It wasn't until I logged in that I realised how long it had been since I last checked the site. It's been a while!
So where the heck did Michael go?
It's been a perfect-storm of procrastination since the spring.
First, I find myself explicitly drawn to the outdoors as soon as the weather begins to warm so my interests in the basement dwindle. Second, due to family idiocy, my brother-in-law needed to move in with us for a few months, expropriating my basement. Third, I changed jobs in order to be closer to home, which included the caveat of very limited Internet access (education). Finally, we decided that we wanted to move, so all things trains were packed away in anticipation of a new house.
So, the last 3-4 months were spent wiping the nose of a snivelling brat, fixing every known defect in our house and constantly packing up the wife, kids and dog for the never-ending influx of real estate agents - all the while attempting to get outside and enjoy the great outdoors.
In the end we decided not to move, the boy moved out, and the summer is quickly coming to a close, and finally I can return to the basement...
So, time to catch up on my nscale.net reading, dust off the layout, and get to work.
Cheers!
Michael
Michael! Welcome back! I
Michael! Welcome back! I think it is safe to say that we have all missed you!
It sure sounds like you had a quite amazing summer. Here you are, getting used to the idea that it will be fall before long and here we are just approaching the worst part of the summer! Hot, high humidity, thunder storms and the threat of hurricanes! It'll be October before things start to get a little better. But I am not complaining, I'll take this over the snow and ice any day! You just have to get used to the idea that summer is actually the worst time of the year - at least weather-wise!
Can you share you new job with us?
Looking forward to reading your posts again in the future.
Bryan C
Thanks Bryan C!I don't care
Thanks Bryan C!
I don't care what season we call it - I just look forward to cooler weather!
My new job - much of the same (intentionally coy) - now working with public primary/secondary education school system rather then the post-secondary sector.
TTYS!
Here's a cartoon which you
Here's a cartoon which you probably already have seen in honour of your new job!
http://xkcd.com/327/
Good luck! At least you don't have to combine a new job with moving.
I haven't done much of any
I haven't done much of any use train-wise this summer, either. My job gets busier in the summer due to everyone taking turns for vacation, plus our family got into Geocaching this summer, which means free time is spent crawling through bushes looking for treasure. :)
-mike
Where did the summer go?!
Mmmmmm . . what exactly IS Summer (says he sitting inn a 10th-floor office watching rainsqualls skating across the city (Hamilton), on a cold, very dull and misty North Island, New Zealand Day)?
I fear that 'tis but the stuff of dreams, nay myth, invented to merely jest with man . .
Ah well, even myths have a basis of foundation. . Back to the computer. . .
Next?
Komata
"TVR - serving the Northern Taranaki . . ."
Welcome back Michael. The
Welcome back Michael. The summer is going quite fast, especially for us student's. It's all good though, train season is just around the corner and we can all retreat back to the our train rooms and LHS's lol.
-Joe
Thanks all - I guess I
Thanks all - I guess I should qualify my concept of summer - I've always worked in education so summer represents the 2+ months students are out of school for summer vacation - everything before is spring, everything after is fall...
Of course, living in Canada, the perpetual season of 'road maintence' is always with us.
Hey man, I live in
Hey man, I live in Brooklyn, New York. I couldn't even begin to explain the road maintenance that goes on here. There's one road that has been under construction for 20 years. Since it was built!!! Winter brings no break from the road work here. And apparently neither does the completion of a road lol.
-Joe
Visiting Canada
While I've been to Canada 3 or 4 times since the early 1970s, I've never had occasion to live there. But I can only guess at what you mean by road maintenance.
However, since I live but 3 short blocks from that roadway (usually more like a parking lot) callled the Long Island Expressway, I can imagine what road maintenance (or lack of it) is like up your neck of the woods.
AS for being in education and getting the summers off, back during the period 1980-87 I taught college level accounting, finance and information systems at two colleges in the NYC metropolitan area. I used to teach two 15 week semesters and a 6 - 8 week summer session during that time so I had pleanty of time off. That coincided with my first excursion into N-Scale and I used what time I had productively to shape a my first N-Scale empire. I was never satisfied with it because it never worked right. When I left teaching to go back into industry and we remodeled the house I wasn't unhappy to dismantle th railroad so that the train room could be used for storage. That happened in 1987 and I have been without a layout since then.
It wasn't that I didn't have time to devote to it because I did. I just was mentally ready. That happened this May. But things are different now.
First of all, I am know retired so I have time to do what I want when I want. I also don't get out much since I don't always have a vehicle at my disposal (my son borrows it to go to work/school or whatever) so I can't visit many hobby shops in person. So it's really a choice between watching TV (even cable has mostly reruns of ancient TV programs) or doing something productive in the train room. Guess which one I'd rather be doing.
Second of all, I do visit the N-Trak club I joing once or twice a week. That provides me with alot of incentive to get my train room cleaned out (finally after 21 years) and get the layoput going ASAP. Of course, I am behind schedule but I can actually 3 walls of the layout room now. Hopefully by Friday the last wall will be visible as well.
Irv
Brooklyn
Are you talking about the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway by any chance? I remember watching them build that thing. It got crowded the day they finsihed (assuming that's an appropriate word) it.
But you know what they've always said abotut the city we live in: It'll be a nice place to visit of they ever get it finished.
Irv
BQE
IRV, yes I was talking about the BQE. I live right next to it and it's never not a mess. Even in the middle of the night there is traiffic lol. The worst part is that there are construction signs and sites all over the place but they never do any work. It's a never ending process. They need to just build a new BQE and make it like 20 lanes wide lol.
I couldn't agree with that more.
-Joe
BQE
And 5 minutes after they put up the signs, all 20 lanes will be bumper to bumper. Maybe the mistake was in not letting Robert Moses construct parkways that would divert all traffic from the BQE to New Jersey.
Irv