Let's see here....

My son was born in 96. Around 1998 I started noticing Hot Wheels again in the toy aisle and started buying cars for both of us. My first search for Hot Wheels on the internet was through the old Metasearch engine. I found a page of nothing but a ton of links to Hot Wheels websites called something like "Dan's Hot Wheels Links". The one site I visited and became a regular at was NCHWA (North Carolina Hot Wheels Association). Neal Giordano ran it. After a few years layoff for personal reasons, he started it back up two years ago. One of the frequent flyers on the boards was Joe. Back then, a digital camera cost a lot of money, so Joe used to post pics of his cars he took by laying them sideways on a scanner. Kinda gave it that 3D effect (haha). Joe and I traded emails back and forth mostly teaching me how to take my own scanner pics and advice for website building. I had my own little angelfire free website as thousands of others did.

Treasure Hunt Alley/Alleyguide was getting big then and most started frequenting that message board. I hung out at Club Diecast for awhile. I started the football pool in about 2000 and advertised it on the Club board. I immediately got ripped by some idiots calling my pool a scam to take everyone's cars. I remember a good friend, Tony Frey, defending me vigorously (thanks, Tony! Miss that guy) Anyway, I was meeting tons of collectors all over the country online and trading through the mail. It was a lot of fun.

I never got too serious about keeping a website. Just some info and a few thoughts laid out before blogs were the rage. Joe's was growing bit by bit and when I shut down my site, I let Joe know that any info he wanted from it I would send it to him. He liked The Inspiration, where I posted pics of Hot Wheels cars and linked to the real ones they were modeled after. Also, posted my instructions for "dye-casting". The art of soaking cars in tubs of hot Rit dye to change their colors.

In 2001, the 1st Annual Nationals was held in Oakbrook, IL. It was an absolute blast. Met so many folks I had known only online. Hung out with David Fox (DC Fox), Bob Slate (Sticker Ninja), Rob Bending (RobB922), GTR Rob, Chester Morgan (CrazeeKat), Ken McClellan (AlleyDude) and many more. In 2002 the Nats were held in Reston, VA. Drove there from Illinois, picking up David and Chester on the way. What a week. HWC was new and Amy was keeping her identity secret. All I really remember from that weekend was that I somehow ended up in Amy's hotel suite with David, Chester, GTR Rob, David from David's-Wheels, and T34me (Bill from NCHWA). We drank beer til 4am or so around this huge table with Carson Lev, Miq Wilmott, Larry Wood, Amy and a coupla other HWC folks.

By this time, Alleyguide was going away, NCHWA was folding and HWC was already becoming a den of crybaby's. Joe's was then what it is now. We had a lot of fun in the early days, especially with the chats on Wednesday nights. Those would go on for hours with about 50-60 people. In some ways Joe's was filling a void and in others filling a need. Joe's was also avant garde in contributions by the community at large. Check out the cached archive page of articles:

Click Here

I know that most folks here see The Shack as just the message boards. Joe's is NOT a message board. Joe's is (was?) an entire informational site about diecast that just happens to have a message board. I count myself among the original members here. Seen a lot of folks come and go over the years and really miss some like 65Vdub (Ernest Salgado), 83Z, RatRod, AlleyRatty, BodGod88, Enophile, SouthernGent, Shawn636, Chazz (remember when Joe went on vacation and all hell broke loose ending with me banning Chazz? ), 43Goalie and on and on. This place has endured over a decade and hasn't really changed much in it's relaxed and friendly style. Even survived a hostile member hacking the boards and deleting everything. Fortunately, I was a shadow moderator and had full admin rights at the time and was able to give control back to Joe and everything was restored. That was a weird week.

Anyway, that's my own long-winded history of Joe's with a bit of my own thrown in for continuity's sake so I could remember better.

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'Cause cardboard and a plastic blister won't roll!