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Literature |
Wednesday July 26, 2006 6:00 am Lethbridge Alberta Sunrise 5:53 Sunset 9:22 Hours of daylight: 15:29
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From rear window |
South patio |
Both images taken at 11:45 am |
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A. Morning Musings
6:00 am It is + 14 C at the moment, with a forecast high of + 28 C. The hot weather continues... There is a beautiful orange glow to the east this morning and the sky is clear, without a cloud in sight.I like to begin the day with a new Journal page and a coffee as I get my head around the possible activities.
Today will be primarily one of handling little chores around town. We appear to have Income Tax, Health and Pension details more or less under control but the latter two require us to mail some information to the appropriate government departments.
Model Trains: I want to visit a lumber yard and buy a piece of masonite for my oil refinery diorama. I then want to visit the Hobby store and buy some glossy black enamel paint for the bottom of the oil tank. I want to see what options are available for painting the pieces of the wooden trestle bridge kit before I continue assembling it. This all takes time, but that is what I now have. A good match. The new item to begin focussing on is electrical wiring. I hope to begin this today.
The top item for Chores is now that of repairing the cracks in the garage floor. We are beginning to look at a special finish to put over the entire floor when the cracks are fixed. I need to visit Home Hardware and learn more about this. This may also mean that I should parge the inside wall in the garage where the parging has cracked and fallen off. Then again, this is only a garage. Perhaps a simple repair is the intelligent approach. Another activity is to begin making the book boxes.
B. Plan
Immediate Health Walk & exercise 1 hr Chores Repair cracks in cement floor in garage 1 hr Build 3 more book boxes: cut plywood to size 2 hr Model Trains Wire lower mainline track for a power block 1 hr Shop for a base for my refinery diorama 1 hr Finish painting oil tank 1 hr Assemble wooden trestle kit 1 hr Literature Continue reading "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant" 1 hr Later Chores Repair grouting on a few kitchen tiles 1 hr Paint rear outdoor light black 1 hr Stain compost bin 2 hr Investigate water softeners for home 2 hr Technology Read manual for cell phone 1 hr add keywords to iPhoto records Make notes for chap. 4 of "Switching to the Mac" 2 hr Begin reading "iPhoto" 1 hr digital photography - learn about using the various manual settings Mathematics Larson "Calculus" Read "The Computational Beauty of Nature" Chap 2 1 hr Gardner "The Colossal Book of Short Puzzles" History Continue reading "Citizens" Watson "Ideas" Model Trains Add blue backdrop to layout 2 hr Assemble second oil platform kit Review layout for under the table turnouts
C. Actual/Notes
11:40 am I began the morning by mixing some concrete powder with some water and patching a few of the cracks in the garage floor. If I like te result, I will continue this process tomorrow. My first impression is favorable. Then, since I was in the garage, I decided to cut up the two 3 x 4 sheets of 3/4" plywood into the appropriate sizes for three book boxes. After a couple of hours I had completed all of the cuts, including the dado channels. I really enjoyed this. It has been over a decade since I was involved in making something substantive out of wood. I now need some masonite board for the backing for the boxes. This will also be what I need for my oil refinery diorama.
8:10 PM I visited the Lumber yard this morning to buy a sheet of masonite for backing for my book boxes. I discovered that they also had a masonite that was finished white on the smooth side -exactly what I wanted for the book boxes. I am hoping that there will be a piece left over that will be suitable for a base for the oil refinery diorama.
I then visited the Model Baron Hobbies shop where I bought 3 small jars of paint:
- Tamiya XF-16 Flat Aluminum ($2.99) - I hope to use this for the piping on the refinery diorama
- Poly Scale F414329 Railroad Tie Brown ($5.99)
- Poly Scale F404079 Oxide Red ($3.99) - I hope to mix these two paints to get a color I like for the wooden trestle kit
- Testors 1260 Dullcote Spray Lacquer - This will be used to remove the sheen on some of my plastic models.
I also noticed that Tamiya X-1 Black is a gloss paint. I bought this a couple of weeks ago for the bottom of the oil tank but was afraid to use it as the jar didn't indicate that it was a gloss paint. I decided that I could now try this later today.
When I last was involved in this hobby the brand name for paint for model railroaders was called Floquil. It is now called Poly Scale, but is the same company.
I have just finished painted the bottom of the oil tank with Tamiya X-1 Black. I first applied some Tamiya masking tape to provide a straight edge for the black paint. The paint is definitely black and glossy. I will wait until tomorrow to remove the yellow tape and see if it worked. This was my first use of masking tape while painting a model. Each day I learn something new.
When I was finished I realized that I didn't have any solvent for cleaning the brush. It is going to take a while before I have my hobby habits.
D. Reflection