The pot of coffee is always on [even after 2 years have passed]. Come on in. Sweet ice tea too.

[spankybird]

Good Morning All,

NE Ohio is cool again at 39 deg with Blue Clear Skys.

Dave – another thing you can do is defragment (sp?) your disk. Depending on the size of you HD, this may take several hours.

Sask – cong on Graduating High School, sounds like a great trip.


Pick of the Day

End of the Week


all be safe
tom

[Roger Bielen]

Dave, when my computer starts to slow down I run "Disc Cleanup", it gets rid of all the unnecessary temp. files. You could probably go into internet explorer and clean out those files. Also, if you have a defragment program give that a try.

For the photos you could try downloading them onto discs and then delete them from the hard drive. Since mine are mostly 35 mm copied onto CD's when developed I only save the ones I use for my screen saver on the computer.

[FJ and G]

thanks, all for your tremendous help and advice!

A nice rainy Friday in D.C.; think I'll walk in the rain during lunch to inspect Cherry Blossoms.

[FJ and G]

Guys, in addition to "ad-aware", my geeky coworker recommends something called Macathy Stinger. I don't know the correct spelling but I'll be searching for that too to speed up my clunky computer.

[Dr. John]

Dave, I use Ad-aware and it does seem to help. My son recommends Spy-bot. also a free download. It sometimes catches a few things that Ad-aware misses and vice-versa. I run them both once per week (doesn't take long). Good luck with your computer.

Sask, congratualtions on your graduation and best wishes for your future endeavors!

More rain yesterday and more expected today. Welcome to Lake Alabama!

[ChiefEagles]

Raniy today [showers finally]. Off to two County Taks Force meetings in town. Hope to make it to "Miss Edna's today. [:)] Hope Tom is better and Buckeye behaves [he never does]. Hope the Rebel Pastor does not have to swim. Everyone have a great weekend. God bless all.

[cnw1995]

Clear and cooler here - in the 50s here by Lake Michigan. No sight of rain here - sending our weather off to Ohio. Dr. John, our long-haired dauschund is a big softy - he'll bark but not chase any of the animals he's supposed to love to go after - the voles love him... I think I have the opelika 'disease' - I love the rare chance I get see an old Andy Griffth show... Am I the only one who makes so little I did taxes back in early Feb. and already got my (small) refund? And IL does make it easy - to pay that is. You can do it on their own website without any need for extraneous software. Dave, is your Mac being slow or is it a PC - most of these good solutions are for PCs.

I have to find some way to carry a camera around with me - this morning, as our Metra scoot came around the curve into the North Western station, a vista of railroading opened up. This description doesn't do justice. Against the backdrop of the Chicago skyline, two long F40-pulled scoots on the BNSF northwest lines were curving toward me on their way to the 26th St. coach yards; another pushed by an MP36 PH was running under their viaduct from the BNSF west lines, next to an Amtrak Hiawatha also coming in, A hopper with workers on top of its roof-walk was being unloaded in front of the Blommer Chocolate factory and above it all, ran an inbound CTA El train, its silver sides reflecting the rising sun. After I detrained, I crossed the river to watch the Amtrak roar in on the line running underneath the office buildings on the opposite bank.

[wrmcclellan]

Morning all!

Sask - Congrats!

Sunny and high 60's/low 70s today! [8D]

I have to take my daughter to the doc today for hopefully the last visit for her knee she strained last spring in soccer. She wants clearance to play again this spring.

Have a great day all!
Roy

[laz 57]

Hi GIZ,
In service today no kiddos, yeah.
No rain we were suppose to get 1.5 inches but didn't get any.
TGIF
Have a good one.
laz57

[Roger Bielen]

Since this morning was dreary and looked like it could rain any minute, suns starting to break through now, I went and picked up my new Lionel 0-8-0. Its a great looking engine, great sounds, good smoke generation till, I think, I flooded it. It's my first fan driven smoke unit and I was afraid of it running dry and added fluid at the first sign of reduced smoke.

The only problem I ran into is the pivot post for the couplers made contact with the center rail on one of the old Gargraves switches I have, also had some problem with coupler buttons on rolling stock on this same switch, tripping the breakers. My temp. fix to confirm my analysis is a piece of electrical tape over the end of the post, it worked. The permanent fix will be to coat the end of the post with a rubberized insulating paint.

Since the sun's starting to come out I think I'll go wa***he moss of the back side of the house, quite a build up on the North side over the winter. Glad that that's the one side that's not brick, it's hard enough to wa***he vinyl siding let alone brick.

[underworld]

Low 60s today....up to near 70 by Sunday....then back to the 50s! And to think two days ago it was 80!

underworld

[:D][:D][:D][:D][:D]

[underworld]

SaskTinplater Congratulations!!!!! [bow] What are your plans for the summer?

Dave Dr John does the same thing that I do....run ad-aware and spybot.
ad-aware has four different scanning options. when I have a lot of trouble I will run all four options, one after another. Also, go to the tools button at the top of your computer screen...then to internet options.....delete cookies and delete files including the offline files. You may also want to clear your history an maybe reset the number of days history that you computer holds. I usually have mine set at zero. Defragmenting is something you should also do regularly. I don't know how to tell you to do that as there is a program on my computer that does it automaticlly.

[bogaziddy]

Hi All,

Woke up to 4" of new SNOW on the ground. Hoppy, my pooch, looks a little depressed as he knows he'll be grounded most of the day - but I'll let him out for a brief run around the yard. He loves snow. He likes to watch the trains. One Christmas when I was doing some floor running around the tree, he put his wet nose on the tracks and jumped back as though he'd gotten a shock! It was hilarious - I hope it didn't hurt him though.

I'll be doing a little 'training' today but for the most part will be working on a DVD I'm putting together for a river conservation organization. It's about a river we ran down near Yosemite Nat'l. Park the day they first landed on the moon nearly 36 years ago. The movie was transferred from Super-8 film to Mini DV tape which is what I'm making the DVD from. The tape looks quite good considering the transfer from Super 8 film. If any of you are considering transferring your old home movies to video or DVD, let me know and I'll tell you where I got the work done.

Just received in yesterday's mail a 1954 Lionel catalog in like-new condition I won in an eBay auction - It's GREAT! I'm also awaiting the arrival of a two-dome Sunoco tank car I won in the auction ... Come on postman.

All for now boys ...

[Roger Bielen]

Just finished washing the back of the house and then the sky opened up as I was putting things away. Just in time to was the detergent of the grass. Thundering now so I guess I cut my surfing short.

[Anonymous]

Been a while before I stopped in here... whats new all?

Going to york!

--Chris

[Buckeye Riveter]

It's graduation day, and everybody's
going to get their diploma but Sack.
At the assembly, the entire senior class stands up
and shouts "Let Sack graduate, let Sack graduate!"

The principal agrees to give Sack one last chance.
"If I have five apples in my right hand and five in
my left hand, Sack, how many apples do I have?" he asked.

Sack thought long and hard and then said: "Ten."

And the entire senior class stood up and shouted
"Give Sack another chance, give Sack another chance!"

Congratulations Sack on your graduation and please remember:

People will frighten you about a graduation....They use words you don't hear often... "And we wish you Godspeed." It is a warning, Godpeed. It means you are no longer welcome here at these prices.
- Bill Cosby

[ChiefEagles]

Buckeye, enough!!!! Go sit in the corner in time out. [;)] Congrats Saask [I told you that the other day but today is the day]. Been in county task force meetings since 11:30 AM. Wow, us politicians can talk. Did NOT get to go to "Miss Edna's" today as planned. [:(] Rainy tomorrow AM so might just go then. TStorms around and heavy rain for about 5 minutes. Makes the garden grow. Later.

[wrmcclellan]

We got the old 2" Tasco telescope out in time for the start of the solar eclispe here just a little while ago. Put the sun filter on and even with a bit of clouds we could see the moon start to intrude into the sun's "space." Unfortunately a thick set of clouds have completely obscured it. Supposed to peak in just a few minutes (5:11 pm CDT). I see a break in the clouds to the west. Maybe we will get another chance. My son and daughter participated. Son's comment - "cool!"

Update - clouds moved out - we got the full view!

Regards,
Roy

[GregM]

Dave,

If after running Ad-aware and Spybot (be sure to download the updates for Spybot ) you still have trouble you may need Hijack-This. Your problem is most likely spyware which will cause more problems than you can imagine. I don't load any free toolbars or other "helpful" software on my computers. Just not worth the headaches. At work more than once I have formatted the harddrive and reloaded Windows because none of these products were able to clean up the crap that people downloaded to their PC's.

Ain't the internet just swell.

[Roger Bielen]

Just came home from the Lionel presentation at Memory Station, interesting.

Todd, Lionel rep., demo'ed 1) a cab forward: great looking, lotta smoke and great sound;
2) Ran a pre-shipment model of a new "J" with the new smoke unit. The smoke is fan driven and in sync. with the chuffs, also has 3 levels of smoke - low, med. and high, it'll fill up a room real quick. The sounds were great.
3) Had a developement model of the hot box reefer, it is neat. It has five sound/action levels starting with an all ok type message through to smoke with fire, crackling sounds and the hissing when put out. All having suitable communication. It's only available in "O" at this time, if sales and interest warrant it could come out scale in the future.
4) Showed a few pre-production and new available cars, great detail.
5) Had a sample of the FasTrack crossing with signals, nice. Also the crew scrapping out an old F unit.
6) Went through the stages for developing a F unit shell with some samples of stages an upgrade goes through.
As to CAB-2, its in developement with no targeted release date, very little info. given out.

Have a good night all.

[GregM]

Dave,

McAfee "Stinger" is a virus removal program. It will find and remove several viruses. Here is a link.

http://vil.mcafeesecurity.com/vil/averttools.asp#stinger

[laz 57]

CHRIS I will be at York on the 30th.
laz57

[Anonymous]

Hey everybody,

There is me unwinding after work last Friday sunset at the beach. I am at the "condos" a clearing up on the hill. We are slowly getting ready to go to the fire. It was a really great night. No snow up here!

Mark

[spankybird]

Good Morning All,

NE Ohio has another Blue Clear Sky Day with temp of 50 deg. What a great start to the weekend.

HI Mark – welcome to the Coffee Pot, btw I have a mandolin also. Have had it since I was very young, it was my grandfathers. And sorry to say, I don’t play it anymore.

GregM – are you planning on going to the Medina Train show on the 24th [?]

Well we better work on our pics for the Sunday Photo Fun thread.

Pick of the Day


all be safe
tom

[cnw1995]

Tom, can you share a bit more about that nifty passenger car - what is it? I love the colors. Supposed to be cool and beautiful today. Was up til 12:40 this morning and now again with the youngest - I'll pay for that later on. I went over to baseball practice for my older boy after work yesterday - it sure is fun (but freezing) to watch them work out under a good coach. He's smaller and less skilled but v. enthusiastic. The older kids are going to visit my brother and his wife in the city on an overnight later today (they're so excited) so it'll be just us parents and the 2 year old. I was a bit down yesterday - they're cutting some class offerings I enjoyed having the chance to teach as an extra (even though I try not to count on that $, I'll miss it). Going to try to set up the used grill I got and sneak around to prep for my wife's birthday on Wed. I'll probably surprise her and take the day off - and try to do things around the house for her. I have two birthdays and an anniversary to prep for in this month - whew!. I'm happy to say my oldest boy ran the trains without me yesterday - I try to encourage him to be free to do that - instead of defaulting to playstation. So we troubleshooted the 248 which is stopping and starting on some track lengths - I think it is just v. dirty track left over from my ballasting. We also started working on the spring clip on the 2-4-2 that has been derailing on curves. All while listening on the radio to the Sox beat the Twins. A good evening. Randy Travis is coming to our church tomorow; I have to go early to set things up special for him. Have a good weekend!

[ChiefEagles]

Morning gang. Muscians!!!! We will have to have a train meet somewhere and get you all to do a "ho down". [8D] Now Buckeye has some great videos with some great foot tapping music. Only thing he can do good. [;)] Lot of the music is about the Southern RailRoad Line [southern of course [;)]] Sun is out and chilly. Had great rains last night. Everything is green. Have a good one and God bless.

[spankybird]

Hi Doug,

Randy Travis – Do you have to pay to go to church. I love his music.

These cars are by MTH. They are the matching set for the Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati RR Overton Set (#30-6408).








tom

[GregM]

Tom,

Taking a break from painting the first floor bathroom. Just finished the ceiling, walls next. Right now I don't think we will be going to Medina on the 24th. We are still debating about going to York that week. Don't have a hotel room and didn't pre-register but might go and see what we can find, hotel wise. We do have hotel reservations for Oct. Supposed to be lots of interesting information from the manufactures this time.

I plan to order a couple Trainman cars later today which I really don't need. [:D]

Will check in later, need to get back to painting.

[Dr. John]

Mornin' everyone.

The FOG has rolled in this morning - it's as thick as pea soup except it isn't green and there are no peas in it! Son is off to take the ACT test again this morning. Fixing to mail off the tax returns (I've had them done for a month, but decided to wait a while to mail them.) FIgure I'll work on track planning a while this morning then off to Pratt Park for a church block party this afternoon. Have a great day to all!

[laz 57]

HI GIZ,
Beautiful day here to get to 64. Going to open up our two ponds, wifes water gardens. One pond is about 1200 gallons and the other is 4200 gallons. Got to clean out leaves an debris from winter. All our goldfish(200) made it through the winter. We use to have Koi but lost quite afew real prize fish over the last few winters and with them costing so much we don't raise them anymore. I wish we could cause ours were about 19 inches and really neat fish. We have four turtles but only put our yellow eared slider in to eat some of the fish. We had put in red eared sliders but they have a tendancy to run away or walk down to the natural ponds here.
[#welcome][#welcome][#welcome] MARK cool pic of you by the water, keep on strumming.
DOUG, make sure you tell your son to keep your eye on the ball. Maybe you got a future CHISOX player there?
CHIEF whens the HOE DOWN? We'll come down and dance with your southern belles[:D][:I][:X][:O][:)][:P][;)]
SPANKYBIRD glad you're felling better and getting ready foSPF. Passenger cars look awesome.
Have a good one.
laz57