"Okay boys, remember - No ketchup on your hot dogs, and no blasters - you can't hit anything anyway and I don't want you scratching my truck."

This is mostly a test of the 4K capabilities of my cell phone, as well as combining my stabilizer rig with the cell phone. Seemed to work pretty well.

I think I've figured out why I'm going so slowly on the scenery on my layout - I'm not very good at it yet, and I want to get better before I start going whole hog. I also want to get the railroad operating, which at this point is a combination of data entry and getting enough locomotives set up to my satisfaction.

A couple of days ago, politics blew up on a thread on this forum. I got to it and, frankly, my already shortened fuse over politics and 2020 in general went off. What I said was quite likely beyond the bounds of decorum. For that I apologize. 

Last week Roger Kujawa posted (https://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/41200) a great video tutorial on painting freight and passenger car wheels with a paint pen. Roger used a Woodland Scenics Track Painter. I haven't found one of those locally, and they're over $10 on Amazon.

Oddly enough, about the same time Roger posted the video, I was buying a Testors Craft paint dark brown paint pen at a local general goods store named Bi-Mart. According to my receipt it was $5.19. I tried it out this week, and it's kinda dark, and a bit glossy. Good coverage though. 

During one of the recent NMRAx virtual meets, Miniprints.ca ran a contest for a $50 gift certificate. Since it only involved posting a couple hashtags to my Facebook page, I decided to enter.

And, rather to my surprise, I won. Then came the really fun part... deciding what of the many 3D printed figures I wanted to get (and what would be appropriate for my layout). Most of the figures offered were animals, and I do have a creek and a wooded area, so that seemed to be the way to go. And yeah, I spent more than $50 there... 

I got a bonus at work, and I get an annual payment from the Army for having gotten out in '98 (long story). 

So I decided to buy a couple toys. The lights are still on the way, but the Hohem gimbal stabilized camera mount got here on Sunday. I had minor configuration issues with it (the Hero3 turns out to be too light, but as a model railroader, I have adhesive weights), but a little work in the app and it appears to be smooth as silk.

No more motion sickness inducing "Go-Pro on-a-stick" videos... 

Bowser has come out with something interesting (okay, they have a lot that is interesting, but this one caught my eye) in the English's Model Railroad line - it's a conversion of their two-bay hopper model, either the open triangle or the closed sided, with some 3D printed parts.

This is new - it isn't even going to be in the news until the April issue. 

This is the photo that Bowser has that caught my attention:

Okay, here it is, for your appreciation and evaluation:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=124BxcauUAKU0kOqP6lrr-TdlEKosuH9U&usp=sharing

Sadly (believe me, I'm sad!) I couldn't attend this year's Amherst Model Railroad Society Railroad Hobby Show at the Big E in West Springfield, MA in person. 

But we all can visit virtually, thanks to Virtual Railfan: