Good evening all,
Did last round of mulching today and ran gas out of mower. Brought a bunch more stuff down from attic to put on layouts. Probably have way too much for HO, but can always thin it out. Worked on adding additional wires for standard gauge layout and lengthened 2 of the sidings. Discovered I had an extra switch so I can add one more siding. Weather was nice today. I hope everyone has a good day.
Keep on training,
Mike C. from Indiana
Morning all!
Definitely looking like winter here. We may actually have the first white Christmas in years. Although, it is supposed to "warm" up early in the week.
I was getting something out of the storage room and my Polar Express set was sitting there as if it was saying 'What about me?" Ugh, I might have to break down and set it up. As the Borg say, "Resistance is futile."
Roy - I did most of my Christmas "shopping" via Amazon. After driving the Mrs. all over Hell's half acre, that is the best way to shop!! Oh and I'll be starting my last minute touch up painting shortly......
RT - The Mrs. sent me a Youtube video on cats vs. Christmas trees. I thought of you when I saw it. If you ever want a laugh, check them out.
Have good one and prayers to those in need.
Rob
Joined 1-21-2011 TCA 13-68614
Kev, From The North Bluff Above Marseilles IL.
Hello there,
Christmas prep continues.
Any suggestions on a present for Mrs?
Sir James. ...condolences
Best get busy.
Prayers for those in need.
Banks, Proud member of the OTTS TCA 12-67310
Evening all!
We got nearly an inch of gentle rain yesterday evening/night. We needed it badly. Stayed really cloudy all day and did not bust 55. Looks to be in the low 40's for Christmas next weekend.
Finally got the green room finished. A nice earth tone color (same as the other bedrooms). Looks really good. Changed out all the 1977 vintage outlets, wall switches, and plates. Even found a loose wire in one so that was a good find! Also installed new A/C return and ceiling vents. Got the furniture re-installed. SWMBO is pleased! Will have to do some work on the baseboards, trim, and ceiling, but that is something for next year!
Banks - i am of no help there...
Rob - ya gotta Set it up
Regards, Roy
Went to birthday party for oldest granddaughter. Nice gathering. Watched Liverpool smack Bournemouth around 4-0. Weather was gray today. Some rain. Present for wife got to daughter's Saturday so that saves me an extra stop this week. Should be very quiet this week at work. I hope everyone has a good day.
Gloom is the weather here today. Not much going on.
Prayers for those involved in the train wreck out west. One heck of a bad way to start a new high speed route.
Good Morning All,
Wow, that is some derailment in Seatle area, sure doesn't sound good. Think there may be a lot injuries. Heard it was going 80mph, that seems awfully fast for that area.
These darn wild fires just don't want to give up. They are making a sifnificant effort today to try and get it contained. Wednesday there are suppose to be significant winds in the area.
Chris came home this weekend, got here on Saturday. Friday night he went to the company (new) Christmas party. It was at the new "M" hotel in Vegas. When he got to the party he asked at the hotel where "the party" was at, and was told on the 16th floor. So he got there went in ate some, had a few drinks, and meeting people. After being there about an hour and half, realized he was at the Henderson, NV, Police Dept party. Apparently he made a quiet exit and found HIS company party.
Spent all day Sunday baking cookies, Kay and I baked 12 1/2 dozen. (Spritz, Sugar, Oatmeal/Choc Chip/Peanut Butter, Molasses Bars) So we are all set with baked goods.
Hopefully will finish up Christmas shopping today. This will be the earliest ever.
Hope everyone has a great day.
Don
Evening all!Cloudy, damp, 50 all day, and some misting tonight. Supposed to get up to 2 in of rain tomorrow. Wow. That's a change. Just like last year, weather wonks warned of really dry weather and then it started raining. I am good with them being wrong.We headed out early and hit a mall for a couple of last minute things that we could not find online. Shopping is Done! Had a nice light lunch at the mall. Then headed for the house.Got a "cord" of firewood delivered this afternoon. I call it a Texess short cord. At best it is a real 5/8 cord...if you want a real cord then you gotta cut and stack it yourself.
Don - that Chris story is priceless!!!!!
Dennis - so glad you have your family Christmas trip to look forward to!
Roy, What does it take you to burn a cord of wood for you? About ten years? Is that a real Cord? 8'x4'x4' or a small face cord? 16"x8'x4'
What does a true cord cost? About $155 here for those who can't or won't cut there own.
Been real warm here but they claim we will pay next week.
Very quiet day at work. Had a nice lunch with one group of coworkers (the ones I like and who treat me with respect). I ate something that did not agree with me as I spent much time in the bathroom. Hopefully this too shall pass. Weather was warm. I hope everyone has a good day.
Morning potters!
50 this am. TStorms early this morning and it is still raining. Over an inch so far. It is good!
Kev - a Texess cord (hardwoods mixed - pecan, oaks [red, white, pin, live, etc], hickory, pinion, etc) averages $240 delivered and stacked. If you ask for all oak, etc., it can run $275. If you want all well seasoned oak (1 yr min), it will go over $300 (and you better know your firewood really well or you will get taken). A 'cord' is roughly 3'x4'x8' loose stacked (3' is 2 rows of 14-18" length logs - fireplaces here rarely accommodate a 24" log, ours will). So if you tight stack the 'cord' it shrinks considerably. As you know a real cord is 4x4x8 tight stacked. We are in the core of Dallas so the wood is trucked from Oklahoma or East TX. There are suppliers in Dallas that are also tree service companies, but then they pay a lot to store cut wood all year in town. Not many of those left as the land is worth too much to store piles of wood. The last one I used that was about 10 mi away and you could measure and load your own wood finally sold out 2 years ago and moved out of town. The good news is the new guys I found that delivered yesterday provided good wood, mostly oak (they are a local tree service). We can burn a Texess cord in a cold winter, but normally only go through about 3/4...
Mike C - good deal on the nice lunch with the team! Hope you feel better!
Good afternoon from overcast 48°F Southern Ohio,
Over the weekend I got the mantle made and installed and my bride loves it. Her choice of going to a more “rustic” look made the job a LOT easier. I also got the headboard made from a wood pallet made. If the “look” is right I’ll mount the headboard to the bedframe.
During one of the wind gusts this week, a tree blew over and got hung up in another tree. Gabriel and I cut it out and bucked it into fire wood after Mass on Sunday.
The decorating is complete and now we’ll get the place cleaned up. Our youngest daughter is coming in from Hollywood into Cincinnati and I’ll pick her up on Saturday.
Mike – I hope everything came out OK
Roy – Happy wife happy life
Banks – Several years ago (>30) I gave my bride some deodorant. When my bride unwrapped the gift her response was incredulous, so I did it again the next year, and the deodorant as a Christmas gift has become a tradition ever since.
I need to check on some maintenance activities going on here at work,
May God bless
Jim
Good morning, WOW warm here for December 19th. Already inthe 50s.
I heard the same thing about that train wreck as Spank did,,,,WTH????
Dan is in the tree stand and has been since dawn.
Roy, that is a lot of money for wood you guys pay. I just take what falls in our woods or on my trails. Like you, our fireplace will hold 24" logs so I cut and split from 18" to 24" for the most part. As of the last fews years most has been Ash that the bug has killed off. We are just about out of Ash trees now,,,all are dead. My wood shed inside is 8' wide, 16' long and 7' high. I fill it to about 12' and the splitter sits on the end still under roof. It holds 4 rows of 2' wood and I use half the shed each year. The west end of the shed I put all the little and strange sized wood.
Time for lunch.
Spank, It has been a long time since it did it that way. I have a homemade splitter and one and a one half helper and even like that it is still Great exercise for my 65 year old body. Just glad we can still get it done.
Kevin/Spanky/Roy around here they sell it but it's harly worth it to me to do it if I needed it. as it sells for between $75 - $95 a cord ( yes Kevin 4' x 8' x 4' ) as there is so much around and so little really needed down here.
And so few actually have fireplaces down here.
I'm not sure what I did, but I'm hobbling around, as I twisted/sprainned my upper right leg some how. this has been going on since Thursday actually. Thought it was good yesterday morning/early afternoon and then I picked up a 50 LB bag of cat litter for the wife and think I respained or what ever to it. I'm guessing that is what did it. Who knows
Hope all having a good day
Life's hard, even harder if your stupid John Wayne
http://rtssite.shutterfly.com/
Wow that is a lot of wood Kev! And you have a bobcat to guard it!
RT - sorry about the leg. Hope it gets better soon!
SJ - sorry about the back, also hope it feels better soon!
Phish - the new mantle sounds pretty cool! Not sure a headboard made with pallet wood would go over here...
So far we are now at nearly 4" of rain. Pool is running over the coping and deck. Not supposed to clear until late tonight. More rain predicted next week.
Evening All,
All this chopping wood talk makes me glad I have natural gas!!
I was watching the news coverage of the derailment outside of Seattle. I Google Mapped the location and the track is basically an S-curve going over Interstate 5. Apparently it was clocked at 80mph entering the curve. I'm not a qualified engineer by any means, but I kind of figured the whole curve/speed thing as a kid playing with my dad's Lionel trains It is almost deja vu for me to the one outside of Philadelphia a few years ago.
Well, I've started a few last minute pre-Christmas projects. I was cutting some tile while the weather was decent to go around the tub. Still need to get some painting done. I probably shouldn't even be on here chatting with you fine folks!!
Have a good one,
It has been a while since I've stopped by. Pretty much the usual stuff going on here.
On Dec. 9, my wife and I hosted the Polar Express themed kid's Saturday program at the KATY museum. We had cookies, hot chocolate, crafts, Santa Clause, readings of the Polar Express, and my Polar Express layout. The event started at 9:00, and ended at 12:30. We ran at least 768 people through. We passed out tickets to get a count. I doubt that all of the adusts took tickets, so this number is probably low. Anyhow, all went well and everybody seemed happy. Good thing we had a bunch of good bunch of people helping us.
The local high school's F.I.R.S.T. robotics competition team is starting up for this season. The worldwide game kickoff is going to be January 6. I am a mentor again this year. Looks like a good bunch of kids. Once the 2018 game is announced, the kids will start figuring out what kind of robot they will need to build.
About all for now.
Busy day at work. Internal issues are better, thank you all for the concern. Weather was not as warm as expected. Should be quiet the rest of the week. Did some more work on the railroads tonight. Located more stuff. I hope everyone has a good day.
Mornin' boys. Cloudy and 43 along the Patterson Creek cut-off. Train room today, then local NRHS meeting tonight (we're guests). Chipped away at the shopping yesterday. Fifepup can't make it to WV, so check is in the mail.
I still need to set up a Shutterfly account so I can post layout pics....
From the Santa files... LEGOS are the most asked for toys this year, from boys and girls. Trains are requested 10-15% of the time. Barbie dream house is making a comeback. Hatchimals, Shopkins, and LOL dolls are big with the girls. Most of the children have been very good...except the 10 year old "Scott Farkus" wannabe, who tried to pull down Santa's beard, and then hid on the train and caused us to delay departure. He shall be finding a slurry of coal and reindeer poo in his stocking Monday morning.
Aloha. Sunny but colder. Helped the youngest study for his first series of high school finals last night. 8n, that is such a great job you and your wife did to host that gathering. That's a nice turnout. MikeC, glad you are feeling better. Fife, thanks for the report from Santa. Our local RR museum keeps a blog about their holiday trains. Rob, that was a good idea to use Google Earth - I was wondering how that derailment could've happened on new track except for it being related to speed - unfortunately some of the deaths were the very advocates for that cut-off. Very sad.
Doug Murphy 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...' Henry V.
Morning all. Rainy and warm. Cooling later today. Been a busy few days. Do last Christmas shopping today. Staying aways from malls. Know what and where to go and buy. In and out.
Rob, use to love to split wood in the winter cold at night with lights on. Too old. Natural gas and gas logs work for me now.
Have a good one.
God bless TCA 05-58541 Benefactor Member of the NRA, Member of the American Legion, Retired Boss Hog of Roseyville , KC&D Qualified
Rough day today, Hungover I guess from toooo much Christmas Cheer with Brian yesterday evening and forgot to take my BP meds last night so feel like a truck hit me today. Man It sucks getting old. I used to be fine by noon, now it takes a whole day. Maybe I need some hair of the dog?
Afternoon all!Sun finally came out and it is a pleasant 60. Might hit 75 tomorrow. Another front and rain Friday, and then the big chill for the weekend.We got over 4 in of rain yesterday and they are predicting another inch for Friday.
Ventured out and picked up wine and booze for the weekend. Sister and BIL coming for Christmas and will be here Saturday. Kev - I'll be thinking about your morning today
DJ - congrats on Tyler's 5 year anniv! That's a good present. Sorry about Corey. Sounds like a lot of stress. We went through it. Some kids in school today seem to focus on making life miserable for everyone else. Glad my kids did not have to deal with all the social media crap they leverage today...
Dennis - the wonks here in Texess are focused on a high speed line between Dallas and Houston. Same issues here - at about $200M to $1B per mile for 250 miles it makes no sense.
Evening All!
Not too bad out today. Sunny and 30ish. Snow is all gone.
Kev - I'll be needing lots of "hair of the dog" over the next few weeks. Tis the season!!
Spanky - Congrats on the milestone for your boy! Don't know the back story, but I'm sure your family went through hell at the time. As a father, I couldn't even imagine.
Dennis/Roy - Our Premier (Canadian speak for Governor) was/is spending a pile on rapid rail around the Toronto area. As much as I love rail travel, I don't it's getting the bang for the buck either. Unlike Europe and Japan, we don't have the infrastructure to support proper high speed trains.
I agree with the above comments. Except on the East Coast and obviously where it works for commuter Chicago, there is not sufficient population density to support high speed rail between cities. Work was quiet and the sun was out for the noon walk. Not many takers for being outside. Lots of people gone for the holidays already. Commute is much easier. Did a little work on the trains. One idea may not pan out. I hope everyone has a good day.
Good Evening,
Getting closer and closer to the big day! Got all my shopping done, earliest ever! What a relief.
Lots to comment on, so bare with me.
- Heard on the radio today the Thomas fire (Santa Barbara) is 60% contained and they believe it will be another month before it is 100% contained.
- I just can't believe that train was going 80mph through that curve! Especially since it was an inaugral run, AND a trainee in the cab. Unbelievable.
- We actually had rain tonight, nothing like what Roy has, but anything is a god send.
- Kev, that is one neat looking wood shed and pile. We have 3 fireplaces in the house, 1 wood, 1 gas, 1 electric. The deal here is the county has "no burn" days (most of the time). You cannot burn ANY wood, or pressed logs. The reason is air pollution, not the fire risk. We are sooo over regulated and over taxed here it is unbelievable. Hope your feeling better soon, in the mean time enjoy the fireplace.
- Rob, good luck with the "last minute" projects, that seems like a major one to me.
- 8ntruck, That was some kid's program you hosted! 768 people, WOW! Does any of the robotics projects make it to You Tube?
-Mike C, I find it a challenge when I find stuff and try to incorporate it. Usually decide to put it in the box to sell, or give away.
-Fife, Aren't you glad that after a few minutes those kids all leave with their parents. It use to drive me nuts to see kids trying to disfugure the equipment and the parents do nothing. Fortunately most were good and excited. Guess you will have to "grow" a beard next year.
-Doug, Your brave, with the stuff taught today, I don't think I would have the confidence with the way I was taught compared to today.
- Chief, is it that you avoid the malls, or that they won't let you in for the crowd you draw?
- Spanky, You have the best news of all! So happy to hear how Tyler is doing. We did upgrade the gas fireplace, put the "fireglass" in it, it looks nice but the natural fire is best.
- Dennis, You are so correct regarding the bullet train, you know all the increased gas taxes are going to go toward that "boondoggle".
- Roy, The Dallas/Houston train sounds like it maybe a "me too" effort. I'm thinking maybe someone should investigate Hot Air Balloons as a mass transport alternative. Who knows maybe I could get a federal grant to investigate, and research.
- Rob, Enjoy your post and perspective, I think it is right on.
I will be glad when the season is over. The wife enjoys the Hallmark movies, I think we have seen probably 8-10 per week. I could summerize 1 of them and it would be appropriate for all. Oh last night we went to see "Just Getting Started", it was really good.
Take Care All and Stay Healthy!
Mornin' boys. Girls are headed to Al Tuna for some shopping. I have a little work to do at the yard, and the 4th floor, then I'll be headed to folk's house. Attended local NRHS gathering last night with boss. Nice guys, and very knowledgable.
dbaker - Actually, I do get "beard envy" when I see some fellow with a good set of white whiskers. Is that strange...?
DJSpank - Went through this with princesses. We want so much to be liked, we lose perspective on everything else. Turn off the device, and happiness will follow. I was thinking of Tyler, thanks for the update.
Morning team!
Sunny, 50, and headed to 75 today. Big chill starts tomorrow with more rain.
Fifer - the NRHS sounds like a good group. Did you do an update for them?
DonB - I think you could get a federal grant for a unicycle lane...
All set for the big day!
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