These planes were from my very first posting here on Imodeler.
I want to thank my friend Jim Sullivan for his assistance [...]