Scattered Thoughts . . .

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 particularly species of mushroom looks like a small umbrella that is stuck into various tropical mixed drinks.  Unlike yesterday's photos,...

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...

T oday, Sheila and I walked more than five miles and my feet and legs are feeling it!   We finally have an appointment for Sheila's car after it broke down on our way to Long Island in June.  The car needs new front struts.  We'll see what else they say it needs sometime tomorrow.  Somehow I doubt getting new struts is the end of the story. We had to drop the car off in Duxbury and it was such a nice day that we decided to hike back to the house rather than get a ride from Sheila's dad.  In all, I think the hike was 5.3 miles and my watch indicated I did over 13,000 steps.  That may sound like a lot but I typically do between 10,000 and 13,000 steps when I mow the lawn every week.  Regardless, today's hike was a bit brutal due to the heat whenever we had to walk on blacktop.  The heat coming off the blacktop made it feel like we were walking through an oven.  Hiking on the grass and dirt, however, felt fine.  Fortunately, most of th...