Scattered Thoughts . . .

I had previously written about doing some practice shooting of the Milky Way from our backyard.  I had some trees and clouds in the way though so I was thinking that I should attempt another nighttime photo session from a different location...  from our rooftop!  This would allow me to get up toward a better height to see beyond most of the trees. My photo of the Milky Way was looking pretty good last night but I wanted to get a bit more practice in before our trip and the weather was cooperating tonight so I ventured outside to the nighttime land of the skunks and bears.  The area reeked terribly of fresh skunk spray but I was safe up on the rooftop (yet another good reason to climb up onto the roof!). I climbed up our ladder onto our rooftop...  used my cellphone to turn off all our outside lights...  then shot a few quick photos.   First, I was pointed south...  this is where the galactic core of the Milky Way is partially visible from ou...

W e're getting ready to go on another cross-country trip by rail, from coast to coast, so the past few days have been very busy.  We still have a few loose ends to tie up, mostly related to medical stuff, but other than packing we're just about ready. Part of this stage of preparation has been getting my photography gear in order.  Well...  first, I needed to decide which photography gear I want to carry across the country.   We had some exceptionally heavy bags with us on our last cross-country trip with two of the grandchildren so I've been hoping to travel a bit lighter this time.  Unfortunately, this trip is a bit longer and the weather a little cooler so we'll need some additional clothing and some of that clothing will be slightly bulky outerwear.  I want to limit my photography gear because that is, without a doubt, the heaviest thing in my bag(s).   I've narrowed this down for the most part but I still might make some last minute chan...

W e've been extremely busy lately...  There's been a lot of very poor health as well as months of painful health for Sheila...  and, of course, we've had other commitments squeezed in too.  We're hoping now to have a few uneventful weeks and good health leading up to our next big event.  More on that another time.   My health has still had its ups and downs.  One day is good and then the next is miserable with near anaphylaxis, overwhelming fatigue, and simply feeling quite lousy including a lot of extra pain.  Then I take some extra medications to help my body balance itself and then I need a few days to recover.  Fortunately, my health hasn't been poor enough to land me in the hospital.  This constant cellular fight going on in my body is exhausting though.   During all of this, in recent days, we've had some out of town visitors for a short time as well as a solar eclipse that I had forgotten about.   At lunchtime ...

I had written a few blog entries about kitbashing this Bachmann Large Scale bobber caboose but I wanted to add a short blog entry just showing the 'before' and 'after' for a quick comparison... Here is a collage showing various angles of some of the new details on the newly rebuilt caboose...

I made a bit more progress on the caboose project for our garden railroad over the past few days.  I am definitely at a nice stopping point now.  I think I can call this little project "completed".  I'll probably change a few more things in the future but, for now, this project is done. Here is a photo, below, showing the 'before' version of this caboose when I first purchased it...  note that this caboose started life with only two axles and four wheels...  no window panes...  no lighting...  shiny molded plastic with molded-in color...   and, generally, very toy-like...  there really was nothing special nor attractive about it.  It didn't even roll well! My goal was to make it a bit more realistic-looking and I had a lot of ideas.   The first thing I wanted to do was to remove those two axles and replace them with two typical railroad trucks which would make it roll much more smooothly.  This required a lot of cutt...

B efore I mowed the lawn yesterday morning, I noticed a tiny mushroom growing on our lawn out in front of our playhouse.  Unfortunately, since I hadn't mowed the lawn yet, the grass was taller than the tiny mushroom so I wasn't all that happy with the few photos I captured.   I went ahead and took care of the lawn, trimmed bushes, cleaned up gardens, and did a little pruning.  I also sprayed the entire yard for ticks and other insects and had completely forgotten about this tiny mushroom which was now mulched with the grass.   This morning, I went outside to water the flower gardens and noticed another tiny mushroom in front of the playhouse but about a foot closer to the playhouse steps.  This mushroom was about the same size as yesterday's mushroom...  approximately just under two inches tall.  This particular species of mushroom looks like a small umbrella that is stuck into various tropical mixed drinks.  Unlike yesterday's photos, h...

I had previously written that we had noticed a couple of problems with our clothes dryer in recent weeks.  The drum was making some squeaking and creaking as it tumbles and the clothes were not fully drying as they should.  Also, everything was coming out wrinkled so I knew that something was not right. Yesterday morning, I completely disassembled our dryer, cleaned it out completely (it wasn't bad at all, actually, but I figured I should do this while I was inside the dryer), and replaced the rollers for the drum as well as installed a new belt.  That job was a bit of a pain in the butt but it is done.   I think they must have used locktite on the bolts holding the drum rollers because removing them was extremely difficult and frustrating.  While I was inside the machine, I checked everything and tested the heating element.  The heating element tested as good so all I did with that is removed the little bit of lint and dust that was around the elemen...

T his past week started with my health crashing.  This happens once or twice a week, typically, but it never gets any easier.  Actually, it is more frustrating than anything else because, in some ways, I have normalized the frequency and severity of my health problems and what is more frustrating is how it messes up my schedule and puts me way behind in accomplishing things around the house.   I cannot remember being pain-free and able to do whatever I want so these health problems have become normalized.  Now, I need a few days each week of riding a couch and, even on the "good days", I still experience pain and I need to be careful not to overdo it.  I definitely had one of those lousy, painful days at the beginning of this week.  Back about two weeks ago, I noticed that our dryer is making noise when it is tumbling.  It sounds like a bearing on one or more of the guide wheels holding the tub in place as it tumbles so I ordered the parts I need ...

W e finally had a weekend of solid nice weather so I had no problems doing some electronics work out at our little garden railroad.  I expected this project to take an hour or so...  it took all day so I'm very glad I waited for solid nice weather.   I spent far too much time running in and out of the house retrieving tools.  Plus, I always forget how time consuming soldering tiny electronic parts can be for someone who rarely solders.  Needless to say, this phase of this project was far more time consuming than I anticipated.   I set up everything in the late afternoon including some photography gear.  This way, when it did get dark enough outside at around 8pm, I was ready.  I did get some photos and video clips during the day simply to show the new streetlamps installed in position on the bridge.   There is a short video after all these photos below. I captured a photo of my tablet as it was running the software that control...