Toy train operating and collecting

Morning all from pleasant Southern Ohio

Nice and cool outside. Hope to ginish the camper mods on the truck today. 

Jim F - Good news on the insurance front with your bride's treatment.  I get miffed with the insurance compaines determine the course of treatment instead of the doctors

Charlie  and all who will be travelling, be safe don't push it better to get where you are going late than not at all.

May God bless

Jim

Morning and Happy Pre-Forth of July...

Admin is off today so it’s just car sales and rental today.  I had to open the gates, since no one else was here.  Took the bike to work today.  Yup, Jon, looks like she’s fixed and running well.  Just need a more comfortable seat for those long trips.  I have over $200 in Harley cash to spend.  I was going to trade up, but the Sporty (in the book) is so worthless, I might as well keep it.  If you are ever close by, let me know, I’ll 2 wheel up to where you are and we can ride a bit.  Sturgis, on a Sporty, is out of the question..

Chief, mailed a package to you via Ioway, something green and yellow....

I will get those pictures on SPF for sure Sunday, the lap top is working marginally.  I think I have something from Cali up next.

In the 90’s again, 40% chance of T-storms later...same for tomorrow, as we camp out downtown at the Jacksonville Landing for fireworks.  Due to family concerns, I’ll miss the Freedom Ride and Concert with Pat Benetar....

Well,  I do have some work to do, so I’ll get on with that.  I will check in later.

to all that need ‘em

Well, got online, read here and there, and now gotta get cleaned up to take the kids to Transformers 2. Then, I'll stop and buy some small screwdrivers since I can't find my old set (which was a cheap set anyway) and see about doctoring my Thomas locomotive this afternoon. Hope everyone has a great day off today, or at least work is not too bad today!

Aloha everyone. Looks like more of a summer day here - good news about your bride and the insur. co., Brutus. Sorry for that teeth-work - ugh!  Dennis, I love absolutely love driving the Cherokee trail from Knoxville, skirting Asheville, then down into Columbia. Trying to talk the bride into going to the IL Railway Museum for their re-enactment of the CA&E shutdown - they take you down the track, drop you off, and you have to wait for another train to go back - just like the end of the Roarin' Elgin.  Look for the vintage L train in the background scenes of Public Enemy if you see that movie.

Sturgeon-Phish:

Buckeye – When we started planning our vacation this year we came down to upstate NY or Colorado.  Colorado won out.  We’ll be taking the new camper!

Great choice.  Colorado has some great places to camp and the ones in the National and State Forrests were relatively inexpensive, albeit rustic.  If you have never camped at say 10,000 feet it is a learning experience for us flatlanders. 

Ran trains today.  Worked hard at getting the Docksider to start smoother.  Oiled rods and ran it up on blocks for an hour.  Seems to work better.

Have a good day everyone.

Good morning all, another hot day here today.  I guess July has arrived.  Our city went on 10% water use reduction starting today.  Will fine people for non compliance if they have too many offenses.  I still see lots of run off water in the gutters when I'm out walking.  Kind of makes you mad when you're taking sea showers and counting toilet flushes.  I tackled a problem on the layout last night replacing a broken throw bar on a Ross Switch without removing the switch from the layout.  It was tricky but after several tries, I finally got it fixed.  The hard part was getting those little rivits that go through the throw bar to stay in place until you could solder them on to the switch point rails.  I held them in place temporarily with some putty like stuff for holding pictures on a wall.  I shimmed up underneath the throw bar to make the rivits come up far enough to solder to the points.  Ross switches have some wooden stringers underneath to tie everything together.  I had to cut through those to get some freedom to move the throw bar in place.  I usually take a switch out of the layout to do this kind of repair but this one would have required taking up a lot of adjacent track.  If anyone else has done this kind of repair I would like to hear how you did yours.

Ray

Well today started out then went to and even went to but right now its as I had called AT&T about 10 days ago to switch over to them, well this past tuesday I called and cancled ant told it was cancled. Well today theuy came and switched my service. I've spent last 15 minutes talking to 3 different ones to get this done and on hold now to a 4th.

RT, I went through the same thing with Verizon switching my phones and internet service.  I lost one of my two telephone lines for about a month before I got it fixed.  I spent hours calling people and talking to voice prompts from automated answering machines.  It was a nightmare.  Good luck,

Ray

well when I talk to them today I'm going to tell them they will undo this today ( I'm still on hold) as its interfering with my system setup. Or there going to owe me for unauthorized interuption of my service. As this was there mistake not mine.

They don't  care.  It was their mistake in my case too.

Ray

Evenin' boys.  Breezy and 79 here in the Mid-Atlantic region.  I like corn-on-the-cob.

Howdy All

Well a morning trip to the train store but I got away without buying anything. With todays unknown shipping schedule things don't come in on a regular bases anymore. And they don't know when somethings coming until they get a shipping notice from the trucking co. Got the grass cut, went out looking for building bricks and the places are closed for the holiday. So we had an early dinner out and now the news. Have a great 4th...S.J.

well everything is back to the way it was and yes they did seem to care when I said I was going to check into legal action for unauthorized transfering of my phone service.

I acually got it all returned to normal in about 30 minutes after spending about 45 on the phone with them which I shouldn't of in the first place.

Sorry I was incommuncado for a bit there. I think I really need to get a cell phone that can text. Yes, it's true, the guy who runs one of the world's highest frequency radio telescopes doesn't have a cell phone. I have recently had new thoughts on the subject, though.

I went back to the scope on Monday w/ permission from my docs on light duty. We were pulling the subreflector and was there to simply observe and be part of the decision making process. Well I was only there for about 5 hours.  Yup, quite literally went downhill again. This time no ambulance ride though. Was doing well enough that one of our cops who is an EMT felt I could make it back to Tucson using the med ox from the scope. We decided that since we would be getting back after midnight, the best thing to do was take me back to the Heart Hospital ER and let them make the decision as to whether I could deal w/ this in the morning or not. Well, they decided to keep me for observation. EKG's and bloodwork all coming back fine, as a matter of fact the only thing they have found beside the high BP is that my potassium is slightly low. The good thing this time was that a different cardiologist was assigned that week. Ironically mine was in Safford for the week near the scope. He's been very nice and even gave me his phone number, but I feel like I was talking at him, not to him. He was really downplaying these other symptoms. Well the other doc talked to me Tuesday w/ a real heart-to-heart (pun intended). She said the other tests could not completely rule out a partial blockage. So Wednesday was time for an angiogram, both sides. They really scoped out all the valves and cylinders, and found everything wonderfully clean. I think I confused the doc who did the procedure, as the first words I said after giving me the good news was something about a large object that holds back water. Was getting real tired of all this and was ready to hopefully find the real culprit.

Back in the room and eating now and a couple hours later I get set off again. Always after I eat every day this week. The nurse assigned to me (a borderline diabetic) thought about doing a blood sugar test and it was fairly high, not crazy like, but high enough. After that little 'bout they kept me another night and set me loose in the morning. Talked to my doc and she wants to do more tests, but thinks it can largely be controlled by diet. She also said that I had now had every cardiac test known to man and it was a heck of a way to diagnose diabetes. I think the heart hospital was starting to like to use me as a reference subject. However, given that I work at a place where the helicopter pilots turn chicken it's nice to know I'm not going to drop at any minute. It also seems that the altitude mattered not a whit, as the symptoms and problems were about the same even down here.  After dinner last night I had a little more fun, but with my doc on the phone was able to stay out of the hospital. She has pulled me completely off all carbs (fortunately not the ones that use gas) until we get this all figured out. Doing better today and starting to learn how to eat less more often. The legs feel much better today, especially the right where they had to use a star closure. So in addition to the SS holding the right elbow together, I now have a bit of nickel/titanium.  Needless to say, I'll be using a bit more of that vacation.

Jim - LOL when I read about driveways and creepers. That's way worse than slanted driveways and sockets.

8nTruck - condolences and prayers for your family

Brutus - continued thoughts and prayers for your wife

Pat - you and I could joust with both of our legs in the air

Well it looks like I am a carbon copy of my grandfather, except that I didn't become a Baptist minister and join the Air Force.  He had high BP, diabetes, and was nuts about trains. He lived a very active life and I figure if he can do it, so can I.

Hope everyone has a good fourth!

 Bob

Up every morning before sunrise waiting for the roofers to arrive. Finaly came yesterday, worked until 5:00 P.M. Back at Oh dark thirty today and all done by about 10:00 A.M. By the middle of next week my check book will be done several Vison Line Locomotives!!! Not that I was going to buy any but it will curtail my other purchases as well. Thirteen more Tuesday-Thursday night classes in elementary Statistics. Week after next I fly to Pittsburgh, PA and rent a car to drive to Erie, PA area for my 50th High School Reunion. Don't have time to take the train, darn it. Haven't run any trains in quite a while. Need to get things cranked up again.

Prayers for all in need.