Coffee shop part 9

[OldGettysk]

Good Morning All ! Woke up to an inch and half of the white stuff. Isn't spring grand ! Let me just say tto Philip .Sure happy to hear that your wife will be getting her SS. What a relief for sure. Tom hope that you can get that bone spur taken care of soon . they can be paiful. Larry sounds like you had a grand time in Myrtle beach . I'm headed to Orlando the tenth of April and hope to have some fun also . After this winter can use a bit of sunshine . ell gotta get going. Hope everyone has a grand day !!

 

[rhoward]

Mornin' everyone!

Ditto what Paul said, but double it. We got about 3" of the white stuff. So this morning after breakfast the snowblower gets started again. Last November I would have said Wow! Cool! Yes! But I think I've seen enough for this Winter.

Show time tonight. The new body mic unit I ordered yesterday has already arrived this morning from Shure so I need to get it unpacked and checked out.

See you all later!

 

[Steve B]

Not looking ofrward to this weekend, some nice persons given us all bad colds, i feel like i have been run over by a truck, and we are going to a farewell party of my cousin Johns tonight, he's moving to australia soon, then his brother Alan is also going, then were going to NZ and my cousin ste should be off to Australia as well next year but today his dad was given some bad news about his cancer and they are taking his leg off next week, unless is to advanced, if thats the case his number is up.

 

[RexHea]

Hello everyone and a very good weekend to 'ya!

Just got another BDL168 (block detection) from the man-in-brown. Guess I will be busy crawling on the floor under the layout this weekend.....and next week. Also, have to install a couple of badly needed Tortoises and a Lenz 150 stationary decoder. Have any of you tried the Lenz? They are a good deal for the price and I have used them for about 3 years now with good results. You can control 6 turnouts with one unit for $40. That is now half the price of the Digitrax DS54 that only controls four. It doesn't have all the bells & whistles of a 54, but if all you need is to control a turnout, it's a bargain.

 

[UP2CSX]

Afternoon, Everyone.

Phillip, I hope everything went well at the doctor's office. That's really nice that the church members are helping you out. They do a lot of that kind of thing down here too and people really appreciate it. That's really good news about your wife finally getting her disability too. How ridiculous that you should have to go through five years of agony to get what she was clearly entitled to. I think there are some people at SS that should be hung by their thumbs.

Sounds like just about the time of year that one more snowstorm in Cleveland would have me contemplating suicide or homicide. I sure hope you guys up north start getting some warm weather soon. At the rate it's going, the Indians will be playing the home opener in the snow again.

Ray, good luck with the show. I hope the new equipment works correctly.

Tom, too bad about that bone spur. Unfortunately, they tend to reoccur so I'm sure they'll have to go in an knock a chunk off it again. No fun but better than the pain you're going through now.

Steve, that crud is on both sides of the Atlantic. I'm just now feeling better after two weeks with some kind of upper respiratory tract infection that just hung on. It's no the flu but some variant of the common cold. Whatever it is, I think I've coughed up about three lungs. I sure hope your cousin's dad case turns out better than it sounds.

Rex, I've been thinking about installing block detection units so my signaling system will actually do something. How difficult are those things and what system does it use for block detection? Except for crossing gates, I have no need for any Tortoises. When you have a layout with only 10 switches, ground throws work just fine.

Larry, at least you got to spend some time at what sounds like a good hobby shop. Too bad you had such crummy weather but North Carolina is aways on the edge of being cold in the winter compared to places like here that are further south. At least the weather was even worse when you got home, which should make it better in retrospect.

George, 1200 apartments? I forget just how big the New York City area is. You could fit the entire population of Prattville in those apartments at three to a unit. I'm not sure I could stand to live in a place with so many people again.

It's a cloudy but warm day here at 73 with a few showers so far. We should get some more showers and thunderstorm tonight and tomorrow but nothing severe and it's just starting to dry out enough that we could use another good rain. Wisteria grows wild down here and I have tons of it in the woods behind my house. It smells and looks beautiful. You'd have to drag me kicking and screaming to any place with snow.

 

[RexHea]

Rex, I've been thinking about installing block detection units so my signaling system will actually do something. How difficult are those things and what system does it use for block detection? Except for crossing gates, I have no need for any Tortoises. When you have a layout with only 10 switches, ground throws work just fine.

Jim, their are many types out there and some with less capability, but I use Digitrax BDL168 boards ($119.00) for detection and Digitrax SE8 ($100) for signal drivers. They work by detecting current going to the block. A 168 can be used to detect 16 blocks, or 12 blocks and one reversing section, or 8 blocks and two reversing sections, and etc. The SE8 can be used to drive 32 three (or four) aspect signals. Cost per block is excellent, if you can use all or most.

I use a computer and RR&Co. software to program how my blocks and signals all work together, but I'm pretty sure you can hardwire the outputs of the BDL to the Se8 board for just 2 aspect. Also, you could use JMRI PanelPro to handle all the addresses and blocks...easier DecoderPro has a way to do this.

Wiring is not technically difficult, just gap one rail per block and hookup wire from BDL (you have to tie all the feeds in the block to the BDL wire). It is "H" on the back and neck since you have to be under the layout running wires, but really worth the pain.

 

[pcarrell]

Afternoon, Everyone.

Phillip, I hope everything went well at the doctor's office.

Things went as planned. The boy lost his hand cast and his legs are healing well. The wife gets to start putting a little bit of weight on her leg and start ditching the wheelchair. Good deal, huh?

That's really nice that the church members are helping you out. They do a lot of that kind of thing down here too and people really appreciate it.

If you ask me, thats the way the body of Christ is supposed to function. These are some real fine folks!

That's really good news about your wife finally getting her disability too. How ridiculous that you should have to go through five years of agony to get what she was clearly entitled to. I think there are some people at SS that should be hung by their thumbs.

If you do that then they might have to apply for disability and they'll have to go through the process! I understand being careful about approving people though. There are a lot of folks trying to scam on people out there, or to get a free ride. Thing is, my wife worked for twenty years and paid into the system before she just couldn't do it any more. She really wanted to keep working, but her body just wouldn't allow it. Now she's just asking for her money back....the money she paid into the system for just this sort of thing. She doesn't want a handout. And even more then that, it's not so much about the money really. It's being able to now get Medicare instead of Medicaid. Medicare covers more things that she needs and with three out of four in this house having MD, every little thing helps.......BELIEVE ME!

 

[Bill Tidler Jr.]

03-29-2008

Good Morning from Tipton IN !

 

[Steve B]

morning all
Rex there was a shop near here selling them for £12 ($30)for a limited time only,,, i missed out by a day, which was a bummer.

Off out to play now, i'm taking the kids on a main line steam locomotive day at the east lancs railway (for my 41st birthday treat)

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Good morning.

It's a very nice 63 degrees here this morning under a mostly cloudy sky. We're expecting a high of 79 later. It will be cloudy most of the time and there's a good chance for showers and a thunderstorm or two.

Today's Weather for:
Sundown, LA 71446-6114 3/29/2008

Wind Chill: 63°F
Humidity: 94%
Dew Point: 61°F

So Far Today
High: 63°F
Low: 62°F
Rain: 0.00"
Rain Rate: 0.00"/h
Gust: 0mph NNE

Today High: 78 Mostly cloudy with a 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the upper 70s. Light and variable winds becoming south around 10 mph in the afternoon.

Tonight Low: 62 Mostly cloudy. A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms in the evening. Lows in the lower 60s. Light and variable winds.

 

[suprduc]

Morning everyone, temps should reach the mid to upper-40s today, if we're lucky.

I am planning on heading down to a small swap meet/show at the local community center. It's a Rock Island Meet so I would like to see what everyone has and I was told that there should be plenty of everything else there as well.

 

[OldGettysk]

Good Morning Bill , Steve , Jeffrey & Carl .P;enty of sunshine today from the Miami of the North !!! But only going up to 33 . Hoping all is well today for evevryone and they have a sunshiny day also !!!

 

[UP2CSX]

Good Morning, Everyone.

Phillip, good news indeed. I'm sure the boy can't wait to rid of the casts. As you say, that's the way churches are supposed to work but not many do. The whole disability issue is really a hot button form me, having to go through it while I knew my wife was dying and she could never work again. There should be diseases like advanced MD that are automatic eligibility without putting people who are already going through such personal turmoil through even more. As you say, it's not the pittance that you're going to get paid every month, it's the Medicare coverage that's so important. People with rare and disabling diseases are pretty much screwed with Medicaid and Medicare is a much better system to deal with those folks. I just don't understand when patients, their families, and their doctors can so clearly see this why it's so baffling to the drones at Social Security.

Rex, I keep looking at those units and it's hard to justify the cost for a layout with five blocks and one interchange block. It might make more sense if I were installing things like dwarf signals in the yard but the P&N is too impoverished for such things. I've been looking at a homebrew system with optical detectors and that might work if I can get the detectors cheap enough. The signal would be red when the train passes the signal and then turn green when the last car of the train passes over the optical detector in the next block. It's pretty simplistic but I just have to figure out a way to make it work.

Happy Birthday, Steve! Hope you have a wonderful day under all those cinders. Sounds like a great way to spend a birthday.

Jeffrey, sounds like we are going to have about the same weather as you but I'm starting to get a little more concerned about severe thunderstorms here. Plenty of moisture and instability so we'll see how much afternoon heating we get before the storms get going.

Carl, I guess you don't have to worry about thunderstorms today. OTOH, you get to go to a train show, something we get once in a blue moon down here. I don't know why train shows hate Alabama. I hope you find some good ideas and good deals.

I took my paint factory off the layout to install a new smokestack and, man, was it filthy. Dust, spider webs, cat hair, and I don't know what else. It sits toward the back of the layout so I guess I don't notice it but it's amazing the amount of junk that collects on the layout even when I vacuum it regularly.

 

[Steve B]

Afternoon all,
Jimhad fun but cut the day short, the eldest came down with the dreaded cold while we were out, now he's wrapped up in a blanket keeping warm, and the rains back.

 

[pcarrell]

Jim, it's kinda like the old saying, "He who has the gold, has the power." They don't like giving that power up, even when they're supposed to.

 

[rhoward]

Morni' everyone, and a fine sort of day it is here in the Finger Lakes. I slept in until well after 10 this morning. Guess I needed to catch up on some of the sleep I haven't been getting for the last couple of weeks. The sun is out and even though it is cold outside the snow is melting. Maybe spring will finally arrive here.

Philip it is good to hear that everything went well at the doctors appointment yesterday. One of the things I like very much about my church is the care my fellow deacons give to people (both in and outside our congregation) when the need arises. One problem many Pastors and Deacons have today is that the new privacy laws have made it difficult to know when someone is sick or hospitalized. I know of a couple of instances where someone was upset that aunt so and so was hospitalized and that ..... Minister never went to even see her! The person who signed her in never listed her as presbyterian and so we were never notified that there was a need. (Just posting this so that all of you know that we are not mind readers and have to be told.)

Hey! The show was awesome last night. As for the sound, we got many complements.... some comparing us to some other schools (that may not really be fair) quite favorably. Had trouble with one of the leads mics in the first act. She got the brand new, out of the box "dead" battery for her unit. Changed it at intermission and all went well for the rest of the show. This is me doing my PDQ Bach routine playing with the sound board:

Two more shows and it is over.

Have a great day!

 

[Steve B]

Blimey Ray looks like your having fun, reminds me of the control desk of the Starship Enterprise

 

[RexHea]

Yikes Ray! That's a lot of buttons.

 

[Steve B]

Burger anyone

 

[suprduc]

Wow Ray!!! Lot's going on there, looks like you are having a good time too.


I'll take a burger Steve, medium-well with some pickles please. You should probably get yourself an apron too.