Datguy's Diverse Distractions

The Grand Dame at Christmas My blog header says that it will cover many topics, but so far only scale modeling has come to the fore.  It's time to break the mold.*  Hence, a Christmas story should be told. The Grand Dame's lonely single oven. For many years, I have been responsible for the protein phase of our Christmas feast.  This has typically centered on a standing rib roast of beef, prepared in the manner I first learned from Alton Brown on his Food Channel show 'Good Eats.'  While I don't do the whole over-the-top clay flowerpot thing that Mr. Brown espouses, the start-low, finish-high, "reverse sear" approach has served us well.  Still, the method has its deficiencies, including occupying the oven at otherwise unhelpful, i.e., too low and too high, temperatures through most of the day.  The high temperature finish also creates a greasy smoke that permeates the house and lingers in the oven for weeks, or at least until it's cl

The question of what happens to a model collection when the modeler can no longer enjoy it vexes many folks in the hobby, and can be especially thorny for families faced with valuation and dispersal of the esoterica intrinsic to collecting scale model kits.  Fellow  blogger Jim Bates has even addressed this in an interview on  The Plastic Scale Modeling Hour (episode 30) .  Jim takes the stage at just about time point 18:30 in that recording. Our IPMS-Birmingham club, the  Phantom Phlashers  has faced this issue a number of times in the last few years, with several members giving up big chunks of their collections.  One of our guys, Bob, was obviously in failing health when his family turned to another club-member for help.  This turned out to be a yeoman effort, because Bob had started many kits in recent years, and had unboxed and mixed parts of many others.  The started kits were made available to club members for building, while others were offered for sale. I picked up several f