A lecture by Kim Adams

I've been focused on books for so long I'd forgotten about video, so I decided to search YouTube for Kim Adams videos. I had some great luck and I found this excellent new/old one. It was posted around 10 months ago, so it's relatively new, but it's of a lecture Adams gave in 2010, so it's relatively old too.

It's long, around an hour and forty minutes, but if you've got the stamina, Adams himself will tell you a lot about his inspirations and work. Believe it or not, like any decent modeller, there's a lot of prototype inspiration. If you want to jump ahead to more model railway-like pieces, fast forward to around the 59:50 mark.

Summer school?

To get an idea of the box size, the table top measures 2' x 4'.
According to the box it's a Level 5 kit, and they aren't kidding :-)

I'm taking a little break from model railway things. In my modelling time this summer I'm learning how to use the airbrush I bought last winter, and am using it on this giant Revell kit of the space shuttle's launch tower Debra gave me in the spring.

I started the project by building and painting the crawler. The kit will be built up more-or-less box stock, with no extra detailing other than some paint enhancements. I've got a lot to learn painting-wise, but so far so good. 

10 Signs You're Having a Great Day at the Community Gardens

It's the long weekend. Take a break. Go for a walk. There's a private garden at one end of the community garden that borders the pedestrian path, and everyday, no matter what the season or weather, there's a new sign of encouragement to greet walkers and gardeners alike. This is a detail that will certainly need a place on the layout :-)

More, more, more hoppers!

Galen asked me in the last Havelock yard post if I could tell if any of the data markings on the HEAPZ hopper appeared to have been freshly painted over the graffiti. I took a few other photos of that hopper from some other angles so I thought I'd re-examine them for clues. I couldn't see any, and I was standing so far away in the grassy picnic area near the parking lot I couldn't make out any telltale signs.

But, after going through the photos again I thought I'd post some of the other black hoppers in the HEAPZ train.

I'd title that one up there Excedrin Headache #158.

These two ancient Boston & Maine hoppers weren't in the HEAPZ train, but I had to take their photos because there always seems to be B&M hoppers in the yard anytime I drive by, and I'm always surprised that these old things are still in service. If I ever finish my Havelock Yard micro there'll have to be some heavily weathered B&M hoppers on it.

Speaking of the past, a couple of weeks ago I went to see Steve Earle at Bluesfest, so I'll leave you with him while I figure out if this morning's coffee is too old to drink:

The Wind and Beyond: Claude Steps In

Last week John sent me the link to this video of a flow visualization simulation created by Claude. It's quite impressive. I have no idea how Claude was used to create it, but it did remind me of my old, physical flow visualization windtunnel I built with Dave back in the late 80s. How times have changed.

So, intrigued, I decided to poke around the Claude YouTube channel and I stumbled across the above video. It's a very slick marketing style video, but it looks like the clue about what Claude is doing starts around the 25 second mark. Basically, Claude can take uploaded pictures of objects, dimension them, and produce plans of the various elevations. I found it interesting as last November when Vince and I were creating speculative E. L. Moore buildings with Gemini, Gemini had a hard time producing a consistent set of elevations. Maybe I should give Claude a go and see how it does.