Jess’s big gift was her 20 gauge shotgun. Yesterday we went to her parents’ land to shoot some trap. We threw about 175 clay pigeons. That’s a lot of spent shotgun shells!
As I mentioned in my last post, my “big” gift from Jess this year was a pair of the newly released Team Losi Micro T Radio Controlled stadium trucks. Many who know me know that I was really into RC racing about 10-15 years ago. It was a hobby that my dad and I spent a lot of time (and his money) on. (Thanks dad, I really appreciated it, even if it may not have seemed so at the time.) When our local race track – East Street Raceway – closed up shop in 1995 or ’96 because they lost the lease on their building because the wonderful Borough of Verona felt it necessary to purchase the building to turn it into their new headquarters, that pretty much marked the end of RC racing for us (and most of western PA, for a while). Over the past five years or so, RC racing has come back to the area in a big way, with the opening of Steel City Hobbies in Bridgeville, PA, and the building-up of McCullough’s Offroad Racing in Sarver, PA, but we haven’t really gotten back into it. It takes a lot of time and money, and I’m not incredibly wealthy in either right now.
Anyway, Team Losi – the brand of several of our racers from way back when – have recently released the tiny 1/36 scale Micro T racers. Jess got a matching pair of these for us for Christmas this year. They’re small, they’re fast, and they’re fun. We plan to set up a race track for them in the basement, but for now we’ll settle for running them around the living room.
Pictures of the little buggers can be found here.
Here’s a good video of two of them racing on a track:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEPZRtE5MEk
And one of a track some guys built in their attic:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6729011475664115425&q=micro+t
A late Merry Christmas to everyone!
This year, Christmas was more of a low-key affair than other years. We didn’t really have any time off around the holiday. Jess has been extra busy at work and I just started a new job at BitArmor Systems less than three weeks ago, so Christmas was more of a time to unwind this year. Still, we had a very nice weekend.
Tuesday, Novemeber 28th, evening – Jessie’s dad calls me. “I’ve got some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first?” I said I’d like the bad news first. “I’m getting a new truck.” He tells me how he was stopped at an intersection about 3 miles from his land on his way to go deer hunting, waiting for the 3/4 ton pickup truck in front of him to turn left, when another 3/4 ton pickup comes from behind and plows right into him without slowing down at all. He was sandwiched between the two trucks. Luckily, nobody was injured, but the green Dakota couldn’t handle being the filling in the Oreo cookie sandwich. The frame was bent, so it was totaled.
“So what’s the good news?” I asked. “I got an eight point.” After the accident scene was all cleared and the Eldersville police man swung by the accident scene on his way to his “real job,” Tom asked the drive of the truck that hit him if he wouldn’t mind giving him a lift down to his property so he could go hunting. The guy obliged and Tom got his deer that day. He got his new truck about a week later, and stopped by our place yesterday to show it to us.
Yesterday when we went to get our Christmas tree, Jess and Cindy decided they’d like to buy a live (burlap ball) tree as a gift for their parents. Tom & Diane bought some land this year, and wow (that’s “mom” spelled upside-down) was upset that it doesn’t have any “pine trees” on it. There’s one soft-needled pine that we know of and this new blue spruce can keep it company in there. I wonder if you need two trees for them to pollinate and reproduce…
Today we decorated our 2006 Christmas Tree. This year we went with a Frasier Fir, a tree that is settling in as our favorite type.
Cindy came along with us to have a fantastic breakfast at Janoski’s Restaurant and then head across the street to select from amongst their fresh cut trees.
This year we finally have a choo-choo train underneath the tree. We picked up a Lionel starter set, the Pennsylvania Flyer, at Hobbytown in Robinson. It whistles & smokes!
