Come on back to the caboose and get a cup of coffee [or sweet ice tea] Part V

[TomPM]

Good morning folks

It is raining and 68 F on the way to the office this morning. High today will 83 F.

Wow what a holiday weekend with awesome weather! We had temperatures in the 70s and 80s with clear, sunny skies all weekend. Saturday we went to the Devon Horse Show with my daughter’s Girls Scout Troop. On Sunday we spent the day at beach in Wildwood Crest, NJ. Yesterday was spent doing yard work and building my kids new basketball backboard set.

No modeling got done as I was just never in the house long enough this weekend.

I hope everybody has a good day.

 

[Chief Eagles]

You would be amazed at the striking difference in dialect from Canada down to the deep south, heck the difference from one end of town here to another, not all southerners and country folk sound like Jeff foxworthy some are even more deviated from standard english. For they life of me I still have not figured out what the word youfers means ruent=ruined, wasper= wasp, warsh= wash, rouf=roof, feesh=fish

Southern is "standard English". :thumb: Yankee is just Yankee.

Morning all. TomPM, you are busier than I am. Good Dad to your kids. Working on upgrades to some GP9's [O gauge]. Not much planned for today. That means all h--- will break loose I guess. Have a good one.

 

[cnw1995]

Morning all. Very interesting stuff about old computers and dialects. We had a lot of German POWs out where I live during the war - mostly ex- Afrika Corps. It was pretty rural back then. Temps dropped 40 degrees overnight here in Chicago - was 44 with the wind chill this am. BRRRR.

 

[Jonadel]

Doug M. -- I thought of you and your family this morning when I saw this, even though you are a White Sox fan this would be a fun evening at affordable prices. Minor league BB is simply great fun.


The Official Site of The Chicago Cubs: Tickets: Peoria Chiefs and Ryne Sandberg at Wrigley

 

[jefelectric]

Catching up on some of my reading and came across this. If you are in the area this would be a good stop to make.

Sponsored by Golden Spike Tower

Grand Opening June 12th!

Visit the Golden Spike Tower & Visitor Center to see a bird's eye view of the Union Pacific Bailey Yards, the largest classification yard in the world!

The top of the 8-story tower offers an enclosed 360 degree-panoramic view. An open air platform is located on the 7th story.

Open 10:00a.m.-7:00p.m. Monday - Friday and 1:00p.m.-7:00p.m. on Sundays. Admission fees are $6.00 (adults), $5.00 (seniors), and $4.00 (16 & under).

Call 308-660-3776 or visit www.goldenspiketower.com for more information.


Not exactly a big population center, but if you are close or passing through, its nice to know.

 

[Brutus]

Evening gents. Neat tower, John! Jeffrey - now that's a nice locomotive! That's not the junker is it? For the park?

Back to work with a new class of trainees today - wow, just got done with a 12 week class and this one will take about 13 weeks? Hope that's not an unlucky number?!

 

[jeffrey-wimberl]

Jeffrey - now that's a nice locomotive! That's not the junker is it? For the park?

Yes, it's the same one.

This beat-up old locomotive:

Became this magnificent park exhibit:

Doesn't look like the same one does it?

 

[CSXect]

Jeffery park looks great:thumb:

got to turn in early as I will be working tomarow and Friday:thumb:

will read my Ctt mag tonight

Corporate training is a blast if you are the instructor and have a close to limitless expense accountsign1 My previous employer had training fairly often and one instructor always bought us lunch(extended by the way) at the end of training

Some one mentioed Zork I, II and III.....in the early 90's they came up with a graphical adventure game for the series never seen it but that takes away from the whole point of that series of time waster games as always leave the program set to maximum verbosity :mrgreen:

well good night all.

 

[Brutus]

That was Zork Zero, right? I think I had that game back around 1997? It was like Zork meets Myst. I remember the music was really interesting while you were exploring, but I never finished the game.... I think one of my sisters had it and did finish it though?

 

[Brutus]

Oops, wrote over part of my email?

Jeffrey, it sure did clean up nice! Too bad it won't run though.

 

[sir james]

Howdy All
No trains today, sorry. I did some tree trimming this morning which kept me warm enough, it went from 87 yesterday to 43 this morning and never reached 60 today. so it was to chilly to just goof off outside. Frost advisory for tonite. So I got a little exercise and then did little else this afternoon. Have a pleasant day tomorrow.,,,,S.J.

 

[steamhead]

Another note on ancient bit-crunchers....For my business I developed an order tracking program (all this in Basic), but found the IIe's memory was far too little for it to work properly. So I bought a 1 Mb RAM card.....for $1,000.00 US...!!!! (This was in the mid-70's....). It was about 4" tall by about 12" and had a gagillion chips on it....Go figure....
I never did get away from software development. I'm currently working on...you guessed it....a car forwarding system for the layout....!!!

 

[jefelectric]

Another note on ancient bit-crunchers....For my business I developed an order tracking program (all this in Basic), but found the IIe's memory was far too little for it to work properly. So I bought a 1 Mb RAM card.....for $1,000.00 US...!!!! (This was in the mid-70's....). It was about 4" tall by about 12" and had a gagillion chips on it....Go figure....
I never did get away from software development. I'm currently working on...you guessed it....a car forwarding system for the layout....!!!

I remember the dark ages as well. Had my first inventory program on a RS Color computer with 4 floppy drives, no hard drive. Used a database written for that machine, but can't remember the name.

 

[60103]

I never got far with BASIC -- couldn't write a program that worked.
But I did learn at least 4 dialects of FORTRAN.

Serviceman looked at our A/C unit today -- no freon in it and a leak in the coils. So we're replacing that and the furnace with a nice new quiet model.

 

[Chief Eagles]

Up late again. Did another upgrade on the Conrail GP9. Will look good lashed to the NS GP9 I did last night and today. Today, yes. Could not get it to respond and it was the first Electric RR kit I had done. Then it wanted to run in conventional. Waited until the CA folks woke up and called about 2 EDT. Guy was puzzled. Told him I had two more kits. Then he said for me to change out the RC board. Did and then thing fired up. Defective board. He told me to ship it back. I had wasted two hours early in the morning [stayed up late like tonight].

Well, this one tonight fired right up.

Going to eat some popcorn. Yes, this late. Good night.

 

[John Baker]

Greetings, all.

I've started a new off-topic thread, so as not to hijack this thread:

CSXect, John Baker - can you copy your replies over there please, and I'll respond.

Gaugers: my apologies, I seem to have started something here that should be there:

http://forum.zealot.com/t159578/#post829463

Where's 'over there'? I can only handle one of these things at a time.
I have quit using the other site [coffee pot] because I was getting confused.

 

[jeffrey-wimberl]

Good morning.

It's 73 and partly cloudy here. Thunderstorms are expected later. The high is expected to be in the upper 80's.

Today's Weather for:
Sundown, LA 71446-6114 5/28/2008

Heat Index: 78°F
Humidity: 94%
Dew Point: 72°F

So Far Today
High: 75°F
Low: 73°F
Rain: 0.00"
Rain Rate: 0.00"/h
Gust: 3mph NNE

Today High: 90 Partly sunny. Scattered showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. Highs around 90. Light and variable winds. Chance of precipitation 30 percent.

Tonight Low: 68 Mostly cloudy. Scattered showers and thunderstorms in the evening...then slight chance of showers and thunderstorms after midnight. Lows in the upper 60s. Light and variable winds. Chance of precipitation 30 percent.

 

[TomPM]

Good morning folks

It was a crisp 58 F this morning with bright sun. High today will be 71 F. It is a change from yesterday where the temperature according to the backyard thermometer was 87 F. We had some storms roll through last night. It was mostly rain with a few flashes of lightening and it lasted about an hour.

We took down the old basketball court. It actually was pretty easy to pull it down. The pole was embedded in the ground with a 5 gallon bucket of what looked like mortar mix; not concrete. The stuff crumbled to the touch. The pole had been leaning more and more every day so it had to come down before it fell down. We finished building the new court and put it in place. We got to shoot a couple of baskets and then the storm rolled in.

Tonight is our Cub Scout Pack Meeting and Arrow of Light and Crossover Ceremonies. I spent some of yesterday getting stuff ready for the meeting. I have to run to the Scout Store today since I discovered I am missing one award.

No modeling last night. I doubt we will have time tonight.

I hope everybody has a good day.

 

[dwiemer]

Been away for a few days. Try to check in and I had it set up so I get a email which would bring me to the next post after my last....doesn't seem to do that anymore?

Computers....in high school, I was a student "teacher". We used basic and fortran...I do remember the cassetts and card readers. We then went to the IIe and had some commodor computers. I had a Vic20 at home. I remember when we got our first color monitor, oh what joy!

Got a bit of layout work done this weekend. I hope to get some more done this coming weekend, but have plenty of honey dos to get to. Anyway, hope everyone is doing well.
God Bless,
Dennis

 

[grumbeast]

I've been away from the gauge for ages but I'm going to try and get back into it (now I'm back at work!

We dad a wonderful baby girl, Miranda, who just had her first birthday! I am a super proud and happy dad!

In terms of my trainstuff, well, its kinda been a dry year. I had to demolish my railway room because of some rennovations but its together again now so I'm going to embark on something a little easier and more achievable (simple around the walls layout on a shelf).

I did get back to the UK in November and had a great day railfanning in South Wales, I'll post some pics in the appropriate forum.

Anyhow.. Its a beautiful spring day in Truro, Nova Scotia, and I think I'll take off during my lunch hour and see whats happening in the yard

oh.. seeing the conversation going on about vintage bit heads.. I cut my teeth on the ZX81 / Spectrum / BBC Model B and a Research Machines 380Z.. but why is it that software today doesn't make the work easier or faster than when we used these?

Graham