How did that happen.

3 Years and 6 months ago some idiot decided that blogging about his modeling would be a good idea. Today we hit 1000 posts. Someone has indeed blundered.


Lets revisit a few quotes from that first post.

"So whats this all going to be about. Hopefully it will be a blog on modeling in NZ120, running model railways in 1:120 scale on 9mm gauge track, with some incredibly bad typing and spelling tossed in for good measure"

Well, I've certainly exceeded expectations on several of those points, though the locating of the spell checker has curbed some of the worst excesses.

"I'm hoping to bang down some thoughts from the keyboard and try to inspire a few people to have a go at building things. I'll try to do this with some modeling projects, thoughts and ideas. Also possibly a bit of modeling philosophy thrown in. Sounds ambitious I guess, but it all seems rather pointless if you start something without ambition.:v) And I've always wanted to have a crack at this blogging thing. No idea if I'll be any good, but that's not going to worry me that much anyway, as I dont really care if you read this or not."

Well, some things don't change. I'm still not overly worried if anyone reads or not, but its always a surprise to be chatting on overseas websites and get PM's with 'Oh, I read your blog BTW'. Meeting the local modelers has been a bit of a buzz too. Again, having someone walk up to you and say 'Hi, I'm Captain Carbon' is one of the most memorable.

It was suggested that I do a retrospective on our little scale and wheres its come in the last 3 1/2 years. That I think would take too long, and I can't be stuffed. The information is all under the headings on the sidebar even if its going to take a while to sift through. Think of the fun you will have dredging up long forgotten posts from 2009.

One thing that I'm still a bit surprised about is that there's still not a central forum for NZR modelers, whatever the scale. The NZ120.org forum demonstrates it works with very minimal policing. However no-one else has had a crack at exploiting the new media form (maybe with the exception of Grant). It would be interesting to be able to compare notes with other local bloggers.

So, where does the blog go from here. Its sort of evolved from one mans cack-handed odyssey in modeling to a smooth slickly run rag with a tightly knit group of feature writers to a disorganised rabble writing about whatever takes their fancy. Maybe thats why it works. I can have an idea or a thought, and have it written up in 15 minutes and posted. 30 minutes if I need a photo or two. It satisfies my short attention span (though longer than some of the other contributors) in ways that print media just doesn't. I'm still a great fan of magazines for picking up and reading, but its just not my thing to contribute to.

How long am I going to continue? How long is a piece of string? I have wondered at times 'why do I bother', and then just carried on (I don't tend to quit easily, as a few of my wargaming opponents will attest). I might just wake up one day and decide 'thats it, I'm done'. Currently I think that day is a ways off, but who knows. If I could forsee the future I would not be doing what I'm doing.

See you all at Railex on Saturday. I think I'm on the VCC stand (I'm assuming I'm allowed to wear shoes). Drop by and say hello.