The interesting thing about looking for homes, particularly in the city, is discovering neighborhoods and communities you never really knew about or knew existed. There are some really nice homes/lots in Chicago...even with the overall "Northwest Territory" grid layout of the city, there are some great lots in decent, yet affordable areas that are bigger than the "standard" 35x125 lot. So that's interesting.

Also, it's kind of heartwrenching to be looking at homes and seeing one you really like, but you can't have because, well, your condo is nowhere near being sold (let alone ready to be put on the market). Fortunately, I've adjusted my thinking to the same kind of thinking that I have when in an expensive store full of many things that I'd love to have (say, a hobby shop or electronics store or something like that). That thinking is, 'wow, that looks nice, and I could probably afford it some day, but not now...I'm just browsing.' Hopefully, some of these nice places will be around (and maybe even cheaper) when we start truly looking in a few months. Yes, a few months. Unofficially, we're thinking of putting the condo up after the New Year and hope it sells quickly (which it probably won't, given the market, but we'll see). For now, it's time to renovate the half-bathroom and research storage space and clean up around here...since the holidays will get in the way of all of that. :)

You know, there are two things that are funny, sometimes.
1. Memories...particularly WHAT you hold onto and WHY.
2. The little things that spark such memories.

Case in point...

I was just on eBay, searching for model railroad stuff, just for shits and giggles, when I came across an AccuRail kit for a tri-level autorack car. From somewhere deep down inside of me, these good feelings arose, and memories rushed back to me. The strangest thing too...let me share why I feel a strong desire to buy this thing, and then share the memory. This could get long.

First, I should explain, I fully intend to begin to build my own model railroad once I get a house sufficient enough to build it in. While some people model actual full routes of rail lines, or completely make up lines and locations, my model railroad, if I can pull it off, will be a fictional conglomeration of all the "rail memories" I have, as it were. If you're really interested, someday, I can share the "plans" with you.

But what does this have to do with a tri-level autorack train car model kit? Well, I vaguely remember (though honestly, it seems so far away that it feels like a dream or that I imagined the whole thing) a long time ago, actually being inside one of these things, which had been "abandoned" more or less in an overgrown railyard near my house. We had ridden our bikes into the "woods" adjacent to the railyard, which in and of itself was dangerous and stupid, because there was a lot of crazy shit that went down in those woods...plus, it may have been private property--lord knows the actual yards were. But this was a different time, when the yards were not fenced in, and you could just wander wherever, so long as the cops didn't show up. Plus, riding your bike through the woods was an adventure, because the paths through there were full of moguls and such, making for about as much "off-road" as you could get around there. (Furthermore, there was this fabled "Turtle Pond" in the woods somewhere that I never saw but heard of frequently...I didn't go in there all that much, but enough to doubt the existence of the pond. I digress...)

Anyway, I don't remember who I was with, or why we decided to get up in those rusted, empty autoracks, which were sitting on a side track that had been overgrown with weeds and was one of maybe 8-10 that were inactive at the time). But we did, and we just ran around and got a sneak peek at them, up close. I remember thinking it was so cool to be there, and I was so impressed at how enormous the things were. By this time, the auto racks were retrofit with "walls" to prevent damage to the cars, but they most certainly were the old, open style on which the manufacturer simply attached walls.

Of course, that reminded me of the time my buddy and I got a sneak peek at the new transit line as they were building it, months before its startup...stupidly, since the electricity could have been on, and we didn't know.

In today's age of high security and security cameras, I guess none of this would be possible. Though, I guess maybe that's a good thing, right? :)

So, the reason this memory is strange is that it brings up these calm, happy feelings, even though, honestly, there's no real point to what we were doing...it's not as though any monumental event or disaster happened. It just was. So I guess I'm left wondering why, exactly, the autorack memory brings up those feelings, when on paper, it seems as though it's nothing.

Strange isn't it? Choo choo baby. :)