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mikidymac

501st Stormtrooper[TK]
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Posts posted by mikidymac

  7. Re-introductions - come and say “hey”

    in Off Topic

    Posted

    Love this idea and it's awesome to hear more about you guys! I guess I'll give it a go as well:

    Justin "TheRascalKing" R., reporting in! I've been a member of the 501st since October of 2018, after the Orange County Squad of the Southern California Garrison began regularly visiting my work - the Children's Hospital of Orange County, where I was in Hospitality Management for many years. I distinctly remember being in our clinic, waiting for the elevator, when the doors slid open to reveal Lord Vader standing there, flanked by a stormtrooper and officer - it was like something straight out of a movie scene. I was blown away - I've been a Star Wars fan since childhood, but had never seen costumes like that in real life. After their visit, and seeing countless kids and staff members absolutely light up when interacting with them, I spoke to the wranglers about joining, knowing I had to get involved. I saw Episode One at a young age and was hooked, eventually reading my way through the Expanded Universe novels (which I credit with helping me learn to read well), but never really went to a convention or knew there was a 501st unit near me.

    My new friends suggested an Imperial Officer costume to get me started, and a few months later, I had submitted and was approved as ID-61490 (6/14/90 being my birthday!). I have since taken that costume and gone all the way to the IOC's Level 3 approval "Imperator" status, and added some cool accessories, like one of  [mention=16782]gmrhodes13[/mention]/Q's MS-P5's, and a Rogue One style poncho, which I LOVE.

    DvgrpsY.jpg&key=dec17f3b49bb040f2673736437c1505b0c42680549802817855d201c18626924

    I almost immediately started looking into an Original Trilogy Stormtrooper, and ended up purchasing an Anovos kit from a Garrison mate not long after. I completed the kit (with a LOT of help from [mention=21566]ukswrath[/mention]/Tony's guide) in December of that year and was approved!

    i3I9BHY.jpg&key=e554d941ea1a278958ec8918f227c8964dfc525cac77a5a18b41ec8f7a7d1d386tXrTrA.jpg&key=4d1ac1451664d48e867b76bb6cc303e14acd3d860f60ebe6ad26d9482dc66629
     
    I have had some truly amazing opportunities as part of the 501st, including trooping several times at CHOC Children's Hospital, in a 100+ member parade down Main Street USA at Disneyland, on Fox Sports in the announcer's booth at an Angels baseball game, in the Hollywood Christmas Parade (including marching the 3 miles last year with full blown cancer), on stage with Weird Al, and in a little project called "Huckleberry" to name a few...  

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    If you would have told me as a kid (or even a year or two ago) that I would get to be IN STAR WARS and to actually BE A REAL STORMTROOPER, I never would have believed it. This club made it happen and I am forever grateful for the incredible opportunities I have had.

    loQxU7P.jpg&key=ba547f6784912ce7e3433bfd893e70a602ee6705a238aef43e3e078b226b5669

    Some things have changed since then - I took that same set of armor up to Level 3 "Centurion", not once, but 4 times now - as a ANH-Stunt, Hero, ESB, and HWT Stormtrooper, before finally retiring it recently after 50+ events. I was diagnosed last year with stage 2 Hodgkin's Lymphoma after finding a lump in my neck, and underwent several surgeries and months of aggressive chemotherapy and radiation treatment, and am waiting for another scan in the new year that will hopefully show me cancer free. I got engaged to the amazing DZ-71490 (her birthday wouldn't fit, but 714 is our area code and she was born in '90 as well, so her TKID is one number off of mine) who deserves full credit for all of my Centurion photos and tolerating my living room almost constantly being full of white armor projects. I also left CHOC and now work in the biotech sphere, specifically with connecting patients to clinical trials, to help improve their lives and help get new treatments to patients faster. We've been working on a LOT of COVID-19 studies and I've been pretty busy lately, even working safely from home, so armor has taken a bit of a back seat.
     
    ieJBtWg.jpg&key=d330586bcabb5849c35ec656cf68263dac5ecd9506b5e370e33fa20afd8dd6df
    (My fiance and I at The Mandalorian Season One red carpet premier)

    I am in the home stretch on my Rogue One armor, and will be starting a First Order TK overhaul in the new year as well.

    The only thing I love more than trooping myself, is being able to mentor new members and share that passion with others, so I have been pretty active with my Garrison both in person at armor parties and such (before treatment and the pandemic), and online answering questions - more recently as an Imperial Attaché here on the boards. 

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    Outside of Star Wars, I enjoy surfing, skateboarding (downhill longboard racing specifically), beer and homebrewing, working on cars and autocross racing, watching movies, playing bass guitar, and playing with our two cats, Jack and Zero. 

    Well, there's my whole life story, thanks for reading! haha

    (big thanks to [mention=36573]MaskedVengeance[/mention] for showing how to make the photos smaller and a little more manageable... sorrynotsorry for the huge photo dump! )

    I don’t know, sounds like a jerk, LOL.

  13. What is your craziest random troop?

    in Off Topic

    Posted

    Well to be clear the campground is open but only to people with proof of residence with that county. Although that county has plenty of COVID deaths and numbers so go figure. Makes absolutely no sense to me, either it should be open to everyone or closed to everyone or else what’s the point.

  16. What is your craziest random troop?

    in Off Topic

    Posted · Edited by mikidymac

    We were camping at a big campground at the local lake a few years ago on father's day so I bought my Tk and did a walk through the campground in the evening. The following year we were there on the same weekend and I passed a couple teenagers talking, one one said that at sunset a stormtrooper would come around camp and they got excited. One of the other kids asked how she knew thas and she said, "I saw the stormtrooper's truck".

     

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    Sadly I didn't bring it that trip and was crushed that I had let them down.

    • Like 2

  17. FOTK Help

    in Hard Armor (General Discussion)

    Posted · Edited by mikidymac

    3 hours ago, joshuasme said:

    I've built an anovos OTTK and an 850 armor shoretrooper kit in the last 3 years.  I'm currently about 3/4 of the way through building a KB TLJ FOTK.  Besides the cut lines not being as visible as the anovos kit it's gone together quickly and easily.  I've had my first experiences with gap filling and sanding to blend seamless connections and that has been a bit of a learning curve.  Overall I'm very happy with my KB kit.  I've got a small build thread in the TLJ armor area if you want to see some pictures.  That's the best advice I can give you though, study the other KB build threads.  I'm specifically referencing:

     

     

    Thank you for your insight. I think the KB is the way I am leaning for ease of use and I have been really happy with my ABS OTTK. I have no problems working with fiberglass but I know how brittle it can get and the last thing I want to be doing is repairing spider cracks all the time.

  18. FOTK Help

    in Hard Armor (General Discussion)

    Posted · Edited by mikidymac

    Ukswrath has already provided me with some great information, Thanks Tony.

     

    Just looking for a few more opinions before I pull the trigger since I have given up on Anovos.

     

    I want to go TLJ FOTK and already have the boots, gloves and blaster and am looking at either the KB Props ABS kit or the Jimi Fiberglass kit.

     

    My experience level is I have built and Anovos ANH TK to EIB and am a couple steps from Centurion and an Anovos Shadow TK for my wife. I have done a lot of fiberglass work on jetskis and painted my own jetski and a car.

     

    I like the sharp details of the jimi but don't want to deal with constant cracking and painting if that is an issue.

     

    I am 6'3" and 199 lbs.

     

    Thanks for any and all input.

  20. ANOVOS (DENUO NOVO) FOTK Armor Delivery Possibility

    in TFA Stormtrooper

    Posted

    5 hours ago, wilsoncai said:

    sigh I would say poor marketing decision and excuses

     

    1) There's nothing wrong in producing in China, as long as your factory or team and manager are able to hit deadlines. Saying manufacturing in China causes the delay is a whole lot of bull... as look below everything u own "made in china"... LOL they are efficient. Even during the pandemic. 

     

    2) Moving everything back to USA.. when the economy is in bad shape.. but China's production has all returned to normal... smartest move? finish the deal and contract with China (as a contract is a contract). Give us our armor after... if you want to move it back to Texas do it after... OMG... you don't need a genius to figure it out.... 

     

    I can't figure out whats the big idea on the whole   "negotiating to get our molds from our Chinese mfg"

    I can interpret that last one for you..."negotiating to get our molds from our Chinese mfg" = We have no money to pay them so they will not give the molds to us for free.

  21. ANOVOS (DENUO NOVO) FOTK Armor Delivery Possibility

    in TFA Stormtrooper

    Posted · Edited by mikidymac

    My uneducated guess is that Anovos is finally out of money. And guess what? Even big bad China isn’t going to give you product or bucks if you don’t pay your bills.

    As others have said all along Anovos is out of money and barely keeping a light on so there’s nothing to ship out.

     

    I also find it very interesting that Anovos can't ship out any TLJ helmets to paying customers but somehow someone in Texas just like Anovos has shipped 23 of them and has 4 more for immediate shipment. How can this be unless Anovos is....gasp...not telling the truth and selling our items out from under us?

     

     

    ANOVOS _THE LAST JEDI FIRST ORDER STORMTROOPER HELMET_ Prop Replica NEW IN STOCK _ eBay.jpg

     

    The worst part is that this thread is almost 3 years old now and we are absolutely no closer to getting our armor than when it was started but still being told the same lies.

    • Like 2

  22. ANOVOS (DENUO NOVO) FOTK Armor Delivery Possibility

    in TFA Stormtrooper

    Posted

    On 6/25/2020 at 11:44 AM, bear0902 said:

    Did any one know about this ? I wrote to them and this is what they said but I didn’t know this info.

     

     

    ————————————————————

    Thank you for your question about your Pre-order availability status of the Stormtrooper armor. For your convenience product availability updates have been provided here.

     

    So you are aware, we are still in the process of negotiating to get our molds from our Chinese mfg so we can start production at our Texas factory. Although our non-essential manufacturing facilities in Texas are now able to operate at 50% capacity, the previous months' long full shutdown from China then our US factory shutdown has resulted in extremely delayed manufacturing times for our products here and abroad. We hope to have production ready by the end of the year, but we cannot currently guarantee specific availability dates for any pre-order products as our production capacity is severely affected by our State's non-essential manufacturing restrictions. As soon as our state authorities allow us to resume full normal operations, we will provide you with more comprehensive dates, until then we will continue to follow mandates so we can make it through this crisis together.

     

     

    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

    So let me get this straight...........

    First they were changing bucks, then they were in production and posted pictures of the rough pulls then they were on a ship, then they were stuck in customs, then they were in a container, then they were being inspected by Disney/LFL, then they were in the warehouse. And now the bucks are not being released from China and they will be made in Texas?

     

    Wake up fellow troopers!!!! When are you going to realize it is just one lie after another. Nothing they have ever said has been true so why should we believe them this time?

    • Like 1

  25. ANOVOS (DENUO NOVO) FOTK Armor Delivery Possibility

    in TFA Stormtrooper

    Posted · Edited by mikidymac

    15 hours ago, bear0902 said:

    So I emailed them and lol they did bring the corona virus into their reply lol

    1d5cbc5de34046f7355c4e23ce9276cc.jpg


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

    And there we go......... the Anovos COVID-19 excust that we all knew was coming.

     

    I call B.S. on all of this. "small batches" my an impolite person. They have been touting the "large shipment " for years now that mysteriously never arrives.

     

    Charlie is, "Worried about the supply chain keeping their promises"? WTF Charlie! How about you and Anovos keeping YOUR promises!!!!

    • Like 1
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