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What Makes You Happy?

Iron Mike

Master At Arms And Resident Curmudgeon
The world can be a cold place, but what makes you happy? Me? My wife's smile, my cat's purr, getting a PM, e-mail or phone call from a friend or relative, good music, having a build go the way I wanted it to and so much more. Let's hear them.

:drinks
 
Happiness comes in small bites and should be savored. :hmmm
A tooth ache that goes away.
The laughter of a little child.
Puns
Clean waterbed sheets after a hot Hollywood shower, then sleeping in to a decadent hour.
Coming home to a clean house. Better, if somebody else did the cleaning!
Watching sunrises & sunsets.
Applying decals.
Taking the time to catch some neutral and just gaze upon the ever-changing, living, Sea from a Vessel underway.
A car-ride with treasured friends and good music.
Raffle prizes.
Italian Runzas!
Big Breakfast served by a buxom, smiling, female Server who calls me "Darlin'" or "Hun".
 
Too much to list, but one thing that I'm sure is similar amongst this lot:

Opening a kit box for the first time.

Not to get political, but in the past 20-30 years or so when our society has seemed to shift it's focus to fame and wealth, I always wonder if someone who can have anything they want, whenever they want, has anything approaching what I feel when I crack a box of styrene. It's a simple, childlike joy of promise and expectation. I honestly believe in that moment, I feel better about that than if I was Jeff Bezos getting the keys to a Lamborghini. Maybe not, I don't know, but I like to think so.

I have or had a lot of hobbies in my life, but getting a new intake manifold, diving regulator, hockey blocker is just a tool. I can't remember opening a cam shaft that I've been waiting for and feeling as happy as breaking the shrink wrap on a kit.

Maybe it's also why I never finish anything... :D
 
I'm not all that old at 47, but I've grown to be happier seeing people open gifts I've given them than I do opening my own. That's one of the best....

Seeing my girls on their horses and seeing them so happy

Sipping a nice dram of whiskey after a well-cooked meal

Coming home after work

Reading a good book or working in the shop
 
All my rounds in the 10 ring, A kit that goes together well. Waking up with out pain.
Not having to mow the yard for another 4 month.
Good beer, good scotch and good friends
Rum cake sans cake
and BACON!!!!!
 
I for the most part am content. Have had the bad times so I just am . . . content.

The box opening thing made me remember back a number of years though. I had a friend at the time who owned a hobby shop and he found a defunct distributor that still had a bunch of back stock. I ended up with a BUNCH of kits from that. While I was opening them and looking through them, many had the old fold up catalogs. I finally opened up a kit of Monograms 1/24th scale Classic Cord. Their classic car kits always had a special unique smell and it hit me quite hard that day. Being in the reminisce mode the smell gave me an awesome VIVID flashback to the old dining table area in my parents old house as a kid.
The table was cheap with fold up leaves and chairs set on either side. There was a light from the ceiling that could pull down. The vision gave that full thing for just an instant. I was there, at night with the light on with it's golden glow and the table, chairs and wall behind them. I can still see it to this day though I would probably have totally forgotten that if not for the flashback.

I guess it's things like that and good memories that keep me happy.
 
Think you all summed me up well but a couple of thing missing.



hd6c4f35.jpg

A well prepared steak that I didn't have to cook.


h55a3e8b.jpg



A real beer in a real pub.


And finding time to spend with my Bride of 25 years this year. :love :love
 
I for the most part am content. Have had the bad times so I just am . . . content.

The box opening thing made me remember back a number of years though. I had a friend at the time who owned a hobby shop and he found a defunct distributor that still had a bunch of back stock. I ended up with a BUNCH of kits from that. While I was opening them and looking through them, many had the old fold up catalogs. I finally opened up a kit of Monograms 1/24th scale Classic Cord. Their classic car kits always had a special unique smell and it hit me quite hard that day. Being in the reminisce mode the smell gave me an awesome VIVID flashback to the old dining table area in my parents old house as a kid.
The table was cheap with fold up leaves and chairs set on either side. There was a light from the ceiling that could pull down. The vision gave that full thing for just an instant. I was there, at night with the light on with it's golden glow and the table, chairs and wall behind them. I can still see it to this day though I would probably have totally forgotten that if not for the flashback.

I guess it's things like that and good memories that keep me happy.

You know, I think that's why I've moved towards styrene figure/Sci fi the past few years. Restoring an Aurora monster brought me back to a similar situation, a fold up card table (bronze legs covered in decals. soft, padded surface shredded and encrusted with dried Pactra), a set of nail clippers for the sprue and a nail file for cleaning up, which only made it about halfway through before impatience took over.

I love building armor, but after amassing a huge library and stash, it became too adult, if that makes sense.

A Universal Monster kit, with a 50s sci-fi B movie on the TV is just as comforting to me in my 50s as it was in my 10s.
 
Think you all summed me up well but a couple of thing missing.


h55a3e8b.jpg



A real beer in a real pub.

There is a good reason to drink this. :D Reminded me of a dear friend and boss that I worked with for many years. He always played this song at his parties.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0hme2kkPg0
 
My wife
My girls
Chocolate
Good friends, good memories
my job
a good book!
25 year old rum
organizing

(and of course, that thrill of getting a new kit, probably why so many modellers have a stash!!)
 
My relationship with Christ/Church
My Wifey & the kid!
My knucklehead cats
Friendship with Moon Pup/Sir Bob (I have knighted him, unofficially or course)
A good military history book
Plastic Modeling
My fam.

Hanging out here on this forum with you guys! Y'all make modeling FUN!
 
My Kids and Wife
Feeling His love inside me
Helping others
Cracking open and building a model I did as a kid.
I am going to have t say Matchbox kits There is just something about the multicolor sprues that remind me of when I was a youngster building models.
Spending time online with modeling friends from all over the world
 
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