Realized today @ lunch that I was the last post in April. I guess the guys in CA went to bed @ a reasonable hour. Included is my post from yesterday w/ photo. Currently @ the VLA site. We are spending the nights in Socorro @ the NRAO guest quarters. I can see two of the 27M dishes out the window of the office trailer right now. Ours is a wee 12M. Still interesting from the top in an swaying manlift. Very beautiful spot out here. We pulled the telescope w/ a pickup truck today. That was fun.
Hello all
Greetings from the New Mexico Tech campus in Socorro, NM.
Drove over yesterday after futzing around w/ the the rx group @ the telescope. Talk about a long day.
Spent the first day at the VLA site today working on dismantling our ‘new’ telescope. Here’s the view from the office:
Long day up in the lifts pulling cables out. Possibly too windy for much lift work tomorrow but we’ll see. Got to keep this quick the the morning here comes early.
Jeffrey - I thought you had a ‘U-boat’ on the property
You guys are gonna dig how they move the array around. They’ve combined radio telescopes and railroads for me Too bad the one we’re taking apart for shipment isn’t on rails.
Finally posting in the new pot. I have had a very busy morning here at work. We had to run three phone lines through the office.
I stopped at Ace on my way home yesterday and picked up some more screws for the layout. I had to predrill the boards to make them work. It was extra steps but they seem to hold the boards better than the ones I picked up at the depot. I received notice my ups package was delivered! Now if only my platform was at least finished I could run the new engine. Oh well don’t wanna rush and have things fubared.
Near 80 today and the rest of the week looks warm. I have three bushes I need to finish extracting,some plants to put in,and mow lawn. I think a [B] and some train work is in order for tonight.
Afternoon all. Back home early. SIL wants to take us out to dinner. They had a “tight time” with two kids in college. Now only one and the oldest graduated and finally got a job. Then they paid off their house. When we went out, I always paid for the whole tab [trying to help]. So, their treat now that things are a lot better. Cloudy, misty and chilly. You Yanks need to keep your chilly weather above the M&D. [:-^]
Jon E text me and said sleet tomorrow up his way. See some are getting snow. Chuck needs to put that snow cannon away and clean the barrel. [(-D]
Am I right??? Did the Canadian get this month’s Pot going? How great. [tup]
On grits. Instant grits are a little gritty. Cooked grits done right are creamy and delish. Add butter or the best is redeye gravy.
Joined an American Legion post last night. Have been assigned the NC post for years. Went to the meeting in Franklinton which is about half way to the lake house. Figured I can drive back that far for meetings as last Tuesday of the month. I’m usually “off” that week. If not, drive up for meeting. Great group and very active. Need to start a post in Rolesville in a few.
Later
PS: Came home as National Day of Prayer tomorrow. I always have Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast. This year a new Church is host. It will be in the Rec Center at Town Hall as they rent that on Sundays for their Church. All of you are invited.
New pot - tastes great! Had a good day in training today and only one more day of this, then travel home on Friday back to Saint Louis! I can’t wait to get home. The other night I was moving around in bed, half awake, and I was trying not to wake up Chewy - of course it was just a pillow! I should have a little extra train money out of my per diem, because I only really spent about what I normally would spend on meals and stuff here. Another good thing is that Char had the guy who cuts our neighbor’s lawn cut my grass today, so when I get home it will already be done. She said it was so high, Chewy couldn’t see over it when they went outside!
Got a Bachmann GP40 in the mail today. Looks like old Spectrum/Bachmann Plus. It sounds like a threshing machine crossed with an electric cheese grater. I’m going to rebuild it - MY WAY. Looked around on flea-bay. Parts are on the way.
I also received several kits. Roundhouse undec rotary snow plow and tender kit (unpowered). Atlas signal tower kit, a metal mine building kit. Many sharp edges. Looks like Black Bart maybe. No instructions. Gonna have to look around and see if I can find that. A Tyco log dump car set. Looks to have never been used. May make a nice display model. A mustard yellow caboose. No roadname or number. No manufacturer mark. Five windows on toolbox side, three windows on the other side. Body mount couplers. Offset cupola.
SPMan - two yutes! Fred Gwynne was a resident of Taneytown, MD. The movie was shot along The Great Walton RR (GA), and the Chessie GP9 that cameos was recently restored back to its original paint as WESTERN MARYLAND #25, where it works on the George’s Creek Railway in Westernport, MD.
Got to 88 degrees on the North Bluff today. [ip] I know that because these new cars tell you everything you don’t need to know but when a cop is behind you<<< Nope . No offence Fifedog. [(-D]. I feel like I drove all over the place. The dealer owner pulled me to the side and hinted he needed more help. We will see what he is talking about when I get back next week. I am thinking no more than 3 days but 2 would be better. That is what I have in mind, we will see what he is thinking next week. A nice bunch of guys, He has never laid anyone off of fired anyone. Hometown USA,
Ryan and John The UD is a done deal at 4K. [Y]
Grits,Humm,Nope ,not for me,you can have my share. I would rather eat grass and even better the grass they serve out there by Ray and Dennis. [:-^]
BTW, I got to pack, have a great weekend. [;)] and the best part is Sprint network ,DON"T work up there. [(-D] [B] [B] [B] [B] [Y]
RT pictures add to the post count thus adding more pages, It was a nice day today, I did spend some of it outside and some in with the windows open. Ahh it felt good. banilla is ready…S.J.
Thanks Roy, Sometimes it is just over the top cool to be out of reach from the world we live in. Catch you guys on the back side. [;)] Like Brent said you are a great bunch. [:)]
Well I received my order from Trainworld. I really like the looks of the Williams SD90. We’ll need to see how it runs. Three of the long sections of track were damaged. I can fix two of them but the third one is to flat on the end. At first they were going to have me send it back for replacement but after I ordered more they are sending me a replacement plus I get to keep the damaged one. So I can cut the damaged one down and make it work. The box the z1000 came in was roughed up by the track but the transformer itself looks undamaged. Off to sneak a little work in on the layout.
Have a great night all. Kev have fun on your trip.
Fred Gwynne and Joe Pesci were priceless in that movie. I loved it when Vinny was staying in the cabin and the owl woke him.[(-D] That whole movie is great.
Kev,
You could move to southwestern PA. The police aren’t even around when you need them.
SJ,
Buttered sand sums up grits perfectly.[tup]
Cut grass earlier, which is something I look forward to. Having a high quality (John Deere) mower helps.[tup] I don’t miss fighting with the Lawn Boy every time I wanted to use it.
Back from Bowling Green, Ky. about 11pm last night. We now own 5 wooded acres on a hillside.
About 80 here today. Hearing a few thunder rumbles tonight, and the temperature is supposed to drop tonight. Sleet and maybe even snow is forecast for Thursday and Friday.
There was some sort of Corvette event last weekend in Bowling Green. The hotels were full and Corvettes were everywhere. On Monday, we saw a couple of 2014 Corvettes with manufacturer’s tags driving around. Good looking cars. I like their looks better than the last couple of generations of Corvettes.
Picked up the 2013 Lionel Signature catalog recently. I really like the Burlington Zephyr and the Neil Young signature series Texas Special. But, the price on those is a little steep. I do like the Ford pickup MOW vehicles. I’ll probably put an order in for one of the MKT versions.
Sumbob - Neat pictures from the VLA. One of the companies I used a long time ago to build some production equipment also built some of the components for the VLA antennas.
IIABSDISEI with temps in the 70s. In days gone by, this would have been opening day at the track for the 30 days in May. Now the activity is compressed into 2 weeks. Not sure that is progress. Got to play soccer tonight. Only 4 kids showed up and there were 3 adults. A good time was had by all. Will feel it tomorrow. New (unannounced) policy at work may or may not be restricting internet access. Nothing is in writing. Go figure. Got too much work to do to worry about it, but it is more annoying than anything. I hope everyone has a good day.
Went to the loan place I do business with and refinanced my loan for a lower monthly payment. Got it lowered a bit and I’m happy with it. Don’t owe a payment until next month and didn’t need to pay anything this month so I put the money to some use. I don’t get this chance often. Got some stuff from Wal-Mart that I’ve been needing. Also did some digging around on the net and found two new Bachmann locos, a GP40 and a GP38-2, both PC and DCC. Picked them up at a good price. Also have two DZ125 decoders on the way. There’s three packs of Athearn geep diesel horns coming and some specially selected diesel rebuild parts. In two or three weeks I should be able to get started on rebuilding the Bachmann Spectrum/Plus GP40 I have. Also got first half of the grocery shopping done. Second half happens on the third.
Another long day out at the site, but not quite as long as yesterday. I’m typing this tonight at an early 10PM.
We got quite a bit done today. Moved the telescope and removed a number of parts. I got to dig into the chiller system which uses an a/c system to cool circulated glycol coolant. Similar to the ones we have back on Mt. Graham, but this unit is big enough to climb into.
Really beautiful spot out here. I’ve driven I-25 a number of times visiting family in Colorado and I’ve been less than enamored w/ NM south of Albequerque. Never managed to get west of Socorro or east of the small town of Reserve. Magdelena has been on my must see list for a while and I finally got there, well at least have driven thru it a few times.
So as we work disassembling this thing, often you look up to find the VLA (which is currently in its closest configuration) has moved. Kind of interesting to see.
Here’s the apex of the 3 legs seen from our work site:
And here’s the ‘little’ 12M antenna we will be taking home:
Those aren’t scratches on the dish. We apparently have a resident owl. In addition to dumping on the surface, he has yacked up the remains of his ‘rodent helper’ dinners on top of the secondary. The picture I posted earlier was taken from the top of one of the four feed legs.
Since it lives in corral fencing for safety reasons (keep people out of the swing radius) and was built in Italy, my buddy and I are referring to it as the ‘Italian Stallion’.
It has the craziest drive system I’ll try and explain later. Let’s just say you don’t get too
