Love on Christmas and our Pale Blue Dot

  I thank all of you for the support and love you have shown on this blog for all that we have done at SNG Studio. It is you that have kept our doors open and our hearts inspired to create beautiful things everyday. All of us together contribute greatly to a better world through our creativity. We need to remember this. Afterall creativity is a form of passion and love in of itself. So many of you have this creativity as you are one of Earth’s most important contributors to life, you are the artists and the people that love art.

And speaking of Earth and its importance I’d like to ask you all to do something for our planet and its people. Especially the young minds on this planet that hold our future. Read to your loved ones this essay by a very great man . Read it at the dinner table on Christmas day. It’s short and it would mean the world to me.

“The Pale Blue Dot” by Carl Sagan.

If it were in my power, every person on the planet would read this.

Earth as seen from the Voyager spacecraft from 3.7 billion miles.

Please don’t start it unless you intend to read it all, and read it carefully. In the incredible words of Carl Sagan:

“We succeeded in taking that picture, and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives.

The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there — on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light . . .

To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

— Carl Sagan, speech at Cornell University, October 13, 1994

Merry Christmas to you all on this Christmas Eve. And Peace on Earth. It’s not a concept. It’s the future.

2 Days to Christmas

2 Days to Christmas
I’m on track to finish Mary’s present. I’ll be able to share with you on Christmas at long last. It’s been a fun one and a hard one because it’s such a departure from my normal scratch building style and subject matter.
In Fact I have enjoyed and learned so many new things from making this creation it has prompted me to do more such art. I’ve done plenty of Star Ships and fantasy models but I’m finding recreating real life and real life representations of amazing historical things from our reality more interesting than ever.
Next week we get back to the normal program of filing orders and finishing the Star Destroyer. 
I’ll be building a Trumpeter 53 inch long model of the USS Missouri (BB-63).

Mary’s brother served aboard​ her​. A real ship that fought in ​WW2, Korea, and the Gulf War. It was also used for the signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender. I look forward to this massive undertaking.

I’ll be making a line of slot car products too this upcoming year. Car bodies, track, art, and accessories from out houses to ticket booths and more.
New masks. The Tolian from the Star Trek original series for starters. A new rocket kit. They do sell. So do the masks. The Tolian has been requested the most.
We are also making a new short film called, “A Conversation with my Father”. We may produce 2 this coming year because I’m moving away from films that require heavy special effects, makeup, and period wardrobe, locations, and props. I’m just going to keep it simple and shoot most of the film all in camera.
It’s going to be our tenth year at the studio and what a wonderful ten years it has been. I am planning on another 10 years and by the time that has been accomplished I’ll be 80 years old. Hard to imagine but Mary and I could never retire. And to do what?
See you all tomorrow. It will be Christmas Eve. Merry Christmas everyone.

We were Nominated

We were Nominated
We are a 4 time nominated short film, “The Dreamtime”. I consider this enough that we were  nominated. This means our film was appreciated and even liked. A major victory and  encouragement to me to press on making more films. 
I am so pleased that some of you got the message in this film. It’s timely, truthful, and tells the story of what we need to do to survive as a species. Thank you.
Next year we go into production on the film, “A Conversation with My Father”.

Tuesday…4 days until Christmas and we need Christmas!

  I can actually feel Christmas this year for the first time in a long time and it feels good.Kindness seems to be in the air and in the consciousness of humans more than in previous years and this is a good thing.  

I’m greatly enjoying creating this gift for Mary. I can’t wait to show you all. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done and it kills me not to be able to share it with you blow by blow like I usually do. Im taking pictures of the process for an article this weekend.


I just finished off my last few orders for the year of none other than more rocket kits. These ship today. Another X-15 and an X-15 Delta. They have been popular this year.
Any orders I get now won’t be filled until after Christmas. These next few days are critical to finishing the gift for Mary.

Today

Pouring nose cones, boat tails, and cutting parts for rocket kits. My order for more parachutes and other parts has still not shown up yet and it now says today. Usually it takes 2 days from Vegas to our studio but with Christmas it’s taking longer. Sorry for the delay.

Working on the Christmas Present I can’t show you. The cold is gone but I’m not pushing it too hard working in the shop when it’s 49 degrees. Doing what I can upstairs.

Big race tomorrow and I’ll be racing these. “Sunday Slot Car Fun” will cover the race at Stephen Farr Jones’s incredible big track this Sunday.

This painting by Rick Herter captured me as I was at that age. Although I never worked the fields I did play in many an open field in the country side with my dog while witnessing such a moment. I loved airplanes and still do. They and the dream of flight always keeps one young.

I’ve always loved the J-3 Piper Cub. I have several RC and free flight models. Everytime I fly one I’m in the field watching my dream realized!