BR60103

We've had 2 sheds, both of the tin variety. One came with our last house and was used mainly for garden storage (and bicycles). The one at the trailer was all gardeny stuff. Went to GBTS today as visitor. Saw many old friends. Stayed for 1 1/2 hours. Won't say more for fear of awl. Traffic on the way home was horrible but we left the expressway and went through town.

One consequence of this was the appearance of unprototypical TM letters on the sides of model rolling stock.

I have 2 turntables in the basement. A few years ago our Dual decided not to put the arm on the records so I found a local shop that sells turntables. I now have a Pioneer that only has 2 speeds. The other unit is a PA outfit (25 watt with speaker) that i used to use for teaching dancing. It has a Lenco TT with fully variable speeds from below 16 to above 78 with detents at the 4 popular spots. When teaching dancing it is useful to slow the record down a touch until they get the steps. At school, I used to end the dances with Stranger on the Shore slowed down from 45 to 33. I have 6 x 32" shelves of LPs, another of 78s and 45s that I haven't put out because the shelves are too big. These are all under the railway.

We were taking our motorhome south in the early winter. In Georgia the weather was warm enough for us to de-winterize. When I turned on the water feed, there was a gush across the floor (linoleum). Luckily, there was a repairman in the campground. Turned out, the company we asked to winterize the unit had not drained the water heater and it had split in the Ontario winter. He managed to get and install a new tank over the weekend.

We went to Stratford to see a preview of Twelfth Night. We nearly came to grief on the expressway. Around a curve there were two trucks with flashing arrows, stopped on the shoulder. Then a truck stopped in my lane, following a road sweeper. I managed to stop as did the cars behind. But now I'm in a curve to the passenger side with traffic coming up the next lane, all doing at least the 90 kph speed limit. Luckily, one of the cars behind had enough view to pull out and the car behind and I both made it. 12th Night was good, although modern. SWMBO had a little problem hearing all the lines.

...Said "There's nowt for it but stummick pump." They hadn't a stummick pump 'andy, But Pa did the best that he could With a bicycle pump as he'd borrowed, But that weren't a ha'porth of good. Marriott Edgar Jubilee Sov'rin

I will defend that the plays weren't written by Shakespeare but by somebody else with the same name.

I have an idea that Lionel used to be paid to put company names (e.g. oil companies) on rolling stock. Very common story that they got Santa Fe, New York Central, and General Motors to each put up half the cost of the tooling for the F3 locomotive. (Appeared as only SF and NYC for the first few years.)

We have "community" mailboxes. Today there was no mail in ours despite 3 visits. It may have had to do with this: Guelph Post Office

Another link. Steve Munro is one of the transit fans in Toronto. Toronto has tried to convert King St to a transit (streetcar) mall by making car traffic turn right at every cross street. Problems due mainly to insufficient enforcement, but see the traffic signals a bit down the post. Toronto

Reported in our newspaper today that places in the Middle East are interfering with GPS as a defensive measure. (hope this can be read)

I did most of the computer work for our income tax today. I'll have to sort out the e-filing tomorrow or next week. Last year the tax department first obsoleted all our passwords after a ??? and then went on strike for a few weeks each side of the deadline. So I sent it in on paper. My program offers "pension splitting" for couples to try to reduce the tax. If I give $.06 to my wife, the tax will come down by $.02. Any larger amount and it will come up again.

I got into the habit of consistently lowering the seat when we had a couple of lively cats and I was afraid that one of them might have an unintended bath.

The battle of Fort McHenry was in 1814, during the War of 1812. (I see I was beaten to it)

I've suggested following a layout plan, but in a smaller scale. Keeping the lengths but bringing the track separations down to scale. You don't want to reduce the 13.5" pinch point any farther. One of my early layouts was an OO plan rendered in N.