Thanks for the compliments, guys. You almost made me blush. Half of going through Doc's place was an excuse to get to the buried treasures before anyone else could, and the other half was about financing my projects while getting stuff out into circulation. --- The club website group wasn't aware of the article in Hemmings unless someone else from our crew was contacted/quoted and didn't speak up (I have not seen it yet), but it's nice to be noticed. --- Speaking of the website, I'm not certain how many folks are aware of the tremendous breadth and scope of the work that's gone on, but I'd like to mention a few points that might be interesting. The website is at least 30 gig. Maybe more by now? I don't know all that much about computer memory, but that's supposedly a LOT of information: We have over 300 Imperial magazine articles spanning 70 years http://imperialclub.com/Articles/index.htm We have almost every ad ever published that has an imperial mentioned or pictured. We have a vast majority of the dealer brochures and other literature. We have photos of every bizarre Imp that we've been able to find in ODDITIES http://imperialclub.com/Rare/index.htm We have almost every year's FSM already scanned, although each is a real bear and takes serious time to process, so they're not all up yet. Remember that each one is 400-700 pages, and there are about 40 of them, so that's about 20,000-30,000 pages of information. All of it will eventually be available to any person on the planet with an internet connection! We have almost every MTSC booklet from 1947-1973 - they published one per month during that time, and each is 16 pages, so that's another 5,700 pages of information about fixing your car http://imperialclub.com/Repair/Lit/Master/index.htm We will soon publish the attendant monthly training stop-action filmstrips in FULL MOTION, with SOUND - they're about 100 slides per month, covering 30 years.... We are now publishing FULL MOTION VIDEOS of vintage films as you've seen appear recently - wait till you see the one with Uncle Tom and the desert torture testing! See that and you'll think twice about buying a late 1950's Cadillac, even if the test was a bit biased. We have great parts-number reference material http://imperialclub.com/Part/Lit/index.htm Our site is so complete that we often get messages from people that fail to read or actively think before writing, who mistake us for a "company" asking to buy what they see on the site. -Ford pickup truck people wanting to know more about propane conversions for their vehicle are a perennial favorite, based on the article that we have about the one or two people that have converted their Imperials to propane. We have tremendous archives that can be searched, including most of the past IML messages. Now that's the impressive part, since generally speaking, there's nothing new under the sun, and somebody's already dealt with "your" problem before - this is a tremendous, and perhaps under-utilized asset: http://imperialclub.com/Search/index.htm Each item on the club website goes through a relatively long process to be visible. It is first bought on eBay (there's at least $20,000 of material already posted) or donated by a club-member, then it is scanned, then it is uploaded to a temporary holding place on the club's server. It is then downloaded by a different volunteer and electronically massaged so that it looks like a smooth computer-screen image, and not like a photocopied/scanned print image. The difference is striking and you wouldn't notice it, but every image on the website is processed to a degree that is several steps beyond what is required (and it's so good that nobody even knows its there!). It's also important to recognize that many of the images on the site are large-format illustrations that won't fit on a scanner all at once, get broken up into multiple scans, and are then electronically re-assembled in photo-shop. Check this beauty out - it was several seperate scans, and you can't tell!: This item is about 2'x3' when laid out http://imperialclub.com/Yr/1952/52FoldOut/Page03-04-reg.jpg Can you see the seam on this one? http://imperialclub.com/Yr/1942/42FluidDrive/Page01-02-reg.jpg The item, once processed, then gets it's own web-page and is graphically laid out, and in the case of multi-page booklets, gets its own navigation bar that points to individual sections. Most items are done in two or three formats, by the way. Note that there is a tiny TN or "thumbnail" image, a larger readable image that pops up on your screen, and a full-blown, hi-res copy that we have put in place for unknown future use so that the original item can be re-created in its original format and size. I'm the blabber-mouse around here, and the rest of the guys http://imperialclub.com/OIC-specific/TeamOfVolunteers/index.htm sorta roll their collective eyes when I'm out stumping for new material or pointing out their work in the WHATS NEW section, http://imperialclub.com/new.htm but they're in there all the time, working through all of our collected material. Thanks for the sweat-equity, guys! The end goal is to create an encyclopedic, reference-grade resource for all things Imperial that will hopefully last as long as there's someone around to pay the bills on our server. At this point, we're well on our way. How deep are we? Page-rank in a search engine is a hot topic in internet conversations, that commercial businesses spend lots of money on so that they come up as close to the top of a given search as possible. Try this: Go to Google and think up three or four common auto components. Type "engine mount" or whatever and "chrysler" into the search box. That's not even within our specialty (Imperial) mind you. There's a good chance that our club website will be on the first page, if not the first 5 results. That's across the entire stinking internet!!! Maybe I should be more excited about politics or curbing world population or something, but for whatever reason, this is what gets me charged up, and the info above are some of the reasons that I get a bit nutty about cheering on the team and askingfor help to support the site. Thanks for reading this far, anyway. --- OK - I'm done. Back to your regularly-scheduled programming. Kenyon Wills ----------------- http://www.imperialclub.com ----------------- This message was sent to you by the Imperial Mailing List. Please reply to mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and your response will be shared with everyone. Private messages (and attachments) for the Administrators should be sent to webmaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To UN-SUBSCRIBE, go to http://imperialclub.com/unsubscribe.htm