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Wow! I can't believe I haven't made a journal entry since the beginning of this year. How time does fly!.... Yow! Sorry about that folks! It's been a busy year to this date to be sure. Mostly it's been good, just pretty busy with family, work, and even some model building here and there. I've actually gotten some models finished of which I'll be sharing photos of here soon, starting as soon as I finish this entry.
I won't bore any of you with a full play by play rundown of all I've been up to but just a couple of the highlights that have been going on are as follows:
- the biggest one probably is that I've finally fully retired from military service at the beginning of May of this year. This feels long in coming, and I was really ready to do this, and it feels great! I retired having served 15 years active duty U.S. Navy, 5 years active Navy Reserve, 5 years inactive Navy reserve, and 3 years with the California Air National Guard. 28 years military service total. It's been a good run, and I've seen a lot, done a lot, and met a lot of great people but I am sooo glad to be honorably done at last. I figure not bad for someone who didn't plan on doing a full military career in the first place. ;D I didn't get as high in rank as I would have liked (them's the breaks...) but I've learned, experienced, and gained so much that this is more than reward enough. I figure it's a win-win for the government and I. The government got it's money's worth out of me and I sure got my money's worth out of the government and did make it all the way to an honorable retirement with my health, sanity, and family intact. That's a pretty good deal right?
- for my 47th birthday this year my wife treated our kids and I to a visit to the Space Shuttle Endeavour and the California Science Center! What a great present!! I've followed the space shuttle program loosely from beginning to end and this was the first time I had been able to see a space shuttle in person, let alone up close. I did take quite a few photos of the space shuttle and may share a few here if any of you are interested. I think a couple are interesting enough and artsy enough to be worth sharing here.
- As I mentioned above, I've also been able to actually make some time to build and complete a few models too. I'm getting caught up with some long overdue backlog model works and commissioned pieces. Wheew! This feels soooo good to be accomplishing at last. I have 2 more backlog commissioned pieces to complete, which will hopefully be completed by the end of this year, and then I can start on several new works that are in the pipeline, and get back to work on some of my own long in the works pieces. Family goings on permitting of course.
Between family needs and doings, and work goings on, it seems like I am busier than ever and once I get home from any given workday, get dinner, take time for my young and fast growing daughters, take care of some chores, there's not much left of me for creative stuff. All's good right now though and I'll share what I can when I can.
Thank all of you out there in the DA community so much for the interest in my work that you have shown me. Your friendship is very much appreciated! Happy creating as always to all!!!
P.S. I thought it was a fantastically great thing that the supreme court made LGBT marriage in all 50 state legal at last and that the ACA(Obamacare) was saved from the chopping block again. I'm thinking many conservative and republican heads just exploded over this. I wish they did anyway....
I won't bore any of you with a full play by play rundown of all I've been up to but just a couple of the highlights that have been going on are as follows:
- the biggest one probably is that I've finally fully retired from military service at the beginning of May of this year. This feels long in coming, and I was really ready to do this, and it feels great! I retired having served 15 years active duty U.S. Navy, 5 years active Navy Reserve, 5 years inactive Navy reserve, and 3 years with the California Air National Guard. 28 years military service total. It's been a good run, and I've seen a lot, done a lot, and met a lot of great people but I am sooo glad to be honorably done at last. I figure not bad for someone who didn't plan on doing a full military career in the first place. ;D I didn't get as high in rank as I would have liked (them's the breaks...) but I've learned, experienced, and gained so much that this is more than reward enough. I figure it's a win-win for the government and I. The government got it's money's worth out of me and I sure got my money's worth out of the government and did make it all the way to an honorable retirement with my health, sanity, and family intact. That's a pretty good deal right?
- for my 47th birthday this year my wife treated our kids and I to a visit to the Space Shuttle Endeavour and the California Science Center! What a great present!! I've followed the space shuttle program loosely from beginning to end and this was the first time I had been able to see a space shuttle in person, let alone up close. I did take quite a few photos of the space shuttle and may share a few here if any of you are interested. I think a couple are interesting enough and artsy enough to be worth sharing here.
- As I mentioned above, I've also been able to actually make some time to build and complete a few models too. I'm getting caught up with some long overdue backlog model works and commissioned pieces. Wheew! This feels soooo good to be accomplishing at last. I have 2 more backlog commissioned pieces to complete, which will hopefully be completed by the end of this year, and then I can start on several new works that are in the pipeline, and get back to work on some of my own long in the works pieces. Family goings on permitting of course.
Between family needs and doings, and work goings on, it seems like I am busier than ever and once I get home from any given workday, get dinner, take time for my young and fast growing daughters, take care of some chores, there's not much left of me for creative stuff. All's good right now though and I'll share what I can when I can.
Thank all of you out there in the DA community so much for the interest in my work that you have shown me. Your friendship is very much appreciated! Happy creating as always to all!!!
P.S. I thought it was a fantastically great thing that the supreme court made LGBT marriage in all 50 state legal at last and that the ACA(Obamacare) was saved from the chopping block again. I'm thinking many conservative and republican heads just exploded over this. I wish they did anyway....
It's been a long time...
Hello again everyone out there in the DA world! It's been a long time since I've posted on here. I've just been busy with work, family life, the heat here in SoCal, and being burnt out from the political goings on of our country (no, I'm not going into details), and the insane goings on of our world (again, not going into details). While I do have quite a number of model projects in the works and at various stages of completion, the Wicked Witch of the West kit here is the only model kit I've actually completed recently. Life has just taken up my model building time and generally, when I do get free time, it isn't long before I'm napping. I have been being creative in a number of ways, just not model building, and perhaps not the usual forms of art creating. Perhaps I'll show photos of some of that work here. We'll see. Anyway, it's good to be posting here again and I wish everyone out there safety and very happy creating (whatever it may be)!
Wooden Battlestar Model Journey
Hello once again to everyone here in the DA community! :D It's been a long time since I've posted anything here. :D The main reason I've been gone is life, work, family, and mostly the Big Beast of a model that I've just posted photos of in my gallery section. The series of photos I'll be sharing here over the next while will be a detailing of my progress through a very long in progress model I've been working on over the last 5 years or so off and on. This model is a 3 foot long, solid wood model of the 1978 version of the Battlestar Galactica from the TV series of the same name. This is the last of a series of 25 or so models I've built or custom painted on commission for a collector friend in San Diego. This model has always kept being bumped to the back of the line as other models came up that my friend wanted finished first and wound up going back in storage after some work would get done. The storage time would drag out from months to years at a time. A lot of life goings on
Would any of you like to see more EMERGENCY! pics?
Ok, time does fly and I have quite a bit to share and quite a bit to post to catch up with.
First and foremost, over the years here I have posted a number of photos from my visits to the LA County Fire museum to see the well cared for and restored vehicles from the TV show EMERGENCY!. I know this is not facebook, and I do try to make my photos as artistic as possible with what I have, but would you wonderful folks out there in the DA community enjoy more photos of these classic vehicles and other fire apparatus from this museum? I don't wish to inundate this site with EMERGENCY! vehicle photos, but I do have quite a few more that I am int
How the year is passing...
Well.... to quote a saying I found on Facebook..." It's August already?! September is practically next week. Time to pick out a Halloween costume and start your Christmas shopping. Happy New Year everybody! " ;D Boy, it sure is seeming this way. The Classic BSG Viper is the only model I've actually completed so far this year. I have gotten some new kits and gotten then into sub assemblies and have them ready for seaming, priming, and finishing. I also have many that are in various stages of completion, but none of them actually finished. I've just been mostly busy with life, doing family things, as well as a bit of travelling. Nothing bad h
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My brain seems to be hardwired to completely miss Journal updates until way after the fact. Probably why I'm always amazed if someone sees my own journal. lol Sorry this comes a few days late, but thanks for your service and happy retirement! What a great run and truly something to be proud of! I'm looking forward to all the great stuff you'll be able to produce now that you've got more time.
And yep, I'm right there with you and enc86 on the PS.
And yep, I'm right there with you and enc86 on the PS.