Scattered Thoughts . . .

(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 flawlessly. And,

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 of

I've had a few hours of productivity spread out over the past few days  (this stuff does take its toll on my spine so I only do things like this in short spurts)  and it reminded me of how much I truly enjoy accomplishing artistic and creative things like this project. It has been fun! I really should do this more often.  It is time for lunch... past time, actually... so that is all I will accomplish on this project until tonight perhaps. Next up is some lunch, a shower and a long nap! When I head back to this project tonight or over the weekend, it will be time to add some smaller details and some additional vegetation. It's looking good at this point though and I'm enjoying building it!  It makes me wonder why I don't do stuff like this more often... Oh yeah... we don't have the room just yet!  It really has been an outstanding day!

I often write about and harp upon the need for understanding when it comes to people struggling with chronic illness and/or life threatening illnesses. Tonight it is time for me to harp on this yet again because Sheila is hurt and I am subsequently angry and rapidly losing my patience with far too many people who don't seem to "understand". As a result of this lack of understanding, I am truly at my wits' end and we are exceptionally close to again shrinking our circle of family and friends if this very tiring behavior does not change. I, myself, have a long list of health issues and struggle with significant disabilities every day. The major difference today, however, is that I am referring to and coming to the defense of Sheila since she is very upset right now and has been very upset at the last two family events because of this rather callous behavior. It has gotten to the point where Sheila actually dreads attending any family events because so many people na

I just finished carving the entire model railroad for Lukey's Christmas present. I suspect I'll find a few little things to cut off or shape here and there but, for the most part, I am finished carving this little model railroad. Next is to add some thinned plaster to a few select areas... then paint...  then some roads... then some grass and bushes... then some touch up here and there... This little train set is coming along very nicely!

I truly wish that I could say I am "carving a new world" in the real world but I am really referring to Lukey's Christmas present... a model railroad. I have begun the next phase of creating this little railroad world... I am transforming a flat terrain into a three dimensional world by carving the flat, blocky foam into rolling terrain, rocks, hills and ditches.  This is an exciting time because I begin to see the world I have locked inside my head as I carve, scrape and shape this new world. It is also incredibly messy with chunks of foam flying (not quite like Edward Scissorhands but messy enough) and clinging to everything. Then, when you move and cause a disturbance of air, these foam chunks blow around the room. What a mess! (Bending over on the floor isn't helping my spinal injuries either!)   Anyway, I just wanted to add some more photos showing this process... I hope to have this entire little railroad world carved before bedtime. Now I need to go sh

Last year, our trek to cut Christmas trees involved ice covered dirt roads, deep snow and downed power lines. This year, our trek to cut Christmas trees involved grass covered hills and wet, muddy, rutty roads where the car bottomed out and was thrown violently from rut to rut all over the road. It was quite a contrast between the years. The sap is running in the trees... flowers are blooming in our gardens... so the trees are unaware that they are supposed to be dormant this time of year. If the trees are not dormant when cut, this is not good for the Christmas season. These trees will die very quickly after being cut so the big question this year is whether or not we will have a "tree" on Christmas morning or a dried out twig. (I'm betting on a dried out twig.) (Have I mentioned lately how much I despise spring-like weather for Christmas?) We all had a good time though and it was easy to stay warm!  As we do every year, immediately following our tree cutting, we he

Before I went any further on building Lukey's railroad Christmas present, I needed to add a couple of power feeds from the track to a jack panel to connect a transformer to this basic layout. I started drilling... then cutting with a kitchen knife... this was a relatively easy task... This may look like a culvert but it is really where my power panel will be located... I will be able to plug-in the appropriate transformer here using banana jacks.   Once I had the power feeds in place, I was able to glue down the track. This track that I'm using is an HO sectional track by Atlas called True Track. It comes with a plastic roadbed already in place. This saved me some work but the trade off is that is doesn't look as realistic. That being said, for this project, this track is just fine. After setting the track/roadbed down in the wet glue, I placed a newly bought 30 pack of beer on the track (believe it or not, I bought this 30 pack with this project in mind) ... this