Bringing to Aberdeen 2011

[Nonotagain]

Had a good time also, though I had to bail Friday evening to make some money by working Saturday.

The Maryland Steel Soldiers contingent resided in row L, except Powerhousedeuce. His new M916 with trailer is an awesome truck/trailer combo.

The Thursday evening meal was great followed by Friday morning steak, eggs and potatoes. Frank was a great host/chef with his MKT.

Cabell pulled off the trifecta with the Friday evening meal of a life time. If you walked or crawled away hungry, it's your own darn fault.

Friday's weather was deceiving with it's cloud cover. I got a fair sunburn which I found out about when I got my shower.

All in all a good show.

 

[Sephirothq]

I had a great time down there. Got some tires, a lot of stuff from Carnac. and some from guys from Wisconsin.

Between work and family issues i didn't have a lot of time to hang out with you guys.

Great time hope to do it again.

 

[rickf]

Well the trip home was much better than the trip down. Lost a trailer bearing and spent 4 hours on the side of 295 repairing it. I want to thank Dudley for setting me up with the spot and I will definitely be back for next year. The food was fantastic. I did not get to meet as many SS guys as I would have liked because of a sore back and knees from the trailer repair. There is always next year. The G/L gals were upset with me because I did not have my dog this year but I got a free shirt anyway.

Rick

 

[atankersdad]

As Dorthy in the wizard of Oz said, "there is no place like home". Great show. I made a special trip to see Anja and Bob Taylor who run the Blue/gray to thank them from all of the SS members in attendance. She told me the rumor about us this year was that all we did was eat!!! I told her it was fact, not fiction. Thanks go out to Frank for his kitchen. We had our first annual MD/PA SS Aberdeen dinner on Thursday, burger lunches and had a great pancake and sausage breakfast today. Frank puts in a lot of time setting up and then taking it down, and I want to thank him for all of his efforts. Got to meet a lot of new members. Stumps, I listed the spots where we were staged but guess you missed that one. I had a lot of people hunt us down by posting our spots and think everyone should do it from here on out. JTonka is one of my favorites, and wish I lived closer to him, except I hate the cold. Carnac was in his element being back in MD. My sons and I miss him. It was good to see Jessie again and Maddawg. Good show and I pray all our guys make it home safely. ATD

 

[Sephirothq]

Lance, Dudley, Jim it was great to meet you guys. Hope to make it to another show and see you guys again.

 

[jaxsof]

There were some I knew were there that I wanted to meet, but after starting my day at 4a, I just couldn't remember even why I was there. Thank You Dudley; Sorry I missed meeting you Matt; And Carnac and; and so many others. John (JaTonka) and Becky, I am glad to have met you, the manual offer always stands, and to all. They're a little hard to e-mail, but if you need one I will try to get it to you.

And Stumps, again, Which One? ROFLMAO!

I am gonna have to put more planning into future events, I see that now.

 

[armadillofz1]

Great time. successfully emptied my wallet. i did find 50 cents in my pocket the next morning, more than likely change from the $3.50 hamburger i bought out of desperation.

 

[3dAngus]

Gotta meet that Carnac. He has some good stuff!
Congrats to all who made it. It sounds like a really neat place to buy and sell stuff, and meet all our neighbors.

 

[HUMONGO]

I had a great time, got a few deals.

Almost saw an OD Pinz radio truck up REAL close on Rt 40 when it pulled off the shoulder into traffic right in front of me tonight.

 

[rchalmers3]

Wow, you guys are really fortunate to be within striking distance of the MV event of events. I see that I will have to plan my stateside visit next year around springtime instead of summer......

Please all of you, stay healthy and alive for another year so that we can all convene in Aberdeen next year to eat, yak and trade.

Dudley, thank you for being the connection between the Blue/Gray and SS members. I appreciate your time and energy given to increasing participation in the event. your work is commendable.

Rick

 

[atankersdad]

Thanks Rick but I have a partner in crime with helping with this event, who workes harder than anyone I know, it is Ian. Ian sets up the electronics for the club, gets to Aberdeen on Mon or Tuesday and never says no when someone asks him to help. He was the first there this week and one of the last to leave. And he only lives 2 miles away. Ian has helped me for the past several weeks and I want to publicly say thank you from me but also thank you from the Blue/Gray and the SS members who you willingly help everyday. This hobby needs more Ians.

 

[ZiggyO]

You are gonna love this one. GL always brings MVs to the show. last year it was some camper-like trailers. this year it was a 900 series truck towing a gen unit. This year it did not make it. We got a call that the truck was broke down 20 minutes south of us. A tow bar was found and a trusty 30+ year old 818 towed both to Ripken Stadium. Now I wonder if they will change the description, to "was driven onto the lot, was driven off the lot and then towed to Aberdeen. Condition unknown."

Actually, it was my m915a1 that went on that mission because Scrounger could not get the m818 started... to make matters even more interesting, when we got there, we found that the towbar had one foot wth the 1" pin holes and one foot with the 3/4" pin holes -- that in itself would not have been a problem but there were no 3/4" pins on hand--- Scrounger and I figured a way to rig up a temp fix involving a piece of chain and the bumper shackle--- it made the trip to the stadium, but is not somethig I would care to try again........ FWIW, flat towing a tractor and bumper pull trailer behind another tractor makes turns and stopping rather interesting...... (and thats why I let Scrounger drive as his experience far exceeds mine).... and would you believe that he was able to parallel park it that way in GL's spots too..............


Ziggy

 

[Sephirothq]

I saw that and just thought wow!

 

[maddawg308]

I got home at 8:30 last night, 133 miles one way took 3.5 hours in the deuce. My truck suffered from a slow ride due to crappy year-old fuel (diesel and gas mix) on the ride there. Before the trip home I changed the primary filter, it was really sad looking, and added 20 gallons of fresh diesel to the tank. Things got better for most of the ride home, but on the last leg on I-66 westbound to Front Royal, things got slower again, even gradual hills dropped down to 40 mph with almost no load in the back of the truck. SO, long story short, I have some playing around with my truck to do to see what's the additional problem. I'll start by changing out the secondaries and the air filter, they each have 6500 miles on them, and then drain some of the crap fuel out of the tank.

It was a great show, it always is! The weather was fantastic on Wednesday and Thursday, Friday was good (overcast but no rain), and even Saturday it misted for the morning but wasn't too bad (remember Aberdeen 2008 where it rained the whole time? Or Aberdeen 2000 when it POURED for the whole time?). I missed all the great deals, cuz I wasn't shopping for any (no walking around money), but I did sell off some of my extra stuff, dumped some heavy stuff off at the auction (a lot of it ended up in the scrap metal bins, oh well), and just enjoyed being around green iron again.

The best part about the show is seeing my friends again. In the few short years I've been a Steel Soldier I have made a LOT of friends, some of whom I hope will be lifelong. So to every SS member I met there, atankersdad, rideni, jaxsof, ZiggyO, scrounger, CGarbee, nonotagain, powerhouseduece, hedelta, lancerobson, nickd (thanks for the help with the mule!), emmado22, jatonka. popacom, CARNAC, panzerwillie, M215, M35-tom, yankeeduece, MidnightDuramax, No.2Diesel, HAWKMAN, BKubu, and to all those I don't know if are SS members, Art, Chris R. Frank, Rick, Larry, the ECC crew, Bernie, Chuck, Kelly, Jeff, and anyone else I can't remember, IT WAS GREAT SEEING YOU ALL, CAN'T WAIT TO GET TOGETHER FOR ANOTHER GREAT RALLY AGAIN!

 

[emmado22]

I have mixed thoughts on Aberdeen this year. The social aspect was the same as in years past.. Seeing old friends, catching up on things, comparing new aquisitions... Great stuff.

However, somethings were noticabley different, and not for the better.. There were considerably less portapotties and trash cans than in years past. The portapotties were cleaned out early every morning, but by mid afternoon, were coming close to being overfull.
Trash cans were located next to portapotties, but that was it. Dumpsters were located at the top of the parking lot as usual.

The food tent being so small was not the organizers fault, as who has usually done it in the past bailed out 2 weeks prior, leaving the organizers scrambling to fill in the gap, which they did.

I didnt see any big peices from APM Museum, but that could be due to BRAC and the move to Benning.

The perhaps worst thing was the lack of vendors as compared to years past. I do not have any #'s of vendors that registered and showed up to compare from last year to this year, but the following pictures were taken Saturday AM at about 8AM... Note the holes. These spaces did not get filled in later on in the day. Blame it on the economy, fuel costs, or whatever else, but the vendors did not come out in the #'s they have in the past. I saw one very well known vendor (who advertises in MV magazine) pack up his several spaces worth of stuff, take down his tent, and pull out on Friday afternoon. I dont think even the weather on Satuday was a huge factor, as the first few days were great.

I hope this is not a trend setter for next year, and the organizers are able to correct the problems within their control for next year.

Just my observations.

 

[rickf]

Keep in mind that it was raining Saturday morning and the forecast was for heavy rain later in the day. I think that influenced some of the vendors. I had a buyer for an item my neighbor had but he never even set up on Sat. so the item did not get sold. I did notice a couple of vendors missing Thursday and Friday but most of the usual people were there. I did notice the lack of Porti potties there, glad I had my camper!

Rick

 

[tbanks]

Aberdeen

Rickf I think you hit it on the head as far as the weather on Saturday.Speeking for myself and popacom we always leave around noon anyway seeing we have about a 10+ hour drive.We waited until around 10 in the drizzle and decided just to pack it in.I think sales were down due to the economy and gas prices.Ours is a hobby based business and in times like these charitable donations and hobbies are the first thing to be cut from most folks budgets.I cant blame people "1000.00 for a ring mount for the duce or pay the house payment this month", kinda no brainer for most.
You were also dead on about the porta johns, last year they were every where, this year there were 1 set at the end of our row.Porta johns cost money to rent and im sure it was an attempt by the host club to cut costs.
I would like to take this time to say thank you to all who were involved in this show either putting it on, being a vendor,showing your vehicle,or just by attending.This is still in my opinion one of the premier MV shows in the country.
As for the "Big Vendor" who "pulled" out on Friday he had a pryor committment that takes place the same weekend every year from what I was told.It would be nice if they could nail down a date for this show instead of changing it from year to year.If my memory is right it has been on 4 different weekends in the last 4 years.This may be due to conflicts with the sight.

 

[scranch18121]

Wish we had one of these in Texas.

 

[rchalmers3]

Given the observations that GL auction prices are rising and that SS participation is building, I don't think the vendor attendance is an indicator of a decline in the hobby.

A maturation of the hobby may be occuring, which may lead to a shift in participants towards those with greater disposal income. which is fine 'cause maybe then I will sell my stuff to some rich guy.

Rick

 

[rchalmers3]

Given the observations that GL auction prices are rising and that SS participation is building, I don't think the vendor attendance is an indicator of a decline in the hobby.

A maturation of the hobby may be occuring, which may lead to a shift in participants towards those with greater disposal income. which is fine 'cause maybe then someday I will sell my stuff to some rich guy.

Rick