Scattered Thoughts . . .

Our original plan for Christmas was what we do every year... we invite all of Sheila's immediate family including her parents to the house on Christmas morning for presents and a big breakfast. Then, we entertain friends later in the day and into Christmas night. This is something we have been doing since before the grandchildren were born but it has become more of a family tradition since their birth. Now Sheila has her own family of three generations so we tend to do the "family celebrating" here, at our home, for her family... which is pretty typical for most families. A few days ago, an opportunity arose for us to head significantly south to much warmer climates (yes, although hard to believe, much warmer than our wet, balmy temperatures in the 50s) to celebrate Christmas with our Air Force family... I came up with a plan before I even mentioned this opportunity to Sheila... then presented it to Sheila as a surprise... and she enthusiastically jumped on it immedi...

While my health is recovering today, I'm taking it easy. I get easily bored whenever I am in recovery mode so I pulled out my camera in an attempt to shoot a few more photos of Lukey's model railroad.  I suspect this little model railroad will take a beating once Lukey starts playing with it... the same holds true for Kenzie's dollhouse. Needless to say, I'd like to have as many photos of these two gifts in their 'new - never been used' state.   Yesterday, I added a bit more shrubbery and weeds to the model railroad. I do believe it is detailed enough to hand over to Lukey now.  In the meantime, here are a few more photos... Train station on one side of the layout right in front of the jacks to connect power. I added some weeds and shrubbery to the foreground here.  Uphill, to the right above the concrete retaining wall, we will eventually build a small country town... The small combination freight depot/train station located on the opposite side o...

I've always had this idea for a series of portraits... frameless photos, all mounted on a wall, in sort of a random pattern at different depths. I had this idea in my head for about two decades but never really did anything with it. Recently, I've been using a professional printer who  puts out very high quality products and I couldn't be happier with them. This printer has a wide variety of products, one of which is a p roduct called Mini Mounts.  These Mini Mounts are a product printed on Fuji paper and mounted on wood with a black beveled edge. This product has a very clean look and I am very excited about how great these Mini Mounts look. I ordered a series of 12 prints mounted on Mini Mounts about a month ago and finally mounted them on the wall in our new bedroom this morning (I was waiting to finish the bedroom). As any series of photos should, this series of photos has a theme.... in this case, 'The Lake House'. In order to hang these Mini Mounts ...

(As I wrote in my previous blog post, I'm experiencing some lousy health tonight. From past experience, I know I will be in and out of the bathroom for a significant amount of time through the night tonight so that gives me some time to write between the waves of nausea, dizziness, lightheadedness, and all the other 'fun' symptoms.) Power feed panel with simple banana jacks. This little layout is sitting on the floor on top of a plastic drop cloth which is what you are seeing covered in all that messy brown paint. I've finished preparing power feeds for Lukey's new train layout (one of his Christmas presents this year). Making the power feeds themselves was a piece of cake. Actually, it was so easy, I'm not sure why I never did this before now! Putting together the power feed jack panel, on the other hand, was a bit of a problem.... In the future, when I make one of these power feed jack panels, I'll be sure to leave more room behind the panel for wi...

I've had some fairly stable health for the past week or two. It is always nice when this happens and especially so when it is Christmastime. Today, however, my health hit its limit... This evening, I awoke on the couch... laptop in my lap... still opened, still running, and still showing the model railroading page I was viewing... I was freezing... a bit groggier than usual after a nap...  a nap? "Wait a minute... I didn't lay down for a nap yet!" I looked at the clock... it was showing 4:30pm...  last thing I remembered, it was about 2pm and I was researching some model railroading stuff on the laptop... laptop balancing on my legs... I "awoke" in the same exact position with the computer still sitting on my lap.  What is unusual about this is that because of my spinal issues, I never stay in the same position for more than ten or fifteen minutes because the pain is too uncomfortable. I'm constantly changing positions and rolling over whenever I ...

When I am certain that all the paint and glue is as dry as possible, then I will remove the plastic dropcloth protecting our carpet. It really is amazing how someone can turn a hunk of pink foam insulation into a miniature world within just a matter of hours.   Other than adding a few more little details and making all the permanent electrical connections, this Christmas present is finished and ready for playing.  Right now I just have some electrical leads temporarily twisted on so I could test the track and trains. All worked just fine so, tonight, I started work on more permanent electrical connections to include a couple of jacks mounted on the edge of the layout and then using banana jacks on each type of power source (depending upon which locomotive is used). This last bit of work should only require another hour or so of easy work.  I played around with various locomotives last night using the appropriate power sources for each locomotive... it worked fl...

Church Street Every year, we put aside one afternoon and evening for an annual visit to Church Street during the Christmas season. Yesterday ended up being the perfect day for this annual event.  Church Street is a nice place to visit anytime but it is especially nice at Christmastime. Yesterday was no exception and the Christmas spirits must have been looking down upon us, providing laughter, warmth, Christmas cheer and even some snow!   Wendy, one of Sheila's coworkers, joined us yesterday at Ri Ra's for the first time. Actually, she got there a little bit prior to we did and saved some prime seats for us! She was a nice addition to some of our usual attendees... Frank, Christine and Liza. I do believe everyone had a really nice time. We did have one casualty yesterday... I dropped a lens and damaged it beyond repair. I wasted half my shots yesterday trying to shoot photos with a lens which consistently missed focus before I realized that my shots were all out o...