Welcome to the August Diner, this time in sunny Mexico

[Track fiddler]

Good morning

Cool and pleasant starting out on the porch with my coffee.

My little chipmunk friend showed up again for his unsalted peanuts.  Still a little shy.  Been working on this one for a few years.  I've been hopeful to tame him like the ones at the resort when I was young.  

One would sit in my lap while another on my shoulder down at the dock house.  So tame I could pet them.  I dont see that happening with this chipmunk this year.  They certainly pack their cheeks closer to Fall storing food for the winter, it's always just one more.

Speaking of Munks, I wonder where Brother Lion has been.  I kinda miss that guy with his off the wall humor.

Finishing my plaster-paint job today.  Didn't think it would drag into Sunday.  Now-a-days, a weekend day feels just the same as the rest to me anyway  I hate to admit, the up and down cutting in the baseboards is a little tougher than it used to be

Thanks for the Train pics and narrating Dave, ...Enjoyed.  Liked my airplane history lesson too Ed, ...Intersesting.

 

Enjoy your Sunday guys

 

 

TF

 

 

 

[York1]

They don't do this anymore, but ever since I saw it years ago, I wanted to do it.

The train through Copper Canyon in Mexico would load campers onto flat cars.  You could sit in your camper, or I've seen pictures of people sitting in lawn chairs on the flat cars traveling through the canyon.  It looked like such a good time:

 

[York1]

In New Orleans, the best Mexican food actually came from a small cart.  Manuel's Hot Tamales were great.  Manuel's shop was about a block from my school, and you could find the cart at various places in mid city.

Despite the look of the cart and that you're buying food on the street, these were by far the best Mexican food you could get in New Orleans.

People actually drove into mid city in the evening to find the street vendor to buy these.

 

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

Hola. 

Dave .... The photos of Mexican railroad equipment is interesting. 

John York 1 ..... The video of campers on flatcars in Mexico is remarkable. Definately a unique way to travel. 

..

Tomorrow afternoon, I will have surgery in my second eye. I'm looking forward to it because the operation in my first eye was so successful. I'm very happy with vision in my "new eye". 

So, tomorrow and Tuesday I will not be here. 

[moelarrycurly4]

Garry, good luck on your second new eye surgery.

we shall be leaving the southern commnad today heading back to the wilds of western KY

[York1]

Heartland Division CB&Q

Tomorrow afternoon, I will have surgery in my second eye. I'm looking forward to it because the operation in my first eye was so successful. I'm very happy with vision in my "new eye". 

Praying for perfect vision by Wednesday.

[SeeYou190]

I painted the small area above the front door where I fixed the ceiling.

The new color of my house will be a boring basic beige. The change of color signals a new era in my life. This will be the first time since 1981 that have not lived in a pink house.

When the painting is complete, I will need to find a new favorite John Mellencamp song.

-Kevin

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

MLC and John ..... Thanks for the well wishes. 

The Mark Twain Zephyr, built in 1934, is being moved from Madison, IL near St Louis. It will be relaocated to Wisconsin where it will be restored and made operational. .... Yesterday, the power car made the trip to Wisconsin.

 

Photos from Facebook.

 

 

[wetidlerjr]

Good afternoon!  Have a nice month in Mexico.

[RideOnRoad]

Did someone say tequila? (Okay, so it was yesterday. I'm a little late to the party.)

[maxman]

The better version.  Nothing like the original.

[up831]

Hi Everyone,

The subject of fish tacos and their origins came up.  Here's the scoop.

I had always thought that Rubio's in San Diego was the inventor of fish tacos, but not so fast.  It seems that most sources believe that fish tacos originated in either San Felipe or Ensenada in Baja.  Both claim to have invented fish tacos.

The story has it that Rubio would spring break in San Felipe and loved the tacos from a particular vendor named Carlos.  Rubio asked Carlos if he would like to start a company in San Diego together and Carlos declined.  However, Rubio did persuade Carlos for the recipe and got the list of ingredients, but not the proportions.  After exhaustive experimentation, Rubio got the proportions down and the rest is history.  Apparently Rubio went back to San Felipe to generously thank Carlos, but he had moved.  That's the story and fish tacos from Rubio's are very good.

Sorry, no picture of fish tacos.

[cudaken]

 Eveing Diners

 Flo, give the gang and I a please and Dirk a dog treat.

 Sort of a good day. I felt like doing some stuff, I got the front yard cut and was going to cut and flame thrower the rear yard. But life got in the way.

 Why does a 15 minute job winded up to take 2 hours? Sharon and Shawn brought over the bigger window A/C unit today for the bedroom. Ran into all sort of problems. We did finally get installed and bug proof. Wife drove my daugther nuts and made her so mad she sat in her car.

 Later, Ken and Dirk says Woof, Woof.

[hon30critter]

York1

The train through Copper Canyon in Mexico would load campers onto flat cars.  You could sit in your camper, or I've seen pictures of people sitting in lawn chairs on the flat cars traveling through the canyon.  It looked like such a good time:

Hi John,

That does look like a good time, although personally I'd have a bit of difficulty doing the bridges!

Thanks for the video.

Dave

[BigDaddy]

I've been awake for 3 hours.  It woke the dog up and he started barking.  Lots of lighting and distant thunder, but the street is hardly wet. 

I found out a nurse I used to work with, who has been battling melanoma, with mets to the brain, was in a house fire.  Evidently WV has no burn units because they sent her to Pittsburgh where she spent the last week of her life.  Why is it such bad things happen to nice people?

[Water Level Route]

Henry,

Sorry to hear about your friend.  I don't understand why these things happen to good people either. 

In an effort to cheer up a Monday, how about a little lunch dessert on me everybody.  If you've never had flan before, make an effort to try it.  It's delicious!

[York1]

Good morning.  I can't believe the weather.  It's 72° outside.  It's absolutely perfect.  This is unheard of for us to have cool weather like this in August.  I'm not complaining.

I think this is day 11 for our quarantine.  I'm not sure if I'm counting correctly.

My computer is having issues after a Windows 10 update last week.  All my passwords for each site were gone.  It now will save passwords, but then forgets them when the computer goes off.  I thought it might be the browser, but it is doing it on all three browsers. 

I think I will try using one of those programs that remembers all the passwords.

I really don't have any Mexico train pictures.  That means you get treated to family Mexico vacation pictures.  Are you thrilled?

We were in Tulum, the Mayan ruins on the Yucatán Peninsula.  That's one of my daughters on the very top left.  Since we were there, they have stopped allowing people to climb on the temple.

 

 

Have a good day, everyone.  Time to sit with the dog on the front porch rocking chair in the nice weather.

[moelarrycurly4]

Afternoon all, w*rk was not too bad, started an oncall week, had to clean up messes from me being out but not too bad. I need to mow  but it is about to rain 

The Sept MRR showed up in mailbox today!

[BigDaddy]

Thanks Mike, that reminds me of Soapapillos, served hot, sometimes with ice cream.

https://www.acozykitchen.com/new-mexico-sopapillas

I've not made them myself.

Passwords.  I have been having a fistfight with Verizon.  I had 2 accounts, my cell phone and my Internet, landline.  I wanted to check the Fios TV schedule and I couldn't log in, even thoug I use a password program.

I clicked reset my password, and it reset the cell phone password.  Now I can log into the cell phone account, which seems to be the only way to get to the Internet account, by selecting Home Account.

However that requires the Home Account password, which doesn't work and when you click forgot password, it resets the cell phone account password. 

I really don't feel like calling support, talking to the voice recognition computer for 15 minutes that doesn't understand my Bawlamer accent and insists that I can do what I want online, then talk to someone in Mumbai.  I had Indian professors in college and numerous Indian colleagues and every single one was perfectly understandable. Their accent is pleasantly lyrical.

These guy on the help desk....they must be from the sticks.

[SeeYou190]

I doubt it is authentic, but we are in Mexico...

I want some fried ice cream!

-Kevin

[cudaken]

 Eveing Diners

 Flo, give the gang and I a and Dirk the good doggie a dog treat.

 My 68 Road Runner has to come home. Friend has been storing it for free for the last 4 years. He is selling the land that the garage sits on. I have mixed feeling about it. I don't know if I have another car left in me, my 69 Charger R/T was going to be the last one.

 While the Road Runner is all there, it is a hep of work. I hate to sell her, I got her when I was 17 and Mom and Daddy bought her when I was 12 years old. Needed parts and car cover will sit me back $2500.00 or so. That is all so if I do 85% of the work. With no garage that is a problem. The $2500.00 all so does not count body work which I love to do, but then again the no garage is a big problem.

 Later Ken and Dirk says Me's Love's Beep, Beep Cars Daddy, lets go for a ride Woof, Woof!

[Cederstrand]

Extra strong coffee and a flan. Haven't had one of those in a very long time.

***Garry, best of luck with the eye surgery. Hope you heal quickly and completely.

***Henry, was just talking about that very subject with Patti here. Maes no sense why some of the nicest folks have such tough things happen to them. 

The two HO Gnesis A&B F Santa Fe bluebonnets arrived. They look nice. Will probably be a month or two before I have anyplace set up to really run them. Will get a few silver cars for them to pull, transporting mail and a few wee little folks around parts of the new layout. Still working on demolition of the old one, but making progress. 

Still sleeping more than I would like from the brain cancer. Waiting on updated results from yesterdays MRI to see where I am at with this.

Have a great day all.

Cheers!  Rob

[GMTRacing]

Good Morning All,

    72F and intermittent rain today. Had the tag end of a storm pass through last night with high winds and heavy rain for about 20 minutes. We'll see what today brings.

   Haven't been downstairs to do anything with the layout. CFO now wants to move to a more rural area so that will mean tearing down and restarting or at least I'll find out if I was clever enough when building that I don't have to dumpster everything and start over. 

   Rob - good to hear from you. Hope your progress report is good.

   Garry - good luck with your latest operation. Hope it is as successful as the last.

All for now - back to it in the shop.     Ciao, J.R.

[York1]

Good morning.  Just coffee this morning.

We got over an inch of rain last week, so today is lawn cutting day.  The best part of today will be when I put the lawn mower away and come back into the house.

I wish I could bring myself to pay a lawn service.  I think the way I was raised stops me from paying someone to do something I can do myself, but I sure hate lawn work.  Someone needs to invent a grass for my area that grows to two inches tall, quits growing, allows no weeds to grow, and repels all leaves.

 

At the Yucatán Train Museum:

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/Yucatan-Railway-Museum-259057224241957/

[SeeYou190]

York1

I wish I could bring myself to pay a lawn service.  I think the way I was raised stops me from paying someone to do something I can do myself, but I sure hate lawn work. 

I pay my lawn service $80.00 a month for the "Quickie Cut" service.

They mow the 1/4 acre lot, and edge the driveway/rock garden. That is all.

I still take care of the the vegetable garden, weed the rock gardens, groom the trees, trim the hedges, and prune the roses. I still do about 90 minutes of yard work a week, but not the part I hate, just the parts that make the yard look good and give me pride in the house.

It has been a good compromise for me.

The "Full" lawn service would be $50.00 per week.

-Kevin

[MisterBeasley]

The storm will be done in a couple of hours.  Some rain, some wind 30-35 mph, but really not a big deal.  Weather Crisis hype is getting to be The Boy Who Cried Wolf again.

I haven't mowed my lawn for a long time.  It's one of those chores I would rather pay for than do myself.  Now I'm in a planned community and the HOA fees cover it.

[RideOnRoad]

MisterBeasley

. . .I haven't mowed my lawn for a long time. It's one of those chores I would rather pay for than do myself. . .

I am in the same boat. For me, life is too short to spend my time doings things that don't interest me and I can afford to pay someone else to do. We have had a yard guy for years. I also pay someone else for even the most mundane maintenence on my car. I figure I am helping to pump up the local economy.

[howmus]

MisterBeasley

Weather Crisis hype is getting to be The Boy Who Cried Wolf again.

Hmmmm???  According to CNN there are about 2.5 million people without power at the moment due to the storm....

I still like mowing lawn.  I can get well over a mile of walking in, it costs me almost nothing and I don't have to have big polluting gas equipment hauled to and running around on my property.  Oh, yes, I have an EGO battery electric mower and other equipment which gets it's power mostly from the roof of my house.....

73

[BigDaddy]

According the the official NWS measurement at the Naval Academy, we had 3.5" of rain.  According to people who call into the tv weathmen we had 5-7"   The bucket next to my house has 3.5" so in this case, your government is correct.

The power flickered several times, but did not go out and around my neighborhood, only branches came down.  Damage was worse in Baltimore and the eastern shore had a couple tornados.

Elkton is at the top of the Chesapeake Bay, glad none of these are my cars.

[SeeYou190]

I have been working on the ceiling over the Lanai.

This is what I was dealing with. The 32 year old sheetrock was sagging badly and the texture was coming off. There was almost no truss for some of the sections to attach to. When I pulled on these just slightly, big sections of sheetrock came down. I cannot believe how dangerous this was. There were no screws in this sheetrock, just nails.

I added lots of bracing to the trusses to make a grid of openings no further than 24 inches apart. This still seems like a lot to me, but there is about 3 times as much support as original, and some of the spans were 32 inches originally.

The new sheetrock is going in nicely, and there are plenty of fasteners and support to keep everything in place permanently this time.

-Kevin