Scattered Thoughts . . .

T he weather was generally lousy while Lukey and Kenzie were staying with us for a few weeks.  We didn't have many rainy days of solid rain but we had a lot of dark days with intermittent rain.  One particular day was indeed a solid rainy morning so we set up Lukey's trains in the kitchen while Gee worked from her home office.   Due to the pandemic, we converted our "train room" into Sheila's home office so we had to find another place to run Lukey's trains since Gee was working from home while Lukey and Kenzie stayed with us.   We cleared off the kitchen table and set his HO scale layout on the table.  That actually worked far better than I thought it would!  The layout hung off the end of the kitchen table but the layout itself was solid enough to handle the weight of the trains without the support of the table under the last foot of one end of the layout.  Having the train set on a table was far more comfortable than running them while the layout is placed

In the past few days, I had some hands-on experience with a new Lionel train set.  When I was a child, I used Lionel trains exclusively in my model railroading hobby.  I actually had a large model railroad in our attic.  By high school, I had progressed into more realistic trains in N scale (realistic track, realistic slow speeds, realistic direction control, realistic and detailed trains, etc) but I continued using my large Lionel model railroad on the other side of the attic space.   Sometime in the 1970s, Lionel started producing more toy-like plastic trains including their locomotives.  I'm sure they still had some of their higher end, highly detailed metal trains but I only had access to my friends' lower end new Lionel trains.  Unfortunately, my experience just the other day was with very low end, almost what I would consider junk, toy-like plastic Lionel trains.  This train set is very toy-like and, worse yet, likely to prove to be easily broken by a child.   This train

Back around Labor Day, Lukey came over and we brought his trains outside to the backyard.  Gee's new office is in what was the train room so we currently lack the space in the house for running trains.  Besides, bringing these trains outdoors also provides nicer backgrounds and lighting for photos. This particular day was overcast and dark clouds were moving in very quickly but we figured we had an hour or two before the rain would start.  I was not feeling all that great on this day...  I was feeling lousy enough that I vividly remember feeling lousy on this day.  I had significant breathing problems, I was nauseated and holding back vomit, and I generally felt lousy.  I also had significant spinal pain that was probably adding to the breathing problems and nausea.  We still managed to get the trains up and running in the backyard for a little while though... One of the great things about bringing the trains outdoors is that I can capture some nice photos.  The lighting is realist

We gave Lukey a new steam locomotive for his birthday.  When he first drove it on his layout, the locomotive would slip and slip and slip.  If it was pulling any cars whatsoever, it would lose traction and stall while the wheels would continue to spin.  After cleaning the track...  and cleaning the wheels of the locomotive...  we determined that we needed to add something to the wheels to help add traction.  This is when I decided to give Bullfrog Snot a try so I placed an order online.   The Bullfrog Snot arrived within days but today was the first chance that Lukey and I had to apply this new sticky green stuff. We place the locomotive upside-down and cradled in a towel and applied some power to the wheels so they would turn.  Then we cleaned the wheels again so the Bullfrog Snot would stick to the wheels as best as possible and then started applying this sticky green goo called Bullfrog Snot. We let it run for about a half hour, ups

The grandkids stayed with us over the past weekend and it was a nice break from all this fun cancer stuff. We haven't had much of an opportunity to spend time with them since the lake house early in the summer so it was nice to spend a whole weekend with them.  Shortly after our time at the lake house, the doctors found Sheila's cancer and our life instantly and drastically changed. We've been at the hospital every weekday getting worn down and then trying to catch up on sleep on the weekends. We both feel as though it has been months and months of grueling nothingness.  There has been absolutely no socializing since the cancer was found except for when Sheila would get an occasional visitor although we haven't had any visitors in the past few weeks. Actually, we've been a bit socially deprived so it was nice to have the weekend with the grandkids. I think we watched about eight Christmas movies over the course of the weekend. And, we played about a bajillion

I am always on the lookout for specific model trains in online auctions. (I have a long list of trains on my wish list!) Every month or two I find a few model trains that are on my list of trains that will work for my little fictional model railroad world I have designed and plan to build.  About two weeks ago, I found an auction for a few O scale  diesel locomotives. For those whom are not familiar with model train scales, trains in O scale are  Lionel-sized trains but these particular locomotives run on 2 rails rather than 3 rails. I've been on the lookout for a couple more of these locomotives so I can have a few on hand to use for parts. These trains are no longer in production so parts either need to be custom-made or salvaged from other locomotives. Now, here were four more of these F9 diesel locomotives.  The auction was to end in a week. I saved these locomotives to my eBay Watch List but, at the time, my interest wasn't fully there. I figured I would follow the au

As I get older and as my health demands more sedentary hobbies, I've been squeezing in more and more model railroading to fill in for some more physically demanding activities that I've needed to drop from my life.  I've written before about plans for converting a room in the house to a "train room". This room already houses all my trains on shelves but I intend to someday start building a good sized O scale model railroad layout. When I've written about this in the past, I shared some preliminary plans for this layout.  This layout runs around the walls and will be designed around some custom shelving units. I purposely designed this layout so that I'll still have access to a walk-in closet and a workbench/desk. The plan is coming together. Since the weather has not been allowing me to work on the house, I've been doing more and more sketching of ideas as rest on the couch. The plan really is coming along and it seems to be a very realistic plan

For the past two or three weeks (it seems like two or three months, actually), Sheila and I have been completely immersed in cancer stuff with little time nor energy for much else.  We've definitely eaten out significantly more often because we simply have had no time to cook on far too many days. All of our attention and all of our energy has been actively and acutely focused on doing everything possible to get beyond Sheila's cancer.  Yesterday morning, Sheila was a bit too emotional for driving to work nevermind working through the day so, instead of driving to work while trying to see through a wall of tears, she called work and arranged to have the day off to regroup. The dreaded thought and knowledge of lymph involvement and metastatizing of her breast cancer was a bit too overwhelming so we called a timeout from everything and we spent the day together doing "normal" things for a change. I took Sheila out to lunch and, for the most part, we talked abou

Liza and Kenzie dropped Lukey off at the house while they went for a wedding dress fitting.  The kids had brought some pizza with them for lunch so Lukey ate lunch with Gee while Liza and Kenzie went on their way.  Lukey and Kenzie had made and brought cards for Gee so that was a nice surprise! It was a nice day so we thought it would be best to find some activities to do outdoors. Besides, our house is a construction zone mess and there is no room indoors for toys at the moment. The deck would have to work. Gee is moving slowly and she cannot lift anything so there wouldn't be any of the usual playing. My condition, physically, is only a bit better than Gee's so Papa wouldn't be running around the backyard either. I decided to pulled the trains and the dollhouse out of the playroom and set them up on the deck instead... I had even built a little tunnel of pavers and rock for the trains... Lukey was exceptionally happy to be run