I'm a little burnt out for the day working with foam from this morning.
I went to switch gears after lunch to make some styrene bents for my long girder plate bridge. At one time I had such a big supply of styrene I didn't think I'd ever run out. I'm out of 282 H Beam and 90583 U channel.
This means I need to throw on a mask and go dig through the Plastruct & Evergreen racks at the hobby store
Wish me well
TF
P.S. I like the view of the Caboose across the lake Ed
Good afternoon folks —
A Gorgeous day here in NE Ohio. In the mid-70s if you can believe that!
Most of the leaves have left their branches and await the mower/vacuum once the ground dries out a bit.
By-the-pond by Edmund, on Flickr
I'm blowing out the water lines in the caboose and was struck at how nice things look so I grabbed the camera
Gathering more firewood, just in case. Rain and cold is on the way for the weekend so it is back to the basement for me. What ever will I do? I just got a new package containing dozens of Vallejo paints. As my Pollyscale gets used up or dries up I'm looking for an alternative.
I hope everyone is getting along OK. Thanks for the cookies, Ray! I'll take TWO little ones and leave the big one for you
Cheers, Ed
Thanks for the geography lesson Kevin My stepdad the marine sergeant was Swedish. He was my dad more than the real one was
He was a good man. A tough guy and pretty Stern but I learned a lot of Life values from him.
Judy switched from turkey burger to chicken burger not too long ago David. I got to say I like that stuff much better. It isn't often we eat real hamburger anymore. Here and there over the Kingsford though. There is no substitute for that one.
I've always loved my pulled pork. I sure would be curious to try that pulled chicken burger of yours. Sounds Like you may have that one down over there
Evening all. It's Friday. Friday is burger night. Every Friday is burger night. Tonight I shall make a pulled chicken burger with wedges and slaw.
Take care everyone.
David
To the world you are someone. To someone you are the world
I cannot afford the luxury of a negative thought
Track fiddlerI'm not too good in my geography but I do believe Norway is right next door to Finland.
Sweden is mostly in between Finland and Norway, but they do share a border way up North near the Barents Sea.
Many people are unaware, but Norway actually hooks all the way around Finland to the North and also borders Russia on the Murmansk Oblast.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
I envy you that you can run Ray! I used to love to run and ran a lot. Since my surgical knee went quite south, I don't dare anymore but still love to ride my bike.
Good thing you only allotted yourself one cookie. I don't very often have that kind of stuff in the house because I seem to lose my moderation with that sort of thing. If one was to eat that whole plate of cookies like I probably would They'd have to be doing a heck of a lot of running after that
Thanks for the cookie
Afternoon folks!
cats think well of meI elected to cancel my gym membership as I'm just not going since they opened back up, and though I'd like to go, I'm just feeling a bit leery due to current events, plus I work in healthcare and cannot risk getting people there ill. I'll just have to get more disciplined to do exercises at home. When things with Covid clear up, I'll go back as I did like having a place to swim, lift weights, and more.
TF said: "I could definitely use a workout program. My lifetime of construction I considered my gym. Now that I'm semi-retired I find my muscles more sore when I do nothing then when I used to use them more."
I very much miss running over at the college fieldhouse here in Geneva. They have not yet opened to the public again but have told us we will get a year free membership when they do. Over at the fieldhouse three days a week I ran just under a 10k (30 laps of the track). I am now running a 5k outside usually about 5 days a week. Weather has not been co-operative this last week so I have only done that a couple days. Have it half done this morning and will get out and finish it this afternoon as the temp is in the mid 70's and no rain!
Been too busy doing other things (properly masked and socially distanced) to spend any time on the layout. My NMRA Division has been publishing close to 3 times the # of newsletters since the lockdown started, which is nice unless you happen to be the editor! I spend about 5 hours a week now Zooming with various organizations (Church, Scouts, NMRA, and family) which takes, ah, well, 5 hours or so. Making tme to get together with a wonderful lady I like a lot as well. I have been cleaning out 35 years of accumuated "STUFF" (I can't use the word in here I want to....) and still have a lot to go.
Have to bake some butterscotch Toll House Cookies today for a couple of family things coming up this weekend and next week. Have some!
Ah.... No! Since I only get 1 now, you can't have the one reserved for me...... (grin)
73
Ray Seneca Lake, Ontario, and Western R.R. (S.L.O.&W.) in HO
We'll get there sooner or later!
That's a good point Charlie! I'm not too good in my geography but I do believe Norway is right next door to Finland. I used to have a friend that lived in Thief River Falls many of years ago. I don't remember if he was Finish or Norwegian. He used to say "Yeah sure you betcha!"
I had a bad headlight in my U36B Bicentennial. The transmission was also slipping and I managed to take apart my Grandfather's old model of the same and use the parts in there to repair it N scale, believe me it was extremely tedious. I was kind of proud when I finished that one up.
As far as the squirrel in the bird feeder, my friend Erv has a lot of problems with that at his house. He got himself of soft pellet air pistol that shoots the little rubber BB's. He doesn't want to hurt the little critters you know, just scare them off. It's pretty effective and kind of funny too. It doesn't take them too long to come back for another round though
He had to cut some metal and put it around the holes in the birdhouses. The squirrels were chewing the holes bigger and moving into those too
Good Morning,
TF, that weather guy could also be of Norwegian background as our friends in Thief River Falls say Ufta.
Dave, we couldn't just fill in above a door. Our house isn't big but it was a custom,architect design. The original owner was a prof who had it designed by a fellow who later did some major stuff here such as the art gallery. The house style is mid-century modern and all of the doors line up in height with windows so any variation would stick out like a sore humb. We had a new storm door made in'92 that cost $800. Everything in this house is like that. When we re-did the bathroom a few years ago we had to get a custom vanity built as none of the ready made ones would fit.
Ran the Pacfic yesterday. The headlight stopped working. Must be a connection issue as it has a led that the brass guy installed. He will fix it but it is an hour round trip to his house. I will leave it for now.
I'm typing this sitting on a sofa in the basement watching a squirrel eating at a bird feeder. There is a row of windows 2 1/2 × 21' facing south so it is very bright down here especially in winter. The yard is dug below grade for the windows. That is where the pond and waterfall are located. The waterfall and pond were constructed with rocks. Some of the rocks are really boulders that weigh several tons. That is what happens when your landscaper is from Switzerland.
Sorry for rattling on so long.
CN Charlie
Alvie's a Post Hog Two consecutive posts in a row earned you the title. I enjoyed Mike's pictures as well, and the others.
I could definitely use a workout program. My lifetime of construction I considered my gym. Now that I'm semi-retired I find my muscles more sore when I do nothing then when I used to use them more.
It's not like you can go ride your bike in the winter as I enjoy in the summer. Maybe I should think about getting a snowmobile Riding those things radically uses a lot of muscles. And they're fun, it's been a lot of years since I've had one.
Lunch time! I'm hungry already. I think all this cutting and fitting of foam this morning has worked me up an appetite here. I got some rare roast beef the other day and some swiss cheese. I'm thinking of sauteing up some green peppers, onions, mushrooms and building me a Philly cheese steak with a little awe juice on the side to dip it in
Good morning everyone,
Flo, a coffee, hazelnut creamer, and a doughnut please.
I elected to cancel my gym membership as I'm just not going since they opened back up, and though I'd like to go, I'm just feeling a bit leery due to current events, plus I work in healthcare and cannot risk getting people there ill. I'll just have to get more disciplined to do exercises at home. When things with Covid clear up, I'll go back as I did like having a place to swim, lift weights, and more.
Now that the weather is getting a bit cooler and I'll be spending less time outside, I'm bringing the trains out of storage and getting to work on them. It'll be sometime before I can rejoin a local train club, but I'll content myself with getting some trains worked on and having my collection ready to run in the future. Namely, I'll be checking for broken or missing detail parts, touching up paint, and making sure things run. I checked out a new, to me, hobby store, White Rose Hobbies in York PA a few days ago, and enjoyed that they had a lot of great stuff in stock for pretty good prices. I'll keep going back as I far prefer shopping in a store.
Alvie
These pictures are excellent! Thank you Water Level Route for posting them. I'm a fan of Bells Brewery as well and pick up there beers here and there.
Good morning
Just finished spending a couple days with Judy on her two days off. The Weathers a bit unseasonable up here so we stayed in and made soups, did a puzzle and watched some movies. We had a record snow storm of 5 inches on Tuesday and a thunderstorm with a snow-sleet mix on Thursday. Still sloppy out today too.
The weather guy on Channel 5 said it's a bit unseasonable like a mixture of fall and winter. He went on to say Vinter if you will and made me laugh. A few sentences later he used the word Uftda! That meteorologists is definitely a finlander, do you think?
Judy had some pretty good picks but I think mine were better most of the time. A few of her movies got a little too chicky flicky for me. To solve that problem I just slid over to the layout and started cutting and putting together some more foam
I like the red accent door Dave. I had a burgundy oval window front door once.
So it's getting cold down in Florida Kevin? 81 sounds just terrible! Perfect time of year for you indeed. I wish I was smart enough to be a seasonal resident of Florida. Sometimes I think about how the birds are smarter than us humans up here. They are smart enough to fly south for the winter as we are not
Judy's work is slowing way down and mine has for a while as it always does later fall-early winter. That don't confront me anymore like it used to.
We are both really needing a vacation and trying to think of creative ways to do it safely. We are thinking of looking into renting an RV to do another tour of the South. I definitely know renting one of these things will be more than a rental car plus the extra expense of fuel but maybe not much more than all the hotel rooms at $150 a night that we won't need. Looks to be more like a wash.
Well since Judy's back at work today, I'm going to go back to cutting and putting together more foam.
Have a great day gentleman
Good morning everyone. Flo, can I get an order of french toast with a side of sausage and a grape juice please?
No live action, but the presenter offers some good information on the Copper Range Railroad in Michigan.
Kevin, I hope you liked the Oberon. It's one of Bell's most popular. My favorite is their porter, but I prefer dark beers in general. Hoping to get a chance to offer up some more this weekend from Beer City USA, otherwise known as Grand Rapids.
Happy Friday everyone!
Mike
I have been trying to find some interesting videos of freight trains in Michigan. This one is a good start:
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
There is the most wonderous cloud formation in the sky right now, but it is barely visible due to the low light.
I tried to take a picture, but it is just too dark for anything to show up. It looks like two giant crossed feathers.
Thank you everyone for all the compliments on our new front door!
We got a reality check this morning. It rained last night and the new red door shows where every drop of muddy water that splashed up from the stone front step landed on the door. The old door had a beige storm door in front of it so the water drops never showed. The new door is going to require constant cleaning! I reminded Dianne to not use Windex to clean the painted surfaces because it might damage the paint. Don't some modellers use Windex to strip paint and clean air brushes?
CNCharlieWe still have our original front door which is now 60 years old. It still fits fine and is in good shape. I cringe to think about ever replacing it as it isn't a standard size. It is 2" taller than standard. When we did the back doors it cost us a bundle as we had to get custom wood ones done.
Hi CN Charlie,
Our old door frame was 84" tall, which I thought was about 2" taller than a standard door. I envisaged having to get out the drywall compound to fill a gap at the top of the new door. I was very pleasantly surprised when the new door fit the space almost exactly. The top of the frame was about 1" lower than the original. That was easy to hide by using 3 5/8" trim. The other difference was that the sill is about 1" taller than the old one was. We have a very small strip of drywall above the trim that needs to be painted, but that is it.
Cheers!!
Good afternoon from the warm and sunny as usual West Coast.
Mike, those are very cool pics of Lake Gichegumee, I bet it would be cool to dive along those cliffs.
Dave, I like the door. We just had the house painted and the wife wanted something exciting done to the door, however, she will have to do it herself as she could not make up her mind when the painters were here.
Dave, I see you are only 35 minutes from Rapido! Lucky guy.
I see the container with the RDCs has arrived, so I should be able to pick mine up next week. Then it is the F7Bs next month.
Charlie, my sister has an old oddball door and her husband is putting a pattern on it using moulding and man what an improvement. It was going to be too expensive to upgrade because of how old it is.
So I cut the moulding for the longest bathroom reno in history. I ran an airline into the bathroom and the job was done in about 3 minutes with my pin nailer. The wife comes in and says the TV cable is out in the family room. So I start troubleshooting and eventually swapped out the cable box and still nothing. Then it dawned on me that maybe I hit the HDMI wire with a pin nail. The wire runs verticle in the wall and I put 4 pin nails in a four-foot strip, what are the odds?
I have been putting 24 gauge HDMI cable through the house as I have been doing upgrades and this was a 40' cable that I had to go down to the crawlspace to pull out of the wall hoping there was enough slack to investigate. Long story short there was a hole in the cable. Two steps forward, one step back.
Our house is slowly becoming a smart house and I actually like it. I scoffed at first but once you remember you have it, you use it and I do quite a bit.
The pups have their eyes open and are starting to walk. The wife post FB videos and I am not sure if I can or how to post those here.
Kevin, your seasonal visitors from Canada will be greatly reduced this year with the border being closed. Enjoy the peace and quiet. I have had very good luck with the few contractors I have had over the years, I still like to do things myself though as I am fussy and think I do a better job than most.
Ken, sorry to hear about the issues on the home front, this covid thing can be hard on some. Neither my wife, kids or myself have been the least bit stressed by it. Other than in class University not happening we don't notice much difference in our semi-rural lifestyle. One thing we noticed is how much less money we spend having taken no trips and not eating out a lot. The gas bill for the cars has been cut a huge amount.
If things got real bad, we have water and can hunt and fish until the grocery stores replenish, although there have been no shortages of anything where we are. I would be uneasy if I wasn't self-sufficient. There are lots of groceries that walk through the yard every day.
I was on the phone with the IRS for an hour or so yesterday, had a great knowledgeable person that answered the phone on the second ring. They had asked me to call as this estate I am looking after still has a few bumps in the road to deal with. She said to me "are all Canadians as smart as you"? I said I am one of the dumber ones. She said it was the easiest conversation she has had in years not having to explain even the simplest of things. I just got lucky as my eyes usually glaze over on such subjects.
Well, the wife ordered a new HDMI cable and Amazon will deliver it tomorrow so it will be back down to the crawl space. It isn't that bad as it is warm, dry, has lights and a concrete floor. I just hope I don't get incinerated by all that foam on the walls.
Someone brought me a bottle of rum and crown royal on Sunday, I will use the Kracken to drown my HDMI sorrows.
All the best to all.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
Water Level RouteTop of the page! Since I signed off with cheers, belly up to the bar for one of Michigan's craft beers from Bell's Brewery in Kalamazoo, one of the many great ones in Michigan.
Thank you! I have had Bell's Oberon before. They must have had it in Total Wine once.
I heartily agree on the bold door.
I also like the asymmetry of it. Different.
Ed: I really like all those doors and the windows overhead are really interesting. Definitely East and probably South.
How about ACL purple, which is pretty much lavender. If not, Signal Green is just fine.
Jim (with a nod to Mies Van Der Rohe)
I don't mind a "stand out" door as long as it is done such that it doesn't clash with the rest of the house. Dave, I like your door! My house is light gray with white trim, so we painted the front doors black. Highly contrasting, but complimentary. My sister-in-laws old house was light blue with white trim and black shutters. She painted her door a bright purple. Looked terrible IMO. It wasn't so much that it was purple as the shade of it.
Speaking of colors, we've already seen fall photos of Michigan so how about some on the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. Found on the shore of Lake Superior in the center of the Upper Peninsula, they are truly beautiful and worth a visit.
Cheers guys!
EDIT: Top of the page! Since I signed off with cheers, belly up to the bar for one of Michigan's craft beers from Bell's Brewery in Kalamazoo, one of the many great ones in Michigan.
I like your door, Dave!
Why be "stuffy"? Go for bold!
doors_color by Edmund, on Flickr
Shortly after I moved in to my present house I painted my door "Santa Fe" red. A few years ago I replaced the door and it is presently painted "War Bonnet" Yellow. And I'm not even a Santa Fe fan
I think in the spring I'll go back to red, or maybe "Signal Green"?
I guess our white front door is kind of boring. The house is grey with white trim. Originally the front door was turqoise so perhaps we should revert back to that colour to keep up with the times.
Sitting here waiting for Fedex to deliver a parcel. If I don't recieve it personally I will have to pick it up at their store which means going into the store and my wife won't be happy about that. It is supposed to be delivered by noon so I have another hour to wait. Good luck with that I can hear you say.
Today I don't have much on the agenda. I have to change the furnace filter and pick up dog food. I think I will run the Pacific a bit and put together a short train for it. Passenger cars are most likely. I do like passenger trains and if I had the space I would love to have a model railroad that featured passenger trains. As it is I make do with my Athearn shorty heavyweights. I should have bought more of the ConCor short passenger cars when they came out but they were quite expensive for what you got. I only have one that I use on the tail end of an express reefer train.
Well time for another coffee.
hon30critterYou will either love the colour or hate it! Our wonderful next door neighbour Robert asked Dianne if that was the final colour. When she said yes, he responded that "you can always paint it"
We watch quite a bit of HGTV and DIY. We also get the HGTV magazine.
Front doors have become a real "statement" for houses. They have bright yellow, lime green, and even purple front doors.
I personally think your door looks great.
York1 John
We are still in a cool trend here, not much over 35F which is 10 degrees below normal. I managed to get the fish out of the pond on Tuesday just before some white stuff came. Wow that water sure was cold! There was some ice on the pond but the flow from the waterfall prevented a complete ice cover. I have now completed all of the yard tasks before winter.
Nice door Dave. We still have our original front door which is now 60 years old. It still fits fine and is in good shape. I cringe to think about ever replacing it as it isn't a standard size. It is 2" taller than standard. When we did the back doors it cost us a bundle as we had to get custom wood ones done.
Nothing new on the RR front. I did reset the sound levels on the Pacific as they were too high. It is really beautiful little engine.
Ken, hope things work out for you. You do have my sympathy as my wife isn't coping well with the covid thing. She is always very anxious so there is a lot tension in our house.
Well have a good day everyone,
hon30critterYou will either love the colour or hate it! Our wonderful next door neighbour Robert asked Dianne if that was the final colour. When she said yes, he responded that "you can always paint it".
My wife is dead-set on a bright red front door when I paint the exterior of the house.
good morning all, not much going on here.
just another day at work.
still cleaning on basement.
hope all is good with all.
Good morning. I had to change clothes when I got back from the morning trail walk. It is raining. That will slow harvest a little.
Nothing else today except a long day to stay inside and run trains. One of my Atlas locomotives quit running. I guess the first step will be to reset the decoder and hope for the best.
A nice looking door, Dave. I had better not let Mrs NorthBrit see it. It might give her ideas.
Got to get out today and go to the store before total lockdown that is talked about.
Then disappear in the 'train room'.