The 30th Coffee Shoppe Dec 4th

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Good morning. It's clear and 22, headed for a high of 35.
I went out yesterday and stuck a dipstick in my fuel oil tank, and came up with 4" of fuel on it. Not good. I closed off the heater vents into the train room, my wife's office, bathroom, and bedroom. Now only the living room, dining room, and kitchen have heat. The dining room only because that's where the thermostat is. I also turned down the thermostat to 60, from 65, and went to the gas station on the corner to get 10 gallons of diesel fuel for now. I'll call the fuel oil company this morning,and see how many hundreds $$$ it will take to get a delivery. We've gone through 200 gallons in less than 90 days, and today is the first cold day this season. At $4.25/gallon, 100 gallon minimum, plus a $ delivery charge, it's rapidly becoming an expen$ive winter.
Everybody around here thinks this is normal, but I'm cringing at the prospect of something like $100 a week in heating bills. I can run a lot of space heaters for that.
 
Terry: you might want to break out some space heaters. Either that or contemplate moving south. I stay nice and warm with a little 1400 watt electric heater.


Good morning. It's 29° and clear here. The high is due to be 55° and it will be mostly sunny.

Below freezing outside but it's a nice 74° in the trailer where I am. I got started on the junkyard casting yesterday but haven't as much as touched a brush to it yet. I cut the hood off one of the cars and milled out the engine compartment to reveal a big empty hole. I'm looking at doing that with at least one more of the vehicles on the casting before I start painting it.

After it warms up a bit outside I'll go to town and drop a package at the Post Office then go do the remainder of the grocery shopping. I could do the shopping now but the van doesn't have a heater and the Post Office isn't open yet. Not to mention I haven't had breakfast yet. Gotta get that taken care of or what little that's left of the vans upholstery could start looking tasty on the way home.

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Good morning folks

It was 26 F this morning as I headed onto the confused highways this morning. Our high will be 30 F.

Snow squalls this morning meant people forget how to drive. It was chaos trying to get into the office this morning due to a couple of snow squalls. The way people were reacting you have thought that there were several inches on the ground. It makes me fear any real snow fall this coming season.

I hope everyone had a good New Years. The family was sick most of the time between Christmas and New Years. My wife and I seemed to be the hardest hit. I missed three days on work. I usually like going to work between Christmas and New Years. No phones ringing, no one bothering me means I can get caught up on a lot of things.

On Sunday we went to the Philadelphia Mummers Fancy Brigade Finale. It was a very good show. I just wish our seats would have been better. There were a lot of interesting themes. It always amazes me the show that these groups put on. Broadway would be jealous of some of them.

Last night my son had his Boy Scout troop meeting. They are getting ready for Winter Survival this coming weekend. Winter Survival is a camping trip based on cold weather camping. There is also a scout skills competition and the troop is judged on how they set up camp and look. This is always one of the most attended events every year. This year almost 80% of the scouts are attending.

Tonight my daughter gets back to volleyball practice.

I hope everybody has a good day.
 


Happy accident today.:)
8 years since I got this engine(yeah,I said 8 years) and I finally got around to putting DCC in it. :rolleyes:
While I was putting her through her paces, and making sure the axle gears wern't cracked (after all, it is a Proto) it dawned on me. The light reflecting back was just about the right amount as if the interor cab lighting was on! Just thought it looked kinda cool!

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71 down, only 9 more to go!:D
 
Got the errands in town done. I almost ran off without a package I was going to drop at the Post Office, but I remembered it before I got off the loop and came back for it. I got the rest of my groceries. One thing I couldn't find was sliced salad olives in a jar, so I had to settle for sliced black olives in small cans. Came back home and put it all up. I also picked up a can of starting fluid. I need the stuff to get my van started some days (especially when it's cold) only for the first start of the day. Only have to spray it on the filter for a second. In cold weather I have to give it a few seconds to evaporate before starting but in warm weather I can kick it right over. Sometimes it wants to be a little contrary and struggles a little and sometimes kicks over sounding like a Hemi. But most of the time it starts the way you'd expect a 318 to start. Occasionally it'll backfire through the exhaust and rattle the nearest neighbors windows. One time it did it one of them was in the process of picking up his cat! Nuff about that! OUCH! I guess most of the dogs here think it's too old to bother with and don't even chase it when I drive out.

Well anyway my father wanted to go to Wal-Mart a bit later so we both went in his car. One thing he had to get was something that would dice up a whole onion without having to even once pick up a knife. I went in search of that as he would have gotten the cheapest chintziest thing he could find. Sometimes the man makes Scrooge look like a drunk sailor! But he got everything he was after.

Got hand cramping going again. last time it was my left hand, this time it's my right. Been having occasional problems with cramps in the ribs on my left side too. That smarts!

Be back later.
 
Temp here is 38, heading for the low of 36.Looks like tomorrow is going to be 62. Went to dinner at my parents place tonight. Tacos! It was my parents,my sister and her husband and myself. I had to cut up the onions. The julienne blade on the new chopper we got today diced up two large onions in less than half a minute. It took longer to set the thing up. Didn't have a chance to work on the junkyard scene. Too busy getting stuff done for myself and tending to other peoples stuff.

Time for me to call it a night. See y'all tomorrow.

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Good morning to all,
Well sometimes things work out for the best, and that just happens to be the case here. Yesterday I couldn't get the shot of the Ridge Crest upper main line headed North showing the sub-roadbed and the broken curve sections I put in to upload properly.

So I re-shot it again and renamed it. It's a [2]sec hand held shot but I was steading myself on the bench work but it turned out a lot sharper than the prior shot.

The two added filler sections I added to move the final curve back farther are shown, the first one has the Red end to it and the second has a white end to it but not so easy to pick out but directly following the board after the red end filler section.

Finally I'm beginning to see some real progress and I guess that's because the track gang foreman told me if I didn't get my butt in gear I was going to get fired! So besides getting this in I also have the sub-roadbed main filler section pre-marked and ready to cut and that should install easily so there will be plenty for the track gang to do then!!

Well I still have to cut the sound board for the road bed as well as the main filler section and the inner loop section so I can real get things going as the inner loop is where the Ridge Crest Engine terminal and the John Allen Engine house and black Smith shop will be and possibly a turn table too.

Things are beginning to get interesting to say the least!




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I hope everyone has a great day and week.
 


Good morning. It's clear and 19, heading for a hoped-for high of 41. I put another 5 gallons of fuel in the tank for the house, and the furnace is still going through it like a drunken sailor going through money. I've lowered the thermostat to 60, and have 3 electric heaters going to supplement it. If I seem to be complaining about something most of you already know, it's only because this is the first Winter I've been in a house in a cold climate, and the first Winter I've ever had to deal with oil heat. The house and I were built about the same time, when fuel oil was 12 cents a gallon, and a visit from the fuel truck would cost 30 dollars if the tank was empty. When I first started working, fuel oil was 20 cents a gallon, and minimum wage was $1.65. You could buy 8 gallons of oil for an hour's work. Now fuel oil is $4.25 a gallon, with a 100 gallon minimum, and there's a $20 delivery fee on top of that. I've lost track of minimum wage, but I think it's around $7 an hour, which means you can buy almost 2 gallons of fuel for an hour's work. Even at my current salary, more than double minimum wage, I still can't buy 5 gallons of fuel oil for an hour's work.
There's also the doubling of a deduction from my paycheck for the time I turn 70, which further erodes my ability to purchase basics like heating oil. I may have to start burning my trains to stay warm.
 
Good morning folks

It was a cold, crisp 13 F as shivered on the way out of the driveway this morning. Our high today will be 29 F. It looks winter has finally showed up.

My daughter had volleyball practice last night. The best I can say about it was that it was inconsistent. After some really good practices this one was an unpleasant surprise. The coaches were not happy and pulled them off the court with about 15 minutes left and had a long talk with the team. With three more practices until their first tournament we are hoping this was a fluke and due to the layoff from the Holidays.

Not much else happened last evening.

Tonight is Cub Scouts. I also have to get some birthday shopping for my wife done.

I hope everybody has a good day.
 
Good morning. It's 41 and partly sunny. It's looking like the high will be 62 and it will still be partly sunny.

Sometime today I'll be going down to my parents place and clear all the yogurt cups out of both of their refrigerators. When I was putting stuff away after dinner last night I noticed the dates on a lot of them had expired by a long ways and I think I heard some discussion from the cups near the back about kicking out the mayo, butter and some other things. Yeah, definitely time to move them out. And if I can get some time for myself today I may be able to start on painted that junkyard scene.

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Unfettered said:
Oh man a Pacer!!!! Uh oh...I just showed my age...LOL
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You just showed your age by recognizing it? I showed my age by posting it! Actually I owned two, both passed down from my parents. A 1975 Pacer X and a 1979 Pacer DL. I didn't realize it at first, not until the two were sitting side by side, the Pacer X was larger.
 
jeffrey-wimberly said:
You just showed your age by recognizing it? I showed my age by posting it! Actually I owned two, both passed down from my parents. A 1975 Pacer X and a 1979 Pacer DL. I didn't realize it at first, not until the two were sitting side by side, the Pacer X was larger.
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Eghads Jeffrey!! I don't know whats worse, owning 2 Pacers, or admitting to it!!:eek:So YOU were that guy huh?? Wow, like the M&M guys say, he does exist!!:rolleyes:
 
Good morning again,
It looks like I'm just sneaking into Flo's before noon again to order breakfast. Hi Francine, I have another Blueberry Flapjack with Honey and coffee and Orange juice, thanks.


If you noticed my prior post I've been making more headway on my C&S West Short Line RR and it looks like this now the turning point I have been trying to get to although more challenges remain but once I get the main filler section in today and get the area where the Ridge Crest engine house will be also secured and covered with sound board as well as the upper main line over toward the mine things will be really progressing great!

Talk with you all later.
 
I received a box in the mail today. It contained a small steam loco and tender and a single coach. Thet were made by Fleischmann I'm guessing in the mid 70's. The loco runs though it's a bit rocky. The loco has a name on it: Betty. The tender number is 110. On the coach is the numeral 3, Ansbach, 049033 Nurnberg. As I remember Ansbach and Nuremberg are about 25-30 miles apart. So this would have been a nice little passenger shuttle between them. I saw similar locos during my time in Germany but none just like it.

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kbkchooch said:
Eghads Jeffrey!! I don't know whats worse, owning 2 Pacers, or admitting to it!!:eek:So YOU were that guy huh?? Wow, like the M&M guys say, he does exist!!:rolleyes:
Click to expand...
I owned a brand-new 1980 Pacer, and a 1979 Pacer wagon. I owned the Pacer for all of 5 minutes. I drove it off the lot and down the street, and was broad-sided by a drunk that ran a red light. I got it a year and a half after production ended, and the dealer was kissing the ground I was walking on to get rid of it for 50% of sticker. I think I paid $2250 for it. I didn't own it long enough to make an impression, good or bad. I bought the wagon used from the same AMC dealer a few weeks later. I paid even less for that one. It turned out to be a decent car, very reliable, but by no means a chick magnet. The wagons didn't look so much like something George Jetson would drive, either. I have an HO scale model of the Pacer, the same color as the one I (briefly) owned.
 


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