In Memoriam

Never Forget.

F=MA

This may get a little more press coverage in the coming weeks...

Large spy satellite could hit North America

WASHINGTON - The U.S. military is developing contingency plans to deal with the possibility that a large spy satellite expected to fall to Earth in late February or early March could hit North America. Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, who heads U.S. Northern Command, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the size of the satellite suggests that some number of pieces will not burn up as the orbiting vehicle re-enters the Earth's atmosphere and will hit the ground. "We're aware that this satellite is out there," Renuart said. "We're aware it is a fairly substantial size. And we know there is at least some percentage that it could land on ground as opposed to in the water." A U.S. official confirmed that the spy satellite, which lost power and no longer can be controlled, was launched in December 2006 and could weigh as much as 10,000 pounds. It carried a sophisticated and secret imaging sensor but the satellite's central computer failed shortly after launch. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the information is classified as secret, said the satellite is designated by the military as US 193, but it never reached its final orbit and the Pentagon declared it a total loss in early 2007. Renuart added that, "As it looks like it might re-enter into the North American area," then the U.S. military along with the Homeland Security Department and the Federal Emergency Management Agency will either have to deal with the impact or assist Canadian or Mexican authorities.

Deciphering deductibles

So the W2s arrived by mail last night, which allowed me to plug those in and file my taxes. S'funny how you look forward to it when you're a homeowner. I used Turbotax as I have in past years...the software costs around $50, and it is a good program.
But it's not all roses...when you're done, you have the option of having the taxes filed electronically, for ~$18, per return. Okay, fine. Then there was an option to have them just deduct the fee from your refund. Yeah, sure, that's even easier.
But if you select that, you're then told this option costs an additional $29.95..okay hold on. After I sought out your product, and am agreeing to file electronically, you want me to shell out again what I paid for the software just to file? And pay double that if I wanted that done with my state taxes too, for a grand total of $150? I could walk into an H&R Block office and have a somewhat sentient human do it all for me for less than that. There must be a lot of lazy people out there...
Luckily a stamp still costs 40-odd cents, and I can file the state taxes via phone.
I remember now why I didn't use Turbotax last year.

Storing a Hankie in Your Sleeve?

This is something I've seen a few people do. I figured it was mostly because it kept one handy, and who cared what other people think. (My grandmother does this, and who is going to tell her any different - besides, it's so cute when she does it.)
Then I watched the film 'Wilde' starring Steven Fry as the witty Victorian this weekend. There's a scene where Oscar Wilde has a cold and is laid up. He repeatedly produces a hankie from his sleeve, wipes his nose, and tucks it back in.
Is the hankie in your shirtsleeve a sign of high society, like holding your pinkie up when sipping tea? Maybe I should test this theory out.

This is a test

Just trying to add audio content

Walkie walkie

Feels like a Chili Night

I've got plenty of ingredients at home. I meant to make some last weekend, but never got around to it. But I can stand the craving no longer. Tonight is Chili Night.

Geo-Blastomas Donation Update

For the American Brain Tumor Association's (ABTA) fundraising walk, we were hoping to raise $500 by April 26, the day of the walk. We're already at $220! If you can donate, please consider it. And if you've already given, thanks for your support!

Straight From the Gutter

The gutters on our house are original, and it shows. I'd patched a couple of leaky spots back in 2006, but now with the wicked freeze/thaw cycles of this winter, it looks like the caulk has failed and they're dripping again from the same spots. So add that to the list for 2008 - new gutters. Oh joy.

Battlestar Galactica

It's been a year since we saw new episodes of BSG. I've heard conflicting dates as to when it will pick up again. Sci-Fi channel said as recently as last night that Season 4 starts in March...Producer Ron Moore's blog, however, says April. He also says that they only have completed scripts for about half of the planned 20something episode season. So if the strike drags on, we may never see the planned end to the series.

But not all is awful...a few spoilers for the new season are trickling out, and the seldom-talked about side project, Caprica, may be made after all, if only as a 2-hour pilot. (The script for that was finished, so it's ready to go to fill airtime during the strike)

io9.com has the details over on their site.

Walkie walkie walkie

My family has decided to participate in the annual 5k benefit run for the American Brain Tumor Association. it's being held in Chicago on April 26. We're soliciting donations to support the cause, so if you can contribute, please feel free. I'm posting our team site to the right, but you can also follow this link to our page...

Growing Up

You know you've officially joined the ranks of adulthood when your first answer to "What can I do with this year's tax refund?" is "I can insulate the attic."
The days when the answer was "Weekend bender in Toronto" seem to have passed on by.

Hehehe...Bender...

Feckin Cold

We can always count on a cold snap like this every winter, but did it have to fall on the one 3 day weekend of the month? At least there wasn't snow to go along with it this time.

Mom came down to visit on friday and the 3 of us went to dinner. I had intended to go to the Ding Ho, but when we got there, Ding Ho was No Mo. A couple of contractors who were there said they had moved, but didn't know where.
We needed a Chinese food fix...I looked up another chinese place in the car, called Peacock West. the outside looked as good as it could for being located in a strip mall. The inside was the usual red booth and ornate brass lamp decor of any Chinese Restaurant. but the food was pretty good. No Ding Ho, but a fine substitute.
We had a great time with mom, it was a nice unexpected visit.
We had been planning a party for saturday, but the cold weather made us cancel that. I didn't leave the house unless i had to all weekend. I spent it relying on mom's tried and true recipe to beat the cold, Irish Cream and coffee. Ahhh.

Milestones

Well, dad passed away one year ago today. I took the day off, and spent most of it just keeping myself busy -running errands, getting caught up on the dvr, painting some little telephone poles for the layout. Little busywork stuff. Not that watching tv is work.
I can't say it was an especially sad day, just trying to wrap my head around the surreal fact that it's been a full year. Time to crack open a Guinness and have a toast to dad.

Happiness is a belt

Well, I've been trying to pare back my weight for the past few months, and this morning, I was down to 170. That's about 30 lbs less than at the end of summer.
This morning, I had to do something I haven't done in a couple years - put on a belt. I could barely get this pair of pants on last year withour fear of making the button go 'ping' and disappear. Now, I need a belt to hold these up. Result.
My secret? Just common sense, not eating like I live at hometown buffet. Now if I stop counting cheese and crackers as dinner and have a salad instead, I could probably lose another 10 lbs fairly quickly.
Ugh. I just found one of those gargantuan Hershey bars in our fridge at work - some genius gave these out as Xmas gifts. I did have a salad for lunch, so it'll all work out. And I did eat half of it last year.

Count DeMoney

For the last week, we've been in that lovely wasteland between paying the bills and waiting for the next paycheck to arrive. Ergo, tapped out. It's amazing how far $5 and leftovers can go...

But things are looking up. Payday is friday, and I have 3 paydays in February(good old leap year weirdness). We've been trying to get stuff paid down, and have done pretty well, but until it's actually all paid off, you know how that goes. But several things will be paid off by summer, so we'll have more breathing room soon.

NBC Doing It Again

I just read that NBC is looking to make an Americanized version of Top Gear. I'm not sure how successful this could be. The true appeal of the original is the hosts themselves, and how they can take something as potentially boring as describing how this car is better than that car, and turn it into an entertaining program. You can't replicate people. Something that NBC seems to try to do over and over.

As far as content...I don't know how they can do better than playing football with Toyotas, or to hold a contest to see who can best offend residents of Alabama without getting beaten up. Or simply to take a car that costs more than several very nice homes and drive it like they stole it. Especially in our litigious part of the world. And it's a given that the sponsors will have a strong say in how their products are handled on the show. Can you say a Pontiac is rubbish when they're sponsoring the program? I think not.

And we can't forget the BBC's simply incredible production values, which makes NBC's usual hokey and forced schemes seem...hokey and forced.

I know they're aiming for another hit like The Office, but I fear this will be another Coupling fiasco.

Inflation

I'm suprised inflation wasn't higher than they're claiming. Energy costs weren't the only thing that shot up last year...the cost of food also went up quite a bit, thanks to a big jump in corn prices fueled by the Bush administration's push for ethanol production (according to the Department of Unintended Consequences).
Corn is a major component of the U.S. food supply. Livestock, dairy products, anything using corn or corn derivatives are directly affected.

WASHINGTON - Wholesale inflation last year shot up by the largest amount in 26 years while retailers suffered their worst December shopping season in five years as mounting economic woes caused consumers to put away their wallets.
The Labor Department reported that wholesale inflation was up 6.3 percent for all of 2007, reflecting a huge increase for the year in various types of energy costs ranging from gasoline to home heating oil.

Farewell

I just learned that The Beautiful South, one of my favorite bands, split up in February '07 shortly after releasing their last album. They cited 'musical similarities' as the main reason for hanging it up.
They had a great run spanning almost 19 years...after the Housemartins split up in the late 80's, Paul Heaton and Dave Hemmingway formed the new group and released their first album in 1989. 9 more followed. It's said that their greatest hits compilation released in 1994 is owned by 1 in 7 British households. By contrast, they were all but unknown in the U.S. Their combination of melodic music and dark, gritty lyrics never caught on here. For me, that meant I never had to worry about getting sick of always hearing them on the radio. Heaton summed up the band's style pretty well from this quote:
"So many pop songs are written about 15-20 year olds. We've never really targeted them, or newly weds. We write about people who've lived together most of their lives."
Beef and I saw them perform in Chicago on Halloween in 2006. I'm certainly glad we did. Thanks for the years of great music.

The Perfect Pothole

From The Onion (And Beef)...

COLUMBUS, OH—According to a statement released by the Ohio Department of Transportation Wednesday, highway maintenance workers are so deeply moved by the elegant pothole located in the westbound lane of Route 50 that they have decided not to defile its pure and powerful form by attempting to fill it in. "This natural jewel of concrete displacement on an endless stretch of barren highway is too aesthetically pristine to be disturbed," said Ohio DOT director James G. Beasley, adding that when he first beheld the pothole he knew he had seen the face of God. "From the delicate lace of cracks running across the radius to the dark and profound depths of the crater below, we must protect this pothole with all of our being. It makes such beautiful use of negative space." Beasley also claimed that it would be an honor for anyone to have their car ruined by such a masterpiece of asphalt.

As Luck Would Have It

I just clicked on MSNBC's site, and found this headline to greet me:

"Bank Of America Buys Countrywide"

Stay tuned for my lottery picks and my predictions for Tinseltown. Here's a preview: A hollywood starlet will be arrested this year for drunk driving.

Well, that was fun

When I started the drive home, it was raining nice and steady. So, I flick on the ol' wipers...and the driver side blade is making this awful 'clunk' sound with every wipe. I can see that the rubber blade has somehow slipped out of the plastic retaining groove. So, I pull off and get out to try and put it back. It seems to slide right back where it should be. So off I go again and get on the highway. I'm puzzled because I'd replaced the blades only a couple months back and they've been working fine.
About 5 minutes later, the clunk returns, but they're wiping the glass fine as I creep thru traffic. Traffic starts to pick up speed, and a semi pulls into my lane.
At this exact moment, the 'clunk' turns to 'screeeeeee'. The blade is also now only clearing about 4 inches at the bottom of the windshield. The rest of the wiper isn't even touching the glass. I try turning it off, but the rain and spray from the semi makes that a bad idea. So, hunched over to see out the clear spot, I get to the exit and pull into the Cooper Stadium lot.
When I get out and look, it appears that the outer third or so of the plastic wiper arm is gone. The metal wiper frame was wiping the glass instead. Lovely. I'm able to jam the rubber blade into the metal frame, which is conveniently 'u' shaped. It holds the wiper more or less in place, and now it's clearing about half the windshield. Progress! It works the rest of the way home.
No idea how this happened. The replacement wiper blade just fell apart, maybe the plastic part cracked somehow? One of those things. I'm lucky it's a relatively short drive home. That metal arm would have chewed up the glass pretty well if I had to travel more than a few minutes.

That Certain Thing

When dad was diagnosed in January '06, I lost my free tax advice. So i've been educating myself. I may bite the bullet and have H&R Block do it, as I'm discovering a lot of things I would have resovled in a phone call to dad.
I knew I could deduct our mortgage interest on the Federal deductions, but the property taxes too? And any late payment fees? (We had 2 last year)
I'm going thru as many IRS pubs as I can to see what else is lurking out there in deductionland...

Signs Point To Yes

Our mortgage holder, Countrywide, is now denying that their finances are as bad as they seem. This will end well. I'm guessing we'll be with a new company by the end of the year, whether we want to be or not. How's your lender doing?

Storm Carnage, or lack thereof

We've had some crazy weather lately...the temps reached record highs monday and tuesday, and then the party was crashed late last night by a cold front. All night, we could hear the winds howling outside - the local news this morning was reporting repeated gusts over 50mph, trees down, power outages, cats and dogs living together, utter chaos.
And we seem to have gotten thru it unscathed. We never lost power, so the tree trimming by AEP last fall must have done some good.
The only things I noticed this morning were that the cushions from our outside chairs were blown off, and...that's about it. The car shelter was still where I'd left it when I got home. That thing can really take some punishment. The wind whipping thru the cover all night sounded like it was being ripped to shreds over and over, but it just shook it off.

New Train Site

I'll be moving most of my train-related stuff to my new sister site, cunningly named On The Rails.
Nothing's there yet but the template...but in the future you can stop over there for your railroading fix.

Update - i've started adding some content there...stop in and say howdy.

Used Car Ad of the Week

``OLDS 1999 Intrigue. Totally uncool parents who obviously don't love teenage son, selling his car. Only driven for three weeks before snoopy mom who needs to get a life found booze under front seat. $3,700/offer. Call meanest mom on the planet.''


http://www.qctimes.com/articles/2008/01/08/news/local/doc478425434d5ce105344632.txt

El No A You Smoko

Well, a milestone has been reached. Shaunn has promised to quit smoking. I will quit along with him. Wish us luck!
The drinking will continue...eh, who am I kidding? A 6-pack lasts me 3 months now.

Light up more gooder

Last night when I got home, I did a little work on the lights. I played with the lights that I installed, and found that the 'glow' looks better with just the tips of the leds poking up thru the table, instead of laying haphazardly on the floor of the building. This also saved some length of wiring, which will allow me to illuminate more buildings on a single light string.
I also did some experimenting with color...I found a simple and cheap way to change the light's color from the harsh white to a softer yellow glow.
The solution? Don't laugh...Yellow tissue paper, taped to the inside of the buildings, along with scotch tape applied to the window glazing to diffuse the light. (It looks better than it sounds).
Pics o'plenty will be up sometime this week.

Things to do/see

I just learned that the Annual Monster Train Show is coming to the Franklin Co. Fairgrounds Feb. 9th and 10th. I'd better start bringing lunches from home to save up some pocket money for that.
And the best Irish music band ever, the Wolfe Tones, will be in Cleveland Feb. 24. When we went to their show last year, we were the youngest people in the crowd by a few decades. But that didn't stop us from making drunken fools of ourselves. Looks like we'll have a chance to reclaim our moment of glory again soon.

D'oh

On the heels of my post celebrating the wit of Jeremy Clarkson, I must, in the course of full disclosure, post the following about a rather stupid stunt he pulled ot make a point about bank safety...

Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson has admitted he was wrong to publish his account number and sort code in a national newspaper after a sum of money was removed from his bank account.
Clarkson published his bank details in an effort to prove that no money could be removed from a bank account using the numbers as a response to what the presenter saw as an overreaction to the missing government data discs scandal.
The acerbic presenter also published details suggesting how his address could be found.
But the move backfired when a mystery reader of his column in The Sun used the details to set up a £500 direct debit to the charity British Diabetic Association, an organisation which does not require a signature to set up a direct debit.
"I was wrong and I have been punished for my mistake," admitted Clarkson, who presents Top Gear on the BBC with Richard Hammond and James May.
The government had previously said that two discs containing personal information for 25m people had been lost in October 2007.
A sheepish Clarkson has subsequently said of the case: "Everyone worked themselves into a right old lather about the mistake but I argued we should all calm down because the details in question are to be found on every cheque we hand out every day to every Tom, Dick and cash and carry.
"Contrary to what I said at the time, we must go after the idiots who lost the discs and stick cocktail sticks in their eyes until they beg for mercy."

Light up

I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon working on adding lights to some structures on the layout. i couldn't post any pics yet, because 1) camera is missing, and 2) our wireless network has this odd habit of taking sundays off. Weird. Must be a Baptist network.
I had the idea to simplify things by getting a couple of cheap christmas light led strings attached to an AA battery pack. This is a lot simpler than the usual way of splicing individual light bulbs into bus wires run underneath the table.
I bought 2 strings a few days after Xmas, when the cost was next to nothing. I'd thought of this last year, but after all the Xmas merchandise was gone.

While this new method made the installation a snap...

Step 1 - drill hole through table
Step 2 - poke light up through hole

I wasn't thrilled with the outcome. I used white leds, which in in this context, make the bulding appear to be flooded with weird neon light. Yellow ones would look much better, so I'll be on the lookout for any that are left. I might have better luck just getting some colored cellophane or something, as most stores have probably moved on to their next Big Thing.
At any rate, I ran lights for 3 buildings yesterday. Yeah, this is pretty useless without pics, but they will be up soon...

I also did some checking of the dimensions, to see how the changes I mentioned earlier would fit...looks like it'll work, with less destruction necessary than I thought.

A Perfect Explanation

I just love this photo. It's Jeremy Clarkson, the host of that motor show I'm always on about. (Jeremy is the one wearing a hat)

This is an excerpt from one of his columns, that perfectly explains the mystery of why time seems to move faster the older you get. It also explains why elderly drivers only drive 11 mph.

If you’re five years old a year is a fifth of your whole life, which is why it seems to go on and on for an eternity. But if you’re 45 a year is a 45th of your life, which is why it passes like winter’s day in the Arctic. When you’re 45 time passes quite literally nine times faster than when you’re five. When you’re 75 time is hurtling by at such a rate that driving your small car is like plunging through a tear in the space-time continuum. The throttle pedal is a hyperspace button. This is why old people drive so slowly; because 12mph to a pensioner is like 2,000mph to a teenager. When you sit behind them at a roundabout wondering why on earth they won’t pull out, it’s because the approaching lorry that, to you, is moving at 14mph is coming at them like the Starship Enterprise on combat power. Last weekend I had the usual list of jobs. Take one child to school, drop the boy off at a rugby match, get home, take the third to her riding lesson, then get back to watch the second half of the game before picking the others up and dropping them all off again at different parties. It required military planning and certainly there was no time for the doddering old man who was crawling down the A44 in his Clio at 21mph. And nor did I have much patience with the Rover that, from behind, was apparently being driven by four wisps of white hair. I lost my temper quite badly with this one, especially when it stopped at a set of green lights on a route I use to avoid a local double mini-roundabout which, for the past four years, has been home to an old lady in a stationary Metro. Of course, so far as she’s aware, she’s only been there four seconds so she really can’t understand why everyone in her wake is so angry. What are they all doing, these old people? I thought they only ever went out on a Sunday, taking their nose hair to a local beauty spot, eating a hardboiled egg and then crawling home again.

Bwahahaha

If you're 53, have bedazzled your jeans, and shop at stores with the word "Dollar" in their name more than twice a week, you probably drive a PT Cruiser. If not, you're probably like me and can't stand the little bastardly things.
I just witnessed something really funny outside...A PT pulled up behind another car, which had its flashers on and was not moving. The PT sits there for about 2 seconds, then starts to honk, several short little toots. After about the 8th or 9th toot, she decided to honk longer, she did two long honks, and on the second one, the horn...stuck. She was pounding at the wheel, but it wouldn't shut off. So, she had no choice but to pull around the car, and drive up the street, horn blaring away. It appeared by how fast she drove off that she was trying to outrun the sound. Just one of those moments. Maybe you had to be there.

Snowblow a No Go

So, I was dying to try out the new machine last night. But between the wind, the cold, and the relatively small amount of snow, I decided to save the machine for another day. I'll wait until it's in the 40s this weekend to get it prepped and fueled, to reduce the amount of cursing and frozen digits.

Happiness at 65

So you're sitting there saying to yourself "It's been a while since Dan posted some long boring story about gas mileage or saving 50 cents on his electric bill". Well, I've got a treat for you.
I drove to Pennsylvania and back this weekend for Xmas. I filled up when I left town, and decided to keep it at 65, partly because Smokey was hiding behind every little hill and tree. I kept it up the whole way there and back.
For the entire 390-odd mile trip thru the hills and mountains of W. Va and PA, I averaged 34.5mpg. Big deal. Well, what that meant was I'd burned a little over 11 gallons. Which left me with plenty of gas in the 17 gallon tank to drive to work this week, and probably part of next week. Nice.

Layout version 1.1

I've mentioned in the past the shortcomings of my layout. I've been looking over the past few months on how to address those. i had wanted to do an entirely new setup, but the paint is barely dry on the current one. So, I've been looking for anything to change the current one.
The main things I wanted to change are:
- make all curves a minimum of 22 inches in radius.
- More rail siding areas.

The challenge is to make the layout bigger while not changing the size of its footprint.

This is what I've come up with...the changes are in red. The two curves in red are currently 18 inch radius. This works fine for what I have, but most of the larger (and cooler) equipment I've been lusting after require a minumum 22 inch curve. I think there's enough room to make these curves wider...the lower one in the pic though is right next to the town. There will be major work to make this curve larger. But, there's room for it. I can probably salvage most of the scenery, as it's all on foam insualtion board, I can just slice and remove it. Maybe. But if not, it's only glue and colored foam...it can always be done again.

The other big change will be a new rail yard, where rail cars can be dropped off/picked up. The current table has no more room for additional tracks, so the solution is to make more table. I'll have room for this if I move the control panel around the corner ofthe layout from where it currently is. And the extension won't stick into the room any further than the current table.

These changes will take care of most of my wish list for a long time. I will probably start this work when the real winter weather starts.

Why?

Why did it have to snow on the day I go back to work? We did get a very nice gift from Santa, which will ease the pain...

Yes, a snow thrower, or blower, or whatever they're called in your part of the country. Santa said he got it for about $300 off the regular price, because the top cover was cracked. No, really. It was about a 4 inch crack, probably from someone trying to stand on it. We won't get on the cover of "Snow Removal Monthly" with a crack in the top, but I think we'll survive somehow.
It's also missing one of 2 bolts for the little angle piece that directs the snow (Probably lost during the emergency surgery needed to fit it into the trunk), but I'm sure Sears has them lying around in the store. At any rate, I need to get that bolt and a gas can so I can take it out later to see how it does. I don't know if we got enough to justify using it, but I'm sure with the snow blowing and drifting today (the front of our building had a nice drift in front of all the doors this am) I'll find justification when I get home.