Scattered Thoughts . . .

I 'm still feeling rather lousy so I stayed indoors again today.  I happened to find a small project to keep me busy for a short while so that was good. Since the time that I felt I had finished painting the new truss bridge for my little garden railroad, I've been thinking something isn't right.  I couldn't put my finger on it but I was left feeling the something wasn't right.  Part of me thinks the color isn't exactly right even though I've painted it and repainted it about a half dozen times.  I don't know if I should go lighter with the green or go darker toward a greenish charcoal.  I also realized that maybe I'm just feeling as though it is not "complete" yet and needs more detail.   In an attempt to add more detail to this truss bridge, this morning I decided to order some brass stock and tiny round head brass nails to add some detail to this bridge.  I plan to cut the brass stock into shapes depicted by the white paper in the photo

A fter our absurdly long drive to Long Island the previous day, we got up early the following morning to catch a train on the Long Island Railroad.   Our hotel was backed-up against the railroad tracks so Lukey spent much of the night watching trains go back and forth past our windows.  There was only an alley between our hotel window and the elevated railroad tracks.   Most of the Long Island Railroad is electrified but I had forgotten that the far eastern end of Long Island still needs diesel engines to run trains.  I hadn't heard a diesel run on the Long Island Railroad in decades so was shocked to hear a diesel pass by the hotel that night.  The following day, my dad reminded me that the eastern end of Long Island is not electrified so they need to pull the passenger cars with diesel locomotives.  The sound of that diesel passing by our hotel instantly conjured up visions of Long Island Railroad diesels in the 1960s and 1970s though! In the morning, we were all ready to go a li

After spending a few days in Roseville and Sacramento visiting Adam and Joi, we turned in our rental car and hopped on a train to San Francisco.  Adam and Joi accompanied us on this part of our journey so there were no goodbyes necessary just yet. There is no doubt that we had been looking forward to spending time with Adam and Joi in Roseville but spending time in San Francisco was the main attraction of our long cross-country journey in my mind.  I was definitely looking forward to spending time in San Francisco but I also think Sheila, Will and Sue were excited about this part of our journey as well.  We headed to the Sacramento train station in the morning.  Sheila and I dropped everyone off at the station and then she and I headed to the rental car place about a mile away in downtown Sacramento.  We dropped the keys in the drop box and then called for an Uber to take us back to the station where everyone was waiting for us... The Sacramento train station is a bit spread o

Our last full day in Roseville was rather nice.  First we visited the air base and got a bit of a guided tour by Adam.  We had lunch at an Irish Pub (it was the day before St Paddy's Day) that was more like a  dive  sports bar.  Then, we actually had a little time to unwind and spend some time at the hotel pool before heading out to dinner with Joi's mom joining us.  It sounds like it was a busy day but it was actually the most laid back day we had while in California.  For a pleasant change, we actually had some time to kill which is why we ended up in the pool at the hotel. While on the air base, we stopped at the Coyote Pub and Grill to use the restrooms and get some cash from an ATM.  I have to say that it was difficult leaving that place because the NCAA basketball playoffs were on the big screen and they had the channel turned to the Florida game...  a game I wanted to see.  I knew if we stayed for the game it would lead to a few drinks, getting a bit too comfortable (a

We've traveled quite a bit by train over the years. Naturally, there have been a few memorably long delays due to derailments. Derailments are quite rare and I've only been affected by two in about thirty years of Amtrak rail travel but, when they happen, it is time consuming, frustrating and memorable! I was on one train that derailed in one incident and, in another, we were delayed by about eight hours due to a freight train derailing up ahead of us. During both incidents, it really would have been nice to know what was happening and to have an estimated time of when we'd be back on track (pun intended). But, how would that be possible? When the train that I was on derailed while I was on my way to my sister's wedding,  Amtrak resolved the issue within a couple of hours. T he tracks were washed out due to heavy rains in the preceding weeks and only one or two of the cars came off the tracks. They sent buses to pick us up and transported us to a station about sixty

Sometimes the light magically falls on an interesting subject perfectly.  I had a small fleet of fairly large sized O scale (same scale as Lionel trains) F9 diesel engines sitting on a couple of tracks and the sun was low and streaming in a nearby window as a sliver of light... this light was reflecting off a windshield, which was nice, and some of the light was reflecting down in between the two tracks softly illuminating the sides of the locomotives in shadow... I really like the period when late steam engines shared the tracks with early diesel engines. It was a time of change... a time of growth... a time of moving forward... a time when railroads were the way to travel and move freight. This was a period at the pinnacle of the golden age of railroads and, unfortunately, as time would prove, the beginning of the end of the golden age of railroads. The only thing I can think of to improve this shot would be to have had a late steam engine softly illuminated in the background

As I mentioned in a previous blog entry, my health has been a bit lousy since my medical appointment earlier in the week. As a result, not much has been accomplished around the house other than making meals and cleaning myself up. It is during these quiet times when I have a little time to take notice of things I normally don't have the energy nor time to notice. This afternoon I decided to check my blog statistics to see how many people are viewing my blog, where these people are located, which pages they visit, which blog entries they read and how they found my blog. This is something I try to do at least once a week. The results are often interesting. More often than not, most of the people reading my blog are those researching chronic illness and my illness, Systemic Mastocytosis. Sometimes, however, a different blog entry will capture some attention and the tide of visitors shifts. This time of year usually finds traffic from a different source when compared to the rest of

I truly wish that I could say I am "carving a new world" in the real world but I am really referring to Lukey's Christmas present... a model railroad. I have begun the next phase of creating this little railroad world... I am transforming a flat terrain into a three dimensional world by carving the flat, blocky foam into rolling terrain, rocks, hills and ditches.  This is an exciting time because I begin to see the world I have locked inside my head as I carve, scrape and shape this new world. It is also incredibly messy with chunks of foam flying (not quite like Edward Scissorhands but messy enough) and clinging to everything. Then, when you move and cause a disturbance of air, these foam chunks blow around the room. What a mess! (Bending over on the floor isn't helping my spinal injuries either!)   Anyway, I just wanted to add some more photos showing this process... I hope to have this entire little railroad world carved before bedtime. Now I need to go sh