Playtime!

Maybe you thought all I do is pick up after my animals.  It would, after all, be a reasonable assumption.  However I also have a fulltime job teaching technology to middle school and high school students, and I coach a robotics team.  I garden a little bit, and I collect antique toys and dolls.  I have even been published on the subject of antique dolls.  Here’s a link to an article I wrote on  Springfield Wooden Dolls and a video I produced on Springfield wooden dolls for my Web 2.0 class

 It doesn’t happen as much as I’d like, but last weekend I managed to sneak away for long enough to attend the train show at the George R. Brown convention center.  It was really fun and informative.   The folks who do scale modeling have a number of different scales, or sizes, that they model, from tiny Z scale and N scales, the popular HO scales, the larger O and O27 (toy) scales through the big G or Garden scales meant to travel through a yard or around a Christmas tree.    The model train clubs hosting the show set up side-by-side sets of all different scales so it was easy to see the relative sizes.  Although my husband is highly interested in scale modeling, I am more interested in vintage and antique toys.  I always wanted toy trains as a child (a-way back in the Madmen era), but my parents thought that they were expensive, easy to break, and meant for boys, so I got none.  (Ditto, by the way for Slotless Race Cars and Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots

                                               JC checks out the layouts

As an adult, I have learned to provide for myself!  About 10 years ago, a trip to San Francisco’s Foot Hills Flea Market, a haven for electronics geeks everywhere, netted me a complete box of vintage Marx tin litho trains, with controllers and an engine, for a mere $50.    I’ve been collecting bits and pieces ever since.  I hope to put together a great tinscale layout to set up and run around my collection of Marx tin dollhouses.

I got a great piece for my collection at the show – a wonderful little handcar, works like a champ!

Until next time, revert to your childhood and go hug your pet!