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I got interested in model building after growing up watching my father build, collect & display his builds (and his stash that looked like a wall of models in his office.) I didn't start building in earnest right away though because my first few attempts turned into unfortunate misadventures. I was just too hyper!

In the meantime I got hooked on World of Tanks & then Steel Titans which got me positively addicted to armor. As a result I gravitated more towards AFVs than to the aircraft my father loves. (I still like warplanes & want to build more of them.)

Last year (2023) I had a terrible reaction to Covid-19, possibly a completely unique reaction, because the Mayo Clinic is studying my case. Although I became incredibly sick & had to be treated for dehydration. The worst part was that the virus attacked my eyes & nobody knows why. I went to sleep early in the evening of February 13th with 20/20 vision & awoke in the evening of February 14th unable to see anything. I was terribly sensitive to light. I could vaguely see movement but that was it. For over a month I couldn't do anything. I couldn't work, I couldn't dial a phone, I couldn't talk to anyone online, I couldn't watch videos, I couldn't play the games I loved & I certainly couldn't build models. All I could really do is sit in my darkened room, listen to my playlists when my parents would bring them up for me, think, imagine things or count.

Although I eventually got some of my vision back it's still far from perfect. I'm still legally blind & can't read anything smaller than about a half an inch (Thank goodness for the zoom function on browsers.) I still have a hard time dealing with very bright light too. I was almost ready to leave home & become purely self reliant but now I'm back to relying on my parents more than I have in half a lifetime. Both of my parents are really patient with me though & have helped me make a disability claim which went through pretty quick. Still it's less money than what I was making working a simple job so I don't know what I'm going to do in the future.

As far as our hobby goes, for model building, I rely a lot on magnification lenses & even then I need a lot of help from my father. I know I'll never be a top tier modeler now but it's still really hard to accept. As the son of a modeler, who himself was the son of a modeler, I always wanted to be able to build something that would "wow" my father. My father finally was able to do that with my grandfather when he wasn't much older than I am now. I was already at a disadvantage due to my colorblindness making it difficult to perceive MANY colors. My Pegasus Hobbies Me-262 for example. I still can't tell the difference between the green portions & the gray-violet color. If I didn't know the belly was a very pale blue I'd swear it was white. (I can't remember the RLM colors.)