I am on a business trip to bartlesville, oklahoma. It certainly isn’t california, its cold and everyone stops and stares whereever I go, certainly something gives me away as not from around here, shocking. But I digress, there is a hobby lobby right down the street from the place I am working. I think I got my hopes a little high, definitely not as much selection as I expected, for every time I have heard the name mentioned I guess I expected plastic model heaven. still though interesting to find how the other half live, anybody know of a full service hobby shop in bartlesville?
Much more importantly, the only highrise building ever built by Frank Lloyd Wright. I know I will never ever ever go there, so take pictures if you get a chance. You’ll know it when you see it.
Best way to use Hobby Lobby (if you have one nearby) is to tame the manager so she/he will order a kit or kits you want… They have to order whatever corporate says to stock, but allows 20% per order-cycle to be the department manager’s call based on local sales… Then make sure you check the website for a 40% coupon and print it out, then use it to get the kit you “ordered”…
Welcome to Oklahoma! Don’t like the weather? Just wait a minute, It’ll change.
The nearest real hobby shop that I know of is in Owasso. Top Shelf Models at 119 S. Main. Royal is the owner, he’s a real nice guy. (918) 274-0433. Good prices and he’s got just about everything you’d want, and I’d say it’s well worth the 45 minute drive. Plus, Owasso is a bit of a booming town and has a bunch of good restaurants and shopping.
How long are you in town?
Good to see you posting again. How’s Aiden and Mom doing?
Darwin
Not all HL are exactly the same, we have two within a 20 minute commute…sometimes they have a good selection of kits, other times not so. Make sure to check the clearance corner, sometimes you’ll find kits drastically reduced in price tucked away there. I once picked up a couple arms full of Minicraft airliner kits for $7.00 each…down from over $20.
Sorry, cant give info on HL, I live in Cal…Harv
Bondo: Actually in my research before coming here (because I do nothing without researching) I saw the skyscraper, it is beautiful I fully intended on going to see it but I got a bad cough the night I showed up and with a bad back like mine a bad cough is devastating, full body spasms, huge pain and headaches, so bad I end up throwing up. But I will be out here a week a month until I can get this call center up to speed and I am definitely going to check it out next month, I will get some pictures of it for you. they have a hotel inside, if you want to foot the bill I will get you some pictures from the inside 
its gotta be better then the microtel I am holed up in now.
ACModeler: The weather isn’t too bad, I didn’t think there was another place on earth that could go from nearly freezing to sunny as fast as the SF bay area but have been proven wrong, oklahoma goes from 15 degrees to 75 degrees in one day, crazy. I may have to check that other hobby shop out next month, I am flying out tomorrow. We should get together if we can coordinate, I have always wanted to meet up with some of you guys, and since the closest person to my home always blows off my invites to get together sometime(not gonna name any names but I will give you a hint and say the name starts with bon and ends with doman) it would be cool to have the first person I meet be all the way out here in oklahoma.
Hans: Unfortunately I don’t know that I will be spending enough time to get to know the manager but there is talk that one of us from corporate may need to come out perminately as the bartlesville chief knowledge officer, if that ends up being me that knowledge could prove useful.
Yard: Just wait, did my taxes a week and a half ago, and since the my return isn’t enough to fix my car or buy myself a new one I will just have to buy a new laptop and build a desktop. Then you guys will be sick of me, Aidan and the wife are good, or at least they were last time I saw them 
hawk: I think I am going to stop back in before I leave tomorrw just to check for some of those awesome deals.
Sorry for the delay in getting back to everyone, working, being sick and trying to run a household from 2000 miles away has been dominating my time.
Ya, I can say that having a manager in m’ hip-pocket has proven useful, lol…
"Chief Knowledge Officer, eh? I could do that… I was a chief and I reckon I got more knowledge than I know about…
I live near Chicago, but I have relatives in Owasso, Ok. and every year when we are there I make a trip to Top Shelf Models. Acmodeler, you’re right it is a pretty nice shop. Every visit leads to something else being packed up and hauled back to Crest Hill, Il.
Do they have “corporate linguists” that come up with these job titles? [%-)]
Some of them are really out there. Every time I think I have heard the wierdest one, another, even stranger one comes along…
I think the selection of available kits has decreased recently, too. The Hobby Lobby on my side of town has cut its shelf space dedicated to plastic kits by about a third over the last three years, and I’d bet it’s about the same for the one on the other side of town, though I don’t make it over there nearly as often so I don’t have a really good basis for comparison.
My company has the best job titles, currently I am a “senior authorization auditor” we audit peoples written work, the people in our sister department that listen to and grade employee phone calls are “Employee excellence coaches” their supervisor is the “Employee Excellence Specialist” I figure they have to give us real positive sounding titles as most of the company hates us because its our job to find their mistakes… [:-^]
Sounds like the government, Chris…Asst. to the Depty. Asst. High Panjandrum of Assistants…at any rate, good to see you on again!
Brian [C):-)]
Brain! I am indeed back, not just kind of back either this time. Tax time rolled around and I completed one of my life long goals. I built a top tier computer from a box of brand new parts and hooked it up to my TV and surround sound in the living room got myself a wireless keyboard and there is heaven to be had. Right now I am sitting here fully reclined typing this out on a 32in flat screen. I have never known heaven such as this.
It seems though I am retired from model building until I can get a bigger apartment, a month or two ago I pulled the tornado out and started sanding and getting the fuselage together, within 36 hours Aidan was in the ER with krupp (sp?) a respiratory infection of sorts and a 104deg fever, I always worried about the fumes and it seems even with the windows and doors open and fans going my fears were justified. Not wanting to experience the terror of watching my beautiful baby boy completely red faced trying to scream at the top of his lungs without the air in there to do so with a fever so high he was on the verge of losing conciousness has been enough for me to put down my selfish endevours. That being said if you will accept a retired builder in your ranks I will still be here causing problems…I mean posting.
Since I am really proud of my current project I will bother you all with it
2.7ghz AMD athlon x2 7750 Black edition dual core processor
Rosewell aluminium and copper heatsink with 120mm fan
8gb high performance ram
ATI Radeon 4830 video card
Gigabyte motherboard with amd 770 chipset
cd/dvd burner
320gb hard drive
Antec 300 case (with so many fans it dims the lights on high)
Vista ultimate 64bit
all for under $600 built wired and programmed with my own two hands, and really I should thank you guys, without the lessions I learned here about patience, soft touch, and most importantly that there is never a mistake you cant get out of so not to panic even with my extesive computer knowledge I would have never had the confidence to chase this dream. Now I have ripped it apart so many times trying to run the wiring as to maximize airflow I have brushed up on modern technology and relearned a bunch of stuff years of alcoholism erased I feel comfortable fielding computer questions again so feel free to shoot em my way if you need help with your own “rig’s”
Here are the pics of my latest “build” as it were if anyone is interested
Jeeeezz, that is a nice computer set up. You want to come up to St Louis and build one of those for me? I’ll loan you my model room for awhile.
Darwin, O.F. [alien]
As cool as that would be I think the flight would cost more then the project, plus getting all my exacto’s razor saws and paint through security would be a nightmare. Luckily then I dont really need to be in town to help so on that note PM INBOUND!
Oh, shes a beauty! How long did it take you to put her together? What is her main purpose anyhow? Though, yours isn’t top tier, its close to it, but not. If you really want it running at it’s max, get a mobo with dual pci express 2.0 slots, dual link a vid card like mine, or higher, and run it on a quad core cpu, also, youd need a HIGH wattage PSU, that kind of stuff Eats power
I’d show pics of mine, but, shes topless, and that stuffs not allowed on here, heh. (prob show some lateR)
Shes running vista home premium,
nvidia 9800 GTX+ 512mb 256bit vid card (close to the top of the line, runs most of my games at top settings (you can cearly make out the faces and such on the infantry in company of heroeos.
AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000 3.1GHz Dual Core processor
2 gigs of DDR2 ram
ASUS M3A78-CM AM2+/AM2 AMD 780V Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI 700W ATX12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply
Logitech G5 Laser gaming mouse
Dual monitor setup
150g HD (saving my money for a tb+ neweg has one for 110$, a 1.5Tb HD (gawd i want it).
for cooling, since shes topless, she gets my desk fan to cool her, work great. aktually
Geez, Chris! Now you got my grandson’s FULL attention! He builds these things, too! I understand completely about your concerns for Aidan, and we will wait patiently for your building return, as long as you stay in touch with us, bro! Glad to hear that Aidan will be OK, croup is not fun for the child or the parent…also glad to hear that all is going well with you, too!
Brian [C):-)]