Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

It has become something of a tradition here to recap the year just before taking a Christmas break. And with this year marking the 10th anniversary of 30 Squares, I thought I'd continue the tradition with a little post before taking my leave.

The 10th anniversary was celebrated in a series of posts called From the Time Machine's Glovebox, and to get the year started there was a series of Hot Wheels diecast posts.

Essays, both one-shot and extended, had a hold on my mind in 2019:

The Moore Way

 A 'Miniature Building Construction in the 20th Century' Reading List

Gil Melle, via the Vinyl Detective, caught my interest this year

The Sgt. Rock School of Management Studies

The Dictionary of Non-Existent Model Railroad Terms

There were many posts made to the Legendary Model Railroaders tag

as there were to the E L Moore tag

I made a start on a new layout, the Ocean Park Loop, which replaced the Alta Vista TC well before it neared completion. Although, reorganization and renovation of the workshop helped slow work on the OPL to a stop.

The OCTranspo's Confederation Line went into service in the fall, and your 30 Squares reporter was there at the inaugural ride. That lead to a number of posts about Ottawa's new LRT system. The LRT got off to a good start, but as the weeks 'rolled on', many operational problems arose that adversely impacted its on-time performance and reliability. 

Fewer than usual model building projects were undertaken in 2019, and most of them were in plastic. Included were,

Bert's Garage 

(although posted a couple of days before the end of 2018, this was the most popular series published in 2019 by a long shot, and the associated videos were the most popular of any of the videos posted here -

the second most popular post, but far behind Bert's, was the miniature building construction reading list)

The Natural History Museum

Moore's Balsa Products

The Elevator Building

Variation No. 3 on a Moon Scope

(this project had special significance for me as it connected the here-and-now of my life today with that of my boyhood and brought today's world into stark contrast with day-to-day life back then)

and, a start on A&A Records

Like in many years passed, I continue to think about ending the blog. Apparently it's a recurring affliction, like cold and flu season :-) This year the pull to stop was stronger than usual as I look at changing a number of aspects of my life in the coming year. Strangely though, giving serious thought to quitting prompted me to write far more posts than usual as I work this through. I think I'm looking for a new spin, or aspect to blogging as I feel I still haven't written the stories I need to write, or pursued all the ideas I still have. The E. L. Moore series over the last 5 (!) years - it's frightening how time flies - has been my magnum opus here at the blog. It's been fun and fulfilling, although a proper paper book hasn't materialized due to copyright and financial issues. There're other stories I'm looking to write, although I'm not sure what form they'll take. It looks like I'll be blogging for the foreseeable future as I work it out :-)

I can't wrap-up without wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Thanks for dropping by throughout the year and spending some time here. I'll meet up with you again sometime after Christmas.