Turquoise

After things got stalled for a couple of weeks, finally I got my butt off the couch and sprayed a coat of turquoise on the body.

March/Leyton House is probably the only F1 team that uses this turquoise color. I cannot think of another team that uses this color.

Old school media

Nowadays, because of the internet, we ditched the old media for news and entertainment. But this past week has been an old school media week for me. Radio and movie. Radio program production was something I've done before, I'll leave it for another blog post for now.

Even though the only operating radio that I have now is the one in the car, I have been a fan of several public radio programs. One of which is a news quiz show that has a panel of comedians answering and make jokes out of news. The show is produced by a local Chicago radio station and they have the recording in an auditorium and make it into a live show event. Usually, they sold out all the seats well in advance. Also having recordings on Thursdays which I am normally on the road made it almost impossible to attend.

This Thursday, at 6:30pm, the show posted an announcement on Facebook that a block of tickets just became available. Since I didn't have anything important to do, I ran down to Chase Auditorium where the show is taped (lucky that I live in downtown) and attended the live taping of the show. 

Movie is still a popular media, there is absolutely no sign of it going away. There may be other channels to deliver, but movie theaters are places where stories are being told.

This morning I found out that Hayao Miyazaki's The Wind Rises is showing in selected cities across US. Quick search on Google and found that Chicago is one of them! Lucky! Got to the theater at 10am to try to catch the first show. It turned out that they are showing 2 versions. Japanese dialog with English subtitle, and the English dubbed version. If the original is available, I am choosing the Japanese dialog one, but that means I have several hours to kill since they only show that version at 1:40pm. So I went to get breakfast.

All the above only for $7. Chinatown has the best value always.

Clean

Project stalled for weeks, now parts are washed and rinsed, ready for some primer.

Happy New Year and 1st World Problem

2014 Chinese New Year Firework at Chicago Navy Pier

Last night, I was watching TV at home. All of a sudden I heard something familiar. In the summer, every Wednesday and Saturday night, Navy Pier has fireworks. Since my place is close by, I can hear fireworks explode. Quick search on Google and found that Navy Pier is having fireworks for Chinese New Year! So, I grab my jacket, tread though all the snow and managed to catch a glimpse of it and shot the video with the phone. Didn't even have my gloves on and it was cold.

Growing up in Hong Kong, I got to celebrate 2 new years. The Gregorian Calendar new year usually is just an extra holiday to nurse the drinking at the New Year's Eve party. Chinese new year on the other hand was a big deal, with lots of family gatherings (i.e. Food) Living in U.S., celebration with family for me now is just a phone call to mom and text message to my brother wishing them a healthy and prosperous year ahead. I got the red packet lucky money (signifies good fortune) from mom back in Christmas when I was home. The only celebration I had this year was a dinner gathering with a couple of Chinese friends from Hong Kong and Singapore, and an American husband of one of the friends (he lived in Singapore for a while, and married a Singaporean, so he is practically Asian). My family had a tradition of having vegetarian meal on New Year's Day. Grandma's wisdom - she thought that with all the family, friend, business gathering, everyone would be eating to much meat and greasy food, so New Year's Day, no meat. We had this tradition as far as I can remember, even after she passed away. So, I also cooked a pot of vegetarian delight. My version is just whatever vegetable I can get from the supermarket and some tofu and bean threads.

So I wish every visitor of this blog a very prosperous, happy and healthy year ahead!

Now back to the 1st world problem. Modern technology, broadband internet connection in particular, allowed me to work from home. This is extremely nice when we are under the effect of the Polar Vortex. But in the past couple of days, the service provider had been having problem, I was forced to brave the cold and head to the office instead.

After 2 days of outage, it seems to be back now. Not a bad way to start a new year.

Good Old Days - My High School Years

I couldn't help but ordered these 1/12 scale classroom desks and chairs set from Hasegawa. Yes, it is the model airplane company and they do make things other than airplanes (or cars). They are intended for 1/12 scale figures.

Although I went to high school in Hong Kong, the classroom desks that I used to use were exactly like these. Since Hong Kong was following the British system, we have 6 years of primary school (elementary Grade 1 through 6). 5 years secondary school (combination of middle school and high school, grades 7 through 11). Then we have to take a public exam, kind of the equivalent of O-Level in UK. Upon passing that, you then can spend 2 years in University Preparation, equivalent to A-Level in UK, 12th and 13th grade.

After spending 6 years in the same school, you pretty much are not afraid of the teachers anymore. It was a different time. Looking back what we thought were crazy back then weren't outrageous at all. And what we considered as serious violations of the code of conduct are child's play in the eyes of kids nowadays.

Back then, in the name of learning English and learn about current affairs, the school kind of forced us to subscribe to an English newspaper. And the news paper gave each student subscriber a deck of vocabulary cards as a gift. We turned the vocabulary cards into a set of mahjong. When a teacher came in to the classroom and question why we were being noisy and what were we doing? We showed the teacher the vocabulary cards and told them that we were brushing up our English vocabulary.

Those were good times.

Baby steps

Made some progress in putting the chassis together in the past couple of days. Finally, I finished reworking the other exhaust outlet. Also put together the rear diffuser.

Almost time to start painting?

A moment of weakness

Not long ago, I learned about the existance of this kit. Just like the 2009 to 2011 Energy Drink that gives you wings team's, due to licensing issue, the kit maker cannot use the real names. But you probably can tell from the box dimension who the maker is.

While I am not really a fan of the 2012 F1 cars with the platypus noses, the fact that an Asian driver managed to drive this car to a 3rd place finish in a Grand Prix is something special. I saw this on the bay, kept on telling myself that I should not even bid on it, at the end I just can't keep myself from clicking on the "place bid" button.

Update (1/21/2014):

He's back in F1! Caterham was not competitive in the past couple of seasons. But with the 2014 rule change, I hope that serves as an equalizer. Can't wait to watch the 2014 season unfold!

Escape

Enjoyed a couple of days of above freezing temperature in Tampa, Florida, even though it is for business, not for pleasure.

Now on my way back to the freezer a.k.a Chicago.

UPDATE:

Ugh~ Lots of white stuff on the ground welcoming me back.

Picking up the slack

I have been neglecting the CG901. Out of guilt (actually discouraged by the Porsche's decal), I finally did some work on it.

The rims are together sans the valve stems that I just bought:

Front right brake duct installed:

I guess since this is an early Tameo kit, there is no rain light! Went to Marty's store on Saturday, but he only has round ones. When you have lemon, you make lemonade. Cut the round lens down to a rectangle:

Still have to cut the drive shafts to length and more importantly fix the left exhaust pipe before I start to paint.

Sidetracked 8 - whew~

I think the liquid decal film solution works, as seen in this piece on the right side of the car.

Sidetracked 7 - Oh NOOOOO!

I was going to put the decal on, unfortunately, the decal disintegrated in front of my eyes!

Now I need to figure out what to do. Bummer.

For the remaining decals, I just brushed a coat of Microscale Liquid Decal Film on it. Will see if that can save the rest of the decals.

Update:

Attempt to save the disintegrated piece of decal. This is how it looks now. Hopefully with some touch up after it all dried and set, it won't look too bad.

Sidetracked 6 - Patience

Primed and sprayed a coat of gloss white. This is the part that I hate. I cannot do anything but just sit and wait for the paint to cure.

The real reason why I am sidetracked

The real reason I halted the CG901 work is that I have been waiting for these guys to arrive.

Shift levers

Tire valves

Antennas

Template to paint the tires instead of using decal

Now that they all arrived, I can resume, probably after the Porsche is done.

Sidetracked 5 - tow hook

Made the front tow hook. Also cut the front and rear axle to the correct length. Washed all the pieces. Getting late tonight, will start putting a coat of primer on tomorrow.

"Heat Wave" hits Chicago

It was really really cold in Chicago in the past couple of days. Air temperature on Monday was -13°F (-25°C), and windchill was -40°F (-40°C). Chicago river, at least for the part that is connected to Lake Michigan, which normally don't freeze over was frozen.

Today it warmed back up to something closer to normal, 11°F (-12°C). It's amazing that how our bodies adjust. After a couple of sub zero (I am talking in °F, not °C), now single digit temperature actually feels warm. So, it is almost like a heat wave now that we are having temperature in the teens. 

I heard that this weekend we will be in the 30's (above freezing). I guess it is going to feel like it is summer!