Vegies on the door-step

I arrived home from a BBQ last night to find cabbage on my door step. Not the vegetable, but Mark Andrews of Marks Model Works (in)fame. Now I must admit that I'm always unsure about meeting other modelers for the first time, as for some unknown reason the hobby does tend to attract its sizable share of 'odd' characters. This wasn't the case this time round fortunately. While I can't report/remember specifics, we did have a wide ranging discussion on modeling topics in general, and some NZ120 might have sneaked in (maybe I should start an interview section and ask hard hitting questions of local modelers?). He only broke one headstock on an la so i think I escaped lightly.
It has made me a bit more interested in learning CAD (it is a bit frustrating personally to rely on others for stuff that you would like to have done), but I'll still have to get a faster computer to do it. Apparently this 9 year old model doesn't seem to cut it...

I spent another day yesterday being trained to lay track. Unfortunately its S scale, but I do get fed so it sort of balances out. The process is not overly difficult provided that the right tools are available and the preliminary work has been done. I did do some thinking while heating my fingers with the soldering iron about some various devices to make the job a bit easier. My friend is not laying the track 'in situ' due to his desires for quietness from his trains (Maybe its something to do with being a retired school teacher?), and I think that for my purposes the process could be somewhat simplified. I'll have to do a bit more thinking, which as I'm going fishing today I'll have plenty of uninterrupted time for. How? Because there are Bedouin tribesmen in the Arabian desert who would have more luck fishing than I do...