PC Fixed

An update to last weekend’s stuff up on my home PC.  It Lives!  Basically we just reinstalled windows on it, and then after reinstalling Outlook, some virus protection software and waiting for a few subsequent Microsoft updates to take effect, everything is back to normal.  So I did not lose any work from my convention presentation.  However progress on this document still continues.  I keep thinking that there is a better photo to illustrate a point I am trying to make.  So a few more photos were updated or added to the presentation today. 

Yesterday I went to our local NMRA monthly meeting.  But it was far from local and about 85-90km away down at Palm Beach.  There was a very good turnout, and it was great checking out the Jack's layout.  Very nice indeed, and NSW focused so he gets extra points for that.  We had three member presentations at the meeting and they were first rate.  If only all Clubs put on some form of presentation or question and answer/discussion session at their monthly meetings, you would probably have more people being members of Clubs as they would have a great avenue to learn things and be inspired. 

A couple of major things were announced yesterday and one of our members became a NMRA – MMR.  That is a great achievement for Malcolm.  Another couple of members each picked up a rather prestigious NMRA award.  They were well deserved as well, even in one was from 2019 from before the pandemic.  I also picked up my 6^th AP certificate, so only one to go in order to get my MMR.  But there is a lot of work ahead to achieve that with plenty of detail work to be undertaken on a number of wagons.  I'm thinking of actually going for another AP certificate before I get my last required one for MMR which will be  'Master Builder - Cars'.

Now attention turns to planning for the RMCQ Exhibition in 2 week’s time.  I will have a table there showing off items and going some modelling.  The NMRA will also have a table there were various NMRA members will also being doing some modelling.  Please come and talk to us.  Next Sunday I will be packing up my stuff to take to the exhibition.

Yesterday after I came home from the NMRA meeting and this early this afternoon, I went looking for my box of Tamiya Panel Line Accent Color bottles – 7 of them.  Do you think I could find them?  Eventually I did after looking everywhere twice except where they were.  PK advised me during the week that two new colours were available in the range.  I will have to try and get a bottle of the new ones next weekend.

The first 6 Panel Lin accent colors

Then came the orange brown.

And now two more have appeared.

Damn Microsoft!

I had plans for this weekend, but they turned to dust.  On Saturday a Microsoft patch update bricked my main home computer.  I could not unbrick it.  I had plans to add the last few photos to my Armidale Convention presentation and go through it one last time, before it would be considered complete.  I went through the presentation on Friday and decided that I needed to take a number of updated photos.  I added those to the presentation late morning.  On Saturday morning I went though the presentation again and identified some more photos that could be improved.  So when I went back to the PC on Saturday afternoon, I noticed it was bricked.  Nothing I could do, could unbrick it.  So it looks like I will have to borrow the efforts of some work mates on Tuesday to help me fix it.

I had also planned to do some track cleaning wagon construction on Sunday but with Tricky Dicky's team doing so well I watched the SuperCar races instead.  I might get around to doing that tomorrow.

Now with my PC, luckily I have a spare laptop at home that I can use for this Blog update and check email and other things over the weekend.  However, what is most annoying is that there is no recent backup to my Armidale Presentation apart from the one on the bricked PC.  The latest few versions were saved to the desktop on my normal PC.  So if it cannot be unbricked I will need to remove the SSD drive and and copy the few files that I have saved the old desktop to another location so I can access them on this backup PC.  All my other files are still available, just not my latest presentation updates.  

So with my normal PC offline, I lost some modelling mojo.  Next week, we have some online activities on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday Evenings and a trip to the coast on Saturday for our NMRA meeting.  Who knows, I might get my mojo back next week.

And to make matters a bit worse, my mower has finally carked it and I cannot get it to start.  Time for a better mower doctor that me to look at it.  So that is Monday's job, take that to the fixer-upper person.

My Diary is Now Opening Up

Again we had a very quiet week in modelling terms.  I did spend about 15 minutes with a guy at work who is a part-time photographer to get a better understanding of how to take some model photos with a greater depth of field with my camera.  So on Saturday morning I spent about an hour in the shed trying to capture a couple of scenes using this technique on my camera.  These scenes captured were ones that I wanted to highlight various components within them for my Armidale Convention presentation.

So this arvo I finally got around to reviewing the photos.  They were much better than my normal ones with considerably more detail in focus.  So some of these have been added to my presentation.  I was also scanning my pictures folder on my PC, for the various photos of my mate’s layouts and choosing some additional photos.  I might have also snuck a few photos off a few mate’s blogs. Shhhhh!  I’ll break it to them later.  But they won’t mind.

This Tuesday we travel to a new Tuesday Nighter’s residence and get to check out his layout in detail.  Some of our group have not visited there previously.  I have made one previous visit for an NMRA meeting late last year.  The layout is very nice and NSW to boot.

So school sport is now over – almost completely as this is my son's last year of school – I’m sure my son will want to try and watch some basketball fixtures in term 4.  I have spent most of this term taking my son to watch the Football and Rugby teams play – his mates and the First XI and First XV.  On Saturday afternoon, both teams won their respective premierships.  There must have been close to 2500 people there watching the final game between two undefeated teams to decide the Rugby Premiership.  The cheering from both schools was great.  The opposition school had some funny chants that cracked me up.  One was ‘You wear purple shirts’  I wet myself and thought it was very funny.  The school shirts are actually Jacaranda Blue.  Anyway we won, so winners are grinners.

So now my diary might be opening up, and I might be able to get more motivated on weekends now.

More Preparation

Again a very slow modelling week.  I spent some time fine tuning my presentation for the Armidale Convention in October.  Tuesday we went to Geoff’s place for our Tuesday Nighter's get together.  There were about 11 of us there.  Wednesday and Friday I got online talking to lots of people in the various forums that we visit.  Saturday afternoon was spend chauffeuring my son around to various sporting games to watch.  So that is basically at an end now.  No more to be done.

On Saturday morning, I did wonder down to the shed and run my XPT on the layout again.  This time I tried to run it with a single power car and dummy loco at the other end.  It would not get up some of the inclines around some of the curves with 7 coaches in tow and a dummy loco being dragged in the rear.  It still came acropper a couple of times on some curves.  So now it will just be confined to its siding in Grafton Yard until I work out what to do with it.

On Saturday evening I cut up some styrene for about 10 more track cleaning wagons.  It will be a huge task putting them together at a later time.

Today I did get photos of the layout to support my Armidale Presentation.  I also went through a lot of other photos I had previously taken or had permission to use to pick out some good examples of what I will be talking about. 

This week will be lots more photo manipulation to put them into the presentation.