Good Morning All. Still cloudy but it's now 53°, mid-60's again today, but no sunshine until Friday. The current forecast is calling for upper 70's for 6 of the next 10 days, including Christmas Day. Brief cold front Thursday night. Hopeful that the NWS is correct right now.
Yesterday's visit to the PCP was uneventful; he was not as concerned about the bruises on my legs as I am. Said that while more severe than normal, was nothing to be concerned with unless they last much past New Years.
On the way home, we made our first visit to the new Tom Thumb store that opened 12 miles away last Friday. My first impression is neutral. There were sale items right now that beat the Kroger regular price, some meats looked better but were higher in price, veggies were about the same, but there are some negatives. The store is definitely smaller, maybe 1/2 the size of the Kroger that I use, aisles were more crowded with displays, but that may just be from the opening promotions. Only one entrance makes it more congested than the three at Kroger. My wife is dead set that we should start using them simply because they are closer. So I checked with my AI friend and it confirmed that it is a pricier store overall. Driving to Denton is not always a bad thing because there are a whole lot of other places there that we can visit while in town that are not available locally; like the Vitamin Store, Hobby Lobby, many more and varied eateries, UPS Store, etc. Plus that's where many of our doctors are. Only local guy is the dentist/oral surgeon. AI also told me something interesting, that is that the Tom Thumb chain is wholly owned by Kroger.
Had to face the dishwasher after we got home and I stayed with low-body stress chores the rest of the day. Taking all of the empty beer bottles out to the dumpster was the maximum. I'm still supposed to take it easy until about next Monday at the earliest although my incision points are feeling better every day now.
Today is going to be a "Willie Day". No chores or tasks on the schedule unless my wife breaks something...which she is prone to do. I may have to open a jar or put the cork back into the wine bottle, but that is normal. Fire in the wood-burning stove has been out and I don't need it in the next ten days except for maybe tomorrow night. Might get away with just using the electric space heaters instead. Makes the firewood pile last longer and I don't have to bring any inside. I'll miss that exercise though!
Not as much time out in the train shed as I wanted yesterday, but I did get a bit. On my "Ten Days of Christmas" project, I gave myself a Northern Pacific Airslide covered hopper from Walther's Gold Line.
I originally purchased this car in 2012 and it's been on the shelf ever since. It's old enough that Walther's includes a package of horn-hook couplers in it if you want to replace the McHenry scale couplers.
I did replace them, with Kadee #148's since one of the McHenry's was already broken. I don't like the plastic scale couplers anyway, so it would have been replaced before it even hit the rails.
As I posted earlier this week, I run the truck tuner on all trucks as part of my pre-deployment inspection of all rolling stock. These trucks were horrible as far as excess flash.
I also dislike the shiny Walther's Proto metal wheelsets, which I will weather today.
Santa Fe didn't normally exchange cars with the NP, but I liked the look of this one so I bought it at the time.
I posted yesterday that I would attempt to take a better picture of the underside mechanism of the Intermountain tanker. It's not quite as delicate as it looks, but less handling is recommended. I normally don't remove freight cars from the layout once they're in place, so it isn't quite an issue.
Karl - That's a side effect from the Atorvastatin that I don't remember having, although I may have had it. I quit over two years ago and my cholesterol level is only 4-5 points above the recommended; which I think errs on the side of caution anyway.
David (Marlin) - Maybe I missed it along the way, but why is the very good looking coal yard being made as a diorama instead of part of a layout?
Chet - Regarding the Ford F-150 Lightning. The buzz around here is twofold. Many of the owners of pick-ups own them for towing, whether it be for boats, livestock trailers or flatbed trailers with equipment parked on it. The reduced range when towing killed it's functionality. The second issue is the weight of those batteries. Many of the locals, whether in the construction or farming business have to drive them on dirt. They leave deep divots and are also prone to get stuck; sometimes in far remote locations. And while most don't admit it, I think that the cost of charging is more than the current cost of gasoline here in Texas.
Patrick - Usually it's not an issue buying Parsnips in the grocery store here. Both my wife and I like them. Unfortunately I am not able to grow them in my garden due to both heavy soil and hot weather.
Everyone have a wonderful Wednesday.
hit us hard last night. We're a little over 500' in elevation facing south and the winds were blasting from the SW. Gusts were in the 40-60 mph range most of the night (calm now) and heavy rain (mostly clear skies now). Lots of 60' plus pines and firs came down. 200,000 without power for a while. We lost power about 1:20am and it finally came back on at 8:30am. Our son said that there were several roads closed on his 3 mile drive to work from downed trees.
