Last days of the launch

Saturday was more of the same. Sit, wait, sign, sit, wait, wait, wait. I took a few more tours of the model room. There's some serious talent on display, and patience. One guy showed up with a display of 43 varieties of Sherman tank.

My business cards came in Friday and I'm pleased. I used Overnight Prints. That company used to have a great reputation and then expanded its business, with shooting growing pains. A little research turns up a few mightily displeased customers. I used Overnight Prints because they were in the Anaheim area, offered great prices, and had some customers who were as satisfied as others were disgruntled. The problems seemed to stem from sketchy printing at some printing plants - I figured that if I had the delivery sent to next city over from headquarters that my cards would come from the original high-quality printer.

My cards came from Kansas.

Nevertheless, they are gorgeous. Count me as satisfied. I got 500 full-colour glossy cards for about $40. My local business office wanted more than twice that for one colour of ink - embossed mind you, but still....

Saturday was stressful. Saturday morning, I learned that Lou Lenart had arrived the night before, and it was left to me to arrange a meeting for Sunday. In short, I did it.

The photo that will someday accompany accompanies this post is Lou signing my replica 101 Squadron hat. This link takes you to a photo of me handing the book to Lou (courtesy of our host, Lorin Roche) and other photos. My co-author Alex is the bearded guy in the powder blue check shirt. (Modellers who build Israeli Air Force models should note that the guy in the burgundy double-knit is Raanan Weiss.)

Monday morning, while waiting for my lift to the airport, I received an e-mail from the son of another 101 Squadron pilot who was also in LA. He wants to talk business, and we plan to chat soon.

I'm writing this a week later than I should, and my site is still down. Several concerned people - they're not all related to me so maybe I can call them fans - have written to ask where my blog and/or my site has gone. While the lack of my Web presence grates on me, that feels kinda good.

Bonus injury:

Seven months on, Dell still hasn't replaced its recalled power adapter. My replacements keep dying. I found an old one for free, and I strengthened it with glue-gun ooze, but burned two fingers in the process. That stuff gets hot. I hate you, Dell.