Welcome back everyone from what has hopefully been a short week. Since many have a long weekend starting tomorrow, let's talk about what your plans are for Thanksgiving and the days after it. If you just have a regular weekend, post those plans too. Let's get started. Thanksgiving Day: If I get my pumpkin and pecan pies made at a decent hour, I hope to watch my favorite Thanksgiving movie, Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Thursday morning will find me getting the smoker out of the garage and prepping it and the cedar wood. Inside I'll start the day by making my mom's recipe for stuffing, then on to potatoes, butternut squash, and Ang will make her green bean casserole. I'll fire the grill up around 7:00am and place the spice rubbed turkey on the grill soon after. I smoked a turkey for the first-time last year, and it was such a success our guest requested, no demanded, I do it again. Angela's dad, grandma and niece are expected to arrive around 1:00pm. We'll have crackers and cheese for Hor 'devours with some form of chilled wine or for my father-in-law, beer. Dinner will be served at 2:00pm. After that we'll relax and there is a rumor of a race later that afternoon thanks to a slot car set, I purchased this past summer but have yet had time to open. After some resting, pie and coffee will be in order and more visiting. Friday: While Angela has the day off, the jury is still out on whether or not I have the day off I requested. Work has been busy and of course, Friday is when the December Announcements for Athearn go live. I may have to work and babysit a new web process as the website has had some issues lately. If I can get away, I'm looking at my neighbors' truck that is for sale. I've eyed it for a while and found out Sunday while doing yard work that the mid 1990s era F-150 is indeed for sale as he is 92 and rarely drives it anymore. This is just a truck, no fancy interior, no extended cab or 4X4, just a clean old F-150 long bed, standard cab with the tried and true, super reliable Ford 300 inline six. It also has a cap which will help when transporting modules to shows. If it all works out that will be the morning. The afternoon will be spent decorating the outdoors with the Christmas lights and displays. Saturday: The new Christmas train arrived on Monday. I wanted to keep the tradition but change it a bit to start a new tradition with my wife. The old three rail has been replaced with two rails in the form of American Flyer. The set and extra track will get set up with some modifications in anticipation of the tree and our first dated Christmas car should be here next week. We also need to go and pick up the Falcon if time allows. Sunday: I hope to relax after three days of excitement. I'm hoping to cut down the plywood I picked up last week into the front of my shadowbox. I'm sure there will be other things added to the list, but we'll wait to see what develops. So how about you? Are you celebrating Thanksgiving? What are your plans for the weekend? tell us what you plan to do. Tell us what your thankful for. I'm thankful for family and a great place to share our train plans. Then let us know what your weekend plans are. We'll assemble again on Monday the 27th to see how our holiday and weekend went. Until then... HAPPY THANKSGIVING! & High Greens!
Unfortunately I must work Thanksgiving Day. Such are the vastly unappreciated, thankless toils of we in your food supply chain! While everyone lauds the "first" responders, etc, they completely forget us. Without whom, you ALL, including the "first" responders, would have an EMPTY Holiday table..... Anyhow, I hope to see a few minutes of football. Continue searching form a few items I desire for my mini-empire. And more scenery work on a T-Trak module.
Happy Thanksgiving Eve to Y'all, @BoxcabE50 -- I haven't forgotten about Y'all -- Thank you, for helping in keeping us fed. So -- my plans - ? Thanksgiving Day: Giving thanks, for our blessed life. (Thanks to my Wife) - In the AM, I plan on completing the shingles on Jr's office roof. Then painting said roof. Friday: Changing the oil in both of our vehicles. Then I hope to put Jr's office on his used car lot. - Perhaps add his lot's light poles. Saturday: Pull out our Christmas decorations - MRRing - ? Sunday: -- Yet to be determined. Y'all have a fantastic and very HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! - Stay safe!! Wolf
Happy Thanksgiving Eve all! While I am off all this week, I've been super busy so I'm still looking forward to the long weekend. Today, I plan to start work on decaling some cars and hopefully get another step done on another current layout project. Have a doctor appointment and will have to make a dash to the grocery store as well. Thursday - Thanksgiving! Turkey day! the big feast! While I'm really looking forward to it, my visit to the table will have to be somewhat reduced this year. Plenty of turkey itself but thanks to some current issues, the sides will be cut back and dessert cut out completely..... Boooooo! Picked up my son from school yesterday. One of his room mates and another friend will be coming up Thursday to share Thanks giving with us since they are not able to travel home for this break. It's something nice we can do for them and will make the wife happy to have some extra guest. After dinner, we'll share our traditional Thanksgiving movie with them. It is A Christmas Story and we always watch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving either before or after the movie. Friday will be maybe a little time working on decals or the layout before the wife is up and ready to start the all out Christmas decorating. We started getting things ready a few weeks back but never moved anything upstairs so now is time. Saturday will most likely be a repeat of Friday. Sunday is a toss up right now and not even on the radar yet. Some things to be thankful for. Family, friends near and far, all the great folks and discussion right here on TrainBoard. Like Boxcab, I too work in the Food supply chain. Many time holidays are nothing more than another work day for many in the field. I'm fortunate enough to be in a role where I'm off but always on call. Sometimes that can be a bit rough but I am thankful for the job and the security it brings. We always think of the first responders and how they sacrifice on holidays as well we should but there are a lot more folks out there in roles that don't get to stop so be thankful for them too. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Coming to you live this morning from the Armadillo Ranch in Milam County Texas, I am here getting the facility ready for the clan gathering. Smaller than normal crowd this year as my oldest brother and his wife will not make the drive down from Denver and will be spending Thanksgiving with her family. My daughter and her husband will be celebrating with his family in Indiana. We are all still thankful that everyone is well and able to be with family somewhere. I got the chlorinator on the water well working again and cleaned the screen porch on the main house so far. I need to fix a flat on the John Deere and do a little repair on the "bob whar" fence down by Oak Way. The neighbor's bull keeps coming over to visit. When I get home Sunday I need to get back to my resurrection project of my old Lone Star, Treble 0 Lectric passenger train cars. Many years ago I stripped the factory UP paint off them, painted and decaled them for Santa Fe and put new "modern" trucks on them that sported the new fangled (at that time) Arnold Rapido N Scale couplers and discarded the old trucks. At the Oklahoma City Train Show a few weeks ago I bought another stock UP coach with the original trucks. I am making resin copies of them to back date the old cars to the Lone Star style hook and loop couplers. The replacement trucks will have Microtrain wheels. They will be painted back to original UP paint as well. I am adding an old Arnold Rapido RPO and observation car to the consist as well to round it out. The Rapido observation car is getting LED markers and tail light. Both will have Lone Star trucks. My Lone Star freight train was a big hit running on the NTRAK layout at Oklahoma City this year.
Well, I was fortunate to get today off, so unless there is some sort of crisis at work, I’m home today. I’ve got to type a memo before Monday morning though. WED-I’m just going to relax this morning. I’m pretty exhausted from work over the last two months (I’ve been doing my job, my co-worker’s job since that position has been vacant since July and many things for my boss while they were out of the office for most of the last two months) and COVID a couple weeks ago. I may do a few chores or errands if I have the energy later in the day. THU—No travel, no family in or out this year. We’re staying in our new house and will break it in with our usual turkey routine: a pound of butter with sage tucked underneath the skin and rubbed all over the bird, cover the bird in bacon, and then into the oven for a few hours, basting every 30 minutes with watered down maple syrup. We’ve done it this way for most of our marriage, and it’s never dry. Just as important-the leftovers take longer to dry out. Because I’ve been busy with work I haven’t had a lot of energy for my kids, so as long as I’m not in the middle of food prep, I’m going to see if my kids want to play some board games. I’m thankful for a lot of “little things” this year. But the more I think about it the more I think they are really the “big things.” A lot of things didn’t turn out the way I’d hoped, planned, or expected, and sometimes I get angry about that but when I think about it I’m grateful for what I have. -We finally figured out why my wife has been having a bunch of long term health issues-it’s a thyroid thing-but it’s treatable there is a path to her feeling better. She was selected for promotion, which was a big deal. -Everybody else in my extended family is generally healthy or their long term health issues are stable. -My daughters can walk to school everyday. They have friends, play sports, sing/play instruments and are pretty happy. -Since I moved to DC from Japan, it’s easier to keep in touch with family and friends. I’ve seen old friends I hadn’t seen in years. -We’re financially secure. FRI-In the morning I might pull out our Christmas decorations-which accumulated over time and about five different houses and see what makes sense for our current house and come up with a list of lights or whatever for a later trip. Then I might do that memo. We will probably skip Black Friday sales. I don’t much care for crowds (I didn’t like them pre-COVID and I like them less now) and I don’t care much for the behavior of Black Friday shoppers who forget the point of the holiday they’re shopping for. For those that do go out-good luck and be safe! In afternoon we’re going to visit some friends and have a leftover feast-adults will play games and kids will play with Lego in the basement. SAT-Probably shopping for decorations to fill whatever gaps I have and then decorating the house under the supervision of my 9 yr old daughter. I may try and finish the purchase of the pistol that didn’t happen last weekend if I can. SUN-I’d like to do something hobby related. I’d like to go down to the basement and reevaluate what I’m trying to accomplish and come up with some sort of plan to move forward. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Good morning everyone, On Saturday we are going to try again to visit the trolley museum. Work will continue on the hillside at the eastern end of the layout. Also, now that I know what has been causing problems with the yard ladder controls, I need to work on some solutions. The handrail paint is supposed to arrive today and if it does, I will be painting handrails on several Kato locomotives I recently acquired. Coming up on a show in a couple of weeks so need to start getting the trains I want to run ready for that. Wishing you all a great holiday long weekend.
Blessings to y'all. I went to college a long way from home and was pleased to be able to spend Thanksgivings with my roomate's family. We'll have family guests at our home and am looking forward to it. Will continue to glue grass on my foam mountains in preparation for ground foam and puffball trees.
Thank you for helping keep people fed, it's definitely a thankless job that many wouldn't want to do (especially with some of the bad customers these days!) Since we are hosting the family for Thanksgiving we've been prepping most things in advance. Last night my GF made up a batch of cranberry relish which came out amazing. Today we are both going to be in there prepping sweet potatoes, green beans, making mushroom soup (for green bean casserole), spatchcocking and basic prep for the turkey, making turkey stock, and a compound butter to shove under the skin of the turkey. Oh and I'm going to be making a pumpkin chiffon pie today so it can setup overnight in the fridge. Tomorrow (Thanksgiving) we will finish the remaining prep work and cooking everything for an afternoon feast. Friday through Sunday I'm planning on cutting the remaining wood bits for the first two modules of my new layout and then assembling them. I also need to assemble a couple PCBs for testing the new CS and Throttle projects that are going to go with me to Amherst.
Well, today has started up on a bad note, Eileen got her shot in the eye yesterday to deal with the Macular Degeneration but somehow her eye got an abrasion so we were at the Retina Specialists this morning for some numbing lotion, an antibiotic, then a lens cover and eye patch, with a trip scheduled to the Retina Specialists on Friday. I may get the covered hopper finished for painting this evening. Thursday, we are having a small dinner for us but my youngest son and his wife will be visiting after Thanksgiving dinner at her parents house. Friday, have the doctors appointment in the afternoon, and we will be doing facetime call with all the children in the morning. After everything I have bowling in the evening. Will also be putting up the outside lights on the trees and bushes for the holiday. Saturday, may go to the club if others are going to attend, will get the covered hopper painted and a couple of other cars, also need to decal the car I am building for the club gift exchange. Sunday, more decaling and whatever else needs to be done including the laundry. Rick Jesionowski
The CPKC holiday train makes its first ever Mississippi stops this weekend, so if I can pull away after cleaning up from thanksgiving I'll be headed north to photograph it.
Christmas lights going up! You are right. Empty stomachs = mess! MRR'ing may be on the "outer scope". Taking care of "current issues" myself. Zero carbs and sugar is goal. Here's to the Lone Star freight train. Basement evaluation sounds like a good plan. Getting that yard ladder control situation sounds promising. The puffball anticipation is building. Modules underway! I am keeping fingers crossed on the Mrs. eye health and comfort. Covered hopper outbound! First Mississippi Holiday train! I have done none on the passenger car project up until now. I plan to change that this afternoon. Yesterday was spent on safari locating foam board. A lot of driving in the rain. I located two finds. Paid for one piece. More were donated at no charge. I still need some more if I am to expand. I use these as base materials. I am thankful for you folks on here. All of you inspire me. I am thankful for a lot of other things as well. Have a great Thanksgiving Holiday and be well.
Nice to see this thread. Yesterday it was pouring. Today mixed clouds and sun. Tomorrow more sun that clouds. Thursday: I will stay out of the way. Dinner will likely be around 4ish. Priority: Add stratification (layers of foam), to a couple of mountains and paint them white. That *should* take most of the day. Early morning walk Possible: Mix up a light(ish), yellow brown to go under tracks in yard and industrial. Currently it is very hard to see the track at more than 5 feet. Possible: Add more redish colors to new mountain. Possible: Add 'coffee' color to 'Coffee Mountain', (which is where I put my coffe cup. Run trains Friday, Saturday, Sunday: Priority: Build Mountains Early morning walk Paint Mountains Run trains Possible: Set up sound system on layout.
I have to get over some aches and pains and get back to the layout build. Once the outside Christmas lights and decor are up I plan head in and work toward having all 16 turnouts operable on the west end of West Colton. Then fine tune the 8 turnouts in staging. This way I can run trains from the yard up to staging or Fontana through the helix. I haven't been making goals lately but I have to make progress toward running trains to motivate me. I will also create a build thread, but just a little at a time. Model Railroading is fun when I can run trains and not be in pain. Happy Thanksgiving.
