About Larry
My wife and I have been happily married for 22 years. We have four children, ages 15, 12, 5, and almost 2. We have two dogs; our Boxer, Cosmo Kramer, is 10 years old, and our Great Pyrenese, Zelda Elaine, is 1 ½ years old. We also have a 4 year old Bearded Dragon named Jarvis. To round out the zoo at my house, we are getting a kitten in a couple of weeks. She is a 14 week old Tonkinese and we are going to call her Phoebe. My wife and I are both allergic to cats but Tonkinese are one of the more hypo-allergenic cat breeds.
I tend to wear a lot of flannel shirts. I use Black Rebel Beard products almost exclusively and am guilty of buying way too many candles at Yankee Candle and Bath and Body Works. I also love music and have recently gotten into vinyl. I think of it as listening to music on purpose rather than just having music playing. I still love Spotify for when I’m driving or working but if I really want to just listen to music or talk about music with my kids, vinyl is the way to go.
Growing up in the 80’s, I loved Masters of the Universe, Star Wars, GI Joe, and Transformers. I have so many happy memories centered around toys. I love thinking back on getting Zartan with the Swamp Skier as a birthday gift, or getting Soundwave as just a special surprise after going out to Perkins one Sunday after church, or my Grandma buying me two sets of the Return of Jedi figures. Her theory was that I could open one set to take home and play with and still have a new set to play with at her house. Needless to say, that didn’t last long and I ended up opening both sets and playing with all of them together. I know my parents and grandma enjoyed seeing the happiness that these toys brought me and that love of toys continues for me today.
As far as collecting toys is concerned, I have been a collector for the last 25 years or so. The Toy Habit (™) LOL, started back up when I was out shopping with my girlfriend and her mom back in 1996. We happened to be walking through the toy aisles and I saw the Star Wars Shadows of the Empire Luke Skywalker in Imperial Guard Disguise and I decided to buy it. I couldn’t fathom at the time what that purchase would lead to. When my wife and I started dating in 1997, a lot of our dates would be driving around to Walmart, Kay-Bee Toys, K-Mart, and TRU looking for toys. I collected Star Wars figures pretty heavily until I got burnt out with the poor head sculpts that Hasbro kept releasing. Then I moved on to Gentle Giant mini busts and maquettes, Master Replicas lightsaber replicas, and the whole line of Acme Archives character keys and giclees. I have gotten into Transformers several times but usually get tired of them fairly quickly for some reason. I collected GI Joe starting with Valor vs Venom and running through the entire 25th Anniversary line and have been enjoying the Classified and Retro Collection releases lately. Masters of the Universe has been one of my favorites to collect over the years, starting with the Commemorative figures, then going through 200x, Neca Statues and mini statues, Classics (IMHO, one of the best toy lines of all time), and now Mega Construx, and Origins.
