Datguy's Diverse Distractions

So, in my previous comments on the Revell 1/144 scale 727, I mentioned that lacking dexterity for detail painting might make me fill some of my recovery time with another airliner build.  That has come to pass. It seemed that the Hawker Siddeley Trident, as a similar '60s design single-aisle tri-jet might make for a logical companion to the 727.  Airfix first produced these in the 1960s, but the kits have always seemed hard to find, perhaps because the actual aircraft never served in North America.  As a result, my kit was purchased, already opened, at a model show many years ago and, with many other small scale civil aircraft, languished in the stash awaiting a relapse of "Airliner Flu." Perhaps during that long incubation - or more likely, before - the kit developed the bane of all second-hand-model purchasers: The missing part😡.  In this case, the outer half of one of the engine nacelles. A quick trip to e-Bay confirmed that the Airfix Trident was still hard ...

So the rotator cuff injuries underwent a complicated repair last Monday, involving 8 different incisions and more than 2 hours under anesthesia.  The mapping on my right shoulder looks like the planning of a 1000 bomber raid over Germany in 1944. I have been pretty heavily medicated, significantly sleep deprived, and generally restless since the surgery, sleeping exclusively in a recliner in 2-3 hour bursts.  (I count today, post operative day #5, as a significant landmark because I wore big boy underpants again). The above-mentioned factors result in such a limited attention span that I haven't been able to read any of the aviation, railroading, or general history magazines I so diligently stockpiled pre-operatively.  Fortunately, my Cleveland Indians (Who knew? But, Matt Underwood keeps telling me they're mine) have played several double headers in the last week, which occupy a good bit of time, and I found the library of the old Discovery/Wings Channel show " Great P...