2016 Wrap Up

Happy new year plamo nerds! It's been such an incredible year for the blog, my adventures in plamo and my personal life. I thought I'd do some reflecting as we jump into 2017, looking back on what I learned, my achievements and failures in the past twelve months - and hopefully commit some of those lessons into long-term memory.

Click on the Read More link for the rest of this post...


I hit the ground running coming into 2016 - a new job meant I had to move my family back south to live with my in-laws until our own house was built. The transition took it's toll on hobby time, and I was unable to make any significant progress on plamo projects during the first quarter.

It was March by the time the dust settled, and I started catching up on plamo, the main focus being the Tallgeese III which would eventually evolve into the Boros. I found more time to blog again, shared some tutorials, and I was able to start new partnerships.

Plamo had to take the back seat again in May, when I was assigned to my company's head office in San Jose, California for a couple of months. I grabbed the opportunity to take my wife and son with me for some well-overdue family bonding, and we all had a great time even though I had to work a full 40 hours a week.


Upon our return in July my plamo time was still very limited as I had to oversee the construction of our house. We learned that problems between the developer and the contractors had caused a 5-month delay in their delivery schedule, pushing our move-in date by more than half a year. This messed up all our plans, and I was under a lot of stress during the time, leaving me with no time to blog or even touch my WIP for an entire month.

Thankfully things started gaining momentum again by the end of August. The main house was completed and we were able to look into building a proper fence and kitchen addition. With more time on my hands I was able to catch up on the Boros project, and conclude the Back to Basics series of tutorials.

 

Come November my building and blogging was back in full swing, and I was able to share a couple more tutorials with the community. I encountered a major setback while working on the Boros, and was really close to quitting the project right there and then. Thankfully I came to my senses before I did any more damage to the kit, and in a couple of weeks I was able to fix the problem and complete the build. By December I was able to build a suitable base for it and participate in GBP's anniversary event, where it went on to take the top spot in the open category event.

Now here we are a couple of days into 2017 - we're ready to move into our new house, I'm enjoying work, my family is healthy, the blog is gaining traction, and the Boros is standing front and center in my display cabinet - a shiny little SD trophy keeping it company (salute GBP!). I have a lot to be thankful for, and sometimes I wonder if I deserve it all. Perhaps life is making up for the rather crummy 2015 it handed me, who knows? All I can do is be humbled by all of these blessings.

I've been asked a few times why I even bother blogging...

Some might say I'm after fame and fortune, but when you think about it the only recognition you get doing this is among fellow nerds, and let's be honest, being a well-known nerd just means you're nerdier than the average nerd - not exactly sexy. I'm also sad to report that there is no fortune to be made from blogging about plamo. What little I earn from the blog and commissions only pay for a very small fraction of my hobby expenses.

If anything, I'd like to believe I do it for acceptance. I've always been a bit of an introvert, and the blog is a safe window to the rest of the world.
That and I simply enjoy writing.

I know there are a few of you who think I'm a pretentious dick, always trying to show off or trying to look like some kind of expert. "here we go again with another lame post from otakuonabooger...sharing his rip-off tutorials on three of the groups that I follow, what a fucking looser..."  My rebuttal would go something like this:

What have you done lately that has impacted your fellow modelers in a positive way? You buy, you build, you post pictures of your hauls and your work, you comment, you complain about this and that - but have you really done anything to help promote the hobby? Think about that for a second and then ask me again why I do what I do.

This blog is more than just a one-man mecha-oriented online magazine. It is my way of giving back to the hobby community. I've learned so much from blogs just like this one, many of which have not been updated in years and are probably going to get taken down at some point to make room for new websites. So even though my tutorials have been done a million times over by modelers much more experienced than myself, I will continue to share them if only to keep the resource alive.




So what can you expect from the blog in 2017? More of the usual - tutorials, features, interviews, some updates to old posts, some interesting experiments and topics - whatever I think might be useful for the hobby, with a rant or two thrown in for variety.

I've set a major goal for 2017 - to finally participate in the GBWC. I'm in the middle of setting up the new workstation, trying to organize my tools and equipment for maximum building efficiency. I'm excited to see what I can create in my new space. Despite all the memes that say how crappy 2016 was, it turned out pretty good for me. I just know 2017 will be even better.




Until next time, keep building plamo!