Thoughts on Globus Tours

In 2012 I took my family on our first European vacation. Before that we didn't really have the money for it but in 2010 I went contracting and was able to mass enough savings to spend on the trip and reward my spouse for being patient while I saved for it. 

I planned the entire thing myself months in advance. Tours, hotels, transportation, the whole bit. It was a blast doing it and then seeing it all come to life. Granted, it was also a lot of work, but it was fun work. Thanks to the internet, there is no shortage of reviews and I was able to put together a nice trip. We flew to London and had an overnight layover there, which I combined with a day tour of the city. Then we flew to Rome, did a half-day tour, then hopped on a cruise ship that took us to parts of Italy, Greece, and Turkey. At each stop I used either the cruise company's excursions or private tours that I booked on my own. Upon the cruise's conclusion, I combined the transfer from the port to the airport with another day tour that visited some lakes and castles. It was a packed vacation and we had a great time.

Well, the spouse got the travel bug and most years after that we did a trip. Our passports picked up stamps from Spain, Costa Rica, Croatia, Mexico, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Thanks to contracting, I was able to do it while still making the mortgage. Except for Covid-19, where we took a year or two to do staycations. But each trip was a lot of work to plan.

Last year was the first time we did things differently. We had a travel agent take care of most of the planning by setting us up with a group tour with Globus [globusjourneys.com]. It was the Taste of Portugal trip, that spent a week visiting the north, central, and south areas of Portugal. 

Pros

• I didn't have to think too hard once all the paperwork was done. The travel agent took care of arranging our flights and transfers. I didn't have to scour TripAdvisor and other sites looking for the best tours or hotels. There is some value in the peace of mind in handing it over to someone else.
• I didn't have to think too hard during the trip either. Similar to taking a cruise, most of the cost is borne up front. Once you're in the hands of Globus, you're on a pretty set schedule. You're not completely off the hook; Globus takes care of transportation and lodging during the tour, as well as opening and closing night dinners, and each hotel typically includes a complimentary breakfast buffet. You will be responsible for your own lunches, dinners on the remaining evenings, and any extra excursions you want to take. So I still had to do some planning to pick out things to do during afternoon free time and to find good restaurants.
• The guides they select are generally pretty good. They're multilingual and know the regions you're traveling in. 
• Globus has been doing it a while, and they're pretty well organized. Communications are good; you'll get a steady stream of emails leading up to the departure day to remind you of what documents you need done and what you can do to prepare. Once the trip starts, you don't get much though, and some integration of the guide's notes and itinerary into a daily digest email would be kind of nice.

Cons

• Globus is in it to make money, as any good business should be. But some of their strategies broke down under duress, and you as the customer may feel it. I suspect Globus locks in costs by setting up long-term contracts with local providers such as hotels, restaurants, and local guides. That's smart and a good business strategy. But it affected our vacation in a couple ways; read on.
• You're set in the hotels you'll stay in. When I planned it myself, I could go cheaper or more expensive depending on the situation. If I just needed a clean, safe place to stay for a single night in-transit to another destination, I could go with something simple. Why pay for a five star set of amenities if you won't have time to use them? Globus put us up in decent hotels during the trip, so it's not a big deal, but if you're into min/maxing costs, you don't get a say here.
• The restaurants were where it made a bigger difference. The first dinner was at the same hotel where we were staying. This was a convenient and decent option that yielded a serviceable if not extravagant meal. But the final dinner was in a venue that I think they originally hoped would be special and it turned out to be less so. It was a fair drive from our regular hotel and we had to walk part way due to construction. Then the elevator access was limited and people had to wait a long time to get to the venue. It was at the top of a building and we were supposed to enjoy the view but the delays in getting everyone there meant we didn't all get to see it. This was in 2024, and while Globus had a contracted price, the restaurant was probably feeling the pinch of post-Covid inflation; it was clear they were cutting corners on the meal. Our options were fish or lamb, and the fish approached the thinness of the "meat" on a White Castle burger, and the lamb didn't look or taste like lamb. I can understand the restaurant's dilemma, but suffice to say, quite a disappointing last meal.
• We traveled from Porto to Agueda to Coimbra on the morning of the third day of the trip. Then on the fourth day, we traveled nearly halfway back to Porto to visit a winery in the morning, Wine before noon? Yes, but it's vacation, so whatever. Again, this stuff is probably locked in in advance, so you get what you get. If I'd been planning, I'd have gone to the winery around lunch time after Agueda and maybe arranged for heavier snacks to go with the wine tastings, then gotten into Coimbra in the late afternoon. The fourth morning could then be dedicated to a proper tour, and Coimbra was actually really cool, there were some neat things to see there that weren't formally part of the agenda that in my opinion should have been. Most of the time in Coimbra we were on our own.
• The final days in Lisbon were spent visiting three smaller towns. Each one had some charm and they were all worthy visits, but the last one, Cascais, was really beautiful and we only got an hour or two there. Would have liked more time at that one. 
• One size fits all. In case you couldn't tell from the above points, the tour has to be pretty generic since 30+ people of all ages and backgrounds are brought together for the trip. The daily format is typically this and doesn't deviate much:
• Breakfast at hotel
• Guided tour or event in the morning
• Free time declared starting at lunch. You're typically on your own for lunch, afternoon activities, and dinner. There are optional excursions hosted by Globus if you want to purchase them. On this particular trip the excursions didn't really grab us so we walked the city and found good restaurants to visit. 

There's nothing wrong with that but if you're used to tailoring things to the preferences of your family, you're out of luck unless you do some of your own planning in advance.

• The old joke says, "Hell is other people," but the people in a group tour can be both a blessing and a curse. When you throw 30+ strangers together on a bus, you're bound to come across someone that doesn't see eye-to-eye with you. Most of our crew was great, we met some nice people and had a good time. There was one guy that was quite vocal and complained about some things, and there were some who had mobility limits and probably wouldn't have been very good on high-adventure vacations, but none of that took away from our enjoyment.

Summary

Would I use Globus again? Yes, if I was in a situation where I wanted to just chill and let someone else to most of the planning (although with Globus you're still responsible for planning your afternoons and evenings.). It is kind of nice to pay a lump sum up front and not have to worry too much about most of the trip. But if I have the time, I'd prefer to plan it. In some spots it will be more expensive but I also can compensate for that by adjusting the lodging and events, and I can choose where I want to spend more, for example on a particular activity or restaurant. 

A Return to Scale Modeling

I lamented in a past post my hobbies that take up time, money, and space, namely book collecting. Welp, I'm about to make it worse. 

A Forty-Year Absence

I built scale model kits when I was a kid and probably haven't touched a model since my sophomore year in high school. That would make it about forty years since I was involved in the hobby. 

I didn't make a quick, conscious decision to get back in. It was something that sort of came to me indirectly while collecting the Squadron Signal books. In the course of researching Squadron, I learned about how the company has changed hands and is being revitalized by Brandon Lowe. I started to listen to the Wednesday night YouTube show "Squadron Live" and after seeing such beautiful work done by other visitors to the show and from various scale model pictures on facebook and other sites, I became inspired. 

How Things Have Changed

To say the least, since I was last involved, the hobby has evolved. Kits are more detailed and more expensive. The glues have changed and there are many different types. Paints have evolved too, and acrylics are very common now as a safer alternative to enamels. And tools for everything from painting to sanding to supplies storage and more have changed. Although not the most expensive pursuit, it's not exactly cheap. 

But I was amazed mostly at how popular modeling is. You hear so much now about how youth these days don't get outside or do activities besides video games. But there are droves of people doing it; some are like me and getting back in, others never left, and new modelers are coming in all the time. I liken modeling to the comics industry, where the materials became a bit more of a niche and more expensive, but the audiences got older and often richer, and this disposable income allowed them to keep up with the hobby.

There was one more bit of inspiration. Decades ago when I was still just dating my current spouse, she got me an aircraft model for my birthday, and, get this, a Squadron book to go with it. Then for my birthday last year, she got me another one. Over all this time I never built the first one but I made it a goal to eventually get to it. Now that we're going empty nest, this is the time. 

My goals are simple: I'm not going to try to be those guys that make the absolutely incredible dioramas, at least not yet. I'd like in the next couple years to be able to reconnect with the hobby, get my tools and skills in order, and put together a kit or two a year. When I'm ready, I've got some ideas for dioramas I'd like to do, but I won't beat myself up too much if I don't get to them because they look like they would take too much time. But if I can get a few kits together and make respectable kits I can display in the house that would be great. I initially wondered, how much was it going to cost?

You can Go Back again, if you're Willing to Pay

I was fortunate enough to be able to kick start my re-entry by finding a guy on OfferUp that was letting go of his paints and kits because he's in the place I was twenty-five years ago with kids on the way and no time or money for modeling. I bought the whole bundle and then took stock of it. There were a couple of 1/72 scale planes that were the key for me, and a couple planes in other scales. There were also a few funny car kits, some Warhammer 40K space marine sets, and some boats. I'm not going to use the space marines or cars, so I sold those off and I've nearly recovered all the money I spent on the bundle in the first place. What I have left are a few kits and a bunch of paints that were effectively free. 

Then of course I had to go ruin a good thing and buy a bunch of kits during the Hobby Lobby 40% off model kits sale, and then I got hooked on the Lightning Deals at the Sprue Brothers online store and the Squadron holiday sale late last year. So now I'm a couple hundred bucks in and I still need to get an airbrush. I'm also interested in the new Scale Color paints Squadron is coming out with, so perhaps I'll sell off the paints I got in the bundle too. It'll be the first time I've used an airbrush so I'm looking forward to picking up this new skill.

A Bunch to Do 

It's crazy how the hobby has changed. When I was a kid, I didn't primer my models. I pretty much just glued them together, and sometimes I painted right on the kit afterward. The old adage says if you had fun then your build was successful. Well then, I guess I did ok. 

But now you do some variation of this sequence: wash the parts. dry the parts, build, add photo etched parts, primer, pre-shade, apply base paint color, mask, paint patterns or camoflage, mask again, paint the canopy frame, mask again, maybe build a bit more and add accoutrements, apply a gloss coat, apply decals, apply matte coat, apply panel wash (weathering), apply more weathering, de-mask, and you might finally be done.

And the chemistry involved! Styrene plastic is still the main ingredient in most kits, but you may also have resin parts that were 3D printed, or metal photo etched parts that add extra detail. So you may have multiple types of glue in a build for the different materials, and special types of glue for clear parts. Same for paints, where you might have acrylics, enamels, lacquers, different clear coats, and more.

I have a lot to learn, but it's all pretty cool. Onward.

Review: EcoViva Reverse Osmosis 600G system

Where I live, the city water is pretty crummy. Tap water rates 200+ on the total dissolved solids meter, and it smells and tastes like chlorine. It's poor quality water to drink and to bathe in, although I suppose it is disinfected and will kill you slowly rather than quickly.

The Brondell Circle: Great Concept, Poor Execution

For the last six years I've been using an ingenious product: the under-sink reverse osmosis water filtration system. These have been around a while actually, and I had one in my old house, but over time the technology has continuously improved and now they're smaller and easier to use than ever.

My first system was from Rainsoft; the salesman was a pompous, insulting ass and I should have never bought from him, but I really liked the idea of drinking cleaner water. It was a three chamber system with storage tank, installed in a rack on the side of the under-sink cabinet. It would filter water into a holding tank that kept a cache of about two liters of water. It was a decent system but involved cumbersome maintenance. You had to backwash the filters every so often, replacement filters were not cheap, and you also had to use a compressor to recharge a bladder inside the storage tank so that it would push water to the sink spigot. 

At my current home the sink came with a Dupure two chamber system, but it was ass. It was basically a taste and smell filter that only weakly removed the chlorine smell and the water still tasted like crap. I did a lot of research and settled on the Brondell Circle system. I was really excited about the Brondell at first. It was not cheap but it featured improvements over the Rainsoft. It contained all the equipment in a single assembly. Inside a box about a foot tall, a foot and a half deep, and about nine inches wide, it integrated four filters and a storage tank. It also self-backwashed with each use so you didn't have to do that chore manually. 

Unfortunately, the Brondell had some serious design flaws. About a year and a half into its life, some of the valves ceased to work right and the output dropped to a trickle. It would work ok after each filter change for a few days and then would return to a super slow output. It was maddening because there seemed to be no fix for it. Online, the truth about the Brondell would come out and many customers would complain about this happening. We lived with this deficiency for the last few years by having a pitcher or a large lemonade dispenser by the sink that we'd fill and then use that for drinking water as needed, and refill it as needed. Refills took a long time but once you were done you had water for a couple days. Still, this was inconvenient and I went from being a Brondell fan to a Brondell hater. Further, the Brondell filters weren't cheap and there was no recycling program for the old filters, so each refill created three to four plastic cylinders that went to the landfill. And from a product out of California...for shame!

Recently the Brondell sprung a leak and started dripping water everywhere. Rather than try to fix it I decided it was time to be rid of it. Like so many poorly implemented products before it, it was time to  let it go, and feel blessed to be in an economy that encourages competition. Looking online, I found many other directions I could go.

EcoViva: Benefits of Evolution

There were lots of the Rainsoft-style traditional systems, with the wall mounted rack of filter chambers and separate storage tank. But was was cool to see were that there were now also many new RO filter systems that were tankless. Tankless would mean less space needed under the sink, which is important because my sink area is cramped, but moreover, many of these newer systems were smaller even without tanks. One of them, the EcoViva WP-RO-600G-W, is the one I ended up choosing.

So how does it work? The EcoViva and others like it swap a storage tank for a small electric pump integrated into the unit. That's the one big difference and drawback from the other systems; you have to have power connected to the unit. The pump accelerates the flow of the water through the system and alleviates the need for a storage tank to provide a ready supply of filtered water. 

There are other benefits too: the EcoViva is more efficient. The Brondell created more than two gallons of wastewater for each gallon of filtered water (although Brondell's marketing material claims that is more efficient than other traditional systems). The EcoViva flips that equation and delivers two gallons of filtered water with a gallon of wastewater. It also uses fewer replacement objects when you change the filters. The front of the unit has two cylindrical chambers; in each you have a filter unit, one is the sediment and carbon filter, the other is the RO chamber. You can easily twist each cylinder a quarter-turn to unlock it, then pull it out and replace it in moments. To be fair, the Brondell Circle's filters were similarly easy to replace. The EcoViva's filters are a little cheaper than the Brondell units, and the system itself costs about half what Brondell charges for the Circle.

So far so good. I've been running with the EcoViva for a couple weeks and it's really nice not having to take up counter space with an extra pitcher or punch dispenser. And the idea that it's more efficient than the former system is comforting. I'll update here if the EcoViva doesn't hold up. Happy to be getting rid of the Brondell.

Comparison: Squadron Signal F-14 Tomcat "in action" books

Squadron Signal's F-14 Tomcat in action books

The Grumman F-14 Tomcat didn't need a movie to make it one of the most beloved aircraft in US Navy history. Anyone that likes aviation could fall in love with its looks. It featured a rakish profile, often accompanied by colorful squadron plumage on the twin vertical tails.

Squadron Signal Publications liked the jet enough to make five books (to date) about it in the "in action" series. We'll take a quick look at these books with collector's notes on which ones best fit your needs.

1977 - Starting in Afterburner 

The story of these books starts in 1977 with book 1032, F-14 Tomcat in action. It's a beautiful debut for the Tomcats in this line, with a sparkling clean Tomcat of the VF-84 Jolly Rogers squadron, set against a blue sky and launching an AIM-54 Phoenix missile. 

This was the perfect squadron to start with. The Jolly Rogers have an illustrious history. They also have one of the most photogenic squadron emblems in the skull and crossbones. Besides going back to WWII, the squadron's birds also featured in several movies (The Final Countdown, The Philadelphia Experiment, Executive Decision). This was also the motif used in the Japanese animation series Macross (converted to Robotech in the United States), proving the universal nature of the appeal. Although VF-84 was disestablished in 1995, the navy kept the iconic skull and crossbones alive, transferring the logo and name to VFA-103, formerly known as the Sluggers.

Lou Drendel authored and illustrated the first F-14 Tomcat in action book. I'll cut right to it: the book is highly recommended. Yes, even with the books that would follow, Drendel's 1977 entry is the most unique of the bunch and a stellar example of how good the early "in action" books could be before they started to favor graphics over text. 

Drendel starts at the beginning in the book's introduction, touching briefly on the navy's realization that the F-111B was not going to work for them, and then heads into the first chapter to cover flight testing of the then new Tomcat. This chapter is fantastic and captures the words of LCDR Emory Brown. I can't speak for all aviation fans but listening to pilot testimonials is one of my favorite aviation-related activities. Brown goes for several pages, with great photos of early Tomcat test flights. There are also some technical drawings of things like the Tomcat's hard points and onboard cannon. One picture is of General Daniel "Chappie" James after an orientation flight in the Tomcat (James is featured a bit in the Robin Olds biography, Fighter Pilot, and though he was in the air force at the time, he was commander of NORAD later in his career, explaining how he got to ride a navy airplane). 

The next section is a joy to read too. Drendel puts in a page on the Tomcat vs Phantom air combat trials, and that stuff, though short, is candy for military aviation fans. The next few pages include nice cutaway drawings, yet again very cool stuff absent from the later Tomcat "in action" books. 

Following that is a mini-walkaround photo page, then diagrams of the pilot and NFO (naval flight officer, the radar operator in the back seat) instrument panels, an ejection sequence diagram, and ordnance configuration diagrams. 

Early "in action" books were printed in black and white, with a centerfold color insert featuring profiles of the subject aircraft in different insignia. The 1977 book has the color insert but it is split between squadron profiles and some color photos. 

Next briefly covers the Tomcat's introduction to the fleet, followed by featuring many photos of the F-14 in carrier operations. 

The next section is just awesome, as Drendel details his experience in a check flight in the back seat of a Tomcat. Several photos accompany this section and also fill out the last few pages of the book before readers are treated to another pair of great Drendel Tomcat paintings on the back cover.

Don't be put off by the vintage status of the 1977 book. For an aviation enthusiast, it might be the best one of the bunch. Drendel did a lot of research and work for this one and it shows.

1990 - New Update, New Author

Book 1105 F-14 Tomcat in action came out thirteen years after Drendel's book and also after the Tomcat had appeared in several movies, including one about the Navy Fighter Weapons School at Miramar, California...the name of the movie escapes me, but rumor is it was popular. 

The names behind this book are different. The author, Al Adcock, has written other Squadron books about naval aviation, so that's not a surprise. This time around, the artist is Don Greer. Greer and Drendel were the two heavy hitter artists for most of Squadron's history prior to 2022. 

Adcock had more than a decade's worth of material to work through in building this second "in action" Tomcat book. The introduction is new, written in a more professional style than Drendel's folksy narration, and is a bit more detailed in describing the history of the F-14's creation.

The course of the book follows the standard "in action" practice of stepping through each version of an aircraft's variants in chronological order. I'm happy to report that Adcock's book still features a good blend of photos and lots of text. The F-14A gets many pages of the jet flying or on carriers, interspersed with detail diagrams featuring things like ordnance, refueling probe, cannon, the Tomcat's chin electronics pods.

The color centerfold features just squadron jets in profile. 

The next section is more meaty material for military history fans, covering the Tomcat's combat record at the time. This is primarily the 1981 Gulf of Sidra incident. 

Adcock then dedicates a couple pages to the export of Tomcats to Iran before covering the F-14B and F-14C and advanced experimental variants, along with material on the NASA F-14 and finally the F-14D.

Both the 1977 and 1990 editions are fifty pages.

2007 - Drendel and Greer team-up Issue

Book 1206 F-14 Tomcat in action would appear seventeen years after Adcock's entry, and shortly after the retirement of the F-14 by the US Navy on 22-Sep-2006. Lou Drendel returned as the author. Interestingly, Don Greer provides the painted cover and Drendel the title page. Mike McMahon, the publisher at the time, wrote of the two long-tenured Squadron contributors in the front notes, explaining that with the F-14's retirement, he felt Greer's use of a Tomcat with a sunset made for an appropriate cover. The winner is the reader, who gets yet two more great paintings from these Squadron stalwarts.

This book is also what McMahon called the debut of the All Color In Action series, where the photos in the book are mostly color. 

In addition to an introduction page, this book also has an author's foreword page. Drendel acknowledges the 1977 book and reviews how the Tomcat has seen changes and fame since then, and how the end of the Soviet Union took away the adversary the Tomcat was made to intercept, how the Tomcat found new life as a strike aircraft, and when it made its final catapult launch. His love for the plane is clear.

The formal introduction that follows is similar to the 1977 book's introduction, though Drendel reworked it with a more formal style. 

The F-14A starts the usual survey of the plane's variants. While there is some overlap in the general material, the text here reads very differently than Adcock's F-14A introduction page. Drendel also includes more details on the various manufacturing blocks of the Tomcat and adds a list of BuNos for each block. 

The color photos are great, and like the 1977 edition, this book includes diagrams of the instrument panels for both pilot and RIO (radar intercept officer). But this edition's color, larger pictures, and larger print all work to make these parts more readable than the original. This is a nice improvement.

Drendel continues to track the Tomcat variants and BuNo ranges for each. The pictures and paintings are an awesome sight and a real treat for Tomcat fans. The book ends with sections on Tomcat weapons and the Tomcat as a bombing platform. The final page shows Tomcats being dismantled at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, the famous airplane graveyard. Drendel provides two paintings on the back cover. 

On one hand, it's sad to not see some inclusion of the material from LCDR Emory Brown's testing and Drendel's recollections of his Tomcat ride, but on the other, there's minimal duplication of content between the 1977 and 2007 books. 

Book 1206 weighs in at fifty-two pages.

2018 - David Doyle and the Coffee Table Book Format

Book 10206 F-14 Tomcat In Action would appear eleven years after book 1206. The book numbering, 10206 versus 1206, seemed to be a quasi-standard Squadron was using to number books that were updates to previous books on the same aircraft.  

The good: 

• Most of the photos are in color and Squadron bumped up the page count to eighty.
• Doyle packs in a lot of photos, and from Squadron TV I've learned he takes great effort to not reuse photos from previous books. There are some great pictures here, including one of a Tomcat still flying after receiving collision damage.

The not as good:

• This is one of the books where the entire book is mostly photos and captions. Still great stuff, but you're not going to get that great detail from pilot interviews. The photo captions are still good and can add useful detail.
• No Drendel or Greer artwork. Both covers and all interior graphics are photos or diagrams. 

I joke about "coffee table book format" but of course I still love the books, it's just different and I kind of get how Doyle simply couldn't be as prolific if the books were in the old format. It would take much longer to get all that data, in addition to scouring over all the photos and curating to avoid duplication.

Book 10206 clocks in at eighty pages.

 

2022 - A little later, a little Update

Book 10267 F-14 Tomcat In Action didn't wait long after the last book to show up, just four years this time. These four years were tumultuous for Squadron as it went through period of near dormancy, the pandemic, and ownership changes. 10267's numbering also is odd, as it is an update to 10206 with an additional eight pages.

I've mixed opinions on this one but the first impression is a good one, with a new artist's work gracing the cover. Now under the ownership of Brandon Lowe, Squadron is getting great digital art made by Piotr Forkasiewicz. There's an episode of Squadron TV  featuring Forkasiewicz [YouTube] where Forkasiewicz tells his story and gives a glimpse into his art process. Although the digital art can reduce some of the inefficiencies of traditional art (it's a lot cleaner not having to clean up paints, and 3D models make creating reproductions and variations much easier) it's still a ton of work.

It's interesting to note too that the indicia shows the copyright goes to David Doyle instead of Squadron. I've said in an earlier post what a smart move by Doyle that is. Traditionally the publisher gets everything and the writer gets very little in the contract rights (unless you were willing to fight for it like the scrappy Harlan Ellison, but for most of us that would mean not getting published). Not sure though if this was just a one-off special case due to the Squadron ownership changes. 

Outside of the cover, title page, and indicia page, book 10267 is identical to book 10206 through the first forty-five pages. In 10267, page 45 features the photo that was book 10206's cover. Although the picture is a lovely shot of a Tomcat with wings forward over the water, I like 10206's page 45 featuring three photos of Tomcats in service (a pair of Tomcats on a carrier deck, an F-14 catapult launch, and a Tomcat in profile in flight in low-visibility paint). 

The books re-sync for pages 46 through 62. 

Then on page 63 there's some weirdness. Both books sport a four-picture quadrant spread, and both have the same pictures in the top two quadrants. Book 10206 does something really cool; it shows in the bottom pictures Tomcats of the VF-41 "Black Aces" in a refueling op. The bottom left Tomcat is in low visibility paint, the bottom right picture shows a Tomcat with the brighter colors and red in the squadron tail markings. Both photos are from 1991, the left Tomcat is number 104, and the right is number 101. There's a story to be told here, but Doyle doesn't tell it! Why during the same time frame are these two Tomcats painted differently? Is 101 a CAG bird, which were sometimes allowed more colorful schemes? Was 104 more actively involved in combat operations and why it had the more subdued colors?

And it gets weirder. Even without the story behind the two VF-41 birds, the two photos in 10206 are an interesting contrast, enough to spark the questions I ask above. Book 10267 has the same low vis Tomcat picture in the lower left, but swaps out the lower right for a VF-1 plane preparing for a cat launch. Why did Doyle make this change? I'll have to ask someday in a Squadron TV episode. Boy what a nerd I'll look like in that show: "Uh, Mr. Doyle, why on page 63 of book 10267 was the quadrant four picture changed?" Yeah, absolute SNL "get a life" skit fodder.

Page 64 is identical in both books.

Page 65 is a win for book 10206, which features the aforementioned shot of a damaged Tomcat still flying. Book 10267 at this point starts some squadron color profile drawings. While I like the profiles, book 10206's picture is incredible and absent from 10267.

Page 66: Book 10206 has a full page for the same photo that was the curious replacement in the bottom right corner of book 10267's page 63. Despite being smaller in book 10267, the photo color looks better as book 10206's rendition seems slightly tinted.

Page 67: Book 10206 has a triple photo layout, book 10267 has the third page of the color profile drawings. But on 10267's page 68, it starts with the vertical half-page photo used on the right half of the previous book's page 67, and then the second half is the same two photos that make up the first half of book 10206's page 68. Book 10267 loses a shot of a Tomcat on a carrier during Operation Southern Watch. 

Pages 69-74 are identical between the books.

Pages 75-77 are hard to compare. There are some of the same photos used in both books but Doyle has re-sequenced several while also dropping a few of 10206's for other operations photos. One change I liked is of the special "final Tomcat cruise" emblems painted on the Tomcat's last tour (this picture is also in book 1206). 

Book 10206 ends at page 80, but both books have the same last three pages, showing the airplane graveyard and a Tomcat at sunset. 

I remain curious as to how Doyle decided what to keep and what to change, but who am I kidding, it's the Tomcat, so all the pictures are going to be good. 

Book 10267 counts in at eighty-eight pages total. 

Conclusions

If you're a Tomcat fan and can't get enough photos of the Tomcat, you'll love all of these books. And of course, if you're a completist, the advice is the same, get them all because each has something different.

If you're looking to save money and space, I would omit 10206 for 10267. If you're mostly looking for photos, I think 10267 is your top choice for the best selection of color photos, although book 10206 does have a closeup of landing gear and the damaged flight picture, photos dropped for 10267.

If you're a historian, get 1032, the 1977 book that has all the great information about the early days of the Tomcat, and maybe supplement it with Adcock's 1105 to capture some of the operational history.

If you need modeling reference photos for later variants like the F-14D, you'll have to start with Adcock's 1105 or later.

If you can buy only one? Tough call, but I would contend that the first book, 1032, is one of the best in terms of educational value and useful material. None of the other books comes close to providing the same insights into flying the Tomcat. 

Book 1206 is sort of an oddball in the mix. I like it as a sort of farewell to the Tomcat, and as a nice sequel to Drendel's original book 1032. But it doesn't have the original's storytelling, and the subsequent books would have more photos. However, it does have more of those wonderful Drendel paintings. Still a worthy acquisition for Squadron collectors.

If all the above isn't enough, Squadron published yet more Tomcat books. 

• Book 5006 is part of the short Modern Military Aircraft series. It's a trade paperback dedicated to the F-14.
• Book 5503 is the F-14 Tomcat Walk Around, featuring a full photo tour around the aircraft
• Book 6092 is part of the Squadron specials line and another dedicated study of the F-14. How it differs from 5506 is something for a future post.

Old reviews: Windtalkers review

Towards the end of my time writing for Combatsim.com I got to do several movie reviews, some of which have already been posted. 

Windtalkers was ok. I certainly appreciate the effort to give some pub to some unsung heroes of WWII. We'll see if Hollywood eventually gets to the Japanese Americans that fought in Europe for the allies. 

Rereading this, I am struck by the paragraph where I suggested that racism could be better illustrated in a more subtle manner, with social ostracization rather than a silly fistfight. It's a terrible and wonderful statement at the same time, born from personal experience.

Windtalkers

by Bernard Dy

Article Type: Movie Review
Article Date: July 04, 2002

Woo Hoo!
Hollywood's interest in WWII continues with the new Windtalkers, an interesting film for a couple reasons. The first is that is addresses a little known aspect of the American effort in the war, and the other is that its director is John Woo, the Chinese action maven. The patriotism and racial implications of the film might worry some; does the film sacrifice truth for political correctness? Woo's presence is also point of ambivalence. Is the film's action too choreographed for belief? The final product is shaky, but the thrust of its politically correct message remembers minority veterans and is worth noting.

Nicholas Cage gets his orders

The film is fiction, but based on the true contribution of Native Americans to the Allied cause in WWII. The Japanese were able to intercept American radio transmissions and break the American codes, thus compromising useful information. Someone came up with the ingenious idea of communicating in an obscure language that would be difficult to interpret. The Navajo language answered the call. Native Americans fluent in Navajo found work as interpreters and served as "windtalkers", or code talkers.

Everybody has Secrets
The American military assigned Marine bodyguards to the code talkers, and this forms the center of the film. Nicolas Cage steps in to play Sergeant Joe Enders, the Marine responsible for the protection of code talker Private Ben Yahzee (Adam Beach). Christian Slater plays a Marine, Sgt. Ox Henderson, assigned to Pvt. Charles Whitehorse (real Navajo Roger Willie). The film makes much of the supposed directive that these Marine guards were told to protect the code at all costs, even if it means killing a code talker to prevent his capture by the Japanese. This proves an interesting angst vehicle for Enders and Henderson, who naturally grow close to their charges and wonder if they could do the deed.

Woo is familiar with the dynamics of a relationship between men that have dangerous secrets. Face/Off, also starring Cage, is one place where he observed them, though the two main characters in that film experience a more intimate exchange of lives. In Windtalkers, Woo seems to step back a bit to capture a larger picture, attempting to generically capture the code talker experience of WWII. For example, the Native Americans suffer from some racism, and it's noted that they look a little like the Japanese. Yahzee in fact impersonates a Japanese soldier in one of the more incredulous moments of the film. But even if there was antipathy on the part of Caucasian troops to the Native Americans, the manner in which Woo illustrates it is disappointing. Woo resorts to a cliché, the old-fashioned fistfight, and from only one dopey soldier, the same one used for comic relief throughout the film. The pain of racism is sharpest and most insidious when understated. Imagine instead if the code talkers had been the victims of almost unseen stares, perpetual exclusion from social acceptance, or at the edge of whispers behind their backs?

Impressive cinematography

War Movie 101
The script is in fact full of clichés and war movie conventions. It's almost as if the creators were making a war movie for the first time and relied on existing material for source matter. Windtalkers introduces other characters in the platoon to try to give it the team atmosphere of other films, but they're only briefly developed and add little to the picture. There's the married guy that tries to give his ring to a buddy to "send back home if something happens." There's the guy, mentioned above, that doesn't like Native Americans, but who must learn to change because his life is saved by one. There's the nurse that takes a liking to Enders despite his haunted countenance.

Cage's Enders is probably the only character in the film that isn't a total cliché. Enders suffers a painful combat experience early in the film, and Cage really does play him as a tormented soul. There is little room for happiness in this character, and I found this performance refreshing if somber, free of many Cage quirks (like the sudden angry outburst). Cage shows us a man progressively developing a death wish. When the nurse (Frances O'connor) writes to him, he initially accepts the letters but never writes back. Later he stops reading them, and his sullen, hollow eyes tell it all as he simply turns away from the mail carrier without even taking the letter.

Beach's Yahzee is on the other hand too even. Little seems to phase him and he is almost emotionless until late in the film. He's portraying the Navajo as a quiet "good guy" but Willie's Charlie Whitehorse proves more believable in the role. The Navajo are supposed to be the focus of the film, and they should play more interesting and complex roles, but Windtalkers becomes more the story of Joe Enders.

A Navajo code talker

Uh Oh, Realism Check
Woo, known for kinetic poetry rather than subtlety or plot creativity, certainly delivers action. What is strange is that Woo departs from his staples. There are no slow motion blood ballets, which is surprising, given how many action films copy techniques seen in his films. And although there are plenty of flying bodies, it's because they are being thrown from an explosion rather than defying gravity for silly things like flying kicks. Woo usually likes to throw some big shotguns into his movies, but that isn't the case here, though I thought I did see one in one scene. In some senses, the action is a little more realistic than the usual Woo film would have it. The soldiers don't take twenty bullets to kill, and there aren't any thirty minute long martial arts standoffs. It's good to see the soldiers have the appropriate WWII uniforms, helmets, and weapons. The panoramic views of the Marines storming a beach, with ships throwing out bombardment support and F6F Hellcats providing air support (if flying a bit low…), are nice to see. But there are still problems.

Enders is a little too good with the Thompson sub-machinegun. He takes down half the Japanese army with the thing. The Japanese soldiers aren't given much credit either. Marine veterans have many times expressed their respect for the tenacity of the Japanese fighters. But in Windtalkers the Japanese soldiers, while smart enough to camouflage their gun emplacements, tend to rush right into American fire, like the mindless enemies in a first-person shooter arcade game. The film does, however, represent that there was much close combat with bayonets. There's also a gunnery sergeant's (Peter Stormare) French or Swedish accent; maybe not inconceivable, but it seemed out of place in the US Marines. That's balanced somewhat by English actor Jason Isaacs (Black Hawk Down) who again does a decent job putting on an American accent.

It was all a Dream
The one inaccuracy that stings most is that the role of the code talkers is probably incorrect as the movie portrays it. The code talkers in Windtalkers speak in code several times to relay tactical information. That is, they are in the heat of an infantry battle and use code to relay enemy positions to the battleships off the coast for bombardment. Realistically, the code talkers were probably in more isolated back areas, transmitting strategic level information, such as fleet positions or strike preparation orders. Using code to relay a message that will be obsolete within an hour makes little sense.

The battle heats up on screen

Woo's way, of course, makes the code talkers more immediately heroic. It's ludicrous in retrospect, but at the same time, perhaps we can be thankful he broaches the subject. I'd first heard of the code talkers courtesy of an X-Files episode, but Windtalkers brings them to life more vividly, if unrealistically. The veteran code talkers themselves identify inaccuracies in the movie, but are happy to see some attempt at recognizing their contribution. Just as the Baa Baa Black Sheep television show was more fiction than non-fiction, yet inspired interest in many youths to eventually learn more, perhaps Windtalkers will be a precursor to better things.

Sister Cities

Ever heard the phrase "sister city"? I've always taken that to refer to two cities that are alike even though they're not geographically close (unlike the twin cities in Minnesota).

Living in Houston I've found several cities that could be sister cities to it. There are a couple obvious ones like San Antonio, Dallas, or Corpus Christi, but they are also in Texas. Going out of state, two come to mind from my travels.

Atlanta, Georgia

I went to Atlanta back in the late 1990's for one of the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) shows before it moved back to Los Angeles. 

Similarities

• I was immediately struck by the similar sprawl of a green and concrete mix. 
• Downtown surrounded by flat suburbs
• HEAT and HUMIDITY
• Pro football team
• Southern cuisine

Differences

• Public transportation: Houston doesn't have anything like Atlanta's Metra Rail. I used it to get from the airport to downtown and thought it was a great lower cost alternative to a taxi, though the locals I spoke with didn't sound as pleased with it as I was.
• Somewhat different vibe in downtown. I was constantly being approached by cab drivers as opposed to me hailing them. 

I'm sure there's more to write here, but on a short trip that's what I got.  

Calgary, Alberta

Been to Calgary twice. Once back around 2004 or 2005 and again just recently in Nov 2024. Both times I was staying in downtown and really found the city to be like Houston.

Similarities

• Small to moderate sized downtown surrounded by mostly flat suburbs
• Oil and gas business
• Good and often underrated food scene
• Cowboys and rodeos
• Steak
• Cosmopolitan population (both cities have a lot of different cultures, and you can find food of all cuisines)
• Classic sports stadiums (Astrodome and Saddledome)

Differences

• Calgary's downtown is more walkable. You can find all kinds of stores (grocery, books, malls) in walking distance. From my hotel I could get to their small Chinatown (5 minutes), the Saddledome (15 minutes), Prince Park (15 minutes), and pretty much everything on foot.
• Calgary has a tremendous public Central Library. They built it in 2018 and it's wonderful. The architecture is a stark contrast to the boring squares and rectangles that are so typical of modern American and Canadian architecture. But beyond that, the facility is designed as a giant human space. There are books but they almost seem secondary to the library's use as a vessel for community engagement with a coffee shop, numerous meeting rooms and activities, and programs for all ages. Calgary's library kicks Houston's in the ass, hard. The downtown Houston library has become a haven for homeless and my daughter was harassed when she visited. The CCL has security and attendants at the entrance to deal with visitors, of good faith or otherwise. Anyone wanting to call me a 1940's German for that last sentiment can GTFO, you should not have to worry about your safety when visiting an institution of learning (you shouldn't have to worry about it at all in a civilization). Like the High Line in New York, the CCL is a great example of how cities can do it right. I will offer one caveat: I don't know if the CCL as is would work in Houston due to the nature of demographics in Houston's downtown; it might be better in a suburban space where there are more residents.
• Colder winters, duh 
• Not a difference, but when I spoke to Calgarians about the sister city concept, they didn't disagree that Houston was a good match, but a few offered that they consider Denver a closer fit. I can see that, especially given the snow and the mountains within an hour's drive.

Review: Biboraya Dual Mount Trash Bucket Sliding Shelf

I have a sliding drawer in one of my lower kitchen cabinets that conceals a pair of trash tubs. It came with the house when we bought it and it's a nice way to have a wastebasket that's out of view. The two tubs sit in a rack with two holes in it for the trash tubs to hang in, and that rack is affixed with some custom welded tabs that attach it to a pair of otherwise normal-looking drawer slide rails. But those custom tabs are specific to this model of device; you can't just buy a replacement part at a local hardware store because it's not a common standard part.

Now this isn't one of those posts where I bitch about poor craftsmanship. This slide-out tray is actually pretty cool and lasted fourteen years. But one of the drawer slides broke a clip that was holding bearings in place. Bearings fell out and one of the slides became untracked. When I started repair analysis, I decided I didn't want to buy a new fixture that was an exact replacement. I wanted something simpler, more easily found, and more cost effective. 

I found a dual tub sliding shelf on Amazon for about half what an exact replacement would have cost me. It was a simple metal cage that held the two tubs, and was sitting on a set of interlinked sliding bars mounted on the floor of the cabinet rather than on the sides like the old one. That all looked like it would be a much simpler mechanism to install and maintain. 

Amazon did its usual good job of getting it to me in two days. But it didn't take long after that to get frustrated with terrible instructions. This is not a super complicated device and the manufacturer made it about as goofy and confusing as they could have. 

First, you assemble the tub cage by fastening to side rails to the bottom of the cage. That should have been really easy except that the instructions tell you to use a screw, and when you look at the parts, there are only three screws for the step which has four connection points, two on each side, left and right. Why are there only three screws? 

There are another five screws of the same diameter and threading, but about two millimeters shorter than the three identified for the first step. So if you're careful, you can also use one of those to handle the fourth screw point on the cage assembly. The instructions say you can watch an installation video, but the video does a terrible job of explaining the three screws for the four connection points in the first step.

Next is the step where you complete the tub cage by adding two light bars to the top front and top rear of the cage to form the rectangular shape. Already at this point the cage is sort of leaning funny, but these two bars to help correct the form. The back one is super easy to install, it's just a dowel with curved ends that you drop into some holes on the back of the cage and it's held by gravity. But the front bar has two screw holes and you have to use two short screws to affix; the thread tolerances here are not very good and the screws go in with difficulty. However, I finally get it done.

The next step is to affix the tub cage to the sliding rails. That's not too hard, and you use the leftover screws from step one. They do work even if a little on the short side.  

The next step is tricky. It is time to install the cage and rail assembly into the cabinet, and to affix mounting brackets to the door. This isn't difficult but requires some precision because if the cage or the door brackets are installed out of alignment, you'll be stuck unscrewing the parts and having a bear of a time getting them lined up so they'll all fit together and also have the door fit nicely against the cabinet so it covers up the opening correctly. 

Here's where the instructions won a few points back for the manufacturer from me. The kit includes two paper templates. One has outlines of the cage assembly footprint. You put this one down on the cabinet floor with the front edge marked, and you line it up with the front edge of the cabinet space. The second template is for lining up the brackets at the proper location on the door panel. It also is marked so that you can line up the bottom edge to the first template's front edge. There are markings on both templates so you can line them up. The idea here is that the templates will show you where to start your holes for the wood screws. It actually works well and I got it right the first time, getting the cage assembly fastened to the cabinet floor and the door brackets on the door. Then the final step is to mount the door brackets to the front of the cage where there are two housings to put the door brackets in. 

The only problem I had in this last step was that the wood screws the manufacturer provides are not very good quality and I broke a couple of them on installation. Fortunately enough of them worked that the job could be completed.

In the end, I gave the unit four out of five stars. I wanted to give three-and-a-half, but Amazon doesn't support half star ratings. While the price was much nicer than the OEM rack and rails I had before, it wasn't exactly cheap, and you can tell the quality is middling at best. It does, however, work, and if I get ten years out of it it'll have been a worthy purchase. If you end up getting one, get your own wood screws for the final steps.