NGT6 1315

Can't tell with absolute certainty, but many Hessian schools at least would appear to use Wednesday for seminars. Your son's school is in Rhineland-Palatinate, is it not?

Yeah. Terrible, isn't it? I admit to not liking it at all, anyway...

Mornin'... Our pupils will most likely be happy that due to Carnival, they will have classes only on Thursday and Friday this week! I thus could sleep in a bit longer, too. Quite nippy outside, but too dark to see anything as of yet. Enjoy your day, whatever you may be up to!

Rabbits are having a lazy evening:

Morning... Had the blues last night, so slept in late today (well, it's been fairly late for me!). Here's hoping today will be better, but I'm sure having got sufficient rest cannot have been bad.

So if you should find a way of standing on their TV set, would that constitute stepping on a soapbox? (Couldn't resist that one... )

Mornin'... DD – thinking of you and yours...nothing much I could say aside from it, I guess... That sounds like it hurt like hell, Pete! Sky seems to be clearing up outside and temperature is dropping as a result. However, the snow-frosted landscape is nice to look at. Thanks for the advance weather warning, Pete – if things should turn crummy over here, I'll know why.

If you'd like to see the model of a loco which has literally run across the Balkans, have a look here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/599/entry-11083-all-european-rail-rover-sort-of-mrce-dispolok-class-189-from-roco/ . I rather like the look of it – obviously, else I hadn't bought it! Feeling a bit off bearing right now, which I guess may well have to do with this ever-changing weather. Just in case it might be an approaching migraine, I think I'll have a nap now...

Please do tell me how I can get those images out of my head, Andy!

Thinking of you, Bob – I, too, hope everything will go as well as it can under such circumstances.

25 miles don't really qualify as "in the neighbourhood", I guess!

Morning all... Was woken in the middle of the night by a squad of fire trucks going past outside, and reading the news this morning, it would seem they assisted in the next town where the community centre was on fire. Nobody would appear to have been hurt, thankfully. Aside from that, everything's quiet around here this morning, which is fine.

Evening all! Sometimes it does pay off to have your camera at hand while going by train, as I found out this afternoon... Have a look here, if you like: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/74/entry-11076-the-beginning-of-the-dawn-of-an-new-era-a-totally-unexpected-sighting/

Evening all! While in Frankfurt for running some errands, I found myself with some time to spare and stopped by at Southern Station, where I was surprised to be able to spot the following two units... As I was emerging from the stairs to Platforms 7 and 8, I saw the class 410.1 departmental ICE unit – also known as ICE S or, more recently, ICE R – rolling into track 9, and eventually reversing to shunt to a holding position right in front of the station's signal box. The 410.1 is based on a pair of power units derived from those for the class 402/ICE 2 sets, and at least one measuring coach in between the power units. Here, the set was running with two coaches, one of them outfitted for roadbed measurements. Unlike the passenger-carrying ICE 1 and 2 sets, the ICE S has a busbar connecting both power units. This is to ensure continuous power supply in those situations where both pantographs must be raised for OHLE geometry inspections. In this photo, power unit 410 102 is facing the camera. This unit has its pantograph outfitted to double as a measuring device, with markings on the pantograph arms and a roof-mounted TV camera. With 9,600 kW of power for just a small number of coaches, this set must have the best power-to-weight ratio of all ICE types currently in operation! Apparently, the ICE S set but was supporting yet another unit today... ...namely a class 407 "Velaro D" set. As some of you reading this will have heard, Siemens continue to face numerous problems in getting these sets certified, so I guess it stands to reason this here was yet another test run. I totally forgot to write down the set's number, but I suspect it to have been 407 004, as this set had been spotted heading south along the Rhine only yesterday. The 407 was stood on track 10 for a while, and eventually left in the shadow of a large bank of dark clouds on a day whose weather conditions I can only describe as having been April-like!

Eh, guys, I still have to eat dinner! And I mean have to, as I'm getting hungry already...

Mornin'... Slept well enough, but even so, I was up at quarter to 7. Nothing of particular notice to report as of yet, which is fine with me. Now for some coffee! Cheers!

Morning all... School had been fairly calm yesterday, but even so, I was decidedly tired when I got home. And here I am, just having woken up to a significant new load of snow outside! I'll be off to uni for some paperwork later this morning. Happy Hump Day, everyone!

Indeed... Always makes me wish for a portable Nathan air horn.

That part is true enough, unfortunately...

I am sometimes baffled by the lack of thinking displayed by some pupils. I'm on the train right now and had to ask two boys to move their bikes to the sides of the bicycle space rather than putting them right in the middle so that no-one could have walked through. Gee...

Morning. Tired...where's my bed?

Afternoon all... Oddly, I was feeling increasingly lively during the morning, but six periods straight did take their toll after all – as evidenced by my just having brewed another cup of coffee. Aside from my having had a moment of bafflement about just how brash even some 5th class pupils can be nowadays, everything went well enough, though. Weather's windy with showers coming and going, meanwhile...

Morning... I'll just leave it at saying hi for the moment as I'm not quite present yet, mentally... Enjoy your day!

I think I'll try to catch a nap as I've been feeling flaky since about noon and like last night, kept dropping things when I wanted to clear out the dishwasher and tidy things up some (though nothing broke at least). Wonder if it might be a migraine coming on, actually, so perhaps I should also take a painkiller for prevention...

I guess finding a good balance between "tough" and "love" will be one of the major challenges still ahead of me. On one hand, I certainly did not enjoy marking down some of the students for their exams in my geography course last year, but wrong or incomplete answers do remain wrong or incomplete without some kind of magical intervention, don't they? I but did my best to find a good balance of easier and more difficult questions, and checked back with two geography teachers from our staff. I also included what you could call a "creative" assignment where they needed to name certain locations (cities, rivers, bodies of water) on a map which they had marked even more extensively as part of a homework several weeks prior. Several submissions for this homework had quite impressed me in their love to detail, so I thought that giving a similar kind of assignment in the exam might serve as a relief of sorts.