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With October nearly done. I'll get a little something written. The job change has been good. The new work enjoyable. The only downside is a reduction in the amount of time available after work and family obligations for personal hobbies and pursuits...until the off-season, which has now started.

I've made myself a bit of a list of things I want to finish, continue, or start. Many of these things are viable future entries in these pages. But there is a catch: pretty much every one of the things I've got on my list requires use of our garage at some stage, thus my highest priority is to get the garage cleaned up.

I started last night by tackling the pile of wood in the corner between the big door and the side door. The pile consists of long, skinny bits pulled off of dump finds or left over from table saw rippings. There are also some metal items: conduit, a pipe, and some piece off of our mower deck that I realize I am never going to put back on. So I pulled it all out and started making a dump pile and a keep pile. In the midst of this sorting, well right about the beginning of the sorting, I decided I needed something in that corner to help with organization. So I built a 2' x 2' x 42" frame that I can leave open and continue to store long pieces in that corner, but using the frame to contain the pile such that pieces do not randomly slide out to trip me as I walk in. Or I could make it a stand of shelving. Tonight I decided to go half and half, putting on shelving for half the depth, leaving the back open to stand long-handled tools in. I think it will work out pretty good. I may go so far as to put shelving above it as well.

Also during the start of my clean out, I threw out a long box. Actually, some back story is needed.

About a month ago, I noticed that the paint was flaking off of one of my Matchbox cars from my childhood. I decided to repaint it. But I want to do a good job of it and decided I want to try air-brushing. Again, I want to do a good job on my Porsche 928,

My Easter present of 1988, or how it used to look. (Image from Matchbox wiki).

so I selected a couple of cars from my son's collection that could also use some paint to practice with. I have yet to get beyond the primer coat on the practice cars.

However, as I researched what I can use to repaint, I am seeing all these pictures of die-cast cars people are modifying. Man, now I want to do more than just a paint job!

I need to keep reminding myself to take it one step at a time. Learn the painting. then continue on to more involved stuff. Besides, I need to clean out the garage if I'm going to use it for airbrushing!

Anyways, to continue the story, a couple of weeks ago I showed my family a couple of fun videos of Hot Wheels tracks - a 9' loop and this homemade track. Ever since then, my 3-yr old asks to watch Hot Wheels "movies" whenever I'm on a computer. The times I've played a YouTube video for him have brought up some races done on 4- and 6-lane strips. Now I also want to make up a similar thing that could be used as a fun contest for fairs and such. I even found a website devoted to helping people with Redline Derbies, as they seem to be dubbed.

Again, I need to clean out the garage.

Getting back to the box I'm throwing out. It's long and skinny and I thought, "Hey, I could get a good ramp from this with not much work." I opened it up and found some long u-shaped pieces inside, "Ha! Even better." Taped 'em together and Lawrence was kept busy the rest of the day...

Now I need to go to bed and dream about cleaning out the garage.