Two day [c]rush delivery!

In the last year or so, I have really felt the need to start pursuing and taking part in some of my "someday" hobbies/interests, of which there is an ever increasing amount.

I guess this could be some kind of midlife crisis. And in my case, with all the health problems I've had over the years, I fully believe that I reached my halfway point somewhere around age 25 (which is now a distant memory). I suppose having yet another birthday quickly approaching is not helping any of these feelings either.

Also, I think it's safe to say at this point, that there isn't going to be a wife and/or kids in my future. So I might as well start trying to participate in as many of my interests as I can.

My goal is to try and start three different things by summer's end. I have already started back up with drawing, which is something I enjoyed immensely as a child, but stopped at some point before my teen's for reasons I can't remember. Number two on the list (I don't actually have a list) is model building, which is another thing that have already tried once before.

My first attempt at building models was a short lived and ended up being a spectacular failure. This was somewhere around 1996-97, and at that time my home life was utter chaos, an endless source of stress and anxiety. I didn't have any problem with the actual building, but the painting turned out disastrous and there was no one around that could tell me what I was doing wrong. Thanks to YouTube, I now know that everything I was doing (paint wise) was wrong. Because of the constant turmoil around me at the time and my frustrations with the painting, it didn't take me long to just give it up and stop trying.

Now after all these years I am ready to give it another go. One of the first things that I've found is that the price for models seems to have gone up exponentially, probably due to inflation, but I tend to be stuck in the past when it comes to prices on most things. So I have been on the lookout for cheap kits to practice on, before moving on to anything more expensive. And to my surprise, someone recently listed a few on Sportlots. I ended up winning two of the ones I bid on, and let three more go du to the escalating bids.

The seller ended up sending them via 2-day priority mail, which is nice, but not necessary. I was happy to win these, but not very hopeful of their intactness once the box arrived:

How about another angle:

And my personal favorite:

The woman that delivers the mail was quick to point out that the box arrived at the post office here, like that. I guess I have take her word for it. She also had to mention that the box had been leaking peanuts all over the inside of her mail truck all day. Needless to say, I wasn't looking forward to seeing what kind of condition the contents were in.

Model #1:

That doesn't look good, does it? Another angle perhaps?

That really didn't look good!

Model #2:

This one obviously faired a little better. Now for the kicker--all the pieces in both packages are perfectly fine. I don't know how the Sukhoi SU-22 (model #1) didn't end up with even a single broken piece, but it did.

Here's one more picture of them out of the plastic:

I guess it's a good thing I wasn't buying these for collectible purposes. Obviously I don't know what happened to the box in the two days between being mailed and arriving on my doorstep, but I hope this isn't some sort of sign that my hopes of trying my hand at model building are going to be crushed (literally and figuratively).


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page!