You got me laughing out loud on that one. "Wirus Repairus," I tried it with my wand I used to use to lead a choir but it didn't work. LOL still !!
I right now I’m watching a Harry Potter fan movie on you tube called Sisters of House Black. So far it’s pretty good.
Quite the movie. Interesting how it turns out. There's a bunch of Harry Potter spin offs. I understand the author of the Harry Potter books is planning yet another one. So, there may be more to come. After watching all eight movies. I kept thinking to myself there is more then one star here. Centered around Harry Potter, that's for sure put the movie wouldn't work without his closest friends, the adults and kids around him, if you get my drift. I did like the ending but I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it. Now back to First, I need to clean up the floor. My kitty buddies have been tracking kitty litter. At least it's not the kitty by-product. Second, it will be my turn to make a mess when I get in and strip the wires. Mundane for the moment. The real reason the restoration project is on hold. Never mind how hard it is to get down and back up from under the layout. Not like the good old days. Thinking of buying a small throw carpet to put in front of the litter pseudo-dirt box. Hoping that will slow down the scale rocks.
Just got back from WallMart. Found the electric light tester, I was looking for. I originally typed that Testor. Sound familiar? My neighbor and I both needed to go shopping so off we went. He's a good guy. The automotive electrician. He sees this project as a piece of cake and has offered to help. Looking forward to that. Weather went from cool and balmy to cold and spitting sleet. Two seagulls flew by and christened my windshield. Hey guys. Allow me to return the favor sometime. Time to concentrate on the train layout. I was hoping to throw some pictures on here. Working with Lap Top so I need to transfer some pictures to here. Later!
I was one day fishing off a bridge in a place called Olalla. I was a poor kid that didn't have much money but I was able to buy a Deli sammich from the little convenience store near the bridge by catching a few pounds of crayfish the owner could use to make bait buckets. So here is the setup. This picture is taken from the back side of the former post office, which shares a parking lot with the store. The little outcove on the bridge is where I was fishing and enjoying my tuna salad sammich. A seagul flies by and marks my sammich with its woo woo woo. I had eaten only half of it at this point and I was pissed. I turned the bread inside out and threw the sammich on the post office roof which is where the gull landed. The gull gobbled up the whole thing... poo and all! To make matters worse, I didn't even catch a fish that day
Tomayto, tomotto; Crawfish, Crayfish... And seagulls. I remember when I was a teenager, my dad got tired of paying $5 for a quart of live bait shrimp (which would usually last us all day, or until we were tired anyway,) so he got a sport-shrimping license in TX, and bought a small trawl net to tow behind our boat in the bay. The idea was we would shrimp for an hour or so, then drop anchor on an oyster reef and fish with the shrimp we caught. (that lasted only a couple of times before we decided we could catch a lot more shrimp in an afternoon than we could fish. Besides, the shrimping was much more fun, and the boat kept moving so we had a breeze on those hot afternoons. The net was small enough (12' wide) that we could pull it back in by hand, but we had to stop the boat to do it. Actually, we pulled the boat back to meet the net halfway... The first summer we had it was a heck of a banner year for blue crab in Galveston bay. We threw any crab back that wasn't wider than a dinner plate. The problem is, the crabs, unlike everything else in the net that just happily flows down into the 'basket' at the end of the funnel-shaped net, grabbed on to the net for all they were worth every chance they got. They'd grab onto you if you weren't careful, and they wouldn't let go until thunder clapped twice! So as we were pulling the heavy net up on board, we had to stop and whack the crabs to get them to let loose, slide down to the waterline, and grab hold again. Did I say the net was heavy? But oh, my goodness, the shrimp and crab suppers we had after a day of shrimping! More than enough to feed our family of six, with leftovers that Mom would make into the most delicious shrimp and crab casserole for another meal or two. Anyway, where were we? Oh yeah, seagulls. When you get the laden net on board, and dumped the contents onto the sorting board that spanned the back of the boat, the gulls would hover overhead, diving down occasionally for a free snack. They usually went for the small, shiny trash fish that were caught with the shrimp, and didn't take too many shrimp. Luckily, we would quickly get the net back in the water, and were under way trawling again, so most (but not all!) the gulls were hovering over the very back of the boat, and not over our heads, as we sorted the catch. I said "but not all"... I remember one gull bombed me with a fresh, steaming puddle of goo right on my hat and side of my head, running down onto my shoulder. Yuck! At least the weather was hot, and I didn't mind pouring a bucket of water over my head. But the shrimp and crabs were still as delicious as ever at supper that night!
'' Quite the even Massey. Seagulls are a thing unto themselves. I attended a parochial school in Watsonville, Ca. Not my cup of tea but it's what mumsie wanted and at my age I didn't have much of choice. Hogwart's, of Harry Potter, reminds me of my experience there. On the way to the cafeteria for breakfast each morning the seagulls would attack throwing their poo poop all over us. I soon learned to wait to be the last and always with an old piece of bread that I would toss into the air, to the side of me. Worked, I was never dumped on by those flying beast, again. Busy weekend ahead. More later.
that’s because magic is Latin based, not Germanic. Alambrus Reparum. I have found it works best when the incantation occurs over a sixer and pizza.
Ok here goes... same bridge as before and the same side. There are always seagulls hanging around this area, the “bay” is a mud flat at low tide and the gulls love to snack on the sea critters that get stranded when the water goes away. Any way it’s also a good place to catch some silver salmon. So I have been at it for a few hours, catching one keeper and a few throw backs, I just lost my bait to a worthy opponent and I wanted another shot at it. I put another piece of flounder (caught by hand during low tide) on my hook and cast it out. A seagull caught my hook and flounder in mid flight and the hook set in the seagulls mouth! I caught a big one! Well I am working with a trout pole with 10# line so I can’t just manhandle this bird back in (this pole made catching salmon fun too). I slowly reel the bird in but I’m not quite ready to grab it, my friend is on standby to help. The bird tries to fly across the other side of the bridge just as a county sheriff is driving by, and my line snags his light bar and antenna... out goes my carefully reeled in line! He stops just as I am almost out of line, gets out of the car, which is now towing 2 kids and a seagull. The bird is none too happy about being stuck to the car, it is trying to fly away but the few feet of line he has won’t let him get far... but he keep on trying over and over. The cop starts yelling at me about catching the bird, thinking I did it on purpose and I’m trying to get him to listen that I’m not catching birds, but salmon, and could he help me get my hook out of the bird. The cop stops yelling at us, and then helps bring the bird back to where we can get a hold of it. Still a very unhappy gull is biting and scratching me, the cop and my friend. We finally get it wrapped up, I put a stick of wood in it’s beak to prop it open and use my hook pliers to remove the hook. Bird is bleeding a little but ok all and all. It took even with the officer’s help a good 15 minutes to get the bird unhooked! The gull perched on a nearby relephone pole squawking at us and I would say scolding us in gull-speak. it took another 20 minutes to recover my line from his car and the street. I didn’t have money at 13 to buy new fishing line so I didn’t want to cut it loose and start over... it took me 2 or 3 hours of crayfish digging just to buy a sammich, and fishing line was more expensive! The officer realized we were just unlucky, or the bird was trying to catch a free meal, and we didn’t get into any trouble. He was impressed that I was able to bag a 12” long salmon with a trout pole. What he didn’t know was I actually did this all the time, and would cook the salmon for lunch. When I resumed fishing, the gull would watch my casts but never make an attempt to catch our bait mid flight again.
Fish tales can be fun! Both locations below are in western Washington State: About forty years ago, I was salmon fishing with a friend, off the mouth of the Skagit River. He caught a commercial fishing boat as it passed us..... Around a year later, we were fishing Lake Sammamish, during the silver salmon run. I caught a 14 foot Hobie Cat as they tacked close behind us. Stripped my reel.... Refreshed memories!
Sure, I'll bite... I had a seagull steal the live shrimp (well, most of it) off my hook while I was getting ready to cast. That's as close to catching one as I have come.
Hey what happened to my train layout talk thread? LMAO. I love those fishing and seagull stories. Massey, I'll bite but not to steal the bait off the hook. What's the story? Oh never mind I just figured out you've already told it. I just got in a new keyboard for my Dell Computer. Although relatively small and compact I like it. Fish story. You might like this or not. My uncle took me out of school for a day of fishing in the Foothills of the Sierra's. More specifically Chinese Camp. At the end of the day he looked at me with a glint in his eye and called me one of the best bait-er's he'd ever seen, adding "A real master bait-er." I get back to my parochial school and the teacher asks me for a report. She looks puzzled at first when she read's... what my uncle said. Asking me what was it your uncle called you? I responded as innocently as I could back then, "I'm a master bait-er." Broke up the whole classroom. Once again I had gotten away with a typical No, NO!! Dang conservative influences always lurking around. "Rules are to be broken especially if they are wrong in the first place," according to my favorite grand-dad. Although, I seldom got away with breaking the rules. There was always a tattle tale lurking about or the ever present critical eye. I'd say worse then Hogwart's. If you can imagine that. Back to the layout: Above: Looking back, this was easier to construct then reconstructing it now. It went in one piece of wood at a time, one wire at a time, two pieces of cork road bed at a time, one piece of flex track, switches and rerailers at a time. I never felt as frustrated with it as I do now. The Atlas Slider switches soon disappeared. I had no love lost for them. They were used as SPST for the roundhouse tracks. Below: The lower section is the hidden staging yard. It had to go in before I added the top level. Now, there is no top deck until everything on the bottom has been checked out, replaced if necessary and rewired. Then the top deck will go back on. With the same frustrations. The good news is I've finally gathered together all the tools I need and a small table is on it's way to sit my most used tools and track supplies. It's happening. More to come on present events and the work being done. Later.
That is good news and a good update Sir Rick. The fishing stories were great. None of my own to share unfortunately.
As to the fish stories and not yours. My bad. I've managed to outrun Covid 19 so far. Along time ago in a far away place. Having been on an Infection Control Committee, for a hospital that made the National News, three days in a row. Followed by Big Bear Lake and the two inches of snow they got, the next two nights. Just a week or two ago. Anyway, i was able to contribute and remember the issues we talked about. I also served on the Disaster Preparedness Committee at the pleasure of the Administrator. She was an excellent leader and knowledgeable. Someone I was pleased to say I enjoyed working with. Our biggest question was, "How do we educate the public about protecting themselves from diseases during a disaster?" We never planned on the news media being our resource. Even back then they would over exaggerate and lie about things. Next question, "Where are we going to get clean water to use for handwashing?" And so on. 21F degrees this morning which is warm compared to 8F degrees in Big Bear, Ca., yesterday morning. We are at approximately 2,000 foot elevation and they are at 6,500 feet elevation. Colder up there. The cold here is wetter and cuts right through you. Not so much in Big Bear Country. Of course I'm getting the "O" word, you know Older. So, I'm doing like my dad did, his body metabolism couldn't keep up with his caloric needs. He was cold even in 90F degree heat. I'm not there yet. I still find that uncomfortably warm. I think I've already shown you these pictures but this is my focus for now. Getting the wires hooked back up, so I can repair the track and get trains running over these tracks. You won't need to take notes. It should be obvious. There isn't a wire in the picture below that hasn't been cut. Here's the other side. On my budget replacement wires, as in replacing all of this is not an option. In the picture below is a strand of wires that was taken off of a diesel in the Barstow Repair Shops. The electricians pulled it off and tossed it. Seeing it in the dumpster, I asked the foreman if I could have the wire and he said help yourself. I'm still thanking him. Oop's that wasn't the clearest or sharpest picture. Kind of how i see it with my wonderful Db vision. Remember: It doesn't have to be pretty it just has to be. You should now have a better idea of what I'm up against. It's color coded alright. How many Yellows, Blacks, Blues, Purples and so on and so on? Aiiyiiyii !! And where do they go??? Time to get busy. Hook up power, solder some test leads to a light indicator, test leads to alligator clips hooked up to a multi-meter and we should be off and crawling. That is under the table.
While in college I took a course in emergency management, and I found I actually enjoyed the class with the exception of writing an essay every week, and the prof not reading them... but I digress... When we were going through the process of addressing the public we ran into the issue of not only using the various media sources but also how to get the media to express the required information without putting their own spin on it, or getting their own political views in place. I was of the mind that this would not be possible as the media is a private entity and they are allowed to promote what ever view they decide was in their best interest or mindset. My idea was to use FEMA made PSAs that would be based on fact, or at least the facts that were known at the time, and these would be aired in full without the media sources being allowed to edit them. Well it turns out my theory on the media was not too far off. But since this was a college class and not reality the PSAs didn't get created or aired. At least I got an A on the assignment!
