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LRandel

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Everything posted by LRandel

  1. Update--as promised the parts arrived from Moebius within just a few days of sending them the $4.95 for the new tracks and tires. I have not tested the rubber parts to see if they react to plastic but I am going to trust Moebius did their homework on the chemistry. The new chassis parts are a light grey color but thankfully not chewed up as the original parts in the box were. I want to than Moebius publicly for their prompt and efficient responses and for their fast shipping of the replacement parts.
  2. I only recently discovered Moebius Models had rereleased the 1/24 scale Lost in Space Chariot in November 2015. I had purchased an original released model from 2008 and found that the tires and track were in the same bag as the lower chassis parts and the rubber produced a chemical reaction that etched marks into the parts anywhere they were contacting the tires or tracks. Years ago Moebius used to replace the parts when this was reported but when I asked in 2013 they reported they were out of the spare parts. A few days ago I wrote them requesting new parts if they were available and today received a very positive response that the parts were again available and would be on the way. On top of that, they reported they solved the chemical issue with the tires and tracks in the new release and for $4.95 they would also send the new and improved tires and tracks. This is great news because in 2009 I built a Chariot using the original tires and tracks and even though I painted the plastic, after years the rims and drive sprocket were both showing signs of being eaten by the tires and tracks. They were still together but they tracks would no longer articulate due to the tracks being glued to the tracks from the dissolving drive sprockets. I have since disposed of that chariot and look forward to building a new version. I just wanted to let anyone in the same boat know and to give an attaboy to Moebius Models for being so responsive. Contact customerservice@moebiusmodels.com if you need replacement chewed up chassis parts and to purchase the new and improved tires and tracks from Moebius Models.
  3. Eric just added an additional feature to the map page. You can now put in a range of dates for when you want to see all of the shows in that date range. For example if you want to see all of the shows in the entire country on a certain weekend, pick a date on say Thursday (to catch shows that start on Fridays) and and end date on Monday and you will see all of the shows during that weekend. Test it for the weekend of November 7, 2015 and you will see where all of the shows are for that weekend--with multiple shows across multiple regions. This is a great planning tool for a club wanting to pick a show date into next year. Pick out the proposed weekend and you will be able to see all of the other shows in the country scheduled for that weekend so far. Of course this only displays shows that are already scheduled so the moral of the story is to get your show scheduled (with concurrence with your RC) as soon as you can. Verbal approvals are great but actual scheduled dates are less likely to be stepped on in the future because they will be on the map for everyone to see (and avoid being a conflict). I want to thank Eric for all of the work he has poured into this new event list/calendar/and map. Behind the scenes he has automated several processes that used to require a great deal of retyping and cutting and pasting. He makes it possible for the DLC, RCs, and members to work smarter and more efficiently. Yes it may take some minor adjustments and recalibration from the past but the this is a massive increase in capability. Well done Eric!!!!! Side note to Whiskey Tango--all of the changes recently discussed since Oct. 13th refer to the News and Events tab of the webpage.
  4. Mine arrived in Sherwood, Oregon today (Oct 14) also. Very pleased with the photo coverage. Thank you to the Journal staff for another fine edition. Now I need to find the post from months ago where Ralph Forehand was asking if anyone got pictures of the Annual award winners with the answer being yes--just look on Page 20.
  5. In theory I agree that a member should only be listed on a single club but in practice, as long as the multiple clubs are not sitting at the minimum 5 members I would not make a big deal of whether someone is in multiple clubs. It is also something that we are not set up very well to police precisely since reviewing fact sheets can happen at separate times and I for one and as well as the RCs do not have precise photographic memories for comparing all members of a club against all other clubs. Being an officer in multiple clubs is specifically allowed by all of the rules and guidance I work off of as DLC. Highly skilled and involved people (like Ed) are highly likely to be leaders in multiple clubs and if we dictated that they could not be officers in multiple clubs then IPMS would be dictating officer election results in clubs. Hypothetically If both clubs are at the 5 minimum members I will encourage one or both clubs to find a sixth member but with an officer is involved it would not be high on my radar screen (and I have never seen it be an issue). In Ed Wahl's case with Will Cook, the club is far above the 5 IPMS member minimum so him being involved in a second club is not an issue (his second club SPASM also has far more than 5 current IPMS members).
  6. Only a couple days ago I got the calendar to proof for the Journal. I turned it back to John Heck on Sunday so I don't think it is done and to the publisher yet.
  7. Yes, I can search the database by city or even by state and then manually pick out members in the area and send an email to them to contact Derek in Pasco. I can't just give Derek the results of of the search because that might open us up to someone using the list to send spam. Not saying Derek would, but it has happened in the past. I will say in advance, I ran a search like that a couple years ago for someone in Hermiston, OR and found the Tri Cities area was pretty thin on IPMS members. Maybe it has improved but not likely.
  8. On top of that you are actually reserving the room used for the Banquet on Friday and the Awards Ceremony on Saturday for both nights which probably means it is free on Friday for the Banquet but an additional cost on Saturday night for the Award Ceremony. Remember the food is what usually subsidizes access to a large room like that for most venues even from day to day (the hotel could probably rent out the banquet room to another group if we are not using it for a night so I am sure they would want to be compensated for using it for two nights instead of one.
  9. Yes for years there was a constitutional requirement that bids had to be rotated through the three arbitrary regions of the US from East--Central--West. In a bid year for a East show for example, if no clubs in the East provided an intent to bid by January 1, then the bids were opened to all areas of the country to assure we had a convention in some location even if it was not the intended target region. There was also a requirement the convention needed to be between July to the end of August--so with that requirement gone it is now possible a bidder could propose a Spring Break or even Christmas convention--but the change has never been broached and we continue to have bids come in for late July to early August dates. Because that rotation was breaking down more times than it was working and at least 50% of the time the bidding was being opened to the entire country, in 2011, a constitutional amendment passed that did away with the rotation requirement and from year to year the convention can now be anywhere at any time with no rotation plan and no date range requirements.
  10. FYI-Per the CB&L only the President receives both travel and a room for the convention. I do not know for sure but I assume that room comes out of the comped room block received by the convention but if not it is paid for by IPMS. The rest of the Eboard is expected to attend and not reimbursed at all (even the 2nd VP that is essential to assisting the host chapters). As far as I know the disposition of any comped rooms is entirely left to the local hosts. I would assume they are used for their key staff to avoid commuting and be more available to serve the convention needs.
  11. From Eileen Persichetti our IPMS Nationals Recorder (I apologize if the title is wrong): Here is the list of the model entries by class for the 2015 Columbus convention: We didn’t set any records this year. While judging may have taken 5 hours, it was far less than previous years (say from 2010 and older). The judging process continues to be more efficient, and the hard work done by the head judges in getting their splits identified before the start of judging has made a big impact (since this work doesn’t need to get done during judging). The NCC (head judges) have really done a wonderful job in making the process as efficient as possible, managing 200+ judges and 2400+ models. What an accomplishment! Here’s the list of the number of model entries by Class since 1986. This year’s convention was the 7th largest in terms of model entries. The highlights below show the lowest count per class (in blue) and highest count per class (in yellow) for the past 31 conventions. ContestNumbers-2015&Before.pdf
  12. Rusty--just a thought but perhaps the abbreviation in parentheses was a way to address his comment to Whiskey Tango Foxtrot up above rather than the expression usually associated with those three letters. I did not take his comment as a forum transgression when I read it.
  13. Here are the updated results files with the Category 112 data complete: 2015-NationalsWinners-SlideShowOrder.pdf and 2015-NationalsWinners-1st-3rdOrder.pdf
  14. Good news -- the mystery of the modeler that built the Bf-110 in Category 112 is solved. The modeler is Tim Bates from Dalton, GA. MJ was key to finding him based on the IPMS# and the result is confirmed by checking for that distinctive blue ink on other entry sheets of models on other winning models in the Slide Show pictures.
  15. I did find the list had one missing winner's name. It is 3rd place from Category 112, a Bf-110E in Winter Camouflage (it is slide # 112 and here is the picture:
  16. Thanks to Vladimir Yakabov providing me the winners list on Tuesday, 7/29/15, and Vladimir posting the awards slide show on his Silicon Valley Scale Modelers site, here are links to the slide show and the results from the Columbus Nationals last week, July 22-25, 2015. Click on the links below to the Silicon Valley Scale Modelers Gallery page which has the 2015 IPMS/USA Nationals in Columbus, OH slide show from the awards presentation. The winners are posted in the reverse order - after the slide with the name of the category next model is the third place winner then second and then first. This will open in a separate window. http://svsm.org/gallery/columbus2015-winners In addition, here are two different PDF files that have the model descriptions, modeler, and city & state of the winner. 2015-NationalsWinners-SlideShowOrder.pdf This one is in Slide Show order. I suggest you open this on a second screen if you can and go through the slide show to match the winners to the model pictures. 2015-NationalsWinners-1st-3rdOrder.pdf This one is arranged in finish order going from First place to Third place in every category. This list lends itself better to printing. (Subpage for posting Nationals Results courtesy of Oregon Historical Modelers Society: IPMS-Portland.org)
  17. Portland bid twice -- in 2007 we bid for for 2009. It was supposed to be an East rotation but no one bid in time so it was opened up to everyone. We had a really good grant from the Portland Tourist Bureau which made the Portland Convention Center nearly free but our hotel situation near the Convention Center was less favorable with no big hotels that can handle all of our room needs. I also used some real conservative numbers so our financials were probably realistic but not as good looking as our competition. We were up against Sacramento, St Louis, and Columbus. Columbus won primarily based on their prior experience and I suspect because they were in the East and it was an East year. We tried again in 2008 for 2010 in what was our natural West rotation and lost to Phoenix primarily because I choked on the presentation and Phoenix had the experience card on their side. Our bid that year was worse than the year before because our main hotel we lined up bailed on us for the actual bid and the grant from the Tourist Bureau had shrunk. During the bid meeting one person jumped on me because Portland's airport was not a hub. Since then the economics here in Portland have become increasingly difficult. There are only two places in town with the 50,000 to 60,000 sq ft available but our hotel situation in Portland in the summer does not lend itself to reasonable prices and reasonable supply. On top of that, our club probably cannot support the labor needs of putting on a convention. People talk big ahead of time but I suspect it would devolve down to a very small circle of people doing most of the work. We also end up with hotels in the $170-$180 range in summer months as well. I agree that many factors work against a western bidder especially if up against an eastern bidder. First the large distances from city to city in the west mean the potential number of people in the 500-700 driving range for any western location is going to be far less than anywhere east of the Mississippi. That means western bids are going to be a primarily fly to events which means fewer participants, models, and vendors. All this means if a western bidder (if we even get any) will be at a huge disadvantage if being compared to a central or eastern bidder (witness this year). I am pretty sure the only way a western bidder is ever going to win in the near future, it will have to be a year as a sole bidder or only up against another western bidder.
  18. With the lists of winners is there a count of the models in each category (Dave Koukol was asking on a different thread). For my local show I have the judges include a count of the category just so we have a record of the number of entries in every class. That is really helpful for future planning and for entrants to find underrepresented classes. If you don't have that, I am sure I should be able to get the data from the NCC.
  19. Only need the list of winners and the categories and I can match them to the slide show.
  20. Vladimir--I would be happy to put that info together. Rather than complain, I would be more than happy to do my part to make it happen. PM me and lets make it happen.
  21. I didn't expect Vladimir to put that all together especially this quickly and I agree it is not his job. However the info is out there so it would be nice for the NCC to post the official winner list in the coming days so we would be able to put a name with the winning model while it is fresh in everyone's minds. I know for local shows in the next few months it would be nice to have a reference in case a club has a rule in place restricting entries in local shows that have been National winners.
  22. Thank you for doing your job Vladimir putting together another excellent slide show for the Awards Ceremony and making it available in the Gallery. However as far as the complete awards presentation, this only provides the pictures of the winners and not the actual names and descriptions. I suspect we will have to wait a while for the official results to be out or until the National Journal edition to find out who the actual winners were from the show.
  23. The hobby shop guide has not been updated since November 2012. The link Dave sent you is from our webpage archive and you will not find an active link from our current webpage (except from the archive). As the warning on the archive pages say, no one is actively updating it so you can't count on the information as being accurate. I think I did the last update in 2012 because someone approached me and gave me info on updating shops in their area. If you want to know about local shops, Google is your friend as well as posting an inquiry about shops in an area on Hyperscale. You will get far better info there than our hobby shop guide (I hate to say that but it is true).
  24. Not really anything about the set itself--but just some thoughts on the front opening landing craft. Did the guys on the front row have to do something wrong to be up there or were they just the lowest ranked? As soon as that door lowered, and if a machine gun had the boat lined up, their survival rate had to be very low. They were also the first ones to find out of the boat stopped too far out. Finally, I wonder if anybody considered giving the guys in front shields they could carry to at least protect them getting off the boat and provide some initial protection on the open beach (probably if it was thick enough to be decent protection--it would too heavy to carry (at least in the pre-kevlar era)). I know the survival rate for the initial waves of a landing was expected to be very low. That took real guts to do that and we owe them so much for being willing to do that. That is one of the reasons why I am happy Italeri have made some decent LCVP, LCM, and Amtrac models that make it possible to build a collection of landing craft. Keep 'em coming.
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