Having spent nearly a week unpacking, getting back to work, and dealing with high heat around St. Louis lately, I can now start to tell you about my recent vacation.
It was a Monday morning (4 August) when Julie and I set off for Hampton, Virginia. She picked me up at the house, I packed my luggage, and we set off. We were going to Hampton for the annual National Convention of the International Plastic Modelers' Society/USA (IPMS/USA).
The weather was good on the eastbound route and Julie and I had wonderful conversations as we made our way towards Virginia. We stopped in Huntington, West Virginia for the night before resuming the trip the next morning.
Late Tuesday afternoon (5 August), Julie and I arrived in Hampton. We checked in to the Embassy Suites next to the Hampton Roads Convention Center, the IPMS/USA National Convention venue. As I am IPMS/USA's Director of Local Chapters (DLC), I was booked in a room at the Embassy Suites. The room Julie and I stayed at was a very nice suite.
That night, Julie and I went to a cinema in nearby Newport News to see "The Naked Gun." This is the new version starring Liam Neeson. We loved it! This movie was an absolute hoot. (This is coming from a guy who thought the original with Leslie Nielson was terrific.)
The Convention opened on Wednesday morning (6 August). Julie left for a couple of days to visit relatives in Maryland. I helped out right away volunteering to help with contest registration. It was a long line for the first three hours of the convention with registrants checking in their contest models. I particularly helped with those registrants who forgot to print off their contest entry forms from the online registration, or who could not register online for some reason. It was slow at times helping some attendees with registering their models online, but our team of volunteers got it done.
After my shift ended, I made a first visit to the vendor room to buy raffle tickets and to see the vendors. Many of these vendors are people and organizations that I have known for some years now and it was great to see them again here in Hampton.
Later that afternoon, I went back to get my convention packet and to register my models. I had one model I had just completed, a 1:600 scale HMS Repulse that I entered in ships.
I also brought four models for the Tiger Meet display-only area. Three of them--an Indian MiG-21, a Chinese J-8, and a Chinese J-10--were placed on the Asian Air Arms Special Interest Group (SIG) table. (I arranged this display on behalf of this SIG, which I belong to.) A fourth model--a 1:48 A6M2 Zero--was placed in a display paying tribute to Tamiya chairman Shunsaku Tamiya, who died the month before. He was also commemorated at Tamiya's vendor stand.
I returned to my room late that afternoon, where I inspected the contents of the Convention packet. In addition to my name tag, I got a t-shirt and some stickers, pins, and a decal sheet.
That night, I hosted a social for IPMS/USA chapter leaders at the Convention Center. It was a very nice and relaxed happy hour, meeting several chapter officers and having conversations with them.
More on the Convention in my next post. Later.
Websites of Entities Mentioned in this Post:
IPMS/USA: IPMS/USA | IPMS/USA Home Page
Embassy Suites by Hilton Hampton Convention Center: Hotel Amenities - Embassy Suites by Hilton Hampton Convention Center
Hampton Roads Convention Center: Home - Hampton Roads Convention Center : Hampton Roads Convention Center
Asian Air Arms Special Interest Group: Home | asianairarms
Tamiya: Tamiya USA
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