SPA Modeler

Nice work on the Emil. And brother, I feel your pain with these damn storms this year. This one does not look good at all. Intensified way to quickly.

Good evening guys. Thank you so much for the kind words. Right now we’re in a hotel room in a place called New Caney, Texas. About an hour north of Houston. The kids had an absolute blast on our drive up. They’re super excited about our “special trip.” They get to see their grandpop tomorrow, so that’ll be nice. They’re asleep and so’s my wife. I’m up, decompressing. Drinking a Coors to chase the two glasses of Buffalo Trace I had after we all got settled in. I had a great mail call yesterday and I wanted to take photos of my work this week and the new stuff I got, but I didn’t have time because I was working around the house in preparation for Operation: Get The Hell Out Of Louisiana Until The Wrath Of God Has Passed. I got a new magnifying desk lamp, a new magnivisor, AND the decals and resin exhaust, wheels, and gear bays for “Spare Parts”, my P51-B Mustang project all came in. I’ll shoot all that stuff when we get home. If my house hasn’t been flattened by Delta by then.

Busy week at work because I’m on-call. But I did get some small work done on the 1:72 Spitfire’s cockpit, and I wanted to share it with you guys. Here it is:



As to Pips’ Emil, canopy masking begins when I get back home, again, if Delta doesn’t flatten my house. I’m praying that doesn’t happen. We took the bypass by Lake Charles on our way out here on account of I refuse to drive over that bridge. So we saw what Cameron Parish looks like, not what, six weeks after Laura... debris piles everywhere. Houses with tarps on their roofs. Some houses annihilated. It looks like a war zone from a Kubrick movie. Surreal. And now here comes another one. BOHICA. “Bend Over, Here It Comes Again.” The models all seem to agree that Lafayette where I live will take a direct hit. I’m really hoping we fare better. We’re a bit farther inland so that should help, that and cooler waters on the continental shelf. Still, Delta could be a Cat 3 at landfall. And as I’ve learned lately, major hurricanes are nothing you want to mess around with.

The good Lord got us out of there safely. Hopefully and prayerfully he’ll keep the roof on our house.

Kenny great looking seat! Hope everything goes smoothly and the storm don't do too much damage.

Be safe, first and foremost, which it seems you are doing. (Old man to you whippersnappers syndrome). Cockpit work looks great.

Stay safe. I'm hoping your home comes out unscathed. Lovely work on the pit.

Kenny, I'm praying your home is spared. My mom is facing the same thing; her house was flooded out during Sally, and they had just started the repairs and now this. Glad you made it safely away. Excellent work on the little cockpit. Looking forward to seeing more.

As I said on FB Kenny, glad to hear you bugged out and are all safe and well!

Good afternoon fellas and let me tell you, I sincerely appreciate all of yours encouraging words. Every one of them. Thank you. Big Duke most especially, I hope your mom came through this okay. I hope her and her house are alright.

We arrived home this afternoon, to a front and back yard full of shingles. We’d just gotten the roof repaired after Laura. And we’d only lost about 20 shingles with that storm. Had a couple few hundred in the yard this time. And the back fence is pretty well blown down. Lost a lugustom tree back there too but thank The Good LORD, the great big oak we have back there didn’t fall on the house. And our power is back on as of our arrival. So after the kids helped in the yard, they got to turn the TV on and watch their beloved Paw Patrol.

I’ll tell you. Evacuations from storms are stressful. Doing it in the middle of a pandemic only adds to the stress. I had no realized how “safe” I’ve come to feel just being at home and only ever leaving the house to go to Little Veron’s (corner grocery) on beer runs, and Coach’s house for Kali practice. Being in a whole other state, different city, in a hotel... that adds a totally new dimension to this. And it was rough on me. Bad anxiety symptoms the whole time. I really should’ve brought my Mustang kit along so that I could’ve filled wing panel lines to occupy my mind when the stress and anxiety got real real bad. As it is, I just had to white-knuckle it.

One thing I did do was some retail therapy. I’ve really enjoyed my foray into Japanese aircraft, and Tamiya makes a really nice “Tony” kit. And I’ve really enjoyed working in 1:72, so I purchased their 1:72 Tony kit. It looks every bit as good as their 1:48 Tony. It just doesn’t have the engine but that’s alright. My 1:48 G6 kit has the full engine and removable cowling so I’ll go crazy with that one. Meanwhile I can totally wire-up the cockpit and gear bays on the 1:72 Tony. I like doing that stuff. And I’m interested to see if I can use stretched sprue to do the wiring! I’ll be employing some of that with the little Spitfire, too.

Here’s the kids helping out in the yard. I think they each put in a solid $10 bucks worth of shingle collecting work today:




As for me, I got us home safely from New Caney thank God, got the Chevy unloaded, I think it time I sit my ass down in my favorite chair, drink a beer or two, and study model kit instructions and cone up with ideas!

Glad to see you’re back home safely. Sounds to me the damages isn’t as worse as thought despite losing the shingles and a tree. Retail shopping for model kits is always a great stress reliever.

What a relief it must have been! Happy for you guys. It sounds like it could have been so much Worse than it less. You have adorable little helpers!