Hey, who turned on the lights?

Pfft, bleah, gotta get these cobwebs outta my mouth, geez, who's responsible for the upkeep around here?! Oh, wait. Yeah, so it's been pretty dead around here lately, eh? I never have been one to blow my own horn, and if you didn't believe it, just take the last few months around here as proof, 'cuz there's been plenty at times to roll with. So if you're indeed bothering to read this I thank you for the courtesy, and would you be so kind as to give my knees a good mafia whack or two just to get 'em moving again? In return I'll at least bring you up to speed, and perhaps clear out a few topics to wind out the very old year and site status and shimmy up to a "reset" for going forward, no? Or would you rather just have some random fun with that ball bat at my expense? Sorry - like everyone else, I have crappy insurance (I rant I've been meaning to write, but I'd rather retain my good spirits). I mean bottom of the barrel, where only silverfish roam crappy. Anyway, on with the things, and the stuff, and the words on the screen!

So the last update was about the Reading Crusader I restored - a model train project. On that (model railroading) front, I've done little else since that was finished, which is kind of sad. But I've been getting a real strong itch to get back to my roots of weathering, creating, and modeling, as opposed to the simple collecting and in-place / in-kind upgrading I've been wrapped up in for the past few years. I would love nothing more than to start on the long-planned expansion of the STC, but that's probably years away do to lack of funds in the face of more pressing priorities. Major ones, like basement remediation and other home improvements. It never ends.

So I've done a little more collecting and indexing on the Tyco Trains front as usual... but as of now I've a feeling that will be coming to an end, soon. In just the past few weeks I've let quite a few nice items get away, whereas before I'd have gone ape just to bring them down and done.

That's not to say I'll be done with Tyco stuff... far from it in fact. I only just recently put some effort into cleaning the back-end of the Tyco pages, to start working on some SEO functions to improve their search engine rankings. I didn't care before... but now I do, fancy that! I've got a few drafts of some new material, and a couple other draft ideas to work on. And I actually came up with another just last night that could totally 'asplode what I'd previously had in mind! Bottom line is: if 2009 was mostly an aggregate of older material I'd compiled over a few years; 2010 will be the year some new stuff finally comes on line! Yay!

Speaking of new stuff, I've been continually adding new finds to the photo gallery - when it began I think there were 15 pages of freight cars; now there are 20. A couple extras in the loco and caboose sections too, in addition to a handful of improved photos replacing earlier ones. Take a look if you haven't been in there for a while and if you have something to share, let me know!

Finally, another exercise in humility: when it comes to some of this stuff, I just might actually know what I'm talking about after all: I was published in the National Model Railroad Association's magazine Scale Rails, in the November 2009 issue. Never mentioned it anywhere outside of Facebook, so there you go. Someone stomp my rampaging ego before the lives of small children are put at stake!

Speaking of small children, that sounds like a good segue: The girls have been a little bit of a handful these days. Bethany is at the adorable age where she's fun to play board games and stuff with... problem is she won't take "no" or "wait" for an answer. Not only that, but she's taken to that brattish, sore-winner behavior whereby she'll mock your bad turns, and brag about her good ones. A normal phase, sure, and one she probably endures at pre-school. But what this means is there's no need to "let" her win, and nobody likes to play with that type after a while anyway, right? So the sad part is many times I tell her "no, I don't want to play [a fourth round of] Memory... why don't you go play something else, or with your sister instead?" Lately the form of "playing with her sister" has taken the form of antagonizing her, but she won't take no guff from no one, so it goes back and forth and around and around until you can't tell who's actually to blame anymore.

Beverly in the meanwhile has finally become a little doll in her own right, and sweet and fun to be around. But her problem is she's absolutely fearless, or stupid, or downright retarded - I can't decide which. And what I mean by that is, Bethany was a quick study who developed a healthy respect for "boundaries" and "things that look like they could kinda sorta maybe be similar enough to those other things that hurt me that one time", and of course the rarely necessary parental hand-smack... but Beverly simply just will. not. learn. She continually finds stools, boxes, trashcans, or whatever else she can move, to climb into everything so that she can raid food, bottles, tools, or whatever else happens to be there. She has gotten into fishtank chemicals I never once had to pay mind with Bethany... and when we took the cookies off the kitchen counter and out of stool-range, she decided the knife block (otherwise pushed well out of sight and tempting reach) looked like just the perfect substitute to get into. And once she pulled them out, she promptly decided that wasn't enough and proceeded to grasp the blades with both hands until she inevitably cut herself. Lesson learned? No! A day later she was trying to get up there again!

So as of Saturday we (or at at least I) have determined it's time to get more aggressive and forceful with discipline and reinforcement. It's not fun. But I told Anna that at this point, if (more like when) she gets under the sink and drinks some sort of poison, I might not feel sorry for her...

Ah, poison. Here's a strange thing that happened recently: toward the end of 2009 and into the first days of 2010, I wasn't up to snuff thanks to some sort of mild persistent flu-like malady. An unintentional net result of this lethargy and lack of appetite was that for a few days, I did not drink a Diet Coke. Normally, I'm an addict who averages about 2 cans a day, just to get that sweet sweet caffeine! But as I began to feel better, I realized "huh, it's been a few days... wonder 'ow much longer I can hold out?" So the experiment was on: a few days became nearly two full weeks until last Sunday, when in a moment of weakness needing some sort of pick-me-up, I reached for that last cold, hard can in the fridge. Fortunately Anna was there to admonish this weakness, if only just enough to make me switch my intended imbibe mode from "chug" to "sip". So I sipped... and spit. Holy hell, when they start canning turpentine?! And who the heck can drink this crap? And how the heck did I do it for so long? And what the heck is wrong with me now?

Bottom line is, I think my taste buds grew back, because lately everything tastes better. Or at least like it's supposed to. Fruits are more flavorful. Breads and cheeses have a wonderful layer to them that I forgot all about. Meats, sauces and veggies? Oy vey! And processed stuff? Yeah, you can taste the fakeness and the chemicals and the marketing. I didn't notice all these things before! Now it's like I've rediscovered old friends, and new enemies (sorry, Canadian Maple Syrup Creme cookies, you're suddenly just too sweet).

And the best part is, to keep me honest, I gave the rest of my DC stash to a coworker, just in time for Pepsi to re-release their "throwback" line made with real sugar as opposed to a chemistry set. All the caffeine without the HFCS, booyah!

So what else for the new year? Well, another thing I never bragged about (for good reason) was being asked to fill my first official role as a freelance writer, for a new automotive site called "Hooniverse". It's run by some fantastic writers and trivia buffs to whom I owe a debt of gratitude and inspiration. Unfortunately, that "good reason" I mentioned above, alludes to my health issues and home conflicts that have prevented me from writing more than a pittance of articles thus far. But the site has really grown in a very short time, on the backs of gear-heads and writers leagues funnier, cooler, and more knowledgeable than I. (Well it's not really a stretch of any sort to say people are funnier than me, but trust me, you read some of these guys long enough and you'll pay no mind to the current NBC debacle). It's a site especially worth checking out if you've ever struggled to understand just what makes some gear-heads tick. There's something there for all tastes and knowledge levels, even the "mildly curious Camry driver"... give it a week and I guarantee you'll find something worth bookmarking. Don't do it because I might be there again sometime this century - do it because these guys are passionate, everyday Joes with talent and whimsy they freely share and deserve a lot of credit for. I'm not worthy... I'm just glad they haven't killed my byline yet.

So, back to where I come in... once I get over this hump and mental / physical fog I've been in for the past few months, I hope to get some stuff formatted and posted all semi-pro like, again. I can't say I live and breath cars to the extent these guys do but I got my own ideas, just haven't had the time or cogent mind to get it all together lately. In fairness, I haven't done much here or on FB or the Tyco forum or the train layout lately, so all my interests have suffered. It's time to wake up! If only I can get my mind and body to cooperate.

There's things I'd like to write besides Hooniverse and Tyco stuff... but the elephant in the room is the right frame just escapes me these days, as it has for the last several years. Writing is something I always loved to do, one of the few things that I felt I could have a natural talent worth developing, but it was one of the most intimate, all-consuming things I would ever attempt. I can't do it with distractions (kids, internet, and adult obligations). And yet I think about it all the time, the same old stuff stuck in my head that would be on media if only I could just...

Feh.

Back to cars, 2009's Angstmobile Season was largely a washout bust. Literally. I mean it rained so freaking much last year, I thought I would have to buy a boat. So I never got to drive it much, or work on it much, or really even just enjoy it much. All this meant that when I drove it back to the farm for indoor storage over the winter, it promptly puked the water pump out for spite within 50 feet of the garage. THE SPIRIT OF MY 88 T-BIRD* LIVES, AWESOME! I can't say this was entirely unexpected, but I've been warned that a water pump on a 460 is not exactly the mostest funnest jobbest out there. Good news is that while I'm removing all the pulleys, I can finally chuck all the A/C components which need to be rebuilt anyway, so that'll be a little less weight and parasitic load for 2010's season. Hopefully Somernites won't be a wash this year. Hmm, come to think of it I might have to plan to go there more often (not just for the PowerCruise) to cover it for Hooniverse!

*the spirit of a car which, no matter how old or selectively neglected or in varying states of need for repair, nonetheless gets one to one's destination, always and unflinchingly, without fail, before throwing its cards on the table parts all over the ground at said destination.

Well there was plenty more I had in mind at first, but this is plenty enough for now. Thanks for reading this far. I hope your 2010 is going well so far and that you enjoy much success and prosperity this year. As I am only just now finding time to sit and write this on my day off for Dr. Martin Luther King Day, it also seems appropriate that I should honor his legacy in an appropriate fashion. So much of what I wrote about above is essentially petty and ultimately pointless... nonetheless, I just had to get it out of my head. But in the spirit of what Dr. King called us all to do, won't you make an effort to better yourself and your community this year? You could even start by making a donation for the relief effort in Haiti... that's what I'm going to do next.

As always as my name implies...