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!