Hello Diners: Only 40 pages behind from where I last bookmarked a glance through the window. So I won’t try to catch up. Roast chicken dinner today, with the first zucchini of the season. (yes, we are supper early this year, NOT! ) There is however a good crop of grapes - so long as they ripen. There’s only so many green grapes one can work away in stir frys!
Mrr? Well, 4 weeks ago today we had a visit from some Alberta friends we hadn’t seen since we left there. Their younger daughter wanted to do something on the layout, but since the track is so cruddy nothing will run until it gets a good de-grunge, I bit the bullet and got out the tree planting stuff. Together we made a small start on an area just across a drainage ditch from my plastics factory.
Then on the other side, which is largely an access hatch, the edges of which have to be obscured with trees and bushes. I did the lower edge first, working up the slope some.
MIL is here. She likes NCIS too. Thought I’d stick around and be nice.[:-^]
Lexmark printers! Had one. Pretty good printer too. But, you are right as to why I got rid of it. Bought a Brother MFC-465cn for the price of one set of ink refills.
MOH and I hung a new mult-light fixture in the train room today, so I can actually see up there now.[I] Next weekend MOH wants to put up the kitchen back splash (tile). We have laid several tile floors so we have the tools and know how. We special ordered them from Lowe’s since with my daughter’s employee discount we saved around $200 and MOH was happy with the glass tile.
My parents will be here shortly and my Dad and I are going to run trains for a little bit then go out to dinner. He will be the first person to operate on my layout besides me.
Der5997- Looking very good. Don’t you just love those [banghead] moments in this hobby. I have had several myself.
Todd and Lee- Many thanks for the help with ballasting techniques. I can’t wait to get started. I think I will do the yard and sidings first then the mains.
The Mantua 2-8-2 is now a runner. Still has the same motor in it. Just had to tear the motor down and give it a good bath in CRC 2-26 to get out the crud that was in it. It runs quiet and smooth now. Low speed operation is good considering it’s around 40 years old.
Janie, hot cup of decaf to start off with. Then I’ll have the seafood plate, fries, a trip to salad bar, for desert a hot fudge Sundae… Say is THAT still Irene outside? Big Girl isn’t she…? Real hurricane if you know what I mean…
Been an interesting day to say the least. The drive to the museum was uneventful except for the occasional 50mph crosswinds blowing most everything on the road around. Particularly the high profile vehicles (Semis, Vans, and such). Saw at least 80 or so Bucket Trucks on their way to Albany and south here in NY. One of the young guys at the museum said he and a college buddy (another member) drove to Buffalo yesterday for some event and they saw a couple hundred of them all heading down the thruway towards Albany. NYS Thruway is now closed at exit 24 due to Irene.
I ended up being the only docent at the museum and today of course we had a Tour bus full of people show up and ride down along with a Birthday Party (one of our members) just an hour later. So it was a much busier day than usual. Everything was going well until they brought down (from the other museum) the Birthday Party crowd (Lot of kids and young people). The track cars rolled in and the drivers said, “We got a problem…” Wind (which wasn’t bad out there - half what it was here in Geneva) took down an old dead tree which fell over onto the power line for the trolley up at Midway Station (transfer point). I entertained the 5 other people who where at at Industry Station while the Birthday group got to see old Kodak #9 RS-1 get fired up and had a walk through of the cab. Soon the Manager of the NYMT showed up to start figuring out how to take everyone back to the other museum… We shut down an hour and a half early today. Had a bunch of gate crashers who never did pay their admission but just parked in our lot and came into the station. We usually look the othe
Evening Dinners, hope your day was as good as mine! [Y]
By the way CANNON PRINTER ARE THE BEST! Details later. [:-^]
Flo, just a [B] please, BBQ some chicken tonight.
Why was my day so great you ask? Simon 1966 and the boys came over and they and I had a blast. I think it was one the few times the boys would have rather stayed longer. They where doing there version of the Great Train Chase. Seems Andrew took a great liking to my Southern Pacific SW 8 switcher and spent a good hour chasing Crisp Dash 9 around the layout. Caught the Dash 9 a few times and ran some hoppers of the rails. Seemed to tickle the heck out of them. None of the cars where damaged (well that I have found yet [(-D]) and with the way i have been running trains into each other, why should I care?
Mystery of the Goofy Motor amps readings. Simon brought over his meters and we started testing the motors, readings where still bouncing all over the places and some showed 12.0 amps being pulled. Yet they where still cool to the touch. That just cannot be right!
It has to be the DC transformer I was using for testing! Then I remembered I have 4 Life Like DC Transformers that power the lights on my layout! Unhooked one and started testing over. I now have 6 good PK 1 replacement motors that freewheeled at .011-0.16 amps and stall was around .80 amps! [Y] I all so have 5 good Athearn replacement motors as well.
Best news is the Athearn F7 B motor is all so good, now all I have to
Hey, I just breathed life back into the motor of a 40 some year old Mantua steamer and it runs great. The Stewart has a motor problem? Bring it! Wouldn’t be the first Stewart I fixed.
…Yes, that’s right, hardly going to be in New Brunswick much…BUT that doesn’t mean it’s not packing powerful winds, even this far away. The storm surge is raising concern in the Bay of Fundy, and along our shore a bit as well. Lucky for us, it’s high tide now; before the storm gets opposite us. Dick (Greyfox) has had over 4 inches of rain today, with Irene’s track pretty much right over him.
while areas around/close/near me had problems…mostly flooding and trees down I/we came through Irene fine. Power stayed on {which is good becaue the substation is located in a low-;ying area that can and does and has flooded before. Worst part tehn is waiting for the substation to dry out before they turn power back on}. No trees down around us nor flooding in my immediate area. SO all in all good.
I DO have a nasty migraine bought on by Irene and the change in Pressure. SO MOH came home from a dull day’s work,ate and went to nap, but usually does not wake up til morning. I took all my night pils and the sleep-inducing ones and will soon be in bed for the might a little early myself.
So see you in the Morning!
Hope all is well with those in the path of Irene!! [angel] for those that need them!
Simon, hee, hee, hee. Guess when you told the boy to put everything back the way the found it, they for forgot the turnouts. [:-^] Just ran the Dash 9 headlong into the F7 A. [:-^]
As Crisp engineer report stated in his miss hap. “Did not hurt anything”.
Oh, the Dash 9 headlight stopped working just like I told you it would. [swg]
Good Afternoon, Flo - how about a BLT and a RBF please? Thanks.[dinner]
Glad to see that Irene eased back some by the time she got further north. Of course, from the pics I’ve seen online, there’s still plenty of damage, power out and lots o’cleanup left, alas. [angel][angel] continue…
Garry, we just got lucky on the cake colors - I think that was the colors of icing that the cook had in the kitchen when I asked them to fix your Mom up with that cake. Glad she likes the colors!
As for printers, I’ve had Epson and Canon printers (and an Apple that was a Canon under the skin), and nowadays, I think most all printers are either designed to break down (as one of you mentioned - I think it was the Epson printer I had - 2nd before this current Canon one), or else (as a couple others of you said) you pay almost as much as the printer for the refills. But I found one helpful thing for that on my Canon printers - on Amazon, if you do a search for “non-OEM” (I think that’s the phrase), there are a few companies who recycle (or make generics, not for sure) with the dreaded chip in the cartridges, so they fool the printer into thinking it’s the real refill. And you can get sets of the black and color refills at way below Canon’s prices!
Another way I save some is that I leave the printer software mostly on ‘pause’, so I just spool what I’m printing (really useful since when I’m online, I’m away from home and the printer). Some print jobs, I will print to a PDF file (Macs do that), so I can wait and look at the ‘printout’ later before deciding if I really, really need to print that document/page (or not).
Good to hear so far that no Diners suffered major damage (at least, none who have reported in yet) from Irene. Hope DerJohn and Fergie don’t have any problems from whatever of Irene is left by the time it reaches near them.
Oops, I almost forgot to mention - if any of you Diners have a Canon printer that will use CLI-8BK (black) cartridges, I have one Canon one and one Staples equivalent one (both in original boxes). Email me if your printer can use them, and I’ll send them for the postage. I’m sure I have a box around that will fit both of them into it. Just holler…
Jeffrey,I just got back from Wendy’s Old Fashion Hamburgers and it was great and better than Ryan’s,Ha Ha [(-D][(-D] have a good night,the sun has gone down and it is bed time,Here from you tomorow.
Never did get the shop power back on and 70% of Newtown where the shop is has no power so I’m not real optomistic about tomorrow either. On the plus side I did get the day to do chores and stuff here and a good chunk of time on the layout as well[:D].’ I now have the loop tracks done around the yard and the turnouts as well for the loops. I like the new method I’m using to fix the track with latex caulk as it goes easily and I won’t have nails popping up later. after the track is down you have some time to check alignment and you don’t need as much stuff to hold the track down while the caulk sets. Time to set seems to be about 20 minutes even with the humidity we’ve had this summer.
Good to see DER stopped by - was starting to worry about him. I love the way the scenery is going.
Ken - that’s some good news and Simon sounds a true friend. Funny the cheapo transformers were the solution to the testing problem abut I’m glad it w…ked out for you.
Time to get some shut eye as I won’t get much for the next couple of weeks between Lime Rock and Watkins Glen the week after, Speaking of the Glen, sounds like TC found Savards Family Resturaunt on Main Street downtown. We have breakfast there every morning when we’re at the track - great food there and reasonable prices.
Savards… That’s the place I was talking about. Just couldn’t remember the name for the life of me. And I agree, a good hearty breakfast with decent prices.
Howdy folks, trust none of our East Coast friends and their families got too wet or wind swept.
I have a friend holidaying in New York at the moment and she said it was ridiculous how OTT everyone went in the end, with the Subway and buses shutting down Saturday whilst it was still sunny outside! [:S]
She said alot of people she ran into were panicking but said in the end it was no worse than a summer storm back here in Brisbane… I guess you have gotta be safe than sorry. - I know what it’s like, I’ve been through two cyclones in my days of living in North Queensland, one a cat 3 (220km/h winds.)
Thank you all to the birthday wishes from the last few days, I’ve decided I’m gonna save a couple hundred bucks and put in a nice order from MB Klein in the next couple of weeks to treat myself as a late present (on top of the iPad I bought!)
CapeJim: We went through a fair bit and we had a council kerbside pickup last week so alot of it went out on the kerb! Alot of it though was picked up by opportunistic ‘locals’ who seem to come out of the wood work and scavenge anything remotely useful.
