When The Slug and I were growing up, we had a fascination with models of all sorts. Cars, trucks, tanks, planes, monsters, dinosaurs, you name it. Sometimes we'd set up a table in my parent's basement and work on them together.

The Slug was a perfectionist, and his attention to detail was insane. At one point, he told me he wanted to work as a model maker professionally, creating realistic miniature sets for the movies. He probably could have — he was that good. You couldn't see the seams on any of his models — he would sand and fill and prime and spray the thing like it was a real car. His engines had spark plug wires and oil stains. His tires had white letters. His dashboards had readable gauges.

... In the meantime, I would be across the table trying to not glue the left half of a Chevy big block to the side of my face.

...

One day he called and asked me if I could come over because he wanted to show me something. My mom dropped me off, and when I walked into his room he was in the final stages of applying fins to a sleek black rocket that stood about 2 feet high. When I found out that the rocket would actually launch and come down on a parachute, I went out and bought my own rocket kit the next day.

...

... After that, I did build more rockets and have many successful launches and — more importantly — recoveries. But as always, The Slug grew bored with it. There was something about vertical flight that just didn't do it for him. He wanted horizontal flight. That meant planes.

And obviously, given our current stock of spare parts, that meant Rocket Planes.