The week started with a trip into town. I needed more materials and a trip to my favorite hobby shop in LA. This time it wasn’t in the rain and it was pleasant and beautiful. Spring and the rains contributed to a landscape of green and mustard flowers that laden the hills with different shades of green and yellow.
Mary put up her blog early because the grandkids are here. She was pretty busy. Here’s her post for this week: https://marycacciapaglia.wpcomstaging.com/2022/04/09/fiber-oils/
Driving home I reflected on my visit to Smith Brothers Hobby Center and the 40 years I have been shopping there. I had a new airplane in the back of the car and it brought a smile to my face.
I wrote this piece about why hobbies are so important and overlooked in their importance by family members, and friends. Hobbies do extend lives and enrich them:
Yesterday began with another trip into town for materials and a stop at my favorite hobby shop in the world. Smith Brothers Hobby Center in Reseda.
I have been friends with the owner and the people that work there for over 40 years. They have survived as one of the only few remaining old time hobby shops in LA because of their loyal friends and customers who shop there instead of the internet.
It’s a beautiful, happy place full of the wonders that so captured our hearts as children. It has kept our inner child alive. It has contributed to much longer lives than would have been possible with the passion and love for our hobbies.
I could have ordered my plane online, paid the same price and had it delivered. But when you buy from a local hobby shop you get the social pleasure of visiting there, looking at what we’re about to buy, hold it in your hands, having your questions answered by experts, and visiting with old friends. Even though you pay the same price, you help the hobby shop. Since they are dealers they make a profit from your purchase that goes a long way to keeping them in business, not Amazon. If we are going to keep the hobby shops and the experience of them alive , we all need to support them and stop supporting online businesses that can never provide the same experience I had the joy of yesterday.
Now that I have a field close to home with a paved runway it has changed the hobby for me.
When I moved to Ventura over 9 years ago I lost my ability to fly locally off and paved runway close to home. I flew gliders on the dunes and cliffs when I could. Took off grass with small planes at a park in Carpinteria. Everywhere I could go with the exception of the local dunes was a long drive. So I didn’t fly much and I gave away many of my planes. Now that I have an excellent field 18 minutes from home I’ve started flying regularly once again. I had no idea how much I missed it. And it dramatically changed my disposition. Not that I was unhappy, but it just contributed more to my happiness and joy.
Being that I’m a bit rusty, I picked up this Piper Cherokee yesterday. This is an excellent well mannered general aviation aircraft that has a wide flight envelope.
This will allow me much needed practice navigating the new field and the flight pattern there. And with its scale lighting it helps improve visual flight orientation. I’ll be flying this weekend and I’m really looking forward to it.
I know so many people well into their 80s that are healthy, happy and playful because of their passion for model aviation, slot cars, trains, rc cars and more. Please support family members no matter their age in their interest in any of these hobbies.
As for the rest of the week I spent it trying to catch up on orders. I’m down to 7 masks. They are prepped and ready to paint. My hair came in yesterday and I also have the glue to lay the hair.
The one thing holding me up is the paint I should have that early this week.
Because of these orders I haven’t had the chance to start anything new. And with my grandchildren who arrived last night spending 5 days with us I probably won’t this week either. As they say, “Life happens”.
I have been sneaking in a half hour here and there on my Samba 2 meter glider and managed to get it covered and ready for hooking up the electronics.
This plane can be hand launched and if the conditions are right you can find a thermal at low altitude and start turning into the thermal and climb it until you reach several hundred feet or more. Flight times can be as long as you have battery power. It doesn’t have a motor, makes no sound, and has no carbon footprint. [Well it does have a carbon fiber boom. Does that count? 😉 ] other than that, it’s all balsa hand-built. This is pure natural flying.
That wraps it up for this week. Lots of interesting things will be happening next and we’ll see you then. Thanks for all the orders and emails!
Lots of love to you all,
Steve and Mary
Fine Art America – Steve Neill
SNG Aero – Rockets by Steve Neill
…and Mary on the web
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