Yesterday was Spring Layout Tours for our local NMRA agroup. We hosted a nice group here at the Minnesota Heartland, many had visited Dave Hamilton first or were going that way so I am sure Dave enjoyed a nice crowd also. The day went great, the layout ran great, we saw many good friends and received nice comments. A day like this doesn't happen by accident, I know it could never have been pulled off without the help of all the guys in the Pines and Prairies S Scale Workshop and all of the work they have done on the layout over the years. I think they PPSSW guys were a bit amazed when they came over. There were areas of the railroad that had accumulated a stack of unfinished projects and clutter cleverly diguising that this was an area suitable for laying tracks on. Tom Lennon was amazed but quickly recovered. He found some flex track and layed in a run around track for the yard so we would have positive progress on the layout. Long ago, I realized that people use open gridwork and avoid the flat track surface because flat areas accumulate clutter at an amazing rate of speed. The open grid work is not as condusive so they can keep going on the layout without losing benchwork to clutter.
While preparing for the tour, we had several conversations about clutter. One of the interesting things about our hobby is that there are so many different ways you can spend your time, so many different types of projects. While this adds to the enjoyment of the hobby, this contributes to the clutter and helps perpetuate it. In example, if I see a project in the clutter I want to complete, I clear off a flat spot to work on it. The project that was in this spot becomes clutter and the mass of the clutter remains consistant. When the new project is in place, I see I need some tools or supplies. While searching other clutter for these items, I see something really neat that I forgot I was working on and stop to consider that, perhaps to make some progress on this item. Even more dangerous is that I find another project that I have not started and see how neat that would be to work on. I can't resist the temptation so the mass of clutter increases. At the end of my modeling time, I have made meaningless progress on a number of projects and perhaps even added to the clutter. You might think that this is all my fault but I believe in the Chaos theory of the Universe. That is that the natural state of the Universe is Chaos and order is only an occasional happenstance and perhaps an insignificant one at that. Well the layout tour is done and I have a big project to get back to for a couple of friends. I bought a new NWSL chopper and have a large number of parts to cut to build a series of kits. Now is the time, I can spread them out on the big open flat space I have and help bring the layout back to its natural state of clutter. After all, who an I to argue with Nature? Until the next time. Ken Zieska [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] The poll results are in....... To REPLY to the list, use REPLY ALL, to reply to the sender, use REPLY. I do NOT know if this works on all e-mail software, but it works on some of the most common ones. For those of you on DIGEST mode, all REPLY messages go to the list. Change your membership, change your message settings, use our CALENDAR, view shared files or photos, view the list archives, GO TO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
