Well, I haven´t been around much in the States, but I was sure an international traveler in my better days!
Just for the purpose of bragging:
There are still lots of white spots on the map, but again, I don´t think I will be able to fill any of the blank spots. Guess I have done my share of traveling. I enjoyed most of the trips, but not all. The only place I felt outright homesick was Japan, but that may have been due to the fact my son was born only a couple of months before I had to go on that assignment.
I don´t even want to think about how much of my life I have waited in some dingy airport lounges waiting for the connecting flight. It must have been years! But in all those years of traveling the Seven Seas, I only once woke up in a hotel bedroom without knowing where I was.
Mornin' everyone!
Zoe, I'll have a bowl of Heritage Flakes Organic Cereal with skim milk and a pot of Seneca Lake Blend Dark Roast Coffee this morning...
Hey Richard, when you lived in NY it wasn't perhaps in Owego, NY was it? I ask because I started my career down the road a bit from there in Waverly, NY. Our school board was made up mostly of IBMers, that didn't think teachers should get paid at all for having fun with kids..... We had gone without a signed contract for two and a half years at one point. We were also the lowest paid teachers association in NYS. It was and still is Illegal for teachers here to go out on strike, but we did push up the pressure as much as we could to get a fair and decent contract and stay within the law. I switched cars with my wife that year, She drove my 1971 Super Beatle and I drove her old 1962 worn out , rusted, Bug that she dubbed "Tinkertoy" because something always needed to get repaired....
I put a large sign on the driver's side car that said, "Can't Go Fast, Can't Go Far! This Thing Here's a Teacher's Car!" Now that was in part directed right to a guy on the board who said we didn't deserve a raise because one of the teachers is driving around in a brand new Lincoln Continental (her husband was a doctor in Elmira.... LOL). When we got right down to the final straw that we had, we decided to picket IBM. IBM didn't take kindly to such things even if we were on public property and would come out and ask why we were there and find out who. Who would be sent home until the problem had been solved one way or another! So I volunteered to "donate" the junky old beat up Bug to the cause and arrange to have it "break down" right in the middle of the main driveway at IBM Owego. News leaked out (on purpose) to the School Board and they settled the contract the night before the planned action....
I was a Bad .... back then I guess. Haven't thought about that in years!!!
Got up at 7:30 this morning to make sure I was up and around when the Driveway guys get here. They haven't gotten here yet, so I've been continuing trying to clean up the house.
Catch you in a bit...
73
Ray Seneca Lake, Ontario, and Western R.R. (S.L.O.&W.) in HO
We'll get there sooner or later!
howmus. . .Been to Ohio, PA, Indiana, and Ill-a-noise. . .
Your post reminded me of when I was a kid living in St. Louis. We were on a family trip, I think headed for Springfield, IL to visit the Abe Lincoln log cabin. As we crossed the Mississippi River, my father said, "Shhh. There's no noise in Ill-a-noy."
My travel to all of these states is a combination of a number of things. As a child, we lived in Utah, New York, Missouri, and California. (My father worked for IBM when it stood for "I've Been Moved.") Whenever he was transfered, we made a road trip of it. Also, we had an aunt that lived in Miami, so a roadtrip to her house from NY gave me the eastern seaboard states. Add to this my job that has involved coverage in a number of states (that's how I hit Hawaii and Alaska) and I am up to 46 states and the District of Columbia. I have not been much of the international traveler, but I have been to Canada; Mexico; Brazil; Peru; Germany (yup, Hamburg, Ulrich), both East and West at the time; Denmark; and China. I suppose I could try to get to Africa and Australia (and Antartica???).
Richard
Good morning ....... Coffee and a donut please.
Tom in PA .... Good to see you again. Feel free to be here more often.
Ken .... Nice kind of job if you can work on trains while there.
Ha anyone heard from Todd of IL lately ?
GARRY
HEARTLAND DIVISION, CB&Q RR
EVERYWHERE LOST; WE HUSTLE OUR CABOOSE FOR YOU
Morning all
Flo stack the pancakes high for any and all. Giv'em strawberry, blueberry,chocolate chip or what ever strikes their fancy. Keep their coffee or milk glasses full...Send me the tab. I will be back later after lunch to pay up. I have two insopections today, a walk through and a home inspector really dislike those these idiots they do not have half a clue of what they are looking at !
TTYL or OOOroo
YGW
Good Morning!
Just dropping by for a cup of coffee before I hit the road. Have an appointment at the hospital for some further checking into the cause of me collapsing on Saturday.
RideOnRoadNow there are only four states that have not seen the soles of my shoes--Maine, North Dakota, Alabama, and Mississippi.
I am not anywhere near this!
I have been to
in the West, but only
in the East. Add to that Hawaii and that´s a score of 14 out of 52 a rightfully earned "F". I am afraid I won´t be able to add more states to this list.
Given that I am full from dinner in the real world, could I have a creme de menth (non-alcoholic, of course) sundae this evening? Thank you.
Got to play on the layout again this afternoon. I managed to get one more crossing done. I discovered a few problems in the process. I discovered that somehow the track over the years had moved in such a way that the joints were not solid. In that process of changing the track, I broke a terminal joiner. Thankfully, I had one I could raid from the expansion storage bin. I also discovered that the turnouts in the area of the crossings were not sitting level. That led to replacing a section of the cork roadbed. Again, thankfully, I had about a half a box of cork roadbed sitting around so that I could pull a piece from it to fix that. That was a very much unplanned fix but it makes stuff work better. (Edit: I neglected to mention that I also discovered I had built the two existing crossings differently that I built the new ones. The existing ones had the ends of the boards lined up. The new ones had the ends offset. I haven't at this point come up with a good excuse to explain away the error.)
I was looking at my freight car pile and again discovered that a flat car needed to come home for some fixes: another dose of Micro-Sol (some of the decals needed to be soaked again) and one of the ACI labels somewhere along the line has disappeared. Oh well. Another project at home.
Hi everyone,
Hope everyone had good weekend. Still looking over the week ends posts but looks to be some really nice modeling going on. Didn't get to any RR this week or week end but over on the "which trestle" post I put up my home made chop it fixture for basswood. Busy with firewood all weekend, got about 2 cords so far. Happy modeling everyone and see you later this week.
Ken
Shanny10
B&O, C&O, PRR
Just lovin trains
Wow they really are white deer! http://senecawhitedeer.org/
We have some piebald deer, Mostly white with brown patches. They are not considered to be genetically healthy and are half the size of regular whitetails.
Ulrich I have to agree with you. There are way too many posts that border on trolling and yet they seem to be popular threads. I've been tempted to post asking why the OP wants to start such a negative thread. I've worked with people who strive to be negative and it rubs off on everyone.
My wife and I celebrated the aniversary of our 1st date on Saturday. We dined at our favorite outdoor seafood restaurant. It is within walking distance of our house and we walked in 70% humidity and temps in the high 80's. I drank plenty of water and only 2 beers but it sucked the energy our of me. If we had a tile floor I would have layed on it like a hot dog. I did not have heat exhaustion, but it was probably close. If you are around anyone who becomes confused in the heat, that is a true medical emergency.
BTW that was a cute dog one of you found. If you want to see some heart breaking stories, check out Coonhound Rescue on Facebook. A whole bunch of dogs were on death row on Thursday night. I hope some of them got rescued.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Evenin' folks!
Janie, a tall glass of lemonade would be nice right about now.
Man! I am beat.... and still am only half way done with the cleaning. Maybe I should clean more often and not once every 6 months or so... Tomorrow the driveway(s) should get sealed and if all goes well the driveways should be useable for Wednesay evening when the meeting is scheduled.... That is the plan anyway.
tcwright973Ray - There was a nice little article in today's edition of a local paper concerning the herd of white deer over on the old Seneca Army Depot.
Hey Tom! Good to see you! Yes most of the folks around here are pleased with the choice that was made for the buyer. He was not the high bidder but had the best plan for the land and at least is concerned about the dwindling herd of White Deer over there. I have only seen a couple in my last several trips out to Boy Scout Camp. Used to see a dozen or so most every time. There is a lot of factors in the size of the herd. One is that there are also a lot of coyotes over there. Another is that the herd is by the very nature of being pretty much stuck on a small area of land means the herd is severly inbred. If they hadn't been stuck in the bounds of the fencing at the depot they would have never occured like that.
Cool they had an article about it way down where you live!
OK... You got over to the Depot to see a White Deer??? Hmmmmmm.... The Depot is only about a dozen miles from Penn Yan, but that means you had to swim across Seneca Lake or have been hauling a boat and then walked.... Ahem! There are only two other ways to get from Penn Yan to the Seneca Army Dpeot.... One, the short route, happens to be through Geneva, where I live! You do that again, and I hope you will get in touch with me so I can give you a 50¢ tour of the SLOW. Ya hear!
Speaking of deer...... I found out what has been eating the tops of my Snow Peas out in the raised bed gardens.... In the raised bed two over from the peas I found, when I was watering tonight, a nice perfectly formed deer hoof print! Sheesh! Probably one of the ones that comes mid winter to eat the berries on my Flowering Quince tree.... I am using old tomato cages (real old, BTW. I haven't grown tomatos since my wife died. She died 29 years ago this August).
Later!
Evening Dinners
Flo, and a chainsaw please.
Work was slow like I knew it would be. Still a pain in the Cabosse Day. The customer came back from last night to set up there pucharces with Well Fargo. Seems they forgot they had the Credit ID Locked! What should have taken 10 minutes turned into a 1.5 hour ordeal! Luckly during that time I had no other customers come in.
Yard Wars Got another 16 feet of old fences and post cut down. Took me about a hour, maybe a little less. Got the construction fence up. It really is looking better out in the back! I still have about 24 feet to take down, I hope to get this done on my 2 days off this week.
Hope to get the new fence boards painted Monday before work. I would like to have them up this week. Need to pick where I want the new rear gate for the back fence. I wanted to be able to keep the back fence mantained with out walking around the block to get to it.
Train Front Did get a few rolling stock off the RIP Track. I wanted to take the never ran PK 2 B&O GP 7 to work Monday and hard wire the decoder. I am pretty sure I have everything I need to do it. Just need to make the time to pack the stuff up to take with me.
All so need to make the time to get the Snap Switch Motor working. I think it is the power switch to the motor it self. I know I have one, just need to dig for it.
YGW I hope to send you something snail mail Monday.
Well th BBQ is just about done! Western style bone less ribs and chicken breast. So I am out of here.
GP 7 I hope to have running.
I hate Rust
Ray - There was a nice little article in today's edition of a local paper concerning the herd of white deer over on the old Seneca Army Depot. Briefly it discussed that the current owner has taken an interest in the herd and has planted 15 acres of soybeans to improve their diet. He has also set aside 1,500 acres as a wildlife preserve. The article also mentioned that the size of the herd has fallen from about 200 8 years ago to about 75 today.
I had a fleeting glimpse of one a couple of years ago on one of our annual wine runs.
Tom
Pittsburgh, PA
RideOnRoad Last week I was in Minneapolis for w*%k and had some time to kill before my flight home. Mrs. ROR was with me and when we realized Wisconson was only 45 minutes away, we decided to go to Hudson, Wisconsin for dinner. Neither one of us had been to Wisconsin before. Now there are only four states that have not seen the soles of my shoes--Maine, North Dakota, Alabama, and Mississippi.
Last week I was in Minneapolis for w*%k and had some time to kill before my flight home. Mrs. ROR was with me and when we realized Wisconson was only 45 minutes away, we decided to go to Hudson, Wisconsin for dinner. Neither one of us had been to Wisconsin before. Now there are only four states that have not seen the soles of my shoes--Maine, North Dakota, Alabama, and Mississippi.
Richard .... I have been in all but two states, Idaho and Utah. I suppose I should make a trip tht includes those two states. ... In recent years, most trips in the West have been to see our daughter in AZ.
Ray .... Cute cat pix.
Evenin' Folks!
I have finally finished cleaning the inside of all the windows in the dining room/computer room area of the house. Only took me 2 days, about 8 rolls of paper towels, two bottles of Store Brand window cleaner, and a lot of elbow grease. Two walls almost the entire outside walls of the room are large piutcure windows. Of course to do this also requires a major moving of plants and furniture away from the windows. There are 4 windows (two on each side of the 4' x 5.5' picture windows) That have to be unlatched and partially raised to clean the outside at the same time. Otherwise the screen gets in the way. Hopefully in my travels tomorrow I will get a new squeegee and get the outside of them done.... It has been close to decade since I did that.... Then I might be able to once again see out of them.
I will make a run over to get a few groceries after supper tonight, then move the EVSE from one side of the house to the other so when the guys come to seal the driveway tomorrow I will be able to plug in the PiP when I get back home from having it serviced in Canandaigua tomorrow afternoon.
ROR, Wow you have gotten around I'd say! I have at least driven through all the states on the eastern seaboard and either camped in or drove through all the New England states. Been to Ohio, PA, Indiana, and Ill-a-noise. But that is about it. Don't have any plans to get to any others at this point, but who knows? There quite a few good RR places around the coiuntry I would like to visit before I get too old to be able to as well.
While I was cleaning the windows, I noticed a bunch of wasps trying to get in a spot under the eaves on the deck side. They have been going in there and back out all day, so I will wait until after sunset and hit it with some wasp spray..... May want to sit out there with some company, and don't need them flying around.............
Time to get supper I think. Catch you later!
Mornin'...... Hmmmmmm.... Well, Aftyenoon folks!
Chloe, I could use another refill of my Marrakesh Express Dark Roast Coffee.... What? I drained the 30 cupper??? Well make me another one. Gonna be a long day.
Yesterday I drove once again to Auburn in hopes to find the Tropical Fish Emporium open. Nope! May be open today I guess from the note attached to the door. I actually got out and decided to read the fine print on the sheet stuck to the door. The guy is going out of business after 44 years. He is a retired Science Teacher in the area. I'm wondering if something happened to the elderly lady who has worked there for him all that time, or he just figured it wasn't worth it anymore. I had heard the business was barely paying the bills about a year ago. The sign said he is mainly selling all the used equipment and what little other in stock items he has. Pity.... That was a great store where you always got good service and healthy fish! I did a Google search and found a place in Fairport, NY that appears to be OK. They also service tanks in businesses and homes of the people with a lot more $$$$ than I have. So they should know what they are doing, I guess. I shall see.
Heartland Division CB&QHowever, the greatest pleasures in this hobby are derived from what we build more than what we own.
Garry, spot on, my friend! At least that is what matters to me. What is important to me in all things is what I do and not what I own.... For me the fun in the hobby is the creation of the layout more than how much I have spent on it. To each their own I guess, but we truely agree on this one. I would much rather have someone say, "You MADE that?" than, "OMG you bought a........"
I did spend a couple hours cleaning, changing some water, and other stuff with my main aquarium yesterday after I got back home. I still have the dining room, kitchen, and living rooms to finish cleaning. Got into cleaning the inside of the dining room windows (large picture windows) and want to get that finished this afternoon while the wash is finishing uo downstairs... Want to have the place presentable when the Troop/Pack committee of the handicapped units I work with come over for a meeting wednesday evening.
Oh Brother Elias, good to see you. We miss you when you are hiding in wait for prey! Even the Boys asked about you:
Manét wants me to mail him out to you for a visit. Him can cheer you up I'm sure!
Better get back to w*rk!
yougottawantaWell it's late and I am gonna turn in. Haven't seen Henry or our down under friends ? LION are you hiding in here ?
LION is indeed hiding in here. Him has been taciturn of late. Too hot to leave the cage.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
Good morning everybody !
.....
yougottawanta FRRRkid your post made me smile. It is human nature to want more. I believe it was John D Rockefeller who replied a question of "when you you have enough?" He replied" when I get just a little bit more" I have over 200 engines. I still find engine's I want. Of late I have been more successful about curtailing my purchases at least until I get my hobby room built.
FRRRkid your post made me smile. It is human nature to want more. I believe it was John D Rockefeller who replied a question of "when you you have enough?" He replied" when I get just a little bit more" I have over 200 engines. I still find engine's I want. Of late I have been more successful about curtailing my purchases at least until I get my hobby room built.
However, the greatest pleasures in this hobby are derived from what we build more than what we own. .... I think the Economic Law of Diminishing Returns is applicble to purchasing model locomotives. .... After buying a large number of engines, the next purchase is not very satisfying.
I have a large fleet myself. After I converted my layout to DCC, many locomotives remain on the shelf without decoders installed.
Good morning all.
Flo, I will do scrambled eggs, a couple slices of bacon, wheat toast, and a OJ please. Thanks.
Weather: Cooler yesterday and today, forecast is for sunny skies today, with a middle 70's high. Thunderstorms on Friday night were on the strong side, but no issues from them here. Other places did get hit harder, but nothing too severe. Forcast has it warming back up after today, 80's tomorrow, and to be back into 90's starting Tuesday. Hot, humid, unstable weather starting mid-week, with chances for pop-up storms starting Wednesday ongoing through rest of next week, with a cold front Friday dropping temps back to reasonable upper 70's and lower 80's, but that starts getting too far out to accurately forecast, especially when the weather man is wrong over half of the time anyways! (Must be nice to be able to be so wrong so often and still have a paying job...)
W**k - More extra hours yesterday, as the tux appointment for *one* person for a upcoming wedding turned into *four* people, who couldn't decide on what colors they actually were getting. 1&1/2 hours later they left, not having selected anything! Did $1400 in sales myself, just under 5K for the store. I got zero numbers though, going 0-for-5 on new accounts, and striking out every time on other number sets. Today starts another contest, with spiff money per number gained, hoping that the lack of yes's changes quickly. They are starting to transition me into more of a manager role, and less of a sales role, so actually making less money now than I had been due to spiffs and bonus money. (Last months new accounts bonus alone was just shy of tripple digits, not counting any other bonuses. So far this month, new acounts bonus is single digits, compared with double digits already this time last month...)
Well, got to run, everyone have a good day!
Edit: Top of page, so I guess today's tab is on me. Everybody oreder up!
Ricky W.
HO scale Proto-freelancer.
My Railroad rules:
1: It's my railroad, my rules.
2: It's for having fun and enjoyment.
3: Any objections, consult above rules.
Well, I decided to bite the bullet. I went ahead and bought that SD45 I was looking at. Ironically enough, the engine happens to be a model of the NP SD45 that was recently placed in a museum at St. Paul, MN. Hopefully, the next time I go to a swap meet, I won't buy any more engines. (Twenty-seven diesels {counting the new SD45} and 3 2-6-0 steamers should be quite enough!)
Freight cars ... será un caballo de un color diferente (will be a horse of a different color). Y sí, hablo español práctico. (And yes, I speak practical Spanish.) Todo hasta luego. (See you all later.)
Yaaaawwwwwnnnnnn
Been a busy day. Yard wars continue- in the heat. Finished mowing. Then finished picking up wood yard debris left by the previous owner and put it in the "to be burned pile" grandkids are with me for the weekendâș Does an old heart good to hear " Grandpa !!!!" With all of the excitement and love too Yep that is good stuff.
Well it's late and I am gonna turn in. Haven't seen Henry or our down under friends ? LION are you hiding in here ?
TTYL
Flo, I will take a and I will pay the bar tap tonight.
Work Front While I was not busy I sure cannot complain. Well till 15 minutes before closing! Couple came in 15 minutes before closing looking for a futon. They found one they both liked, but I could not get them to pull the trigger. Finally after 5 minutes after closin they where ready, BUT. They wanted to use Wells Fargo, while that is sort of a pain, not that bad. Untill the Husband did not want to open a new Well's Fargo account, they all ready had one.
So I did a name search to find to find there account number. Never do a name search for John Williams with Well's Fargo! After the VER-A-Phone (no real computer in this company ) printed out 100 Johm Williams I unplugged the darn thing, no stop button so they could leave a deposit. (Phone line was tied up with the VER-A-Phone) I got out of the places 30 minutes late! But over all it was a soild day with a tad over $3000.00 in sales. Best part, I made a extra $165.00 in spiffs!
V8Vega15 MPG in that Pathfinder, does it have a 427 CID engine?
Dennis No the Pathfinder does not have a 427 in it. The pathfinder is way Faster! Soory could not help my self with that one being a Mopar Guy. But moe than likely it is the way she drives. I drive a old 94 Town Car with a 4.6 liter in it. I drive 10 miles too work with 18 stop lights. I watch the stop lights and the instant MPG read out and get between 19 MPG on a bad day, 20.2 MPG on a OK day and some times 22.1 MPG if the stop light gods smile on me.
Well I am beat.
Evening. A quick stop by after a crazy week at w**k; and the heat did not help much either.
Ulrich - sorry to hear about your collapse at the bar-b-que and glad that it was not any of the major things we associate with something of that nature. Hope you get a good rest and look in on you tomorrow.
Speaking of rest, will just kick back a bit in a quiet booth.
All the best.
Joe F
V8Vega 15 MPG in that Pathfinder, does it have a 427 CID engine?
15 MPG in that Pathfinder, does it have a 427 CID engine?
LOL... Ah, no It has a V6. Have no idea what displacement. They should get 20mpg around town, but she says it is more like 15 the times she has checked...
The PiP is supposed to get 51MPG around town with gas only (That is when the hybred is the most efficient) and does when I have made trips in the city with no EV left (sometimes even more. Just depends on the circumstances.)
Good work, Richard! I rode a couple of hours, but it was non-strenous. It was just rail-trail riding, mostly paved but part dirty. It's only 63 degrees today, as opposed to the low 90s we had earlier in the week. I feel like I've been hiding in the woods on the trails all week to beat one kind of weather or another. Hopefully I can get out for a longer road ride next week.
No rain so far, but I think we'll have a wet day tomorrow.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I am hungry and a little sleepy. I started my Saturday ride a little before 5:00am to bet the heat. It was 85F when I started and was pushing 90F when I finished 2.5 hours later. The good news is that it has dried out (<20% humidity), but it was still hot. Between what I drank on the ride, and what I have drunk since, I have consumed about 84 ounces, trying to stay hydrated. I burned about 1450 calories on today's ride, so I decided I earned a slice of apple pie for breakfast.
Good Evening!
We had an enjoyable BBQ with friends until I collapsed for an unknown reason. Our friends called 112 and an emergency respond team arrived a few minutes later. I was back into life shortly before they arrived, just feeling a little dizzy. It wasn´t a false alarm, but it was not heart attack nor a stroke - so the say. Petra took me home and I have had a rest on the sofa up until a few moments ago.
I am not feeling really well, still a little shocked and worried!
Ray - the part of me who spent the better part of his work life as a financial controller would tell you that you need to factor in a number of cost you have not accounted for in your calculation and that you need to compare the same kind of vehicle, but the other part of me tells you that you are not that far off with your calculation. Bottom line, driving "green" does not cost more that being a "litterbug" - it´s about even! And that´s perfectly OK!
Not that I can stay for long, but I figured I would poke my head in this morning.
In modeling news, I have made an inquiry on the loco that I mentioned wanting earlier in the month. (Hopefully, the last engine I get. Not that anyone needs as many engines as I have.) We shall see what happens.
Me again.....
OK, I don't want to beat this to death, but.... (Whenever someone uses the but, ignore everything that is said before it!) Several people both on line and in person, have told me again and again that since the car costs $5,000 more than a comparable car to start with (what ever that means) I will never make up the difference in costs driving a Plug in Hybred...
I sat down and did some cypherin' comparing my PiP to my DIL's Nissan Pathfinder. Both are 5 seaters, and the Pathfinder has about 20% more room for stuff I guess. I have 40,100 miles on the PiP. I plan to put another 25,000 or so on it before I trade it in on some other car. I have gotten 75mpg ave. over that 40,100 miles. She tells me she is getting about 15mpg with the Pathfinder. So with that in mind.... (Yes, I know it may not be a "Proper" comparison, it may give some people a better idea of real world properties.)
The Pip has been getting 33% of its miles from electric (mosty generated on the roof of my house). So 67% of the miles used gas. 40,100 miles divided by 75 means I used 534.67 Gallons of gas so far. Average cost of gas around here since 2012 has been about $2.50 per gallon. So I have spent about $1,337 on gasoline to power the car. The car has also used about $430 worth of electric (@ .15 per kWh current cost.). I have spent about $1767 for fuel for the PiP so far.
Using the same math for her Pathfinder, she says she is getting 15 mpg with the way she drives. That means if she puts 40,100 miles on the car she will use a little over 2,673 gal. of gas. @ $2.50 per gallon that equals $6,683 in gasoline costs to go the same distance.
So it will cost her $4,916 more to run her car than my PiP! Both cars cost about the same new.... (In fact hers was a couple thousand more actually.)
OK, now I will shut up about it!