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GreetingZ everyone - yep, get out your cameraZ, folks, it'Z a real, live Z scaler! I'm here at the general invitation of the exalted Big Boy hisseff, who happened to make a comment about Z scale in another thread, that resulted in quite a little (pun fully intended) educational update from uZ guyZ 'n galZ in the Yahoo! Z_Scale group ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/z_scale ) I would have posted here a lot earlier, but I felt it necessary to wade through all _28_ pages of discussion here so far, just so I could get to know all of you a little better. So, let me introduce myself to you, now that I've aged a few years while catching up. It all started long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away - oh, sorry, wrong bio ... let's see, railroad bio, railroad bio ... oh, here it is! I started in model railroading at the age of 12 with my deceased uncle's 1940s era Lionel O-27 trains, which covered about three 4 x 8 sheets of particle board (so, it barely had a loop _and_ a siding! [:)] We moved a lot when I was a kid, and my Dad finally took pity on me having to start over again on my layout every time we moved, so he and I built an HO layout that was much easier to make a little more operationally useable and realistic. When I went off to the Naval Academy (where they frowned on officers [4:-)][4:-)][4:-)] playing with kids' toys - at least anything smaller than a life-size frigate! [oX)] the trains were all given away by my parents to younger kids when they moved to their eventual place of retirement (oh NO! Those Lionels are probably worth billions by now! [sigh] Once I had stopped drifting all over the planet every few months aboard ships, and settled into a house with more than one room (shore duty in Japan - Land of the Rising Sun and Yen, Kato, and Akihabara - the Heaven of electronics equipment/parts stores/shops in the heart of Tokyo! [bow], I started over with N scale, since it was easier to move around the world with me. The good thing about military orders is that, if you don't like where you are, just wait, and sooner or later, you will get moved somewhere else. Of course, it also means that when you land somewhere great, like Hawaii, you wind up moving all-too-soon [:(] I still have all of the N scale stuff I collected over the years, but it's been in and out of storage as I've had to deploy aboard ships and move to shore duty stations. I finally retired and was able to land a job in Silly Con Valley with the shiny Masters degree in Computer Science I had earned in the mid 80s at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey (from where I had first visited Silly Con Valley and sworn that I would eventually live, someday - and my dream has come true! [:P] I worked for a DoD contractor initially (because the early 90s recession was in full swing, and no one else was hiring, much less hiring ex-career government employees - everyone thinks we're like postal workers, but we military guys hit everything we aim weapons at! [C):-)] I've worked for several startup companies since then, and now do work for TiVo, the digital video recorder design and services company, when I 'm not a volunteer docent (expert guide) at the Computer History Museum, or pursuing pilot certification. I'm currently waiting to take the private pilot oral exam and check ride with the FAA examiner, which should occur before the end of June [angel]. Then, it will be on to instrument, commercial, multi-engine, instructor and instrument instructor training and certification, as I use up my veterans educational benefits before they expire later this year. One of these days, I need to get up off my butt, get busy, and do something to keep myself busy, for a change! Since I got here to Silly Con Valley late in the game, I wound up living in a tiny abode on an even tinier postage stamp of a property, but it may be worth billions and billions (of rupees, or pesos, I guess [2c] someday. So, even an N scale layout occupies more room than I have, and I decided to try out Z scale, and have never regretted it. Since I'm an engineer and scientist in Silly Con Valley, I really enjoy the challenge of building and/or operating highly miniaturized locos, rolling stock, structures, scenery and everything else that makes up a layout. I am in the process of building a modular layout that is made up of dozens of 12" x 20" frame and panel miniModuleZ that fit into airline rollaboard bags and/or luggage, and fully detailed interchangeable track, structure and scenery subModuleZ that I can mix and match for North American or European modeling, on any terrain, for any road. I will be showing the layout off publicly for the first time at the NMRA National Train Show in Seattle, July 9 - 11, in booth 800 along with the Northwest Pacific Z Scalers modular group. I mostly like to model the Western roads because of their long trains, sweeping and varied scenery, and operational complexity. However, I grew up in New Joisey (oh, yeah, the rest of you pronounce it "Jersey", but listen to how Tony Soprano sez it, capisce? [dinner], so, I grew up around the Jersey Central commuter trains, and lived a block from an Erie Lackawanna freight mainline (where we made eleven cent pieces by setting a dime on a penny on a rail, and waited for a train to forge them together). I also got to camp out next to Erie Lackawanna mainlines running along the Delaware River on Boy Scout canoe trips, being woken at 3 AM by the rumble of four-loco consists with 150+ cars, barreling along at 70 mph, less than 100 yards away (it brings a whole new meaning to "feeling the Earth move under your feet" [:D] So, I also have a soft spot for long PRR coal drags, and those cute little Chessie kitty logos on hoppers and boxcars running up and down the East Coast and out to the Midwest. OK, enough about Me, Me, Me (you may find my posts long, but I learned long ago that if you can't be informative, at least be entertaining!). My first question is how the heck do you post photos inside messages and a profile in this forum? I tried the HTML code for the standard link to a photo, which you can see in my siggy, but no joy. What is the secret handshake, oh great ones of knowledge here in Model Railroading Virtuocity? ThankZ, and All Z BeZt, Jim
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