Engineers’ dream-world

Example number one:
-So here we are motoring placidly towards deepest, darkest De Land, Floridy, headed towards Linda’s mother in the shadow of the mighty De Land water-tower, in our humble Hertz rental Corolla.
We have our lighted “engineers’ dream-world” sign in the window, because our GPS is doing the driving.
On 17/92, it takes us past the spot where I tossed the MapQuest directions in the back seat, then one block further, and illegally turns right onto a one-way street against traffic.
Granny, utterly confused and unable to see our “get-outta-jail-free” engineers’ dream-world sign, crashes her white LeSabre head-on into our Corolla.
As the EMS personnel, assembled police and fire-rescue, extracting our limp bodies from the smoking Corolla, observe: “it was Granny’s fault (foult); she didn’t properly regard the engineers’ dream-world sign.”
NO WAY would a GPS make a mistake in the engineers’ dream-world.

Example number-two:
We are zooming toward a bridge over the Erie Canal that has collapsed into the drink despite engineers noisily pronouncing it safe.
I want to stop, but our GPS is doing the driving.
Ker-Sploop! Our car arrows into the Erie Canal, dutifully following the driving-instructions of our vaunted GPS.
“NO WAY could a GPS make a mistake,” our rescuers say; “not in the engineers’ dream-world.”
(Woops! What was that all about? My cellphone just made a strange beep. I had it off, but it says it’s on. —Must be our ISP.”)

This whole thing is a response to my macho blowhard brother-in-Boston loudly claiming there is NO WAY I could deal with a talking GPS — which we already have.

“Linda” is my wife of nearly 40 years.

“Shadow of the mighty De Land water-tower” is where my wife’s 91-year-old mother lives, in a retirement community in “the shadow of the mighty DeLand water-tower” in De Land, Florida. We visit occasionally, and once were using MapQuest instructions to get our rental Corolla to her place. I tossed the instructions when they wanted me to make an illegal turn onto a one-way street. “17/92” is U.S. Routes 17 and 92, both on the same road, north-south through De Land.

RE: “Engineers’ dream-world......” My loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston was trained as an engineer, and claims superiority. I majored in History, so am inferior.

RE: “Foult......” For years my brother-in-Delaware and I have been having an argument about the spelling of “Foulk” Road. When we moved there in 1957 it was spelled “Faulk.” He noisily insists it’s always been spelled with an “O.”

RE: “Bridge over the Erie Canal that has collapsed into the drink despite engineers noisily pronouncing it safe.....” refers to the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis.

RE: “Must be our ISP!” ISP equals Internet-Service-Provider; in our case RoadRunner via the cable. Last July my macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston visited, and set up a wireless Internet connection to my router. His Internet reception was spotty, so he loudly blamed our Internet-Service-Provider (ISP). Now anything untoward is due to my ISP.

Overheard at the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA......

Yesterday Monday, October 29, 2007..........
I’m blasting away on an elliptical.
The ellipticals are behind the treadmills.
A graying geezer ambles in and climbs on a treadmill.
Another guy in his late 60s or early 70s is blasting away on another treadmill.
“Hey Mike,” the first geezer calls. “I got away with $2,500 from Turning Stone casino.”
“And it started with my first $10 bill.”
“Did they make ya sign for it?” Mike asked.
“Yep. They were trying to get me to play some more, but I walked out.”
“Now I suppose ya gotta declare it on your income-tax,” Mike said.
“Probably. The reason you’re signing for it is so the casino can report your winnings to the IRS.”
“So Dubya can start war with Iran when we’re already stretched too thin in Iraq.”
“Suppose ya lose money?” Mike asked.
“I get to declare that too; although my limit is $200. They can’t check on $200.”
“So far I’ve made over $4,500 this year!”
At what cost, I think to myself.

“Dubya” is our president: George Dubya Bush. My siblings loudly declare he’s the best president ever. I think he’s the worst, proving yet again that I’m reprehensible.

$7,000 PLASMA-BABY ALERT........

BEHOLD

Are they crazy?

“This has to be the most expensive packet of lettuce-seed I have ever seen in my entire life,” Linda said.
“185 smackaroos!”
“For crying out loud!” I exclaimed.
“White Flower Farm. You also get a wooden bowl, a jug of balsamic vinegar, and a wooden spoon.”
“Even then, I don’t get $185.”
They also had a tray of pine-cones (pictured) for $375!
We got pine-cones all over the forest-floor at the so-called elitist country-club.
Sounds like we should do a web-site and/or a catalog and advertise junk at outlandish prices.
In the words of P.T. Barnum: “there's a customer born every minute.” (He didn’t say “sucker.”)

A “$7,000 plasma-baby” is my macho brother-in-Boston’s wide-screen, high-definition TV. He referred to it as a “$7,000 plasma, baby.”

“Linda” is my wife of nearly 40 years.

“The so-called elitist country-club” is nearby Boughton (“BOW-tin”) Park, where we walk our dog. It was called that long ago by an editor at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, where I once worked, because it will only allow taxpayers of the three towns that own it to use it. We are residents of one of those towns.

clipped message

So I’m at mighty Weggers in the parking-lot this afternoon (Monday, October 29, 2007), finished shopping (and the Canandaigua YMCA) and about to drive home.
So I figure I’ll try calling Linda to take three muffins out of the freezer to thaw.
I ain’t in the store, so a cellphone call should go through — inside sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t.
I fire up “home” from my contact-list, and “send” a call. No one answers.
Well, okay; Linda is probably out walking the dog.
So I fire up “Linda-cell” from my contact-list, and then send that call.
Strident beep from the cellphone, followed by ringing.
Suddenly the call is answered with deafening-silence; followed by a clipped message which only says “command.”
I give up; if the muffins wait until I get home it’s no tragedy — it’s what I used to do.
RE: “clipped message.......” Must have been our ISP (or my so-called “silly MAC” or our toothpaste).
Apparently Linda dropped her phone — her hands are numb from the chemo.
But we all know it’s our ISP (or my silly MAC or our toothpaste).

“Mighty Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua.

“Linda” is my wife of nearly 40 years. She has lymphatic cancer. (It’s treatable with chemo-therapy.)

Our dog is “Killian;” a rescue Irish-Setter. We had a second rescue Irish-Setter, “Sabrina,” who died in March 2007.

-RE: “Must have been our ISP (or my so-called “silly MAC” or our toothpaste)........” ISP equals Internet-Service-Provider; in our case RoadRunner via the cable. Last July my macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston visited, and set up a wireless Internet connection to my router. His Internet reception was spotty, so he loudly blamed our Internet-Service-Provider (ISP). Now anything untoward is due to my ISP.

-RE: “silly MAC........” All my siblings use PCs, but I use a MAC, so am therefore reprehensible.

-RE: “toothpaste......” We get loudly excoriated for using Colgate instead of Crest.

HMMMMMMMNNNNNNN.........

Here it is 12:55 p.m. (Sunday, October 28, 2007), and our fantabulous new Sony combination DVD/VHS recorder is reading 11:55 a.m.
HMMMMMMMNNNNNNN.........
I could just knee-jerk blame our ISP, but as far as I know our combination DVD/VHS recorder isn’t connected to the Internet in any way.
Both our video and Internet come over the cable, but the combination DVD/VHS recorder is only reading the video-feed.
It ain’t getting a time-signal. The dreaded manual tells me I could set up a local time-signal, like from the local PBS station (Dubya-Hex-Hex-Hi), but I haven’t bothered.
What I do is align it with my ‘pyooter, setting it manually, for crying out loud. My ‘pyooter is getting the official time over the Internet from the NIST-site, the dreaded atomical clock in Colorado.
Only takes a minute or two. To me getting the time-signal automagically makes as much sense as rain-sensing windshield-wipers. Why can’t ya just turn the suckers on if it rains? (I don’t want them coming on automagically if I wash my car, or my boat-trailer drags my car into the lake.)
My dentist always regales me with complaints about power-windows.
Some lady loses control of her Taurus and takes it into the Erie Canal. The battery shorts out, so she can’t get the windows down to get out of her fast-sinking car.
Were it not for some passing good-samaritan she would have drowned.
Used to be power-windows were an option. But no longer.
The last vehicle we had with crank-windows was our 1993 Astrovan. And I had to specify the hand-cranks instead of power-windows.
Now both our CR-V and the Bucktooth Bathtub have power-windows. I guess we have to keep them outta the drink.
Apparently our combination DVD/VHS recorder dropped the time back automagically to Standard this weekend.
It wasn’t programed to allow for Congressional whimsy; where every Congressman but mine is evil and stupid.
So I guess I’ll have to reset it myself, and reset it next weekend when the time actually falls back.
But we all know it’s our ISP and my “silly MAC.”
If I would just bow to the all-knowing wisdom of the almighty Bluster-King, our combination DVD/VHS recorder would be telling the kerreck time.

RE: “blame our ISP............” ISP equals Internet-Service-Provider; in our case RoadRunner via the cable. Last July my macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston visited, and set up a wireless Internet connection to my router. His Internet reception was spotty, so he loudly blamed our Internet-Service-Provider (ISP). Now anything untoward is due to my ISP.

Our local PBS radio and TV station in Rochester is “Dubya-Hex-Hex-Hi,” (WXXI).

“The CR-V” is our 2003 Honda CR-V SUV. “The Bucktooth-Bathtub” is our 2005 Toyota Sienna van; called that because it’s white and like sitting in a bathtub, and appears to have a bucktooth on the grill.

RE: “silly MAC........” All my siblings use PCs, but I use a MAC, so am therefore reprehensible.

“The almighty Bluster-King” (Jack Hughes) is my macho, loudmouthed brother-from-Boston, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say.

“Here we go.........”

For the past few weeks I have been viewing cab-ride train videos.
Cab-ride train videos are when the video-camera is set up in the cab of the railroad-locomotive, and an entire run gets recorded, start-to-finish.
E.g. Washington D.C. to Philadelphia, or Philadelphia to New York City.
“Put the hammer down,” I always say, as the train leaves Washington Union Station.
After a few minutes: “our speed is now 110 mph;” and then “our speed is now 120 mph.”
My cab-ride train videos of Amtrak’s electrified Northeast Corridor, at that time (1985) Washington D.C. to New York City, are my favorite videos.
I also have cab-rides of other routes; e.g. Train 47, Amtrak’s “Pennsylvanian” across Pennsylvania.
The “Pennsylvanian” was financed by the state of Pennsylvania, and is off. Although in 1985, when this video was recorded, the “Pennsylvanian” was still running.
It’s not as good as my Northeast Corridor cab-rides. The train doesn’t get up to 100+ mph, and it’s powered by a noisy diesel locomotive.
The weather was also rather gloomy.
Across Pennsylvania is four tapes: -1) Philadelphia to Harrisburg, -2) Harrisburg to Huntington, -3) Huntington to Johnstown, and -4) Johnstown to Pittsburgh. (The “Pennsylvanian” ended at Pittsburgh.)
This takes three crews: -1) Philly to Harrisburg, -2) Harrisburg to Altoona (half-way on tape #3), and -3) Altoona to Pittsburgh.
Apparently at that time Philly-to-Harrisburg and Altoona-to-Pittsburgh could get by with just the engineman, but Harrisburg-to-Altoona required a “fireman” (a second guy in the cab).
Philly-to-Harrisburg (ex-Pennsy) is Amtrak, and also electrified, but Harrisburg-to-Pittsburgh was at that time Conrail.
The segment from Harrisburg to near Huntington was also not electronically dispatched from a distant site — only one train at a time can occupy a segment of track — perhaps requiring that fireman to help read signals.
Slowly the train leaves Philly’s huge 30th-Street station, and threads the contorted mess of trackage and interlockings to the north, finally ending up on Pennsy’s grand old “Main Line” west.
Stops are made at Ardmore, Paoli, Downingtown and Lancaster. The first highway-crossing at-grade is near Lancaster in the Pennsylvania-Dutch county.
We are in Amtrak’s EMD FP40 #276, “a good accelerator — digs right in.” Our train is only three coaches.
On tape #2 we set out on Pennsy’s vast Rockville Bridge over the Susquehanna River — the largest masonry stone-arch bridge in the world.
Near Huntington, a trackside defect-detector fails to report, and we are down to 30 mph into Huntington. The video-camera almost runs out of tape, but makes it, after recording cars passing at 50 mph on parallel Highway 22. (That’s not how it is on the Northeast Corridor. We flash by cars doing 80 on parallel Interstates.)
On tape #3 we keep getting slowed by a freight-train ahead. We also get stopped by an opposing freight-train so it can switch off the track we intend to use.
We also pass a few freight-trains, but not “stackers;” since the tunnels haven’t been raised yet (it’s only 1985).
At Altoony, half-way into that tape, I always perk up. From here west is the Allegheny Mountains crossing and the mighty Curve.
The crews change, and the train leaves the station.
“Here we go,” I always say.
“What interlocking is this?” the announcer asks.
“Alto,” I yell. One of the few Pennsy towers left, and control for most of Altoona.
Helpers often get added to trains here for up-the-hill, or taken off those that descend.
Shortly is “Slope,” next interlocking, and the beginning of the grade — 1.75%: 1.75 feet up for every 100 feet forward. No tower; all it is is crossover-switches.
We sweep around a bend, and then cross “Brickyard Crossing.” A coal-train is descending wreathed in brakeshoe-smoke. “They got those brakes on at least 11&1/2 miles — if ya had a hot-box, ya’d never know it.”
And then up we go; climbing and climbing.
“What speed are we doing?”
“35 mph; all these curves to the Horseshoe are 35 mph, so we do the whole segment at 35. Horseshoe to the top is 30 mph.”
“Signal 240.7,” the announcer says, the same point the 240.7 trackside talking defect-detector is at that I always get on my scanner: “Milepost two-four-oh-point-seven, track three; no defects” (one is coming up the hill).
We are on track three, and sweep around a curve, but what’s this? A freight-train is climbing inside on Track Two — I hope we get by it before the mighty Curve.
We swing past the twin SD40-2 pushers on the tail of the freight, and onto the long straight that approaches the mighty Curve.
We start around the north calk: “Here it is,” I shout; “the greatest railfan spot I have ever been to.”
“Signal 241.7,” the announcer says, the signal-tower on the north side of the mighty Curve.
And around we swing, but the freight-train is still inside on track two, blocking our view of the viewing-area.
“Milepost 242,” the engineer says, pointing to our right; “Horseshoe Curve.”
As we pass it, we also pass the lead engines of the freight-train, and the whole gorgeous amphitheater swings into view as we climb the south calk.
“I was afraid we were gonna miss that, with that freight-train,” the announcer says to the engineer.“
He apologizes on the tape for the freight-train, and says that a segment of an earlier tape will get added that has the mighty Curve unblocked.
So I called him up long ago.
“Didn’t mind a bit,” I said. “That’s how it is at Horseshoe Curve; trains willy-nilly!”

The “Northeast Corridor” was recently extended (electrified) to Boston.

“Pennsy” is the Pennsylvania Railroad, no longer in existence. It merged with New York Central Railroad in 1968 as Penn-Central, and that went bankrupt in about two years. “Pennsy” was once the largest railroad in the world. Penn-Central was succeeded by Conrail.

The “fireman” was the second guy in the cab. Steam locomotives used to have a “fireman” to tend (and/or feed) the locomotive’s fire, usually fueled by coal. The “fireman” also frequently made sure there was enough water in the boiler, and called out signals, to second the engineer. If the boiler-water got too low, the firebox crown-sheet would be exposed and melt; in which case the boiler blew up.
When diesel-locomotives replaced steam, the fireman was no longer needed, although unions tried to keep the fireman’s job.

An “interlocking” is where crossover switches, or switches, connect adjacent tracks. “Interlockings” are now called “Control-Points;” and used to be switched by lineside towers. They can now be switched electronically from a central location.

“EMD” is Electromotive Division of General Motors, GM’s manufacturer of railroad diesel-locomotives. Most railroads used EMD when they dieselized; although many now use General-Electric railroad diesel-locomotives.

RE: “a trackside defect-detector fails to report.....” Railroads have lineside train defect-detectors to detect overheated wheel-journals (“hot boxes”), dragging equipment, etc. After a train passes, the detector automatically broadcasts on the railroad radio-frequency if the passing train had defects: e.g. “Milepost two-four-oh-point-seven, track three; no defects.” The train’s engineman must acknowledge. (If the defect-detector doesn’t work, the train may have to stop so the crew can inspect.)

A “stacker” is a train hauling truck-trailer containers that are double-stacked (one atop the other) in well-cars. Such trains require a high clearance. At first the railroad-tunnels on the old Pennsy main-line were not high enough to clear double-stacks, but now they are.

Horseshoe Curve (the “mighty Curve”), west of Altoona, Pennsylvania, is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. (I am a railfan.)

“Conrail” was broken up recently, with most ex-New York Central lines going to CSX Transportation, and most ex-Pennsy lines going to Norfolk Southern. Horseshoe Curve, which at the time of the tape was Conrail, is now Norfolk Southern Railroad.

“Helpers” are additional railroad locomotives added to a train to get it up (or down — they add braking-power) a grade. Usually two “helpers” are added in front, and/or two in the back. “Helpers” are stationed at Altoona to get trains over the Allegheny Mountains.

“Brickyard Crossing” is a road-crossing in Altoona next to an abandoned brickyard. The streetname is something else.

RE: E.g. “Signal 240.7.........” The railroads have signals for the coming segment of track (the “block”). Since Pennsy had a four-track mainline (for a while), the signals were on bridges that completely bridged the tracks. Those signals were numbered according to their mileage from Philadelphia; e.g. “Signal 240.7” was 240.7 miles from the old Broad Street station in Philadelphia, long-gone.

GP30

GP30

The Keed, long ago with the SpotMatic.

Pennsy GP30 #2233.

BEHOLD, the humble EMD GP30 (pictured); also called the “Geep-30” by my friend Chip Walker at Transit (as in “Jeep”).
Probably the most collected diesel-electric railroad-locomotive of all time; perhaps even more than the “F” cab-unit “covered-wagons,” of which I’m sure there are many extant. (The “FT” was General Motors entry into the road-locomotive market in 1939.)
The GP30 wasn’t much; an evolutionary step up from the GP20 in response to the new and popular General-Electric U25B.
It was the same hoary old 567 engine that had been introduced in 1939, updated of course, and turbocharged. The GP30 is 1961-‘63 and good for 2,250 horsepower (the U25B got 2,500 horsepower; and the original FT only 1,350 horsepower).
General Motors’ FT diesel-locomotive retired the steam locomotive. The FT was like a big truck, and allowed the railroads to retire all their back-country steam-locomotive servicing facilities — e.g. water-supplies and coaling towers.
Like a truck, all you had to do was fuel it up.
Diesels also allowed closing of complex steam-locomotive shops. No longer did you have to hire for shopping a steam-locomotive; which required various skills. You serviced it like a truck.
Diesel-electric locomotives were also better-suited for what most railroads were doing, which was lugging heavy loads slowly up steep grades. Diesel-electrics generated great tractive-effort at start-up and slow speed. A steam-locomotive didn’t really generate that much until it got rolling.
But the original FTs (and similar “covered-wagons”) suffered from operation from only one end. Like steam-engines, they had to be turned.
This is where road-switchers (like the GP30) shined. They could be operated in either direction.

The Keed, with the SpotMatic.

The Redskins GP30 on Western Maryland Scenic Railroad.

The earliest “Geeps” were the GP7 and then GP9 (7048 at the mighty Curve is a GP9). Later were the GP18 and then the GP20, the first turbocharged EMD road-switcher.
The reason the GP30 is such an icon is styling. GM’s automotive styling department was roped into trying to make the humble Geep look good.
The GP30 was also GM’s first step away from the curved-roof cab that was on the GP7 through GP20.
The car-body also had to be raised to accommodate the closed air-supply that was added — since the unit wasn’t lengthened.
But the main styling filigree was the “brush-back” panel atop the cab — an extension of the dynamic-brake blister.
The cab also had rounded edges instead of the 45° beveled corners of the “Spartan-Cab” on the GP35 and later EMD road-switchers.
EMD has of course come far beyond the GP30, and most GP30s have been retired (or rebuilt into more modern iterations, or engineless slugs [that draw their power from adjacent engines]).
GP30s use ancient electronics that weren’t yet modernized as they were in the “Dash-2” iterations. (For example, there are two versions of the GP40; the GP40 [with old electronics], and the GP40-2 [with more modern electronics].
GP30s are direct-current to the traction-motors. Many modern railroad diesels are alternating-current — which lugs better at slow speed.
Yet many GP30s were bought by collectors. Their styling makes them special.

The “SpotMatic” was the Honeywell SpotMatic 35mm single-lens-reflex film camera I used for at least 40 years — I had two bodies. I now have a digital camera; a Nikon D100.

“EMD” is Electromotive Division of General Motors, GM’s manufacturer of railroad diesel-locomotives. Most railroads used EMD when they dieselized; although many now use General-Electric railroad diesel-locomotives.

RE: “Transit......” For 16&1/2 years I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, N.Y.

A “Geep” is a four-axle General Motors railroad diesel-locomotive; GP is their model-designation (General-Purpose). GP models were nicknamed “Geeps” by railfans. (The six-axle iterations are “SDs” — SD equaling Special-Duty.)

General Motors had three separate cylinder-sizes of diesel railroad-locomotives; the 567, the 645, and now 710. The number is the displacement of each individual cylinder of the locomotive’s diesel-engine: e.g. 567 cubic-inches. Many diesel-locomotives have V16 engines; although there have been V12s and V20s. Some railroad diesel-locomotives (e.g. EMD’s E-unit passenger engine) had two engines.

Cab-unit railroad-locomotives were nicknamed “covered-wagons” by the crews.

Horseshoe Curve (the “mighty Curve”), west of Altoona, Pennsylvania, is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. GP9 #7048 is on display there. The Pennsylvania Railroad is no longer in existence. It merged with arch-competitor New York Central Railroad in 1968 as Penn-Central, and that went bankrupt in about two years. “Pennsy” was once the largest railroad in the world. Horseshoe Curve is now owned and operated by Norfolk Southern Railroad, a successor to Conrail, which succeeded Penn-Central.

RE: “dynamic-brakes.......” The traction-motors of railroad diesel-electric locomotives get turned into generators, the current of which heats up giant toaster-grids in the “dynamic-brake blister.” Doing so creates a braking action. “Dynamic-brakes” were usually an option, usually bought by railroads that had grades, since “dynamic-brakes” could help slow a train better than just the brakes on the train-cars.

hairless

My wife is essentially hairless.
That is, all her hair has fallen out, so she is left with the filmy peach-fuzz patina endemic to all chemo-patients.
It’s a bit strange, but same voice, same snide remarks, same frenzied pace.
“Worst president ever,” she says, referring to Dubya. “The thought of Hilary as prez is sickening too, but so far Dubya has been the worst.”
“Our president should be fluent in at least one language,” she says, referring to Dubya and Ah-nald.
That’s my wife; hairless, but still herself. (A dreaded Liberial.)
She wears a hat to bed, and around the house.
The wigs look fine to me, but don’t pass muster with Linda.
There are two wigs: -A) the online fake wig, and -B) the supposedly-better wig-lady wig.
At least an hour got “waisted” trying each on, and then fussing and fuming.
“Whaddya think?”
“Looks fine to me.”
Back to the mirror for another half-hour.
“I gotta get these bangs cut. Maybe the Hairman can do it.”
Every once-in-a-while an incredible hairball occurs to her.
Time for the old stroke-survivor to step in and attempt to be the voice-of-reason.
“Now what? I give up!” I hear her shout at her vaunted PC. (“Please wait while Windoze cogitates the meaning of the universe — OOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHMMMMMMMMMM............”)
Hairless, but alive.

My wife (“Linda”) has lymphatic cancer. (It’s treatable with chemo — she will survive.)

“Dubya” is our current president, George Dubya Bush. “Ah-nald” is Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“Liberial” is how my loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston noisily insists “liberal” is spelled. He also insists “waste” is spelled “waist.”

“Hairman” is our hair-dresser. We’ve gone to him at least 16 years.

I had a stroke October 26, 1993.

RE: “Please wait while Windoze cogitates the meaning of the universe — OOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHMMMMMMMMMM............” All my siblings drive PCs; I drive a MAC and am therefore reprehensible. This is a pot-shot against my siblings.

So I need a belt

My old belt, which was leather, was purchased many years ago at the uniform-store as part of my Transit uniform.
I like it, because it’s two inches wide, and very durable.
But it was a 44, and has had at least four holes drilled in it, and not too long ago I cut about 10 inches off it with my tin-snips.
Even then it was feeling like I might have to drill another hole in it.
So I Froogle for another belt.
One site had leather belts that looked similar to my old belt: $7.49 plus $5 shipping-and-handling.
On the other hand, the uniform-store, which has a huge markup, has what I want — or at least -A) I can verify it’s what I want, and -B) I can get the right size.
So I go to the uniform-store.
We compare a 36 and a 38 to my old belt — 38 is probably what I would have got online.
The 36 looked more like it, so that’s what I got. It also was the same belt as my alterated 44.
So you tell me what makes more sense.... Back-and-forth with online belts I can’t see until they show up, or make a single trip to the uniform-store?
-Uniform-store: about $12; check it out before I buy.
-Online: $7.49 plus $5 shipping-and-handling; blind until it arrives ($5 postage to return).
I ain’t interested in the online merry-go-‘round.

RE: “Transit......” For 16&1/2 years I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, N.Y. We had to wear uniforms, for which they gave us an allowance which we could use at the uniform-store. (Those uniforms were frump-city.)

Round-Two

Yesterday (Tuesday, October 23, 2007) was Round-Two of the dreaded anti-cancer “CHOP” chemo treatment at Wilmot Cancer Center in Rochester; CHOP being Cyclophosphamide, Doxorubicin (I don’t know where they get an “H” for this), Oncovin (trade-name for Vincristine), and Prednisone, a steroid.
Apparently treatment #1 was fairly catastrophic, although Linda survived it. #1 almost completely shrunk the tumor (Linda can’t find it), so any remaining treatments are mop-up — kill off any remaining cancer-cells.
Treatment #1 didn’t kill her, or even require calling 9-1-1.
But it did do certain things I wasn’t aware of until they were reported to the doctor: e.g. tingling and numbness in the extremities (along with fatigue and nausea).
Apparently chemo does nerve-damage, so extremities find themselves without feeling.
I don’t feel like I’m being intentionally tuned out of this. After all, I’ve lived with this woman nearly 40 years.
What’s happening is the old “tuff it out” syndrome. She’s just like me — no comments, just “tuff it out.”
I got to also make sure Linda hadn’t died (she’d be zonked out on the sofa).
Of course, I can’t possibly understand this kerreckly since I don’t have the proper HairCrafters’ glue-thug hairdo.
The treatment began with a visit from the doctor, Dr. Friedberg, who bubbles with positive enthusiasm.
“You’re doing very well, Mrs. Hughes,” he says.
Well, all I can do is hope so — of course, I’m selfish to even want her to continue to be around.
I also can’t possibly understand, since I don’t have the proper HairCrafters’ el-cheapo top-chop.
We were led into the treatment-clinic, but I left to buy a smaller belt from my old Transit uniform-store.
The parking-garage wanted $4 — almost the cost of a HairCrafters’ top-chop; exorbitant.
Then it was down-and-back on Elmwood Ave. in the pouring rain. The uniform-store is on Elmwood in Brighton, and Wilmot is on Elmwood in Rochester.
Took about 30 minutes — when I returned only the intravenous had been installed.
I began reading a National Railway Historical Society bulletin about the Santa Fe across Arizona, and we waited.
At least an hour passed before the chemo-nurse appeared — Linda had been getting saline all that time at room-temperature, and it was making her cold.
A hairless 98-year-old man was next to us also getting chemo, but glomming all the Oreos he could get. Apparently he asked for Oreos before his chemo even started. (I wonder if they have Cheetos?)
Finally after another 45 minutes the nurse appeared with all her paraphernalia which includes a throw-away gown to protect against toxicity.
“Here you are pumping all these toxins into me, and they want you to be protected,” my wife said wryly.
By then I had read the entire Santa Fe story, and was about to finish a Crown Point, Indiana story, also in the bulletin — which I hadn’t planned to read.
If I’d known it was gonna take this long I could have run another errand.
The chemo gets mixed on-site in the hospital’s pharmacy, then has to be verified before it’s administered.
We were out about noon — 9 a.m. until noon. I had run out of reading material.
So we went directly home, skipping the errand I was gonna run (although the Bucktooth Bathtub needed gas). We needed to rescue the poor dog.
Sometimes I feel like I’m all washed up; but when I see some of these people at the hospital — many younger than me — I think “I ain’t in that bad shape.”
The dentist erroneously claims hopper-cars were made out of stainless-steel, and instead of sheepishly agreeing, I took him to the cleaners.
I’m 63, and driving a mere pup absolutely nuts. (I think it’s because he’s beginning to feel old, and therefore has to have someone older than himself to castigate.)

“Linda” is my wife of nearly 40 years. She has lymphatic cancer. (It’s treatable.)

RE: “I don’t have the proper HairCrafters’ glue-thug hairdo......” My macho, blowhard brother-in-Boston has spent $55,000 for a classic 1971 454 SS Chevelle, $23,000 for a Harley-Davidson touring motorbike, but refuses to spend any more than $5 for a haircut — from HairCrafters’ top-chop mill. He has noisily declared I should do the same. He looks like a Mafia-don that poured glue all over his head. (“Ya get what ya pay for.......”)

“Brighton” is a suburb east of Rochester.

“Santa Fe” is the old Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad to Californy (via Arizona). As a railfan, I belong to the National Railway Historical Society (NRHS) and get their monthly bulletin. (ATSF is now part of Burlington-Northern Santa Fe Railroad [BNSF].)

My brother-in-Boston is always eating “Cheetos.” He weighs 287 pounds.

Quite a few railroads went through “Crown Point,” in Indiana near Chicago. Most are gone.

“The Bucktooth-Bathtub” is our 2005 Toyota Sienna van; called that because it’s white and like sitting in a bathtub, and appears to have a bucktooth on the grill.

We have a dog, “Killian;” a rescue Irish-Setter. We had a second rescue Irish-Setter, “Sabrina,” who died in March 2007.

RE: “The dentist erroneously claims hopper-cars were made out of stainless-steel, and instead of sheepishly agreeing, I took him to the cleaners.......” My dentist saw coal-trains (railroad trains) out in Wyoming and surmised the cars, which were shiny, were stainless-steel. I corrected him; they’re aluminum.

RE: “I’m 63, and driving a mere pup absolutely nuts. (I think it’s because he’s beginning to feel old, and therefore has to have someone older than himself to castigate.)...... My brother-in-Boston is only 50. He noisily badmouths everything I do or say.

Another year bites the dust

The Keed with the dreaded D100 and the 18mm wide-angle.

Another year bites the dust.

Yesterday (Monday, October 22, 2007) I completed the fall rototilling of the garden (pictured).
I think the garden has been rototilled almost every year since the stroke.
Maybe not the first year, but every year since.
Fall rototilling has been intermittent. Often the snow flies before I can get to it. (This time it was 80 degrees; thank ya, Dubya.)
But spring has been consistent; sometimes May, other times not until June.
And a couple years ago my physical condition was a detriment.
The common misconception is that rototilling is exertion; but only a little.
An internal-combustion engine is doing most of the work. All you’re really doing is holding it back, and horsing it around some.
Nevertheless a few years ago I’d have to take a nap when finished.
Yesterday I didn’t need to.
A few years ago I was always up against feeling sick doing things.
But not any more.
I also am in better shape — the YMCA and running. In the past 1.5 years I’ve worked off 20-30 pounds.
And a few years ago the transfer-case to the tiller-tines was leaking. I had that fixed. Hasn’t leaked since.

I had a stroke October 26, 1993.

“Dubya” is our president: George Dubya Bush. I blame him for global warming, much to the dismay of my siblings, who are rather vocal about him being the greatest president ever.

Two years ago I was experiencing dizzy-spells, but am not any more. They’re why I retired.

LeafPeeper

LEAFPEEPER

The Keed with the dreaded D100.

Yesterday (Sunday, October 21, 2007), it being 80 degrees with not a cloud in the sky, I encountered an almighty torrent of blatting GeezerGlides during our journey to peep at leaves.
Our journey started innocently enough (in the CR-V), as I turned left from our driveway onto State Route 65, and then motored south in the brilliant sunshine the half-mile to Route 65’s intersection with Routes 5&20.
I then turned east (left) onto 5&20, and within one-half mile a giant rat-pack of noisy GeezerGlides fell in behind, lead by a sullen ride-captain doing his best Peter Fonda Easy Rider imitation.
Ride-Captain was wearing shades and a chromed Nazi Wehrmacht helmet with a spike on top. He had a greasy skull-and-crossbones T-shirt.
A glowing Marlboro cigarette was dangling languidly from his lips, which he would occasionally dislodge to flick off ashes.
His hands were attached high-above to ape-hangers at least a foot above his head.
I ride motorbike myself, and even though ape-hangers look cool, I wonder how you initiate a turn with arms at full extension way above your torso, far from the input-point.
So I wicked it up to 60-65 mph, but the noisy rat-pack stayed glued to my bumper, a frightening movie-poster of grizzled road-warriors in my mirror.
We traveled east on 5&20 about 10-12 miles to Toomey’s Corners, there intending to turn south (right) onto State Route 64 up into the Bristol Hills, and past Bristol Mountain Ski Center.
At last, I thought; perhaps I could leave the rat-pack behind, but they were turning onto Route 64 too, as Ride-Captain and shotgun had their left-arms upraised in the right-turn signal I used to do on the Norton, even though it had turn-signals (the lead GeezerGlides didn’t).
So we all turned south onto Route 64, and suddenly Ride-Captain decided to put the move onto me, shifting his weight, and then blatting by in an angry cascade of sound.
Route 64 does a long open section south of Toomey’s Corners, so Ride-Captain was quickly followed by the entire rat-pack.
“Well, I gotta let these guys by,” I thought. “Don’t want them to smash up — they’re all gonna pass;” (TESTOSTERONE ALERT).
I moved slightly to the right, aware that some lackey might try to pass on the shoulder.
But all passed on the left; although a car was coming in the opposing lane as the final bloated bagger roared by. (The car had to move right to clear him.)
We then headed south on 64, me carefully following the rat-pack; we seemed to be doing about 55.
But I was laying back. One GeezerGlide kept crossing the yellow-line into the opposing lane, so I was afraid of him clipping opposing traffic and dumping his GeezerGlide in front of me.
64 follows the floor of a long valley, before finally threading a notch into the Bristol Hills. —Our destination was Ontario County Park past the notch.
But before threading the notch we pass a ramshackle road-house and tavern called “Lock, Stock & Barrel.”
Lock, Stock & Barrel is one of the many dives I used to run in my “Night Spots” in the Messenger’s weekly Steppin Out magazine. —Although I had to call them, beginning the usual fevered discussion about those in “Night Spots.” NS was a free ad — I shouldn’t have to pull teeth.
But pull teeth I did; NS wouldn’t have been anything without pulling teeth. Some dives had web-sites I could access online, but most didn’t.
Lock, Stock & Barrel was out in the middle of nowhere, but along the road to the ski-center.
And so the noisy rat-pack turned into Lock, Stock & Barrel, although 89 bazilyun GeezerGlides were already there, leaving us to wonder where the rat-pack would park.
Inside to macho-preen, and down shots of Jack Daniel’s.
And pick up drunken floozies for thrill-rides on the GeezerGlides, and perhaps scratch themselves and belch loudly and spit on the floor.
After passing Lock, Stock & Barrel, we continued past the ski-center and on up through the notch to Ontario County Park.
But GeezerGlides were everywhere; noisily serenading all-and-sundry.
At Ontario County Park a metric GeezerGlide parked next to us at the overlook (pictured); a Suzuki Intruder (Ugh!).
At a pond, a gigantical Gold Wing, big as the Queen Mary, parked along the shoulder.
Toward Canandaigua (we were also going to Weggers) a bunch of Big Dog-type customs passed — wheelbases in the Forrestal-class, gas-tanks at eye-level.
One custom passed: everything emerald-green — even the cylinder-head fins.
My niece’s husband has a Big Dog; a gigantic motorbike with a wheelbase about seven feet long, and tiny skull-heads as turn-signals.
He noisily claims 152 horsepower from it’s gigantic 114-cubic-inch Harley-based V-twin. “$50,000,” he bellows.
It has a rear-tire at least two feet wide. “How do you turn this thing?” I asked.
“Rides SMOOTH,” he said. He then started displaying all the trophies he had won.
“But I’m takin’ it back,” he said. “Won’t shift out of second-gear. I had to get it into the garage locked in second.”
The dreaded LHMB cost me about $6,000, and is much more rider-friendly than any Big Dog.
And I doubt I intimidate people like the rat-pack wannabees. It also doesn’t destroy shrubbery when you rev the motor.

The “D100” is my Nikon digital camera; now abhorrent to all my siblings.

“GeezerGlide” is what I call all Harley Davidson ElectraGlide cruiser-bikes. My loudmouthed macho brother-in-Boston has a very laid back Harley Davidson cruiser-bike, and, like most Harley Davidson riders, is 50 years old. So I call it his GeezerGlide.

“The CR-V” is our 2003 Honda CR-V SUV.

We live on “State Route 65.”

“5&20” is the main east-west road through our area; State Route 5 and U.S. Route 20, both on the same road. 5&20 is just south of where we live.

My first motorcycle, in 1978, was a 1975 850 “Norton” Commando Roadster.

“Bagger” is a Harley-Davidson ElectraGlide with saddlebags.

The “Messenger” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired almost two years ago. Best job I ever had. It had a weekly tabloid-magazine called “Steppin Out,” in which was a section I did called “Night-Spots.”

A “metric GeezerGlide” is one made by the Japanese: a so-called Harley-imitator.

“Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua.

The U.S.S. “Forrestal” is a Naval aircraft-carrier.

“LHMB” is my 2003 Honda 600-cc CBR/RR motorcycle. Seeing a picture of it, my sister-in-Floridy declared “Lord-Have-Mercy;” and my loudmouthed brother-in-Boston, a macho Harley-guy, seeing it was yellow, pronounced it a “Banana.” So LHMB equals Lord-Have-Mercy-Banana.

Paducah-Rebuild

Sayre C. Kos.

Wisconsin-Southern 2501, a Paducah-Rebuild SD20, at Avalon, Wisconsin, started life as a Union Pacific cabless SD24B.

My most recent issue of Locomotive Magazine, which had the Norfolk Southern executive-Fs at Horseshoe Curve, and prompted my dentist to talk about stainless-steel hopper-cars, for which he was soundly corrected (they’re aluminum), has an interesting treatment of Illinois Central’s Paducah-Rebuilds getting a second life (pictured).
Illinois Central’s Paducah, KY shops rebuilt a slew of diesel railroad locomotives during the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.
Paducah rebuilt hundreds of four-axle Geeps and 42 SDs (six-axle).
The one pictured was originally a cabless Union Pacific SD24B. The Paducah-Rebuild was to convert to an unturbocharged 645 engine, Dash-2 electronics, and a cab.
The SD20 is not an EMD model. EMD never built an SD20.
It’s an Illinois Central designation. 20 is 2,000 horsepower.

“Norfolk Southern executive-Fs” are the classic bulldog-nosed diesel locomotives the railroad uses to pull special executive trains. The first General Motors diesel freight locomotives were F-units.

Horseshoe Curve (the “mighty Curve”), west of Altoona, Pennsylvania, is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. (I am a railfan, and I posted a photograph on my family’s web-site of the executive-Fs at Horseshoe Curve for them to identify the location — we all have been there quite a few times.)

My dentist mentioned long trains of “stainless-steel hopper-cars” (coal-cars), out in Wyoming where he was hunting, after looking at my Locomotive Magazine. (They’re aluminum.)

A “Geep” is a four-axle General Motors railroad diesel-locomotive; GP is their model-designation. GP models are called “Geeps” by railfans.

General Motors had three seperate cylinder-sizes of diesel railroad-locomotives; the 567, the 645, and now 710 through the years. The number is the displacement of each individual cylinder of the locomotive’s diesel-engine: e.g. 645 cubic-inches. Many diesel-locomotives have V16 engines; although there have been V12s and V20s. Some railroad diesel-locomotives even had two engines.

“EMD” is Electromotive Division of General Motors, GM’s manufacturer of railroad diesel-locomotives. Most railroads used EMD when they dieselized; although many now use General-Electric railroad diesel-locomotives.

Gates alert

The Keed with the dreaded D100.

Our RAZR cellphones.

Our fantabulous Verizon Motorola RAZR cellphones (pictured) have an annoying habit of turning themselves on when the battery-charger is disconnected.
Our old cellphones, which were far more exasperating and irksome than the RAZRs, did that occasionally, but the RAZRs do it more often.
Of course, you don’t know it’s happening until you’ve walked away, since there’s almost a 15-second delay between initial start-up and the chimes.
No biggie; just walk back and turn the little dear off, but the chimes never fail to prompt an “oh, for crying out loud.”
Every time they do, I think an ex-Microsoft employee must have programed it.
They aren’t supposed to come on when you disconnect the charger. They’re also supposed to shut off when you hit the kill-button; but I had to pull the battery once. The little dear was royally hung.
Nevertheless, I think the world of these RAZRs.
Keys bigger than matchheads, and a display I can actually see outdoors.
And they’re just like landlines, although you have to have the earpiece in the proper location.
At least I don’t have to have the speakerphone on to hear the little dear. With the old cellphones I did.
Of course, with Linda’s mother ya didn’t need the speakerphone.
The RAZRs are iteration number-four. First were the pop-tarts, second was the stick-of-butter, third (and most recent) were the flip-phones, and now the RAZRs.

“I think an ex-Microsoft employee must have programed it” and “Gates-alert” are pot-shots against all my PC-using siblings, who loudly claim the MAC platform, which I use, is vastly inferior. (“Gates” is Bill Gates, head of Microsoft.)

“Linda” is my wife of nearly 40 years. Her 91-year-old mother lives alone in a retirement-center in De Land, Floridy.

Amazing

“Must be our ISP is working,” Linda said.
I managed to complete an entire prescription-renewal with Rite-Aid Pharmacy’s telephone renewal machine in Honeoye Falls — without drama or insanity.
No sent to the ozone; no “naughty-naughty; you’re not keying fast enough;” no turgid Granny-messages to “please leave a message after the tone.”
No unexplained hairballs like their vaunted machine leaving off my area-code.
Far as I know, renewal of a prescription over the telephone doesn’t involve the Internet or a ‘pyooter.
But the almighty Bluster-King knows far better than little old me.
All hairballs of any kind are caused by my ISP.

RE: “Must be our ISP is working...........” ISP equals Internet-Service-Provider; in our case RoadRunner via the cable. In July my macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston visited, and set up a wireless Internet connection to my router. His Internet connection was spotty, so he loudly blamed our Internet-Service-Provider (ISP). Now anything untoward is due to my ISP.

“Linda” is my wife of nearly 40 years.

RE: “Granny-messages to ‘please leave a message after the tone........’” are fallback instructions for oldsters (e.g. “Granny”) unable to deal with new technology. My mother-in-law won’t even leave a message.

“The almighty Bluster-King” is my macho, loudmouthed brother-from-Boston, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say.

Web-cam

DREADFUL!

The mighty MAC.

About 6:30 p.m. (Wednesday, October 17, 2007).

The vaunted Web-cam at the mighty Curve is getting worse-and-worse.
The housing is so bad it throws the auto-focus off — i.e. it focuses on the housing instead of the tracks.
And then there are the bugs (see picture).
Bugs swarm all over the housing, and march across the picture. So often what we see are bugs obscuring a train.
Well, okay so the poor unattended web-cam is a-swarm with bugs — perhaps box-elder bugs that are swarming our area.
But the out-of-focus is frustrating.
I offered to replace the housing (can’t cost that much), but nothing ever came of it.
I figure that’s only fair. —I have that web-cam on in the background every time I have my rig on — every day.
Sometimes it goes on the blink, but I can accept that. It’s technology. (There’s a “Winbeam” logo on it. That tells me Gates.)
What’s irksome is poor focus thrown off by that awful housing.

Horseshoe Curve (the “mighty Curve”), west of Altoona, Pennsylvania, is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. (It has a web-cam, and I am a railfan.)

“Gates” is Bill Gates of Microsoft. My siblings all use PCs with Microsoft Windows; and loudly claim that anything else (like the OS-X Macintosh I use) is inferior.

REPUBLICAN fuzzy-math

Heard tonight on the local TV-news........
A school crossing-guard was killed in Rochester by a hit-and-run driver (probably a Dubya-supporter: “little consequence”)
A local reporter asks her daughter to “describe your mother in three words.......”
“Loving, extraordinary, and very caring.” (Reprehensible liberial that I am, I count four.)

All insane traffic-moves seem to involve Bush-supporters (“Dubya-supporters”). They seem to think they have the right. A REPUBLICAN candidate for a local town supervisorship declared his arrest for DWI driving was “of little consequence.”

“Liberial” is how my loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston noisily insists “liberal” is spelled. He’s a REPUBLICAN.

Foray

Off again to Wilmot Cancer Center in Rochester; but this time it’s only a doctor-appointment — a so-called “toxicity checkup;” chemo resumes next week.
I gingerly back the Bucktooth Bathtub out of our garage, but there’s a gigantical red Chevy pickup in our driveway, Confederate flag draped in the rear-window, young macho-dude glowering at me.
Perish-the-thought I have the awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity to want to use my own driveway when it’s being occupied by macho-dude.
Thankfully, macho-dude is just turning around; he backs his pickup out in front of oncoming traffic (which must slow), and then lays about 75 feet of rubber up the street.
He goes about 100 yards and turns right into the driveway he originally intended, left-turn signal flashing.
No Dubya-sticker, but a “Get-R-Dun” bumper-sticker on the tailgate.
Must be REPUBLICAN; he’s sure driving like one. (“Get outta the way!”)
I arrow out my now unoccupied driveway, intending to turn NORTH onto Route 65, and notice an oncoming car far up the road — far enough away for me to think I should pull out (he’s at least a quarter-mile away).
I proceed north on Route 65, and adjacent to the motorcycle-store (about an eighth-mile from our driveway), before I make the sharp turn WEST, I notice a red Firebird in my mirror, driver glowering and thumping his steering-wheel.
“Is this same the guy that was a quarter-mile away?” I think. If so, he sure covered that section in front of our house well over the speed-limit, which is 40.
He must have passed our house at 100+ mph; thank goodness no deeries were crossing. That’s happened — a Ford pickup lost its windshield when we set out for the Aunt Betty birthday. Killed the deerie; tossed it down the road.
The doctor-appointment was at 9:15 a.m.; meaning missing NASCAR rush-hour by about an hour.
“Well, I worry about her,” I said to the doctor; “but she’s in the back-yard tearing out the garden.”

My wife of nearly 40 years, “Linda,” has lymphatic cancer. It’s treatable with chemo-therapy.

“The Bucktooth-Bathtub” is our 2005 Toyota Sienna van; called that because it’s white and like sitting in a bathtub, and appears to have a bucktooth on the grill.

“Dubya-sticker” is a Bush-Cheney 2004 bumper-sticker. All insane traffic-moves seem to involve Bush-supporters. They seem to think they have the right.

We live on “Route 65.”

The “Aunt Betty birthday” was my Aunt Betty’s surprise 80th birthday-party in late-2005 in south Jersey, where she lives. We attended.

Photoshop Elements

FROM THE VAUNTED “FOR CRYING OUT LOUD” FOLDER:

-INCIDENT NUMBER-ONE
Okay, I need to update my Photoshop Elements.
PE 2.0 came as part of a bundle that came with my new scanner, and it does all I really ever wanted to do, plus has advantages over my old Photoshop 4.5, since it would thumbnail every pik on a source, and 4.5 wouldn’t.
I could have updated my old 4.5 to the new 7.0 (by now it may be 8.0), but I didn’t need all the tricks PS could do. It’s a professional app — fine for a newspaper, but I ain’t a newspaper.
Why should I spring an extry 500 smackaroos for functions I’ll never use?
So the PE 2.0 was doing all I needed, but now the automatical updates don’t know where to go, so it won’t open. I have to Force-Quit.
So I crank Photoshop Elements into my Google and it brings up a bunch of links, one of which is the Adobe site. (Photoshop is Adobe.)
I fire that up, and “add-to-cart” PE 6.0.
Now, “check out.”
“Do you have an Adobe account? If so, add password.”
I add my password right off the prompt-card I have taped to my monitor.
“Invalid password. Please try again.”
I try again — “Invalid password. Please try again.”
Okay; “reset password.” (PULLING TEETH ALERT!)
“Current password hint: RTS badge.”
That’s what I keep cranking in.
“Would you like to reset?” (PULLING TEETH ALERT!)
I type in my e-mail address, and my old RTS badge-number twice.
“Congratulations! Your password has been successfully reset. Please check your e-mail.”
Trying again, I see PE 6.0 is still in my cart, so I try checking out again.
“Please enter password.”
“Invalid password. Please try again.”
I give up! Call the 800-number. Their stupid site has already wasted a half-hour.

-INCIDENT NUMBER-TWO
I see Adobe has 6.0 for Windoze in my cart. (ALERT!)
I don’t want a Windoze PE; I want MAC.
I peer adroitly at the Adobe site, but I don’t see PE for MAC.
So I crank “Photoshop Elements for MAC” into Google, and it brings up 89 bazilyun hits. (Seems PE for MAC is 4.0.)
I try one and it brings up a glorious display of 89 bazilyun MAC apps, none of which are PE.
Back-button time.
Just call the 800-number, although it’s Pacific time, and I have to wait until afternoon.
Linda cranks “Photoshop Elements for MAC” into Google on her PC, and one of the hits is Amazon.
Okay, I got an Amazon account, but that sounds like a CD instead of a download. Oh well; no biggie. CD in the snail-mail; couple days..........

“Pik” equals “picture.”

RE: “RTS badge......” RTS equals Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years. My “badge-number” was my employee-number.......”

“Too many deeries!”

The Keed with the dreaded D100.

Wig and hat on faux head.

Last Thursday (October 11, 2007) the wig-lady called to report the two wigs Linda had ordered were in, and she could try them.
A number of tryout appointments were suggested, one of which was the next afternoon — Friday, October 12, 2007 at 6:30 p.m.
I have taken to being the taxi-driver for these forays, despite the utterly predictable accusations of selfishness from Mr. rumpeta-rumpeta, who would rather get $1,000 custom wheels for his GeezerGlide than repair a $40 IED faucet for his poor, long-suffering wife.
400+ miles distant from the noisy judgmental input of the almighty Bluster-King, I know that Linda is automotively-challenged, and while I think she could find wig-lady herself, despite the frenzied maelstrom that is Monroe Ave. in deepest, darkest Brighton, I’d rather fill in for her.
There also is the fact she’s being treated with chemo (and often crashes), and I’m not. It might effect her driving judgment, whereas I’m not getting chemo.
And so we set out in the Bucktooth Bathtub for wig-lady, me with a Car-and-Driver magazine in tow, so I could sit quietly in the tiny lobby refusing scones, while Linda got fitted with her wig.
While driving there we encountered two deeries — in fact, it was a dark Buick LeSabre in front that slowed for them.
The two deeries scampered off into an adjacent field. Sun was setting.
It was dark returning. Three more deeries; one a tiny fawn, and one a large buck that refused to leave the road.
Each encounter meant a slowdown, since I have a rule that if you see one deerie, ya might see five more.
“This is amazing,” Linda said. “When I was a kid we could drive for hours in the country, and never see any deer.”
“Too many deeries.”

“Linda” is my wife of nearly 40 years. She has lymphatic cancer. (It’s treatable with chemo.)

“Mr. rumpeta-rumpeta” (“the almighty Bluster-King”) is my macho, loudmouthed brother-from-Boston. He noisily badmouths everything I do or say. The “rumpeta-rumpeta” is his classic 1971 454 SS Chevelle; a muscle-car. (It goes rumpeta-rumpeta.) His “GeezerGlide” is what I call all Harley Davidson ElectraGlide cruiser-bikes. He has a very laid back Harley Davidson cruiser-bike, and, like most Harley Davidson riders, is 50 years old. So I call it his GeezerGlide. The “$40 IED faucet” is his wonky kitchen-sink faucet, that wasn’t replaced for five years. It was rather explosive and frightening.

RE: “automotively-challenged......” equals having difficulty with driving.

“Brighton” is a suburb east of Rochester.

“The Bucktooth-Bathtub” is our 2005 Toyota Sienna van; called that because it’s white and like sitting in a bathtub, and appears to have a bucktooth on the grill.

RE: “sit quietly in the tiny lobby refusing scones.......” My macho blowhard brother-in-Boston would say “no scones in man-land.”

LAH-DEE-DAHH......

EYE-TV

The Keed.

Well, LAH-DEE-DAHH......
Despite utter confusion and stroke-effects, my dreaded MAC has Eye-TV on it; which means I can play a video-feed on it, like from our cable, or the DVR/VCR.
One given had to be performed in advance to the MAC to make it able to do Eye-TV.
An ordinary USB-port is too slow for video-feed; so the MAC needed a USB-2, high-speed USB.
This is via a card inserted into a PCI-slot. It has two USB-2 ports on it.
I relocated my MAC tower on the adjacent desk and installed the new card. Ain’t rocket-science.
There are card-slots; five of them. One has my old SCSI-card (“Skuzzy”) that drove my old scanner. I figure I’ll keep it to drive my Nikon negative-scanner, which is SCSI.
One slot has the monitor-card, with my monitor connector. That stays too.
So the USB-2 card went into slot #3, although there was something in the instructions about slot #1.
“What?” Linda said. “All the slots are the same.”
If top-to-bottom is 1 through 5, I could relocate the USB-2 card in slot #1.
But if it’s the other way around, the monitor-card is in slot #1, and I ain’t movin’ that.
We had no idea whether the machine was recognizing the USB-2 card.
A Windoze machine goes “Ah-HAH! I see a new peripheral. Do you wish to configure? Please wait while I figure the value of pi: OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHMMMMMMMMMM......”
I ended up calling Mac Shack.
“Install a new PCI card into a slot, and OS-X configures it without the ‘Ah-HAH!’”
“Just click your ‘About-your-MAC’ button, and look at the PCI-slot info.”
Yep; sure enough. There’s a high-speed USB in slot #3.
“Ya won’t need to do anything; your MAC already configured it” (A CD had been included with a driver — but OS-X had the driver already.)
So then I set about relocating the USB-2 in the other slot, whereupon “About-your-MAC” said it was now in slot #5.
NEXT STEP: connect Elgato Eye-TV to USB-2, and insert its CD.
“Agree?” Click.
“Make-and-model?” Click.
“Enter serial-number.”
Done; no next.
NOW WHAT! The Elgato software installs the first time you connect things, but we couldn’t get past the serial-number (which we were reading directly off a prompt-card).
“You’ll have to call Elgato technical-support,” Mac Shack says.
I bring up the Elgato site, but no tech-support number — just a tech-support e-mail.
“Please log in.”
Oh, for crying out loud.
I click “register,” and did an online register with Elgato tech-support.
I then tried a log-in, but “Naughty-naughty! No such account.”
I gave up and walked our dog.
Our next guess was to connect a complete video-feed, connecting our cable to the Eye-TV.
Again; “Agree?” Click.
“Make-and-model?” Click.
“Enter serial-number.”
VIOLA! “Next” lights up.
No indication of any kind of needing a complete video-feed; in fact, the instructions seemed to indicate there shouldn’t be a video-feed.
Boom-zoom; we complete the software update (addition), which is also the online registration, but “no signal.”
I poke around, click “channels,” and it does a channel search of all the channels on the cable, just like a cable-ready VCR.
Channels are displayed as text, so I highlight Channel 13.
Suddenly Channel 13 flashes on the screen, but no sound.
We poke around, and a play-console is on the screen.
We notice what I thought was the “Stop-Record” button may also be a “mute” button, so we click that, and suddenly sound.
LAH-DEE-DAHH...... Channel 13 is playing through my ‘pyooter monitor and speakers.

I had a stroke October 26, 1993.

RE: “my dreaded MAC.....” All my siblings have PCs, so having a MAC is abhorrent.

“Linda” is my wife of nearly 40 years.

RE: “Please wait while I figure the value of pi: OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHMMMMMMMMMM......” Windoze (“Windows”) PCs have a habit of always making you “Please Wait.” This is a pot-shot against my PC-using siblings.

“Mac Shack” in a small suburb east of Rochester is where I bought my Macintosh computer. It’s also where I bought the USB-2 card and Eye-TV.

“Elgato” is the maker of Eye-TV.

boo-boo

Local REPUBLICANS have committed a dreadful boo-boo.
They failed to meet a registration deadline (September 25) with the local Board of Elections to get their names on the ballot, so now the REPUBLICAN incumbents in nearby Victor can only be reelected by write-in.
Also included are two Democrats in nearby East Bloomfield.
Long ago, when I worked for the bank fresh out of college, I was told by a staunch REPUBLICAN, who was making a mockery of banking regulations to advance his bank-branch: “Rules are made to be broken.”
—Unless, of course, those rules advance your fevered agenda, in which case you hold your opponents’ feet to the fire.
So of course THE REPUBLICANS took the Board of Elections to State Supreme Court, in hopes of getting the rules bent.
But the Court overturned their petition(s).
“These laws have been around a long time,” the judge said. “I am duty-bound to follow the law as it exists.”
“A disservice to voters!” a REPUBLICAN screamed.
That’s all we need — a precedent for bending the rules.
Years ago at Transit we had a rule whereby if you showed up one second late for work, your work was given to an extra, and you lost that day’s pay.
Seemed eminently fair. It took the mindless management minions out of the equation.

We live in the Town of West Bloomfield, adjacent to the Town of East Bloomfield.

RE: “Transit.......” For 16&1/2 years I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, N.Y.

no Dubya-sticker

Yesterday (Wednesday, October 10, 2007), about 3 p.m., I was motoring serenely south on the main drag through Canandaigua, Route 332, a four-lane with a median.
I had just left the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA, and was headed for mighty Weggers, where I would use a so-called “sissy-cart” to purchase 5-6 items, one of which would be a gallon of milk, which would turn a hand-held plastical basket into a self-dumping container (“Wet cleanup on Aisle Seven — the almighty Bluster-King is in the store”).
Suddenly a massive full-size powder-blue Chevrolet pickup, four-wheel-drive with Z71 Off-Road suspension, driven by a young macho-dude, lunged out of an eastern side-street, across both northbound lanes of 332, and zoomed wildly left into the southbound lanes.
—Right into the path of a tiny black Mazda Miata two-seater with the top down, driving sedately down the street.
Thankfully I was far enough back to not be effected by all this, although I had to slow for the Miata, who had to slam on his brakes.
The pickup continued up the street, oblivious to any drama, right-turn signal flashing, windows down, loudly serenading all-and-sundry with the F-word via some shouting rapper.
Sorry chillen; no Dubya-sticker, but I did see a “lead, follow, or get out of the way” license-plate surround.
There was also a white cartoon decal on the rear window of Calvin peeing on the Ford oval.
A Confederate flag was draped in the rear window, and a maroon “Git-R-Dun” applique was on the windshield-top.
I also saw two bumper-stickers: “Gun-control is good aim,” and “Git-mo for liberials!”

“Mighty Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua.

RE: “a so-called ‘sissy-cart..........’” Wegmans Supermarkets has phased in smaller carts; so-called “sissy-carts” — about half the size of a full-sized grocery-cart. They are the choice for buying only a few things. Such carts have not come into use nationwide; and aren’t in use in Boston, the lair of my macho blowhard brother (the “almighty Bluster-King”) who loudly refuses to use any such thing, as it looks like a cart for unmanly people. Better that he should use a self-dumping plastical arm-basket than look unmanly with a so-called “sissy-cart.”

A “Dubya-sticker” is a Bush-Cheney 2004 bumper-sticker. All insane traffic-moves seem to involve Bush-supporters. They seem to think they have the right.

“Calvin” is the character from the “Calvin & Hobbs” cartoon.

“Liberial” is how my loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston noisily insists “liberal” is spelled.

Cab-Ride tapes

BOOM-BIDDA-ZOOM-BIDDA

The Keed in 1962.

STAND BACK!

The other day I realized my Northeast Corridor Cab-Ride tapes are over 22 years old.
Well, my tapes probably aren’t 22 years old, but the video was shot in February of 1985.
My Northeast Corridor Cab-Ride tapes are my favorite train-videos. A video-camera was set up in the cab of an Amtrak AEM7, and the entire run video-taped; Washington Union Station to Philly (a MetroLiner), and then Philly to New York City (the Broadway) — two tapes.
I’m attached to the Northeast Corridor, originally the electrified Pennsy line from Washington to New York.
That line traversed northern Delaware where I lived, so I got to see the fabulous Pennsy GG1s at speed.
Images of storming GG1s remain:
-1) hanging on for dear life at Claymont station as a G flew by at at least 90 mph about 10 feet away.
-2) Gs booming over the flyover over the Edgemoor Yard entrance.
-3) Storming up the grade past the Wilmington Shops onto the Chinese Wall.
One time a GG1 smacked a bulldozer on a flatbed at a grade-crossing in Newark, DE, and the bulldozer flew about 250 feet. The GG1 stayed on the track, and had only a small dent.

The Keed in 1962.

Over the Edgemoor Yard-entrance flyover. (Only Pennsy could afford this.)

It’s a fairly impressive railroad, although not a direct-shot like in Europe.
“New York Ave. (Washington Union Station) is the station-limits. Once we pass that underpass, we’re out on the main.”
“Put the hammer down,” I always say.
Suddenly the AEM7 is accelerating north.
Within minutes “Our speed is now 110 mph.”
A few minutes later “Our speed is now 120 mph.”
“30 seconds between mileposts,” the engineman says. “Check your stopwatch. 30 seconds is 120.”
The concrete ties are an onrushing blur. Cantenary poles flash by.
“This is a 90 mph curve,” the engineer says, as we slow a little.
Shortly after the horrible accident where Amtrak’s Colonial smacked a couple of Conrail U-Boats at GunPow Interlocking, I got out the tape to see where the accident happened. It was just short of the Gunpowder River — they were lucky they they didn’t end up in the drink. (The AEM7s [there were two] were utterly vaporized, and the engineman never found.)
“80 mph over the bridge,” the engineman says, as we cross the Susquehanna.
We pass the Northeast River as we hurtle north — I used to be able to hear Gs at Sandy Hill blowing for a grade-crossing along the Northeast River. — And Sandy Hill was on the other side of the peninsula. (No more grade-crossings at all on the Corridor.)
I call out old hangouts as the train passes Wilmington:
“That’s the Shops,” I say.
“Purina Chows!”
We parallel I-495 as we hammer north. (I-495 wasn’t there in 1961.)
It would take my brother’s rumpeta-rumpeta to keep up with it.

The Keed in 1961.

Southbound past the Wilmington Shops.

It’s an impressive railroad, but not as good as it should be.
Zoo Interlocking, a massive triangular interchange near the Philadelphia Zoo, is so contorted the trains are limited to 40 mph.
And the tunnels are ancient. Those under Baltimore are still the same size as originally dug; and the “tubes” under the Hudson River are too small to pass freight-cars.
Amtrak uses double-deck passenger-cars on many lines, but not the Corridor.
And in north Jersey the line is so congested trains often get stabbed.
“This train doesn’t get much respect any more (our train, Train 40, the Broadway Limited). Cross over anything in front of it, or hold it up in any way, and you were fired.”
No matter: “We are now rounding the famous Elizabeth Curve. Probably more trains have been photographed on this curve than anywhere else in the nation.”
We cross the massive drawbridge over the Passaic River in Newark, and thread the congested trackage toward the Tubes.
“Hudson tower,” the announcer says. At least three railroads went by Hudson, and the storage-yards of New Jersey Transit’s diesel-powered north Jersey railroad-lines are adjacent.
NJT also shares the trackage and Tubes into New York City. — We can only do about 50.
We round a curve and suddenly dive into the darkened Tubes under the Hudson.
Glowing incandescents march past — we’re only doing about 40.
Then we come into a deep sunlit cut awash with double-slip double-throw switches, and a mass of tangled cantenary-wire above. How anyone maintains this mess is a miracle.
“Welcome to New York City,” the engineman says. “We got a big trashcan right over there.”

“Pennsy” is the Pennsylvania Railroad, no longer in existence. It merged with New York Central Railroad in 1968 as Penn-Central, and that went bankrupt in about two years. “Pennsy” was once the largest railroad in the world.

The “Pennsy GG1” is the electric locomotive the Pennsy used for many years. It was extremely successful, with a styling rehab by Raymond Loewy; the greatest railroad locomotive of all time.

The “AEM7” is Amtrak’s electric locomotive — it has been in use for years essentially replacing the GG1.

“Edgemoor Yard” was the freight-yard for Wilmington, DE.

RE: “the Chinese Wall.....” Wilmington’s railroad station was about 15-25 feet above the street, so the railroad had to ramp up to it. The railroad-grade was high atop a vertical stone-masonry fill that separated the city like a “Chinese Wall.” Since it was long and continuous, it was like the Great Wall of China.

Many railroads no longer use wooden cross-ties. Ties made of prestressed concrete are often used in heavy-duty service; e.g. the Corridor.

The overhead wire (trolley-wire) to deliver the electricity to electric locomotives is called “cantenary.” It is hung from lineside poles, called “cantenary poles.” They are about 100 yards apart. The cantenary poles also have wire to deliver electricity from generating-stations to the “cantenary.”

“Conrail U-Boats” are freight-engines operated by Conrail. “U-boats” is the nickname for General Electric’s earliest diesel freight-engines (in the late ‘70s), which had the “U” designation; e.g. U25B, U30C, etc. Conrail was broken up recently, with most ex-New York Central lines going to CSX, and most ex-Pennsy lines going to Norfolk Southern. The Corridor is owned by Amtrak. (The Corridor was owned by Amtrak back then, and Conrail had trackage-rights — mostly to switch factory-sidings; although it could field freight-trains over it.)

RE: “GunPow Interlocking.......” An interlocking is where crossover switches, or switches, connect adjacent tracks. “Interlockings” are now called “Control-Points;” and used to be switched by lineside towers. They are now switched electronically from a central location (in this case, 30th St. Station in Philadelphia). But some towers remain, e.g. “Zoo” and “Hudson.” “GunPow interlocking” was where the railroad narrowed from three to two tracks to cross the wide Gunpowder River on a trestle. The U-boats switched off the third track into the way of the speeding Colonial. The location of the accident was Chase, MD.

“Sandy Hill” was the religious boys-camp in northeastern Maryland I worked three summers at 1959-1961.

RE: “Purina Chows!” Purina had a large grain-elevator (or facility) next to the railroad north of Wilmington. It was a tall lineside marker.

RE: “my brother’s rumpeta-rumpeta.......” My macho, blowhard brother-in-Boston has a classic 1971 SS 454 Chevelle. It goes “rumpeta-rumpeta.” It is probably capable of 150-60 mph, if you can stand driving excessive power in a blowsy old chassis. Such cars, called “muscle-cars,” were the dream of the ‘70s among drag-racing youth. — Nowhere near as sophisticated as current cars; a better choice would be a new Corvette: far more friendly.

“Stabbed” is when a train gets stopped so another train can pass. Train 40 was never stabbed, but got a number of “slow” signals.

The three railroads that passed Hudson Tower were the Pennsy, the Lackawanna, and the Hudson & Manhattan — now PATH.

“Double-slip double-throw switches” are essentially switches that can be negotiated any of four different ways — by setting the switch-points. E.g. -1) in-from-left — out-left; -2) in-from-right — out left; -3) in-from-left — out-right; -4) in-from-right — out-right.

Ka-POW

Last night (Monday, October 8, 2007) was dramatical excitement as a powerful thunderstorm knocked the local TV-news for a loop right in the middle of their newscast.
What news we watch is recorded, so when the news was live at 6 p.m. I was out walking the dog.
I could hear it coming; thunder in the distance.
WHAM Channel 13 is based in deepest, darkest Henrietta, and my MyCast weather-radar had the storm right over it.
Announcers would get rattled as giant thunderclaps boomed overhead. You could even hear it.
All of a sudden, Ka-POW, right in the middle of a stand-up news report.
“Are we still on?” the reporter timidly asked.
“Technical difficulties; please stand by.”
The station had not been knocked off the air, but their entire building was without power.
15 minutes slowly passed (I just boomed through the tape).
Suddenly we got showered with all the ads that were supposed to be sprinkled throughout the news.
Then the anchor was standing in the newsroom, lit by impromptu floodlights, holding a tiny lapel mic.
Suddenly it was just like old times. Back-and-forth the anchor swung his microphone, trying to continue the stand-up report that had been interrupted.
Thankfully the anchor is our age, so he knows to aim the mic at whoever is talking.
Prior experience from long ago. Who knows if the young pups would know?
The station was on their backup generator. All their glitzy graphics and satellite-links were vaporized.
It was kind of like that at the mighty Mezz. A thunderstorm would roll over and zap the power, and the standby would kick on. But all it drove was our ‘pyooters and the press. No lights; no AC.

“Deepest, darkest Henrietta” is a rather effusive and obnoxious suburb of Rochester.

The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired almost two years ago. Best job I ever had.

reboot generation

Last night (Sunday, October 7, 2007) something strange and mysterious happened.
Mysterious, that is, to those of us who aren’t a part of the reboot generation.
We get our TV via the cable, direct to our DVR/VCR, which is cable-ready, which feeds our TV.
In other words, our DVR/VCR has to be on to get TV. The DVR/VCR is in effect the cable-box.
This is how it’s been for years. Our dreaded Beta VCR was cable-ready, as was the VHS VCR that replaced it.
The VCR (the second VHS VCR) that replaced the first VHS VCR, which still works, is in the basement having not been turned over to charity yet.
It too was cable-ready.
So in the 17+ years we’ve been out here we’ve never had a cable-box.
All VCRs were cable-ready.
17 years ago, when our house was built, cable-TV wasn’t out front yet, but it was strung very soon, and I already had cable buried to the house, so we went cable as soon as it was installed.
So here we were last night watching the prerecorded local news, and suddenly no sound.
“Must be our ISP,” I said.
First we thought it was their end, but then I noticed the live feed, America’s Funniest Videos, wasn’t getting sound either.
I installed the cab-ride tape I had been watching; no sound.
AFV was replaced by Extreme Home Mayhem, Ty Pennington exploding silently out of their tour-bus, bellowing silently into an electronical bullhorn.
NOW WHAT? We poked around, and everything was hooked up as it should be.
Welcome to the reboot generation. When all else fails, reboot.
I turned the whole stinkin’ kabosh off, and dished out another entree in the kitchen.
I returned, and turned the whole kabosh back on again. VIOLA; sound. Pennington and his blue-helmeted minions tearing down a perfectly good house with roaring bulldozers.

RE: “Must be our ISP.......” ISP equals Internet-Service-Provider. When my all-knowing blowhard macho brother-from-Boston was here last July he configured a wireless connection to his laptop ‘pyooter from my wireless router, and then loudly blamed my ISP when his Internet was wonky. (I get loudly badmouthed for everything.)

“The cab-ride tape” is one of my train-videos, where the video-camera is set up in the cab of the railroad-locomotive, recording an entire train run.

Lasered

This morning (Monday, October 8, 2007) I was to make an eye-appointment, a follow-up of an eye-exam last May.
During last May’s eye-exam, they noticed a retinal scar, or tear, that had been there, in my left eye, for some time; 10-20 years.
It had been noticed years ago at biannual eye-exams of the HMO we were going to at that time.
But the eye-doctor always poo-pooed it; “nothing major,” he said. “Everything seems normal; kapiche?”
So I never paid much attention to it — except to point out an examiner would see it — e.g. thems at Canandaigua Eye-Center, where I went instead of the old HMO.
They went ballistic. “You should have that looked at, maybe even laser-welded,” they said. “We’ll set you up to see our ophthalmologist.”
Months passed. “If you ever see flashes, or more floaters; contact us immediately.”
Nothing ever happened the whole time; I have a slighter floater in my left eye, but it doesn’t obscure anything. I’ve probably had it for years, with no change.
The appointment was at 8 a.m., which meant rolling out at 5 a.m. — dreadfully early for us old folks. But “dreadfully early” only in that it scotched attending the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA after the appointment.
The ophthalmologist, one Heidi Piper, is a Houghton-grad.
“I see you are a Houghton-grad,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Class of 1966, “ I said.
“That place sure has changed..........”
“Yep,” I said; “and our class was part of the reason why. They used to be terrible, but after us, they gave up.”
“I suppose when you were there, they had that fabulous new Science Building,” I said.
“If that had been around when I was there, I might have stuck with Physics.”
“So what did you graduate with?”
“History,” I said. “That’s where all the good profs were.”
“I have never regretted going there. I just gave them $1,000.”
“I didn’t end up like they wanted, but I don’t care a bit.”
Houghton-grad examined the scar and said “I’m surprised you haven’t already had retinal separation. You should have that laser-welded. In-and-out in 15 minutes. Go about your business as if nothing happened. You’ll feel a slight stinging when I do it, but I’m sure you can handle it.”
“So what you’re asking is whether I want this?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Well I would be so inclined. Let ‘er rip!”
I was hiked into the laser-room, and the tear was laser-welded.
“This is gonna hurt,” she said. “I left the most painful part for last. I’m welding right on top of a nerve.”
BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM!
My pupils (I was a pupil once at Erlton School) had been dilated, of course, so I had to wear my so-called disco sunglasses when I went out.
“Come back in about six weeks so we can make sure the laser-welding went as intended,” she said.
“Co-pay $10,” the receptionist said; “do you need a receipt?”
“Before I go, my sunglasses have a stripped screw, or the part that it threads into is stripped; and I’ve had the screw out, but it’s awful hard to get such a tiny screw back in place for us old folks,” I said.
“I have everything together, and it has been for months, but I need to know whether I should replace these frames?”
The receptionist put me on the eye-glasses list, and after about five minutes I explained the whole kabosh to a technician who took my sunglasses and replaced the screw.
I’m left with a sore left eye — slightly sore.
“You sure are tough, Mr. Hughes,” the ophthalmologist said.
“Yep, I had a stroke,” I said. “People always ask how I managed to survive a stroke so well.”
“Ornery,” I say.

“Houghton” is Houghton College, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it. Houghton is a religious college.

“Erlton School” is the elementary-school I attended in Erlton, south Jersey, the small suburb (of Philadelphia) we lived in when I was a child.

RE: “so-called disco sunglasses.....” All my siblings accuse me of having poor taste.

I had a stroke October 26, 1993.

Monthly calendar report:

Photo by Philip Makanna.

The Jug.

-1) My Ghosts classic WWII warbirds calendar is an improvement for October, 2007.
Gone are the ugly German planes that graced the September entry — a Heinkel He111 twin-engined bomber that participated in the bombing of London, and a Junkers Ju-52 tri-motor — replaced by a Republic P47 Thunderbolt fighter (pictured).
The P47 was a big airplane; it has a wingspan of 40-feet-9 inches, and is 36-feet 2-inches long.
The Supermarine Spitfire has a 36-foot 10-inch wingspan, and is only 29-feet 11-inches long.
A P51 Mustang has a 37-foot wingspan, and is 32-feet 3-inches long. A P40 Warhawk has a 37-foot 4-inch wingspan, and is 33-feet 4-inches long.
The Mustang weighs 7,125 pounds unladen, a P40 weighs 6,200 pounds unladen, and the Spitfire weighs 6,447 pounds loaded.
A P47, by comparison, can weigh 19,400 pounds loaded.
The P47 was affectionately called “The Jug.”
It doesn’t have the grace and panache of a Mustang, but they were hard to shoot down.
That big motor (a twin-row air-cooled Pratt & Whitney radial of 18 cylinders) was good for 2,535 horsepower.
The Mustang only got 1,695 horsepower from its Packard-Merlin water-cooled V12.
American overkill in the sky: the flying equivalent of a 454 SS Chevelle.

Photo from the Al Chione Collection.

E-units.

-2) The October entry of my Charles Ditlefsen All-Pennsy Color calendar is also okay, more-or-less.
It depicts Pennsy E8s (pictured) heading an express-mail train north of Rockville Bridge in 1966.
By 1966 mighty Pennsy was faltering. Too many lines west of Pennsylvania to feed the main-stem in Pennsylvania.
Those lines were being taxed to oblivion; and were no longer generating much revenue.
Freight was transferring to trucks. No longer was it being shipped in railroad boxcars via factory sidings.
And passenger service was being taken over by airplanes. A jet was much faster than a train.
In two years (1968) Pennsy would merge with its chief eastern rival, New York Central, and in two more years even that, Penn-Central, would go bankrupt.
Mighty Pennsy no longer exists. Its main stem still exists, but is now operated by Norfolk Southern.
The onliest Pennsy E-units operating aren’t really Pennsy Es. They’re privately owned, and chartered; painted to look like Pennsy E-units.

Photo by Scott Williamson.

The Boydster I.

-3) The October entry of my hot-rod calendar is a Coddington-Foose dream, so unrealistic and overdone it doesn’t seem much of a hot-rod.
They began with a fiberglass copy of a 1932 Ford highboy roadster, the most beautiful hot-rod of all time.
They installed a laid-back curved one-piece windshield that looks more appropriate to a modern car.
They also took out the hood — all to smooth appearance.
But what if you have to access the motor?
And what if it rains? No wipers; no top.
A trailer-queen — something you'd never operate on the street. (How do you get it in the driveway when it’s that low?)

Photo by Scott Williamson.

1996 Ferrari FX.

-4) The October entry of my sportscar calendar is a Ferrari (pictured) hardly recognizable as a Ferrari.
I suppose if it were blood-red, fire-engine red, or Ferrari-red (a slightly orangish red), it would be more recognizable.
But it lacks Ferrari trademarks like the egg-crate grille.
(The 365GTB4 was barely recognizable too, but at least it had an egg-crate grille.)
Pininfarina (“Pee-nin-far-EEN-ya”), a frequent stylist and body-builder for Ferrari, has also masked that it’s a mid-engined car.
It’s a fabulous styling job, but doesn’t look like a Ferrari.
Paint it silver and it’s a Porsche.

-Other calendars.
-A) The October entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy calendar is a small gasoline box-cab switcher used by Pennsy on Manhattan Island of New York City.
It looks a lot like the tiny box-cab electric switchers Pennsy had.
—Built at Juniata Shops in 1928; one of three, of which one was later converted to diesel (1947).
Manhattan made steam switchers look like coaches so as to not scare horses, then made steam locomotion by railroads illegal altogether.
Even mighty New York Central had to electrify its main-line into Manhattan — Grand Central Terminal.
And its West-Side freight line never really succeeded.
Manhattan Island has never had direct railroad freight service.
Pennsy’s tubes under the Hudson are too small, so most freight gets ferried (now trucked).
CSX has a direct route into the city, but it’s roundabout.
-B) My Howard Fogg railroad calendar has a Burlington Route Hudson (4-6-4) accelerating a mail-train out of an unknown Iowa town.
This is how it used to be — first-class mail was delivered by the railroads.
But it’s a painting, although a rare gem amidst all the Fogg Colorado Narrow-Gauge paintings.
-C) My Norfolk Southern employee calendar is their standard ho-hum autumn leaves picture; Norfolk Southern Geeps emerging from a forest of red, yellow and orange in northwest Pennsylvania.

A “454 SS Chevelle” is a muscle-car from the early ‘70s.

“A trailer-queen” is a car (or motorcycle) that never gets used on the street. They get towed to shows on (or inside) trailers.

“Pennsy” is the Pennsylvania Railroad, no longer in existence. It merged with arch-rival New York Central Railroad in 1968 as Penn-Central, and that went bankrupt in about two years. “Pennsy” was once the largest railroad in the world.

“Rockville Bridge” was Pennsy’s long crossing of the Susquehanna River north of Harrisburg in central Pennsylvania. The current stone-arch, which replaced earlier bridges, is (or was) the largest masonry stone-arch bridge in the world when it was built in 1902. It still exists, and is comprised of 48 seventy-foot spans.

“Howard Fogg” was attracted to, and therefore painted, many scenes of Colorado narrow-gauge railroading. Narrow-gauge is three feet between the rails. Standard-gauge is 4-feet 8&1/2-inches. Nearly all railroads (all in the U.S.A.) are standard-gauge. Narrow gauge was used years ago in the Colorado mountains; since it allowed tighter curves. No narrow-gauge railroads are left, except for three small tourist operations in Colorado, and one in Pennsylvania.

“Pennsy” was merged into Penn-Central, which was replaced with Conrail when PC (among other eastern railroads) went bankrupt. Conrail was at first a government enterprise, but eventually it went public. It was broken up a few years ago, with most of the ex-Pennsy lines going to Norfolk Southern Railroad, and the ex-New York Central lines going to CSX Transportation.