The Severed Cortex

When I was a kid, I used to build a lot of models. I'd walk to the Magic Mart, plunk down $2, and go home with a billion plastic pieces to paint and glue together. I was such a model geek that I even had the Testor's brand plastic dropcloth complete with Testor's brand model organizer replete with 30 some odd paint colors. There were brushes, X-Acto knives, sandpaper, and of course there was the lovely smell of the airplane glue. Ah, airplane glue. When I was a kid, I used to build a lot of models. I'd walk to the Magic Mart, plunk down $2, and go home with a billion plastic pieces to ... mmmmmm wonderful airplane glue. The man who invented non-toxic airplane glue should be put to death. I thought it was especially cruel that they made the non-toxic stuff smell just like the stuff that heretofore wasn't known as Toxic airplane glue until probably some dumb ass kid with an overprotective parent ruined it all for us. That kid should die too. Or maybe he did, which is why they invented non-toxic glue. Bastards. At age 12 I had to resort to going in the backyard and spinning around in circles to get that same feeling.

I digress.

I didn't build models for the specific pleasure of building models in High Def. I really liked putting them together because it appealed to the engineering side of my head. And then after spending all that time putting the models together, I'd get together with my friends and we would blow them up with firecrackers and smoke bombs and bottle rockets and whistle chasers (which by the way weren't colloquially known as whistle chasers where I grew up). This really appealed to the 'blow up stuff' side of my brain because we blowed it up real good like. At some point around age 17, the cycle of building models and blowing them up was passe. We became old enough to drive somewhere with guns and blow stuff up instead. Infinitely much more fun.

If you remember from a couple weeks ago, Robert and I fired off a model rocket and then summarily lost it in the trees. At the time we bought the extra engines, I also bought a rocket kit. It was a really good idea in hindsight since I can see that other rocket still in the tree. In fact, I bought this specific rocket kit mainly because it used the same engines as the starter rocket we already had. Once I got it home I realized it was going to take awhile to build, just like the ones I built as a kid back in the seventies. In between my disco dancing lessons of course. Since it was going to rain on Saturday I figured we could stay indoors and build models. I knew from experience that the rocket was going to be a little too tough for him to handle so I figured we'd pick out a model at the store for him to put together. Have you tried to find models at the store? Toys R Us doesn't carry them. Neither does Target. Neither does Once Upon A Toy, the local indie toy store. When I asked the saleslady about it she said, "We've been sending people to Michael's but I never heard if they have them". Lucky for me they opened a brand new Michaels just down the road and lucky for Robert they carried models. They had several cars and trucks to choose from, a few airplanes, and a couple of boats. Robert chose this one. I don't know about the whole 'blinding chrome' thing but it certainly is fly. What surprised me was how fast Robert picked up the instructions and how quickly he was able to figure things out without my help. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, he's a very smart boy, but I figured he'd ask me for a bunch of help. Once he got past the first step with Nancy and I, he was off and running. I worked on the rocket while he worked on the car. Neither one of us got finished before it was time for me to take him home though. Model building takes time to do it correctly and to do it right you need to wait for the glue to dry.

So, next time we'll finish the models.

On a side note, I got to see (and hold) Robert's new baby brother Cristefer. He finally got to come home from the hospital this past week and he's still very tiny but doing very well.