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Good morning. Yes it's still raining here. It's 36° with 100% humidity. Rain in the morning. Rain likely in the afternoon. The high today will be 42° and will feel like 30°.
and tonight
Yep, you see right. We have a small chance of snow tonight. Wouldn't surprise me if some folks get out and dance in the streets. Others who know better will stay inside and wonder if they have the next day off from work. Half an inch of the white stuff here pretty much closes everything.
I may get a chance today to work on Oliver's train adventure. He'll be starting on his search of the old style coach with it's seat compartments. That should be a joy to program. Yeah, right. More like a PITA but it's fun to watch the text descriptions as each compartment is gone through.
Supposed to rain here until tomorrow morning, (early morning), then end as a mix of sleet, snow and rain. Temps here, depending on who you're watching on the boob tube, which bank you're driving by, or your own thermometer, is between 36`-44`. There is suppose to be a break for a little while, but they guessers are still calling for 2-3" of rain before it turns to ice. High tomorrow is just supposed to be 39`, with lows into the 20's tonight.
Snow, sleet, and rain in November in Alabama! Will wonders ever cease?
We had a dusting of snow yesterday, just enough to need shovel and salt. But I guess people would expect that up in Wisconsin. We'll just have clouds and wind next day or so.
We have no travel plans for TG until a family get together w/ DSM's sibs and their spouses on Sunday; I have night work shifts four days in a row starting tomorrow (besides my full time self-employment writing and editing, I have a part-time copy editing job at a local paper -- getting to fill in for the full timers when they take days off).
Meanwhile, DSK-M is going with his mother (my ex-, not to be confused with the lovely DairyStateMom) to New Orleans. I'm hoping the weather doesn't foul up that trip -- he and his older bro, DSK-A, will be coming back Friday night and he'll stay w/ me this weekend.
I'm in Louisiana where it's not uncommon to still be mowing the lawn at Christmas/New Years. One morning I was out on my paper route (200 miles of rural back roads five days a week). I went through rain, sleet, hailand snowall within a period of less than fifteen minutes. It was mid-September when the temps around here can hit high double digits/low triple digits!
I'm not insuring her really, I'm just deducting the amount from the monthly support check (only 6 more to go!!Yeah!), she wont get paid til after the 1st, too late for my tags.
These things have a way of just going and going and going. First wife and I split up 38 years ago, haven't had any contact with her for at least 35 years, but occasionally the divorce comes back to haunt me. And ours was a clean break, with no support or alimony........
Hopefully, you get a favorable resolution to this quickly.
Global Cooling? Here in Jersey, it's currently 39°. As the rain moves in it's supposed to rise to 61° by midnight, then drop to about 49° by noon tomorrow, and 29° by evening. We are also "eagerly?" anticipating 2"-3" of rain plus wind gusts of 50mph, ending with a coating of snow and ice. Actually rather typical for Jersey in late November and early December. Macy's announced they are seriously considering grounding the balloons for Thursday's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Happy Tuesday Eve! Tomorrow my first kato southern pacific C44-9W will arrive. It is over ten years old but listed as new having been removed from box once for a test run and photos. I have a thing for kato GE 4400 series locomotives.....and I really want one or two in Canadian National livery. Those are less common and have been going for around $120 or more. So instead I've opted to keep getting the more available roads.....and two of those with shipping is about $120.
With the colder temps and now close to three inches snow and still falling.......I set out a small electric space heater near the two bedrooms (bedroom and train layout room) where I spend the most time in this somewhat large upstairs apartment. I have a fan which blows some of the heat toward the front rooms. I've turned down the digital thermostat on the natural gas furnace......and this little heater is keeping the rear area warmer where I need it......but still out front is fine. We'll see what it does to the electric bill.......but I just paid it and was only $27 last month.
I'm in Louisiana where it's not uncommon to still be mowing the lawn at Christmas/New Years. One morning I was out on my paper route (200 miles of rural back roads five days a week). I went through rain, sleet, hailand snowall within a period of less than fifteen minutes. It was mid-September when the temps around here can hit high double digits/low triple digits!
You ain't kiddin' there Jeff. During March of 1993, I held my girls first team softball practice at 7:30 that Thursday night and it was still 85`when we left the field at 9:00. Next day we got 22" of snow! We even had thundersnow!
Birmingham's latitude isn't much higher than your's so your not tellin' me anything I don't already know. This is the most northern city I've lived in for more than 2 years. We been here since 1989, and it close to my old hometown, and family, about 80miles south.
Well I got started on programing in the old style luxury passenger coach. The line numbers for it's part of the program run from 700 to 1570. 700 to 1150 deal with the walkway going from one end to the other. At one end of the car is a small food service area manned by two stewards who run snacks to the four deluxe seating compartments number 1D, 2D, 3D and 4D. There are seven more seating compartments for passengers paying the regular fare (no snacks or games provided). These compartments are numbered (you guessed it) 1,2,3,4,5,6 & 7. This is a day travel coach so there are no berths provided. At the other end of the coach is a small lavatory (restroom). The walkway going from one end of the car to the other runs down one side of the car so it's between the windows and the wall separating the compartments from the walkway. From what I understand coaches similar to this were in use in Oz up until the late 80's.
Haven't posted on this forum in months, but I've been lurking and reading quite a bit.
Today started with light rain and now we have 2+ inches of snow, with 5-8" expected between now and thanksgiving. It's a nice, fluffy snow too, my favorite. I love to watch the dog run and play in the snow. The first 2 or 3 real snows of the year are my favorite. After Christmas, I'm done with it and can't wait til spring, but tonight is kinda magical for me, I guess I still have that much kid in me.
Anyway, have a good evening, and happy (early) thanksgiving to all.
Had a little problem with my //e earlier. Drive two on the slot six drive card (backup drive for Native Fury) seemed a bit sick. Turned out it wasn't the drive at all. The cable connector had only partial contact with the drive card. I shut the computer down, pushed the connector down with my thumb and felt it move then set. Fired the computer back up and all is as it should be. Sometimes heat can cause tyhe connectors to push up a little but most of the time it's due to the connector not being pushed all the way down in the first place.
Progress on the old style coach is moving right along. The walkway from end to end is done, the lavatory and food service area are done. The doors to the seating compartments are done. I still have to program the locks then program in the details of the compartment interiors and who or what might be in them. After all this is a train crawling with criminals of many types, sizes and ages so there's danger at every turn. After this coach there's one more coach, then a baggage car, a crew car then three locos. So Oliver needs to collect all the items he needs so he can be on top of his game when he either brakes or derails the train. He might bend it a bit but either way it's gonna stop.
Time for me to call it a night. See y'all tomorrow.
Temperatures will range from 23 to 27 degrees with partly cloudy skies. Winds will range between 12 and 24 miles per hour from the northwest. Snow accumulation of less than a half inch is predicted.
Good morning. It's 32° with 100% humidity. The high will be 45°. There's a freeze warning for tonight. The low will be 22°.
On the cool side here this morning. We got a little snow last night, enough to make a light dusting on the rooftops. It's pretty easy to pick out the homes that don't have enough insulation. They have no snow.
No plans for today. I may do some programming on the old style coach in Oliver's adventure. He needs to be wary of the kid with the Archie's comic book.
A little something for those who like to shoot their mouths off.
Good Morning: Happy Wednesday before Thanksgiving.
Safe Travel to those of us who are traveling or have loved ones traveling to be together this Thanksgiving.
The temperature is beginning to drop from the days high of 63° @ 0635. It's still raining but the wind is now out of the West. So far, 1¾" of rain has fallen. Rain is supposed to continue for much of the day, while the temperature drops through out the day. They have removed any snow / Ice from the forecast. .
After 42 years in the railroad industry, I have many recollections of the craziness and intensity of working on the day before Thanksgiving, in both passenger and freight sides of the operation, and the sudden quiet stillness when the last UPS trailer goes up on the TVLA train at North Bergen, NJ, or once the last Amtrak "Regional" leave 30th St in Philly for NY and DC, as well as driving the only car on the Pulaski Skyway, from Jersey City to Newark at 0700 Thanksgiving morning as I drive home after spending the overnight in North Bergen and South Karney.
Well its cold this AM. The rain finished blowing thru, and fortunately, we had no frozen precip, but there was 2.5" of rain in my rain gauge. There was some isolated icing on some of the bridges around here, but nothing that stayed. Temps are in the mid 30's, and we've got partly cloudy skies. House is warm, and the morning coffee is good. Tomorrow we will have Thanksgiving dinner with the future in-laws. Right now, all is good. Happy Thanksgiving ya'll.
Well yesterday I had to get a new blood glucose meter as strips for my old one (Bayer Contour) are no longer covered. So now I have an Accu-Chek Aviva. I don't particularly like it. Not like I had a choice. It's all the insurance would cover. It doesn't rest in my hand very well and it's hard to get a single strip out of the container. I usually end up with two or three. The meter came with just the meter and the pouch, nothing else. That little bit cost thirty bucks. It didn't include a lancet either. I'm using the one from my old meter. The meter isn't covered by the insurance. However the lancets tips and the strips are. Cost me just three bucks on the copay for a total of thirty-three bucks.
No progress on Oliver's adventure today. I did however keep myself busy by tearing down two non-op apple disk drives and using the good parts to build one good disk drive. I then tested it on my mothers old IIe. It works great! In the process I found out that the Apple program I have that tells you how much memory your computer has is a fake. I ran it on my mothers old computer and it said that computer has 128k RAM. That's impossible as the add-on memory card was out of it. It has 64k RAM. I cross checked it on my //e, first with the RAM card in:128k RAM, then with the RAM card out: 128k RAM. I listed the program and traced through it and found that the part that computes the amount of RAM had been circumvented by a subroutine that reports a static number (512 which is then divided by 4 to list 128) instead of the actual number. I have another utility that accurately counts up the RAM but it's in my ProDOS utilities. I have to scan and list all the assignments for slots 1-7 and the aux slot. The amount of RAM is listed at the bottom of the list.
Did a little work on my //e today. It has three drive cards in it. Slots 5, 6 and 7. Slot 7 is my master boot drive, slot 6 I use for my two primary program drives and slot 5 runs two data drives. There's only one slight problem. The drive cables connected to these cards push against the card next to them and this causes the cards to lean. The card in the middle stands up near straight whilst the cards to either side lean outward kinda like a paper fan. This puts pressure on the on the contacts on the card slots and it also pushes the card in slot 5 over against a CP/M co-processor in slot 4. That co-processor tends to run on the hot side and I don't want the drive card near it. I thought about tape but that's temporary and can be messy. If I have to pull a card out for any reason it means removing the tape and having to redo it all. Nope. Too messy. Then I thought about all these old insulin syringes I have. Yeah. That's the ticket. My redneck mind went to work and before long I had a piece of a syringe tube that had three notches in it. One notch for each card. Now the cards stand up straight. You can see the result below. The card with the red light on it is the co-processor I mentioned.
Remember the fake memory reporting program I mentioned? I decided to have a little fun with it and changed the static number. I now shows that my computer has 1024k (1mb) of RAM.
My family's Thanksgiving is at my sisters place tomorrow. I won't be there. For one it's hard for me to get up there. For two it's darn near impossible for me to get up the steps with any degree of safety. So I'll remain here tomorrow and enjoy what's brought back.
Well it's time for me to go. I'll see y'all tomorrow. Y'all have a fantastic Thanksgiving!
and tonight
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