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

[wrmcclellan]

Good morning all!

It's a balmly 39 degrees and raining this morning. To top things off, the pool pump has a bearing going out, the odometer/gear selector display in the GMC truck went out, and the garage door opener is acting strange. Great day!

Chief - I laughed and laughed at your story about us. The very idea of my wife playing golf cracks me up!

I always wondered how folks like Tom and my sister (has an African Gray) get those parrots to behave. Well apparently they are best trained just before Thanksgiving and here is how it works:

A young man named John received a parrot as a gift. The parrot had a bad attitude and an even worse vocabulary. Every word out of the bird's mouth was rude, obnoxious and laced with profanity.

John tried and tried to change the bird's attitude by consistently saying only polite words, playing soft music and anything else he could think of to "clean up" the bird's vocabulary.

Finally, John was fed up and he yelled at the parrot. The parrot yelled back. John shook the parrot and the parrot got angrier and even ruder. In desperation, John threw up his hands, grabbed the bird and put him in the freezer.

For a few minutes the parrot squawked and kicked and screamed. Then suddenly there was total quiet. Not a peep was heard for over a minute. Fearing that he'd hurt the parrot, John quickly opened the door to the freezer.

The parrot calmly stepped out onto John's outstretched arms and said, "I believe I may have offended you with my rude language and actions. I'm sincerely remorseful for my inappropriate transgressions and I fully intend to do everything I can to correct my rude and unforgivable behavior."

John was stunned at the change in the bird's attitude. As he was about to ask the parrot what had made such a dramatic change in his behavior, when the bird continued, "May I ask what the turkey did?"

Have a great day all!

Regards,
Roy

[Buckeye Riveter]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Boxcar Bill

Spankybird


Hope your weather gets better, over here on the west side we have plenty of liquid sunshine and cool temps.

Buckeye

you should know Iam from Ohio I told you I hangout at train-o-rama and I do their train repairs.



Everyone have a GREAT DAY

Sorry about that. I should have remembered. BTW, do you repair the trains running at Train-O-Rama? That would be a huge job keeping all of them going.

[Boxcar Bill]

Hello everyone

Yes Buckeye it is constant work, we run those trains so hard that we actually wear out the frieght car trucks where axles will fall right out of the trucks

[GregM]

Train-O-Rama? Details please.

[spankybird]

Trin-O-Rama is located in Marblehead, Ohio (Rt 163 East). It has a small Train museum as well as a great operating layout with 21 different trains running at once and over 1,200 pieces of equipment. Check out their web page

http://www.trainorama.net

They also have a Train – Hobby shop. If your in the area, make sure to stop.

tom

[Boxcar Bill]

Train-o-rama is a hobby shop that sells only trains and has a 3000 sq.ft. operating train display with 30 trains running from G-Z scale. Everything is run
with Tmcc from the cab 1. Its located in Marblehead Oh.

[spankybird]

Boxcar Bill - you guys have upgraded it since the last time I was there. I will have to take another trip west.

tom

[Buckeye Riveter]

We should have our Ohio CTT meetings at Train-O-Rama and go fishing at the same time. If we can just get the Chief to drag his boat to Port Clinton next spring.

[ChiefEagles]

You buy a boat and I'll come up. [:D]

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by wrmcclellan

Hello gang,

Back from Houston and Thanksgiving at my sister's new house. They recently downsized and moved into town ("inside the loop" as they say) as they were burned out on the 1.5-2 hour drive to work each day. They now live on the same street were we grew up.

Hey there Roy, I am curious as to what neighborhood in Houston. My wife and mines first apt was on Westheimer near Gessner: 25 yrs ago. I used to do remodeling in West University and the Heights. Both those areas have changed sooooo much. We finally had it with the city and bought a small ranch in Willis , just north of Conroe and lived there many years.
Now my nearest neighbor is about 1/2 mile away, But the scenery here sure is beautiful.

Anyways we got about 3 inches white today and It will be here till April, must be a late winter this year. Oh well , might have to plow tomorrow, more snow coming..........Tim

[daan]

Hey all, I'm here! Was a busy time at work, another company brand has problems with their product (dioxine) and we have to work big overtime to get all orders done.. Even past weekend was no weekend for me..
On the other hand, big overtime means big bucks, and that's the part I like about it; it's allmost christmas time, I need to isolate the roof in my trainroom and make a window in it, so cash is usable now.
Nice T-bird spanky, ZZ-top??
Besides the four letter word no-one likes, there is not much going on in train-land here. Got my K-line double Alco's with the post on friday, together with the CTT magazine, so Friday was a good day. I've ran a few rounds more with the rheostat setup to test it (over and over again) and discovered that I need LESS power if I want to drive K-line alone..
I didn't dream of it that I would ask less power oneday.
I know, the modern can-motored K-lines hardly use power compared with the mastrodont's of postwar age, and that is the problem; the resistors don't eat when they are not fed..
This afternoon I'll drop by at the DIY store to see what the trainroom will cost me on isolation and stuff and tomorrow is christmas light day.. I'll make my house look very pretty.
In Holland I'm the only one in the street with lights on the house. I have all kinds of tubed lights and a big santa on the roof.. I guess I'm the odd one out here.
Take care and all have a nice day!

[spankybird]

Good Morning All,

Buckeye – We can always charter a Walleye Fishing Service for the day. There are lots of them in that area. Now lets see Chief shows up, or we could also go down to Bellevue to the Mad River and NPR Museum. ( http://www.onebellevue.com/madriver ).

NE Ohio is at 47 deg with falling temp, rain will be turning to snow by end of the day and high winds, 40 mph gusset.

Pick of the Day



All be safe

tom

[ChiefEagles]

Morning gang. Glad to see Daan is back and nothing but W--K keeping him away. Now Mr. Spanky and Buckeye, I use to drive to Monroe, MI every June and meet a friend from Lansing [who had a big boat]. We would fish for walleye for three days out of there and fi***he MI and OH parts of Erie. Then we'd go north to Lake Charlovoe [SP] and fish for big fish in Lake MI. Did that for several years. I'll scan some pictures from the scrapbook. Also use to spend the first seek in May at Fontana Lake [Great Smokie Mountains National Park, NC] living in floating house. Had to transport all food and etc by boat. Tied boat to house. Get up, eat and take boat out for the day on lake. Lived on the water all week. We fished for samllies and walleye. Then started flying to Del Rio, TX. Well, BPS shows stopped that last year. Rainy here but not too bad. Wind to blow later today. Feel a lot better today. All have a good one and God bless.

[wrmcclellan]

Hi all,

Nice crisp sunny cold day today. Rain is gone for rest of the week. Finally. This year is now the fifth rainiest year in North Texas recorded history. The good news is we needed it. Many of the area lakes are near or back to conservation level (first time in 5 or 6 years).

Tim, I grew up in the 610/Stella Link area just inside the loop. My folks had the house built there in 1956. My wife (a rare native Dallasite) and I (native Houstonian) moved back there from 1989 - 1995 and lived a few blocks over from my parents house. Job took us back to Dallas in 95. Yes it has changed there a lot. Strangely, traffic on 610 was incredibly light off-peak compared to traffic here on 635 which is a nightmare 24/7. However, Houston built their outer loop (planned in the 60's), Beltway 8, whereas idiot Dallas planners shelved their outer loop plans in the 70's and when finally resurrected in the 80's (and thus start land acquisition) it became prohibitively expensive to build (thus progressing very slowly).

We hope to move out someday like you have.

Have a great day all.
Roy

[ChiefEagles]

Hey Roy, got two fishing partners that live right out of Dallas [Sanchse and Rowlett] and work in town. We meet everytime I go to Texas to fish. Got other fishing partners in Houston, Kerrville, Temple, Copperas Cove and TBend. Big gang when we all get together. Was traveling to BPS stores this past spring and did not get to go to Texas. Will more than likely get there next year.

[daan]

Just a few hours ago, one of the most beloved people of our Royal Family died at 93 jears old; Prins Bernhard, foundator of the WWF and a life enjoyer of the first grade, loving fast cars, flying his own plane and giving a face to many foundations across the globe, has lost his fight against cancer.
We lost a brilliant man and beloved character with his heart in his mouth. He was a backdoor to the royal stiffness and an example that "royals" are also humans, with emotions and an own opinion.
I liked this man a lot!

Just something I wanted to say!

[ChiefEagles]

Sorry Daan. It really is a lost when an Icon passes. You hope there will be someone to fill that void. God bless.

[wrmcclellan]

Daan,

We are truely sorry for your country's loss. The loss of a true leader is always difficult, particularly one that has weathered multiple world conflicts and was viewed as a stabilizing influence for your country's people.

Regards,
Roy

[wrmcclellan]

Chief,

Next time you come to North Texas, give us some notice.

Regards,
Roy

[Roger Bielen]

A question on a subject other than trains. I'm planning on getting the wife a digital camcorder for Christmas, I've been looking at the Canon ZR85 and Samsung SCD107, they seem comparible. Anyone have any experience or opinions?

An alterior motive is that they both can do digital stills = photos to post.

[ChiefEagles]

Think Tom and Buckeye are knowledgable [as well as some of the others]. I have one of the earlier regular video cameras. My digital camera can only run a short "strip". Think that would be a great gift.

[dougdagrump]

That reminds me, we haven't seen any video clips lately. [:(]
Hint, hint, hint [:D][:D][:D]

[spankybird]

Rodger, I think your best bet is with the Cannon, IMO.

Yea, yea, yea, Doug we have to do some more of those. I was doing some pics tonight and was thinking I haven't done any videos lately.

tom

[cnw1995]

I'm back! Miss me? I still find it strange to have been half-way across the country just a few hours ago. I'm glad we all went (wife, 3 kids) to visit my folks. My dad is really out of it (due to Altheimers (sp)), but I was able to sit with him and fix things that needed doing around the house. Read the latest Time mag on the plane - in between playing with the 2 year old to keep him behaved. There's a brief article in there on the writer's unsuccessful search for the Polar Express train set - complete with price-gouging unhelpful hobby store owners. Yeesh. Made me cringe. Tough break for the hobby. But I missed all of you.

[Buckeye Riveter]

Doug, We are working on our spectacular Christmas Video for your enjoyment in the near future. We need a little dusting of snow to make it work. I also need to get the stills from my trip east posted.

Roger, I would suggest you make a list of all the things you want in a camera, i.e. lightweight, standard rechargeable batteries, zoom, lighting requirements, durability and then look at: http://www.cnet.com/

CNET is one of the best places to find out about the latest information for cameras, computers, etc. and so far they have never steered me wrong. In fact, it is a great place to get trial downloads for your computer. Very safe site. I think they even tell you the place to get the best deal, but I usually end up going to the Circuit City Website to see what the price is for an item.

[ChiefEagles]

D Murphy, welcome back. Glad the trip worked out. Glad to see so many on here now. Got to scare up Dr. John, Duda, Jon and a couple of others. Good night to all [bed time for us right bankers]. God bless all.

[spankybird]

Good Morning All,

We have been busy the last couple of nights helping my sister set up a new computer and installing DSL for her. She received a 3 year old Dell and it needed to have an Ethernet Card added for the DSL. The first one that we had was bad. After 2 ½ hours I went to wallyworld and bought another one. Bingo – an hour later she was up and running. The next night I loaded her software for her camera and Shutterfly. Now she is happy and I’m back to my trains.

I do have a couple of flick made but I have to down load them from the camera and upload them to the web. One is of a layout from last weeks train show.

Pick of the Day


all be safe
tom

[ChiefEagles]

Morning gang. Out the door to see the surgeon. Wife driving me. Hope to get some restrictions removed but we will see. First trip to see him since he cut me. [:(] Be nice to get out of house and ride around. Have not been anywhere since Thanksgiving. Everyone have a good one and God bless.

[ChiefEagles]

Well, evrything looks good and healing fine. One catch!!!! The guy now says another 5 weeks before I can drive. [:(!] [V] He originally said 6 weeks when I got out of hospital. Probably wants more followup visits to charge to insurance company. Now I'm ill.

[Buckeye Riveter]

Chief, maybe the doctor doesn't want you driving because he has seen you driving before. Without steel tracks can you keep the engine on the road?