Hi Folks.

Hi Folks.  Well Iceman sold me a kit on eBay and asked me to come over and check out the Forums.  Pretty cool so far.  Anyways..  My name is Rich, I'm 49 years old, and I'm currently living in Toledo OH.  I grew up on the East Coast though, in a small town just north of Boston MA called Medford.  I have been in OH since 1996 when my Daughter was born, and my Wife Debbie wanted to be closer to her family.  I have been building kits since I was 4.  I started on a Revolutionary War model Cannon.  a few days after I finished that, my Grandfather got me my first aircraft kit.   I remember it was a 2 in one kit.  A Supermarine Spitfire and an ME109 in 1/72 scale.  I did a lot of kits through the next decade.  All kinds of subjects interested me, Naval Vessels, Cars, Aircraft, and Scifi being my favorites.  When I was a teenager, I lost my entire collection and I was kind of out of the hobby for a while.  But I eventually started re-collecting kits one at a time.  I had a brain aneurysm about 7 years ago, and it left me with some motor control issues which prompted me to get heavily back into kits.  I discovered that after a few kits, my coordination improved, and I have been building ever since.  I take my time, and it's not unusual for me to take a month or two to complete what I could have done in a week before the aneurysm.  But I find the time spent makes the end result more prized.  Due to the incredible increases in cost of everything from kits to glue, I don't get new kits very often.  I'm disabled so our budget is very very tight.  Occaisonally a friend of mine in Canada will send me a treat.  In exchange, I help him get kits that he otherwise couldn't get.  A lot of sellers on eBay won't sell to Canada because of the customs hassles and high shipping costs.  So if he sees a kit he likes, and its a USA only auction, he has me buy it for him and ship it up.  It works out great for both of us, and has allowed me to acquire some of the old kits I had lost, that I normally wouldn't be able to afford.  Right now I'm trying to figure out a way to pick up a replacement C57D Polar Lights kit.  the 1/72 model.  They are rare, and getting rarer.

Right now I have a few projects going.  Two car kits..  The first being the Corvette model I got from Iceman, and a 1987/88 Daytona.  The Daytona is kind of special to me since I actually had a 1987 Dodge Daytona Pacifica back in the early nineties.  I loved the card and it's great to be able to do the kit and fix any technical inaccuracies.  A lot of the engine parts are called out in the wrong colors.  But it's going good so far.

I hope to keep on modeling until I can't do it anymore.  I figure when I'm 100 or so at a minimum, I'll think of giving it up.

I will try and post images of kits as they are finished as soon as I can replace my camera. 

I'm looking forward to getting to know all of you on the boards.

Sincerely

Rich