BR60103

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)

I heard it as: In England, everything is permitted unless it is forbidden. In Germany, everything is forbidden unless it is permitted. In France, everything is forbidden, but they do it anyways.

I had a session on the phone with the Internet supplier today. I've been getting requests to initiate extra authentication for my eMail but I've been putting it off by clicking on "will do it later". Later came today. They wanted to send me an authentication number to my wireless phone. That I don't got. Called service, sat on hold for 10 minutes, then talked to a nice chap who immediately understood the problem, put me on hold for a couple of minutes, and said that I'd never have the problem again. The cargo ship Dali has been reported as having a length matching the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State building. Dayle didn't think it could be both. A bit of search and it's neither but it is less than twice the length of a standard Toronto subway platform.

Ah! Fresh country air!

Our Fire Department recommend changing the batteries in smoke detectors twice a year. The original suggestion was to do it when the clocks changed but then someone fiddled that so it's no longer near 6 months on, 6 months off. I do it no on the equinox. However, our smoke detectors are hard-wired into the mains with a 9V battery backup. I have a large collection of used batteries charged to just over 9V. I need to find some 9V devices.

They may also be available in children's stores or toy stores. In very colourful variations.

It's a hotbox car. When the car is shunted roughly, the ball bearing runs along the inside track, off the end, and contacts something at the end completing a circuit. This turns on the light and indicates that the car has a hotbox. I believe that it was originally created by John Allen of Monterrey, Ca. for his Gorre and Daphetid RR.

For most models you need Plastic Compatible. One of my school friends used oil from his mother's kitchen on his Kitmasters, and after a month none of them ran again.

There are very few flying objects that I can identify. (I've said this before). Canada geese and great blue herons. The Goodyear Blimp and the Fokker triplane from the Brampton flying club. Connie Willis has a new book The Road to Roswell. At the beginning she asks "If they could land anywhere on Earth, why did they pick Roswell?" I think I have a very wide range of musical likes. Excluded are anything with electric guitars and people who can't make the words understood.

but if I could find a word for "foot", I could use it every time SWMBO wants hers rubbed.

David is too modest to mention that this is the Biggest and Best all-British model railway show in North America.

One of our cats had such distinctive sounds that I thought it could be put on a sound chip for a locomotive. It would have really purred down the track.

I classify songs by the mode of transportation Cars means it's rocky roll. Trucks are country. Horses are western. Trains are folk.

I'll dig out my slides but I don't remember any gold plating on it on that tour.

Dayle is trying to figure out if we took the motorhome over the Key bridge once. We drove from New York to Florida. We probably tried to avoid long bridges, but she thinks we had a view of Baltimore. The routes are either through the city or a 24 km diameter ring road. (avoiding the bridge takes you more than 3/4 the way around.) This would shortly have been followed by trying to avoid the Washington ring road.