Good morning. A cup of black coffee and an apple turnover please.
The temp is
-5 with an expected high possibly reaching the low teens. The winter storm watch and winter weather advisories so far have fizzled. We did get some snow yesterday, but with the winds there was little accumulation, less than an inch. Looking at the radar, we are clear of any snow, so far.
Mark - Brand loyalty when it comes to cars is a toss up. I have always been a Chevy fan, buy have also owned many other brands. Gpoing back to the mid 70's through possibly the late 80's, the quality of US brands was fairly dismal. I did own a couple of Japanese cars during this period, but US manufacturers had to step up their game to compete. I would dare say that today US cars are just as good as most imports. The trend now seems to be toward SUV's. Some manufacturers are dropping sedans, such as Ford and concentrating of SUV's. Some manufacturers have as many as 6 different models. Me, I have no use for an SUV. Go back to the 50's and 60's, there were not as many choices. If you wanted a Chevy, there was a Biscayne, Bel-Air and and Impala, basically the same car but with different trim levels. The there was the introduction of smaller mid size vehicles and compacts.
I did like the ability to buy a new car the way you wanted it in the mid to late 60's. You could go into a dealer and get a list of options for the car you were interested in and chose each and every item you wanted. You could customize your car right from the factory for the most part. Today manufacturers only offer "packages". You might want one particular feature, but it only comes in a package and you may be stuck with a number of items you really don't want. This is one thing that really turned me off. Now with all of the technology, such as touch screen infotainment systems and other things such as blue-tooth, the ability to restrict teen drivers and others now becoming standard equipment (that I have no use for) have run me out of the new car market. At the prices they are wanting for new cars, I want my car the way I want it instead of the way some a**hole in his office in Detroit thinks I should have it. Please give my buttons, knobs and switches. - - - - - - - Rant over.
Louis - More great photos. Like the Shark and the Atlantic. I really like the foods from eastern Europe. Just before I got out of the Navy, we made a port call to Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia (now Croatia) and I think I was in pig heaven. We were the first US warship to visit there since before WWII. The people were fantastic. The food, OUTSTANDING. People don't know what they're missing if they don't try the great foods from eastern Europe. Sounds like a good party you had. We had planned to put steaks on the grill, but with the high winds out of the north and the grill on the north side of the house. we had something else.
Willie - It is really amazing at how shoppers always have to stop their cart or have a BS session right at choke points. You can't fix stupid. Good luck finding the figure you dropped. The room where my work bench is at has a clear floor and I have been able to find items as small as a coupler spring by laying on the floor as
David mentioned. If I drop something in the train room, it's pretty well history.
Johnny - Glad to hear that your wife is doing well. I'm sure that you'll both be happy when she returns home. I also did not watch the super bowl. Years ago we had season tickets when we lived in Florida and then had Sunday ticket on DirecTV but when the kneeling crap started,that was the end of the NFL for us.
Greg was have noise problems with his Bachmann GE 70 ton switcher he started a post on. As I have mentioned, years ago I wouldn't have anything to do with a Bachmann locomotive until they started their Spectrum series. After reading a product review in MR on the Spectrum Consolidation, I sprung and bought one. What a suprise. Excellent running locomotive. I tried a few others and again, nice running locomotives. Then there was the 70 ton switcher. Out of the box, the gear noise was terrible. After some lubrication to parts that I could get to, it did quiet down some but was still noisy and then as I posted a while back, it got to the point where it would not start from a dead stop. It was sent off to Bachmann for repairs and I was told that they had lubricated the motor bushings. (extremely hard to get to without almost taking the entire chassis apart). NO CHARGE for the repairs. Now I am really enjoying the little guy. Here's a short video I posted on Greg's post.
This little guy can creep so slow that it took over 15 minutes to cover the same distance as in this video. A real joy to use for switching.
Here's a rail photo for today.
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