Here's a follow-up to the "NARCON: Who's going?" thread:

http://forums.rocketshoppe.com/show...19&page=1&pp=10


Does anybody have some especially memorable tidbits of NARCON this year? (Besides having John Dyer of Red River Rocketry take a picture of your jeans-clad backside in the Vendor's Room, I mean. )

Right before Lee Piester's address Friday night, Scott Goebel and I discovered our last names were pronounced "Gable" and "Gomer," respectively.

After Lee's address, Bill Eichelberger told me, "You look taller in person."

Carl McLawhorn of Semroc saw me and said, "Jay," and all I could do was give him a big hug, and tell him, "Thanks for everything!"

I didn't *intend* to swap stories about Chas Russell with the aforementioned John Dyer, but I sat down in the Vendor's Room and had a rather lengthy chat with him about all kinds of stuff. (Plus he burned me a CD of the pictures he had, right there on the spot!)

I asked David J. Miller of Sirius Rocketry, "*So.* Are you *really* serious?" He chuckled and said he was.

At the beerloft Saturday night, I introduced myself to Matt Steele, and he reminded me we'd met at NSL 2002 near Phoenix. I told him, "That's *right!* No wonder you've seemed so familiar the past few years!"

Scott Hansen's voice was deeper than I thought it would be, what with him still being skinny, and all. We clicked bottles (my was plastic, his was glass) and talked about reading books... and stuff.


Anybody else?

Cheers,

--Jay

Heh, it used to be real high in grade school. I used to sing first soprano in grade school choir. When I got to high school my voice dropped from the highest to the lowest singing-wise. I sang second bass in concert choir in high school. Weird how that works!

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Scott D. Hansen
Ye Olde Rocket Shoppe - Your One Stop BAR Shoppe!
Ye Olde Rocket Plans - OOP Rocket Plans From 38 Companies!
Ye Olde Rocket Forum
WOOSH NAR Section #558

Okay, I'll go next.

I'm, um, shyer and more reserved in person than I am online, so I struggled with that a good part of the weekend, but...

The most enjoyable thing about NARCON for me was meeting in person some of the great people I'd already "met" on YORF, TRF, the OldRockets Yahoo! group, etc., or knew of from the forums:
Jay Goemmer - one of the nicest guys you could ever want to meet
Bill Eichelberger - on top of everything else, his knowledge of music is encyclopedic except when it comes to Renaissance (the band, not the period in European history)
Scott McCrate - a really nice, funny guy
Scott Hansen - I didn't really notice the low voice, but he definitely is skinny
John Dyer - though I didn't actually introduce myself
David J. Miller of Sirius Rocketry - though I didn't introduce myself
John Arthur of jonrockets.com - though I didn't introduce myself, I spent a lot of time at his vendor table and bought the last Holverson Designs Wicked Winnie he had... plus a bunch of other kits.
Bruce McLawhorn - talked to him a bit at the beerlofting session at the hotel Saturday night
Peter Alway - no introduction, but he asked me if I wanted to buy something from his vendor table, as he was about to go somewhere else for a while.

Since I'm of German heritage and a lot of the people in my home town are too, I noticed the pronunciations of Scott Goebel's and Jay Goemmer's last names, too. And I also noticed that they pronounced each other's names as "Gobel" and "Gamer."

Though I have absolutely no past experiences involving Centuri rockets given that I've been in the hobby less than 2 years, I introduced myself to Lee Piester after his talk and complimented him on it.

Soon after I arrived, I saw Jay Apt, so I asked him, "Are you Jay Apt?" and said hello and shook his hand.

I attended Bob Alway's egglofting seminar, which involved a lot of byplay between him and Peter. Also, those guys know a LOT about competitive model rocketry!

I'm sure I've forgotten some people, but a lot of the weekend is already a blur... and I don't even drink!

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John Thro, NAR #84553 SR
I was too old when I started! Now I'll *never* become a BAR!

This was the first year I've had the opportunity to visit a NARCON, and I'd like to echo the sentiments of the early posters to the thread. It was great to meet and associate faces to names for all the folks I routinely read here and on TRF.

I'd have to say that the highlight of the weekend (for me, anyway) was the chance to meet a couple people that influenced me profoundly as a youngster. I was a child of the Space Age; I spent those formative years watching us race to the moon, building models of our moonships, and actually *flying* rockets myself! It was some of the best times of my life, and helped set the course into science, engineering, and technology that I still follow to this day.

When I was a kid, "Penrose, Colorado" and "Phoenix, Arizona" had the same cachet as "Emerald City, Oz", because that was where the magical Estes and Centuri rockets were designed and manufactured. I literally spent HOURS reading and re-reading those catalogs, often falling asleep on a summer's evening staring at a picture of a Centuri Taurus and imaging flying off to some exotic planet in it...remember, we were all going to be flying spaceships for real, soon, anyway, right?

And (not to offend any Estes zealots, here), Centuri rockets always seemed more...cool?...more "gee whiz", anyway, than most of their Estes counterparts (OK, don't starting throwing OT's, Interceptors, and Mars Landers at me, I loved those designs, too!). I built every Centuri design I could get my hands on, and used to "zoom them around my room" when I couldn't afford motors to fly 'em.

So --- when NARCON presented the opportunity to meet "The Wizard of Phoenix", as it were...hey, how many of you would pass up the chance to meet the Great and Powerful Oz? And Lee (and Betty, too!) showed that my youthful "boy, it would be great to be like them" idolization wasn't misplaced. Listening to Lee talk about those heady days in the 60's and 70's was like having a chance to hear Neil Armstrong talk about the first moon landing...for just a couple of hours, I was *THERE* with him, Betty, and all the other inhabitants of the Emerald City of Centuri.

Not to shortchange anybody else that was there --- Carl and the gang at Semroc are amazing; John Dyer over at Red River Rocketry was a waaay cool guy (c'mon, John, more kits! I love your sense of style!); I'm still totally agog at Sirius Rocketry's Saturn V (I *loved* the fact that he had the Mars Lander sitting on it for a chunk of the weekend --- boo yah!); and all the others I've overlooked --- the vendors are great folks and I'm glad to support 'em with $$$, as they continue to make my adult rocketry as much fun as my childhood rocketry was.

I guess the best thing about NARCON was --- it helped confirm to me that there are a lot of other geeks like me who're passionate about this hobby, and are willing to travel (in some cases) across the country to be part of it. It was a hoot, and I can't wait to see where it all happens next time. I'll do my ****dest to be there.

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Dean Fox
NAR #53946SR

---- "Wherever you go, there you are"

Estes zealots?

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Bill Eichelberger
NAR 79563

http://wallyum.blogspot.com/

I miss being SAM 0058

Build floor: Centuri Design Contest F-150 Hurricane Estes - Low Boom SST Semroc - Marauder, Shrike, SST Shuttle

In paint: Canaroc Starfighter Scorpion Estes F-22 Air Superiority Fighter, Multi-Roc, Solar Sailer II Semroc Cyber III

Ready to fly: Estes - Solar Sailer II Semroc - Earmark, Groonie Der V 1/2

Zealot: n. A fanatically committed person. In this case, one who is fanatically committed exclusively to Estes kits, esp. those from the 60's and early 70's.

Not saying that anyone here *is* an Estes zealot...I just didn't want to offend anyone who *was* by my obviously pro-Centuri bias.

Best part of being a rocket enthusiast these days is the large number of vendors producing kits...I envy my boys for the great selection of designs and broad support from places like this on the Web, as just one example! My son wandered around the vendor room at NARCON, obviously tickled that there were so many places to hit Dad up for money for "just one more kit".

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Dean Fox
NAR #53946SR

---- "Wherever you go, there you are"

Heh, I grew up a Centuri boy myself, Dean.

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Scott D. Hansen
Ye Olde Rocket Shoppe - Your One Stop BAR Shoppe!
Ye Olde Rocket Plans - OOP Rocket Plans From 38 Companies!
Ye Olde Rocket Forum
WOOSH NAR Section #558

I got that. I was just wondering if that was like the Loch Ness Monster or the Abominable Snowman. I myself flew anything that I could find and afford.

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Bill Eichelberger
NAR 79563

http://wallyum.blogspot.com/

I miss being SAM 0058

Build floor: Centuri Design Contest F-150 Hurricane Estes - Low Boom SST Semroc - Marauder, Shrike, SST Shuttle

In paint: Canaroc Starfighter Scorpion Estes F-22 Air Superiority Fighter, Multi-Roc, Solar Sailer II Semroc Cyber III

Ready to fly: Estes - Solar Sailer II Semroc - Earmark, Groonie Der V 1/2

Y'know, it was the strangest thing (and maybe this was true everywhere, and I'm just learning it now!)...but I always had to buy my Estes rockets out of the catalog from Penrose. When the local Hobby Center Toys store in Lima, Ohio, started carrying model rockets...they were Centuri designs. It wasn't until a couple years after the Centuri's showed up on the racks that the Estes models started appearing, too.

I thought I heard Lee say something to that effect, too, but he didn't elaborate. It wasn't until years and YEARS later that I learned about (and bought and flew!) MPC, MRI, and the like. Too bad, too --- I always thought the MPC designs were neat (I love my Theta Cajun and Moon Go)

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Dean Fox
NAR #53946SR

---- "Wherever you go, there you are"

I remember the smirk on the face of the clerk when he mentioned that he had a room with a single king for Scott and I. He looked way too ...........interested.
I remember not being impressed by cheese curds in a "not worth driving to Wisconsin for" kind of way. I didn't loathe them or anything like that, but I've been eating them from White Castle for years. No big deal.
I remember looking in a Milwaukee phone book for Arthur Fonzerelli, half expecting him to be there. I didn't know what Potsie's real name was, so I didn't bother with him, and I always wanted to punch Ralph Malph in the mouth anyway, so I didn't bother with him either.
I remember this really big Outlander, but I think it was a flashback.
I remember one REALLY nasty beer this time, and I think Scott brought it again.

__________________
Bill Eichelberger
NAR 79563

http://wallyum.blogspot.com/

I miss being SAM 0058

Build floor: Centuri Design Contest F-150 Hurricane Estes - Low Boom SST Semroc - Marauder, Shrike, SST Shuttle

In paint: Canaroc Starfighter Scorpion Estes F-22 Air Superiority Fighter, Multi-Roc, Solar Sailer II Semroc Cyber III

Ready to fly: Estes - Solar Sailer II Semroc - Earmark, Groonie Der V 1/2