The pinnacle of my contest day was two-fold. Mr. Bob Kirby and his brother-in law, Steve came up from Rockford at my invitation to experience their first IPMS contest and to look over a couple of Silent Service models a Navy Nut they know made.
Bob and I have been messaging back & forth for quite a while now, and he provided pictures from his own collection of his boat. SS-340, USS Entemedor. He looked over "his" boat, and after while, let me know that she was exactly as he remembered her from 1962, when he served, doing super-secret, sneaky submarine stuff, and cruising around Malta. Steve busied himself with his photography gig, while Bob I gabbed and joked. Bob tells me the dome on the bow of his boat was a sonar array, like a huge multi-receptor hydrophone, under the fiberglass dome. He said "When you go to the beach, you lean on the fender of your car, right? On a swim call, we leaned against the sonar dome and sometimes dove off the top of it into the ocean." I quipped that at one time, I was looking for a way to save time, to finish up other things, but when I remembered this ways Mr. Kirby's boat, I HAD to finish the 1/700 diesel cold war sub kit.
I made all of the progress and packaging of TLAR Models Kit #518B HIS responsibility. He took it pretty well.
Bob knows about taking his Boat through the show season before a transfer of command may be made. I think he is really good at being patient. He asked me how much he needed to pay for the model of his Boat. "PFFFGHT! You already did!" I told him.
That's how an Honor Model works. Some veterans are strangers to this concept.
I admit that I shamelessly shirked whatever contest duties I may have had to show Mr. Kirby around his first ever IPMS show, and hear his sea stories. EM3 Bob Kirby is about the busiest veteran I ever heard of. It was an honor to introduce him to our hobby and the madness of a busy, cheerful show.
145 Model Makers entered 685 completed builds. A big local show for sure! I might guess over 1,000 raffle tickets were sold and another 60 or so for the grand prize raffle.
My Sweetie won 4 raffle prizes and we got a free Wisconasin road map! The envelope is a $25.00USD Squadron Hobbies gift certificate. The Blue Japanese box is Imperial Japanese Navy Carrier Division 1, 19-20 of June 1944. Guys, it's the Fujimi egg-ship cartoon version of the Battle of the Philippine Sea! Not one! Not just 2! But 3! Count 'em! THREE Chibi Maru aircraft carrier models in one commemorative box! Fewer raffle prizes than she usually harvests, but these are all AWESOME prizes!
Then two, my old friend Mark Karolus stopped off during his busy day to drop off a few kits and sell me a 1/700 Niko Models USS Barnegat AVP-10 1941 kit. Mark says if he gets rid of his "doubles" it frees up space to buy newer kits. OH! I see! That's how it's supposed to work! I don't have very many friends, but they are all the kind of friend a friend would like to have.
For myself, I was awarded a 3rd place for the 1/350 scale USS Guitarro viggnitt (Jeff?) maybe. The Category "Submarines, all" was fairly well populated, so this was appreciated!
As it finished up, Steve Smith suggested we stop in Mt. Horeb on the way home to have supper at the Grumpy Troll. Steve looks like a guy that knows good food, so we took his advice after all. He was right! I asked the bubbly, young server if the Grumpy Troll burger actually had any troll in it. She smiled sweetly (you know, like young, pretty people do at old men they think might have a screw loose) and said "No. It doesn't."
"That explains the lack of hair and bits of dirty fingernail then. Thank you!"
The rest of our ride home was without incident. Thanks Lord!
To the men and women people of the Mad City Modelers: Thanks for having us over! We had a fine time!
I don't know why it's called "Mad City". Everyone is real nice.
KCCON Next weekend!
madcitymodeler.org
i agree the PACV Combat Hovercraft looks a bit odd, usually Hovercrafts on water create so much spray you cant see them 
