Since late last summer I’ve been beating myself up with regard to my model railroading ‘structure building’ hobby. It all had to do with me finally getting motivated last yr around this time (Feb/2023), getting back to my hobby table building my “kits” (I hadn’t done anything project-wise during all of 2021 nor 2022). So, it was a big deal to getting back and start making things again. Then, … [Read more...]
Model Railroading – kit building – LaserKutModels
It’s pretty tough starting a mom & pop business out of your garage these days. Decades ago, you could put an ad into the various hobby related mags, announcing your new model railroad kit manufacturing company, and hopefully, via these magazine ads, as well as by word of mouth, your mom & pop business just might get enough customers to make your start-up a successful one, like Art’s Bar … [Read more...]
Model Railroading – recent thoughts – motivation
So…as some of you have noticed, I’ve been sharing my recent builds (after almost two yrs of being in a funk and not having any motivation to work at my project table). And, I’ve been getting the “likes” as well as some nice comments. But, the following comment this morning truly surprised me: “I am never going to be a great scale modeler but your work is inspiring.” This following (after the … [Read more...]
Being down – and how I (temporarily) fixed it.
Several weeks now, I’ve been kinda down. Lots of reasons. But, once I knew BFF Rick was going to come over (originally yesterday but we moved it today), I got my stupid, sorry, depressed ass off the couch, out of bed, out of the funk, out of the mope, whatever, and started cleaning and tidying; I’m the type who doesn’t make the bed each day; and I sometimes ‘laugh’ (or, roll my eyes) when I see … [Read more...]
Model Railroading – FSM – Swakhammer’s Welding Co.
Hmm. I’ve been pretty lax for the last three months, not posting progress reports on any structure builds, so I’m a bit behind. I started this kit in mid September, and have been making slow progress especially during the month of November as I was preparing to move back home to MN from NC. The particular kit (manufacturered in 1990) is from a company called Fine Scale Miniatures (“FSM”), in … [Read more...]
Hertz bankruptcy
Hertz car rental bankruptcy. How can a company with “only” $9 billion in annual revenue even think it will ever be able to pay off ~$17 billion in debt? Their debt load is almost twice as much as their annual revenue. Either way, even before the virus situation, the expected average annual earnings (profit) of a Fortune 500 company is around 8-10 percent of annual revenue. So, let’s round that … [Read more...]
Thrivent reflections – followup to a post from 2019-05-24
Huh. How things rapidly changed after I wrote this post a year ago. A month after this, myself and twenty others in the IT dept were given four weeks notice that we were to be laid off at the end of July; the VP mentioned below (Sanjaye) was subsequently arrested for child abuse (teenage daughter/step daughter), leading to his termination; And lastly, within just three weeks of the actual … [Read more...]
Reading, and Wikipedia
Wikipedia is my downfall. My interest in learning is my downfall. Case in point: I started to read the latest John Sandford murder mystery a few days ago. Usually his stories are based in and around the Twin Cities since that is where he’s from. This book, though, follows his protagonist to Washington, D.C. I get distracted by something the author mentions regarding D.C., and there I go, down the … [Read more...]
quote from randy peprock re pandemic re-opening
“Reopening everything and pretending like the pandemic is all over is like when you're watching a Friday the 13th movie and you think it's safe for the campers to come out of hiding after Jason is "killed", and then he jumps back out of the lake with a butcher knife. Stay safe. We're not out of the woods yet.” … [Read more...]
Vigilante murder in Georgia
Vigilante/cold blooded murderer/redneck: (paraphrasing) “well, I thought he had a gun, he reached into his pants”. The young man in question, was out jogging, and had shorts on. Here are my thoughts: When I wear shorts to go to the store, i usually carry my cell phone and my wallet in my short’s pockets, having just those two items tend to weigh down the shorts at times, causing me to have to … [Read more...]