Coffee Pot #12 December 2011 5+ years and going strong and its for all to chat. Plenty of coffee and ice tea for all. Come and join us and chat.

[Demay]

Konbanwa,

It was much colder today as the temps were in the low 40s.  It was also raining which made it worse for some people.  I took the older son (8 y/o) to a dental appointment on my lunch break today.  It was a simple filling on a baby tooth that didn't even require anesthetic.  He did well and he didn't even want me to be in the room.  Our office played a friendly game of volleyball today.  We had two teams: an over-35 team and an under-35 team.  I was on the over-35 (not by much) team and we won all six games.  I think the young guys try too hard.

I just posted some schoolwork online and now I am ready for some sleep.

Dennis - I will post my dilemma in the forum tomorrow and hopefully get some ideas.  I'm hoping Bob Nelson can provide some insight.

RT - Nope, that wasn't us.  We military folks are told where to live. 

Brutus - It's amazing how inanimate objects are capable of breaking themselves or somehow go missing. 

Fife - I know you may be waiting until York, but there is one eBay seller I frequent who has those items at great prices. 

Kev - I'm glad your gas issues are resolved.

Stourbridge - I can't wait until we hit 26 degrees. 

Chief - I sent you a PM.

Sayonara,

Joe

[sir james I]

Good morning

30 degrees with bright sun.

Had a nice chat with Charlie and Kevin last night, Brutus was a no show, probably found the Tardis keys in that blocked toilet. Fried egg and spam sandwich for breakfast. It works for me...S.J.

[Stourbridge Lion]

Good Morning Fellow CTT Fans!

It's 26F today as I arrive at work.  Last night I got another 2 hours of video uploaded of past trips.  This time it's Alaska and it was great watching the Alaska RR ride section I have not seen in years!

[KRM]

Cold and damp 25 degrees not going to get much better today.

Well getting off to a good start. Got up saw the cat at the door so I let him in. He went to finish his food in the laundry room. I got my cheerios and sat down at the PC to read the pot.

Cat jumped up in front of the screen and did several Meows and gave me a small head butt. Guess he was trying to tell something. I figured he wanted my milk so when I got done with the cheerios I gave him the milk. He finished it off and sat in the hallway and gave me another Meow. I went to take the bowel to the sink and what is in the hallway? Yeah Cat puke!   

Man I am glad we have wood floors.

Have a good everybody,

Kev

[Anonymous]

Mornin' Fellas

Fife - Get the Santa Flyer. It is the same engine as the Potter engine and already in Christmas detail (Santa is the engineer).

Chuck - Go with GMail. Best email service around.

Last day of the work week for me! Tomorrow TheQ and I are taking The Princess to DE to do our Christmas shopping! Also hope to find Santa for a picture op. The Princess went to the Pediatrician yesterday for her 4 month checkup. She is growing lengthwise faster than she is gaining weight, not a bad thing. Hopefully she will be tall (like her father) and thin (like her mother). She wasn't too happy last night or today, think she is having issues with the immunizations. She was like that 2 months ago for about 2 days, so hopefully she'll be better tomorrow. We have also been given the green light to start introducing fruits and veggies to her diet, as well as juice. So now I'm looking for a juicer because I am NOT giving her store bought juice (too high in sugar and preservatives).

On the Train front... Lionel has FINALLY shipped the Legacy Hotel. Only been 2+ years since it was first announced, then dropped due to that silly building related lawsuit, and then reintroduced in the last catalog. Also getting ready to order an ERR Upgrade kit for the MTH C&O Yellowbelly. Can't wait to see the C&O Special running on the upper level!

[cnw1995]

Aloha. Cold and clear with a nice sunrise. Still waiting for this illness to clear. Looks like a nice day.

[Blueberryhill RR]

Good Morning from Blueberryhill....

It is a sunny and clear 28 degrees. Going up to 46 today with sunshine.

Today is a busy day. I have a few chores to do and a project to work on. I'll be busy until naptime. Love that afternoon nap.

Took the car in for an oil change and tire rotation yesterday. Ready for winter.

I still do not have an e-mail account set up. I will have the wife set it up for me.

Dining car is here with Cheerios for breakfast.

Y'all have a great Thursday.

Chuck

[fifedog]

 

Mornin' boys.  Just chilly and damp in the Mid-Atlantic region.  Our natural defenses (Alleghanies) thwarted the SNOHIZO cannon.  Better aim a little higher next time.

Wifey is starting to warm up to the idea of a Christmas layout, especially since I've been showing her pieces from the Dept 56 North Pole series.  Perhaps next year.  At spring YORK (it never stops...) I might pick up a Lionel (Potter) red Christmas engine, and really doll it up with details.

Or maybe green...?

Probably need one of these...

Perhaps this too...

I'm sorry, what were we talking about...

[Buckeye Riveter]

Blueberryhill RR

In the vallleys, on either side of the hill, that I live on, are 4 gas wells. They supply free gas to about 20 residents. Not me. We are totally electric. The owners of the land and mineral rights, not only get free gas, but a check every month. There are thousands of gas wells in this County.

And those wells are the small shallow wells.  The big rigs are just starting to move in.  To start a well, normally a road to the site needs to be built.  The first evidence of a well is new CAT equipment arriving to build the access road/drive in a remote farm field.  The heavy water hauling trucks and their damage to roads and bridges are my future work. 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Good morning. It's 27 and clear. The high will be 53 (so the weather guesser says) and it will be sunny.

Besides the minor work done on the new well car yesterday there was no progress on the layout. I had thought that making the well car capable of negotiating eighteen inch radius curves might be hard. It was actually very simple. The wheels were rubbing against the front and rear of the well and against the sides of the coupler pockets. Simply removing a small amount of plastic from these areas improved things immensely. As for weight, the car with it's containers only weighed less than four ounces. This light weight and the cars eleven inch length made it a derailment specialist. By upping the weight of each stack of containers to four ounces the car now weighs in at just under ten ounces. It now tracks very well and derailments are a thing of the past. From the information I can find online it looks like an Athearn Husky Stack. At $50 each I won't be buying any unless I get a real good deal on some used ones.

For today's plans. I'll be going to my parents place for breakfast. Spicy hot link sausages, bacon, scrambled eggs, home fries, biscuits. No way am I passing that up.

[laz 57]

Hi GUYZ,

  Thanks CHUCK, only a trace of SNO HI O!!!  I think JACK got all of ours?

BUCKEYE and CHUCK, YUZ GUYZ got gas?  I think they have a pill for that called BEAN O!!!!! 

Stay frosty,

laz57

[jeffrey-wimberly]

rtraincollector

 

wrmcclellan:

 

RT - As I recall the way the TX RR commissi0on works here is your oil/gas royalty is dependent on the price of gas/oil when the well was drilled. So if it was drilled when oil/gas was at a low price - you are stuck with it.

 

 

I didn't ask anything about this maybe jeffery (Running Bear.)

Most of the time many of the wells are shut down. They're only brought on line when foreign supply is low. This also gives them a great way (to the oil companies) to make money on taxes. In times of low production the land owners are taxed on the revenues produced by the company's best production on those wells no matter how far in the past that was. Is that weird or what?

[rtraincollector]

wrmcclellan

RT - As I recall the way the TX RR commissi0on works here is your oil/gas royalty is dependent on the price of gas/oil when the well was drilled. So if it was drilled when oil/gas was at a low price - you are stuck with it.

 

I didn't ask anything about this maybe jeffery (Running Bear.)

Morning all not a lot going on yet first day back at work and speaking of that need to get going so i can get there

[8ntruck]

In the high teens this morning, was sunny and got to about 40.

Worked on the scenery on the Polar Express layout tonight.  Pieces parts got here today for the voltage splitter.  I try to get that together tomorrow night.  Little bit more scenery and hopefully the buildings get here from Charles Ro in time.  If they don't, I'll have to get the old American Plastic Bricks out and build a couple of houses.

Penny Trains - I found some stone work pictures from the source you reccomended.  We got them printed out and are planning on putting them in place tomorrow night.  Thanks again.

All for now.

[Brutus]

One of the kids plugged up the toilet and didn't say anything.  Nobody is fessing up either.  About 6 towels and a snake later, we are good to go.  Oh well, just a blip on the screen.  Tardis - beam me up!

[KRM]

dougdagrump

 

P.S. Kev, Take a look at the Atlas Industrial Rail log cars. Shorties that look good and a whole cheaper than the other guys.

 

dougdagrump!

I love them How long are they?? I think I could get one a month for a while.

Tks,

 Kev.

[KRM]

Jeffrey, Love that TTX car. I had better not get started on those.

Kev

[jeffrey-wimberly]

It's 34 now. Low tonight will be 26.

Time for me to call it a night. My eyes aren't burning so bad tonight and I'm able to focus a bit better. See y'all tomorrow.

[KRM]

ChiefEagles

 

PS:  My favorite subject.  Wells Fargo.  Glad I do not do other business with these folks.  In NC, if you had bank draft for your car payment [no matter what bank], they double deducted everyone's car payment for December.  No joke.  They are now trying to cover their tacks.  Any bank fees [over draft and etc.] will be refunded.  What a mess.

Chief, There was a time in my life where we all Loved Wells Fargo!! At least that provided by MARX.

Kev,

[ChiefEagles]

Been in the 70's for days.  Nights in the low 60's.  Turned cold and windy.  Ouch.

Sleep tight.

[sir james I]

Good Evening

34 degrees now.

No news so I'll wait with the banilla for the thingy..S.J.

[dwiemer]

Good evening everyone.  Interesting day.  Two minor cases this morning, then I went and had lunch with my son at school.  Mid morning, I got a message that the schools were on lockdown due to someone with a weapon.  Mind you, my wife was at our daughter's school to help with the "Santa shop" for the kids.  I was able to get in to my son's school too, so felt better about that.  Turns out the person with a weapon is a war vet from the Iraq war.  He was talking about suicide and was last seen near the schools going into the woods.  Long story short, they captured him, but rather than placing him under arrest, they arranged to get him into our VA clinic here that has a special section for vets suffering from PTSD.  So, everything turned out good and this guy gets the help he needs.

Regarding the copy from VHS to DVD, Walmart sells a unit that does it for about $36.00.  We bought one.  For really important video, you may want to look at a professional copy place as they can enhance any video that may have degraded over the years.

Our church executive pastor's grandson who is four days old had to have heart surgery today.  He did amazingly well, but will have at least two more procedures in the future.  As you can imagine, we had lots of folks lifting up prayers.

Well, time for bed.  God bless, dennis

[KRM]

Busy day today,

Spent the AM trying to find the source of the gas smell in the house.

 Two neighbors and a friend from Plainfield came to the rescue. Had a gas sensor and could find nothing. We did find an obstruction in the vent pipe ( leaves ) for the ejector pit in the basement that gets rid of the softener ren-gen water and the condensation from the furnace. Things seem better.

 Of course they blamed it on the Chile I made for supper last night.  

Went to Lunch with my friend. 

 Got home installed the HVAC plan.

Got two MRC sound boards to install in some cheap switcher I have but won’t get around to that for awhile.

Got to spend some time with the wifey.

Later,

God bless all,

Kev.

 

[wrmcclellan]

Evening all!

Kev - looking forward to the results. It was good to hear the 38 degree thermostat showed up in just a few days. I may get some to contorl my outdoor faucet "freeze" protectors (drop lights).

Chuck - sorry to hear you are so gassy?

RT - As I recall the way the TX RR commissi0on works here is your oil/gas royalty is dependent on the price of gas/oil when the well was drilled. So if it was drilled when oil/gas was at a low price - you are stuck with it.

 

[Blueberryhill RR]

In the vallleys, on either side of the hill, that I live on, are 4 gas wells. They supply free gas to about 20 residents. Not me. We are totally electric. The owners of the land and mineral rights, not only get free gas, but a check every month. There are thousands of gas wells in this County.

[Buckeye Riveter]

jeffrey-wimberly

Buckeye Riveter:

Just returned from oil and gas rich Eastern Ohio.   Chuck is going to be worth millions any day now with money from the oil and gas on his property.  The old steel towns are coming alive with the boom.

 

Don't bet on it. My family owns land in Texas with oil and gas wells all over it. My parents own the land and mineral rights but all they get is a small royalty check that won't even make the car payment.

When you come to Ohio, you will see it and believe it. If Chuck owned 200 - 350 acres and using Chesapeake Energy current practice of buying the rights at $3000 to $5000 per acre plus future royalties, he would have a million. (Unfortunately, Chuck doesn't own that much land. If Chuck's land already has had the rights sold, he's out of luck. ) These are Utica shale wells that go down over a mile from the surface and then spider out for sometimes over two miles.   This is similiar to the drilling in ND and PA, but Ohio is tapping the Utical formation which is much deeper because they found they were more productive than the Marcelus formation.

I was in Cadiz today, boy hood home of General Custer and Clark Gable.

 http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2011/09/26/drillers-snapping-up-rights-leases-in-ohio.html

[cnw1995]

Aloha. Still sick, Jack but think I turned a corner. Everyone's left me alone tonight on their errands so I thought I'd check in.  Darren, at least you only have to do that conversion of tape to disk once to AVI. Then save the DVDs separately from what you might put on a back-up drive. Banks, if you have enough tapes, there are machines that will copy them to DVDs for a hundred or so dollars. Since I had a bunch of different VHS and mini-tapes and mini-disks, I took most of them to a local outfit to convert.  Also borrowed a camera I could play a tape and copy it directly by plugging it into a computer - took a while as I had to monitor them as they ran. But that was the fun part. I realize I took 16 disks of my oldest; 9 of my middle boy; and 2 of my youngest. But now I just video off the phone and upload directly - bang! Gotta go back to bed. Catching up on reading old train mags.

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Buckeye Riveter

Just returned from oil and gas rich Eastern Ohio.   Chuck is going to be worth millions any day now with money from the oil and gas on his property.  The old steel towns are coming alive with the boom.

Don't bet on it. My family owns land in Texas with oil and gas wells all over it. My parents own the land and mineral rights but all they get is a small royalty check that won't even make the car payment.

[SPMan]

Tree is decorated and lighted.  Now all I need to find is the garland to go around it.  Hate to spend ten bucks on new stuff when I know I have it somewhere.

Good night all,

Ray

[Buckeye Riveter]

Just returned from oil and gas rich Eastern Ohio.   Chuck is going to be worth millions any day now with money from the oil and gas on his property.  The old steel towns are coming alive with the boom.