Of expos, my grandson and a new Heli-Max 1SQ

December might bring Christmas, but January brings the AMA Expo to we here in Southern California.

I've been to several of these shows, but never before with my grandson. Just he and I.

Not only did he have the time of his little life, I walked away with one of the most precious memories I've had in years. Imagine a five-year-old steeped in absolute joy sitting in both a full-scale one-man helicopter and a full-scale glider while working the controls. Add to that a 65% Fokker Dr-I which just blew him away by its sheer size and a chance for the two of us to try out a Torrent RTR stadium truck for a few hot laps and you have the recipe for the perfect day.

We even built and flew a rubber-powered FF glider. I ran into old friends and met many of the distributors and vendors whom I work with on the authors' forum. Bruce Jenner was the featured speaker and he was as entertaining and engaging as you could imagine.

My grandson is a teeny bit too young for a flying toy - for now - so he walked out with a little R/C dune buggy among a bunch of other little freebies while I walked out with a new Heli-Max 1SQ nano quadcopter. My parents generally give cash at Christmas...and I generally wait until the AMA to spend it.

The quadcopter's battery has just finished charging as I write, so I'm off to try out my belated Christmas present!

The only downer is the fact I seem to have caught cold which started to really hit me at the end of the day. If not for that, I'd make that drive back to Ontario for the final day of the expo.