Friday In The Garage

Boy, I bet you're getting sick of this garage!

I dug a chunk of Sculptamold out of the layout and stuck it in.



I put the camera on the tripod this time. No more blurry pics!



Peeking in the side window.



Night time on the railroad. Oh noes, a little light leakage!



Despite my best efforts, including a black paper light block under the roof, you can see a bit of light coming through. Well, it's (the roof) glued in (hope the lamp doesn't burn out!) pretty solid, so that's what we're stuck with!

In The Garage

A couple pics of the garage I've been working on for the last few weeks.



One with the roof on, taken with the flash. You can see the pretty blue of the trim.
I'm putting a light bulb inside to show off the interior detail when it's on the layout.



This one is taken with natural lighting to show off the interior detail. It's kind of blurry, I should have used the tripod. Alas!

I think the Craftsman toolbox looks pretty good, so far. I still have to add some silver drawer "handles" to complete the illusion. It looks pretty awful if you blow up the image, though!

The toolbox hides the wires going to the light in the ceiling. I wish I had put the work bench farther back along the wall. It's hard to see, but one wall has stud spacing the same as my "real" garage, and one wall has the studs much farther apart. I think the "real" stud spacing looks too "busy".

I intend to have a motorcycle being worked on in there, or maybe a bicycle.

Hot Hot Hot Ship

Gee Whillickers, it's pretty warm today!

Here's the garage I've been working on for a week or so, from some drawings in Model Railroader.


Click the image to visit my zooomr page and see humorous captions on this picture. Or not.

I ran across an account of a fellow building a Cutty Sark wood ship model, so I thought I better put a couple pics up so my mother will think I'm actually working on hers...





There are a couple more pics of my Cutty Sark model on my zooomr page, click the image to go there. The big pretty version ought to be there too, but apparantly the original size image isn't available to visitors.

There are some old model pictures on this site, including my fabulous model of the Philadelphia, a Revolutionary War gundalow that was in the fleet commanded by Benedict Arnold. Before he became a "Benedict Arnold"... My model is made mostly of balsa wood, following plans from The Family Creative Workshop

Some interesting links on the subject:

The Philadelphia II, a replica

Historic Naval Ships Association, Continental Gunboat PHILADELPHIA page

Blogging the Revolution of 1776, Gunboat Philadelphia

The real ship, in the Smithsonian

Model of the Philadelphia by Mark Fairchild

Sat. Morn.

Rode up the Helix this morning, but you'll have to go visit the bicycle blog to see the pics.

After putting away the bike I took a couple pics of the finished boxcar you will remember I was constructing.



You will notice the weathering effects. I tried the gray wash technique, but it didn't seem to work too well. I think I will stick, as it were, to the pastel chalks.

Saw this link on the Bicycle Rding/Donut Making Guy's site. Very cool pic of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco. From way up high!

July Doldrums

Read in SLJ this month that Jessamyn has been causing a minor stir on the intarwebs with her video showing how her Ubunto installation went. Nice. I think I might try to install something like that on the old HP server we gots laying about. It COULD work!

Windy

How come the cool gentle breeze doesn't start wafting through the window until it's nearly time for me to get up? I suffer all night in the dead still air, and then, just when it's time...

Haven't really watch Le Tour, just bits and pieces, here and there. Big crash today in the final 3k. Looks like Hincappie is doing ok, so far. Seems to be fourth overall.

My shoulder hurts. I've been sloughing off on the PT...

There was something else I was gooona put here. Something fascinating, I'm sure. I forget what it was. Maybe I'll put it in later.

Maybe not.

Dining Out Again

Here's a pic of me slobbering over a Reuben that I promised [time passes], THOUGHT I promised in a past post, somewhere.



In looking back over the blogs I see I didn't even MENTION going to D.Z. Akins for Fathers' Day!

Well!

We went to the fair yesterday, and actually PURCHASED FOOD there! We had barbecue, I had beef, M. had pork.



And in that geek get-up, I STILL got a little sunburn!

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Some more garden pics.


Marigolds on trash can.


Blurry mystery flower.


A rather nice marigold, if I do say so.


The mystery Wal-Mart plant my mother got me, that died, then came back to life.


Sunflowers, again.


The rock pile grows!

Lucky Man

My wife listens to country music, when she isn't listening to talk radio.

I've heard "Lucky Man", by Montgomery Gentry, TWICE in the last hour!
It's not a bad song, but TWICE? In an hour?

This proves country radio stations suck as much as rock stations do.

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One of our remote controls suffered an unfortunate "accident" a couple months ago and stopped working. I finally got around to dragging it out to the workbench. Opened it up...the batteries were in backwards.

I decided to test the batteries, so I drugged out the multimeter I got at Harbor Freight. Of course, the Chinese battery that came with it was daid, so I stole the nine volter out of the Ten Tec Fox Hunt Tranmitter I built, stuck it, now I could measure stuff.

I got near 3 volts, 2.9 to be "exact", so that was not bad. I tried to test for voltage on the IR diode, but no joy. Couldn't hold the test leads, the batteries, AND push a button at the same time. Need three more arms!

Anyway, brought it in the house, and what do you know, it works!

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Glued some more tiny parts on the boxcar. So far, so good.

Workin' On A Boxcar

Some pics of my latest project: A boxcar!



I selected this boxcar because "The Family Lines System" reminded me of some covered hoppers I saw in Alabama a couple months ago.



The red plastic is where the Tenax cement ate away the pre-painted, uh, paint. I didn't realize the couplers were already colored rust till I saw this photo, I was going to paint them!



Tiny little parts! I thought I could handle them, because I built a Ambroid 1 of 5000 wood "craftsman" kit, back in the day. IT turned out well. Wish I still had it! It was the yellow outside braced reefer. I also had the vinegar tank car that my grandfather constructed.



A blurrier image, with thumb for size comparison.

Garden Growing

The marigolds are growing, the sunflowers are nearly pooped out.

Marigolds and sunflowers.

Marigolds in a pot.

Mostly sunflowers.

A rose blooming.

You can get the BIG VIEW by clicking the image and visiting my zooomr.com page. But YOU knew that...

Some pics include explanatory and sometimes humorous notes!!

Rats!

I was informed last night that there was a dead rat in the playhouse. Yikes! That must be what that smell was! I gingerly picked it up with the shovel and tossed it over the fence into the Big Back Yard. Spread some leaves and branches over it.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Oh, did you want a picture?

Tasty Pic

In the Bicycle Musings I mentioned yesterday's snack at work.

Cranberry-Nut brownie. Chunky, tasty, sticks to the voids in you mouth, to be enjoy later.

And I'm sure it's low-carb...

Here's the promised pic:



Thie picture is available on my zooomr page in a 2,048 by 1,538 size pic, coming in at quite possibly a meg file size. Just click on the image to get to my zooomr, look for the "all sizes" icon.

I don't usually post a pic that big, but that stuff was that GOOD! I wish I knew where it came from. It was in a brown box, sorta shrink wrapped. I suspect it came from Costco. I know Costco has some yummy stuff, but since I am not a member I'm not familiar with what they have. Only what I've seen when tagging along with my son.

Pics! Woot!

Zooomr.com is slowly coming back to life. I was able to upload some pics today.

The long-awaited pics of the train station diorama.



That background is borrowed from the layout, it is not actually in the diarama.

There are several more pictures at my zooomr page.



There are also a some pictures of the sunflower crop for this year, and some mystery plants. At least, they are a mystery to me!



I don't know what that is, but my daughter planted it.

Here's the sunflowers, at an odd angle.



This thing, which I suddenly forgotten the name of, is turning out quite well after I chopped it to death a couple years ago. I'm very happy with it.



We took a trip to the back country last weekend. We stopped at the Lake Henshaw view. Very nice view, but no eagles in sight.



I'm told the lake was somewhat larger last year.

We went up Mt. Palomar to see the telescope, but they closed about 10 seconds after we got inside, and they shooed us out.



Here the lad is imitating the doors on the dome.

Well, that's enough for now. Remember you can visit the zooomr page and see several more of each of these wonderful photos. Zooomr is running kinda of slow right now, getting its legs, and not all the features are back up, yet, but it's coming along!

Learn Something Every Day

I was talking to a guy I know who lives near the Great Salt Lake. He was telling me about attending the Golden Spike Celebration Re-enactment at Promontory. Yeah, I said Promontory Point, I remember that from school! I decided to look it up on Google Earth as we talked. Yeah, says I, it's out there on a peninsula, they must have built a bridge out there, or the lake was lower back then. Yeah, I guess he says, sounding a little puzzled. After we signed off, I Googled it and Wikied it.

I was wrong.

Lots of people are wrong.

The whole shebang took place at Promontory SUMMIT, not P. Point! It's 30-some miles away! I found many web pages saying one or the other, but the National Park Service says it's Promontory Summit. Which makes sense, now, when one looks a map.

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We went up to Julian on Sunday to look around and have lunch. I had a buffalo burger at Miner's Diner (I think!). It was pretty good. We sat at the front window and watched the traffic go by. There were lot's of motorcycles. I saw two Triumphs, several Ducatis, a couple BMW's, and a bunch of Harleys.

We visited the old jail, and then went over to The Birdwatcher store, which has EVERYTHING in the way of bird feeders, clothes, books, recordings, and other bird-related paraphanalia.

We drove up to Mt. Palomar and visited the obsevitory. We got in just before 4, which is when they start shooing folks out. So we got to look at the telescope for, like 10 seconds. Oh, well, seen it before, and read the book (The Giant Glass Of Palomar, by David Woodbury). Saw lots f speeding motorcycles, looked like fun!

Saturday Online Again

The Great List Of Books I've Been Reading has been upgrade so that my many reader can view the statistics! I just KNOW you are dying to know what has been occupying my mind between sitcoms on televesion!

While I have been able to view the stats for several months now, along with being enabled for the commoner, they have been enhanced with GRAPHICAL GOODNESS! It's really neat, you will like it.

While it's not obvious, when you scroll past the graph you will come upon a month-by-month listing. Click a month and you will get a list of the book titles! Click on the month again and the list will, I don't know the word, de-compress?

More Train Stuff

Is there no end to this? More train station pictures!

When zooomr comes back up, there will be a picture HERE!

There are more pictures (EVENTUALLY!) on my zooomr page. I didn't want to inflict them ALL on you, at once!

Went to the grocery store today. Those nasty plastic shopping carts are SHARP, I carved a knuckle or two today. That and the paper cut I got off an envelope of waxed paper make me the walking wounded!

Haven't had any coffee in four days. Lots of tea, though!

Mother's Day

I was lazing in bed all morning, reading Worlds Of Maybe, edited by Robert Silverberg, and listening to Harry Shearer's Le Show on KCRW. Harry was talking about Paris Hilton, and mentioned Elliot Mintz several times. After several times hearing Elliot Mintz, I said to myself, "Mintz? Elliot Mintz?? ELLIOT MINTZ??!!?" Hey, I remember Elliot Mintz! I used to listen to him on late-night radio back in the early seventies, in the desert, the radio coming over the ether from far-away L.A.. I remember him calling John Lennon on the telephone, and getting Yoko, who said John was asleep right now, did Elliot want her to wake him up? It was so cool, Elliot was so cool. And now he is associated with Paris Hilton? No wonder I never focused on that, I tend to just tune every thing related to her, just right out!!!

You'll remember what I've said before about her, if I had her money, I do something really grand, like build the world's biggest model railroad. Or something.

External Links, as they say, for your edification:

Elliot Mintz Wikipedia article

"Travels Of Elliot Mintz", an entry in From The Desert To The Sea blog

Harry Shearer Le Show

Found it!

I found the lurid rhubarb pic I mentioned way back when. It's at A Spoonful Of Sugar blog. I'm not sure that's where I originally saw it, but that is where it is NOW!

Now I'm hungry!

Rites Of Spring

Pretty warm again today, and the humidity is rising. It was in the low nineties yesterday, but dry, and it feels nearly as warm today, with the humidity. It is supposed to drop down into the seventies over the next few day as we get the morning cloud cover ("June Gloom") back.

Here is the first sunflower of the season:

The railroad diarama is coming along. I put some grass on yesterday.

Too much green grass? Should have bought a mixed-color, and I've got a whole static shaker of this shade!!

Maybe I should have done the ballast first.

I put the station on to help with the visualization.

Hey, it keeps me off the streets!

Trash In The Attic

I FINALLY got up on the ladder and cleaned out the roof vent at work that I've been complaining about for the last year.

I guess the roofer left this little present behind a couple years ago. The hardest part of this exercise was getting the screws to bite on something when putting the grill thingie back up. I only cut myself once with a slipped screwdriver, and I didn't fall off the ladder at all!

Now maybe the Apple servers won't be so hot, Summer seems to have visited us early this year, it being in the 90s today.

What's Up, Doc?

Went to the Doc today. She said my PSA is going down, as to be expected, so everything is looking fine and dandy (not her words!) so far, and my next appointment is in the fall of the year.

Almost finished with the baths and such, only another day and a half.

No word from the physical therapy people on the arm thing.

The hose reel in the garden is working out well. The sunflowers are coming up, although some of them look very strange. The marigold seed popped up in a few days too, so that is going well. The garden should be a blaze of gold in a few weeks, baring snail attacks.

The lady next door has an electric organ in her patio. She apparantly cannot play it, but there was a guy playing something we can't remember quite what, just at the moment! Ah, senility!

I've a little railroad project, putting that little station I built into a railroad diarama using a little glass display case I couldn't resist buying at Michael's. Here's where I am so far:

I painted the white part green after taking the picture.

So now you have something to look forward too!

This Space For Rent

I forget what I was gonna write about, so check out this very cool steampunk keyboard mod. How cool is that?

I'm currently reading A Treasury of Southern Folklore: Stories, Ballads, Traditions, and Folkways of the People of the South, by B. A. Botkin. It quite a wieldy tome, running to 700-some pages. I'm giving it a rest today, and taking up another "withdrawn" title. This one is a World War II action story by John Clagett, titled Typhoon 1944. It's pretty good for a teen book. It was published in 1970, so the author is showing some awareness of the racial discrimination in the services back in WWII. the author drops the N-word, I guess to emphasize one charactor's prejudice, but the "hero" is bothered by it, and I think is going to call the guy on it. This volume is on 190 pages, so I should finish it soon. I've a pile of other "weeded" title to read, too. The Treasury may have to wait.

Pie

Every time someone mentions rhubarb to me, I salivate. It's truly disgusting. I LOVE rhubarb pie, and you can't really get just plain rhubarb. It's always that wierd strawberry-rhubarb combination. Which is all right, in its place. But IT'S NOT THE SAME!!

It's all about the tartness.

Here's a link to a blog entry at Pie Day Friday showing how to make pie crust, and a rhubarb pie recipe, with some lovely pictures.

Sadly, the picture I use at work for a desktop picture (Not the rolled tacos machine, the OTHER one), Lurid Rhubarb, can no longer be found on the web. Use your imagination. Picture my surgery. The first one.

Lucky Day

Today is Thomas Jefferson's birthday. Also, Al Green, Ricky "Rick" Schroder, and Caroline Rhea. Among others...

A piece of chocolate cake!

And an Oreo cake from D.Z. Akins!

Do not be afraid to click on the images to visit my zooomr page and see the even yummier big images!

First, the news:

Burglar gets away by driving against traffic (scroll down)

Performance Bicycle in La Mesa is burglarized. Ebay soon to be flooded with cheap junk bicycle parts! Just kidding, I do all my shopping there. It's my forte'!!

I was going to link to a very cute photo in today's Onion Tribunal, but the lame SignOnSanDiego site doesn't seem to have it. It was cute. A doggy in a front pannier on a bicycle.

Why would anyone cate what television shows I'm currently watching this month? I don't know but here they are:

Simpsons
California's Gold
Desperate Housewives
House
The New Adventures Of Old Christine
Two And Half Men
Monk
How I Met Your Mother
King Of Queens
Are You Being Served
As Time Goes By
Keeping Up Appearances
Waiting For God
My Name Is Earl
The Office
Scrubs

Stopped watching: Grey's Anatomy

And I had bran flakes for breakfast...

Fat Saturday

I am finding that Triscuit, in all its assorted, sordid, flavors, is extremely addictive. I am particularly fond of chedder. Uuummmm, cheeessseee...

I like to let them melt in my mouth!

Sodium? Carbohydrates?

Pif paf!

Is It Saturday Yet?

Walked up to the library and the train store. Purchased some MORE instant super glue, as the last bottle had solidified, as it will.

Glued the smoke stack on the station. I had Gooed the lights on before (with Walthers Goo), but super glued them again, just to be sure.

Almost glued my fingers together, AGAIN!

Another pic, and bigger ones, at my zooomr page. Just click on the image!

Stuck it on the layout in place of the OTHER Fallberg station, for the photo. Looks right at home!

How come I haven't ballasted that piece of track yet?

Working On The Railroad

Been working on the train station all afternoon.

There are three more pics at zooomr, and they're BIG! Well, BIGish...
Just click the image...

That roof is printed paper, it looks pretty good. It certainly is easier than trying to weather the old Sydam corrogated metal roofing!

I got a little heavy-handed with the epoxy and used it to glue the windows in. Bad idea, too much epoxy. The excess oozed out and so the window glass doens't sit quite flat in some of the windows.

I still can't get more variation in the stone color. When I hit the structure with a blast of Flat Clear to seal the colors it kind of blended together... I'm going to try to touch up some of the rocks with an acrylic wash.

I still have the smokestack and lights to attach.

I'm not even sure what I'm going to DO with this station, I've alreay got one! I guess I'll have to start another layout..

Thursday

Did my 39th radiation treatment today, the last one. They gave me a nice "diploma". I have to go back in a month and see if it "took". I don't know what I will do with all my free time...

Went over to Michael's to get a shadowbox. They are 40% off, woot! I wandered around and looked at stuff. For some reason I wish I was in elementary school so I could make a California mission model out of the supplies they have. I'm not even interested in missions, what's up with that?

You probably aren't interested much in guns, but I like guns. I like stuff that is utilitarian and mechanical, like motorcycles, knives, guns. I don't HAVE any of those (Well, I have a knife) . but I like them. Even though a friend was accidently killed by her son with a gun, in a tragic handgun accident a few years ago. Anyway, the Bike Riding Donut Guy has this story (scroll down to "How Not To Clean A Gun" buried in one of his posts. He says it's from another site, but I can't find it to give credit. I thought it was pretty funny. And instructive.

A Rose By Any Other...

OK, inquiring minds have asked about the flower press.

We will get to that.

First of all, I must admit that, due to my incompetence, I was only able to press one flower, my lapel rose. All the other roses spoiled. My fault. I accept total blame in this matter.

Please remember you can clicky on the images to zip to my zooomr page and view the images in larger sizes. The last two images are especially better, bigger.

Here's the press, all its flower-crushing glory:

The wingnuts hold the whole thing together nicely, with tension being infinitely adjustable.


Let us observe the various layers inside:

Plywood for crushing flatness, cardboard for cushioning, blotting paper to soak up the juices.


Let's open it up:

It certainly is flat!


Let us take a closer look at the crushed flower:

Yes, I would said it is totally crushed flat!


Here is an interesting shot using that flash setting I always use by misteak:

Psychedelica!!

And here is pretty much what we end up with:

Not too bad, I'm thinking! I've heard roses are hard to press. I believe it!

Now I need a shadow box to mount it in, with a bit of the bride's veil.