Good Morning All. Mostly cloudy and 64°. Looks like Mother Nature has backed up the arrival of the cool front here and the chance for rain Saturday has been reduced to 50%.
Had a pleasant visit last evening with my daughter and two grandsons, who came up to retrieve the granddog that we have been minding for the last week while they were in Austin.
Bummer of a day yesterday, my month old computer failed, or rather the Win10 failed. The computer was on "sleep" and refused to wake up. I rebooted and Windows would not load at all. Went through all of the diagnostics for HP computers and all came back as good. Spoke with an HP tech and we tried out some stuff without success. He mostly led me through many of the things that I had already tried. There was no Windows recovery disc with this machine. I am stalled right now. Used the wife's laptop to access a Win10 download to continue, but I didn't have an 8GB flash drive available to download it, just a 2 GB. I need to get the 8GB one today and call tech support back to continue. I am assuming that they will give me the Win10 "key" when the download is completed. Thankfully they gave me a case number and a direct tech line so I don't have to waste another 15 minutes with the automated answering service and giving all of the info to them. I am using the old Win7 machine right now. Thankfully I did not delete any of my old files from the backup drive so if I have to reload everything, it's still almost up to date. Even my grandson and my daughter who has a computer science degree, were unable to help.
I am ready for some excitement for breakfast this morning Francine. How about a couple of spicy bean, sausage and cheese burritos with a bowl of spicy salsa to go with them. I want the real thing, not those dainty breakfast burritos.
Thanks for all of the likes on yesterday's museum pictures;
Guy, Sherrel, Troy, Dave, Patrick, James, Hughie, Phil, Curt, Walt, Tom, Tom O, Ken, Jerry, Karl. I assume that y'all are reacting to the pictures and not my prose.
Didn't spend a lot of time in the train shed yesterday, as I was spewing colorful language at the computer all damn day. By the time I got out there, all I had time for was to run trains again. Imbibing in a couple of cold brews kept me from doing any modeling since I don't want to do any of it over.
Let's go to the archives to see what I was doing on July 4, 2018. Looks like I just finished up a laser-cut barn. I don't remember right now who manufactured this structure, but it is a one-off purchase for me. I know that I have no other kits from them.
The interior which also includes an unseen office/tack room are my own creations.
Tom -
Gave up on MRM years ago. Always revisiting the same layouts just because a piece of track was changed or a tree added. Always showing layouts that are in the transition era never anything modern, yet when anything modern comes out from the manufactures that is 80's (Chessie for example) to today it sells out fast. I'm sure there are layouts out there private or club that can be shown. They want to get youth into the hobby or buy there magazine they need to mix things up.
Rant over.
December's issue is a good example of what you describe. TWO articles on their own home layout, MR&T.
Guy - Nice prototype photos yesterday. The thing that caught my eye was the graffiti on the tanker. Around here they usually don't get tagged. Normal loading and unloading facilities are always fenced., as are rail yards.
Sherrel - The desk seems like a neat project.
Walt - Welcome to the Coffee Shop. Don't worry about posting old layout photos, we all do it at times. They're just as interesting as newer ones. Heck, you already got 14 likes on the one from yesterday. We don't get too many narrow gauge pictures in here, but everyone loves them.
GT - I never realized that the school tax ceiling was once age 59. I may have missed out on a few years.
Ken - I used to really like the old Model Railroading magazine. Hated to see it go. Randy Lee was just not as good a businessman as he was a hobbyist. I always liked the Jim and Margaret Mansfield articles as well.
Joe - Ah yes! A workbench with more on it than mine!
Alan - The structure is really coming along superbly.
Troy - I maddeningly replaced a wax seal twice in one bathroom, before I finally realized that it was actually the seal between the tank and base that was allowing water to run down the back of the bowl and puddle on the floor.
My wife even had a professional plumber replace it to no avail before I finally noticed the problem.
I like your mountain top road.
Happy 245th Birthday today to the US Marine Corps.
Everybody have a great day. Stay safe.
