The Trouble With Trimbles...

Is that they cannot agree on how to spend their money:

The Trimbles, mother and son... His dreams are of a red convertible, hers of a new typewriter.

Photo of Mrs. Pearl Carter Trimble and her son Carter Trimble from an article on the "mother & son writer-photographer team" inside the march 1951 issue of Profitable Hobbies magazine, which we assume stopped making a profit decades ago.

Yes, I know there are unfortunate holes in the vintage paper; let's just be glad we can see what we can.

A Real Collector's Swap Event

Our family interviewed to be cast for ABC Family's Wife Swap.

But after a few long talks, we decided that we weren't a good fit for the show. Not only do we have a crazy family dynamic but the requirement to forgo being on any other television show for 18 months would then limit our pursuit of more educational projects, such as my work with domestic violence, special needs, and history/culture issues.

(Plus, while we don't mind laughing at or being laughed at especially regarding our collecting habits, we* aren't exactly loud exhibitionists.)

However, if you belong to a family of collectors and welcome the chance to participate in this social experiment called reality television (for financial honorarium too!), check out the casting call and then contact Matthew McLaughlin at matthew.mclaughlin@castingrdf.com ASAP. Don't forget to tell him that Deanna from Collectors' Quest sent you!

* When I say "we aren't exactly loud exhibitionists", I mean some of us are :cough-Me: and some of us aren't :cough-Him:

The Non-Stealth

See the poster above? It appears to advertise the Northrop/Loral F-19 Specter, a stealthy plane designed in the 70s and produced in the 80s, much like the F-117 fighter. Was it so secret that you haven't heard of it?

No, but if you put together model airplanes, you may have heard of it:

Yup, that's it -- my favorite model of my youth. I had been given one when I was probably around 11 or 12. I grew up, moved on, but after my divorce I needed a hobby...so I started building model airplanes again. I was about as good at it as I was when I was young, but it kept me out of trouble.

One day, I went to the old, somewhat shoddy hobby shop in town. On a shelf I found a very dusty box -- that faux stealth fighter of my youth. I bought it, brought it home, and put it together. Want to see it? It's standing in for the real thing in these pictures. Don't trust anything you read on the internet -- it might just be produced by the fevered mind of an obsessed hobbyist. (more on the subject at CQ)