Good Morning All. Clear skies, full moon and 73° for this Monday morning. Supposed to warm up a bit after 94° yesterday, still waiting on our first triple-digit day though. I did do some more mowing on the southwest part of the yard yesterday afternoon before heading out of town. That's the hardest part as it's over the septic tank and lateral lines. Now back to the east side today to start the rotation over. While it's my largest section, it's also the easiest as it's 3/4 acre with straight runs and very few trees or obstructions to deal with.
Spent a pleasant afternoon with many relatives and my cousin from
Brooklyn Long Island yesterday. My brother had an unmanned "Taco Truck" parked in the back yard for self service fajitas, rice, beans and other Mexican fixings; along with a Margarita machine. The beer and other spirits were all American or imported though. Neat setup.
Relatives who were hoarders - My grandmother may have been in the top five ever. First of all, my grandfather was not only the president of the local Knights of Columbus, but also head of the local Con-Ed electricians union back in Brooklyn during the 40's - 60's. As such, he normally got a lot of gift-wrapped bottles of distilled spirits for Christmas and other holidays from lots of people. My grandmother dutifully took them and stored them in a back closet in their brownstone. He died before her and when she finally passed, my mother and uncle found over 1000 bottles stashed in there. Also in her home, they found over $140K in cash in envelopes stashed in various places throughout the place. Many of the $50 & $100 bills were dated from the 20's through the 60's when it was customary for her and grandpa to get cash bonuses from their places of employment. Sadly mom threw out gramp's entire stash of baseball trading cards from the 00's through the 40's. Who knew??? I have other stories but I won't bore you today. Her bed was the only one in the home that was not stacked ceiling-high with stuff. Unlike some hoarders, there was no trash or otherwise objectionable material, even in the full basement.
Thanks for the many likes and comments regarding the Hydrocal structures posted yesterday;
Steve J, Tom O, Guy, Christian, Karl, Alan, Hughie, Chad, Garry, Jaz, Curt, Joe, Sherrel, James, Patrick.
Just a simple two eggs over easy and a handful of bacon today Flo. Tell Mel to quit overcooking the bacon.
No activity in the train shed yesterday. Since I showed some Downtown Deco structures yesterday, how about some more today.
Blair Ave Part I.
Addam's Ave Part I
Addams Ave Part II
Alan - I am looking forward to your continuing progress on O'Neils.
Tom O - I personally have not had good luck with ScaleTrains couplers. I only have their engines though. For me, they don't stay coupled to Kadee #5's or # 148's. Since I always run double-headed lash-ups back to back, I change the front couplers to #148's out of the box, and leave the rear ones intact since they only ever couple to one another. Then to my surprise last week, I had a pair of SD45's uncouple from one another twice during a straight forward single direction run! It could have been some unevenness in the switches that they were going through as not all my trackwork is perfect. Did I just admit that???
Curt - Downtown Deco's structures are pretty neat in my opinion. I have five. While they're simple four walls and a roof construction, the detailing in the Hydrocal castings is superb. The key is in the painting though. I might spend two or three weeks at a couple of hours at a time painting one of their larger models. Rosa's took me longer than Ace Auto did.
Patrick - That's a lot of replacement water in the pool, there must still be a leak somewhere. Even in the worst summers, I only lost about 250 gallons a week from a 14,000 gallon pool every week from evaporation. This much milder summer, I have only added about 350 gallons all summer long. Some timely rains helped me along the way though. Wife and I both use it multiple times every day from before Memorial Day through at least Labor Day and sporadically until October most years.
Everyone have a great day.
