Common Interests

I recently added "interests" to my profile. When I looked them over, I noticed that they were actually links ... hmmm. I tried clicking on the link for model ships, and Blogger returned several pages of profiles that also list model ships as an interest. About half way down the second page, the profiles seem to stray a little from the subject. Below is the link for profile #18. I did not know you could hold a beer can that way.

Cup Holder

Wedding Day

We went to a wedding yesterday in a beautiful church down in Washington D.C. It had one of those amazing pipe organs in it; I'd show you a picture, but I feel kinda' funny about taking pictures inside of a church. I like going to weddings. Everyone is so happy; a new beginning; two people committing to meet life's challenges together ... instead of alone. I think married couples should attend weddings frequently. Hearing their vows reminds us of why we married all those years ago. Best wishes Jim and Liza on your new life as one.

Here are the proud parents ...


and the happy couple.


In the next image, children are performing a traditional Philippine dance: Four children move long wooden poles around on the floor while the other four dance - barefoot - within them. Danger Will Robinson!


Somehow I managed to use all of this table wear for a single meal. The food was delicious!


Here is Robert cutting in on the bride. He looks awfully happy.



The reception was held at the J.W. Marriott at Pennsylvania and 14th Street. Parking was abysmal; I ended up in a garage over on 12th Street. On my walk back from the garage, I found this:


It looks like a fun place to go. Next time I'm in the area, I think I'll stop in for lunch.

What to Wear?

In my previous life, I worked in an almost exclusively male environment. Now, I'm working in a field that is dominated by women. With that change has come a new challenge: deciding what to wear. Our company has a dress code, so I know I should wear dress pants, a button down shirt, and tie; but the problem is the weight. Should I go with the light cotton blend, or do I need the lined wool trousers and the thermal under-shirt today? There's really no way to know. One day the office is so cold, my fingers can barely type; the next day it's so hot, I might pass out at my desk. Men have spent a lot of time developing automatic temperature control systems so the temperature of a room can easily be regulated to +/- 2 degrees; but we never figured out how to control women. In my old male dominated environment, there was a company policy for room temperature; if you didn't like it, you could always find a new job. Now, there is chaos.

One woman says the room is too hot and she turns the thermostat down to 65 - I've heard about hot flashes before, so I'm not too surprised by this - then another woman will come by an hour later and set it up to 80! I guess that would be a cold flash ... hmmm. Then they all start looking at me like I'm the one who keeps changing the setting - but I'm smart enough to know not to touch the damn thing. What I don't understand is why they can't move the setting 1 or 2 degrees at a time - instead of from one extreme to the other. On second thought maybe I do know why, but it would be better left unsaid.

The Full Montage

I was sitting at my desk thinking about Half Smokes. A friend of mine calls it "doing the full montage" because I get this glazed look and a big smile; you can tell I'm thinking about something far, far away.

mon·tage:

1) A single pictorial composition made by juxtaposing or superimposing many pictures or designs.

2) The art or process of making such a composition

She was the first person to mention that I did this. I knew I was thinking and smiling on the inside, but I never knew anyone else could tell. Anyway, I'm thinking about Half Smokes: Why do we call them that? Are there any Full Smokes or All Smokes or Whole Smokes? I figured Wikipedia would know, but there seems to be some doubt there:

Wikipedia on Half_Smokes

I grew up with Half Smokes never realizing they were a regional thing. The rest of the world seems just a little poorer to me now.

Then a co-worker comes along and breaks my reverie, "Be careful what you say to me, I'll put a hex on you." So I asked her why she thinks she has the power to do that, and she shows me the palm of her hand: "I've got the mark." She points to a place on her palm where the lines make an X. I look at my hands and the lines make a sort of M, but on her hand - between two lines of her M - there is also this X that I don't have. Then she says her powers are weak because she only has the X on one hand. Does anyone know if this is true? I don't believe in that sort of thing, but - for people who do - does the X really mean that?

Misleading Advertisement

When you go to Blogger's log in page, there's a button to "Create A Blog"; and underneath that is the comment: "It’s easy, and only takes a minute." (emphasis added, ed.) Really? Don't you think there's a little more to creating a Blog than saving a blank web page on a server somewhere? I've already spent three minutes on this post ... and it sucks. Shouldn't there be some kind of warning about the hundreds of hours you will steal from every other aspect of your life ... just so you can jot down a few random thoughts that no one else should waste his - or her - time reading? Just a thought.

Making Connections

Electric railway systems normally use a single overhead wire to bring power to the train; and they use the running rails as the current return path back to the power station. There are variation on the theme: dual overhead wire, third rail, and underground conduit; but normally it's single overhead wire. Copper is the wire of choice for overhead because of its low resistance, high strength, and moderate cost. Using the rails for a return path has its own set of compromises. Steel is plenty strong, and rails have a large cross-section to handle the return current. The biggest problem occurs at the rail joints because steel rails rust - and iron oxide is non-conductive. To compensate, electric railways must join their rails together to form an unbroken path back to the power station. You can see that work in progress in this photo.


In the old days, a mold - containing thermite charges and a copper bond wire - was placed across the rail joint, and then lit on fire. The thermite melted the steel rails enough to fuse the bond wire into the rails. We have the equipment to do thermite bonds, but we've elected to use a newer method. We're using a big MIG welder to make the rail bonds. The bonds we use have a steel bar on each end of the wire; and you can weld those bars directly to the rails - if your MIG has enough power. In the next picture, you can see a finished rail bond in place.


Every joint on the railroad needs one of these bonds before the trolley cars will run again. We are only bonding one of the two rails; but there are still a couple hundred bonds to install - and later inspect and repair. George Epperson and Bob Clarke have been working on this project for two weeks. They are getting close, but they still have a ways to go.

Twins Reunited

Last Tuesday, there was a reunion at the National Capital Trolley Museum. Twins - born in 1951 - saw each other for the first time since 1996. I caught up with the pair on Saturday parked together on track #14. TTC #4603 has been a mainstay of the museum's operations since its donation in 1996; and now, twin sister TTC #4602 has joined our fleet. She was purchased from a trolley museum in Ohio which sold off its collection. It's amazing that two, 58 year old, consecutively numbered trolley cars from Toronto still exist; bringing them together again in one place borders on the miraculous.


Since the cars were parked over the pit, I went underneath for a quick inspection. Generally speaking, the new car appears to be in good shape. The seller said that TTC #4602 was in operable condition before it was parked a couple of years ago. Next Saturday, we'll begin a thorough inspection of the running gear, and perform routine maintenance. With a little luck, she will join her sister hauling passengers on our new streetcar line.

Unfortunately, the museum's re-opening will probably be delayed a few more weeks. We've had more trouble with the tamper, we've still got overhead wire to string, and we're still working the kinks out of our new trackwork. We have a punch-out list a mile long, and members are working seven days a week to get the museum re-opened as soon as possible; but we've had problem after problem, and there are only so many hours in a day. Still, a bad day working on trolley cars beats a good day doing just about anything else. So check the Museum's website for up-to-date information:

National Capital Trolley Museum

Then come out and enjoy the ride. And while you're waiting for us to re-open, here's a link to some great Conrail photos:

Conrail Cyclopedia

Check out the cranes in the Maintenance of Way department.

Size Matters

The trolley museum will open soon. I've actually seen the first trolley car run over the rails powered from the overhead wire; but I'll save that exciting tale for another time. Instead, I'll just post a couple of pictures - since I haven't in a while. The first picture is of me installing a new line pole using the mobile crane. It's actually not as easy as I'm making it look in this photo. It's like trying to pick up a piece of spaghetti with a thread and then dropping it inside a straw ... only bigger. I used to think that this crane was a big piece of equipment, but now - after seeing what they use to build the bridges for the Inter-County Connector - I realize it's not big at all. It's amazing how your perspective changes over time.

The second image was taken inside the car shops of Pittsburgh's T System. That's an in-the-track wheel lathe; and it allows you to re-profile the wheels of light rail vehicles without removing them from the car. Must be nice! I wish I had one of these - or at least had access to one. Trolley cars have steel wheels, and those wheels wear over time. You wouldn't think that a steel wheel riding on a steel rail would wear, but it does. When you work on a PCC car's trucks, you will find a layer of steel dust all over the place. The problem isn't so much the wear - it's that the two wheels on opposite sides of the same solid axle don't wear the same way! You would think that - since both wheels are going to the same place at the same time at the same speed - they would wear the same; but nooooo, that would be way too easy. So eventually, you have to take the truck off the car, take the wheels off the axles, and put them on a really big lathe to cut them back into the proper shape; and then you have to put the whole thing back together again. That's a lot of work! If only I had a million dollar in-the-track wheel lathe, I could save all that time.


I asked one of the guys at Strasburg Railroad if he could turn our wheels on his wheel lathe, but - after mulling it over - he didn't think he could handle anything that small.

Lost - Not Forgotten

I'm constantly forgetting things. I'm not talking about names or phone numbers or my wife's birthday or stuff like that - I mean actual physical things: like keys and tools and money. I tell myself that I'm involved in too many things, and that's why I'm always leaving stuff behind; but it really sucks to show up somewhere without all the stuff that I need. I'm woefully unorganized, and my inner OCD self says, "Self, if you could just amplify your OCDedness - always put things in their proper places, make lists, prepare ahead of time - then you would always have the stuff you need - when you need it." But I know that's just not true.

I'm predisposed to "running back inside for one last thing before we go." It's not too bad as long as I know where that last thing is; but what about when an item is lost - not just forgotten? Usually, "I know I left it around here somewhere ..." I might have to scrounge around a little, but I usually find whatever it is that I remember I needed. But sometimes a thing is really lost. Maybe I dropped it or left it somewhere without knowing. Maybe someone borrowed it without asking, or somehow it got thrown away. That's the worst, because it takes time before I even realize that the item is gone. On numerous occasions, my family has witnessed the spectacle of me tearing the house apart looking for something "that's supposed to be right here!" Sometimes, the fits of rage that accompany an episode like that, result in the item reappearing - often with an apology for "moving it without letting you know."

Unfortunately, sometimes an item I "absolutely have to have right now" is really really lost; and all the frantic searching just drives me to another "Falling Down" moment. A falling down moment comes after all hope of finding an item is lost, when the floors are covered with the contents of overturned boxes and emptied drawers, when my family stares at me in wonder and asks, "Is Dad going to be OK?" At times like that, all I can think of is Michael Douglas telling Robert Duvall, "I thought I was the good guy."

When a line from a movie embeds itself in your psyche ... well I think it deserves a place on your shelf of ten favorite movies. Who could forget lines like "I got the pooh on me", or "somebody better ride back and git a shitload o' dimes", or even the classic "what we have here is a failure to communicate." And so I've decided to increase my shelf of ten favorite movies to twenty. I haven't actually picked all twenty yet, but I'm working on it; and I said shelf - not list - for a reason: I'm actually putting all of the movies on a physical shelf so I can see them as the body of work that they are. If a better movie comes along and bumps one from the shelf, so be it. And if you'd like to borrow one to watch, I guess that would be OK; but please let me know BEFORE you actually borrow it. If I go to the movie shelf and the movie isn't there - and I can't find it ... well ... it's not a pretty picture.

Another Flashback

There was another piece from "This Side of Paradise" that drifted across my mind today: Amory complained that one of his college buddies had become a rather dull conversationalist. His friend refused to discuss any thought provoking items which crossed his mind - instead preferring to sequester them for later use in his writing. Hmmm.

Aye, I See Sea

I use one of three different methods when I read a book. I may pick up a book, read it, then set it aside; or I may read it with a stack of business cards handy, and jam one between any pages where I find something of interest; or sometimes I'll sit down with a dictionary and Cliff's Notes, and really try to get something from the book. It all depends on how much time I want to spend. Usually, I use the second method so I can go back and quickly find the good parts. This is particularly handy if I've set a book aside a little too long. Many times I'm reading two or three books concurrently, and method number two helps me quickly refresh my memory. Method number three takes a long time, so I save that for something really special; number one is the quickest, but I never know what parts of the book are going to stick.

So I'm driving into work Tuesday listening to my new favorite radio station, and a song comes on where the writer has rhymed write and right. I shan't 'ave noticed, save for that book I just read. You see Amory and his Girl had a bit of a row because she wrote a poem rhyming see with sea; and he didn't think it sporting to use homonyms that way. It's so weird that I would hear that in a song and think, "You can't do that - F. Scott Fitzgerald said so!" What's even stranger is that I would remember such an insignificant part of the book at all. I read it using method one; then I gave the book away when I was finished reading it. Why - of all things in the book - should I remember that, when I can't even remember his girlfriend's name?

So that got me to wondering: What is the longest coherent sentence - or paragraph for that matter - which can by constructed from paired homonyms. I made up a four word forward as the title to this post (I crack myself up sometimes); but I'm sure someone can do a lot better than that. I've seen the longest palindrome in the Guinness Book of World Records and it's unbelievable. Anybody care to give this a try?

A New Station

There's a new radio station in town: 105.9 The Edge. Finally someone out there is playing the good stuff. From Aerosmith to ZZ Tops, these guys know how to kick out the jams. It's about time.

One and a Half Degrees

We all know the theory of 5 degrees of separation. We can debate its relative accuracy, but we know it is true more-or-less. Have you ever heard someone say, "I know someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows Kevin Costner."? Probably not. At five degrees of separation, it's not really "knowing" someone anyway. What matters most is that you know yourself, and that you know the people that surround you. These are the people that form your inner circle of trust. Not all of the people I know are trustworthy. I'm not afraid to associate with them, but I do try to avoid getting tangled up in any of their affairs; and I exclude them from my inner circle.

So when I need an answer to an important question, I first look inward, and then to my inner circle. But what if that's not enough? What if the answer lies outside of my inner circle? How far can you look outside of your inner circle before the information you receive becomes unreliable? At this point in my life, I've settled on a theory I call One and a Half Degrees of Trust: Trust yourself, trust your inner circle, and - by association - trust those few people whom your inner circle says warrant your trust. That's the limit. After that, it's just a crap shoot. There is a big difference between knowing and trusting. Leaders of nations know each other personally before they declare war on each other.

Why does any of this matter? It has to do with health care in the U.S., and the changes that are coming down the road. I've heard so many claims from those I don't trust, that sometimes I wonder what to think; but when I look inward, I know that health care is something everyone deserves - regardless of who they are and what they do. When I talk to people I trust, I often hear personal tales of woe centered on insurance abuses and outrageous medical bills. And when I talk to Canadians, they just shake their heads. How can we have such a poor system for health care, and why are we unable to fix it? I have yet to speak with Canadians who say their health care system is inadequate; and they all say it is cheap - the couple from British Columbia that I spoke with last week, said health care costs them about a hundred bucks a month. They wonder what we are waiting for ... and so do I.

A Defining Moment

The tide ran in through the inlet so fast, you couldn't keep your line on the bottom. It's difficult fishing the jetty then: casting and reeling-in, trying to keep your lure off the rocks, the salt water splashing up from the waves below. When the tide is this low, the slick rocks are exposed; you have to be careful. As I cast my bucktail out for the thousandth time, I heard a faint voice call, "Help me."

I turned to see a boy - perhaps ten or twelve - scrambling in the water. He had slipped on the rocks; and though he tried, he could not fight the tide that was pulling him in. I looked around at all of the people there, but no one could move. We were all frozen by the sight of that boy ... and the danger of the sea. He defiantly held his fishing pole above his head as the waves tugged him in; then he looked at me and called again, "Help me."

I tossed my rod to the ground and scrambled down the rocks. I reached out and grabbed the end of his fishing pole, pulled him in far enough to grab his hand, and - with the help of another man who followed me down - pulled him safely back onto the rocks. Perhaps I helped to save a life that day ... I guess I'll never know; but I did learn something about myself and the content of my character. It was a long time ago - I was in my mid-twenties - and I liked the part of me that said, "Go Time."

We all find ourselves in these situations at one time or another. Inside each of us, there is a voice that says "I may be afraid, but I'm not going to stand here ... I'm going to do what I can." When you face these defining moments, do you listen to that voice? Over the years, I've tried to nurture that part of my character I'll just call intestinal fortitude; and once you've risen to the occasion, you'll find the next time is just a little easier.

This Side of Paradise

We've just returned from a week's visit to Paradise Island. During our stay, we all went on the "Booze Cruise to Rose Island" - a one day trip away from the hubbub of touristy activity. No phone, no lights, no motor car; not a single luxury ... Our guide pointed across the water to a smaller island and said "a picture of that island was used in the opening for Gilligan's Ilse." Hmmm ... It looked right, but the Bahamas is full of tales like this; one can never be sure how tall they've grown. It is amazing how peaceful a "deserted" island is. We've all gotten so used to background noise - noise pollution - that we've forgotten what a toll it takes on our souls. How does one find inner peace amid the chaos of everyday life?

It rained Thursday morning before the sun came up. We could see the storm clouds moving off to the east from the restaurant where we ate breakfast; in the west, we could see new clouds stacking up. After breakfast, we went back to the room and I checked the weather channel. Back home - in Maryland - the remnants of Hurricane Ida were pounding ashore. For the moment, the sun was shining in Paradise; so I went down stairs and soaked in the hot tub, laid on a lounge and finished reading "This Side of Paradise", then went for a swim in the pool. As I floated in the pool, I caught myself thinking "What a perfect day! Storms to the east, storms to the west, even storms back home; but right here, right now, everything is perfect." As it turned out, those storm clouds in the west never reached us; and it really was a perfect day.

How many times in life have you missed a perfect moment? We get so caught up in the things that have just happened, and the things that are going to happen, and the things that are happening "over there", that we forget about the perfect moment we find ourselves in RIGHT NOW! So stop what you are doing and take a deep breath. Mentally block out the before's, the after's, and the over there's. Look around you and find perfection. Live in this moment; it will never come again.

Kindergarten Work Skills

I still haven't found that web site for the Viking ship I was looking for, but I did find this:

Ice Cream Stick Longboat

This guy makes a 45 foot long Viking Ship out of Popsicle sticks and plans to sail it across the Atlantic! Are you kidding me? The ship was built in 2005. I found a reference to a short sea voyage in 2008; but I can't find any pictures or more detailed information. Has anybody out there seen anything about this? I know it's old news; but come on ... did this really happen?

Well looky here. I ran a few more searches and found this from Reuters:

Ice Cream Stick Longboat Too

I guess there's no limit to what a man can do with Popsicle sticks, imagination, and a whole lotta time!

Time for a good sacking!

Sharon and I spent Sunday down at Solomons, MD visiting with Tracy Allison. She turned 35 this year and is really starting to show her age. While we were there, I made a new acquaintance. His name is Fred and he was pumping out the bilge of his longboat.


The boat looks like it takes a crew of ten or twelve, and he was kind enough to offer me a seat on her next outing - a couple of weeks from now. My guess is, they're always in need of men with strong backs and weak minds to man the oars. Fred has a wealth of knowledge on longboats; but I didn't take any notes, so I don't have much to write. He gave me a website to learn more, but it's all in Norwegian and I don't know how to change a web site's language.

I'd like to go on the voyage, but I don't have any Viking attire - save for a sword. I wonder how Fred would feel about that. Does the crew dress in period costume before heading to sea for a long day of pillaging? I've never gotten involved with any of the re-enactment groups. Some people think that playing in a bagpipe band is re-enacting, but I don't agree. Bagpipe bands are a current event. We strive to move the art form forward, not to recreate the past. I think there is a difference.

Bits and Pieces

It's been a while since I've posted any pictures. I have so many of them, I've filled all of my memory sticks again; I just haven't had the time to process any of them. But I guess I'll do a stick today, maybe another one on Wednesday. Soon they'll all be in the computer. Then I'll need to get them backed up on CD's before a random hard disk failure makes them all go away. Computers are not made to be trusted!

Saturday was a busy day at the Trolley Museum. We finished the brakes on #4603 and then worked on the heat system until lunch time. As we sat around the table, Mr. Clarke asked "So what are you going to work on now?" I thought about it and replied, "We've had such a string of successes recently, I don't really know what to do next." He mentioned that the tamper was having trouble starting, so we decided to look at it when we got back.

As we were probing the circuits looking for an electrical problem, I came across a disturbing find: On the right side of the photo are shards from the air compressor connecting rod which shot through the side of its crankcase. Bad ... really bad. It's the kind of failure that can keep the tamper out of service for a long time - and right now we need it while we finish stringing the overhead wire. There are so many people working so many hours preparing for our Thanksgiving Day re-opening - and now we have to deal with this.

After working at the museum, I followed George over to the Agricultural Farm Park for a behind the scenes tour of the property. 450 acres of fields and trees, barns, even hogs. Some of you know my secret desire to own a sawmill. Well, they have one of those too; that's really what I went to see. I'm trying to link up with the crew so I can help cut lumber next time they fire it up. After we toured the sawmill, we stopped by the potato fields and I gleaned a few potatoes. You can see them on the left side of the photo. Potato fields are one of those things that never seem to run out. They'll keep getting smaller and harder to find; but if you dig for a little while, you can always find more potatoes. After that, we went to the building where they restore antique farm equipment. Wow, a whole new world. It's like a trolley museum for farmers. I need to find a way to join up with these guys; I need to find a way to retire now. The last photo is a picture of my friend George. Chain saws are so much fun!