Chronic's Research and Aeronautics Project (C.R.A.P.)

[TheChronicOne]

I decided not to waste any time and just get right into fixing the Tristar. If I don't, it'll sit around and I'll keep convincing myself not to mess with it. This way I can get caught back up and not feel like I've just had me arse handed to me.

[TheChronicOne]

Maaaaaan oh man. Not long after that last post just about everything turned to crap.       

So, I finished remasking my baby here and resprayed.... and it actually looked good! I also remembered to use my thin automotive pin striping tape to mask this time which worked MUCH MUCH better going around curves than the stuff I tried before. This is great!   Then I went to hang it up to dry and I .... I don't know.. I thought I had done it just like last time but I didn't secure it enough and it instantly fell to the floor and landed FRESH PAINT (bottom) side down on the carpet that I haven't vacuumed in about 4 days. 

I stripped it back off with spirits then went again but I was too hasty and didn't let the spirits gas out so it crazed.  Stripped it again and let it dry then re-did it a third time but at this point I had lost my composure and the finish is less than optimal. It has chunks in it for some reason and I'm contemplating stripping it again and going back in. What a mess. I won't let it defeat me, however, it's just it might take awhile to finish. Not sure how to proceed but the repeated spraying and wiping back off with paint thinner has made things difficult pretty bad all the way down to the plastic.

This is the stupid stuff that happens to folks with anxiety. Not being able to achieve what I planned to turned me into a tunnel-visioned idiot that threw caution to the wind and tried force and hours long process into 15 minutes. It's all bad... but I will fix it.


So, the next day (yesterday) I go to work like normal then on the way home the fuel pump in my truck dies completely leaving me stranded. I had no choice but to have it towed home and take out a loan to pay for it. I had been planning for a couple months to get myself a back-up vehicle just for this type of scenario but I was hoping to reach the Spring when my lawn money starts coming in. I have a contract that I can't be away from which means I can't wait on some person to fix my truck for two weeks so I had to burn the one "large emergency" resource I had to buy the vehicle I needed anyway. Now I'm $5,000 in debt and haven't even bought the damn insurance or paid the tax. I still have to pay to repair the other truck, too... I can't risk not having one or the other as a backup. Having a running vehicle and not missing more than one or two days is what holds my business together. Especially in summer and I'm thankful this happened now and not in the growing season.

But uhhh... if I lose my vehicle my entire business collapses so I had no choice but to take on debt to get another one while the other vehicle hits the mechanic for a couple weeks. Long story short.

BUT, it gets better(worse, that was sarcasm)!! I finally make it home after being stranded to sit down at the computer and try to find a replacement vehicle quickly only to be barraged with reports from the Star Trek Modelers Group where I admin at. Pretty much the most problematic thing to hit the page in years. I mention this because it was a WHAT IF build. Someone made a Star Trek ship with Nazi stuff all over it, called it the Goebbels, and then finished it off with the registration number "1488."   There was a point I was willing to defend the build but the "1488" is what pushed it way beyond the line. "1488" is thinly veiled MODERN DAY "Nazi" code for white supremacy. So, at this point I'm dealing with a model that has Nazi swastikas and other marking all over it, friggin "GOEBBELS" plastered on it, and finished off with a hate speech message. 



Well, naturally I had to remove it but then had to field bullshit semantics and devils advocate nonsense for the next 5 hours trying to on one hand not appear as to be stifling the free exchange of ideas (and to explain and make it abundantly clear why this is not allowed; often times I leave obvious troll things up because the explanations I/we admin give need to be seen) but also ensuring that NAZI BULLSHIT is not allowed on a freaking page about Star Trek models???  Imagine my stress level at this point. People kept ignoring the point that it wasn't the number by itself, and it wasn't the "what if" Swastikas and stuff by themselves, but the COMBINATION that was the problem.
  One idiot asked, "Oh, so if I build a Panther tank, then that's offensive? blah blah blah."   I replied, "NO. It's not offensive. If you build a Panther tank then slap racist modern day white supremecist hate message on the outside along with Swastikas, then it is." Many Nazi sympathizers showed up to completely ignore this point. After I made sure the message was clear, I cut off the commenting.

Long read but I wanted to get it off my chest.  It's a build blog but still a blog and explains why my mojo went away so I will take that leeway and run with it. I would like to get back to work on me build tomorrow though. 


Anyway... thanks for indulging my ranting.   (holy crap, this is another long one.... ) 

[zenrat]

Bugger.  They say it comes in threes.

But you did good fending off the rightards over the stupid nazi build.

[TheChronicOne]

Thank you! I told the other people on the staff there that I felt as if I had really accomplished something with that day. Awareness was a goal and when you have an audience of 10,000, well, it's time to broadcast.

Between myself and another admin we explained and made it abundantly clear the connotations of "1488." Many were totally unaware. The funny part is, we have a "cousin" page for Kitbashing and the admin over there brought this whole fiasco up there to further explain to people what is and is not allowed and how veiled racism works and he was just straight up banning everyone that went down the "Nazi Apologist" route. 

Nothing wrong with that, but I had a different approach so long as people didn't just fly way off the handle. Back on Star Trek MG page, the only person I banned was the guy who posted the model. There were plenty of apologists that showed up but I used them as an opportunity to repeatedly spread the message of what is and is not allowed. Sometimes I use people and the things they say as examples or as a spring board to provide a broader message.  Many never really got on board but in an extremely rare occurrence for the internet, there were a handful of people that changed their minds and no longer supported this guys build after they learned what 1488 was and what it meant when coupled with certain iconography.


I'm getting long winded again, though.

Not sure what to do today. I might tinker a wee bit on a model here and there but plans are to be back in full swing with all my projects tomorrow for sure! I'm going to let the Tristar sit around for awhile and let the pesky NMF paint dry up a little more then see if I can do some wet sanding on it. I'll have to remember to not drop it on the floor any more. 


As for the mess with the truck. I have my replacement and am getting everything taken care of. My job is no longer in danger of going away so I'm starting to feel better (so long as I don't think about this massive debt.    )    Oh well, it was bound to happen eventually. I don't think it's possible to go entirely through life in the US without taking on some kind of debt at some point.

[Old Wombat]

Had to look the "1488" thing up on the interweb. Site I found didn't explain much but I got the gist.

I'm wondering what "DFS" meant to him, too, now.

Long -> Short: You did right ... ... correct!

[TheChronicOne]

Aye, cheers!      I, too, wonder about the "DFS."  Maybe it's some weird mix of German and English like "Deutsche Fatherland Ship" or some malarkey.  What's sad is it's a well done model and dude obviously has at least passable model building skillz. What a waste!


Nothing done here yet, today. I'm working on getting the yeller truck fixed and I'm about to grab the multimeter and test fuel pump relays and such.

[TheChronicOne]

Hmmm....   I've lost all enthusiasm for hobbies of any kind. I just can't "get on board" with so many pressing issues beating down the door. I spent all afternoon running down problems and troubleshooting the yellow truck. I can get the fuel pump to turn on and prime and the fuel pump relay is working just fine. Power steering pump has a hell of a leak so I was thinking maybe some of it got into some electrical connections so I found a couple of those and cleaned them up and tried and nothing. Now I'm not even sure what the problem is. I'd like to test the fuel pressure but I don't have a guage. I would just disconnect a fuel line from the injector rail and see if it spits out fuel but I don't really know what to disconnect so I'm about as confused as I was when I started. Since the fuel pump seems to work and the relay is fine something else may be the problem but I can't test things so I'm back to square one. I'm working on getting a local guru to come by and lend a hand. We'll see how that goes. 

But uhhhh.. like I said, with all this hanging over me I'm stuck in perpetual "work before play" mode and I don't think I'll feel right doing leisure time until I at least get a handle on these problems and have a solution on the horizon so it may be a while. Maybe this will change by the weekend or something but for now about all I can think about is this stupid mess so I'm just not in the mood for fun time.

This is kind of lame, really.     I remember back in.. like... my early 20's and stuff it wasn't nothing to play hooky from work or something and play video games all day and not feel guilty about it. NOWADAYS, if I try to force myself to do fun things before I get my work done and problems solved it feel like I'm cheating on a super model wife with an 800 pound Babushka (weight or money, either works). It just feels wrong, gross, and has me feeling guilty during and after. 

[zenrat]

I can think of a few meanings for DFS.  None of them repeatable on here...

[PR19_Kit]

But can you think of any in German? 

[PR19_Kit]

Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug (DFS - "German Institute for Sailplane Flight") 

That was a RW institute though, we'd need something more Whiffy. 

[TheChronicOne]

Now that's a good guess though... lol             

So... I woke up today and it the weather is miserable and I feel a lot less stressed so I think I will get back to my builds here....    I'm at the point in my quest to get out of a sticky situation where I'm waiting on others anyway so there's nothing I can really do here. I'm trying to get a less expensive yet also mobile mechanic to come by to work on the yellow truck and I'm waiting to hear back from them so ball's in their court and no use in me wasting time doing nothing.  In fact, I just RIGHT NOW heard back from one guy and he's already helping me troubleshoot a bit so tomorrow I'll have a battle plan.  Well, unless the weather is really crappy again.. I suppose I need to go look at that.

Anyway.... I'm going to try to get the nose area painted on the 737-200 just to get things rolling. I think once I get something accomplished it'll make it easier to jump into other projects as well. XL canopy needs glued on then I can prime it, for instance. I got all the issues with the pylons solved so she's ready....   Wet sand on the Tristar, etc.

[TheChronicOne]

Back on track for the most part. Nose on the 737 looking quite a bit better and the F-16 is now ready for primer.

[Old Wombat]

What about Deutsches FreistaatSchiff (German Free State Ship) for DFS, or even just Deutsches FreiStaat (German Free State)?

[zenrat]

I think we should now ignore it instead of giving it the oxygen of publicity.

Good work on the Saudi 737 Brad C.

[TheChronicOne]

Well, in this case it ultimately meant "Destined For Scrapyard."       


Ya know... on that note kind of... It's about time I do another Star Trek build of my own. What I NEED to do is finally finish off the D-7 I started in 2009.  This is one of only two models I did in my 20 year break from the hobby. Pretty much all I did was paint it mainly red with black here and there and just put it together "snap" fashion. I didn't do anything like fix seems, obviously, but I have the capability to do so now and I could probably turn it into something decent. I wonder how to paint it, though..... the red sounds kind of neat in theory but it wasn't very impressive at all the way I did it. I took the decals and threw them into an old Lancaster kit so I suppose I could dig them back out, or not...   I still sort of like the idea of a Klingon Lancaster. Who knows what the ancient Klingon war machines looked like?! 

Not going to get much done today. I do plan to primer the F-16XL though but that might be it. I started playing Oblivion again last night and by bed time I was hooked big time so I'm eager to get back into that one. I had to force myself to stop playing it. I was having so much fun.    Tonight I just might stay up as late as "who gives a damn" because tomorrow is Saturday.