Here are a couple of photos and memories from yesterday. I ran into several Model magazine people that I really wanted to meet, but I won't post the pics of those meetings so as not to upset Matt Usher.......
The 2007 IPMS Nats were a lot of fun. Many of you know I was taking the family down to LA for the Nats and for our family vacation. My daughter came down with a nasty case of the flu so we had to cancel our vacation. My awesome wife however insisted that I fly down so I wouldn't miss out this year, so I flew down just for the day on Saturday. Thanks honey! The trip turned out to be quite the fun adventure and it all started out with meeting Kevin Dillon on the plane on the way down.
I couldn't believe how many thousands of models were entered at the contest. There was row after row after row of tables with so many great builds. I went through everything several times during the day so I wouldn't miss anything.
The Vendor area was fantastic too. I picked up the new Eduard 1/48 BF110E (very nice, comes with a ton of photo etch goodies and canopy masks!), Hasegawa's 1/32 P-47D and the new Dragon 1/35 King Tiger with pre-molded zimmerit. It comes with lots of photo etch, wire tow cables, magic tracks, aluminum barrel.... very nice kit! I also picked up some German decal sets for my Classic Airframes 1/48 Do 17Z, Lynn Ritger's new book on the early Bf109 series (excellent book, very well done, highly recommended to fans of the early 109). The shirts from the Nat's were pretty cool. The front says "Why yes, I have done some modeling" ![Laugh [(-D]](/emoticons/icon_smile_newlaugh.gif)
I tried to hunt down Duke and I think I spotted him a couple of times, but everytime I saw him the tables he was at were swarming with people during the raffle so I could never make it up to him. Sorry Duke.
I met Kevin Dillon on the flight down to LA. Here is a pic of Kevin and me at the LAX airport just after we got off the plane. He is really a laid back, down to earth guy. He plays the character "Johnny Drama" on the HBO Show "Entourage". My wife and I DVR the show and have the first season on DVD, very cool show. It was great talking with him, even if it was just for a few minutes. He liked my Bf109 shirt so we started talking about Wings of the Luftwaffe on the Military Channel on the way out of the airport... way cool. ![Cool [8D]](/emoticons/icon_smile_cool.gif)
Here is a picture of me meeting DrewH and someone else who shall remain nameless to protect me from being banned... ![Sigh [sigh]](/emoticons/icon_smile_sigh.gif)
I shouldn't even have to do this, but oh well, we can thank the management for this.
I'll post a link to my photobucked album once I get all the pics edited and uploaded to photobucket from the contest.
Here are a few shots of some of the goodies I picked up yesterday. ![Big Smile [:D]](/emoticons/icon_smile_big.gif)
