Winning!

 My plans were to go to the NASCAR Hall of Fame the week after the NASCAR season ended. Then my model club held our show on October 28th. It was a great show, as it always is, but we had a huge turnout from the LIARS- the Long Island Auto Replica Society- and I decided to change my plans, and attend their show this past weekend, instead of skipping it to go to the Hall. 

Wow...I am sure glad I changed those plans! 

It turned out to be my most successful model show ever! I've been attending shows since 2001, and entering since 2002, and this was my first time ever winning a class! My Police Smart car took first in Municipal vehicles! I knew before the awards ceremony I would win something in that class...there were only 4 entries and two were by the same builder, so I knew I would win something by default. 

The other two classes were a complete surprise! The Bobby Hamilton car took third in closed wheel competition, and both of the cars that beat mine were miles better. The 1953 Ford took second in Shelf model, where it's judged just as it sits, the model is not touched. Even more impressive is that it suffered some damage on the trip, with two of the wheels getting broken off. 

I hadn't attended LIARS since 2008, but I am really thrilled I won these awards. I am still in shock, to be honest! Not only that, but the Smart car is the only municipal vehicle I've built! I have plans for more, but they have not come to completion yet. 

That wasn't all! I've mentioned before my project of photodocumenting all the places I've visited by taking a photo of the car's GPS screen. I added 34 new places in my home state, bringing New York to over 500 places documented! 

Ugh, I don't know why but the pictures are not in order. 

Petty car is mine

1/87 diorama

I really liked the paint on this one

winner of the Open wheel competition class

I believe this is the car that won the class I took third in. You can see it was well worth it. 

The paint work on this was incredible! The red spotted car in the background is mine also.

Before going to the show we went to the Freeport Nautical Mile, which I got too exhausted to finish back in 2019. 

Manhattan skyline taken from the Throg's Neck Bridge

There was still some color in the trees.

Me getting my third award, photo by my brother.

Long Island traffic is always unpleasant. 

Saw UBS Arena, home of the Islanders! This is the 5th NHL rink I have seen in person, although I have only been in one...and it had the basketball court set up.

An inlet of Long Island Sound

The Whitestone Bridge

NY Skyline from the Whitestone

Long Island Sound

Giant Pepsi building

Saw a train go by! 

This is actually a drawbridge in the Bronx. (I think). Although I've crossed it several times I've never had to stop for it. I kind of hope I do at some point because I think it would be cool to see. 

It was fully dark by time we got home. There was some light color in the clouds. 

Full Photo gallery from the LIARS show

Full Photo gallery of the trip

Thanks for reading! 

New People scanned in October 2023

 October turned out to be another busy month of scanning. Not only did I do the scanning I did during the month, but I also integrated all the scans I rescued, see two posts back. 

Just for new scans made in this month, I ended up with 1085 cards...but adding in the 197 fronts I recovered and it brings me to 1282 cards uploaded this month. Of those, 97 of them were new people. Two of them were recovered scans, the other 195 scans were of people previously scanned or non-people cards. 

There were three main sources of new people this month- the hockey cards I scanned, which is where a good portion of my collecting is these days, the football my friend sent me because he wanted to see my football albums expand, and the gift of soccer cards that Zippy sent me a while back that I finally got scanned. 

I should finish the stack of football my friend sent this month, there's maybe 150 cards left to do, not counting the chrome cards which I'm putting off. So they are likely to make up the majority of November's new people as well. They made up 36 of the 97 this month, and combined with the cards from Zippy and the ABA cards I was gifted from a friend on the Database and a few other random cards sent by others, that brings me up to 54 of 97 that I received as gifts. That's more than half, and I really appreciate that. 

Puck Junk's Bad Hockey Card Hall of Fame

 One of the most hilarious series in the card blogosphere is Puck Junk's Bad Hockey Card Hall of Fame. You can't help but to laugh hysterically with every post. 

Back at the National, which was in Sal's backyard, he produced a promo set of 6 cards of the Bad Hockey Card Hall of Fame, and while I wasn't able to get to the National, he was kind enough to send me a set. 

I finally got them scanned, so I thought I would check and see how many of the original cards appear in my collection. 

Card #1 is a checklist...I love checklists! 

Card #2 is Pavel Bure from 1991-92 Upper Deck, and yes, I do have this card, but I have not scanned it yet. This makes the Hall of Fame for the photo choice. I'm not as down on the concept of non-hockey images on hockey cards as most people, although if it wasn't for the Canucks wordmark and NHL logo you wouldn't be able to tell which sport it went to based on the photo alone. 

Card #3 is Mel Bridgman from 1983-84 O-Pee-Chee, and this card makes the Hall for the terrible paint job given to his uniform including for some reason that funky gray helmet. I do not have this card. I do not have many from the mid-80s OPC sets, mostly the Rangers. What says 80s hockey better than a toothless enforcer? 

Card #4 is Bryan Pitton from 2010-11 Score, and the photo choice is obviously why this card made the HOF. According to the back of the card, even his teammates got into teasing him because of this card, based on the Puck Junk post. If that doesn't get a card into the Hall of Fame, nothing will! Not only do I not have the original card, this is actually the ONLY card of Bryan Pitton in my collection, so that means this scan will be his official representation in my Alphabetical Directory and Hockey Encyclopedia as well. I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse, haha! 

Skipping ahead to card #6, we have Dale McCourt from 1979-80 Topps, which makes the Hall because of the backstory of this card- McCourt refused to play for the Kings, taking it all the way to the Supreme Court (!) to prevent it from happening...but that didn't stop Topps from painting a Kings uniform on him anyway. I do not have the original card. 

Finally, we finish with my favorite card in this set...

Card #5 is Rogie Vachon from 1971-72 O-Pee-Chee, and if I have to explain why this card is in the Bad Hockey Hall of Fame, your eyesight is worse than mine 😂 Due to a trade to the Kings, they needed a new photo, but instead of say, using a close up of just his face, or drawing on a new uniform as they used to do, nope...they cut out a picture of his head and glued it to Ross Lonsbury's body, making this downright scary yet hilarious card. Alas, I do not have this card. I thought I did, but it turns out I have a DIFFERENT card where they pasted someone's head on someone else's body. Yes, that means they did this more than once! 

Perhaps that will make Series 2. 

So I only have 1 of 5, and none scanned. I hope you enjoyed this look at this funny cards, and I thank Sal for sending me the promo set. Hopefully in time I will be able to add all the original cards to my collection as well.