It's just gone 3:05pm here, indoor temp is hitting 90f, which is high, but not as high as could be, there's a high overcast cloud cover though that is making it stifling and an effort to move. Like me to send you a bit of it.
ERIC -- That is just the best Christmas present any of us could wish for. Wonderful news!
NOW .. If we can just get some meat on those bones; for God's sake, man, eat a sandwich!
Say Louis: Glad to hear your wife is safe! She must be a defensive driver which is good and her guardian Angle was watching over her too, Thank God! Glad you also didn't get hurt too badly slipping on the black ice, that can be drastic..
Willie I am glad to hear about your success at Costco's Hearing Aid Center. I have been trying to get my Mom to go to them, but she is as stubborn as a mule, must run in the family.Good Morning All. A bit warmer today at 23° and mostly cloudy. We get back to near normal today with a high in the mid-50's, maybe 70° on Christmas day. Hooray. I can hear with the right ear again now. The Costco hearing aid center replaced the "receiver", which is actually a wire from the hearing aid to the earbud. Not only that, but the lady also gave me some extra ones plus a tool for changing them myself...demonstrated it as well. She also gave me a bag full of other goodies, replacement ear pods, tiny speakers (1/16" diameter), cleaning tools etc., all because I told her I had to make an 80 mile round trip to see her! Did I say all of this was free? I recommend them (Costco) to anyone who needs hearing aids. But, this is also the second time that they had replaced that same "receiver".
Trainwise, I fiddled some more with track and turnouts attempting to get the look that I want. Temporarily out of flex-track after using 20 pieces of it. I have more but it is being used on a temporary freight car storage shelf as of now, but not later today. Cars will go on bare wood for a few days until I can get the new staging tracks fastened down. If I go with the present design, I get five visible staging tracks from 18-26 cars long, plus an industrial switching lead for some low-relief buildings along the wall, as well as a bit of scenery along the front edge. More than enough storage for the cars that are on the storage shelf right now. Of course I will first rehab some of the many pieces of track that I salvaged from the previous layout!!! Need to do this anyway to free up the new stuff for the remainder of the upper level. Not going back to the LHS until mid-January.
...Louis - Really glad to hear that you and your wife are OK. Take Karl's advice and "Let's be careful out there."
Everybody have a great and safe day. Merry Christmas.
Willie
Amen Karl, it was unreal how slippery it turned in a matter of minutes. Don't worry when you bring the stuff and I promise I won't be in the hospital. If I am, God forbid, sell the stuff on ebay for me because Hopkins owns Bayview now and they are some money hungry over priced heartless sons of ... When my sister was battling cancer Hopkins dropped her like a hot potato as soon as her insurance had reached the maximum benefit. Another good part of the ACA is no more maximum benefit limits.OMG Louis! Thank God she's OK, I've seen the videos from Saturday. Scary stuff! SWMBO was supposed to take her real estate license test Saturday in Bmore. Luckily it was cancelled, now scheduled for New Years eve.
Louis - Sorry to hear about your wife's accident but happy she's alright. Hope you're feeling better also.
LOUIS -- Sure happy that the spousal unit is OK. Sounds as if it could have been much worse. Happy to hear that you sustained, maybe, little damage too! Out here we don;t need "black ice" to crash ... All you have to do is turn on the TV early in the morning and see where all the crashes are. I think there were 7-8 pretty good ones this morning ... and it's a daily occurrence. I really hate getting older, but at least I don't have to fight that freeway traffic twice a day - and it's getting to the point that it is badly jammed no matter what time of day.
Curt it could have been much worse for both of us, thank God for our minor problems.Afternoon All,
Went to see Rouge 1 with my son. He really liked it and I thought it was OK. No idea what is planned for tomorrow.
Louis- Thankfully both of you are OK.
Louis - sorry to hear your wife was involved in the 67-vehicle pile-up; glad she wasn't injured!
Speaking of harrowing winter driving experiences: I was driving from from Chicago to Baltimore in February 1974, sleep-deprived, on the PA turnpike thru a Lake-effect snowstorm at ~2am. Every horizontal surface was completely white and all I could do was follow the tail lights of the car in front of me; otherwise I had no way of knowing where the pavement was, let alone what lane I was in. And fighting to keep myself awake thru all this. I was totally ecstatic when the exit ramp for Breezewood, PA [an oasis of motels] finally came into view what seemed like hours later!
Good evening fellers! Sorry I ain't been around much. Family and more family. My vacation has been one family outing for sure. At any rate I finally got some time for trains today. Decided to dig into one of my Athearns to see what the deal is with the flashing headlights. Athearn wanted me to send one in so they could look at it. Found out that grease has gotten all over the pickups. Cleaned the wheels again to insure there isn't a problem with them. They were rather clean to say the least. Cleaned off the grease and no more flashes! Problem solved. So good news there. One unit down two to go.
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Louis, this made me think of both you and your wife: https://media.giphy.com/media/6ruy5LArIsfUQ/giphy.gif

If you're looking for sympathy because you had frost on your truck this morning, It ain't gonna come from me.
View attachment 59803 It's even worse if a snowflake shows up.
