Kermit's Blog

Change yourself . . . and you change the World!

Category Archives: Gee Bee Book – All of Life is a School

Gee Bee Book wins an Award!

 

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Great News!  

My Gee Bee Book All of Life is a School won a Bronze Medal in the 2009 Independent Publisher Book Awards Children’s Picture Books (7 & Under) Category!  

3,380 books were in entered in 65 National categories with an average of 50 contenders per category so I feel honored to have been included in the top three!   

 

gee-bee-cover-small-222x30010I originally came up with the idea for the characters many years ago and wrote it as a film script including songs.  Without funding for the animation, I decided to get product on the shelf and condensed it down to an Illustrated Children’s book.  

If you have an interest in the book, it can be purchased online at www.geebee.com or at our Fantasy of Flight gift shop.  Catch me flying Airplane of the Day on weekends when I’m in town and I’d be happy to autograph and personalize a copy for you!

Kermit

Missy Arrives!

blog-shot-missy-11Another character from my Gee Bee Book All of Life is a School has arrived at Fantasy of Flight . . . Missy!  

She’s a faithful reproduction of the famous Brown B-2 racer Miss Los Angeles that raced in the 1934 Thompson Trophy Races, placing 2nd.  

Since the original aircraft no longer exists, this aircraft was meticulously built by Bill Turner in the 1970′s.  A 200 hp six-cylinder Ranger engine was used in lieu of  the original, extremely rare, 300 hp six-cylinder Menasco engine.  Until recently, Missy was on display at the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Francisco.  

The aircraft was flown as recently as a couple of years ago so we will put it on the maintenance schedule and get her flying again as soon as we can! 

If you would like to share your love of the Golden Age Racers with a special child in your life, check out Missy and her friends at www.geebee.com.

Kermit

Iditerod 2009!

I just got back from Alaska and the Iditerod Dog Sled Race.  When I was Heli-skiing with Sean Tucker the week before he got a call from a corporate friend that had some last minute cancellations and got us an invite!  We were wined and dined with great food and great friends and had a great time!

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The first day we got to see the start of the race in downtown Anchorage and I bumped in to Gov. Sarah Palin!  When she was campaigning in Florida she made a campaign stop at Fantasy of Flight compliments of the Republican Party.  I happened to autograph a Gee Bee Book for her son Trig and gave it to one of her helpers to pass on.  After she officially started the Iditerod Race by cutting the ribbon she happened to walk towards me holding a baby.  I asked if it was Trig and she thanked me for the book and introduced me to her husband, who likes to fly.

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Later our group got out to a giant glacier by helicopter.  It’s ice flow ended at a frozen lake at about 700 feet above sea level and continued up to about 6000 feet!  On the flight out, Sean and I couldn’t help but notice all the great Heli-ski opportunities!  We landed on the lake at the end of the glacier and got to explore some ice caves.  It was the first time I had ever been to Alaska and it was certainly the first time I ever had champagne on ice!

Kermit the Musher!

Kermit the Musher!

The next day we jumped into some airplanes on skis and flew out to a great lodge located at the third checkpoint on the 1150 mile race.  The next morning the first racers began to come through to stop to feed their dogs, have them checked, rest up, and head out.  By the end of the day all of the 60+ racers and come and gone and during the day I got a chance to do some snowmobiling as well as trying my hand at being a Musher with a team of eight dogs!  It was great fun but I learned not to try it after the dogs had eaten!

Kermit

“Puff” the Magic Gee Bee!

Last week another Gee Bee book character arrived at Fantasy of Flight and it’s Puff! She’s Zee’s cute little girlfriend in the story but a Gee Bee Y Sportster in real life. There were only two built but the orginals don’t exist anymore. I found this reproduction on the market and made a trade for it. The intention will be to put it together for display. While it had been flown a number of times by the builder, we want to take a good look at it and make a few changes. When I first got in the cockpit, the rudder pedals were too far back for my long legs and the ones in the front were even closer. For the time being it will make a great display.

Early next year we plan on doing some live action filming with the three Gee Bee airplanes for a DVD we are making and hope to place on PBS. We have already taken the “All of Life is a School” book and used the original illustrations with me narrating it to create a short video. We even included the song I wrote. I plan to add some live action footage with kids at Fantasy of Flight around the real characters and include some of the original historical footage that is currently on the www.geebeefun.com website.

So far on display at Fantasy of Flight from the book we have Gee Bee Zee, Jimmy G. Gee Bee, Puff, Matty and Stout. I acquired Missy a few months ago but she won’t arrive until around March of next year.

Plans are to make this new addition just like Puff in the book one day; including the bump cowl, the little wheel pant for the tail wheel and a covered front cockpit. Will she ever be pink? Well, I guess that depends on how much she powders her nose!

Kermit

Roar ‘n Soar and Politics in the News!

It seems by next week we will have elected a new president of the United States!  During the primaries, Fantasy of Flight had visits from the Ron Paul Blimp, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain!  McCain’s daughter was with her father on the campaign trail and she wrote on her blog that Fantasy of Flight was the coolest place they stopped!

Yesterday, Sarah Palin, made a stop and spoke to several thousand people.  The place was crawling with Secret Service as well as officers from the local Sheriff’s Department.  Only several days before we were approached about doing an event here and all the Fantasy of Flight employees came together to pull off getting the facility ready for the event.  The GOP rented our Maintenance Hangar and Thursday the Hangar was dumped of airplanes and cleaned.  By Friday evening there were bleachers, giant American Flags, a central platform with a podium set up, all with sound and lights!  People started arriving before the gates opened at 9:00am and Sarah arrived and spoke around noon. 

Not ever wanting to let an opportunity go by, we placed flyers under everyone’s windshield wipers promoting our Roar ’n Soar the following weekend on November 8th and 9th.  This will be our second annual event, which will host Vintage Aircraft, Racing Boats, Cars, R/C Model Aircraft, Skydivers, Aerobatics, etc.  We hope everyone will come out and join us next weekend!  For further information check out http://www.fantasyofflight.com/roar-n-soar/.

Sarah just happened to leave with an autographed Gee Bee book, “All of Life is a School” for her two youngest children!  I tend to be apolitical and only hope that we all reach beyond ourselves and follow our dreams!  Best of Luck to everyone!

Kermit

Gee Bee Books SELL OUT at Reno Air Races!

The Reno Air Races are now over and today I actually got to watch the show!  The reason . . . I RAN OUT OF BOOKS TO SIGN!

I arrived Wednesday morning on site to set out some posters to help market the book. It was the first official day and I signed a few books as the hard core enthusiasts began to settle in. There were three Official Merchandise locations and the Race Officials set me up in a great spot at the Main Gate store. The weather was perfect all week with blue skies and little wind.

As the week progressed, sales begin to increase. By the end of Saturday I completely sold out of the 600 + books I had on site. It was a great experience and I personally signed over 500 of them.

Sunday is always the biggest day of the Races so I think I could have sold another 200 books! Between the sales at Oshkosh and Reno I have sold over 1000 books. Internet sales are beginning to increase and we have yet to do any major marketing. It’s exciting to have made a significant dent in the initial order of 5000 printed.

While it was a lot of work, it was fun to connect with eveyone and great confirmation I’ve a created a great product. Next year I’ll bring more books, do a better job of marketing them, and bring Gee Bee clothing for the kids.

On a side note, I visited my Boeing projects at Roy Rehm’s shop in Gardnerville, NV.  After my original 1929 Boeing 100 was severly damaged during Hurricane Andrew in 1992, Roy contacted me about buying it as he was working towards building several; one for himself, one for a museum, and several for other customers. I wasn’t interested in selling it but was interested in having it rebuilt. In the end, Roy began building eight aircraft, three of which are for me.

I originally acquired the Boeing 100 when I acquired the Tallmantz Collection in 1985. The previous owner was famous movie pilot Frank Tallman and had it painted in Navy colors. After Roy picked up my damaged airplane from Miami I made the decision to restore it back to its orginal factory civilian configuration and colors. Not one to pass up a great opportunity, I also commissioned Roy to construct a Army P-12 C/D and a Navy F4B-2 version for me. Each of my three aircraft will have slight differences in armament, landing gear, ailerons and paint schemes and be powered by the orginal engines.

My original Civilian Boeing 100 will be the first of the eight to fly. The wings are now finished and painted. The fuselage is on the gear with the engine is mounted with the instrument panel installed. The fuselage is scheduled to be covered next summer with assembly and testing to follow in late 2009. It seems like a long way away but Roy is still building lots of parts for the other aircraft.

Soon, I’ll be the only kid on my block with a complete set or the famous Boeing Biplanes!

Thanks to everyone for helping!

Kermit

Gee Bee websites up and featured in Air Classics!

Check out the great article in the latest Air Classics magazine by my good friend and editor Michael O’Leary.  It’s  in the Volume 44, number 10 issue on page 55 which shows a B-17 crew on the front cover.  Michael has done many photo shoots of my collection going back to the 1980′s and the Weeks Air Musem days in Miami. 

We have our www.geebee.com site up and running!  This is our first ever Internet Marketing campaign and was the product we used to get into the Platinum Group Internet Marketing group recently mentioned. 

Our Opt-In page offers free downloadable drawings for kids to color.  After you Opt-In with your name and email you then land on our Sales Letter Page which tells you all about the book and its benefits.  At any time you can click to purchase but check it out first and read some of the great testimonials and ideas we came up with to help promote the book, which I wrote.  To see how the system works you can wait a few days to purchase and you will discover out Autoresponder will send you an email every day for the folowing ten days with reasons why you should consider the purchase!  Of course you can Opt-out at anytime at the bottom of the page.  Once you purchase, you are automatically taken off the Autoresponder list.

We also have a first attempt at a kid’s site at www.geebeefun.com so check that out as well.  Particularly interesting are two short videos we did that tell about the Gee Bee “Z” and the Gee Bee R-1.  Once you click on the site wait until all the characters come up, click on Jimmy G. and it will take you to the two videos.  We’re still tweaking it but enjoy our first attempt!

Kermit

New things for Fantasy of Flight!

Having traveled around the world, then to Oshkosh and then to the west coast, I am finally home for awhile!

I just returned from San Francisco where I acquired a reproduction aircraft of the ”Miss Los Angeles” Racer that is one of the characters featured in my book “All of Life is a School”.  This new addition of “Missy”  will bring the total number of characters I will have on display at Fantasy of Flight to five of ten!  I am working on a plan to display the aircraft at the Reno Air Races Septemeber 10 – 14 to help promote the book sales and have it home sometime after.

By the end of my trip I also hit a major milestone in my book “The Journey Never Ends!”  I have completed semi-final drafts of the ten main chapters that describe my experiences during the ten Monroe Insitute Programs I attended beginning in January of 2006 and ending in November 2007.  It was an unbelieveable experience  that was basically  exploration of consciousness that was nothing short of profound, phenomenol and at times unbelievable.  I have a rough Introduction and Summary as well.  I will continue to edit and proof read as time allows and hope to publish the book sometime in 2009.

Kermit

Gee Bee Books Sell Out at Oshkosh!

It’s Thursday, July 31st and we’ve passed the halfway mark of AirVenture 2008. In just three and a half days I completely sold out of the 420 books shipped up and of those, I personally signed over 300!

EAA had me set up in the “Wearhouse” by Aeroshell Square in the Author’s corner and also had the books for sale in two other locations including the Museum. It was a lot of work but I really enjoyed meeting and talking to everyone. Fantasy of Flight has a lot of supporters out there.

Thanks!

Kermit

Gee Bee Book to be at Oshkosh!

I have been working with the EAA Merchandising Department for the Oshkosh Fly-In and they are excited that I will be at Oshkosh promoting my new book “All of Life is a School”. They have signed me up for the Author’s Corner in the main EAA Merchandising Building everyday at 1:00pm Monday through Saturday of the Fly-In (July 28th to August 2nd) to autograph books!

I understand they will also offer the book at several other merchandising locations including the EAA Museum where they plan to set up special displays for the books as well as kids Gee Bee clothing. We’ve got some cute T-shirts and dresses with Zee, Puff and Jimmy G. on them. They have asked for several life-size displays of me holding Gee Bee Zee to help promote the book, similar to what we currently have in the Fantasy of Flight Gift Shop.

I have also been in touch with the Reno Air Race people as well. They are interested in selling the book at the Air Races this year in Reno, NV September 10th – 14th. I plan to meet with them at the Oshkosh Fly-In at their display booth near Aeroshell Square to sort out the details. If it looks promising enough, I just may head out to the Races to meet and greet people and autograph books. We’ll see!

Hope to see you at Oshkosh!

Kermit