General Discussion

morning

Cw thanks for breakfast.got an email from a friend who is in the corn city.says mamma has some hot dogs and brats to grill.I just say well what do you want us to bring.going to have to go have lunch there after my nap.

stay safe

joe

I'm going to go claw a bear and then have a big cup of coffee.  Just because I can!

 Got this in an email from a friend; thought I'd share with everyone here.

 DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN...?
All the girls had ugly gym uniforms?



It took five minutes for the TV to warm up?


Nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids got home from school?


Nobody owned a purebred dog?


When a quarter was a decent allowance?

You'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny?

Your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces?

All your male teachers wore neckties and female teachers had their hair done every day and wore high heels?



You got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking, all for free, every time? And you didn't pay for air? And, you got trading stamps to boot?

Laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box?

It was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents?

They threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed. . . And they did?

When a 57 Chevy was everyone's dream car...to cruise, peel out, lay rubber or watch submarine races, and people went steady?

No one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the doors were never locked?

Lying on your back in the grass with your friends?
And saying things like, 'That cloud looks like a... '?

Playing baseball with no adults to help kids with the rules of the game?


Stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger?


And with all our progress, don't you just wish, just once, you could slip back in time and savor the slower pace? Share it with the children of today.

When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited the student at home?

Basically we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat! But we survived because their love was greater than the threat.

Send this on to someone who can still remember Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Laurel and Hardy, Howdy Dowdy and the Peanut Gallery, the Lone Ranger, The Shadow Knows, Nellie Bell , Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk.


. .as well as summers filled with bike rides, baseball games, Hula Hoops, bowling and visits to the pool, and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar.
Didn't that feel good, just to go back and say, 'Yeah, I remember that'?


I am sharing this with you today because it ended with a double dog dare to pass it on. To remember what a double dog dare is, read on. And remember that the perfect age is somewhere between old enough to know better and too young to care.

How many of these do you remember?
Candy cigarettes

Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside.


Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles.

Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes.

Blackjack, Clove and Teaberry chewing gum.

Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers.


Newsreels before the movie.

P.F. Flyers.


Telephone numbers with a word prefix...(Raymond 4-601). Party lines.



Peashooters.

Howdy D OOdy.

Hi-Fi's & 45 RPM records.

78 RPM records!

Green Stamps.

Mimeograph paper.

The Fort Apache Play Set.

Do you remember a time when...

Decisions were made by going 'eeny-meeny-miney-moe'?

Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, 'Do Over!'?

'Race issue' meant arguing about who ran the fastest?


Catching the fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening?


It wasn't odd to have two or three 'Best Friends'?


The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was 'cooties'?

Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot?


Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30-minute commercials for action figures?

'Oly-oly-oxen-free' made perfect sense?

Spinning around, getting dizzy, and falling down was cause for giggles?

The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team?

War was a card game?

Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle?

Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin?

Water balloons were the ultimate weapon?

If you can remember most or all of these, then you have lived!!!!!!!

Pass this on to anyone who may need a break from their 'grown-up' life .

I double-dog-dare-ya!

 

 

cherokee woman:

If you can remember most or all of these, then you have lived!!!!!!!

(Moi included)

After last weekend I'm pretty well "foamed" out, so this weekend comes a change of pace - the annual boat show at the Antique Boat Museum, where I'll be be doing EMS standby, and possibly (reports indicate possible attendance) running into Alan Jackson, the country singer.  Not a huge country fan, but it's always fun to meet a celebrity.

TeeHee.  I was just looking at some of the YouTube videos of TrainFest 2009 and wondered if I might actually see myself in someone else's video.

Yep: right here.

That's me in the blue shirt and jeans, next to the orange fence and the MSP car.  You can see me telling the trooper that it was time to stop traffic...

I see the Cedar Rapids observation car was being put to good use there. 

Mookie:

I'm going to go claw a bear and then have a big cup of coffee.  Just because I can!

bubbajustin:

Larry, I bet it was awesome to have That 2-8-4 thunder by. Looks like the engineer made her slip there when first taking off.

I didn't count them, but 765 had a bit of load, of maybe 20 plus rather heavy passenger cars to start that move....I'm sure she could handle that load, but suppose it is easy to slip on start up.  Have seen her pull that much in our area back in the 80's.

Diner stool trivia:  Out at Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge, we now see one of the two massive concrete and steel rebar....arches are connected.  It appears the 2nd arch is within about 3 or 4' and is about to be connected as well.

Correction:  First arch is within 3 or 4' of being connected too......

They are now in the process of dismantling the "traveling forms", that created each concrete segment to form each arch.  Each segment, 24' in length for each "pour".

Tension support cables still are in place that have supported the growing arch as the build continued.

Vertical shafts are next process that will reach upwards from arch to support the roadway to be extended across the canyon.....About 2000'.  The arches reach about 1000' across the canyon and river to support it all.

Temporary support collums on top of each bridge end, {Nev. side and Az. side}, have been in place to support the arch while it was being constructed.  Those {2 collums}, and the support cables will be removed in the process as construction continues.

In that particular instance, 765 was starting up from the second boarding point - there wasn't enough space to load everyone up at once.  There is a bit of an upgrade there, IIRC.

I didn't do much chasing - that's a genre of railfanning all it's own.  Go to YouTube and put in "Trainfest 2009" or the like and you'll find more than enough video of the event to take up the rest of your day.  I wonder if some folks didn't attend just to get video to post on-line...

That was a pretty substantial consist, including several heavyweight coaches.  Still, as I was essentially racing down a back road (read "gravel" in Michigan) at around 50-ish, I was having trouble staying ahead of 765 on Sunday morning - the train was travelling on a diagonal to me, so it should have been losing ground based on distance to be travelled.  My video of it on a crossing at speed lacks the first blast of _ _ . _ - I was that close.

tree68:

TeeHee.  I was just looking at some of the YouTube videos of TrainFest 2009 and wondered if I might actually see myself in someone else's video.

Yep: right here.

That's me in the blue shirt and jeans, next to the orange fence and the MSP car.  You can see me telling the trooper that it was time to stop traffic...

 

Were you "telling", or "yelling"?.........sort of looked like he was a bit slow on the uptake....

Nice video, would have loved to have been there and watched in person.

While the U.S.P.S. brings a lot of mail to peoples home's, seems like most of it is not always good news, most being bills, "junk mail", etc.; well, Sarah got some very Good News in today's mail; her

certificate for passing her EMS National Registry Test came in!! Kind of "Made Her Day"!!

Modelcar:

bubbajustin:

Larry, I bet it was awesome to have That 2-8-4 thunder by. Looks like the engineer made her slip there when first taking off.

 

I didn't count them, but 765 had a bit of load, of maybe 20 plus rather heavy passenger cars to start that move....I'm sure she could handle that load, but suppose it is easy to slip on start up.  Have seen her pull that much in our area back in the 80's.

I counted 16 cars behind the engine.

Congrats Sarah!

locomutt:

Were you "telling", or "yelling"?.........sort of looked like he was a bit slow on the uptake....

Just telling - I'd spoken to him earlier to fill him in - he wasn't really aware of how things railroad work and thanked me for the information.

He was busy waving traffic through - the train was on the circuit, and despite there being no gates the lights were flashing and the bells were ringing (and ringing, and ringing...).

Just to confuse the issue, they gave one toot for some reason, and didn't move, so he looked to me for confirmation - I think you can see me telling him to wait for two toots, and when they came he checked again, then stopped traffic.

The next day he got to ride in the cab of the 765 while the trooper who was in the cab that day chased the train.

Sarah - definite congrats on NREMT!  I don't need it to practice here, so haven't bothered to go for it, but that doesn't make it any less of an accomplishment!

cherokee woman:

DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN...?

Yes, I remember most of them. Some, such as gym uniforms for girls did not exist in my milieu; the only girls with uniforms were those on the basketball team and the cheer leaders (small school; there were only about 100 students altogether in the 9th-12th grades when I was in the 12th grade; there were 18 in my class).

It ws not at all unusual for some boys to be held back; I passed more than one who had been in my slightly older brother's class. And, many dropped out not long after they got out of grammar school.

Johnny

Justin, tonight's your luck night.  Bisquetti (sp?) is on tonight's menu, along with some fish for tonight.  Just some cod and flounder, and deep fried potato wedges, pork & beans, mac & cheese and cole slaw.

Desserts tonight:  apple or peach cobbler, yellow cake w/caramel icing, and pecan pie.  

That's about all I had time to fix, as I've been busy doing laundry this afternoon.  Got the last load in the dryer, and need to take the rest and fold and put up. 

Everyone have a great evening, and take care.

Good Evening---

Been a bit since I was last here---how's everyone?

Bisquotti are wonderful with hot chocolate as well as coffee---I've got a bunch recently at a deli that just opened up down the road from us. Don't try them without dunking them first----kinda hard on the ol' gums otherwise

Have a good one---