Don’t grow up!
It was Christmas morning in 1986 or so. The unwrapping had ended, and there were no more presents under the tree. “You look a little down,” said Matt Martone’s concerned [...]
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Posted February 03, 2021in Collections & Hobbies
Posted November 04, 2020in Collections & Hobbies
Toy stories
“I’m a flea market nut,” explains Dave Zaabel while gesturing to rows and rows of shelving in his Urbandale basement. “Flea markets, antique shops, garage sales… but everything was canceled [...]
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Posted September 30, 2020in Collections & Hobbies
Blood, sweat and stained glass
Diane Bacon keeps a box of Band-Aids at the ready. The skilled stained-glass artisan has had her hands bloodied more times than she can count while pursuing her passion. “Hundreds,” [...]
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Posted September 02, 2020in Collections & Hobbies
Attack of the drones
Drone racing isn’t virtual reality, even though participants appear to be wearing VR goggles. And drone racing isn’t a video game, even though the hand-held controllers function in a similar [...]
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Posted August 05, 2020in Collections & Hobbies
Holy cow… Urbandale basement hosts a royal rumble!
“This is the worst Christmas ever,” Kyle Peterson remembers thinking. The crushed 7-year-old awoke to find next to no presents waiting for him. “There were like two GI Joe guys [...]
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Posted July 01, 2020in Collections & Hobbies
Chugga-chugga choo-choo!!!
Jon and Sharyl Engelhardt transformed their basement into a boxcar bonanza. What started as one couple’s vision of a toy train set looping their Christmas tree — they figured it [...]
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Posted April 01, 2020in Collections & Hobbies
Build nights for space robots
Snapping together models based on space robots, Iowa Gundam Builders has gone from zero to 300 members in two years. As a kid, Dylan Black didn’t care for putting models [...]
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Posted March 04, 2020in Collections & Hobbies
‘Do what you love; love what you do’
The planes buzzing by mesmerized the youthful eyes of the small girl perched atop the fence post of her family’s 1950s farm in rural southeast Iowa. During these formative years, [...]
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Posted February 05, 2020in Collections & Hobbies
Norwalk man will compete to win $10,000 and a world championship
Matt Ouverson won last year’s Steak Cooking Association Points Championship and will vie for a world title later this year. Last year’s steak grilling national points championship cost Norwalk’s Matt [...]
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Posted January 01, 2020in Collections & Hobbies
19 years to go
A grandpa’s legacy: “The Moraine Collection” Mr. Harry Pittman, Jr. knew beans about baseball cards, but the bubblegum card collecting craze was peaking in 1988, and his 8-year-old grandson, Adam [...]
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