Sunday, February 24, 2008

No caller-ID

We got a phonecall from Straight yesterday (Saturday, February 23, 2008).
Apparently he was wandering around deepest, darkest south Jersey, and was considering visiting MayZ.
He wanted to call May first instead of barging in unannounced like my parents. (“We’re here!”)
And he didn’t have MayZ’s phone-number programmed into his cellphone.
So he was calling from his cellphone.
Linda answered.
“Your phone should say it’s ‘Valerio’ calling.” (His cellphone is a Valero phone.)
Well guess what? (Horror-of-horrors!)
We don’t have caller-ID on the landline.
It came on our cellphones, but I never felt we needed it.
This risks being yammered at by the bluster-boy, although I can screen out his noisy pot-shots on my cellphone.
Now to see if Straight visited MayZ, and if her son Paul is still dating Looney-Tunes.

  • “Straight” (“Straight-Arrow”) is my younger brother Bill in northern Delaware. He works in the Valero oil-refinery, which I pronounce as “Valerio.”
  • I’m originally from south Jersey.
  • “MayZ” is my aunt May, who my uncle called “May-zie.”
  • “The bluster-boy” is my all-knowing, blowhard brother-in-Boston, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say. He leaves noisy put-downs on my cellphone voicemail.
  • My aunt May abhors the floozy her son Paul is dating, and calls her “Looney-Tunes.”
  • two answers

    The other night (I think Friday, February 22, 2008) the local TV-news we watch was doing a live broadcast from a faraway news site, and the earpiece fell out of the reporter’s ear.
    “Excuse me while I reinsert my earpiece.”
    An on-air discussion followed as to the kerreck nomenclature for the earpiece, which was a three-letter acronym, and no one knew what the letters stood for.
    Time passed, and apparently an engineer (“oh-my-golly”) was consulted — he rendered two opposing answers as to what the letters stood for.
    Were we the least bit surprised?
    Leave it to an engineer to produce two opposite answers.
    They all chuckled knowingly and then the station-manager declared what the letters stood for.

  • My loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston was trained as an engineer, and noisily claims superiority. I majored in History, so am therefore vastly inferior.
  • “Oh-my-golly” is something my mother would say.
  • Saturday, February 23, 2008

    Cake


    Walmart Employee: 'Hello 'dis Walmarts, how can I help you?'
    Customer: 'Yes, I would like to order a cake for a going away party this week.'
    Walmart Employee: 'Whatchu want on da cake?'
    Customer: 'Best Wishes Suzanne.' And underneath that 'We will miss you'.

    Proving Wal*Mart has everything! (The greatest store in the universe.)

    in-sink garbage-strainer

    TO THE MIGHTY FLINT LANDFILL
    The so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and
    utterly reprehensible Nikon D100 with flash.
    Our tattered in-sink garbage-strainer (pictured at left) is finally consigned to the mighty Flint landfill.
    CONTRARY TO THE UTTERLY PREDICTABLE AND TIRESOMELY BORING BLUSTERING FROM WEST BRIDGEWATER, it wasn’t me that pursued this replacement.
    It was Linda, and it wasn’t easy, since no one made an in-sink garbage-strainer similar to our old unit.
    All kinds of garbage-containers were available, although none were designed as strainers for installation in sinks.
    As such our stainless unit is probably overpriced.
    It was all that was available similar to our old unit.
    No doubt I could have walked out of Wal*Mart with an ill-suited and flimsy unit made by Chinese child prison-labor. (“Thank ya for shopping Wal*Mart — mmm-WAH! Enjoy your hike to your car in East Timor.”)
    CUE ENGINES OF ONLINE COMMERCE. —In-sink garbage-strainers for only peanuts — or containers Linda avoided.

  • “Flint landfill” is the landfill in nearby Flint where our trash gets taken.
  • RE: “‘Old guy’ with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.......” —My macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston, who is 13 years younger than me, calls me “the old guy” as a put-down (I also am the oldest). I also am loudly excoriated by all my siblings for preferring a professional camera (like the Nikon D100) instead of a point-and-shoot. This is because I long ago sold photos to nationally published magazines.
  • RE: “Contrary to the utterly predictable and tiresomely boring blustering from West Bridgewater.....” —My macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, lives in West Bridgewater, Mass.
  • “Linda” is my wife of 40+ years.
  • My macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston noisily claims I should be shopping Wal*Mart, the so-called “greatest store in the universe.”
  • “Mmm-WAH” is being kissed by the stinky Wal*Mart greeter. “Enjoy your hike to your car in East Timor.......” is something the greeter might say regarding your long hike across the vast Wal*Mart parking-lot.
  • RE: “Cue engines of online commerce........” —Various of my siblings will now search out comparable online in-sink garbage-strainers, proving thereby that we are stupid dullards and inferior to them.
  • Friday, February 22, 2008

    Thank ya, 282

    Last night (Thursday, February 21, 2008) I attended the regular monthly meeting of Local 282 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, my old bus-union at Regional Transit Service.
    It was 11:20 p.m. when I got home, which means the meeting adjourned at 10:38 p.m., 38 minutes beyond the allowed time; which means they had to move to extend the meeting.
    “Holy mackerel,” I said when I arrived at 8:05 p.m., five minutes after the meeting started.
    About 50 people were in the Hall; way more than I’ve ever seen.
    Old Gwindell (“Gwin-DELL”) Bradley was the Sergeant-at-Arms, which means he was the keeper of the sign-in book, as well as he was supposed to maintain order, an immense challenge.
    Gwindell was Union vice-president when I had my stroke, and would often chair meetings. He also required a disclaimer on my newsletter so the mindless management minions at Transit couldn’t sue the Union.
    The badge-numbers of most signed in were 2200 or above; mine was only 1763.
    Terry Stitt, the top of the seniority-list, has a three-number badge. I’m sure Bradley did too, but he’s retired.
    So most didn’t know who I was, although most on the dais did; people like Dominick Zarcone and Craig Fien, both Union-reps, Radical-Dude (Ray Dunbar), and of course Frank Falzone (Business-Agent) and John Blocchi (long-time Recording Secretary).
    Union prez Joe Carey was out with pneumonia.
    Most ironic was some gray-haired 2200-badge rookie trying to say hello to me; which means he had no idea who I was, but I hadn’t been thrown out.
    Every once in a while a cellphone would dingle loudly. (“Anyone with a cellphone please put it on vibrate,” Radical-Dude said.) And people had BlueTooth earpieces in their ear, blinking constantly.
    The Union-meeting was the usual surfeit of yelling and screaming.
    “What we need is a memo from you guys to all union employees detailing what transpired here.”
    “We had a newsletter once.”
    “Why are the runs getting tighter and tighter?”
    “Because you guys keep making the time.”
    “How are we supposed to adequately judge on this issue if we have to be brought up-to-date on everything?”
    “So where were ya at the last meeting? How come this is the first one ya’ve attended in years?”
    I was especially frustrated by this last issue.
    Back-and-forth it went. “Shaddup!” “No you shaddup.” “All I did was ask a simple question!” Bam-bam-bam (Bradley in the back). “Point of order!”
    Poor Radical-Dude (the current Union vice-president) was chairing the meeting. “Siddown,” he bellowed. “You’re flying all over the place; you’re not discussing the issue at hand.”
    There was so much racket I covered my ears; but was tempted to ask where all the blowhards were last meeting, which had to be canceled for lack of a quorum (only 15).
    “These meetings are getting to be fun,” a guy in front of me said.
    “We gotta stop all this yelling and screaming, Frank.”
    “Every member is entitled to make a statement,” Frank said. “It’s called ‘democracy.’”

  • For 16&1/2 years I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, N.Y. It was a fun job that payed fairly well, but management were jerks.
  • RE: “When I had my stroke.....” —I had a stroke October 26, 1993, which ended my bus-driving.
  • RE: “My newsletter.......” —During my final year at Transit I did an unpaid voluntary union newsletter with Word called the “282 News.”
  • “Frank” is of course “Frank Falzone” (Union Business-Agent).

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  • Thursday, February 21, 2008

    Auto comments

    jason said... “....hey, here is the site i was talking about where i made the extra cash, I was making about $900 extra a month...”

    I doubt anyone much reads this here blog.
    616 hits (as of today, Thursday, February 21, 2008) on my profile — which I guess is pretty good. But only a few comments; most of which appear to be auto-generated.
    Most are spam: like the one above.
    And every time I mention HD radio I get a comment about how HD radio is the devil’s handiwork. Probably auto-generated by a pro satellite-radio blogger. I bet this post auto-generates a response — how HD radio is mucking up the entire radio industry — it has “HD radio” in it.
    I got a comment from Bryan Mahoney when I did the “Well Bryan..........” story — so far the onliest valid comment.
    But Bryan knows me, and is one of the vaunted Ne’er-do-Wells.
    —Which means he is one of the people who get e-mails of everything I write.
    I don’t take the blog very seriously; all it is is everything that goes on FlagOut and/or goes to the Ne’er-do-Wells.
    Although any more, stuff that’s no longer posted to FlagOut gets thrown on the blog, or e-mailed to the Ne’er-do-Wells.
    For example, the trains things are so long, as are the monthly calendar reports, I no longer fly them on FlagOut. Wouldn’t wanna bore anyone. I only e-mail that to 44 — since it’s trains-junk.
    I only do the blog because I can — and Marcy suggested I should.
    She is/was my number-one Ne’er-do-Well: the first one I e-mailed my stuff to.
    Turned out she was saving everything in a ‘pyooter-folder on her rig at the mighty Mezz.
    She has since moved to the Boston area, married Mahoney; but still gets my e-mails. (Together they drive about in fear of every Harley, for fear of encountering the dreaded almighty Bluster-King on one of his tub-thumping conservative rages).
    I’ve suggested a few times that I stop; but she says “Don’t stop — we read your stuff every night.”
    But the blog was just an addition — and only because I could do it. My prime audience is the Ne’er-do-Wells.
    The blog and the Ne’er-do-Wells also require footnotes — something I hardly ever do with FlagOut. FlagOut people know what the Pennsy is, and the “Big-Block” and “Linda” and “Transit.”
    —But suppose some poor geek in Californy hits my blog; he’d not have the slightest idea what I was talking about.
    Some of the Ne’er-do-Wells wouldn’t either, which is why they get the footnotes too: e.g. “‘Hunderd’” is how my blowhard brother-in-Boston noisily insists ‘hundred’ is spelled.”
    —Plus my writing has become a pursuit — a fun way of killing time.
    But I wouldn’t wanna bore anyone. Which is why FlagOut has become second-fiddle.

  • The “Ne’er-do-Wells” are an e-mail list of everyone I e-mail my stuff to.
  • “FlagOut” is our family’s web-site, named that because I had a mentally-retarded kid-brother (Down Syndrome) who lived at home, and loudly insisted the flag be flown every day. “Flag-Out! Sun comes up, the flag goes up! Sun goes down, the flag comes down.” I fly the flag partly in his honor. (He died at 14 in 1968.)
  • “44” (“Agent-44”) is my brother-in-Delaware’s onliest son Tom. He recently graduated college as a computer-engineer. Like me, Tom is a railfan.
  • “Marcy” is my number-one ne’er-do-well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells. Marcy married Bryan Mahoney (ex-reporter from the Messenger newspaper), and together they live near Boston.
  • The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over two years ago. Best job I ever had.
  • “The almighty Bluster-King” is my macho, loudmouthed brother-from-Boston, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say. He rides a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, and has no brook with so-called “liberilas” (liberals). (That’s how he insists it’s spelled; and no one dare argue with him about it lest they get smacked.)
  • “Pennsy” is the Pennsylvania Railroad, no longer in existence. It merged with New York Central Railroad in 1968 as Penn-Central, and that tanked in about eight years. “Pennsy” was once the largest railroad in the world. The Chevrolet “Big-Block” was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches. It was made in various displacements: 402, 427 and 454 cubic inches. It’s still made as a truck-motor, but not installed in cars any more; although you can get it as a crate-motor, for self-installation. “Linda” is my wife of 40 years. “Transit” equals Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years.

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  • “Always a pleasure”

    Yesterday (Wednesday, February 20, 2008) I visited my Primary Care Physician (PCP), a Dr. Vincent Yavorek, at Bloomfield Family Practice.
    Yavorek and I always have a good time, and I think he’s one of the best doctors I’ve ever had.
    I had three things to discuss:
    —1) “Need some Flonase®?” he asked.
    “Well, it works pretty good, but maybe I should be using something better,” I said.
    “Works on nasal allergies, but not the eye itching,” I said.
    “I get the impression something better might be out there that does.”
    “Hold it,” he said; “I’ll be right back.”
    He returned with a sample of Veramyst®.
    “This is the stuff advertised on TV,” I said. “Promises-promises. ‘In case of death, please contact your physician immediately.’”
    “Well try it,” he said; “and if it works better, use it instead. But it’s not a generic like your Flonase substitute. You’ll pay more out-of-pocket.”
    —2) “Next issue is whether I should be taking Simvastatin,” I said. “I got this article that ran in the Messenger.”
    “That guy’s a crackpot. Studies connect lowered cholesterol with improved cardiovascular health.”
    “Yeah, but the import, and we’ve heard it elsewhere, is the body, especially the brain, needs cholesterol; that it’s being reduced too much. Don’t forget I have a brain-injury.”
    “But what if you stop the drug and have a heart-attack or stroke?”
    “I already had a stroke and that wasn’t because of cholesterol.”
    “Well, lessee. Last time we checked, which was last December, your cholesterol was 122,” he said.
    “That’s pretty good, isn’t it?” I asked.
    “Probably because of the Simvastatin.”
    “But maybe also because I’m working out, and eat right.”
    He thought a minute, and said “Maybe you could stop, and we’ll see what happens in three or four months.”
    —3) “We need a referral to a skin-man,” I said.
    “Why? What’s happening there?” he asked anxiously.
    “Nothing,” I responded. “We just wanna make sure nothing is happening.”

    “So what about this prostate thing?” he asked. “I see you had a prostate assessment at a urologist last December.”
    “Yes I did; and you can bet your bottom dollar I gave him the business, as you probably have already surmised.”
    “Yes, I’m sure you did,” he commented. “Better him than me!”
    “I wanted to know if having to go to the bathroom two or three times a night is okay for someone my age; and apparently it is.”
    “They could put you on medication for that, but it may not work,” he said.
    “So what sense does that make? If two or three times a night is normal, why bother?”
    “It’s like bifocals. I ain’t gettin’ ‘em if I don’t need ‘em.”
    “I can’t even get you to take Simvastatin!”
    “Yeah, but the impression I got is that I more needed to get back into shape. I’m running too; wasn’t sure I could, but apparently I can.”
    “Pretty soon you’ll have to go back to work,” he said.
    “Oh no,” I should have said. “Work or exercise. You can’t get in shape working.......”

  • “Bloomfield” is a nearby village. We live in West Bloomfield.
  • “Flonase®” is a prescription anti-allergen sprayed up the nose. I get hay-fever.
  • The “Messenger” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over two years ago. Best job I ever had.
  • RE: “Don’t forget I have a brain-injury......” —I had a stroke October 26, 1993.
  • “My age” is 64.
  • Wednesday, February 20, 2008

    ITEMS........

    ............ALLEGEDLY NOT PURCHASED AT MIGHTY WAL*MART, BECAUSE I’M ALLEGEDLY TOO CHICKEN TO GO THERE:

    —1) Our fantastical electronic roulette bathroom scale, assembled by Chinese child prison-labor, that renders a different weight each time ya stand on it, even when only separated by seconds.
    —2) Our wireless wall-mount phone, which works fine if ya don’t mind the exposed dangling charger line.
    —3) Our hardwired landline wall-mount in the master bathroom; which works and looks okay. —Our onliest successful Wal*Mart purchase.
    —4) A portable radio/tape deck for the kitchen, which tanked in about five years, and is currently residing in the basement. (I taped myself on that tape-deck; supposedly to improve my speech.)
    —5) A bunch of pot-holders, none of which satisfy: e.g. our “happy birthday” pot-holder, and the flowered pot-holders. (“Is this all they got? Jack, I thought this was supposed to be the greatest store in the universe.”)

    Some of this was purchased in the old Wal*Mart, where I got snapped at by illegal aliens and grinning store-associates on donut-break; and had to avoid kissing geezer.
    Other stuff was purchased at the new Wal*Mart (Wal*Mart story); better, if ya don’t mind parking in East Timor and hiking 300 miles barefoot in hip-deep snow across the vast wind-blown parking-lot to the store.

    Following the incredibly sage advice of the all-knowing Grand Poobah wannabee, I once checked out an oil-filter at Wal*Mart for the so-called soccer-mom minivan, and Advance Auto-Parts, which is on the way to Weggers, wanted 25¢ less.

  • RE: “Too chicken to go there......” My macho, blowhard brother-in-Boston, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, noisily claims I’m afraid of shopping Wal*Mart. I just don’t like shopping Wal*Mart. He also claims I have never shopped there, but I have.
  • RE: “I taped myself on that tape-deck; supposedly to improve my speech.......” —I had a stroke October 26, 1993, which slighty compromised my speech.
  • “Jack” (“Jack Hughes”) is my loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston.
  • “Illegal aliens” are the Wal*Mart checkout people; “kissing geezer” is the storefront greeter.
  • “The all-knowing Grand Poobah wannabee” is of course my macho, blowhard brother-in-Boston.
  • “The so-called soccer-mom minivan” is our 1993 Chevrolet Astrovan, traded two+ years ago for our Toyota Sienna van. My loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston called it a “soccer-mom minivan” as a put-down.
  • “Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua.
  • Tuesday, February 19, 2008

    Dreaded Wal*Mart

    DREADED WAL*MART
    The so-called “old guy” with the dreaded
    and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.
    Yesterday (Monday, February 18, 2008) I went out to the dreaded Canandaigua Wal*Mart in search of the elusive Ben & Fat Jerry’s chocolate ice-cream.
    CONTRARY TO THE NOISY BLUSTERING FROM THE ALMIGHTY BLUSTER-KING, WHO SEEMS TO BE ON ANOTHER OF HIS TIRESOMELY BORING SUPERIORITY-GIGS, I AIN’T AFFEARED OF WAL*MART, AS HE NOISILY INSISTS.
    NOR HAVE I NEVER BEEN TO WAL*MART, CERTAINLY ONE OF THE WILDEST FABRICATIONS I’VE EVER HEARD FROM WEST BRIDGEWATER.

    To the contrary, I’ve been to Wal*Mart enough times to conclude whatever puny savings it might allow ain’t worth the trouble.
    To be bearable, Wal*Mart has to be a direct hit — include Weggers and it becomes an added trip.
    Wal*Mart is one mile and three stoplights beyond Weggers. Go there, find a parking-spot, find what you’re shopping for, and you’ve added a half-hour.
    Weggers probably costs more, but avoiding all that “waisted” time is worth it.
    So here I am, finished at the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA, making a direct-hit to Wal*Mart only, in search of the elusive Ben & Fat Jerry’s chocolate ice-cream.
    I access the vast Wal*Mart parking-lot via mighty Lowes (the onliest way), deftly avoiding Glowering Intimidators in gigantical 5-mpg Chevy pickups, and Granny in her marauding white LeSabre, and park in East Timor, 300 miles from the store.
    I trudge barefoot in hip-deep snow across the huge wind-blown parking-lot. “I saw that!” GrandPop says from the open window of his salt-encrusted S10 pickup.
    “I have a witness,” a lady in an idling Wagoneer tells the 9-1-1 dispatcher on her cellphone. “That lady hit me and drove away. She knew it!” (When I came back out an Ontario County dippity-sheriff was wandering aimlessly around the parking-lot, roof-lights flashing, trying to find the Wagoneer.)
    I finally attained the huge store, entered the supermarket section, avoided a smelly old greeter kissing all-and-sundry, and began searching for the elusive Ben & Fat Jerry’s chocolate ice-cream.
    My long search narrowed — this ain’t Weggers, a store I know. I can’t go directly to the Ben & Fat Jerry’s.
    First I have to find the frozen-food freezers, then I see an “ice cream” aisle-sign overhead that says this way.
    I find Ben & Fat Jerry’s, but guess what, mighty Wal*Mart, the store that allegedly has everything, doesn’t have chocolate either, plus their selection seems smaller than Weggers.
    But I suspect Ben & Fat Jerry has discontinued making chocolate ice cream.
    Reduced again to Häagen-Dazs®, plus I buy bananas, since theirs look okay, so I can avoid a trip to Weggers on Wednesday (tomorrow, February 20, 2008), when I have a doctor’s appointment that scotches the YMCA (and Canandaigua).
    So what do I think of mighty Wal*Mart? This ain’t the first time I’ve shopped there.
    I still think I’d buy my produce at Weggers — it looks better.
    The new store is better than the old store; still “Bip-Bip” at the checkouts, but at least I wasn’t snapped at by illegal aliens, or grinning store-associates where I was interrupting their donut-break.
    But an extry trip just to buy the other stuff still ain’t worth it.

  • RE: “‘Old guy’ with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.......” —My macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston, who is 13 years younger than me, calls me “the old guy” as a put-down (I also am the oldest). I also am loudly excoriated by all my siblings for preferring a professional camera (like the Nikon D100) instead of a point-and-shoot. This is because I long ago sold photos to nationally published magazines.
  • “Ben & Fat Jerry” is Ben & Jerry.
  • “The almighty Bluster-King” is my macho, loudmouthed brother-from-Boston, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say. He makes a lotta noise because I abhor going to Wal*Mart, whereas I should be like him and shop “the greatest store in the universe.” He lives in West Bridgewater, Mass.
  • “Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua.
  • “Waisted” is how my blowhard brother-in-Boston noisily insists “wasted” is spelled. “Waist” is spelled “waste.”
  • A “glowering intimidator” is a macho wannabee driver, named after Dale Earnhardt, deceased, the so-called “intimidator” of NASCAR fame, who used to tailgate race-leaders and bump them at speed until they let him pass.
  • My sister in south Floridy noisily claims Wal*Mart “has everything,” so I should shaddup and shop there.
  • In the old Wal*Mart I was snapped at by “illegal aliens” (checkouts) and “grinning store-associates.” Wal*Mart has replaced their old Canandaigua store with a new SuperCenter (pictured). It’s much better.
  • Monday, February 18, 2008

    Notes from the Canandaigua YMCA

    —1) Medical emergency.........
    Someone finally fell off one of the treadmills.
    Not me; although I’ve wondered at times.
    Sometimes I’ve felt a little wonky, but nothing has ever happened.
    I’ve been a member there over a year, and used the exercise-gym all that time, but nothing has ever happened; not to me or anyone else.
    So here I am blasting away on the new semi-elliptical, and Amazon Lady is two machines over on an elliptical. —Amazon Lady is a YMCA employee.
    All of a sudden, KEE-RASH!
    I look up and someone is laying in the aisle, and the treadmill she was on is still a-goin’.
    A motorized treadmill will do that; it keeps a-goin’ and throws you off.
    Amazon Lady dismounts and walks up the aisle. It was all she could do to keep the lady from getting back on the treadmill.
    “Oh no; I’m a YMCA employee,” she interjected.
    The lady who fell off looked as haggard as Jack’s motorcycle-momma; the infamous Laurie. (“Slap another steak on the grill, Martha. Sweet-cheeks is comin’.”)
    What she was doing on a treadmill in her condition I’ll never know. Tryin’ to boom-and-zoom, but looked pretty haggard.
    “Maybe you should sit down,” Amazon Lady said. “Can I get you a glass of water?” (A really nice person; only vicious-looking; and can be vicious.)
    Haggard-lady takes a seat two machines north of me, on a recumbent exercise-machine for old geezers I’ve never used.
    “Don’t move,” Amazon Lady says; “I’ll be right back.”
    She leaves to get a glass of water, but the staff-doctor strides in.
    “Hi. My name’s Dr. Whatever; I’m the staff doctor. I have to interview you. I hear you had a little incident.”
    Yada-yada-yada-yada; on-and-on they went; and around-and-around. They must have yammered at least 15 minutes, but I still had time on the semi-elliptical.
    What I remember most is “Are you a member?”
    “No, but my daughter here is.”
    The doctor finally left, at which point Nadine entered.
    “Hi. I’m Nadine Whatever, the head of this facility. I need to interview you.”
    Around-and-around they went, starting with “I need your name and address.”
    (Nadine was carrying an official-looking clipboard.)
    Another 15 minutes of “yada-yada-yada-yada.”
    But at the end was this exchange: “I’ll need a doctor’s clearance before I can let you back on that treadmill. Those motorized treadmills are dangerous. They can throw you on the floor. I can’t in good conscience allow you on a treadmill without a doctor’s clearance. You’re not even a member.”
    “Yeah, but I am,” daughter whines. “This is my mom. She’s trying to get an athletic scholarship. (?????????) We wanna speak to the manager.”
    “If you want, I can get a higher person to speak to you, but I can’t in good conscience allow you on a treadmill without a doctor’s clearance. Your mother can join, and we’ll show her how to use all the cardio machines — and many are less dangerous.”
    “Nobody showed me” — I was tempted to say, but didn’t.

    —2) Plasma-babies on the fritz........
    There are three wall-mounted wide/flat-screen high-definition TVs mounted high in the exercise-gym, and every once in a while they’d go to snow — plus the cardio-theaters were going to nothing — an empty blue screen. Apparently the cable-feed was cutting out — probably our ISP again.
    So finally a front-desk person came in and shut off the plasma-babies with her remote.
    Oh well, I could care less. Those plasma-babies are only a distraction. And they don’t have any sound — they’re closed-captioned.
    After about a half-hour, young macho dude hobbled in — he sprained an ankle playing basketball — and turned on all the plasma-babies with a remote.
    The cable was back, apparently; and since it was macho dude he could tune the one to Sports-Center instead of the soaps.
    Mike-and-Mike: Greeny saying “Golic, you’re an idiot” in closed-captioning.

  • Amazon-Lady is a YMCA-employee. We call her that because she is extremely muscle-bound.
  • “Jack” (“Jack Hughes”) is my loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston. He noisily badmouths everything I do or say. He rides a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, which he bought at a Harley dealership owned and run by “Laurie.” Last summer we came upon a grizzled road-honey at a gas-station, who Jack suggested was “Laurie.” She calls him “Sweet-Cheeks.” RE: “Slap another steak on the grill, Martha. Sweet-cheeks is comin’.” My brother has spent a lot of money at that dealership, mostly on trinkets.
  • “Plasma-babies” are what my loudmouthed macho brother-in-Boston calls all high-definition wide/flat-screen TVs. Other technologies beside plasma are available, but he calls them all “plasma-babies.”
  • RE: “Probably our ISP again.” —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 wireless router. His Internet reception was spotty, so he loudly blamed our Internet-Service-Provider (ISP). Now anything untoward is due to my ISP.
  • Reflections on our HD radio

    Actually, I’m pretty happy with our HD radio, although I’ve only had it tuned to Dubya-Hex-Hex-Hi, and only to their regular FM classical-music feed.
    Dubya-Hex-Hex-Hi broadcasts two other HD channels, but I’ve listened to neither.
    Their HD classical music feed is slightly out of synch (behind I think) with their regular FM broadcast, but I only notice that if I have our old PAL FM radio on in the kitchen, and the HD on in our bedroom.
    You can only hear this in our laundry room.
    The sound is better from the HD radio.
    I’m sure part of that is the way the radio is engineered.
    They got the base from those tiny speakers boosted clear to smithereens — I had to back it off.
    But the HD radio is also broadcasting everything — including the quiet hum that underlies everything.
    I remember years ago when I got my hi-fi; back in the days of vinyl discs.
    “What’s all that hum?” I asked the clerk at the hi-fi store.
    “Oh, that’s surface-noise: the sound of the needle tracking the groove, and the turntable motor.”
    Tapes relayed tape-hiss. Dolby® was an effort to offset that.
    And older recording technology imprinted amplifier hum. What sense was there getting a Pink Floyd CD if it was just relaying the same amplifier hum that was on a vinyl disc? (I got a CD player.)
    Dubya-Hex-Hex-Hi’s HD signal seems to have also been a little erratic. Sometimes there’s no signal — which is why I never gave away my second PAL radio, and it’s in the bedroom.
    But it runs nearly all the time, and is better.
    But the PAL is portable, and the HD ain’t.

  • “Dubya-Hex-Hex-Hi” is WXXI-FM, 91.5, the classical-music radio-station in Rochester we listen to.
  • “PAL” is the Tivoli PAL radio.
  • Sunday, February 17, 2008

    “Broadway Limited”

    Photo by Paul Kutta.
    Observation-car “Tower View” westbound at Englewood, IL; 6/67.
    I’ve started reading a giant treatment of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Broadway Limited in my Summer 2006 issue of the National Railway Historical Society Bulletin which arrived the other day.
    Apparently publication of the NRHS Bulletin fell vastly behind, although I hadn’t noticed — it’s not like I wait for them with baited breath.
    So now they are catching up; which explains my recent Summer 2006 issue.
    The NRHS Bulletin has become a full-fledged 8&1/2 by 11 inch magazine with color reproduction — used to be half that size.
    The National Railway Historical Society apparently fell on hard times. It’s based in Philadelphia, and all was in disarray.
    I joined the National Railway Historical Society long ago in 1985, mainly to get the newsletter of the local NRHS Chapter (Rochester Chapter, NRHS) in Rochester.
    There had been an excursion across Western New York with Nickel Plate 765, and I only found out about it at the last minute — i.e. not in time to ride it.
    I thought the local newsletter might apprise me of upcoming railfan events of interest, and it did.
    Because of it I rode behind Norfolk & Western 611 and 1218. I chased 611 once with Jack, and rode a diesel excursion on the old New York Central Corning Secondary.
    The National Railway Historical Society is a nationwide umbrella organization for a slew of local railfan groups, one of which is the Rochester Chapter.
    So since I continue to belong to the Rochester Chapter, I also get stuff out of Philly; e.g. the NRHS Bulletin.
    When I joined in 1985, The Rochester Chapter was just a small group of railfans that met in an abandoned rural depot on Erie’s old Rochester branch. (They also met at the Rochester 40&8 during winter.)
    The railroad is still there, but now operated by Livonia, Avon (“AYE-von”) & Lakeville, and it no longer goes to Rochester.
    It’s a way of serviceing a lumberyard out along the old Lehigh-Valley Rochester branch.
    LA&L had to build a connector, and most of the LV Rochester branch is gone; including into Rochester. —In fact, the LV overpass over Elmwood Ave. in the city is now a parking-lot feeder for the University of Rochester.
    (Livonia, Avon & Lakeville is the shortline that operates all that remains of the Erie Rochester branch, that went from Corning [NY], on the Erie main, to Rochester.
    It was abandoned south of Livonia and largely obliterated.
    LA&L took over the Livonia-to-Avon segment and had a short branch to Lakeville, where it served a corn-syrup distributer.
    LA&L operated steam passenger excursions for a while (I rode it), but now LA&L is only a freight-line. In fact, the line to Livonia has been abandoned. They only operate to Lakeville.
    I suppose Conrail had the Avon-to-Rochester segment, but wanted to abandon it, as well as the entire Lehigh-Valley Buffalo Extension (also Conrail), thereby stranding that lumberyard out along the LV Rochester branch.
    So LA&L bought the Conrail remnant of the Erie Rochester branch, plus the LV line to the lumberyard, and connected the two in a field in the Rochester suburb of Henrietta.
    I asked a guy at the lumberyard if they still got carloads of lumber from the railroad, and he said yes — it was Livonia, Avon & Lakeville.)

    The Rochester Chapter has since grown, adding land to shelter its railroad equipment in a new shed. In 1985 all it was was a bunch of depot-side sidings to store all its rusting equipment outside — e.g. an EMD-powered Lehigh-Valley Alco road-switcher, and various critters from Rochester area industries, like an Alco RS1 from Kodak.
    But they needed more space to store stuff, so they added land up a hillside — the depot was in a depression.
    They also built a railroad up the hill from the depot so they could store stuff on their new land.
    I call it their life-size Lionel-set — Grampaw playing with the real thing.
    They couldn’t afford to grade (cut/fill) like a real railroad, so their life-size Lionel-set follows the lay-of-the-land: over hill-and-dale like a real railroad would never do. I rode it once: up-and-down over hill-and-dale at 5 mph — Grampaw playing with the real thing. (Their hill is too steep for a real railroad — they could never climb it with more than a few cars.)
    Photo by Frank G. Tatnall.
    The eastbound “Broadway” with GG1 #4902. The GG1 was the greatest railroad locomotive ever — many lasted over 40 years. The train is stopped at Paoli, a suburb west of Philly, to unload Philadelphia passengers, since it didn’t stop in Philly at that time. (5/30/61.)
    The “Broadway” was Pennsy’s premier Chicago-New York City passenger train; competing with New York Central’s “20th Century Limited” — or perhaps it was the reverse.
    The Broadway was the creme-de-la-creme; all Pullman drawing-rooms, and no coaches.
    In fact, it had two master suites that were larger than drawing-rooms, and had their own shower and even a radio.
    The Master-suites were extra-cost; as was the “Broadway.” And if any lineside dispatcher delayed it, he was fired.
    Of course, that was back before air transport became the accepted norm, where people get lobbed like cattle.
    In the first half of the 20th century the normal means of transit between two distant cities was by rail.
    But the Boeing 707 ended all that after 1958 when it went into service.
    The Broadway would leave Chicago at breakneck speed, often racing the Century on parallel tracks.
    But the Century would always win, since it had more modern power: the J3 Hudson.
    The Broadway was getting by with double K4s from the late ‘20s.
    Both the Century and the Broadway had semi circuitous routes to New York City, especially the Century, which had to dogleg through Albany and then down the Hudson.
    But the Broadway was doglegging too to Philly and then up to New York City.
    Plus it had to crest the Alleghenies, which the Century didn’t have to do, since it’s route was “water-level;” along rivers.
    The Broadway lasted into the Amtrak era, although all it was by then was just an east-west accommodation with coaches.
    But even that was eventually discontinued.
    The Broadway was Pennsy’s classiest act.

  • The Pennsylvania Railroad (“Pennsy”) 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.
  • “Nickel Plate 765” and “611” and “1218” are all restored steam-locomotives that operated (or still operate) steam-locomotive excursion-service. 611 (a 4-8-4) and 1218 (a huge 4-6-6-4 articulated), both previously of the Norfolk & Western Railroad, have since been retired, but Nickel Plate SuperPower Berkshire (2-8-4) #765 is still in service.
  • “Jack” (“Jack Hughes”) is my loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston. He noisily badmouths everything I do or say. At that time he was living in Fulton, NY, supervising construction of the Nine-Mile Point nuclear generating facility.
  • The “New York Central Corning Secondary” is their railroad-line from Lyons, NY to Corning, NY; now owned and operated by Norfolk Southern Railroad.
  • “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. “Alco” is American Locomotive Company of Schenectady, N.Y., a long-time manufacturer of steam-locomotives. (Actually it was an amalgamation of earlier steam locomotive builders.) Alco entered the diesel-locomotive business when the railroads began switching from steam to diesel, but eventually tanked because their diesels were less reliable than EMD. Alco is out of business. The Rochester Chapter’s ex Lehigh-Valley diesel is an Alco repowered by the railroad with an EMD engine.
  • A “J3 Hudson” (4-6-4) could run continuously at high speed without running out of steam. Double-headed Pennsy K4 Pacifics (4-6-2 — “double-headed” equals two engines) at that speed were courting running out of steam.

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  • Saturday, February 16, 2008

    "WAIT A MINUTE"

    So here I am blasting away on the stationary exercise bicycle at the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA.......

    A soap is on the wall-mounted plasma-baby — I think “All My Children.”
    Jesse (of course), who faked his death to end his marriage (?????), is leaving Pine Valley for the last time.
    “Train number (whatever) west for Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo loading now on Track 12.”
    Jesse sneaks furtively out of the steamy shadows and gets onto an old railroad-coach.
    “Wait a minute!” I think to myself. That coach was tuscan red. Since when are there any tuscan red coaches in current Amtrak service? That thing looks like a Pennsy P70.”
    The soap continues. Jesse finds a seat in the coach next to the tiny windows. Sure looks like a P70 to me. Them seats are basket-weave, and the lights are old-fashioned incandescent.
    And that’s the newspaper-plant next to the old Western Maryland depot in Cumberland where the Western Maryland Scenic starts.
    I think Western Maryland Scenic has P70s.
    Crystal (I think her name is “Crystal;” but if not, there’s a “Crystal” in the cast — actually it’s “Angie.”) walks slowly out of the station waiting room — the same massive wooden doors we walked through after buying tickets for a Western Maryland Scenic excursion. This is beginning to look more and more like Western Maryland Scenic Railroad.
    Panning-shot time. The camera, down between the rails, pans up upon good old Redskin GP30; the diesel locomotive we rode behind on our Western Maryland Scenic excursion.
    They have the Redskin painted over, but it’s clearly the Redskin GP30 — you don’t fool the old railfan.
    The train slowly leaves the station — “wait a minute” again. How can there be a track 12 when I only see two tracks? And the Cumberland WM station had only two-four tracks; two the freight-line.
    Crystal/Angie is now on the platform, and YEP that looks like the handicap loading ramp at the old WM depot that WMSR uses.
    They can’t show much of the depot. I don’t know where Pine Valley is supposed to be, but it ain’t Cumberland, Md.
    Sounds like it may be in the Hudson River Valley, but there’s no Hudson-like river in Cumberland.
    And that “Pine Valley” station-sign looks brand spanking new.
    The train begins accelerating, and now Crystal/Angie is running down the red stone platform — looks just like the platform at the old WM depot in Cumberland.
    The train crosses Baltimore St., gates down and lights flashing. The brakie that flags the crossing hops on the rear coach of the train — just like the real thing.
    Crystal/Angie runs across the street and starts down the right-of-way. Only one track remains of the old Western Maryland Connellsville division; the track Western Maryland Scenic uses.
    Which means the second track switches into the remaining track, and that’s what Crystal/Angie is running.
    She falls and breaks down in tears; as the train disappears into the weedy right-of-way through Cumberland — she saw Jesse in the coach window, but now the train is gone.
    And that last coach didn’t look like a P70, but it was tuscan red; sounds like Western Maryland Scenic.
    But that ain’t how Western Maryland Scenic works. It goes up to Frostburg, and then reverses the train back down to Cumberland.
    So guess what! That tuscan red coach is backing into the station, allowing Jesse to be reunited with his Crystal/Angie. And that coach has “Western Maryland Scenic” painted above the windows.
    Again, “wait a minute!” I thought this train was supposed to be heading to Buffalo. How come it’s returning to the station in reverse? Well, at least Western Maryland Scenic didn’t have to alterate much to do the scene.
    Jesse steps off of the tuscan red P70, disappearing into a cloud of steam.
    Again, “wait a minute!” Since when does current Amtrak practice use steam-heat to heat its cars? They use a 440-volt umbilical the whole length of the train to heat it, and the locomotive has a separate 440-volt generator.
    But we need those steamy vapors; that’s part of the railroad ambience. Trains no longer use steam-heat, but did when they had steam-engines. In fact, when railroads started dieselizing, they had to have steam-boilers to generate the steam for steam-heat. The GG1 had a steam-boiler.
    Jesse steps out of a cloud of steam and is reunited with Crystal/Angie on the old red-stone WM Cumberland depot platform. Sweetness and light.
    After all, it is a soap — gotta keep them bored Baptist hotties satisfied.

  • “Plasma-babies” are what my loudmouthed macho brother-in-Boston calls all high-definition wide/flat-screen TVs. Other technologies beside plasma are available, but he calls them all “plasma-babies.” The Canandaigua YMCA has three high-definition wide/flat-screen TVs mounted to the walls of its exercise-gym.
  • “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. It had standard passenger coaches called the P70 all throughout the first half of the 20th century. All Pennsy passenger coaches were painted “tuscan red” — a brownish-red.
  • RE: “Old Redskin GP30.......” —Western Maryland Scenic Railroad had two EMD GP30s, and one was painted red as a Washington Redskins engine. It had a gold Redskins emblem on its nose, but that was obscured for this shoot.
  • The EMD GP30 is a rather collectible version of the EMD “Geep,” as it was the only one styled. Other “Geeps” are the GP7, GP9, GP18, GP35, GP40, GP40-2, etc. “Geep” is the nickname given to EMD GP road-switchers (four axles). “Covered-Wagon” is the nickname given to full cab-units: e.g. F-units by EMD, FAs by Alco.
  • “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: “Alterate......” —I was once driving a Transit bus (I drove transit-bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, for 16&1/2 years) down a main highway, and passed a dry-cleaner that had a sign out front that said it “alterated” clothes.
  • The GG1 was the Pennsylvania Railroad’s GG1 electric locomotive; extremely successful and long-lived, the greatest railroad locomotive of all time.
  • A loud famblee argument has surfaced about “hottie.” I follow the old definition where “hottie” equaled a slut. But all my Christian-zealot relatives loudly declare that “hottie” has become a symbol of Christian virtue and attractiveness.

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  • Friday, February 15, 2008

    “To be worn with PASSION!”

    Epson Expression 10000 XL.
    “To be worn with PASSION!”
    “This product has been licensed by Ferrari as part of the official fanware range.
    To be worn with PASSION!”
    Um, sorry; but to me its’s just a tee-shirt.
    I started wearing tee-shirts at the mighty Mezz, an alternative to dress shirts with jeans.
    Dress seemed to be pretty casual there, especially among us grunt-workers: thems that actually produced the paper — e.g. us paste-up guys.
    The only one who wore a suit and tie was the head-honcho, the company prez and maximum leader, “Junior,” son of George Ewing (“YEW-ing”) Sr., publisher, the guy who bought the paper in 1956.
    (Senior retired during my tenure.)
    I was still kind of a grunt, but an electronic grunt (newsroom, not press-guy)
    “What is it you actually do here, Grady?” I’d always be introduced as.
    “I don’t know. Anything and everything,” I’d say.
    “This paper couldn’t publish without Grady,” they’d say.
    “You reconfigured the stockbox from a two-hour job to five minutes? (That’s not possible.) Howdja do that, Grady?”
    “You mean that gigantic Canandaigua Academy honor-roll is ready to print? That had to be a lotta work; retyping all those names.”
    “That’s not what I did, Boss-Man. I used Word-tricks. If something’s wrong, it’s their mistake.”
    “Well, I don’t care how you did it, or understand, but if it’s ready-to-go, let’s print it. We just got it two days ago.”
    “You just blew 3/4ths of 2B,” Buchiere (“Bew-SHEER”) would shout at me. “I don’t have to do anything. Wham-bam. Thank you, Grady.”
    “I don’t know how he does it,” Buchiere would whisper to a next-door reporter; “but he just saved me hours of work.”
    And we were the only ones publishing those page-filling honor-rolls — at least six school-districts; two schools per district.
    So I purchased a slew of tee-shirts; some motorbike tee-shirts, and some railroad tee-shirts.
    I also purchased tee-shirts from the mighty Curve Gift Shop; one of which is my blue Conrail tee-shirt 44 points out is not the kerreck font.
    Well, very close; and it appears to be the right color.
    If 44 can distinguish hairline font differences, and point them out, I’m glad. That makes him a Hughes.
    But they’re just tee-shirts to me.
    A while ago I was in the dressing-room at the physical therapy I was thrown out of, and I was wearing my “Triumph Motorcycles” tee-shirt.
    A guy walked in and asked if I had ever owned a Triumph Motorcycle.
    “Nope,” I said. “It’s just a tee-shirt.”
    At the Canandaigua YMCA a guy once asked about my “Norton” tee-shirt.
    “What’s ‘Norton?’” he asked.
    “My first motorcycle was a Norton,” I said; “and Norton is a character in the Honeymooners. He was played by Art Carney.
    And those were the days of live TV. Once the set started falling apart during a Honeymooners skit, so Gleason and Carney winged it. It was hilarious!”
    And so the Ferrari tee-shirt gets added to my vast collection — added to my “Indian Motorcycles” tee-shirt, my John Deere tee-shirt, my BSA tee-shirt, and my various railroad tee-shirts, some of which are wearing out.
    My Ferrari tee-shirt is as nice as my Alfa-Romeo (“Alpha-Romeo?”) tee-shirt, since both are soft; and everything else, even though 100% cotton, dries like cardboard.

  • The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over two years ago. Best job I ever had.
  • “Grady” was my nickname at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper — see at right.
  • “Boss-Man” is Robert Matson, the Executive-Editor of the newspaper. “Buchiere” is Steve Buchiere, a page-editor.
  • RE: “Some motorbike tee-shirts, and some railroad tee-shirts......” —I ride a motorcycle, and am a railfan.
  • The “mighty Curve” (Horseshoe 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.) It has a Gift Shop.
  • “44” (“Agent-44”) is my brother-in-Delaware’s onliest son Tom. He recently graduated college as a computer-engineer. He also is a railfan. (His parents aren’t.)
  • Horseshoe Curve was built by 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 operator number two, followed by Conrail. Conrail was sold and broken up not too long ago, and Horseshoe Curve is now operated by Norfolk Southern Railroad.
  • “Indian” and “BSA” were motorcycle manufacturers that are now kaput; Indian American and BSA British.
  • My loudmouthed macho brother-in-Boston noisily insists “Alfa-Romeo” is spelled “Alpha-Romeo.”
  • Thursday, February 14, 2008

    Tidbits

    —1) At the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA..........

    I am cranking the one-and-only arm bicycle.
    Pony-tail is next to me blasting away on an elliptical of sorts. Her machine has a cardio-theater. She has it tuned to reality-TV or something.
    I glance over, and I see a helicopter shot of an errant bulldozer smashing into everything. So far it has crumpled a car or two, and smashed a few buildings. Apparently it is driverless — reminding me of the time a bus took out a wall.
    Every night when we pulled in we parked our buses in a conga-line in front of the bus-wash building. Therein the buses would get washed, swept out, and refueled.
    We were supposed to shut the buses off, but didn’t in deference to the poor bus-washers. Once off there was a pretty good likelihood a bus wouldn’t start; in fact, it was so dead, it wouldn’t even crank.
    So we’d leave ‘em runnin’. Set the brake and put ‘em in neutral.
    Only problem was, -a) just because you levered it into neutral didn’t mean it was actually in neutral — it might still be in gear.
    Plus -b) the air might leak down and release the parking-brake.
    So a driver pulls in, kicks it into neutral, pops the parking-brake, and goes home. Still in gear, of course, and the air leaks down releasing the parking-brake.
    So driverless the bus wanders across the yard and takes out a wall.
    The driver has been home at least three hours, and gets a call from Transit. He’s fired of course. Them mindless management minions gotta blame (and fire) someone.
    We get a notice from the mindless management minions about the kerreck procedure is to shut off the buses after pulling in. So we do that for a couple days, driving the poor bus-washers up the wall.
    But no way are the mindless management minions gonna take the fall for that errant bus that was still in gear, and leaked off its air.
    The Union (perish-the-thought) had to save that poor guy’s job.
    So here’s this driverless bulldozer lumbering about. It crashes into a hardware, and then they put a giant 89-ton road-grader in front of it, which just gets shoved aside. The bulldozer is rumbling down the street — we get shots of crumpled stop-signs and brush.
    From overhead we see the bulldozer, now trailing billows of steam from its radiator (it’s probably overheated) smashing a dump-truck.
    For crying out loud, I think; it’s only doing about 1 mph. I think my brother-in-Boston would jump aboard and stop the sucker. In fact, I bet I could even do it myself though I’m 64.
    The treads aren’t moving that fast — in the time ya climbed aboard the treads ya might advance three feet.
    BALONEY ALERT! —This ain’t reality TV; this is destruction of a Hollywood set.
    Pony-tail finishes and gets off, but the cardio-theater remains on — still reality TV.
    We’re now in a squad-car; the cop has his video-cam aimed out the windshield.
    A crotch-rocket passes, and the rider has it screwed to the wall. The cop is in hot pursuit, but the crotch-rocket is well over the limit.
    He passes a couple cars on a curve, crossing the double-yellow, but gets away with it.
    I turned away. I can see where this is headed. Crotch-rocket will head-on a car innocently coming the other way, and kill himself, or perhaps tumble over an embankment crashing mightily in flames.
    How many times have I seen SUVs tumbling into pieces for the cop video-cam? (Once I saw a Corvette rear-end a stopped semi, and the ‘Vette was doing 150+.)
    You-Tube has trains crashing.
    Used to be promoters would head-on two engineerless steam locomotives out on the prairie, and the boilers exploded.
    I’ll take the soaps, or perhaps Ty Pennington’s blue-helmeted minions napalming a perfectly good house.

    —2) At the mighty Canandaigua Weggers.......

    I’m perusing the analgesics to find lo-dose (81mg) aspirin with a safety-coat.
    I used to take much larger aspirins: 325 and 500 mg, but my doctor suggested that was overkill — that I could get by with lo-dose.
    So now it’s one lo-dose in the morning, and two at night if I exercise — only one if I don’t — two in the morning if it’s after walking the dog.
    My lo-dose is running out, so I need more.
    An old geezer is in front of me also perusing the aspirin, and says “these things sure cost less at Wal*Mart.”
    “Yeah,” I say; “and it costs me more than that to just drive there.”
    Apparently old geezer lives east of Weggers, so can hit Wal*Mart on the way. I don’t. For me Wal*Mart is an added trip.
    So aspirin might cost a dollar more at Weggers, but I wouldn’t have to find them, since I know the store. I’m also going to Weggers to buy produce anyway, so I might as well buy aspirin. It saves me an added trip that would cost more than I would save.
    *If there’s ever any reason I’ll try Wal*Mart it’s because Weggers has decided to discontinue selling Ben & Fat Jerry’s chocolate ice-cream.
    Häagen-Dazs is okay, but it ain’t Ben & Fat Jerry’s.

    —3) RE: The new machine at the YMCA.......

    20 minutes yesterday (Wednesday, February 13, 2008); 25 if you count the five-minute cooldown. 25 minutes (with five-minute cooldown = 30 minutes total; their time-limit) is within range. But they only have two machines.

    —4) Egg-follies.......

    We have taken to buying brown eggs from an independent egg-place on 5&20.
    This is because Linda doesn’t wanna patronize an egg-factory.
    Weggers had an egg-factory, but had to get outta the business because the animal-rights crowd was always invading.
    Egg-factories put the hens en masse in cages, and collect the eggs en masse. The hens are often debeaked, and treated inhumanely. Sanitation is usually compromised.
    What matters is egg-production. It’s the slammer for the hens. And if a hen stops laying, it’s tossed.
    So now we’re patronizing an egg-guy along 5&20 (the way to Canandaigua) — with hopes they’re humane to their chickens.
    I’ve never seen them free-ranging. They must have them inside in sheds in the back lot.
    Weggers sells honky eggs; the egg-guy brown eggs. An egg is an egg. The egg-guy’s eggs are varied sizes; Weggers eggs are all sized — but they don’t have that fancy-dan “Eggland” sticker. (My wife always wonders how they get the hens to do that.)
    A visit to the egg-guy means driving down a long driveway, mounting a deck, and ringing a bell.
    I always get a hearty welcome from the famblee dog when I do that.
    The egg-guy means I can also recycle the egg-cartons — no styrofoam cartons from Weggers. These are formed paper (or cardboard — I don’t know; I’M SURE THE ALL-KNOWING BLUSTER-BOY CAN TELL ME.)

    —5) Pizza for Valentine’s Day.........

    The local TV news did a report on a pizza-place making pizza for Valentine’s Day.
    “How much is it?” the reporter asks.
    “$8,500,” the owner says.
    “For crying out loud,” I laugh.
    “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” I say.
    Hold it; this is a special pizza — heart-shaped with heart-shaped pepperoni-slices.
    Still, eight-thousand five-hundred smackaroos for a pizza? They have to be kidding!
    So the reporter interviews the pizza-shop owner. He drones on — I can’t believe he’s serious about this. “Marcy, it’s everywhere!”
    A youngish patron walks into the pizza-shop, and orders the “St. Valentine’s Day special.”
    “That’ll be $8,500,” the clerk says.
    Patron rifles his pants-pocket, producing perhaps $1.78.
    “Can’t do it!” he says, and ambles out utterly defeated.
    Worse yet is if patron calls the pizza-shop to order.
    Does the pizza-shop have to rent a Wells-Fargo armored truck? Is it delivered by dippities with pistols drawn?
    This is even more outrageous than White Flower Farm, which wants $385 for a basket of pine-cones.
    “You just gave me a story,” I shout.

  • RE: “Reminding me of the time a bus took out a wall......” —For 16&1/2 years I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, N.Y.
  • “My brother-in-Boston” is Jack Hughes. He is a manager at a power-plant.
  • A “crotch-rocket” is an extremely fast and powerful motorcycle.
  • “Ty Pennington’s blue-helmeted minions” is ABC’s “Extreme Home Makeover.”
  • “Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua.
  • “Ben & Fat Jerry” is Ben & Jerry.
  • “The new machine at the YMCA” is a semi-elliptical where you can vary the step-length.
  • “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.
  • “Linda” is my wife of 40 years.
  • “Honky eggs” are white eggs.
  • “The all-knowing bluster-boy” is my all-knowing, blowhard brother-in-Boston, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say. He’s the power-plant manager.
  • “Marcy” is my number-one ne’er-do-well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-Do-Wells. Marcy married Bryan Mahoney (ex-reporter from the Daily-Messenger), and together they live near Boston. Marcy once asked me how I saw so much insanity. “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” I told her.
  • White Flower Farm.
  • 1958 Impala

    1958 Chevrolet Impala.
    My March 2008 Classic-Car magazine makes the interesting assertion that the 1958 Chevrolet Impala was a landmark car, a huge stretch for Chevrolet.
    I always thought of it as such, as it was the first Chevrolet glitzmobile, in contrast to Chevrolet’s humble stature.
    But apparently the firewall and body were lower than the Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac (the GM B-car, on which it was based); so the Impala could be dramatically lower.
    The Impala shared its C-pillar with only the Pontiac Bonneville, another glitzmobile. The B-O-C cars didn’t have it.
    Also, only the Bonny and the Imp have that faux rear scoop-outlet on the roof.
    Thankfully, the glitzmobile was only made one year — although 1959 was even worse; the ugliest Chevrolet ever.
    In 1958 the Impala was a subset of the BelAir.
    The next year the Impala became the premier model; the top of the line and the BelAir second.
    They weren’t as attractive to hot-rodders as the ‘55-‘56-‘57.
    The 1958 Impala was a glitzmobile; rolling sculpture — a car possessed of long rakish lines.
    I remember Duke-of-Earl wannabees dressing them up with Cruiser-skirts and Continental kits. Pink Fuzzy-dice on the inside rear-view mirror, and raccoon tails on the twin swept-back radio antennas, and the Everly Brothers blasting out of the AM radio (“Don’t want your love; any more.........”).
    (I remember seeing that gorgeous steering-wheel often installed in ‘55 Chevy hot-rods.)
    The ‘58 Impala was a final expression of post-war Eisenhower exuberance — also the end of the Harley Earl era at GM; Bill Mitchell replaced him. 1959 and ‘60 were worse, but in 1961 GM cars started getting more sensible.

  • “GM” is of course General Motors.
  • RE: “B-car.....” —General Motors made essentially three cars in the fifties; the A, B, and C-cars. A was the smallest, and C was the largest Cadillac. B was in between. B-O-C equals Buick-Oldsmobile-Cadillac.
  • “C-pillar” is the rearmost roof support of a car.
  • “Cruiser-skirts and Continental kits.....” —“Cruiser-skirts” were a special manifestation of rear-wheel fender-skirts; available at custom-car shops for just about every car-brand. They skirted the rear-wheel and extended along the lower body all the way to the rear bumper. Longish cars (e.g the ‘58 Chevy and the ‘57 Ford and Mercury) looked great with them. They were usually the same color as the car-body; and had a chrome band on top. A “Continental-kit” was the spare-tire seated in a rear-bumper extender outside behind the trunk. Often the spare was encased in a metal shroud the same color as the car.
  • RE: “Twin swept-back radio antennas......” —Young Car owners used to mount dual radio-antennas on the rear deck of a car. The radio antennas were swept back. It was part of “the look.”
  • “Harley Earl” was the chief GM auto stylist for nearly 50 years. He was replaced by Bill Mitchell in 1958.

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  • Wednesday, February 13, 2008

    Roulette

    (FROM THE VAUNTED “AIN’T TECHNOLOGY WONDERFUL” FILE)

    We think the world of our Motorola RAZR cellphones, although from what I can see they’re probably old hat by now.
    Most cellphones I see nowadays aren’t RAZR; flip-phones, but a little smaller.
    (I’M SURE OLD SUPERIOR-MOUTH WILL WEIGH IN NOISILY AT THIS POINT TO TELL ME RAZRS ARE 20TH CENTURY TECHNOLOGY, ALTHOUGH MY RESEARCH SAYS 2005.)
    —Although in today’s world, if technology is over three years old (like Internet-Explorer or Windoze XP) it’s antique.
    The size of the RAZR is partly what works in its favor.
    Our previous cellphones were smaller, but the tiny keys were like match-heads.
    You had to use a pencil for fear of hitting two keys at once.
    The RAZR’s display is bright, but I could use brighter still.
    Our old cellphones washed out outside in sunlight. You can use the RAZR outside, but you have to get in the shade.
    What’s strange is turning it off.
    Every attempt is a roulette game; what’s it gonna do this time?
    The usual drill is an off-screen followed by chimes, and then the display goes off.
    But that’s not what always happens.
    Sometimes no off-screen; sometimes no chimes. Sometimes the display goes to neutral gray, and doesn’t actually go off until I flip the phone closed.
    Other times the phone doesn’t go off at all — I have to pull the battery.
    And then there is disconnecting the charger.
    I always charge the phone off (says I should), but disconnecting the charger sometimes turns the phone on.
    “Bing-bong-bing-bong-bing-bong-bing!” at 3 a.m.
    “Who programmed these things?” I always say. “Some Microsoft graduate?”

  • “Old superior-mouth” is my loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston “Jack;” who noisily badmouths everything I do or say. He accuses me of being inferior and stupid regarding technology. He says I should use Internet-Explorer and Windoze XP (like him), which are both at least 10 years old. I have Internet-Explorer but hardly use it because it’s inferior to FireFox.
  • RE: “Who programmed these things? Some Microsoft graduate?” —My siblings say I am utterly stupid and reprehensible for preferring the Apple platform. (Jesus used a PC.)

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  • Tuesday, February 12, 2008

    Monthly calendar report for February

    THE WINNER
    Photo by Jim Buckley.
    Pennsy J #6496 slogs into Bellevue, Ohio; July 1, 1956.
    My best February 2008 calendar entry is my All-Pennsy color calendar, Pennsy J #6496 (above).
    The picture was taken in 1956, so #6496 looks a little neglected and battleworn, as did all Pennsy steam-engines as use of steam on the Pennsy wound down.
    (Steam was discontinued on Pennsy in 1957.)
    As mentioned earlier (Monthly calendar report for January, 2008), the J was not a true Pennsy engine.
    Pennsy designed their steam-engines in-house, but didn’t do steam development in the ‘30s, because of -a) electrification, and -b) the many steam-engines electrification released.
    So when WWII broke out, with its flood of traffic, Pennsy was stuck with tired old steam-engines from the ‘20s, and even the teens.
    They had to go outside; they didn’t have time to develop a new steam-engine. —In fact, the War Production Board prohibited it.
    Meanwhile, steam-locomotive development had leapt ahead during the ‘30s — primarily SuperPower from Lima (“LYE-mah;” not “LEE-mah”) Locomotive Works in Lima (“LYE-mah;” not “LEE-mah”), Ohio.
    SuperPower was a big boiler and big firebox to generate prodigious amounts of steam; enough to not run out at constant high speeds.
    The Pennsy J is the Lima SuperPower 2-10-4 designed for Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, with slight modifications, mainly to make it Pennsy.
    As such it lacks the trademark Belpaire firebox used on nearly all Pennsy steam-engines.
    A Belpaire firebox isn’t round at the top, following the curvature of the boiler courses.
    Connection of the firebox to the boiler has always been a challenge. That connection was prone to cracks and leaks, and could fail over time due to vibration.
    Of course, the bottom of the firebox had to be flat to accommodate the fire grate, and the roof of the firebox was usually also flat, but the boiler-top over the firebox was round.
    With a Belpaire firebox, the boiler-courses over the firebox-top were also flat (allowing a wider firebox roof), inviting difficulty where that area met the boiler.
    But apparently Pennsy thought well enough of it to use the Belpaire design on just about every steam-engine. —Plus they engineered reinforcement into the design.
    The J was also somewhat a misfit for Pennsy, since Pennsy was so mountainous it couldn’t allow high cruising speeds.
    —Except west of the Alleghenies, where Js gravitated. The one pictured is on a north-south line in Ohio where a J could constantly cruise at 50+.
    Js were also used on the slopes of the Alleghenies, and around Horseshoe Curve, but slogging uphill at 25-30 mph with a J was kind of a waste.
    Yet the J was an extremely powerful locomotive, although my most recent Classic Trains Magazine relates one stalling uphill out of Indianapolis with over 100 cars.
    The train made three attempts, and always stalled in the same spot.
    On the fourth attempt it finally made it, but a small 600-hp diesel switcher was pushing on the rear.
    Atop the grade, the switcher uncoupled and disconnected on-the-fly.
    6496 may look a little tired, but there’s still that gorgeous red keystone number-plate.

    C5
    Photo by Richard Prince, I guess.
    In second place this month is the beautiful dark-blue 2002 C5 Corvette (pictured above) in my All-Corvette calendar.
    The C5 (1997-2004) is somewhat of a mistake to Corvette cognoscenti, big and blowsy.
    It followed the C4 (1984-1996), and proceeds the fabulous C6 (2005-to current)
    The “C”-letter nomenclature is kind of recent. Earlier Corvettes weren’t called that, although they have since been classified as such.
    The earliest Corvettes (through the 1962 model-year) are C1s, the Sting Rays (1963-1967) the C2s, and the third iteration (1968-1983) the C3s.
    But they weren’t labeled that at that time.
    Of course, the Corvette would have never succeeded without that fabulous Small-Block motor.
    Then too there was Zora Arkus Duntov trying to extract ever more performance out of the ‘Vette.
    I remember hitchhiking in a StringRay at Houghton.
    It was a coupe, which meant you had to wedge your luggage between the seats — no opening trunk.
    And it felt like I was riding in a drum.
    Sure sounded like a drum — every bump echoing through the body.
    A guy at the mighty Mezz had a red C5.
    He was only a newspaper-carrier; which meant where did he ever get the money to purchase a newish C5?
    I remember looking at it longingly, but it was rather large, and I remembered my drum-experience at Houghton.
    We also passed a red C5 going to a WXXI shindig at Brock Yates’ house in Wyoming, N.Y.
    The C5 was being driven by a divorced dentist, dapper in his tan-suade Tab Hunter blazer and plaid ivy-league cap, with his gorgeous trophy-wife riding shotgun.
    Yates had apparently restored the mansion he was living in, and it was featured in a locally-produced classic homes program. (Yates is also a WXXI listener.)
    Yates was once an editor at Car-and-Driver Magazine, but now is retired. Like me he’s a car-guy, and more-or-less led my car enthusiasm.
    So here we are in our CR-V, driving through rural Wyoming County, and we pass the red C5. Divorced-dentist was pussy-footing it for fear of inflaming the local constabulatory — a red Corvette is cop-bait.
    Yates had set aside a small tree-shaded grassy meadow for parking; and our CR-V has about 10 inches of clearance, the C5 about three.
    In we go — I was terrified; “don’t know as I woulda tried that,” I said to divorced-dentist.
    The front of his C5 was shoving the grass down as he navigated the meadow.

    Photo by Shawn Conley.
    Norfolk Southern double-stack leaves Livernois Yard in Detroit in a snowshower with a single unit (#9601) on the point.
    Third-best of my February calendar entries is my Norfolk Southern Employees calendar, a shot of a single GE road-unit leading a double-stack out of a yard in Detroit in a snowshower.
    Sadly, diesel locomotives have gotten strong enough any more that often one unit is enough for a freight-train on flat terrain; especially if that locomotive is alternating-current (AC).
    (9601 is not alternating-current.)
    At first, all diesel-locomotives were direct-current to the traction-motors like trolley-cars. The giant diesel-engine pushed a generator that generated direct-current for the traction-motors on the wheel-axles.
    But technology has advanced, such that locomotives can have alternating-current traction-motors, which lug better than direct-current.
    So now where one diesel-locomotive might be enough, earlier two or more diesel-locomotives were needed.
    And two or more units wide-open climbing a hill was a thrill — “assaulting the heavens,” I always said. (The GEs are quieter than the old EMDs; which were two-stroke and very loud.)
    Diesel-locomotives have gotten more powerful too.
    The first EMD diesel-electric road locomotives (the FT, in 1939) were 1,350 horsepower.
    Now we’re over 4,000 — 9601 is a Dash 9-40CW (a Dash 9-44CW derated from 4,400 horsepower to 4,000 horsepower — all Norfolk Southern Dash-9s were built to the lower rating).
    So between alternating-current and increased horsepower, often one unit is enough.
    The mighty Curve still rates two or more units, but often those lead units are enough to negate the need for helpers.
    Helpers are still kept at the base of The Hill, and often added to trains.
    But I certainly have seen enough trains climbing The Hill unassisted.

    Photo by Philip Makanna.
    Hawker Hurricane (the airplane that won the Battle of Britain).
    My friend the all-powerful Tim Belknap at the mighty Mezz will be pleased that the Hawker Hurricane is the February 2008 entry in my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar.
    “The Spitfire was a more exciting airplane, but it was the Hurricane that won the Battle of Britain,” he tells me.
    The Spitfires shot down the Messerschmidts, but it was the Hurricanes that shot down the Nazi bombers.
    Hurricanes often returned to base riddled with cannon-fire. The Hurricane could take a beating.
    It’s too bad the photo is rather pedestrian — too dark.
    The Hurricane is not as exciting to look at as the Spitfire, but I’m sure they weren’t a pleasant site to German bomber crews.
    Belknap apparently read a book that said it was the Hurricane that won the Battle of Britain.
    I always thought it was the Spitfire. His comments were an education.

    Photo by Peter Vincent.
    The Mickey Ellis 1932 Ford roadster pickup.
    Three calendars remain; most of which aren’t worth depicting.
    I suppose the February entry in my All-Deuce calendar is worth depicting, although I don’t think it’s a very good picture.
    It’s a ‘32 Ford roadster pickup, looking pretty stock, except it has a 350 Chevy Small-Block driving through a 700R4 auto-tranny.
    Ho-hum. The best ‘32s are the coupes: three-window and then five-window. Followed by the roadsters.
    Worst of all are the sedans, but the pickups look better.
    To my mind, a pickup is nowhere near as attractive as a coupe — plus a ‘32 Ford pickup is not as functional as an Advance-Design Chevy, which looks great, and would carry a lot.
    A ‘32 Ford pickup won’t carry much of anything. It’s essentially a car — although you could get pickup beds to fit in the open trunks of coupes long ago. (They probably didn’t have much capacity either.)

    My Audio-Visual Designs B&W All-Pennsy calendar isn’t worth depicting.
    It’s a Pennsy freight with Alco power on the point. It’s on the storied Middle Division in Perdix, Pa.
    Ho-hum. It least it’s Alco; which makes it worth publishing.
    But it’s not a very dramatic picture.

    Finally is my Three Stooges calendar.
    Again, the Stooges only succeed in a movie. The pictures are probably single frames of movies — this looks rather familiar, a picture of Larry painting Curly’s head while Moe looks on aghast. It looks like an outtake from a Stooges movie where they are painters. Curly is looking the wrong way, and Moe looks unbelievable.
    Such things would never get noticed in a movie, but in a picture they stand out like a sore thumb.
    I doubt you could even pose the Stooges. Movies are their medium.

  • “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.
  • RE: “electrification........” —Pennsylvania Railroad electrified many of its eastern lines: i.e. it used electric locomotives, powered by overhead-wire (instead of third-rail). It electrified it’s entire main stem from New York City to Washington, D.C.; plus from Philadelphia to Harrisburg. Some remains, although now owned and operated by Amtrak: i.e. the New York City to Washington, D.C. segment as the Northeast Corridor (which has been recently electrified to Boston); and Philadelphia to Harrisburg. Pennsy wanted to electrify all the way to Pittsburgh, but never did. Other lines were also electrified, but have since been de-energized. Maintaining the wire is costly. Electrification is usually by third rail alongside the tracks, usually 600-volt direct-current. Pennsy’s electrification was 11,000-volt alternating current via suspended overhead wire. Pennsy’s electrified equipment had alternating-current motors. Direct-current motors would require rectification of the alternating-current. Later Pennsy equipment had this, when rectification by silicon-diode came into use. The E-44 freight-locomotives used 600-volt direct-current motors, same as diesel-electric locomotives.
  • RE: “Alleghenies......” — The north-south Allegheny mountains, part of the Appalachians, are the main barrier to east-west trade. They are particularly challenging in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Railroad was phenomenally successful because it surmounted the Alleghenies without steep grades — extraordinary in the middle 1800s (when grading was a more a challenge than it is today). Their climb over the Alleghenies is known as “The Hill,” and includes Horseshoe Curve.
  • 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.)
  • RE: “Uncoupled and disconnected on-the-fly.......” — The train did not stop to uncouple the helper engine.
  • The Chevrolet “Small-Block” V8 was introduced at 265 cubic-inches displacement in the 1955 model-year. It continued production for years, first at 283 cubic inches, then 327, then 350. Other displacements were also manufactured. The Chevrolet “Big-Block” was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches, and was unrelated to the Small-Block.
  • “Houghton” is Houghton College, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it. Houghton is a religious college.
  • The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over two years ago. Best job I ever had.
  • WXXI”-FM, 91.5, is the classical-music radio-station in Rochester we listen to.
  • “The CR-V” is our 2003 Honda CR-V SUV.
  • “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.
  • “Helpers” are often used to help a train get over a grade. If the road-power isn’t enough, helpers are often added to assist getting over a hill — often both front and back. The railroad has helper-sets based at the base of “The Hill” over the Alleghenies; usually sets of two or more locomotives. The “small 600-hp diesel switcher ... pushing on the rear” was a helper.
  • RE: “The all-powerful Tim Belknap.......” —Tim Belknap is an editor at Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, where I once worked; one of about seven. I once posted something by Belknap, and my brother-in-Boston loudly claimed Belknap was the whole and onliest reason the Messenger was so reprehensible; unaware the paper has at least seven editors, and Belknap is toward the bottom. Belknap like me is a car-guy, so we continue to keep in contact.
  • The 1932 Ford is known as “the Deuce.”
  • “Advance-Design Chevy” is the truck Chevrolet made from 1947 through 1952. It is especially attractive to hot-rodders, since it can accommodate a more modern engine (although the steering-column is in the way), and looks very cool. The current Chevrolet HHR is a copy of Advance-Design styling cues.
  • “Alco” is American Locomotive Company, a long-time manufacturer of railroad locomotives based in Schenectady, N.Y. — although it was an amalgamation of a number of prior steam-locomotive manufacturers. When railroads started to dieselize, American Locomotive brought a number of railroad diesel-electric locomotive models to market, but they weren’t as reliable as those marketed by EMD, so Alco tanked. —It no longer is in business.
  • Monday, February 11, 2008

    Overheard at the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA

    —1) “So now Obama is charged with using pot as a youth. Well, SO WHAT? Our current prez was a cocaine junkie once — I don’t think marijuana is as dangerous as cocaine. I dare say you probably couldn’t find anyone in this country below the age of 50 who hasn’t experimented with drugs at some time. I know I sure did, — but that was then, and I decided it was a waste of time; so I gave it up!”
    “Well not this kid!” I said.
    “And how old are you?”
    “64.”
    “There you go!” he crowed. “You just proved my point, fella.”
    “I don’t even like getting tipsy,” I said.

    —2) “This sure has to be the neatest machine we’ve ever got! I can get my heart-rate up where it belongs without killing my back.” (10 minutes Friday; 20 [if you count the cooldown five] today.)

    —3) From the boombox in the exercise-gym:

    “Never was a cornflake girl
    Thought that was a good solution
    Hangin with the raisin girls
    Shes gone to the other side
    Givin us a yo heave ho
    Things are getting kind of gross
    And I go at sleepy time
    This is not really happening
    You bet your life it is

    Peel out the watchword just peel out the watchword

    She knows whats going on
    Seems we got a cheaper feel now
    All the sweeteaze are gone
    Gone to the other side
    With my encyclopedia
    They musta paid her a nice price
    Shes puttin on her string bean love
    This is not really happening
    You bet your life it is

    Rabbit whered you put the keys girl
    And the man with the golden gun
    Thinks he knows so much
    Thinks he knows so much
    Rabbit whered you put the keys girl.......”

    Sunday, February 10, 2008

    “Is this a great country or what?”

    In the words of Garrison Keillor: “Here I am, the old draft-dodger, about to meet the commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard. Is this a great country or what?”
    “So where did you go to college?” he asked.
    (I forget the answer.)
    “So what did you major in?”
    “Seamanship,” he said.
    “I majored in English,” Keillor said.
    (I majored in History, yet got the dreaded funicular right at the mighty Curve, while the so-called engineer crashed mightily in flames.
    My wife has been doing her spreadsheets of our income, which I verify my 1040 with. She’s also doing it so we can relate same to a financial advisor.
    “Is this a great country or what?” she says, “We’re not working, yet we raked in last year almost as much as we did when working.”
    At this point we cue the almighty Bluster-King to fulminate loudly about entitlements.
    To which I say: “Just keep working, Boobie. What about your beloved Porta-Johns? They’re gushing raw sewage all over Crapo St., while you fiddle FlagOut on the man’s nickel.”
    Our onliest “entitlement” is Social-Security, which we funded our entire working lives. (He noisily insists it’s a fixed-income, although it’s ratcheted up every year.)
    Our other incomes are -a) Linda’s pension, -b) my pension, and -c) Linda’s post-office employment, which is part-time, and peanuts.
    My pension is hardly an entitlement; it’s a union-negotiated (ahem) benefit.
    Linda’s pension was set up to attract employees away from jobs that had union-protection. So in effect, her pension is also a union-negotiated benefit. —Recent employees at her old employer no longer get a pension; it’s an employer’s market.
    Linda’s post-office job is hardly a life-supporting income. It’s only a way to kill time.
    We also get the proceeds of an annuity that her Aunt Ethelyn set up. That’s about $4,000 — about 8% of our annual income. (That lasts until 2010 — but only decreases our income by 8%.)
    So sure; following the blustering of the almighty Bluster-King: “Get a job! Be productive! Stop being a drag on my bloated income!”
    Sure; get a job, and collect less. You owe me, Boobie! —You wouldn’t be the person ya are but for me! And regrettably I created a monster. That thing about the hobbyhorse was a mistake.

  • RE: “I majored in History, yet got the dreaded funicular right at the mighty Curve, while the so-called engineer crashed mightily in flames......” —My major at Houghton College, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966, was History. I’ve never regretted it. The “mighty Curve” (Horseshoe 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.) A funicular railroad (sort of a glorified cable-car) is used to climb to the viewing-area. My loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston was trained as an engineer, and noisily claims superiority; yet his prediction of which way the funicular would go was backwards. Per my observation of the cables, I got it right.
  • My wife of 40 years is “Linda.”
  • “The almighty Bluster-King” (“Boobie;” “Jack Hughes”) is my macho, loudmouthed brother-from-Boston, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say.
  • RE: “What about your beloved Porta-Johns? They’re gushing raw sewage all over Crapo St., while you fiddle FlagOut on the man’s nickel............” —My brother Jack claims he is manager of the Porta-Johns where he works; that he protects them from al-Qaeda attack. His only daughter lives on “Crapo St.” “FlagOut” is our family’s web-site, named that because I had a mentally-retarded kid-brother (Down Syndrome) who lived at home, and loudly insisted the flag be flown every day. “Flag-Out! Sun comes up, the flag goes up! Sun goes down, the flag comes down.” I fly the flag partly in his honor. (He died at 14 in 1968.) My brother fiddles FlagOut on his work computer.
  • RE: “It’s a union-negotiated (ahem) benefit.......” —All my siblings are anti-union.
  • RE: You owe me, Boobie! —You wouldn’t be the person ya are but for me! And regrettably I created a monster. That thing about the hobbyhorse was a mistake.......” —I am the oldest; my brother is 13 years younger than me. I changed his diapers. I also encouraged him to max out the hobbyhorse.
  • UGH!

    UGH!
    Photo by Brian Blades.
    The March 2008 issue of my Cycle World magazine has a comparison of two GeezerGlides, and one looks abominable (see above).
    It ain’t a Harley; it’s a Victory Vision Street.
    It’s dreadfully UGLY. Whoever styled this thing seems to have forgotten that a motorcycle is supposed to be spare and rather narrow.
    Even Jack’s bloated GeezerGlide looks better — it ain’t trying to look like the Queen Mary.
    Motorcycles have gotten wider and wider over the years. The transverse inline four-cylinder engine contributes. It’s like putting a wall behind the front tire. At least parallel twins could be narrow. Better yet is the V-twin: one cylinder behind the other.
    Worse yet is an opposed motor, like that in the Gold Wing or the BMW. Oppose the cylinders and the motor becomes wide.
    At first the Wing at four cylinders wasn’t too bad, but now at six it’s become a ship. It even has reverse!
    But the current Wing ain’t as atrocious as this Vision.
    The second picture (below) was the most noticeable. I swear it’s about four feet horizontally across the mirrors, which were included in the bodywork. It doesn’t look like a motorcycle — it looks like a styling exercise done by people that don’t even ride motorcycles.
    Photo by Brian Blades.
    And that elongated tail is unnatural (see top pik). If I ever saw anything like that, I’d laugh. A Fourth-of-July parade float. This is a motorcycle?
    Tilted into a corner, it looks kind of unwieldy. Try to not hit anything! Ride with another, and that person better look out — they’re liable to get scythed.
    The picture has the right idea: the Harley is behind. (And you can’t lean a GeezerGlide much. I had to rotate that picture almost 15° clockwise to get the road level.)
    Incredible width seems to be the driving paradigm here.
    The engine faring looks wide enough to accommodate a transverse Big-Block Chevy.
    Just looking you’d never know a V-twin is in there. Since when does one cylinder behind the other need that much encasement?
    SWEETHEART
    The dreaded Spotmatic.
    Prettiest motorbike ever made (as purchased; I got a single-seat for it).
    Thankfully the magazine also featured the prettiest motorbike ever made, the Ducati 900SS.
    I had one (pictured) and spent more time looking at it than riding it.
    It was spare and narrow in the extreme: the exact opposite of the Vision Street.
    The Ducati was probably the narrowest motorbike I ever had.
    My FZR 400 looked wider (I noticed), and the mighty Kow was even wider still.
    My RZ350 was probably lighter, but it sat wider.
    My 600RR (the LHMB) is headed in the right direction; smaller and lighter than the mighty Kow (which always seemed too big), about the size of the FZR (the right size, but not the Ducati). —The newest Double-R is smaller still.
    The Ducati was frustrating, of course.
    It steered like a truck.
    I dropped it once trying to turn into our street in Rochester — I was up against the steering-lock.
    It also had a kick-starter that kicked me in the calf.
    But no way would I ever throw a leg over a Vision.
    It looks like it should be encasing a Small-Block Chevy — and even then the styling is overdone.
    All I have to do is look at picture number-two: who would ever know it’s a one-track vehicle; put your foot down, or it falls over?
    Even Jack’s gigantical GeezerGlide looks better — I humblee predict the Victory Vision Street will never sell.

  • “GeezerGlide” is what I call all Harley Davidson ElectraGlide cruiser-bikes. My loudmouthed macho brother-in-Boston (“Jack”) 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 Chevrolet “Big-Block” was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches. It was made in various displacements: 402, 427 and 454 cubic inches. It’s still made as a truck-motor, but not installed in cars any more; although you can get it as a crate-motor, for self-installation. The Chevrolet “Small-Block” V8 was introduced at 265 cubic-inches displacement in the 1955 model-year. It continued production for years, first at 283 cubic inches, then 327, then 350. Other displacements were also manufactured.
  • Motorbike #1 was a 1975 850 Norton Commando that drove me crazy; #2 was the Ducati; #3 the RZ350; #4 the Yamaha FZR400, #5 a 1996 600cc Kawasaki ZX6R (“the mighty Kow”), and #6 (my current motorcycle) is my 2003 600cc Honda CBR/RR (the LHMB). —I put over 7,000 miles on the mighty Kow.
  • “LHMB” is my 2003 Honda 600cc CBR/RR crotch-rocket 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.

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