Janie I could use… Ah… How about a hot fudge sundae with peanuts and a cherry on top. Oh I could use a hot mug of decaf to go along with that too.
Education stuff… Being a teacher, I had to get a Masters in Education within 10 years of starting to teach or my certification would expire. For most subjects you only had 5 years. Music was an exception due to the fact that fewer colleges offered music degrees or one that would be accepted. I got my Bachelors Degree at Eastman School, U of R. Then a masters in Fine Arts in Education at Elmira College. Personally I always encourage people to get as much education as you can. Never hurts! For me, if I didn’t go to Eastman I never would have met Chuck Mangione, or Lew Soloff (think lead trumpet BS&T), sung under the baton of Howard Hanson, had a violin lesson (twice) with Shinichi Suzuki, among other things. I studied under the same Voice Teacher that taught Renée Fleming. I also had my name up in lights at Eastman Theater (Only one other undergraduate, Education Major ever did that. His name was Mitch Miller! He was considered to be the best oboist in the world when he was a senior at Eastman.) And a whole lot of other things… I also was a pretty decent Vocal Music Teacher (If I believe what I have told by many people at least). I had a good and enjoyable career. If I had not gone to college? Well, I probably would have gone bankrupt trying to keep my Father’s Farm afloat… I certainly wouldn’t have a comfortable retirement. I ain’t rich, but I can live OK on what I have.
My prayers for those who have some not so good things going on at the moment!
I am almost ready for the NMRA Division Meet here in Geneva this Saturday. One more day to prepare. Most of the house has been more or less cleaned, and the layout is hopefully ready to run.
Just letting y’all know I’m still hangin around. Not up to much of anything as my get up and go has gotten up and gone. Wish y’all a good night Prayers for all, Phil aka Flip
A few days ago I thought of making a small diorama scene. A few years ago if you tell you that I found a little good shape table without legs and a G Scale boxcar. But I also found 3 Lego Star Wars clone troopers.
So three days ago I ordered a few more Lego figures but I’ll buy some more next month. It will be a nice little diorama scene with a Jedi with clone armor, troops and battle droids. It was going to be in a shadow box but couldn’t find a decent size for the image in my mind. I did find a 3 baseball stand case that would be a perfect size.
I found an Great Northern boxcar that FVM made like a year ago I think. But I was disappointed a little bit when the boxcar didn’t have its ACI label. The FVM picture clearly shows one on it in their production drawings.
Flo, The Great Ed, Gary, UP 831, Jan, Brent, Ulrich, Galaxy, Angelob, Inch and I will have a [B] Please. All so help your self to some baby back rib’s I am cooking.
Day Off, boy I will glad to get to work for some rest! [swg] Took the wife to two driffrent Doctors today. Yep her knee is a mess. She was given a shot of Court-A-Zone (sorry about the spelling) in the right knee a month early. There is no cartilage left in her right knee! It is so bad the Tibia is twisting and could break through the skin. Guessing that would be bad. [:-^]
Did some running maily with the wife in tow. Did some Honey Do’s and raked some more darn leaves!
Aldi Grecgey Store. I had been devoted to the Shop And Save Chain for 30 years now. But this fall they started jacking up there prices on fresh vegetables Brussels mainly, $3.99 a pound now was $1.99 this sumer. About a month ago one of the cashiers at Shop And Save told me while I was complaing about the price hike told me Aldi had them on sale for $1.29 a pound. Rough guest it will cut the food bill $125.00 a month. There milk today was $0.89 a gallon, eggs 0.69 for a dozen. At Shop And Save Milk is $4.29 a gallon, and a dozen eggs $1.39. Spent $26.00 at Aldi’s today and had two heavy bags of grecgey including a rack of Baby Back Rib’s for $26.00.
Trains are running great. The Might CB&Q’s are starting to restore my faith in BLI engines.
Oh man! Am I tired. Spent the entire day trying to get all the things done I should have gotten done days ago. House is passable for the open house tomorrow, but the layout is iffy. Since it hasn’t really been run in a couple of years, there is all kinds of crud on the tracks, etc. One of the safety rails on the curved bridge went out of alignment and caused all kinds of derailments when I ran trains over it. That was solved by removing the safety rail temporarily on the side that was out of specs. There is also some derailments in the rails behind the new section where I can’t get to it without bringing in the topside creeper… Those may have been caused by pulling a track cleaning car at the end of the train. Tomorrow we shall see… The coal drag should do well and the 2-6-6-2’s will run on very dirty track with little problem. Smaller locos are … jerk, jerk hesitate, roar off for a few feet then jerk, jerk, and stop…
I think I have everything in order for the Meet. if I don’t? Oh well!
Oh [color=red]Ken[/color] just so you know, the word is spelled cortisone…
Have a good one out there. I am heading to bed. Six am is going to come way too soon I think.
I just woke up from a short nap after lunch, so I need coffee in an IV bag to get me going! Add a basket load of chocolöate chip cookies to that, Flo, if you please …
What started out as a nice day turned into a nightmare! All of a sudden, it turned pitch black dark, followed by a torrential rainfall that the sewer could not handle at all, resulting in streets being flooded and many a basement, too. My friend Lothar called in, saying that he was just lucky, being in his basement when he noticed a trickle of water coming in through a window. That trickle soon turned into a stream, which he was able to divert to the place where is sump pump is. The joys of having your home at the bottom end of a slope, even if it is a tiny one!
Talking of shopping, we would not be able to make ends meet without Aldi and their fierce competitor Lidl, although their offerings are not always a bargain. Most of the stuff, however, is considerably cheaper. I still remember the first Aldi markets in the 1960´s. They were rather uninviting looking places with wooden shelving holding a very limitede range of groceries, only non-perishable items. In those days, you did not admit to shop at Aldi´s, but everyone did, turning the Aldi business into a goldmine and making the Albrecht brothers really rich folks. They lived a rather withdrawn life and only made the headlines, when a son was kidnapped, who was able to escape - afzter the ransom had been paid. The kidnappers were arrested years later, but the money was never to be found. They must have spent the milliuons of Deutschmarks in a very short period of time.
No major plans for the rest of the day, maybe I´ll be rreading a book. Haven´t done that for a long time!
Oh, Wow, am I pooped! Been a long but fun and successful day. The church worked as an excellent location for the morning session. We did get started about 10 minutes late and never really made the time up. Had two great clinics. The first was from one of my members, Ron Stacy (Who along with his wife, are the Poster children for NCE Electronics, and has a fantastic layout) on why we should all be modeling the 1970’s.) I who model Saturday, August 15, at 2PM in the afternoon learned a whole lot of things I didn’t know about the 1970’s and… why it indeed is a great period to model. The other clinic was by, none other than, Bill Brown, MMR who may be one of the finest Modelers on Earth! He is the AP Chair for the NorthEastern Region, and has done some modeling of protoype things where you can’t tell a photo of the original from a photo of his model.
They both (along with 20 other folks) visited my layout this afternoon. It was the first time Bill has been here. He seemed very pleased with what he saw. I showed him the 3 structures that just recieved merit awards, and he just smiled and nodded his head in agreement that were of the quality needed (The Octagon Blacksmkth’s Shop, the Curved Track Grider Bridge, and the smaller deck girder bridge). He also sneaked a photo of the inside of the Engine House at the Quarry that had already recieved a good strong Merit Award Score several years ago. He called me aside with a huge grin and showed me. Frankly the best photo anyone has taken of it. Makes on feel awfully good when a modeler of his quality gets excited to see what I have done… (just bragging a bit…)
Had an old friend come over and run trains for the afternoon. They kept the train running on the old part opf the layout and where people could watch as they felt like it. Had a young lady who was with my DIL and my Grandkids
Ray - Sounds like you scored big again. Congrats… It also appears your visitors enjoyed the day as well.
My day wasn’t nearly as interesting. It kind of went downhill when we went to railfan this morning, only to find the road we need to use to cross the tracks was closed for a 5k race. As it was pouring down rain, I was surprised an event like that wouldn’t be canceled. So we drove further down the highway to a hardware store in Ambridge. Picked up a light for the oven & a couple bags of calcium chloride. On the way back home, the access road was open so we went to our spot. Kind of a waste of time as in 2 hours we only saw 1 intermodal & 2 engines running light. So we came on home & had an early lunch.
We then drove to another hardware store on the other side of town so I could pick up some supplies I need for our Dept, 56 Dickens Village display. While we there, the wife decided to buy me a Christmas present. It’s another Dickens Village building I was admiring. Lucky me.
Still raining pretty heavy here, but the temps are in the mid 50s. I think we will be going to a train show in Monaca in the morning. It’s not a big show, & mainly old or used stock, but I still like to look around. You just never know, maybe I’ll get lucky & find some item that I just can’t live without.
Flo, The Great Ed, Gary, UP 831, Jan, Brent, Ulrich, Galaxy, Angelob, Inch, Ray and I will have a [B] please.
God What A Day! I feel like I had Root Canel Done By A Bamboo! Worked with Nancy this Saturday. Had a customer before she got to the store and he was liking Memory Foam. I got the deal then Nancy butted in after it was paid for and stole the deal! I was so [:(!] I walked out of the store, got in my car and darn near dove off!!!
Most houses have basements, unless you live in rather “wet” places with a risk of frequent flooding. Homes without a basement do not sell well, as people need space for their clutter…
I keep the layout as it is - for the time being. It still listed “in the Bay” and I am still hoping to sell it.
Just got up - the rain hammering against the windows woke me up. Temperatures are predicted to drop below freezing in thge coming night, so that will make commuting to work a fun trip for those who plan on taking the car.
Janie, make that my usual big Sunday breakfast, please!
The camera is on the front of the engine, and in 10 minutes it went through at least 10 tunnels and two bridges. Some of the tunnels are quite short and as it enters one tunnel, you see the entrance to the next tunnel
The loco is electric, but some of the tunnels seem to have smoke in them. If it’s fog, it isn’t outside, and it isn’t in the next tunnel when they are close together [%-)]
Very busy here beginning a couple of days ago and continuing for another week with guests from Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio who are coming and going. … Hard to keep up. … Very little Model RR time and very little computer time for me.
Weather - Snowy, blowy, and nasty for traveling in! During a short trip this morning, had a car in front of me do a nice loop, and somehow missed hitting anything. On the way home this evening, a vehicle became stuck trying to go up a hill the opposite direction we were headed, causing quite the mess!
W*^k - Yesterday was a complete mess, as our store system crashed twice… [banghead]
Henry- I saw a flatcar container train but I can’t find out the location or the name of the railroad.
Went to the store this morning. I picked up Wonder Woman on DVD for my brother for Christmas. I can’t use Oral B toothbrushes they don’t last long, I like using Colgate brushes because they last a whole month than one week.
Flo, Inch, Tom, Brent, The Great Ed, Gary, Angleob, Ulrich, Inch, Jan, Galaxy and I will have a cold please.
Angleob I wish it was a co-worker! Nancy is the owners wife and cannot be control or touched! She is the reason people do not trust Sales People! she will say anything to get customers money! She does not care if we don’t have it in stock, she will sale it anyway then one of us worker ants have to tell the customer the next day we cannot get till? [:-^] Does not know a dang thing about Proper Posture Alignment and has the highest customer reslection in the company! I have had 2 customer reslection this year. Nancy is upwards of 26 and she only works 2 days a week?
With Nancy the only mattress that is right for you is themost Expensive! If I see that a coustomer Posture Alignment is bad I would like them to buy that mattress, I tell the the trurth and it is not right for them. If Nancy coustomer says “I don’t like it” she forces feeds them that mattress till they buy it or walk out!
Yesterday the coustomer she stole from me had all ready bought! The deal was done, ticket written and Credit Card was ran! She forced feed him a mattress he did not like for $300.00 more and company profit was a mer $68.00 more? My deal had a high profit margain. I am sure this coustomer will never come back to this company or send friends!
Looking up the translation, it was a small country between Serbia, Albania and Croatia, but looking at it now, it cannot be live as it is not daylight in the Balkins.
The conspiracy theory in me says it is for us to check out the “discussion” which is links to adult websites. US live rail webcams are moderated and you don’t see that kind of post.
Whatever I saw, the tunnels were all different from one another, it was not just a continuous loop of 4 or 5 tunnels. The train did seem to get to the end of the line, and then reversed directions.
Janie, I could use a nice hot cup of decaf at the moment… Thank You Ma’am!
I spent most of today getting all the stuff from the Meet out of my car, into the house, and more or less put away. I also managed to spend some time cleaning more track in the layout room. Made a couple more minor repairs and changes that needed to be made and actually got the two long trains (Coal Drag) and a Refer unit train parked in their staging areas after some time cleaning the tracks to them. That meant crawling under the layout to access the rails. Oh my aching Back… I’m sore from the last few days. I even got the “Name” Passenger Train stored on the top level staging after I was able to get that track cleaned. I need to run trains more often I think.
I sent out some “Thank You” emails to several people who helped make the Meet a success yesterday and checked in with the other two layout owners that were open. they both had a great time and about the same number of people visit that I did.
I think I shall go feed the cats, clean the litter box, and head to bed. I am still several days behind on sleep…
All sorts of things today: Didn’t go into work today: I hurt way too much. I ended up being sore when I was done yesterday. I figured that if I hurt that much when I woke up, I would call in. I hurt that much this morning. (Happenes every once in awhile when I get too run down.)
However, on the positive side of things I got the following done: Got the damaged GP20 shell repaired with new pieces. The footboard came off the purchased shell. I discovered that both pilots had damaged corners. The areas didn’t have any damaged details so rather that trying to use pieces off the pilots (after I had cut and filed them down, of course) I decided to use a couple of pieces of some .020" sheet styrene that I had. (Same stuff that I used for the pilot fillers.) The pieces were a lot easier to cut to match the damaged areas. I will need to shape the corners once the glue dries and then build the fillers.
I also happened to see a stock NP-painted LL P2K SW1200 on eBay. From the prototype pictures I have bookmarked, that design isn’t right either. The non-MU shell that I have is closer but needs the front handrail rebuilt.
On the non-railroad side, I also got a couple of curtain rods replaced. I also installed some new curtains as well. (Hoping the new curtains provide some better insulation against the cold that leaks through the aluminum sliding windows that my apartment has.) I have a couple other windows that I need to change the curtains as well. I just haven’t gotten to it yet.