Welcome back, Charlie. Glad to meet another old hand at the forums.
Whoopie! Great to see ya again, friend. Let me order up a Spam sandwich for you. Brunhilda? Light on his mustard . . .
Everyone lift one for Charlie.
Why just a Spam sandwich? Let’s go whole hog (or at least the parts they can fit in that little tin) and have a round of Spam & Waffles!
Good to see Charlie back ‘home’ again! Welcome — as always!
Regards, Ed
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Ugh! What a day. I was just headed out the door for my scoot as my wife was emptying her Olympic sized bathtub and I heard the unmistakable glug of septic back-up. Sure enough the pump failed in the pump chamber. We have duel 450’ septic fields, one in the front the other in the back, so I started digging up all the control valves to get things draining san’s pump. Once I got things flowing again at an emergency slow rate I was going to call to get the truck in to pump out the tank and pump chamber so I could get in there and change the pump. My Garmin said I had enough of a workout digging that qualified for an 8km run. I thought, you know what I am calling someone to do the rest, at 68 I am not climbing down in the pump chamber and I can’t take what ever it cost with me, so the guy is coming tomorrow. I hate other people working on my house but I waved the white flag on this one. The first pump lasted 28 years, this one lasted 11 years and I paid extra for a better one at the time. Other than that it was a beautiful day to be digging on the acreage.
Glad Charlie is back, now where is Brother Elias?
I have a nice large glass of red to soothe my tired bones.
All the best to all.
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Welcome back CNCharlie
Brent,
The other day someone asked about him and I rooted around on the 'net to see if there was anything recent. In the past he’s been a poster on Quora and Twitter (now X), but it’s hard to pin down the last dates on those sites. If one Googles his handle under the MRR site, it looks like his last post to the old forum was March 24th of last year. Owing to transfer issues for the old strings to the new forum that may not be accurate. Nowhere is there any indication on-line that he has departed our earthy digs, but that’s no guarantee either. Short of a call to the Abbey there in ND, we are left in the air.
Many miss his unique and irrepressable style. TF has tried multiple times to bait him with outrageous photos of stuff that may well still be oozing, all to no avail.
John (of Attu)
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Good morning Diners. a Full English please, Flo.
Had a lovely day In North Yorkshire and Skipton. Visited sites I hadn’t seen in a number of years.
Youngest grandson visiting after school.
David
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Good morning
What a pleasant surprise over coffee. We’ve missed you around here Charlie. I’m curious, did you ever got those pesky raccoons in the garage under control?
Good to hear from you my friend 
It’s been a rain and snow mix here for a couple days, so I’ve finally been finding some time for the layout again.
I’m thinking that’s considered, “Quality Time” 
Not much else going on here lately. Something came up for Marky Mark on Monday, so we’ll be finishing that floor upstairs on Thursday, when the weather breaks.
P.S. Whoops! Almost forgot my manners here. Thanks for moving the Diner Brent 
Have a great Hump Day gentlemen
TF
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Morning, just coffee,got some errands to run maybe later some layout time
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Logging this month eh?
Enjoy, TF
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Enjoy I did, thankyou TF.
Thank goodness someone thought to capture all of this on film.
Paul.
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Good morning, diners. Flo, I’ll have bacon, eggs, and coffee.
It’s a busy day – I have several things that will keep me out of the house until tonight after 9:00 p.m. I really don’t like days like this – they remind me too much of pre-retirement days.
When I contacted the Abbey in August, 2024, they said Lion (Brother Elias) was in a nursing home after falling and getting pretty banged-up. However, at that time, they expected him back at the Abbey in several months. I have always hoped to visit there and see his huge subway layout modeled after the New York subways he rode as a kid.
Yesterday while walking Cookie the Dog on the trail, I looked up and saw about twenty vultures circling. Pretty neat to watch, but I hoped they didn’t know something about my health outlook and were just waiting. 
Have a great day, everyone.
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Morning all. Feeling run down again. Basically dug up my past and realized 95% of the people i was friends with growing up just kept me around to laugh at. It makes a lot of sense honestly, since i had literally no friends my age as a child/teen/young adult. I always ate lunch at school alone with my “nose in a book”. I was always the victim of bullying as well. In fact, one of these “people” tried to hold my head under water in the school swimming pool to prevent me from breathing. A teacher saw it, but pretended not to… and yet i was still not allowed to go cyber school, go figure.
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Jimmy. Try not to dwell on the bad things. They drag you down (Been there.
I can count my friends to zero.) Look at the good.
Look at nature. See the fifty shades of green. See the blues in the trees.
See the blues in an icy winter scene.
See the myriad of colours in Fall.
See the red in each scene. (It is there.)
Listen to the birds.
Watch the animals.
So much to life, Jimmy.
David
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For Sure!
What David wrote Jimmy!
Here you go 
TF
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Good evening Diners. A glass of apple juice please, Zoe.
Made a pizza for youngest grandson.
After I have taken him home I shall make chicken curry for Dawn and I.
David
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Good afternoon all. Another busy day, but the contractor will be here shortly to keep working on the bathroom. We had a rather large delay because of some tile issues, but hoping to have it finished up soon.
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Evening
Here’s some photos and history of the McGiffert Loader.
The live footage can be seen about a quarter into the first video posted this morning.
She was restored and now resides at the Duluth Depot rairoad museum, where the photos were taken quite a few years ago.
Thought you guys might find it interesting.
TF
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We finished the stew Kris snd I made from a large pork chop yesterday. So 4 good servings from just a single chop. Tasted fine. I’m enjoying the after dinner coffee with my dessert of nectarine and grapes with some square shaped cereal and 18% cream. Sunshine too bright for me to sit where I usually do for this. Not complsining one bit, bring it on!
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TF,
That’s super neat. I love all those unusual industrial machines made back in the age of steam.
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