Coffee Shop XXXVI-2/4/2013

[Boris]

Good Morning, Happy Friday!

Right now it's 32° with light snow here in Howell, NJ. The snow began to accumulate on paved surfaces about two hours ago, but is fortunately retreating back to lawns and other unpaved areas. We're not planning on going anywhere so let it snow.

I started the California Scale Models (Now Alpine) Complete Lumber Yard several days ago, and it is progressing slowly. I'm enjoying this build. I work a little, go to something else while the paint dries or the glue sets, then return to the project.

I hope everyone has a good day.

Joe

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Went to the Suddenlink office and got my new modem. From there I went to Lowe's to get a couple of packs of small brass wood screws (2x3/8 slotted). Spent a whopping $2.76 on those. They're the closest thing to 2/56 screws I can find here and are dirt cheap. Well, upon getting home I opened the box from Suddenlink and found a modem, power cord and LAN cable. Not an instruction sheet in sight! My last modem was USB. It used an A/B USB cable. I looked at the USB port on this new modem, it's an A port meaning I needed an A/A cable. Guess what I don't seem to have a spare of? I had no intention of making a run back to town to get a that I can't afford in the first place. So I looked at the modems LAN port. Hah! There are FOUR of them! Obviously it has a built-in router as well. So I connect the LAN cable to port #1 as that seems the obvious thing to do then connected the other end to my computers LAN port. I pulled up the Network Connections page and attempted to make a new connection. LAN PORT NOT FOUND! I looked at the system monitor and the LAN port is non-op. I checked the driver status. No driver. The LAN port is as dead as my social life! I looked for the CD that came with main board and naturally I can't find it anywhere. It's just an old RTL8102. How hard could it be to write a driver? Time to put those years as a tech and programmer to use. I consulted some of my old books on the program protocols of such drivers then wrote a general LAN driver and assigned it to the LAN port. Restarted the system and went through the process of making a new connection and the LAN port came alive. The modem came up and I was online! That was the first driver program I'd written in years and the first for XP. I put my books away and guess what I found? A USB A/A cable AND the driver CD for my main board! Naturally right when I DON'T need them. This modem is a nice looking thing, festooned with green and blue LED's. Hummm! LED's! That's got me thinking evil thoughts. I better end this.

 

[PNKFLOYD]

Wow!
It has been Monday all day long!

CJ wrote: "Will work just fine Mikey."

Thanks to you and Jeffery!

I work with electrical power systems every day... from 120 volts to 765,000 volts. 18 volts and below are foreign territory to me.

I'll try the little steamer and see if I can change the DC to DCC, without the magic smoke!!

 

[railfan]

Good morning. It's clear and 29.
I did the "Flight of the Bumblebee" thing Wednesday and Thursday. Left here at 3 AM to fly to Charlotte, then to Fort Myers. On the way from the airport to my brother's house, I learned first hand the caliber of driver in the area hasn't improved. A pickup truck tried to drag race us away from a red light, spun out, and ended up on the sidewalk. The driver learned that wet roads = slippery roads. We picked up the Uhaul truck, and began loading it about noon. By 1:30, it was loaded, and by 2:30 the apartment had been cleaned and the keys turned in to the office. We left at 3:00, where I rediscovered how un-aerodynamic a box truck is. 40mph winds and an 11' tall wall traveling down the road at 70 mph make for an interesting drive. A semi truck driver discovered the hard way how hard he was pushing his rig when he blew his engine trying to go fast. He passed me, then came to a rather quick stop about a mile up the road, in a cloud of antifreeze, oil, and smoke. The hole in the side of the block was obvious as we trundled by.
Traffic was terrible North of Tampa, where they are working on widening the Interstate. It took over an hour to go 8 miles.
After that, though, it was smooth sailing, and we pulled into Salisbury, NC, at 6 AM yesterday. We unloaded the truck, took it to the local Uhaul store, and I came home at 2 PM, 35 hours after leaving. With no sleep.
For some reason, I felt a little tired, so I went to bed early last night, about 9 PM.
Now y'all know how I spend my vacations...

Welcome home! You are obviously glad that's over with.



Mike

 

[railfan]

I put my books away and guess what I found? A USB A/A cable AND the driver CD for my main board! Naturally right when I DON'T need them. This modem is a nice looking thing, festooned with green and blue LED's. Hummm! LED's! That's got me thinking evil thoughts. I better end this.

Okay Macgyver, don't steal the led's for your locomotives. Ha ha!

 

[bnsf971]

Okay Macgyver, don't steal the led's for your locomotives. Ha ha!

I always liked that show. MacGyver could build an atom bomb out of a candy bar and a can of diet coke, and make it sound plausible.

 

[kbkchooch]

I always liked that show. MacGyver could build an atom bomb out of a candy bar and a can of diet coke, and make it sound plausible.

It was all smoke & mirrors

 

[bnsf971]

It was all smoke & mirrors

Of course. That's what acting is all about. Not being able to do it, just making everybody think you could.
Richard certainly doesn't look happy in that photo. Maybe he left the headlights on?

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

I always liked that show. MacGyver could build an atom bomb out of a candy bar and a can of diet coke, and make it sound plausible.

I once built a working cannon using those old steel coke cans, remember the ones with the seam down the side? The propellant was potassium chloride, the ammo was gravel, glass and nails. It was set off with sulfuric acid poured through a touch hole. It made a potato gun look like a piece of crap and could turn the side of a truck into a cribbage board!

 

[Burlington Bob]

By Jeffrey-Wimberly;

I once built a working cannon using those old steel coke cans, remember the ones with the seam down the side? The propellant was potassium chloride, the ammo was gravel, glass and nails. It was set off with sulfuric acid poured through a touch hole. It made a potato gun look like a piece of crap and could turn the side of a truck into a cribbage board!

I think they refer to that as "playing with fire".

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

By Jeffrey-Wimberly;



I think they refer to that as "playing with fire".

Back then that was great fun!

*

Had my trip into town this morning, helped my father clean out his car, got my new modem working after a bit of programming, looked at the possibility of remotoring an FP7 or or breaking it down for parts, installed body mounted Kadee couplers on a Roco US Army flatcar and watched some Cash Cab. Now I'm tired.

It's time to pack it in for the night. See y'all in the morning.

 

[Bill Tidler Jr.]

Good Morning...

Good Morning! from Tipton IN.

It's Saturday, March 9, 2013.

TIPTON IN

 

[Boris]

Good Morning:

Happy Saturday! Today is beautiful, with a brilliant cloudless blue sky and bright sun. Hopefully all remaining snow on my driveway will melt today.

Have a nice day y'all!

Joe

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Good morning. It's 55° with 98% humidity. The high will be 72°.

Looks like we might get a little rain today. Today I'll probably be body mounting Kadee couplers on some freight cars I got recently. Other than that I don't think I'll be doing much. I've learned this new modem takes a bit longer than the old one to get up to speed. If I start the computer too soon it can't load some programs that need to be online. So the new rule here is start on blue. When the modems sync LED turns from green to blue start the computer. I can live with that.

 

[Boris]

Things are looking Springlike, now that the snow has melted

 

[Burlington Bob]

Spring is just around the corner! We got quite a bit of rain in the first half of the day, then some SUNSHINE! with a high of 55° made for some rapidly melting snow. Tomorrow should put an end to the last of the snow here at home. Where I'm working will probably be a different story. They had quite a bit more snow than we had and their temps are predicted to be 10° to 15° cooler than here at home. I'll get to find out tomorrow when I get to my room around noon. I'll try to sleep for 4-5 hours before starting the night shift at the start of the outage. I'll be working 6:30 PM to 6:30 AM everyday till our part is over. The reactor will be shut down and the plant will come off line at midnight. If I'm lucky I might get to work three Sundays before being laidoff. Then it will be on to the next one, hopefully working the refuel end of things. We'll see.

 

[bnsf971]

Today was a beautiful day. I took advantage of the sunshine and warmer temps to get some work done outdoors. I dewinterized out travel trailer, and pulled out all the stuff that has internal combustion engines, filled them with gas, and started them, letting them all run for at least a half hour each.
I was going to wash the travel trailer, car, and truck, but ran out of time. I'll get to those tomorrow.

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Well it's been a long day. I had a rotten nights sleep, only four hours. The burning joints are still with me though it seems to be subsiding. I ripped the truck mounted horn-hooks off eight freight cars today (OK, seven cars and a caboose but who's counting) and replaced them with body mounted Kadee 148's in #242 draft gear boxes. One, a shiny white Bachmann tank car that looks like a refugee from the 80's has a frame that's so warped on one end it took an additional 242 box as a spacer to get the coupler at the proper height. Depending on it's performance I might pull the couplers on that one. The cars are a fair mix Lionel/Revell, AHM/Roco, Bachmann and Mantua. And the Santa Fe caboose is Mantua. Photobucket seems to be down so I can't upload any photos. I'm sure there are some out there hooting and hollering in glee at the thought of me not being able to upload photos but if that's what makes them happy..., so be it. OK, time to call it a night. See y'all tomorrow.

 

[Bill Tidler Jr.]

Good Morning...

Good Morning! from Tipton IN.

It's Sunday, March 10, 2013

TIPTON IN

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

[quote user="[COLOR=#FF0000][B]TMarsh[/B][/COLOR]"]Has anybody seen an hour? I seemed to have lost one.[/quote]By jove! So have I! Now where could that varmint have sneaked off to?
*
Good morning. It's 63° with 100% humidity. Numerous showers and thunderstorms.

Looks like it's going to be a wet one today. Thunderstorms are expected all day with heavy rain and high wind gusts.

I'm not really sure what I'll be doing today. I finally got to sleep late last night then woke up in the middle of a sugar crash about 3:15 and I've been up ever since. Needless to say I'm tired and don't really feel like doing anything. In fact you could say I feel like crap. I burned up a 5/64" metal cutting drill bit yesterday when I was working on a Mantua gondola so I need to get a replacement for that when I can. I didn't think the metal bottom of those old Mantua cars was that tough. Most plastic cars have a metal plate in them and the bit goes through them like butter. Guess it's time had come. Now you're probably wondering why I'd be using a 5/64" bit as that seems a little big. That's the closest I have to the size screw I use to secure my Kadee 242 coupler boxes. There's nowhere in this area to get 2-56 screws so I use 2x3/8 slotted brass wood screws. It fits and does the job I need it to do and I can get them right in town. If it's too long I can cut off the excess.

It seems that my internet problem has vanished. No more IP dropouts. Looks like it was the modem despite the cable company's assertions that it MUST be something in my cable in the trailer. But when you go through and replace every bit of cable with new and have everything out to the main pole replaced and the problem remains there's only one thing it can be. It looks like I have that bug out of my hair.