Elliot's Trackside Diner....JUNE 2013!!!!

[chochowillie]

And a cheery good morning to all you diners. Kind of a mixed bag weather wise here in Alberta today. Cool, Sunny, Cloudy and once again windy. Doesn't seem to know which way it's going.

Not too much planned for today other that go out to Ashley Furniture and get a refund on a Dining room set we purchased in mid Feb and still do not have.  You would think that they could manage to deliver one undamaged table and 4 undamaged chairs in that period of time. The local showroom ordered 4 times for the same items and each set came in damaged. It seems that they can't pack thinks properly for shipment for some reason or other. Dumb.

Anyway, they have offered me a refund which I am more than glad to take except the refund is $200 less that what we paid in the first place. So I'm going to ask them why and if I don't get the full amount then it's off to small claims court we go.

Ok, RANT OVER!!! 

Have to plant some more bedding plants later according to MOH so I guess my no plans just got changed.

If it starts to rain, maybe I'll build some trees.... sounds like an idea to me.

CU later

Dennis

[Curt Webb]

Afternoon All,

Very humid here today. By Wednesday the temp is supposed to be up to 95 and humid. Today I replaced MOH's burned out turn signal bulb. Luckily it was a back one so it was easy. The fronts are a real pain to change on a HHR. My truck is paid off this month.

I put tunnel liners in my three entrances today. I used Chooch flexible walls a thin styrene sheets. I think the brick looks pretty good and I will probably post pics in WPF next week.

I also put my PRR picture I got on vacation on the wall in the train room (after framing), MOH would not let me put it up in the living room.

MOH wants to put wood flooring in the upstairs so we have a estimator coming out to give us the bad news. The loft will be a pain since the layout will not move.

Dennis- We had a similar issue years ago. After the 3 attempts at delivery we cancelled and got our money back after a major hassle.

Hope everybody has a great day and prayers for those in need.

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

Howdy everybody .... Glad to see people are having a good weekend. 

The Kentucky 400 mile Yard Sale was this weekend starting with Friday. That's an event this time every year, and it follows US 68 on its 400 miles in KY. That is the main east-west road through here and it crosses through the Land Between the Lakes. ...... Sellers are out in full force. 

Barry ... If you want more stuff to put in your full garage, visit KY next year. The big yard sale is all useless stuff, and it should fit in with yours. 

Mr. B ..... I grew up watching the Blackhawks. So GO Blackhawks! .... It's good to see 2 of the original NFL teams in the Stanley Cup playoffs this time. 

V8 Dennis .... Sounds like the shooting that was on national TV. I don't understand  such insanity.

Canadian Dennis .... Sorry to hear about your furniture problem.  We have dealt with a furniture company in North Carolina with good prices, and they ship all over the US. I don't know if they do Canada. 

Galaxy ...... Interesting to learn about Jaywalking.....  Have you researched "let the cat out of the bag."? It might be interesting, too. 

Ken ... Nice drill 

I made a little more sawdust for my layout expansion. Still have much more to do. The brad nailer I ordered on Monday has not yet arrived. 

[chochowillie]

Heartland Division CB&Q

Canadian Dennis .... Sorry to hear about your furniture problem.  We have dealt with a furniture company in North Carolina with good prices, and they ship all over the US. I don't know if they do Canada. 

Life goes on and I did ah... persuade them to return the FULL amount that was paid up front in cash. He was arguing about th $100 delivery fee not being refundable and I offered him a deal. Give me back the $100 delivery fee and I won't go to Consumer Affairs. He decided to forgo the delivery fee. I wonder why?

So.... Tomorrow my MOH tells me we are  once again going Dining Room Table/Chair shopping. I'm sure we'll run all over till she finds the exact thing that she wants  Oh well, Happy Wife.. Happy Life

Cheers

Dennis

[jeffrey-wimberly]

chochowillie

Life goes on and I did ah... persuade them to return the FULL amount that was paid up front in cash. He was arguing about th $100 delivery fee not being refundable and I offered him a deal. Give me back the $100 delivery fee and I won't go to Consumer Affairs. He decided to forgo the delivery fee. I wonder why?

Probably because he knew there was a 90% +/- 3% chance that he'd lose. I've seen quite a few small claims suits over things like that and in most cases the judge didn't take kindly to people trying to collect shipping charges for damaged goods.

[Curt Webb]

Evening All,

The only thing I have done since the last posting is to figure out how to make my BLI K7 stock car I picked up at a train show for cheap make cow sounds. I have had it for 6 months and I decided to do some research to figure it out. Nothing on the BLI site..go figure. I finally found on the Atlas forum where a person said program your throttle to 03 then use F8 to turn sound on/off. A magnetic reed fob (just received from Ebay) controls sound level. I did all that and it works. I ran it around the layout several times with no issues.

Tomorrow I need to vacuum the house and get a haircut.

Hope everybody has a great night and prayers for those in need.

[blownout cylinder]

jeffrey-wimberly

blownout cylinder

Anyhow...I'm going into the train room today to see about cleaning up the poor thing before a layer of dust settles over it and cobwebs start to develop..the hacking and coughing you will hear is me trying to clear the aforesaid room of aid dust and stuff...

If we don't hear from you by 9pm we'll send in the marines!

*a dust and cobweb infested figure comes strolling in, hacking and coughing like the fool he is*

Yes!!

The job is completed!!

*passes out*

[blownout cylinder]

Good Evening

Everything is all well in cobwebville..the dust bunnies and spiders have fled the scene and now the layout is clean again..I even managed to glean the tracks a bit and ran some trains around....YES!!!

It was a kind of dull day here for awhile but the sun did show itself more often...but..we are getting some dull and rain for tomorrow...sigh.

Anyway...off I go checking out the forums...

[jeffrey-wimberly]

blownout cylinder

*a dust and cobweb infested figure comes strolling in, hacking and coughing like the fool he is*

Ah, there's a good word! Fool in Cherokee is nudanádána.

[BroadwayLion]

blownout cylinder

It was a kind of dull day here for awhile but the sun did show itself more often...but..we are getting some dull and rain for tomorrow...sigh.

We had sun. We stole your sun. LION sleeped much of the afternoon, but him also worked in train room. SOMEBODY has to clean the floor. The LION didn't do it but was working on the signals system. I think that most of the relays are wired, gotta start building signals soon. It turns out that all of the ones built previously are reversed from what the new system will require. I am relocating the old ones to places where Interlocking controlled by the position of the switches is required, and will use new signals for the block control system.

NOW can I go and take a nap? Please!

ROAR

[kbkchooch]

Lion! There you are! 

SWMBO and I went to a local carnival last night,,,,,sat down to play BINGO, she won on her first card!  Then we walked around a bit,,pizza,,fries,,soda,,got tickets for the "big prize drawing" They called 11:30 last night. We Won!  Well, really SWMBO won!  But not the big prize $5,000 bucks,,but one of the lesser prizes,,,dinner for 2 at some swanky seafood restaurant. 

But the part I thought you would find interesting,,,the carnival is put on by the local LIONS club! 

[Lehigh Valley 2089]

Good evening. 

Got somethings done today. Test ran the RS-11 and GP20. The RS-11 ran without flaw, but the GP20 was a stubborn little thing. It reminded me that I was using some somewhat old and beaten track. It jerked in some areas and stalled at low speeds, so the problem is definitely electrical. Will consider getting some Kato Unitrack for test running. 

Night everyone. 

[cudaken]

 Evening Dinners

 Flo Beer Pleases.

 Yep, I am very pleased with the Drill Deal. Heck for $20.00 and I have to replaces it in a year, what can I compliant about! Plus right now, emplacement batteries are only $39.99 vs $80.00 for my De Walt drills.

 Work Front Did have a good day Commission Wises, made a extra $108.00 today. Dave (area supivisor) was there and had a talk with me giving to big of discounts today. Told him my reasons.

1 Hardly any customers. Dave thinks the lack of business is from the last manager being a jerk. So I am making deals to get a customer base again.

2 Three of the customers where shopping around and said they where not buying today. So I made them deals they could not refuses to buy now!

Sore only did around $3500.00 today in sales. My 3 sales he questioned me about came too $2010.00 of the sales? What can I say? 

Vince's Give me a prices on the B&O coal car with shipping. 

 See you all later, Ken

[jeffrey-wimberly]

We got lots of rain today accompanied by plenty of lightning and thunder. The weather reports say there's a fair chance of rain tonight but from what I can see it will miss us. Glad I cut the grass when I did. I wouldn't have been able to do it until the middle of the week, say Tuesday or Wednesday. As it is I'll probably have to do it again this weekend or early next week. I gathered up some things from the layout today and put them away. That's a little more clutter cleared.

Time for me to call it a night. See y'all tomorrow.

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

Good evening! ..

Did you see Paul Beverung is back in the forum!????  I greeted him in his thread. 

Shhhhhhh ..... Lion is sleeping in the back booth. .... and Duke never awakens as he sleeps in the corner booth. 

Gus and I were working on the front light problem with P2K E7's.... Burlington did not have Mars lights in its E units. Now one of my E7's is functioning more prototypically. Next time I take photos, I'll show you. 

Have a goo night everybody. 

[galaxy]

Morning coffee in the diner...

GOOD MONDAY MORNING!!!

Today is Monday, June 10th, 2013!!!

I will light the prayer candles at Noon for those in need....

MAKE IT A GREAT DAY!!!

{PER request; for funsies}:

Let the Cat Out of the BAG:

Meaning:

Disclose a secret.

Origin

There are two commonly heard suggested origins of this phrase. One relates to the fraud of substituting a cat for a piglet at markets. If you let the cat out of the bag you disclosed the trick - and avoided buying a pig in a poke (bag). This form of trickery is long alluded to in the language and 'pigs in a poke' are recorded as early as 1530.

The other theory is that the 'cat' referred to is the cat o' nine tails, which was used to flog ill-disciplined sailors. Again, this has sufficient historical record to be at least possible. The cat o' nine tails was widely used and was referred to in print many years prior to the first use of 'let the cat out of the bag'. The 'nine tails' part of the name derives from the three strands of cord that the rope lashes were made from. Each of the cords were in turn made from three strands of string. When unbraided a piece of rope separated into nine strings. The 'cat' part no doubt alluded to the scratches that the knotted ends of the lash made on the victim's back, like those from a cat's claws.

Of the two explanations, the 'pig in a poke' derivation is the more plausible, although I can find no direct documentary evidence to link 'letting the cat out of the bag' to the selling of livestock. Versions of the phrase exist in both Dutch - 'Een kat in de zak kopen' and in German - 'Die Katze im Sack kaufen'. These both translate loosely as 'to buy a cat in a bag', i.e. to buy false goods.

The cat o' nine tails story is dubious at best. It is reported that the lashes were sometimes stored in bags, but the suggested nautical punishment origin fails at the critical point, in that it doesn't match the 'disclose a secret' meaning of the phrase.

The first known use of the phrase in print that I have found is in a 1760 edition of The London Magazine:

"We could have wished that the author... had not let the cat out of the bag."

There are several other literary references to the phrase in the 1760s and 1770s, most of which place it in quotations marks - a sure sign of it being not commonly understood and consequently, newly coined.

Cats feature very often in English proverbs:

A cat may look at a king - 1546 All cats are grey in the dark - 1596 Curiosity killed the cat - 1921 There are more ways of killing a cat than choking it with cream - 1855 When the cat is away, the mice will play - 1607

This routine appearance of cats in the language is no doubt a consequence of them being widely kept as mousers and pets in domestic houses. As to 'who let the cats out?', we can't be certain; but it probably wasn't a sailor.

Dictionary reference:

let the cat out of the bag Fig. to reveal a secret or a surprise by accident; to tell people secret information, often without intending to: When Bill glanced at the door, he let the cat out of the bag. We knew then that he was expecting someone to arrive. OR It's a secret. Try not to let the cat out of the bag

NOTE: some of these research items may actaully be based in fact, OR could be from fertile imagination as to how a particular phrase got started. After all, some of these phrases are hundreds of years old, some only fromthe last century. SNOPEs for example, expunges the 'cat o' nine tails' and the 'pig in a poke' references and therory of "let the cat out of  the bag"...see:

http://www.snopes.com/language/phrases/catbag.asp

 

 

[wetidlerjr]

"Good Morning!" from Tipton IN

6/10/13

    

TIPTON IN

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Good morning. It's 65° with 100% humidity and patchy fog. The high will be 92°.


It's a bit early for me. I didn't get much sleep due to my nerve pain cutting up. I've been up since about 3am. Not much planned for today. Just reduce the amount of clutter on the layout. Maybe watch a movie or two. Boy my life is exciting.

[TMarsh]

Good Morning!!!

Coffee and a caramel roll please, thanks.

Isolated showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 79.  Chance of precipitation is 20%.

Galaxy- I’d heard the Cat out of the bag related to the pig in a poke version before. If I were a bettin man, I’d bet  it’s no more than a cat was probably carried around or hidden in a bag and brought in to some form of deception like, I can magically rid your house of mice, and to “let the cat out of the bag” would reveal the truth. You paid this pied piper to rid your house of pests and all he did was bring in a cat.

You’ll see that all over the internet next week.

Welp, I got NOTHING done yesterday  othern cough. Cough, cough, cough. Coughed so much my stomach hurt, back hurts, chest hurts, bronchial tubes hurt…. even my left shoulder hurt. Don’t worry, not contagious, just sinuses. Post Nasal Drip you know. Then it sneakily builds up for awhile (sneaky) then BAM!….nothing works except to wait until night when you can drop some of Mom’s (now Brenda’s ) tonic and a generic Actifed. To dry and open up enough so I can get to sleep. Only something with psudoephedrene (sp?) works for me to open sinuses so I can breathe, and whatever Actifed uses as a drying agent. Works as ateam effort for me cause that’s literally the only medicine, and I do mean the ONLY medicine cause over the years I've tried them all (had it since early teens) OTC or prescription that has ever worked on me. But I can’t take it much or it slows my already slow brain down. Creepy. So I only take it before bed. Usually. Unless it’s reeeeal bad and then I just avoid things where I have to think quickly or react real fast. It's either that or cough the insides of my lungs and air breathing parts away. Hoo boy it gets sore after awhile. Hurts. But it’s not like if I stick my hand on a hot stove I’ll just stand there and say “wow man” for a few seconds before I take my hand away, I’m talking where you actually have to think. Even normal conversation.  

Anyway, enough of that. Went into the trainroom and started to do some shifting around of stuff that is in there that shouldn’t be, but HAS to be because there is nowhere else to put it. I did see where I forgot I made some plaster rock face castings for the peninsula that I can install after trying out the color combos in MR mag a couple months ago. That’s what I’m looking for, a color combo for rocks and concrete. I’m gonna try  Pelle’s mixture for concrete as it closest resembles the concrete I’m used to. But alas, I didn’t get much done in there at all. Maybe later.

Ya’ll have a good day, ya hear!!!!

[MisterBeasley]

Good morning!  And it is a nice one here in Taxachusetts once again. clear skies, high in the 70s, but the rain will be here by evening.  Well, we got a decent Saturday and a fine Sunday, so I can't complain.

I found a problem that's bothered me for a long time.  I've got a turnout way over on the left edge of my layout that causes derailments.  One engine in particular seems to hate it.  (Yeah, it's a steamer.)  Since I'll be putting scenery there soon, I wanted to get it fixed.  It was a problem I've never seen before.  It's a Walthers #4 or #5 turnout, and the divergent side is a sharper curve than the #6s.  The point rails are still straight, and the gauge between the divergent stock rail and the straight point rail got a little too small.  I just bent the point rail to give it a little bit of curvature, and that fixed the problem.  I ran my fussiest steamers round and round in both directions with no derailments.  Yay!

We had a fine lobster dinner with steamers, (the edibile shellfish, not the ones that derail at turnouts,) corn on the cob and garlic bread.  Lobster is $5.99 a pound right now.  It should come down a bit as the summer progresses.  But, I did too much feasting this weekend (SWMBO birthday Thursday, tacos and beer Friday, lobster Saturday and then some Chinese takout Sunday - yikes!  I'm not looking forward to my weigh-in today.

[blownout cylinder]

Good Morning

Back to dull and raining again....and tomorrow as well now...yay

Today is just sittin' 'roun' doin' nuthin' day...my lungs need it...cough cough cough gack hack hack....so I be jus' sittin'....

[howmus]

Mornin' everyone!

Zoe, I'll have a short stack of blueberry pancakes with a side order of bacon please.  yes, leave the NYS Maple Syrup bottle right here on the table for me and bring me some dark roast Marrakesh Express dark roast coffee in my R&GV RR mug, please.

Dull and sprinkly outside here...  Thanks Barry!  The little wheel isn't turning very fast down cellar....  yesterday was a good day.  25+ kWh of power.  Two days before that next to nothing....  Yesterday I got the lawn mowed and did some trimming of the few trees left on the property to make it easier to mow under them.

Didn't get any sleep last night as the cats kept me awake...  Blackie had to visit the vet this morning for his every three months blood sugar test so they were both fasting all night....  So every 15 minutes, about the time I would fall asleep, one or the other of them was pawing me or licking my nose to let me know they didn't have any food and were hungry!  His sugar was 182 which is down from 185...  So he is staying basically the same and since he appears to be doing well otherwise (has gained back all his mobility) she is keeping him on the same dose of meds for now.

Need to clean up some of the piles laying around the dining room/office area today.  The neighborhood is having a mass Garage/Yard/Porch/Deck sale in a couple of weeks and I figured it might be a way to get rid of the boxes of old junk I have from my parents house that nobody in the family wants so I got stuck with because they were too wonderful and meant so much too my Mother garbage I have been storing for over a decade.  Whatever is left after that goes in the dumpster.....

Later!

73

[pascaff*]

  Morning All,

    Currently it is 64 with an expected high of 89 under sunny skies with a slight chance of a T-shower in the afternoon, mostly in the mountains and Lake Tahoe. We may be under a cooling trend.

    Closing shift today. It is also garbage pick up day, so I need to get that out to the curb. Still need to make my lunch and check anti-freeze level in the old truck, cause I think I will take that today. So best be getting on with it.

   Prayers to all in need.

    Paul

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

Hello everybody

Galaxy .... I'm impressed. You responded with explanations of "let the cat out of the bag" in the middle of the night. I agree with Todd the explanation regarding pigs is more likely. ..... It must be challenging for people trying to learn English especially American-English to learn all of the commonly used goofy idioms. ...... Here's another you might have fun with. "Spill the beans". It's an idiom with similar meaning as "let the cat out of the bag", but neither is colse to each other if translated literally. 

So far, I'm busy with non-model-railroad-stuff today.Perhaps, this evening i can get to the layout. 

Cheers. 

[Anonymous]

Heartland Division CB&Q

It must be challenging for people trying to learn English especially American-English to learn all of the commonly used goofy idioms. ......

Challenging is today´s understatement, Garry. You don´t learn them unless you spend a considerable amount of time with the local folks. Unfortunately, quite a number of those phrases have a short half-life - the ones I learned during my high school days are probably completely outdated

Good Evening!

My back is hurting less, thanks to a shot my doc administered into my back. Still don´t know what hurts the most - the pain in the back or the shot against it.

I´ll be taking it lightly for the coming few days. I need to go to Wolfsburg on Thursday to pick up my new little Volkswagen at the factory. Due to the flood, a railroad bridge crossing the Elbe river is closed for traffic, which means I cannot take the early (!!!) morning train, but have to go a day before - sigh! I will stay a night at my son´s and will try to make my way from Hannover to Wolfsburg one way or the other the next day. Have to be there by 7.30am

No MRRing in sight

Blessing to all and a big back to Paul!

[Packer]

Afternoon guys

It's been raining for 2 days straight. ugh... I've been forbidden to work on the styrofoam for the coal loads in the house my my parents... I want to get these done by tomorrow night, but I don't think it'll happen. I have to shape some of them, and paint them all... Hopefully I can knock them out by friday so I can have a coal train for the tallahassee show.

I've been working on weathering the 4 flats for a friend. I'll be done with them tomorrow. 2 are done, but the heavier weathered ones are drying. I've also printed out some numbers for my SD40-2. I found the font and my version or word had it. I just need to glue it to the inside of the numberboard without messing them up. I think a glue stick will work.

Ken, Just make it 10 shipped so it's a nice even number. I can fit the fuel tanks in the box with it and probably get it out first class.

[Burlington Northern #24]

Hey guys dropping by for a bit, final is on thursday. Finally got around to running SP&S #750.

watch?feature=endscreen&v=HJOXJjbQ9U&NR=1

[tcwright973]

On Sunday we were able to go rail fanning and had a pretty nice day. A little overcast, but no rain. Caught 11 trains in 2 hours. The most interesting one was an empty petroleum crude oil train headed west towards Conway Yard. The power was a NS SD60M leading, followed by a BNSF C44-9W and a KCS ES44AC. This is the first KCS in what I think they call the "Belle" scheme that I've seen. It's always interesting to catch run thru power,

Today was very busy, at least for us. We were out the door around 8 o'clock this morning with breakfast being the first order of business. Then grocery shopping at a couple of different stores. After putting the groceries away, we hit the road again. First a stop at the pharmacy, then up the interstate to Barnes & Noble, Costco's and Quaker Steak & Lube for lunch. Then back down the interstate to a hardware store in another part of the County that I like. Not only did I find everything I wanted, but a bunch of other stuff as well. One of the items I picked up was one of those garden hoses they advertise on TV that shrivel all up until you turn the water on. Cost $20.00 but I'll have to wait until I try it out before I know if it was worth it. I also picked up some new lava rocks for the outdoor grill. Used it on Saturday and it smoked like an old steamer going up a grade.

Anyway, we finally got home about 3:30 this afternoon. So I read the daily papers and after I'm done with this, I think I will declare it nap time. The grass needs cut, but it's too wet as it has been raining on and off since last night. We did run into a real heavy thunderstorm while going to the hardware store that was flooding out most of the streets. But that seems to have passed us by now.

Hope everybody has a good one...

[Curt Webb]

Afternoon All,

Got a haircut today, went to the Chiropractor and vacuumed the downstairs. I will vacuum upstairs tomorrow...don't want to over due it you know. The guy came out today for measuring for the wood floor and we discussed the layout room...I will just say MOH is probably not going to be happy.

Gary- Nice videos on YouTube. 

Here is the print I picked up on vacation

 

 

Here is my daughter (teaches at the school) and Quintin at his Kindergarten graduation (pre cast) 

 

 

Everybody have a good night and prayers for those in need.

[blownout cylinder]

*comes in wheezing and coughing...coff coff coff coff coff..gasp WHEEEZE...coff coff coff coff gasp  WHEEEZE....*

Hello...it is now very muggy but cool out here....69F feeling like...would you believe 80F?....great galloping mugginess!!

well, the day of doin' nuthin' got kickstarted by doin' a bunch of runnin' 'roun' doin' stuff by wife who thought I needed some working out...oh joy...oh bliss...at least it only took a couple of hours...now I an sittin' 'roun' doin' nuthin'....