The Hobo Camp Fire Is going well #IX.. Stop In!!!

[BR60103]

We had a shower today and the air has cleared a bit. Funny seeing folks wearing masks outside and taking them off inside. (We just keep ours on all the time except at home).
New car was telling us that it needs service in -11 days. (That's 11 days ago.) Took it back to the dealer and it took 2 salesmen and a tech to reset it.

[Charlie B]

Good Morning
         It is 62° heading for 82.  I will allow time for a coffee on the sunporch this morning until we gain a few more degrees. We are getting a few more bird varieties and it is nice to see them. 

         I have another F40 to install a decoder in tonight and some other things that can be done if I find the ambition to do them. I called my grandson and asked for help with a small digging project ao I will see him soon. 

         My wife is back on her feet and back to normal. It's great having her back to snuff. After 60 years it is like having your arm in a sling when she is down.

         We have a stray cat that only comes around when she has kittens. I am going to try to catch her this week and have her spayed. None of her kittens ever look like our resident stay that we call Vinny. Vinny is an orange cat and her kits are all either black or tiger stripped grey. They are always beyond taming when we see them and I don't think she has ever had one that lived past 2 months. If I am successful gettin momma fixed I may attempt to catch Vinny and have him neutered  He will come to me and beg to be fed but do not touch him. He is a bitter.  He often shows up looking like Rocky with a droopy eye, cuts on his neck, and at times we think talon marks on his back but he always looks like a new cat in about a week, completely healed and ready for the next bout.

   

     Odd thing is I am not a cat person but I have become quite attached to this outlaw and we feed him twice a day. He is very easy on vet bills for sure. I have never seen an animal so healthy with no vet care. He shakes off the worst.

      Cheers
Charlie

[ezdays]

Good morning all, Saturday, a day of work followed by a day of rest for a lot of folk, but for us retirees, just another day in paradise... Temps suppose to drop to 90 tomorrow and Monday, then back up to 100 +/- . I might just wait until Monday to clean up the garage, lots of sawdust once again.

Nothing else going on here, no change in gas prices, but eggs seem to have gone up a just a little but still reasonable, I think this is the way it usually is, up or down five or ten cents a dozen depending on how productive the chickens are. We had a fire in one farm a few years ago and they lost almost 200,000 laying hens and it was barely a hiccup in their supply chain since they have some 8,000,000 hens. Can you imagine the size of those facilities, they have three, they've had lawsuits because of the stench. It's one of this things, they move out away from everyone, then developers come and put housing right next to the farms and then come the lawsuits. We have a BNSF line that's run parallel to US60 since probably in the 30's. Developers started building houses up to the right-of-way sometime in the late 90's. A few years later, folks living in those houses complained about the noise the trains made, so now we have, "no horns" stretches at a number of crossings. Why? the egg farms and the railroads were there long before the houses, so accept what's already there, or live somewhere else.

My rant for the day, you all have a fine weekend and stay safe....

[sir james]

Hello Blue
A thin layer of smoke this morning. Hi of 83 for late afternoon.
No train news. Downtown Detroit was busy last night. A Taylor Swift concert and the Tigers playing a home game. No nasty issues reported.
Word has it the Swift concert was 3 hours plus and was quite a show, Scalpers were asking a thousand and more per ticket.
Today we will attend the graduation party for our youngest grandson. The way things are in schools today, I'm happy they are all past that now.
S.J.

[ezdays]

Good morning, good morning.... yup, up early as usual, slept in a bit yesterday as usual, things rarely change once you get into retirement.

We had the first stop on Taylor Swift's tour a few months ago and you would have thought it was the first visit from a Martian. For days on end it was the lead-in for every newscast on every local channel. Must of had 100,000 people jammed into a 60,000 seat stadium. Some folks willing to pay tens of thousands to get a seat that originally sold for a few hundred. Even then, I think $40 is as much as I'd expect to pay, and I would still turn it down, just something about crowds that bother me, especially thousands of "Swifties" descending from all directions ....

It got to 101 yesterday, today it's suppose to only get to 89, got to go pull out my longjohns if this keeps up.   All joking aside, I do remember getting issued longjohns in the Air Force and actually wore them a few times during basic training in upstate NY. They disappeared when I was stationed in Yuma, Arizona... 

Not much on this schedule this week, just a much needed massage and adjustment, thanks to my woodworking project. One thing that amazes even me is that I was able to unload, unpack and move around a 65# planer and finally get it on the stand... all by myself.

I hope you all have a great day, glad to hear that the smoke is going away, better yet, that they've got the fire under control...

[Charlie B]

Good morning
         The haze is diminished here and we maybe able to breath by the end of the day. The smoke from the fires was worse than the derailment smoke here at the homestead.  This is supposed to be the last dry day for the next week with rain in the forecast every day. We have gone 21 dys without rain, which is a record. The dooms sayers have had a lot to talk about. I am sure they wish we would get into a full blown draught. 

         I had to cry uncle and call my grandson for some help with a project. I hate to do it but I just have to admit there are things I can no longer do.  Bummer

         I started to do another decoder install on a spectrum F40 last night and have the frame back together. I could have finished it but I was making a trip into the bathroom every 10 minutes so I just gave it up. Maybe I can finish up tonight. I have to install the lights and that will take about an hour.  I have detail parts to instal on a Kato SD80mac and that is a very time consuming job that will be done during this rainy week. 

        Time for another coffee. (no wonder i make so many bathroom trips)

        Charlie

[BR60103]

Charlie:
That is what call the "trickle-down" theory. The reason we have to go to the bathroom every time we stand up.

We are getting a bit more rain and it's washing the smoke out of the air.

[ezdays]

Good morning everyone, someone needs to get fired, the forecast for yesterday was 88-89, the actual was 96. Still not bad but way off. Today's forecast is 90, let's see how close they come. As for rain, not a drop in over six weeks, none in the forecast, but then we know how that goes.

Charlie, there's the "DO's" and the "DO NOT's", but regardless of which group we're in, at our age, we all have our urologist on speed dial.

Not much on the schedule, Pat's family is back from two weeks over the pond so we'll have our regular Monday dinner at his MIL's house. Gives me a day that I don't have to think about what to make for dinner, plus I get to see my granddaughters and my great-grandson (yeah, yeah Charlie and Tom, we're working on #2, due in December).

I turned to TV news on last night, three major accidents, a shooting, a plane crash and a house fire were the lead-in stories. We're losing people faster than we can reproduce. I'd switch to the Cartoon Channel, but then I'd have to put up with all that kiddie violence. I've been watching a lot of "to catch a Smuggler", the enjoyment there is seeing them catch folks trying to smuggle drugs into the US and other countries and the creative ways they try. Just a bit of cocaine in some countries can get you up to 25 years in the slammer, and what one cop told a carrier, "our prisons aren't very nice".

That's it for now, off to breakfast with the usual Monday/Friday group. We laugh a lot, solve world problems and then go home and try to avoid watching the news... Take care, and have a good day.

[sir james]

Hello Blue
Gray skies a54 this morning.
After 3 weeks, we finally got some much needed rain. A nice slow rain all afternoon, might turn our straw lawns back to green grass.
Cartoons are meant to be funny, they are not real life, so just enjoy them. God forbid we watch a Harry Potter movie.
A quiet Sunday at home so no breaking news here.
S.J.

[tompm]

Good morning folks

It is 68 with a supposed high of 81. We have had a few showers. Later this afternoon or evening we are predicated to get some thunderstorms.

All the news outlets are talking about is the collapse of the I-95 bridge in the Tacony section of Philadelphia. If you have not heard, a tanker truck caught fire under a bridge over I-95. Due to the fire the northbound bridge collapsed, and the southbound bridge is buckling. The highway is closed in both directions. Since 160,000 vehicles use this road daily traffic is a nightmare in the area. As of this morning they have not found the tanker truck or the driver who is unaccounted for. They are saying it will be months before the roadway will be open in some fashion. This is the third time an I-95 bridge has been taken out by a fire. Back in 1994 we had the infamous tire fire, and a few years later there was the tanker truck fire on the bridge over Chester Creek in Chester, PA. In both of those cases only one direction was closed for an extended period of time and traffic could be diverted onto the other side.

Saturday was the Delaware County Pride Festival that my son and daughter were chief organizers. The event went off better than expected with little to know hitches. Since my services as emergency supply driver were not required my wife and I made runs to PetSmart, the post office, the hardware store, and the nursery/produce store. I was able to get pet food, bird seed, a new garden hose, some groceries, and some marigolds. Sunday, we planted the marigolds, and my wife harvested some herbs from the garden. I also made a grocery store run. By the evening my wife was feeling rundown more than normal. We are thinking it is the stress from the upcoming surgery on Wednesday.

I did not get as much done with trains as I had planned. The only thing I got done was changing the couplers on three box cars and a gondola.

Today not much is planned. Help my son get the pride festival stuff back into storage. I have more couplers to replace.

I hope everybody has a good day.

[jim currie]

hi all. another Monday is upon us not much changed here days are hot nights are cool but the monsoons are coming which means hot muggy nights ugh. haven't done much with modeling as the house repair has taken my time but did get out the fly-tying stuff because a younger friend wants to learn the art of tying, would love to pass my knowledge on to someone as my kids have little interest in fishing.
stay safe.

Jim

[BR60103]

Tom: We saw the coverage of the I95 problem on TV news. Lots of commentary from the officials of the response units, but the only indication of where it was "the overpass behind us". I finally looked up the local newspaper which had a diagram of the detour.
We had a lot of water come down today -- our exercise was a walk in the mall.

[ezdays]

Good morning all, that I-95 thing has to be a nightmare, I was wondering if Tom and Mikey were affected. It's going to be hard on traffic for everyone for a while. I wish you guys the best...

Missed again on the forecast, 93 yesterday, about the same today and tomorrow, then back to the triple digits. Gas still dropping a few pennies. Going to Denny's for breakfast, right by Sam's Club so I might as well fill up there. A bargain at $4.34. The lowest price in Arizona is $3.14 in Safford, in the middle of nowhere.... I'd say that there's some collusion going on, but I'm afraid that I'd have those guys in black suites and sun glasses following me around.  

Nothing else happening here worth talking about, so I'll just say, have a great day today and try to stay out of the kitchen, among other things, today is National Kitchen Klutzes of American Day.

[Charlie B]

Good morning.
      
     I was up early. Last night about 8PM I set my trap for momma cat. She comes around every 6 months to have a litter. I was going to catch her both times and didn't do it. I put a hot dog in the trap and before I had left the shelter she went for the hot dog and just like that she is trapped. I secured the doors with wire ties just to be sure and left her in the shelter all night so she would be near the kittens *(5). I had her at the vets at 0730 and can pick her up at 1700.

      I worked on the trains for a while last night but didn't get anything finished although I consider I got a darned good start on a couple projects. 

      I may mow the grass today. I am debating. It needs mowed, but it also needs to recover from 21 days with no rain and rain is in store for this evening. I got down to 41 here last night and right now it is hovering around 62. It should get to 74. 

      On to other things right now. Bird watching and my cup of morning Joe are due. 

      Still missing some of our guys and gals. I hope they are OK.

Cheers
Charlie

[tompm]

Good morning folks,

It is now 63 and heading up to 77. We had a boatload of rain yesterday afternoon and evening. The project site is mildly muddy, and the river is up slightly.

Luckily neither Mikey or I are affected as we are both south and west of the I-95 closure. Back in my college days, when I was roofing for the summer, I used that ramp almost everyday to get to work. My partner here on the dam project is affected as the interchange in question is the one, he uses to get from his home to here. Yesterday he got caught in the traffic nightmare and his usual 30-minute trip was about 2 hours. This morning he left earlier and got here almost 20 minutes before starting time. He must figure out a happy medium.

They do need to get traffic flowing through there like yesterday. The local roads and detour routes cannot handle the volume of traffic. If I were calling the shots, I would remove the debris from the northbound structure. Fill the gap with fill material and put a temporary road over top of it. Run two lanes in each direction. In the meantime, remove and replace the southbound structure. Once the southbound structure is complete move traffic onto it and replace the northbound structure. The thing that worries me is that the people who implement something like this in order to get the road open as fast as possible are no longer with PennDOT and those that are left have no clue on how to think outside the box or independently. It is going to be the summer from hell as far traffic in Northeast Philly is concerned. Rant done.

I got soaked coming out of the grocery store yesterday on the way home. When I entered the store, it was sunny. I had to help the wife navigate the return process on eBay. She encountered one of those sellers who doesn’t take returns and the product description does not match the item.

I did manage to replace the couplers on a couple of Athearn RTR chemical tank cars. Even though the coupler pocket does not require a screw since the trucks hold it in place, I like to drill a hole and add a screw. I have had several coupler pockets sag and as result the coupler was too low and as a result the car uncoupled, or the coupler caught on something.

I have a couple of plant hangers to attach to the pergola on the front patio. I would like to continue to change out couplers on some Athearn rolling stock I have.

I hope everybody has a good day.