So this is the end huh?

January 12, 2004. Cold like the ambient weather. Wearing a borrowed jacket, waiting to walk into the Lord Fairfax Community College-Fauquier building the first time, my first college class ever and really first class inside anything like the public school sphere. And thus I sit down in my first day of my first class ever, American History 101 at the ungodly (I thought) time of 9am and with that I thus began a 7.5-year chapter of my life. To say I had no idea what I would be getting into is an understatemtn.

After 2-years of being begged from all I know to do something with my life and get into a class-room so I can better my life I finally did so. It took working a retail job I hated to convince me that if I wanted to do something more with my life than work miserable jobs, then for god's sake Alvious get into a classroom and make something happen! So I get my butt into the placement testing center summer 2003, do what I'd thought had been kind of good and wait for the results.
One of the happiest days of my life had been not long after leaving said miserable retail job I get a letter saying LFCC is happy to announce that I am approved for admission! Wowee! I go to the orientation and get set to register and then take actual classes.

After 7.5 years I Alvie (with an English sounding last name the same of a bird and a soul musician who inspires me), I hath finished a Bachelors degree in the Liberal, as opposed to Conservative, Arts. It has been a trek and I will question whether it had been worth it. Truly, I seriously think it has been, I cannot imagine myself without having gone as far as I have. Who would I be? How would I think? Sure, I'd have liked to have gone sooner, now as I know unlike my 20-year old self that oh wow, and for those reading yet to go to college and worried about difficulty, here's the thing, it's often not that hard! It'll be challenging at times but guess what, that can be good for you. Two classes I had which were both quite difficult I still got reasonable grades for but more importantly I learned a lot! Classes dealing with language can be extremely useful even if you're not set on being a linguistics professor or a translator. If they're taught well they'll help you do something always important in your life, improve your ability to think!

I acquired two degrees from four schools, yes that's four different schools. Two community colleges and two with graduate level accreditation and honestly would love never to take another class at any of them. Well, the community colleges okay as I found them more enjoyable to deal with as a whole.

And to finish this post of all I learned inside the world of higher academia is that there is nothing like getting an education to get an education. There have been extremely few times I felt so dumb or so smart as have been times in academia.

-Finishing sooner is better then prolonging it, however you need to have a real idea of what you want to get and how to get it.

-Making friends in college will keep you sane. I made many friends at LFCC, few at HACC, many at MU and none through Excelsior.

-Get a hold of the reading list as early as possible and buy previous editions used. -You'll not learn less and you'll save a lot. Seriously as I'd gone from spending about 400 a semester on books, which I'd get maybe 100 back tops! if I tried to resell. Sure, you'll be stuck with some unsaleable duds but you will not be out a lot. After learning to buy books the cheaper way, I spent about 150 on books.

-Bs get degrees! even if you get few As and numerous Bs you'll still graduate.

-Those who poo-poo community colleges are idiots, you can get a decent education and really, if the credits are good enough to transfer between other schools, all state and many private, then what's your complaining about? School is not a place to be arrogant over the letterheads on the transcripts, especially when that letterhead is so much more expensive than the others. I have friends who've gone to very expensive private schools and they have no better luck with jobs then those that haven't, but they owe a lot more in student loans then myself and those who went to state school.

-Having a degree plan will save much time and energy and I do recommend that. I knew I'd want an English degree for years and though I waffled on different specializations I stuck with my original idea as I didn't want to start over. Also, if you need a semester or a year off, take it! But do something with yourself during that time, go WOOFing, traveling, anything to clear your mind and think over things so that you'll find yourself and then go back. No one's going to care if you finish in 4-years, 5-years or even 7.5-years, it's important to just finish.

Alvie

writing something

I wrote a poem, an actual poem, I hadn't written one since my birthday, and even better, I put it out to my little world, instead of keeping it cooped up in my head or on a note on my computer. After months of hardly writing anything aside school stuff, journal entries, and emails I've been thinking: you have to have something to write about. Inspiration is what brings the ink to the paper, and to have little inspiration leaves pages blank and one's sense of creativity unfulfilled.

And now for something completely different: review of a passenger car model.

Arriving in the mail today much to my glee is an N&W P3 coach, part of MTH's new Powhatan Arrow set. The rest I hope will be delivered soon.

Some history on the cars would be appropriate for the review. According to Thomas W. Dixon's book on the Powhatan Arrow. The P3 is a class of 10-coaches built for the N&W by Pullman-Standard and delivered in 1949. They came in a couple different interior color schemes with the MTH car using a 2-tone brown interior scheme. The MTH model represents an as-delivered car, though it has black trucks instead of the original Pullman green. The under-frame skirts are in place, as are the cinder deflectors at each end. The skirts were removed in the mid '50s to make maintenance easier, but I don't know when the cinder deflectors were removed.

Now, I am not a detail snob, but I can get picky at times, so though I didn't measure out the car, the dimensions looked good at first glance. In comparing the model to the photos and drawings in Dixon's Powhatan Arrow book I find the model compares very well in terms of fidelity to detail and paint and lettering. Only having had Walthers and Spectrum cars to compare this model too, I'd been impressed by the level of detail included, such as the cut-levers, air, steam and signal lines, plus all the under-frame piping.
The car came standard with a variety of Kadee's #58 coupler, and rather free rolling metal wheels.
I rather liked the stock lighting, though waiting for the capacitor to activate on DC might take a bit of time as it says in the instructions.
The interior includes not just molded seats, but also seats in the smoking lounges and restroom accouterments. but they tried to approximate the style of seating used with the armrests molded like the originals. The seats and floor are a dark-brown while the sides are a light greenish-brown (I have a hard time with some colors so forgive me if that's not accurate).
There are two screw holes for the couplers so one can have the cars closer coupled if they like.
That had been the good, now here's what I am not so thrilled about:
The interior has the chair surfaces barely above the floor, so anyone seeking to add figures will need to chop off legs. I did so though I can see I'll have to do so to the conductor figure as well as he towers well above the other figures. Some of Preiser's passenger sets do not include the full legs, so they'd work well.
I don't like that the diaphragms do not compress in, but only swivel, but even so for those with very wide curves I am imagine they'll look great.
The eyelet like pieces to the left and right above the diaphragms were not well done, on the model they're basically plastic nubs. One day I'd like to replace with better parts.
That being said, with the alternatives being scratch-building, car sides and cores or brass I'd happily take the MTH cars and look forward to the rest of the series.
I've yet to really layout test the car, but will soon for sure.
Thanks all
Alvie

Bass heavy electronics rhythms and writing

Yeah, Karsh Kale yo. How is it pronounced, Karsh (as in harsh) Kale (as in the leafy green or to rhyme with Haley?) off to Wikipedia! and they say, (it's accurate enough for this purpose, you pedantic academics reading this) and oh it's pronounced, according to this site, "Kursh Kah-Lay!" and if you like electronica, check him out.

I revolved an old and cherished tradition for my last test in that I waited for the end in order to unbox my newest prize for my music collection: Pink Floyd's entire studio discography! Everything from Piper At the Gates of Dawn to Division Bell. Nifty, it is packaged in paper sleeves and plastic bags like old vinyl, though really cheap plastic sleeves! I'd think they could have sprung for decent, read thicker, plastic to package the CDs but instead it looks like EMI cut apart plastic shopping bags when packaging this set.

So, should I do the same with the train models I am getting in the mail? Maybe, with the set possibly for the one car, I think not.

Tuesday blogging

I can't sleep well, cannot sleep with a pair of earplugs in my ears or with Disney on in the other room. I wanted to be in bed around 1:30 and because of the ear plugs, which did certainly help with the unwanted Disney sounds but not with my need to sleep. I need to get into a better sleep-pattern I tell myself, in bed by 11 and up by 7:30, that'd be a goodly rhythm, I just need to get on it. And yeah, minimize napping in the afternoon, that'd likely help.

I should be studying for a test, it's in a few hours, but after having marathon study sessions for the last two-weeks, I'm not feeling particularly ready, but not particularly like "OMG BETTER F-IN STUDY OR I FAIL!!" with this test out of the way, and if I pass, that's six credits closer to a Bachelors. I'll post many more thoughts on getting that Bachelors soon as I have oh so many thoughts on that, many I am sure will be of great interest to the world.

Cheers for now

Holy -- a post!

Yeah that's right, I haven't forgotten about my first and thus only blog out in the cyber-verse.

As for the big news in my life, I am in the final throes of completing a Bachelor's degree in English and Sociology which also includes classes dealing with religion, public speaking, science, psychology and one of my all-time least favorites as I've never had both good instruction on how to do so and its overall value to me, mathematics!

In other thoughts and ramblings I'd been really happy to attend a wedding recently of a dear friend I hadn't seen in to long. The wedding day a lovely Sunday, free of being overly hot, dry or wet :) the guests, lovely people and every one. I'd like to make it a point to go to every wedding I can, if possible obviously. I got invited to one next month but because of the distance flying there is not feasible so I had to RSVP no on the invitation.

Ta for now,
Alvie

Time for a blog, my new obsession

CDs, not my first format, that had actually been audio-cassettes, I liked those okay, though rewinding and finding particular tracks could be a hold-back. But oh CDs! We take much for granted now that Compact Disc enabled us to enjoy. Being able to select tracks and shuffle/randomize our music is something you could not do with your music until the format premiered in the year I came into the world: 1983. Indeed only digital music, MP3s or such allow you to do that.

My predominant music format, for a long time I imagine, is MP3 as I've spent many years acquiring MP3s from numerous sources, including kind friends and lovely torrent streams. However, upon even casually listening to CDs played through friend's stereos it had been real easy to detect just how much better the audio quality is. Granted high bit-rate MP3 or loss-less audio files will sound excellent, but I've never had the software to handle those. But CDs though, that's now going to be my format, as I really love the significantly better sound quality no matter where I listen to them, car, computer, home stereo, I just find the sound so much richer and more pleasing overall and because of that forsaking MP3s. I'm keeping all of my MP3s though as it'll be a long time before I can have all I do have on CD, and not everything I want to put on CD.