My sister is here at my house… We have already had some good conversations. She is on my laptop checking her email. Some old Friends of hers will be picking her up about noon tomorrow to go out to lunch. Then Saturday we will go over to my son’ house for much of the day. Sunday I will be taking her to the airport.
Garry, I have two sisters, both older than me. The one visiting is the oldest and is the who is a deacon in the Episcopal Church. She and I get along very well! When I was growing up we had a couple of cousins from the Buffalo area who spent the summers with us working on the farm. I rather thought of them as brothers more or less.
Jeffrey, that is going to be a great game. I may have to see if I can find an Apple II to have a look at it! My first home computer was an Apple IIc. My. my, you’ll never need more than 128k will you!
My first computer was an Osborne 1. CP/M, 64k RAM, dual single-side 5.25" floppy drives and a 5" screen. I sold it in '82 and bought two Apple IIe’s, which I still have.
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No work done on the game today. Instead I took some time to clean up the insides of the two Apple computers I have here. Those old electronics sure can draw in the dust! Both of these machines started as phase one IIe’s or “Diana”'s (Apple’s code name). My mothers old IIe despite modifications is still a Diana. My //e is still a Diana externally. Internally it’s been rebuilt into a combination of an “LCA” (Low Cost Apple) and an enhanced “Super II”. My third Apple, the IIe that’s at my trailer started as an “LCA” and is now what I call a “MLCA” or Modified Low Cost Apple. It was a school computer before I got hold of it.
Well I guess tomorrow I’ll get started on drawing out the scenario for ‘Oliver’ to make his way through. I’ve decided on option #2. He’ll be put on the train unwillingly due to some sort of foul play and will have to get away from his captors and find objects he’ll need as he makes his way from the rear of the train to the locomotive where he may attempt to stop it.
Lee… That’s a lot of water in the basement.Your new plans for a layout sound great.
Brad … Glad you are making progress with the layout.
Ray … That’s great about one sister being a Deacon. My younger sister was born on my sixth birthday. My other sister is the oldest of the three siblings in my family.
Paul … That is a huge store.
CN Charlie … It would be good if you could contact Barry. Thanks for offering to do so. We Diners definitely miss his posts.
My suburban coaches are nearly complete now. I just ordered the decals needed to finish the job.
Hi guys, I had disappeared because I was just not a very happy camper on this forum and another forum, people were posting stuff that drove me up the wall. I had to quit before I really messed up, I did check on the diner though just checking to see how everybody was.
Anywho, on top of that real life was just as bad if not worse. My Oma’s moved in with my uncle as she can’t live alone any longer, I had also learned a close family friend had passed.
and some good news, I did get the trackage rights for a 2 x 4 layout so I’ll probably be working on that, and Batmans Canucks beat my sharks so I have to wear a canucks logo for 48 hours.
There once was a girl named O’Neil Who went up on the great ferris wheel But when half way around She looked at the ground It cost her a two dollar eighty cent meal
Today’s weird words:
dreck or drek: (n.):: rubbish or trash. Etymology: From Yiddish drek (filth, dirt, dung). Ultimately from the Indo-European root sker- (excrement) that is also the source of scoria and scatology. Earliest documented use: 1922
RAY and Jeffrey: Harumph! I spit on your Apple IIs and IIes! IBM PCs were the Greatest!
{I have to say that as my father worked for IBM! My first Computer was an IBM PC. I was SO lucky!}
Gary Duprey: It is sometimes good to step back and take a break when something fiercly rubs one the wrong way. You did the right thing.Now, be AWARE the same individuals/situations here may arise again, you have to let it slide right off your back. Easier said than done, I am all to aware.
Well! The heat has FINALLY kicked on for being a chilly night! That means it is now a toasty 63F in here!
Jeffrey- Yup! That’s it, A Stop At Willoughby. As I read the plot, I did see the whole thing.
Lee- A New layout!!! Yeehaw! I hope yours comes along faster than mine is. Um….just curious. You still gonna have the lady in the blue jumpsuit?[:-^]
Mr B- The SciFi channel does the Twlight Zone marathons ever so often, or at least they did, and a dollar to a donut says that’s where I saw it and I know it was in the last maybe 3-4 years I saw it. Time frame seems about right, so I betcha we both were watching that episode at the same time. I always did like the Twilight Zone. Original one anyway, tried to watch the new one and just couldn’t.
I remember as a kid, the episode where the ventriloquist dummies were “alive”. Freaked me out for several years[(-D]. Serious, it really did. Sometimes in the dark, I’d hear (recall from the show actually) the sound of those little feet running around[:O] [(-D]. Honestly, to this date that was the only thing that has scared me, if you will, ever I’ve seen.
Hopefully I’ll get my peepers today in time for me to go to wo*k tonight, they have yet to call so……hour my butt.
Y’know, my long-term layout plans call for a small town at the end of a branch line. I’ve wrestled with a name for the town, and “Willoughby” just might have found a home. I can just hear the conductor calling out, “Next stop…The Twilight Zone.”
Gary BN24 … There will always be rude and discourteous people everywhere. Don’t let them get under your skin. That is entirely their problem. It is not yours. Also, don’t forget you always have friends in the Diner.
Lee … Willoughby, OH … I’m not familiar with it, but I can picture atypical Midwestern town.
Galaxy … Your limerick is funny. Those who go to amusement parks might relate. … Also, how about another idiom to research. I sometimes use the phrase “basket case” to describe the condition of old, used models. I must have learned it out of context over the years. I just used it to describe the condition of a model before I fixed it up in my WPF post.
Speaking of WPF, here is the same photo. The “double decker” commuter train is one I have been working on. It still needs details and decals. One of the cars had been a basket case. It had no floor or under floor details. I cast parts from resin using good parts from kits as patterns. Three of the cars were very old Holgate & Reynolds kits. These are low tech kits.
Good morning. It’s 51° with 76% humidity. The high will be 65°.
Well I guess today I can get started on Oliver’s (his name for now) great train adventure. It starts with a string of passenger cars being pulled by a trio of GP40’s. I plan for him to find that he’s locked in a sub-basement trunk compartment under the observation car at the end of the train. Since it’s locked from the outside the only way out is up. Now whether or not these compartments opened into the cars interior I don’t know, but this one does. He’s going to have to dodge possible harm from those on board (it’s mostly dead-head equipment but there’s about a dozen possible bad guys) while at the same time try to find objects (keys, tools, manuals, etc) that he can use to stop the train somehow and get out of this twilight zone world he’s found himself trapped in.
I’ve never written one quite like this so it should be a challenge to create.
I hope everyone has a good day. After all, what could possibly go wrong? It’s Friday!
Currently it is 40 with an expected high of 65 under sunny skies.
The stress test yesterday did not show anything that needed immediate care, but I should have the whole report on Monday when I see my cardiologist. W**k day today, getting tired of it and looking forward to retiring in the spring.
Garry - This should give you an idea of how big this store is.
Well, Garry, you have SURE picked yourself a gruesom one!
YOU asked for it!
Here is why:
The ORIGINAL meaning of “basket case” refferred to a soldier in WWI who had both legs and both arms amputated and therefore perceivably had to “be carried home in a basket”.
It IS, however often used to mean anything worthless, completely hopeless and useless. SO youhave a small reprieve there.
Here is the “tale”, which FIVE sources VALIDATE AND VERIFY:
Meaning:
An infirm or failing person or thing - unable to function properly. Originally this referred to soldiers who had lost arms and legs and had to be carried by others. More recently it has been used to denounce a failing organisation or scheme and is less often applied to people.
Origin: {with the actual quotes}:
In its original meaning this term comes from the US military immediately following WWI. Strangely, it was never used to describe an actual person but only in denial of any such servicemen existing. This bulletin was issued by the U.S. Command on Public Information in March 1919, on behalf of Major General M. W. Ireland, the U.S. Surgeon General:
“The Surgeon General of the Army … denies … that there is any foundation for the stories that have been circulated … of the existence of ‘basket cases’ in our hospitals.”
This bulletin was reported on in many U.S. newspapers at the time. Many of them also defined what was meant by 'basket ca
Well I didn’t make any headway on Oliver’s train adventure. Didn’t put the first line to paper even. Instead I got some other things done. Small things but they still took up more than their share of time. I was getting tired of having to change out diskettes on the //e every time I wanted to play another game or copy some diskettes or use one of my word processor programs. So I pulled the drive controller out of my mothers old IIe and put it in my //e and added two more disk drives. Now I can work on Native Fury and keep a backup copy on drives one & two on slot five and I can use drives one & two on slot six for the other stuff I mentioned earlier. Plus slot six is the only one the CP/M utilities will run on.
I also picked up some stuff I ran across. A new drive controller for my mothers old IIe ($15.41). They normally run $20-$25 or more, sometimes $40+ so when I saw that one I snatched it. I also picked up a 25-pack of Arvey single sided, double density 5.25" diskettes with labels, write protect tabs and sleeves included. There are probably some people who don’t even know what a 5.25" floppy disk looks like without looking it up. And I picked up five games. Load Runner, Big Quest, Kid’s Adventure, Earthquest and Grungy Towers (a Commodore game rewritten for Apple). In all I spent less than $50. These days I could spend close to that on one RTR freight car and not get near the same amount of enjoyment from it.
It’s past time for me to call it a night. See y’all tomorrow.
Thank you for the kind words guys, man I missed this place.
THere is a green signal ahead though, train show up in puyallup washington next weekend. I get payed, I got invited to run some trains, and I’m gonna pick up some track or trains.
#750’s all excited to show off and strut her stuff.
