BR60103

We don't have to change the clocks yet. Due to trying to keep up with the Yanks, our Standard time is much shorter than it used to be. I will have to see how the new car's clock does it. The old one could be reset while SWMBO backed out of the driveway. We used to be told (by the Fire Department) that we should change our smoke detector batteries when we changed the clocks. Since that change, I now do it on the equinoxes. As the smoke detectors are now mains powered with battery backup, I have a lot of "used" batteries with 9.00+ volts still on them. I do have a model gas station with 9V lights.

I neglected one observation about malls. Our local mall used to be 90% ladies dress shops. It's now 60% ladies dress shops and 30% cell phone stores.

We managed a day out today. We visited old friends/ex-neighbours in the Niagara area. This is about 2 hours away by car. We had a stop at an outlet centre. This came up to my complaints of being "95% ladies dress shops". We did find a Lindt shop. Had a nice visit and then went off to a Greek restaurant. I think I lost a bit more tooth in the meal, but I didn't mention it. We travelled on the section of highway where the speed limit was raised by 10 kph (110 from 100). Most of the time we were at the old limit because of the trucks ahead of us. One motorcycle went past everyone playing in and out the windows. Off at 9:00, back at 16:00. Saw one train.

I find that on this side of the Atlantic, a lot of media folk pronounce Goethe as "Gertie", and Koechel becomes "Kirkle". I think they have read some English pronouncing guide, written by someone who doesn't use "r" and showed "oe" (or o umlaut) as "er". We have a bit more Scottish influence here, and R is given full value.

Having been around some of their people, Rapido is accented on the second. It comes from a CN train of the 60s, with a heavy French influence.

Did you still get paid for it?

We were off early this morning to the nearest Stratford to see a (video) talk of Shakespeare's life. As soon as we turned onto the expressway we were passed by a noisy little blue car that looked to be doing twice the speed that we were. We caught up to it at the stoplight, but after that we never saw it again. We we similarly passed on a 2-lane highway on the return trip -- couldn't tell if it was the same car.

The first time I went to the scale O club in Toronto (ca. 1960) they were running with outside 3rd rail, but I think with DC. Even the steam locomotives. The next time I went they had converted to 2-rail. They had a very nice location in an industrial area in a WW2-surplus rifle range. It made a long narrow layout. Lionel train were quite sturdy. You could hit your sister with a locomotive and not damage it. 😇

Visited the fanglady this morning. Monday night a corner came off one tooth (a molar that was 4 columns holding a filling). I couldn't get an emergency appointment, but I was already booked for a cleaning and inspection. The fang was attacked with their Dremel to remove the sharp bits and I have an appointment in 4 weeks. They'll take the freezing opportunity to do something to another tooth in the same quarter. I told them about visiting the Dental Museum in Heidelberg, where people come from hundres of miles around to see the historical plaque. The sore shoulder/upper arm from the flu shot has abated quite a bit.

For someone who last used a lathe over 60 years ago, could someone differentiate among steady, live and normal centres? IIRC, these are the pointy bits at the other end from the chuck.

duplicated

O27 was supposed to be the junior brother of full O gauge. The 27 was the width of a circle of track measured over the outside of the ties (sleepers). Knocking off the 1" from the edge of the tie to the centre rail, the nominal radius is 12.5". Regular O was 31". There were wider curves of 42" and 72" which were specified while the 31" wasn't. My wife's new style track is 18" radius (haven't measured it exactly) My Tri-Ang Big Big Train won't run on it; I think it needs 2 feet.

We managed to get our jabs this morning -- Covid and Senior's Super Shot (flu). Showed up early -- no lineup, they wanted to know if we had an appointment, but SWMBO convinced them to let us in. Filling out the history pages took longer than getting jabbed. But now I have one major sore arm. I can't comfortably lift anything. And it's my right arm, which is the dominant/capable one. Trying to push myself up with it is uncomfortable. I still have the screwdriver from shop, but the blade never was good and it has split so that it doesn't fit any screw.

At 9:00 this morning, the dentist's emergency slots were all taken. I have my inspection on Friday, so that will have to be a start Had a pone call from the doctor's office. They haven't been supplied with enuff flu shots, so we'll have to rebook. Talked to our neighbours tonight and they found a place that had both shots. They went to the pharmacy, which didn't have, but the supermarket next door (affiliated) did. A bit of a wait, but apparently no line for shots. Car serviced and tired (tyred?) for winter. I was finishing high school as New Math was coming in. Our teacher gave us an extra course in it so that we'd have some idea. Professors at Uni hated it, or at least the way it was presented. e.g. they differentiated between a line, a ray, and a line segment. Then an angle was defined as "two rays with a common end point". Then they presented a "triangle" which had no angles because it was three line segments; no rays at all. And then they had to get rid of the word "degree" because someone might confuse an angle with a temperature.

I was sitting here, eating my cereal and reading TNM, when I found myself chewing an extra hard lump. I now have an inside corner missing from a molar (#26, I think). It's now 8:45 pm. We'll call the dentist tomorrow; I have an inspection due on Friday. Tomorrow the car is booked for its first service and winter tire install. We'll see what can be booked. I managed two lathe projects in school -- one wood and one metal. Calculator course was first year Uni. It was expected to be computers, but was called "Numerical Methods" and first term was done on mechanical calculators. There were a number of different models, and you hoped that for the exam you would get one that had used.

Some US railroads have clamped down on models. I think you may find little TM letters on locomotves that don't appear on the prototype. I have also seen models labelled "authorized" -- Go Transit double decker coaches. We went to a talk from a Disney expert. He talked about some peanut butter commercials that featured a little flying fairy. He said they hadn't been copyrighted because nobody expected anyone to do anything with them again.

A bunch of decades ago, one of the mags distinguished between "serious" modellers and "solemn" modellers. The solemn modeller will tell you that, on April 30, 1957, there wasn't a lump of ballast on that sleeper. I'll leave he rest of the discussion to ...

Bob Essery in Midland Wagons says that after WW1, the railway bought a large quantity of surlpus battleship grey paint. This was supplemented by any bits of leftover paint and used for wagon repaints.

About 60 years ago, one of the petrol companies was offering a free steak knife with a $5 fill up. My father's car wouldn't take more than $3 or $4 worth even if empty. The local garage owner offered him a knife for every second fill up.

Simon Brett wrote The Booker Book. An author is determined to win the Booker, so he changes his style and subject every time the prize is announced. The writing changes in every chapter too. One of our neighbours is reputed to be Canada's best-selling author. Check out The Paper-Bag Princess by Robert Munsch. (It should be read aloud.)

For some reason, today's posts made me think of this song my father taught me. S is for the Soup they always give us. H is for the Hash that we all know. O id for the 'Orsemeat they put in it. V is Voice of sergeants, sweet and low. E is for the End of our enlistment. L is for the Last day of the war. Put them all together they spell "SHOVEL"; The emblem of the Royal Flying Corps.

There was an article some years ago in an American magazine about train lengths. (I've lost it...) I think it said that a train looked long if both ends of it were out of sight. This then comes down to where your eye is and what your width of vision is. So stand in your viewing spot, close one eye, and see what distance it covers. This means that you need twice as much train in N as HO and half as much in O.

My wife quotes a saying that "Nothing interesting happens more than a day's mule ride away." When I was growing up, my father knew someone who grew up in the next valley to Richard Burton. Did he meet him? No, he lived in the next valley. We have places named after very many old world towns in Ontario. I can't find Birmingham, but London, Brussels, Dublin and Belfast, Paris, Seville just in a quick scan of the index. Waterloo is close enough to us that we can hear the cannons. There is also Punkeydoodle's Corners. Named because there was an old Pennsylvania Dutch farmer who would come into the tavern and ask for his favourite song, "Punkeydoodle came to town". There are 4 places named Ebeneezer.

Half a century ago, Punch had an issue about The North. Apparently they asked a number of people where The Norh began. The next county, the next town, the end of the street. But NOT HERE.

Our new car has about 4" of hand book -- half of it in French. Missing from the index is an entry for "Beeps, Assorted." We had a new one today. Dayle was backing gently out of the driveway when the brakes went on. There was a car going down the other side of the street.