BR60103

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.

Dayle is feeling a little sore in the side and is having trouble pulling the handle on our LaZboy sofa. So we went out this morning and bought 2 chairs with push button controls. Delivery was estimated next week, possibly this week, and clerk put a note on it. Phone call this afternoon --- between 9 and 10 tomorrow morning. And they will take away the old one. As we left, I pulled out of the parking space and the car said "Shift into P". I did this a couple of times, then Dayle said "maybe there's a door open" Mine was.

I haven't seen that one but, then, I don't watch hockey games.

Just threaten to have his figgins toasted. (T. Pratchett, Guards Guards)

Brian: for control of your point I acquired a collection of switches that may have been for the phone company. They are toggle switches with open contacts. There is a DPDT switch on each side. With the toggle upright both contacts are set inwards. Pushing it to one side, one set of contacts goes outwards; the reverse for the other direction. You could use this on your 3-way to control Tortoise or equivalent motors. (I use mine as interlocking on a double junction.)

I often wondered if our French/German teacher ran through the school's paper allotment all by himself. Class started with a verb chart -- conjugate a given verb in all the known tenses. The texts we were given for reading were accompanied by all sorts of notes on the vocabulary and I forget what else. I remember my father in the 50s making duplicates on a little device that had a gelatin surface with the info on it and paper had to be pressed onto it.

We were 50 or 75 miles from totality today. SWMBO wanted to take no chances so we stayed inside all afternoon. It did get dark outside. We tried watching it on the TV. None of the networks wanted to show the entire process in real time. What we got was pictures of crowds; talking to people who hoped the clouds would go away; pictures of a black disk with a bright outline. Then more pictures of people taking off their glasses to look at the eclipse. It was even worse than the Santa Claus parade.

A note on the Peter Principle. One of the contributing conditions is the reluctance of upper ranks to admit to having made a mistake in promoting someone to a position they can't handle. So they sit there unless they can be shifted sideways to where they can't do harm. When it first came out, everyone at work had candidates for examples of the principle.

We spent most of today waiting. I arranged annual service for the furnace and was given a 10 am to 2 pm window. Tech arrived after 1. He found some moisture under something and decided it was condensation from the exhaust. Tightened all the bolts holding something with a gasket. As he was done well before 3, we went out to the mall for a walk. (Weather was wet and miserable and probably turning to snow soon). SWMBO found a book and This England and I found BRM. (March!) My sister suggests that I should be on Facebook so that I can see what she and her brood are doing. I've passed on it. My social media are two railway sites.

The other half of clean track is clean wheels. If you don't clean wheels when you clean the track, the gunk on the wheel treads goes back on the rails. My track cleaner is from Aero Car Hobby Lubricants in the USofA. (easy for us to get in Canada)