A Fantastic Beast

...and where to find it?  The Nevada State Railroad Museum.

Let's look inside this beautiful creature:

 Can you guess the species of this truly fantastic beast? 

I captured a few images of the exterior of this tremendous and beautiful thing, but there are far better out there and Google can help you find them, I'm sure.  These images were made with my new Kindle Fire (an early Xmas present), and I'm still learning how to use it.

Vintage Victory!

At the recent Great Train Expo in Santa Rosa I found the sort of dealer who carries the sort of trains I like to buy at the sort of prices I can't refuse.  Most were rare, long out of production cars, priced between 2 and 5 dollars, depending on the condition.  I found these three I couldn't live without:

Yes, I already have one of the Purina Reefers, er, ventilated cars.  I couldn't pass it up.  It will need a new underbody, trucks and couplers, as well as new vents - these were not iced, so no hatches.  Still working on sourcing parts for the vents.

The second car is a Varney car, and as marked is just at the edge of my era.  What makes this a must-have are the paper crates.  This is one way early autos were shipped and I have had my eye out for one of these cars.  The flat is in near-perfect condition, with all the sill steps and even the brake rod and wheel still intact.  The paint is factory fresh and the lettering crisp and legible.  The trucks will pass for PRR trucks in use at the time but the brake gear is AB.  However, I may not change it since it really isn't that visible due to the low side sills.  Naturally it will need new couplers, and if I ever come across some Carmer uncoupling levers I may add them, otherwise it is RTR with a little weathering.

Finally the last car is a custom lettered car for the Shepaug Valley & Western.  If any of my dozen or so readers, okay, the three or four of you, know anything about this road let me know in the comments or send an email.  I think there was an actual Shepaug Valley Railroad that was folded into another Connecticut line early in the 1900s, but beyond that I have to assume this was a private road name applied by a creative individual.  Love the orange and green.  This car will need some TLC as the orange paint chipped away from where the price tag pulled off....<grr>....and one of the doors popped loose.  The trucks are fine but I may trade them out for T-sections or express trucks at some point.

Per Ardua, Per Aspera

"Through Adversity, Through Hardships" would be one translation, but I prefer to draw on the derivatives for direction - Ardua; Arduous; Strenuous or Hard Work and Aspera; Aspirations or Hope.  That's the direction of my hobby right now, through hard work and hope.  I hope, very soon, to begin model building again, and I know it will take much hard work to get there.

In a nutshell, Kristi took a call to serve a congregation in Ukiah, California, I resigned my call after seven years of service at Bethany in Spanaway, Washington, and we have moved.  We are currently living in the parsonage.

To define the scope of the situation, here's a look at my workbench area:

I know it will be a great place to work, eventually, but for now all I can do is hope and work hard on dealing with the boxes of stuff and the piles of clutter (and not just in this photo, but scattered all around the house...and that's not even considering the garage!)

And here's the kicker - the previous tenants had a cat.  More likely multiple cats, based solely on the smell.  Even if I had all the stuff unpacked and put where it belongs, I can't sit in that corner without making a face (you know the one).  Cat urine has got to be one of the worst aromas ever, and this corner of the carpet is saturated.  Fortunately the other end of the large living area, to the left of the images, is pretty clean. 

We live with pets.   I've dealt with cat pee before - we use a great enzymatic cleaner that works wonders.  Our cats don't get to this room so there's no danger there of the smell getting worse.  We also have dogs.  The dogs really need a bath and consequently so does the couch.  But to just let it go and ignore the problem, especially as a renter, is irresponsible.  I don't want this to seem like a rant against the church - on the contrary, they went over and above to fix up the house, painting all the walls, cleaning, etc.  We are very happy with them and this house.  I am especially thankful that they are going to replace the entire living room carpet (sometime next week as of this writing).

Anyway, enough venting.  Big picture - I will be able now, thanks to my new job description (Dad/Husband/Son/Son-in-law/etc.), to model more regularly and that means blogging more often.  I have all I need to be able to relax and work on a model without spending much at all (see this blog post).  However, in order to fund a layout construction project, I may need to add a part time job eventually, but that's a topic for another post...