I posted this on my other blog back in October. I'm reposting it here for completeness sake.
If true friendship can be measured by your buddy’s willingness to strap on Stormtrooper thigh pieces in the parking lot of Walmart at 10:30pm, then Ryan Farley measures up.
I got my armor earlier this week and its seeming simplicity is surprisingly complex. I’ve worn it twice now to get the feel of it and made adjustments so things hang together correctly. Last night I called Ryan up while I was in the suit and he brought me over to surprise his kids. Everybody enjoyed the show but after a few minutes it just didn’t seem like enough. So we got the brilliant idea that we’d go walk around Walmart and look at action figures and lingerie. Now, looking at lingerie at Walmart is bad enough, but doing it in Stormtrooper armor pushes you right over the “normal” line and straight into “certified nerd” territory. At least I didn’t put any on ;)
So with no further ado, here are the pics that Ryan snapped of me at Walmart. The pics are great but they really don’t do justice to the whole experience. For every person that was willing to stop and shake my hand there were about 20 who pretended not to notice a bone white Stormtrooper dork standing next to them. According to Ryan these same folks turned around and snapped pics of me with their phones once they were behind me. To be fair though, I’d probably ignore me too.
Nice. He must work out.
What the hell is that red thing in his basket?
I stared at this guy's girlfriend and they pretended to not notice me.
Never trust anyone who says “Here, hold this.“ when you can't see what it is.
These girls came over to shake my hand. Its sad when you're more of a babe magnet with plastic covering you face...
Again with the “Here, hold this.“
These folks were really cool. Even when I got too close and made the little girl in the cart cry.
-TK5911
posted on Monday, December 06, 2004 9:00 PM
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1/7/2005 1:36 PM |
Nice site man.
Hey does you armor use velcro or snaps? I'm buying my armor in the next couple of months but I want to fit it with snaps, I hear it holds snugger. I've been searching e-bay for pre-assembled. Do you know any sweet deals?
Oh just a thought, maybe you should show up at a dance club all troopered up. That'd definitely trip a lot of people out.
1/7/2005 4:22 PM |
Hi Chrisitan,
Welcome to the crew. Yes, there are a number of modifications that the guys in the 501st have helped me do. When you get your armor it will come with about 40,000 yards of Velcro. My suggestion is to resist the urge to get your armor together as fast as possible. Take your time, find out how to do the mods and then put it together. Its hard to resist getting in on as fast as possible, but getting the Velcro off in order to go back and do it right is a mess.
I use lots of rivets and some snaps. I've removed almost all Velcro from my set. The Velcro is terrible. It seems like a good idea in theory but in practice you just keep having pieces fall off. Once you have it together right its much easier to move around naturally. With Velcro you can't do much more than walk without stuff falling apart.
Doing the mods is not that hard, but it is hard to describe. There are better sites than mine that cover mods. When you get your armor send me an e-mail asking where you need help and I'll try to explain.
Thanks,
TK5911