Battle of Midway Aircraft Group Build

Well boys i'm sick of talking about this Zero of mine so i've gone and taken a pic with my cell phone just to prove that it's done and thjat it actually does exist.......

look out for some more pics at the end of the week

btw-felt the need to test and see if I can post pics from Photobucket. 

...and the verdict is....this portion appears to work...at least for me.  Still much exploring to be done....and try to get my old login name back. Folks at FSM said that they would investigate.  Seems that when we created a new domain at work  (yes...I used my work e-mail address...don't tell...) it kept me from retrieving said login and I had to create a new one (note the addition of the 'e').  Haven't decided yet whether to go back and add the badges or just start with the new GB's that I've scheduled.....decisions...decisions.....

Jules - That's exactly the way it is with me mate, except I don't have the wife and kids. I only know two other modellers that live near me, so this is the only place I get to interact with other modellers really. It's a good community though isn't it?

j.s.harrison wrote:

Bob, Mate definatly add your previous badges, I see them as kinda of a campaign badge that shows my history with FSM, that may sound a little corny and i may be taking this web site a little seriously but with 3 small kids a wife that works and a full time job of my own this is the only community that i'm a part of because i simply don't have any available time to go joining clubs and things of that sort.........

Jules-I'm in the same boat (only 1 kid but we are approaching the teen years-sports, school....you know the drill).  I should have some time this weekend to add the badges.

Thanks

j.s.harrison wrote:

Bob, Mate definatly add your previous badges, I see them as kinda of a campaign badge that shows my history with FSM, that may sound a little corny and i may be taking this web site a little seriously but with 3 small kids a wife that works and a full time job of my own this is the only community that i'm a part of because i simply don't have any available time to go joining clubs and things of that sort.........

That's exactly why I am here too.  3 kids and my wife used to work a lot of evenings.  Its great to have this site.  Has definitely made modeling a lot more fun. 

Yeah i havn't been around the forums much of late, coming up to Xmas i'm always busy with work, i seem to be the fool that fills in for everyone when they go on their Xmas break but i try not to complain cause my pay virtually doubles for about 6 weeks and about 2 weeks after Xmas everything dies down and it's nice and quiet for a few weeks....

BTW Harvey Norman didn't have the 4MP koday easy share camera in stock so unfortunatly no pics yet but they should have a batch come in at the begining of December so i have it on order.......

Ya'know i'll have 3 builds done that i havn't posted up by the time i get this camera.....

OH yeah i have a gripe about these new forums>>>>>>Bring back the quick reply

i really miss that feature because i could still read the whole page of posts to make sure i didn't forget to reply to someone, but alas i can't any more, i can only read the post previous to the one i'm typing.....

Jules - that Kodak is really sweet... my wife has it and she was able to turn out some great pics the first time using it...  here are a few... there was some better ones but I can't find them at present...

Edit:  this is also a peak at West Texas getting out into the flatlands and pre-desert.

Man that looks very similar to some of the outback regions around here....

BTW Tom do you live near bigbend national park

Jules - no, but one of those pics above was taken there.  The other one at Guadalupe Mountains State park...  Big Bend is about a two day drive from here...

---edit--- the top one is a Guadalupe and the Bottom at big bend...  I just sent the link to the online photo album for the rest to your email...  The entrances to the two parks are maybe a half hour apart so essentially the same plece.

Cool Tom i'll check my inbox...The reason i asked about Bigbend is cause there has been some remarkable fossil finds in the area dating from the Jurassic era right up to about 10 million years ago, things like 10 ton crocodiles and marine reptiles mainly mososaurs and plesiosaurs, apparently Texas was covered by an inland sea during the jurassic and now the seafloor is exposed and hundreds of fossils are being unearthed....

Incidentaly Queensland was also covered at the same time by a jurassic sea and many of the same type of fossils are being found near MT Isa and in central Nth Qld....Unfortunatly bugger all ancient rock strata are exposed around Brisbane so if i wanna go fossil hunting with my boy it also will take me a couple of days to get to a decent site......

Interesting you should mention that Jules... after the sea subsided from over SE TX it became a sub-tropical forest, my dad and I used to go frequently to a beach near here and we picked up some deer bones that when he took them to Texas A&M to let them have a look at them, he was told they were from about 40,000 years ago.  About 5 yrs ago a group of boy scouts on a camping trip dug up a mammoth tooth in the same spot.  (I think the University of Texas came back and found bits of its skull later)  I also found a very large petrified scale at a beach closer to my house recently.  I have yet to try to identify it but I would assume from its size the fish it came from must have been well over 20 to 30 feet.  (when comparing it to a scale from a possible living relative, the alligator gar)

Interesting thing about Big Bend is the sheer variety of fossils from almost every major period.  Things like a fossilized crocdile over 50 feet in length, alligators much the same size, and a hotly debated jaw bone from a T Rex (some scientist felt the criteria used to determine the owner was "Shoehorned" to get a T Rex out of it and didn't take in the size of the whole animal as a determining factor, some feel it was a slightly smaller first cousin of the T Rex)

I'd love to be able to go out on a dig some day.  I did get to participate in one at the site of a cannabilistic indian tribe that lived near Galveston Island many moons ago... fascinating (even though I didn't find a human leg bone with teeth marks on it )

Jules - yes it does seem we share one more interest... luckily a lot of data from the Texas periods and geologic activity is online... one of the interesting things I found looking at the Big bend area is that there was an ENTIRE period. (millions of years) that not one fossil was found from... the authors of the briefs I read were equally as dumbfounded....  one explanation was the proliferation of early allligators...   well where were THEIR fossils???  I'll dig up some info and next time I am at my parents house I will get some pics of the deer bones and such.. I'll also see if I can find the fish scale I was talking about... it really reminded me of the scales from a Ceolanth...  very big, very round... I don't think it was recent as it appeared to be petrified...  (ok it has to be petrified because you could probably break a piece of glass with the thing it was so hard)

*** edit ***  what area of AU are you in again?  I know I have your address but am too lazy to go look..  also I will send some links to the Big Bend area... interesting reads... lots of geological data on the tectonic plates shifts that eventually caused S. America to (qoute) cataclysmically collide with N. America during the third or fourth dinosaur period... possibly explaining the fact there were NO dinosaur fossils found other than vegetable life for that time...

Yeah Tom i wouldn't mind cruising over there for a couple of weeks one day but i reckon i'd find myself doing the museum tour rather than looking for Dinosaur fossils...

hey is the USS Texas close to you

BTW I live approx halfway between Brisbane and Surfers Paradise, this area was submerged in Jurassic times and it was the continental shelf which means shallow water so there must have been sea critters around all over the place, there was also rapid sediment build up from the great dividing range which would have covered remains fairly quickly but like i said it's a matter of finding exposed Jurassic sediments.....

Sounds cool Tom, photo's would be good, we have the HMAS Diamantina in drydock at Brisbane city which is about 10 miles away but it's a Frigate not a BB so it doesn't hold as much interest for me....

I am indeed giving some serious thought about taking a 2 week holiday over there in the States in maybe June/July 2006, i havn't had a break from work in about 6 years so i'm well overdue for some freetime and i think Houston Texas would be just as good as anywhere else what with the USS Texas and the Nasa HQ close by.....

I may even catch a train or something and have a look at the Smithsonian and perhaps the type IX U-Boat at Chicago......

Jules - something that might be just as interesting for you:  fly in to Houston, there is the Lone Star Flight Musuem, Battlehip Texas, USS Cavalla (Gato class sub that sank the Shokaku) and USS Stewart DE-238 destroyer escort from WWII.  Rent a car, drive to Pensacola, FL (about 6 hrs east of here) on the way in Mobile Alabama you have the USS Alabama (South Dakota class BB from WWII) in Pensacola you have the Naval Air and Space Musuem (one of the largest in the country) plus countless college girls willing to show everything for the camera on the beach!   

On the other hand if you drove west, you would go through Big Bend and get to see the park, and about another day's drive would put you in Puma Arizona where there is another huge air museum...

Train service is fairly non existant any more in the states.. and for the most part it is about the same price to fly as it is to take the train (although it would be fun to see the countryside) but if you did decide to go to DC by train I think New Orleans would be the place to get one going that way. (about 5 hours east of Houston).

Some links for you:

www.lsfm.org
www.cavalla.org
http://users3.ev1.net/~de238/stewart/stewartindex.html
http://www.ussalabama.com/index.php
http://naval.aviation.museum/intro.html

Panzer - ironically the Alabama and Massachusetts are sister ships... sadly the Alabama was damaged pretty bad during Katrina and has a 15 degree list to port right now.

Even sadder after reading about restoration efforts on her for past and present damage, and the money raised for her.  I realize the USS Texas is underfunded and may not be around as long as the Alabama... hopefully they can turn that around.

Wow you guys have Battleship Museums all over the place eh, I think i'll need 2 months not 2 weeks to see even a fraction of all the cool stuff over there.....

Isn't there also a couple of Essex class carriers preseved as museums over there

OH yeah BTW the reason i'd like to take a train is exactly for that, too see the country

Jules - the Lexington is down to the south west of me at Corpus Christi... She's in a modernized garb now because she was used as the Navy's training carrier until about 1990.  The only other one I know of is the Intrepid up in Providence Rhode Island which is quite a distance even from D.C.

You See more cool stuff to look at, maybe i should imigrate for a year.....

Oh yeah Speaking of Essex class carriers do you recognise the one i have in my avatar