Welcome to Coffee Shop 17

[blownoutcylinder]

Good Morning--

It's up and at 'em for this little one--he's got more client interviews to do today and our weather is stick and gum for now--we got dumped on ag'in last night and we's stuck with showers and those t'underin' boomers for the next few days---sheeesh

Jim The forecast had a low just spinning around up here with the jetstream just looping around here as well--it's almost like trapped gas--- As to the amounts being bandied abouts--meh--I've heard higher for some dang reason---I'm assuming cumulative --over the last 2 years?All in all, I'm avoiding that soapbox this morning-

Brickbuilder Looking good! How did you power the engines? You probably already mentioned but I don't know where

Have a good 'un

 

[Screwjack]

Mornin' guys, another day at work

Not much going on in my world today other than work. Got a few days off scheduled for next week to get my garage and basement straightened up. But like they say, a bad day off is better then a good day at work!

Oh well it's off to earn my keep around here, talk to ya later...

 

[AndrewC]

Good morning from Ye Olde London Towne.
Another quiet week half over. Been suffering from a bit of a flu-like bug this week. Had to get tested for Swine as I've been in contact with someone who has it. Negative, phew. Weather is the usual 21c and rain.

We managed to get some more of the shed stained over the weekend. Still need to do the one side which will be a pain as there is only about 30" of clearance. On the modelling front my back ordered sound decoders have arrived, that means some major surgery to some lucky locos. I also managed to bodge together a spray booth again. Basically its a clear plastic storage tub with a brushless muffin fan and some dryer hose. Works brilliantly and cost a lot less than the $500+ a professional one goes for over here. That means I've finally painted the Summit 'Jack in the Box' kit. Hope to finish assembling the rest of it this week. Haven't decided on whether to do the interior or not.

Take care all and have a good week. Tomorrow I start my annual 'tech free' week. No mobile phone and no internet. Catch you in the next coffee shop. Flo, have that espresso IV bottle on standby.

 

[Secondhandmodeler]

Good morning folks.

I had a wonderful day off yesterday. The last eight or nine have been 'booked' for one thing or another so this one was all mine. What did I do on my day off? Whatever the heck I wanted! Actually, I plowed ahead with building a few kits for the layout. The hotel was completely repainted yesterday with hopes of a better outcome. One of my background buildings is coming along nicely as well. I went out and took pictures of the trestle for a summer reference picture. I even had time to stop by my Grandma's house for a piece of peach pie and Breyers ice cream. Not a bad day at all.

It sounds like the soap box is in heavy use around here lately. Maybe you should try using a conch instead.

Have a good day everyone.

 

[pcarrell]

HEY! Did you steal that from Chris? GIVE IT BACK RIGHT NOW YOUNG MAN!!!

 

[tompm]

Good morning folks

It was 67 F on the way in this morning. High will be 85 F. You can definitely feel the change in the humidity this morning. It looks like the A/C will be on at home tonight.

My daughter had her flute lesson last night. My wife developed a bladder infection and yesterday the pain and discomfort were bad enough she called the doctor. That set off the usual chain of events that resulted in me yelling at the office manager about the incompetence of the office staff. You don’t blow off a Type 2 diabetic who is experiencing lower back pain and has visible blood in the urine. They tried to tell my wife that they had no appointments available and the doctors were too busy to talk with her and she would have to wait until Friday to come in. After my phone tirade she had an appointment, saw the doctor, and got medicine. This morning she feels 100% better.

I worked on renumbering the Accurail L&NE boxcar and the Kyle covered hopper. I had to redo the boxcar after one of the decals came off and of course curled up and became unusable. I am halfway done both cars.

We have Cub Scouts tonight.

I hope everybody has a good day.

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Good morning.

It's 77 and cloudy here. The high will be around 90 and there's a chance of thunderstorms.

It's cool and wet here this morning with more rain on the way.We got a little under a 1/4" yesterday while Alexandria got 6" in one hour. Know what I'd be thinking if we got that much here in so little time? I'd be thanking God that it wasn't twice that in one hour!. My father is home today so he can take care of my mother. That gives me a day off. I'll have some time to go through my videotape collection and sort the ones I don't want anymore and toss them out. That'll make room for my rapidly expanding collection of DVD's.

Today's Weather for:
Sundown, LA 71446-6114 7/22/2009

Heat Index: 83°F
Humidity: 93%
Dew Point: 75°F

So Far Today
High: 77°F
Low: 75°F
Rain: 0.20"
Rain Rate: 0.00"/h
Gust: 6mph SSE

Now through 11:00 AM CDT July 22, 2009
High: 90
Through 10 AM...scattered showers and thunderstorms will continue to move southeast at about 25 mph across northern parts of the area. Gusty winds, frequent lightning and heavy rainfall are possible with some of these storms. Isolated rainfall rates of up to 1.5 inches per hour are possible. Additional showers will continue to develop along coastal waters and move inland across Cameron and Vermillion parishes.

Today High: 90 Mostly cloudy with a 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Highs around 90. Southwest winds around 5 mph.

Tonight Low: 72 Partly cloudy with a 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Lows in the lower 70s. South winds around 5 mph.

http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm18/forum-2/DSCN0798.jpg

 

[UP2CSX]

Afternoon, everyone.

Bob, if you took the $23 billion and only divided it up among taxpaying citizens, meaning those that actually have to file a tax return with no earned income credit, you're looking at about 77 million people. The total would then be about $298,000 per taxpayer. Now, that's what I call a stimulus plan.

Tom, glad your wife is doing better. Sounds like you need to find a new doctor. That's a process I'm going through now since my doc is way overworked, never sees you on time, and makes way too many mistakes and wrong diagnosis's.

BOC, you are doing a good job of purloining our rain. I've never seen the northern jet stream stuck so far north this late in the summer. As far as total dollars wast...err...invested, I've heard everything from $23 trillion to $110 trillion. It just depends on what programs you include. Whatever the real amount is, it will bankrupt us all in the long term. I'm still buying gold and shorting Treasury bonds. I figure if the government want to take most of my money, I should get some back in the market...as long as Barry doesn't find out I have it.

Tony, I hate days off where you have to do things like clean garages or, worse, clean out gutters. Even "real" work seems like more fun.

Andrew, sorry to hear you got bit by the flu bug. The good thing is that, even if it was H1N1 (Swine Flu), it would have taken you just as long to recover and it wouldn't have been any worse than a garden variety flu. Swine flu is the most overblown disease since the the Hong Kong flu, that killed more people with the vaccine than ever died from the illness. OTOH, I just made a tidy profit from Glaxo stock so I'll ride this wave of panic too if the governments of the world want to scare people to death. Sounds like a pretty nifty home-built spray booth. Have not having to respond to every e-mail and phone call sounds good. You'll be amazed at the productive work you can get done.

Corey, funny you should mention a conch, which was the South Pacific islanders alarm system when danger approached. That peach pie and ice cream sounds might good.

Jeffrey, you've been getting some decent rains while we've been getting nothing, as usual. I've been watching the storms move in from the west and, as soon as they reach the Alabama state line, they collapse. It's like we have invisible rain shields or something.

 

[stationmaster]

I Want a Divorce

For your entertainment and perrusal. This is one divorce where I should come out ahead:

DIVORCE AGREEMENT


American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists
and Obama supporters, et al:

We have stuck together since the late 1950's, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce. I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has run its course.

Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right so let's just end it on friendly terms. We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way.

Here is a model separation agreement:

Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by landmass each taking a portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes.

We don't like redistributive taxes so you can keep them. You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU. Since you hate guns and war, we'll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military.

You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell (You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them).

We'll keep the capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart and Wall Street. You can have your beloved homeless, homeboys, hippies and illegal aliens. We'll keep the hot
Alaskan hockey moms, greedy CEO's and rednecks. We'll keep the Bibles and give you NBC and Hollywood ..

You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we'll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us.. You can have the peaceniks and war protesters. When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we'll help provide them security.

We'll keep our Judeo-Christian values.. You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism and Shirley McClain. You can also have the U.N.. but we will no longer be paying the bill.

We'll keep the SUVs, pickup trucks and over sized luxury cars. You can take every Subaru station wagon you can find.

You can give everyone healthcare if you can find any practicing doctors. We'll continue to believe healthcare is a luxury and not a right. We'll keep The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the National Anthem. I'm sure you'll be happy to substitute Imagine, I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing, Kum Ba Ya or We Are the World.

We'll practice trickle down economics and you can give trickle up poverty your best shot. Since it often so offends you, we'll keep our history, our name and our flag.

You can keep your want for a second language. We will speak English, sometimes with a twang, or a "y'all" but no more "no comprende".

Would you agree to this? If so, please pass it along to other like minded liberal and conservative patriots and if you do not agree, just sign anyway. In the spirit of friendly parting, I'll bet you answer which one of us will need whose help in 15 years.

Sincerely,

(your name here)

P.S. Also, please take Ted Turner, Sean Penn, Martin Sheehan, Barbara Streisand, & Jane Fonda with you.

P. S. S. And we won't have to press 1 for English.

 

[AndrewC]

Gents, this isn't meant as a slight on Americans or their culture but can one of you please tell me why Americans bother to travel overseas on vacations? Living in London I see the effects of having a million tourists in town at any one time. The Europeans get stuck in and explore. The Aussies invade all the pubs but the Americans are a mystery. They spend between 6 and 10 hours flying here to be greeted by an American tour guide. They are then herded on to busses and shipped to the nearest American chain hotel (Ramada, Hilton, Holiday Inn, etc). They next make a bee line for the nearest American fast food outlet such as McDiscustings, or KFP (Kentucky fried pigeon). After that they are herded back on to busses to clog up the streets looking at the sites through scratched windows. They rarely venture out on their own, see or experience the real London (or any other city), and almost never engauge with the locals. Wouldn't it be much easier if they just ordered the naff plastic Tower bridge from eBay, viewed the sites from Google Earth and ordered in a pizza from Dominos??? Why is it that Americans have to be shielded by Americana where every they go? To be honest the Brits are just as bad.

At least they aren't as bad as the Japanese. They don't know where they've been until they download the pics from the dozen digital cameras they are carrying.

 

[blownoutcylinder]

Good Evening--

Hello from stuck behind touristaville. We have tourists driving around our neighbourhood --one went by about 4X before he gave up and in halting english asked how one gets to UWO (our university, natch). After giving him the directions my wife realized that the students are starting to move back into town----ohno ohno---whenever the students come back the Japanese students come with their parents who have 13-15 cameras around their necks( another albatross around the neck--ALA Ancient Mariner) and you never see their faces---only the camera lens
Is it possible the camera just swallowed their faces? I know, I've seen far too many 1950's era SF films--

 

[stationmaster]

Andrew, When I visited Europe, I was my own guide. I had family in Wales, Sconny Botland and Ireland. Then across the channel I had family in Germany, Luxemburg, and Belgium. I had a few pen pals, as well as family that served as tour guides.

I feasted on home cooking most of my trip, and slept under the roofs of family and friends. I traveled by train and bicycle much of the time. I thought that there seemed to be a village every 2-5 miles in Europe as well in Britain.

As far as today's traveller McDonalds and KFC is fast food and that is all that the person is familiar with. Me? I'd rather have fish and chips, brats and kraut any day over a Quarter Pounder with cheese. But, I still have a hard time eating potatoes with vinegar. It just ain't proper. Gimme a bottle of Heinz!!!

And you can keep your lamb and mutton. That is one meat I cannot eat. Tastes horrible.

And another thing, many of the pubs served beer warm. All I wanted was a cold beer, though I did find a few "Americanized" pubs that could serve up a "cold one". I'd like to go back some day.

Bob

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Would it make you feel better if us Americans stayed home and didn't spend our tourist dollars in London and other places in England? Somehow I don't think that would be good for the tourist trade. Speaking for myself, the last time I was in London was in 1977 and I really liked it, enough so that I stayed there several months. That's much more time than I gave Paris. I only stayed there a couple of weeks while I saw the sights of Europe over the course of several years. As for American tourists going to American themed hotels, eatery's, etc, they are simply going to places with names familiar to them. As for riding tour buses for guided tours and such, we do that on own native soil so why not everywhere else too.

 

[blownoutcylinder]

I'm not so sure that the Fast Food outlets are as familiar as all that. Most of the one's I came across when I was in Europe about 10 years ago were not so similar to the one's up here. I think the closest to familiarity would be the one's in London, England--especially nearer the 'touristy' parts-- but then....

As for the Hotels,package tours are just that. Package Tours. WYSIWYG. Ain't no making a silk purse out of those sows ears. That is why the "American Tourist" has this quasi-reputation in the first place. American Tourists outside of the pre-packaged tours are just everywhere--they just blend in more...

After all some of you Americans--as tourists--still follow the old saw----"When in Rome, Do as the Romans do"

And that works the other way too--if the Romans are going to the MickieDee's then why not go there too?

 

[maczimb]

Hi all. I'm back after several weeks away.
As for tour buss's, we did quite a bit of that from Prague and on down the Danube through Vienna,Salzburg, Budapest and a whole bunch of other cities and towns, too many to remember.
The tour guides were not Americans but local people with heavy accents, that had the ability to talk for four hours straight without taking a breath. ENOUGH ALREADY.
We didn't eat in American fast food places but on a Danube cruise ship. The whole thing left me very disappointed.
We finished of with about a week in Jolly Old England, visiting rellies (relatives) we stayed in some quaint pub hotels. Quaint means very small bedrooms, lousy plumbing and low ceilings.
We ate in all sorts of pubs and restaurants and drank lots of COLD English beer. I love the food and the beer over there, in fact, I have always enjoyed my visits to Jolly Olde.
The idea of warm beer and bad food in England is, I think, a throw back to the days after the war when food was in short supply and there wasn't much in the way of refrigaration to chill the beer.

That's my two pennies worth. ( at the rate of exchange, that's about 3c )
Mac

 

[kbkchooch]

boB, The divorce agreement was, in a word, beautiful! I almost shed a tear reading it!
Then, I forwarded it to my Oprah watchin, Michael Moore believing, tree huggin, Subaru drivin sisters! One is a former hippy who's brain dead daughter married an unemployed professional skateboarder from the Dominican Republic just so he could stay in this country. 3 years later, he's legal and GONE No surprise here!
This oughta make the annual family picnic more fun!!!!

 

[vato loco]

Gents, this isn't meant as a slight on Americans or their culture but can one of you please tell me why Americans bother to travel overseas on vacations? Living in London I see the effects of having a million tourists in town at any one time. The Europeans get stuck in and explore. The Aussies invade all the pubs but the Americans are a mystery. They spend between 6 and 10 hours flying here to be greeted by an American tour guide. They are then herded on to busses and shipped to the nearest American chain hotel (Ramada, Hilton, Holiday Inn, etc). They next make a bee line for the nearest American fast food outlet such as McDiscustings, or KFP (Kentucky fried pigeon). After that they are herded back on to busses to clog up the streets looking at the sites through scratched windows. They rarely venture out on their own, see or experience the real London (or any other city), and almost never engauge with the locals. Wouldn't it be much easier if they just ordered the naff plastic Tower bridge from eBay, viewed the sites from Google Earth and ordered in a pizza from Dominos??? Why is it that Americans have to be shielded by Americana where every they go? To be honest the Brits are just as bad.

At least they aren't as bad as the Japanese. They don't know where they've been until they download the pics from the dozen digital cameras they are carrying.

I'll answer your question from my point of view if, you can tell me why people on the other side of the pond don't wear sun screen when they hit the beach or water park? Good God man, I watched this guy from some where they must not see sun light put on a SPF 15 tan booster I warned him and offered some of my SPF 70! he declined and said he wanted a tan when he went home. I seen him later that evening at the dinner.......LOL's he was red as a lobster and starting to hurt To any tourest visting the beaches and water parks sun screen with highest SPF you can find is your friend! your people when they come here stay at the chain hotels too!

Myself, I'm sure that I'll never make it to the UK and doubtful if I even make it to on of the Islands of Floridas coast.....But if I did i would stay at a chain hotel.......If you mom and pop hotels are like ours.....No thanks! but I would roam around on your sidewalks and take in the sights

 

[vato loco]

boB, The divorce agreement was, in a word, beautiful! I almost shed a tear reading it!
Then, I forwarded it to my Oprah watchin, Michael Moore believing, tree huggin, Subaru drivin sisters! One is a former hippy who's brain dead daughter married an unemployed professional skateboarder from the Dominican Republic just so he could stay in this country. 3 years later, he's legal and GONE No surprise here!
This oughta make the annual family picnic more fun!!!!

I second that Bob! that was funny ROFLMAO

 

[vato loco]

OBTW: The tention at work over the up comming Layoff is starting to show! Two guys in a park on the other side of the county got in a heated argument over the layoffs! Not sure what happened but they got wrote up for the fight! If this keeps up I won't have to worry about getting layed off........These morons will get them selves fired before the axe man comes! I just need to keep my mouth shut and stay out of sight

 

[bob]

OK folks, time for a gentle reminder here...

NO POLITICS. No if, ands or buts. It's that simple. NONE, ZIP, ZILCH, NADA...

Yes, this means you! Yes, this means politcal rants disguised as jokes. Yes, it means replying to past politcal rants, comments, statements or discussions.

I know the economy is bad, and I know there are some real issues out there.

However, please be reminded that even though this is the off-topic topic, two rules still apply. NO RELIGION AND NO POLITICS.

Want to debate the merits of Obama? Google "political forum". You'll get millions of hits. This forum won't be one of them...

Any additional political discussions will be deleted on site, without warning.