The bigger question being...

"Waddaya Mean Ex-Longhair?

That's an easy one. Back in 1995, while hanging from a ridge beam about 25' in the air, trying to nail off some rafters while a REAL cold wind was blowing my (then) 2' ponytail right into my face, I figured that I'd had enough of it. Off it came on the following day, much to the dismay of Tammy, my better half. Although, at the time, it did freak out my wife and made my kids stare at me as if I was a total stranger (I had a FULL length beard as well, lost it with the hair...), I've kept it short ever since. To this day, my family remains very tolerant.

Besides the "Hair" thing:

T. William Anderson - born March 31, 1963. The "T" stands for Thorwald, my father's first name. First name changed somewhere in the neighborhood of 1965 due to the fact that my Dad got REAL tired of taking the heat from my Mother whenever I saw the need to find trouble. So, at the age of 2, I was then called Bill (taken from William, duh...), a name that at the time, as far as my Father was concerned, meant "He who no longer will unknowingly heap blame upon me from his mother for wetting himself, throwing rocks at the house and trying to tie the cat and dog together using only their tails".

Throughout life, this did work for the most part, except for when I really messed up and did something like - say - throw rocks at something inside the house from outside the house (take one of my sisters, for example), giving my Mother the divine right to use my FULL name with all the "feeling" that she could conjure forth: "ThorwaldWilliamAndersonJunior!!!". The only thing that was worse was when I would perform something utterly spectacular (Dad has a different term for it, I'm sure...) like - say - riding my bicycle without the handlebar grips WAY too close to Dad's 1964 Corvette Stingray, leaving a gouge about 3 feet long across the left-rear fender. Hearing him utter my/his full name (feeling and all) really made me ponder (rather quickly) the rest of my life (or the lack thereof).

Fast-forward to now:

2002 - I lead a blessed life. I've been married to a wonderful lady, Tammy, for going on 10 years, have 4 wonderful, beautiful and inteligent daughters: Rebeccah, Rachel, Morgan and Meaghan and a very "self-centered" cat known as Jasmine.

I am employed as the Finish/Assembly Area Coordinator at Cherry Tree Design here in Bozeman. My wife runs an editorial/accounting business out of our home and together we also operate a sucessful home-based business. Our goal is early retirement so we can spend more time raising/living with our kids, for Tammy to spend more time writing her own works and for me to chase/model trains. We all enjoy biking, hiking, camping and hanging out in the backyard (spring/summer/autumn) or just going on a "video bender" while the snow piles up during the winter - that is, when my girls can get me away from the bench...

I'm originally from San Diego, CA - born and raised. When graduation from high school came, I was ready for a change and moved up here. I've enjoyed Bozeman since 1981 and have no intention of living anywhere else.

Train-wise:

Back when I was 7, Santa brought a Tyco HO scale set for me. My Dad and I set it up on a 4 x 8 and thus I began my experience into the coolest hobby that there is. Over the years I received lots of support (and goodies!!) from my parents and grandparents. Even though some pieces of the set have been EXTENSIVELY modified (like the Pennsy F-unit, still wearing the results of my first paint job - a very thick coat of Testors Pla Enamel blue), I still have all the original pieces form that first set.

After a mild break (between the ages of 14 and 28, and I still dabled occasionally...), I came back to the hobby and have been firmly entrenched ever since. I custom built/finished models professionally for about 6 years until I found that the work was really cutting into MY modeling time. I still am willing to help anyone with a question and still do the occasional clinic.

Well, there's a few reasons actually - none of them having anything to do with a particular bodily function. And they all revolve around the concept of not being able to leave well enough alone. Back in the old days (with all due respect to modelers who can REALLY call them that), the only way to model a specific locomotive or car was to kitbash or scratchbuild. You would buy a kit and/or the materials to create your own or add to the original kit, spend a great deal of time, effort and money and you would eventually come up with something resembling a particular prototype.

When I really started getting back into the hobby in the 80's, that was still pretty much the case. Although Athearn and Walthers were offering some neat stuff, you still had to do a fair ammount of work if you wanted something that wasn't available RTR. Over time, the work of modelers like Eric Brooman (sp?), Robert Zenk, Ben King and later Dave Hussey, Ed Ryan, Dave Bontrager and Doug Geiger started to (and continue to) infuence the kind of work that I desired to do - basically to build what you want, no matter what. This is railroad MODELING, right?

That's where my main interest is - prototype modeling. All my work, whether I bought an RTR chooch or built a model from scratch, contains a good deal of modification from myself. I don't care how perfect it looked out of the box, it always needs something(s) added to look right.

Oh yeah - so why Hackitup?

After a fellow modeler asked me how I intended to build a proper SD60MAC, my answer went something like, "Well, I'll just take this RPP shell, hack it up so I have this part, hack this one for the extra length, take the frame, hack it up to stretch it, hack the doors out and build new door panels and...", see a pattern yet? "Hack it up" became "Hackitup", it sounded like a good name when the people at Railfan.net asked me what I'd like for a domain name for my site.

And there you go - just keep my cat's hairballs out of this...

Enough about me, Head Back Home.